Guild Wars 2

While not necessary, the occasion 4k turnaround (+2 to you, -2 to them) is useful sometimes at least on a 2/6/0/0/6 build where its up every 21 seconds. If not traited into sleight of hand, I probably wouldn’t take it, but killing a heal and adding more pressure via poison and 1-3k more damage can help turn a fight sometimes.

Tldr: Alone, no. With other steal traits, icing on the cake.

Burnfall.9573:

Yesterday something strange happened; while regaining health in stealth during downed state by a party thief, an enemy thief was able to kill me, while i was in stealth by my party thief.

How is this possible?

We discussed this matter with the server members and they all found that strange and impossible.

Seriously,

i feel that Artena.net cares less about balancing/redesigning/reworking this class.

oh well!

there are other mmo’s and new mmo’s companies in the market who cares.

Complain that stealth makes thieves invincible.
Complain that stealth doesn’t make you invincible.

-.-

Anomaly.7612:

Meridian.8730:

The OP doesn’t acknowledge that there are plenty of professions and builds that he will NEVER do enough damage to actually kill, like any decent necro, warrior, engineer or bunk ranger.

Are you talking about WvW? I’ve been finding his build (and my modified version) do pretty good damage. It’s all about stacking might, that’s where the damage comes from. Though, I’ve been having a really hard time against Mesmers, Engi’s, most warriors, and Necro’s, so you have a bit of a point, but with a build more like 6/6/0/0/2 I feel like I die so fast that it’s pretty much even. The kill window is so small, and if I can’t take it due to AoE’s, or condi’s flying about like they tend to do, I just fall short.

Hrmph, I dunno. Suggestions? I’m speaking on an Spvp standpoint, by the way.

Well, I tried this thread’s balanced build for a while and it was fun and pretty good, but I went back to 2/6/0/0/6 with lyssa runes. Engis give me the most trouble, but right now they give everyone trouble. Condi necros are the second hardest, but lack the variety of conditions that engis have meaning lyssa can cover a condi burst from them decently. Don’t know if something changed about the MM necro AI, but I wrecked a few of them tonight, along with some spirit rangers. We didn’t win a lot tonight, but I felt I was holding my own on points at least.

I think that all they really need to do is put lyssa in between where it was before and where it is now so that it’s competitive with some of the upgraded runes.

P.S. This was tPvP not hotjoin.

Hype.8032:

You know you played thief too much when you look on the mesmer forum, see they have this same post about mesmers, and decide to unscrupulously borrow the idea and put it in the thief forums.

Ftfy. We take offense to such strong wording.

Swagger.1459:

I believe these thread mergers are a sign of some big changes to come for the thief profession.

I don’t think so. I think they merged them because when people end up writing the same point and counterpoint 3 times in a day they end up becoming blunt/rude/argumentative. It was simply a proactive measure to lessen the work of the moderators.

Clear.8512:

Remember if they get a clever line in then you really didn’t kill them.

Some ghay thief did damage to me and flipp’ chased me until he killed me. So ghay.

If they say that to their friends in Mumble/Teamspeak then it is an ok death and his ego is not deflated.

Well that opens up a whole bunch of philosophical questions:

If a necro gets killed and tells everyone over teamspeak, does he count towards match points?

What is the sound of one sword backstabbing?

If you meet the warrior, kill him. The warrior is inside of us.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Maugetarr.6823:

BobbyT.7192:

Cogbyrn.7283:

They just excel at everything people hate dealing with. Is that really where you want to take a class in an MMO?

i’ve already done enough long winded post today, so all i’m doing to say is yes!

I’m going to agree with Bobby T here. I enjoy mesmers and thieves for those reasons. The other classes feel dull and one dimensional to me. They work and play differently.

Do you have any additional insight on why they feel dull and one-dimensional? Is it just that you like playing the character people “love to hate”? Do you like having a leg up in small-scale/1v1 situations? Do you hate the idea of dying, so a class with a lot of options for escaping a sticky situation is appealing?

I’m genuinely curious, because it goes against almost everything I want out of a game. I want someone to want to fight me. I want them to enjoy it, and I want it to be a good, close game. I hate having an obvious advantage because I feel it detracts from success.

That’s just how I approach it.

I like playing them because I like the control aspects of them and their win or die playstyle. I tend to build glassy on both with limited condition removal even in WvW so I can bring both damage and control to help aid my teammates. If you think you have an obvious advantage with a thief, I would recommend taking a 2/6/0/0/6 D/P trickery build (that’s no traits in SA for defense) and seeing how it goes, especially if a small group is depending on you to not run away, but stick around and help them. With all the AoE condi and damage floating around, it’s a rather tenuous position to be in. Playing thief to win or die trying is way different than playing to win or run away.

Mesmer offers the same flexibility it battle, but as a Zerker mes (4/4/0/0/6) you get put in the same boat that if you get focused you die.

Engineer was fun for a while, offers a lot of great support, great control, great damage, and great AoE capabilities, but after a while it lost that faced paced feel to it that mesmer and thief still have.

Warrior is fun as long as I don’t overplay it because it gets boring after a while. Decent to good stats everywhere while it doesn’t feel like it requires the same tradeoffs as the thief. After the patch I decided to go full zerk with it in PvP with the new burst precision trait and ended up making a very good S/D thief (reaper title, shark finisher) rage quit after I nearly 1 shotted him. To be fair I’m average on my warrior, so he beat me handily the first time we fought, had a close fight with him winning due to dodging a key move the second, and me winning the 3rd handily after I figured out my timings again (as I don’t spend a lot of time on my warrior). Warrior, to me, feels like that obvious advantage that you place on the thief. I don’t want them nerfed though,you’ve just gotta find the weak spots in their armor on whatever class you’re on.

The others I have a hard time getting into.

I have an ele sitting in it’s 30’s right now (I’ve had them as high as mid 40’s before I deleted them because I couldn’t get into it). I’ve never been great with it, but it’s sort of the opposite of thieves where you’re given too many tools at once to do a job, but you can tackle a large number of jobs at least.

Guard is just…slow? I don’t know how else to describe it.

Necro suffers from the same feeling as guard. Oddly enough, playing them like a thief with D/D and using Dark Path as sort of a shadow prison (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shadow_Prison) makes it sort of like an assassin from GW1. If I could build around that better, I might use it more, but it suffers from a disconnect between a nice single hard hitting melee attack and the rest of the dagger skills being ranged (visceral close combat is fun to me). Replacing life siphon with vampiric touch/vampiric bite from GW1 would do wonders for the feeling of this class for me.

Ranger is alright, but I hate having to bring a pet. In GW 1 I had a 20 ranger that didn’t have to bring one unless I built around it, and I didn’t have to rely on AI (when I play mesmer I usually play a shatter spec so my AI attacks are really just 1 and done rather than letting them stick around for the AI to do work).

Tldr: High risk/High reward for both classes. Fun defensive mechanics that can seem overwhelming to new players, but useless against experienced players.

The reason we just end up saying “yes!” to this is no matter how much advice we give, or counter tactics, or general help it usually gets thrown back in our faces. It’s really been that way since the 3 day headstart so our reaction ends up being the attached picture. Sorry you caught us on a non-helpful day.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Vanthian.9267:

3) The Thief class has fine defenses without stealth even if the community chooses not to acknowledge them.

It isn’t that they don’t acknowledge it, its that those purely asking for a nerf have almost no understanding of the profession and it’s predicament. The thief community knows that most of their survivability is tied into stealth, but even that doesn’t stop good players from bypassing it.

They feel that if you remove stealth, provide hard-counters or nerf it in any way; you inherently turning thief into a playable lootbag if not pushing it closer to it. But the worst part is, when an experienced thief provides advice they immediately get shot down. After a while, reasoning seems to look more futile and so thieves resort to blanket Ad Hominem because it gives better results than logic.

And this has been proven time and time again.

So when thieves look like they are blindly defending “their broken mechanic”, it is because players are blindly complaining about it.

^QFT

Grimwolf.7163:

You were supposed to let him just walk away when he realized he wasn’t going to win.

Yep. You were supposed to stay on point in his opinion. I was testing a new build of hybrid mesmer in hotjoin the other day so I didn’t care about capping points, especially since I came in at the end of the game. Anyway I got whispered to quit/uninstall at the end of the match because I was only a detriment to the game. Since a lot of non-pvpers in there right now theres s lot of animosity towards people they feel aren’t playing right.

BobbyT.7192:

Cogbyrn.7283:

They just excel at everything people hate dealing with. Is that really where you want to take a class in an MMO?

i’ve already done enough long winded post today, so all i’m doing to say is yes!

I’m going to agree with Bobby T here. I enjoy mesmers and thieves for those reasons. The other classes feel dull and one dimensional to me. They work and play differently.

Carpboy.7145:

Maugetarr.6823:

4-6k with that setup is honestly about what I would expect to see. With 25 stacks of bloodlust, your backstab is rated at 2200 damage. IIRC, those damage ratings are based off 2600 armor. So if you were to hit a glass cloth wearer without protection (say 1800 armor), you can expect a base damage of about 3k. With your ferocity, that would be multiplied by 2.26, giving you a final hit of abouy 6,750. This is against pure glass with no protection though, with any medium armored build, you should expect to hit around an average of 5k, and against bunkers with protection I have hit for as little as 2-3k with similar builds.

If you want to see bigger numbers, you really need to stack multipliers. Since you’re using D/P, you’re probably not even getting the 10% from first strikes.

Consider this change (I left all your gear the same but changed your traits and signet)(http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVlsMp0pNOx7J8PNRLBtd07wL87M6+gAA-TVCBABCu/wKaBg4RAcmSQsU+BwJAIFdNMckA0R9HSBExYA-w).

The base damage for backstab is now 2687, and you will be benefiting from 4 multipliers which are multiplicative, not additive so you end up with a final multiplier of 3.01. If we adjust that base damage to a glass cloth wearer again, you end up with a base of 3,880 ish making the final crit somewhere around 11,680. This could have been about 20% higher before the ferocity change meaning a hit of around 14k.

One of the biggest mistakes non-thieves make when talking about thieves and backstab damage is that backstab is not an innately high hit, but rather all the damage comes from traits and multipliers.

If youre gonna go that glassy you might as well just go full glass.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVlsMp0pNOxyJ8PNRLRtd0NCvgXxh2PQAEiA-TFSBABP8IAoU9HzUCe1+jyPU01gnWgFOSAAcCAIDg+YA-w

12k backstabs, 7k CnD, 1.5k mug. If all of that still fails to kill them you can use a heart seeker or 2 or if their buddies come and try to help you can shadow step away and heal up

As I said, I wouldn’t recommend going that glassy, especially for someone new to the class, but I didn’t change everything because I wanted to show where the damage was coming from with those hihgh backstabs. You’re right though, no point in taking half measures at that point.

13k backstabs against glass builds are essential to the game. They assure that bunkers with protection can be pushed off point and put on the defensive. A 13k hit against a 1867 armor turns into just over a 5k hit against 3100 armor + protection. Meanwhile that GC build used to take down the bunker can be oneshot by other glass cannons right back. If you don’t want these types of hits, you also have to bring down some of the high defenses pushing everything towards the middle (and boring mediocrity imo).

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Maugetarr.6823:

What about SB though?

Good physical damage
Decent condi damage
Bouncing AA without traiting for it
AoE poison, AoE bleeds, AoE weakness, and Cripple
Blast Finishers
Evade frames
Mobility

Just a simple question: Why should I take P/P over SB when choosing a ranged weapon?

SB has its own set of problems and here’s the main reasons why I opt in for P/P instead of SB;

1. Physical Damage – The damage output of SB is pathetic when it comes to single target. P/P deals more damage against single target and can spec for Ricochet for AoE damage.
2. Condition Damage – The capability of P/P in stacking bleed is much more better than SB. Even though SB has access to poison, but the fact that poison doesn’t stack intensity (and the nerf on Choking Gas) makes SB a poor choice for applying conditions. Still the best choice on applying poison, but in terms of damage from condition it falls short.
3. Bouncing AA – This used to be great when it was 1200 range with homing projectiles — but not anymore. You can Throw snowballs farther than you can shoot with SB. As for the Bouncing Projectile, it’s not that great. Even though you have to spec for Ricochet, the amount of bullets you can unleashed with one Unload is enough to make SB’s AA insignificant.
4. AoE – I admit that AoE is the strength of the SB and this is the only reason why I would use it. In terms of AoE damage and AoE condition application, it’s the best. However, executing the AoE is clunky and susceptible to interrupts. Not to mention the pre-cast and after cast delays.
5. Evade – Good and bad. Good when you have a lot of space to evade to (and it don’t glitch on a tiny rock or shallow slope). Bad when you’re in a limited space, debris all around, and sloped terrain. P/P have access to AoE blind and blind applicator bullets. In most situation, blind is better defense than evade.
6. Mobility – No argument here. SB has the best mobility. However, not enough reason for me to choose SB over P/P, just look at what I have to give up for mobility.

I guess it’s coming down to preference then. I have never gotten enough damage out of unload compared to the initiative cost to use that over 2xCB from shortbow. I wish they had left the homing projectiles since the projectile speed is so slow, but honestly the 900 range CB doesn’t bother me since it took forever to land at that range. I can still hit rams at the gate.

Mydnyght.5026:

Hey thanks for all answers, sounds like changing my weapon set from D/P to D/D would be a good first step to benefit the 10% from first strikes.

The runes and mightstacking sounds like a good step too to raise my BS dmg too , I’ll farm some gold to try that setup.

@Maugetarr, thanks that build seems to reach some high number but is it really possible to roam without shadow arts ? Asking that because I’m still unfamiliar with the class but I feel like those traits saved my life more than once and dropping those traits is like being a free kill for most of the tanky/semi-tanky people I’ll face

Not gonna lie, you’d probably die a lot. That was the classic glass cannon (for the most part) which is where everyone’s assumption that all thieves have insane damage comes from. I’d stick with a more balanced build, especially while still learning the class. Just don’t expect huge hits without taking all those modifiers.

It’s possible to roam without shadow arts, but you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ’em. Right now, I haven’t been doing a lot of solo roaming, but when I’ve been in small groups (2-3), I’m run with the 2/6/0/0/6 PvP build making for pretty short and intense fights. You can get condi clears from Lyssa runes (still a decent 5 condi clear + boon on heal), shadowstep/return, and Signet of Agility (in a pinch). As long as you don’t try to heal while you’re poisoned and your opponent doesn’t have a huge variety of conditions, you can treat it as relatively normal damage if you have some vitality for breathing room. High risk/high reward is pretty fun/addicting though and armor repair is free now.

Haven’t seen Yski lurking in the forums lately, but check out some of his videos if you’re interested in looking into those types of hits. He’ll be the first to tell you that it’s pretty much one and done though. If you miss, you’re dead.

This is a pretty decent build as others have mentioned and it builds momentum nicely.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/balanaced-d-d-build/first

4-6k with that setup is honestly about what I would expect to see. With 25 stacks of bloodlust, your backstab is rated at 2200 damage. IIRC, those damage ratings are based off 2600 armor. So if you were to hit a glass cloth wearer without protection (say 1800 armor), you can expect a base damage of about 3k. With your ferocity, that would be multiplied by 2.26, giving you a final hit of abouy 6,750. This is against pure glass with no protection though, with any medium armored build, you should expect to hit around an average of 5k, and against bunkers with protection I have hit for as little as 2-3k with similar builds.

If you want to see bigger numbers, you really need to stack multipliers. Since you’re using D/P, you’re probably not even getting the 10% from first strikes.

Consider this change (I left all your gear the same but changed your traits and signet)(http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVlsMp0pNOx7J8PNRLBtd07wL87M6+gAA-TVCBABCu/wKaBg4RAcmSQsU+BwJAIFdNMckA0R9HSBExYA-w).

The base damage for backstab is now 2687, and you will be benefiting from 4 multipliers which are multiplicative, not additive so you end up with a final multiplier of 3.01. If we adjust that base damage to a glass cloth wearer again, you end up with a base of 3,880 ish making the final crit somewhere around 11,680. This could have been about 20% higher before the ferocity change meaning a hit of around 14k.

One of the biggest mistakes non-thieves make when talking about thieves and backstab damage is that backstab is not an innately high hit, but rather all the damage comes from traits and multipliers.

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

I recently started a P/P non-stealth thief and have leveled to only 20 so far. This is easily the worst build I’ve ever played on any class. Borderline unplayable. Running with two signets and potion/food buffs and the damage output is still pathetic. Takes two rounds of unload to kill one trash enemy at my level, and then I’m nearly out of initiative. Pretty clear that not one person at Anet has ever played a P/P thief for even 5 minutes.

You just won lolz! How many lolz you ask? ALL THE LOLZ!!!

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/3299578

(A lot of us were hoping changes to P/P might come after this)

Sir Vincent III.1286:

MrQuillen.3014:

You keep talking about strengths off the set quite vaguely.

How is it vague? If you know how to use P/D, then it’s plain as daylight. The source of damage is the same — condition damage.

Can P/P apply condition better than P/D? Of course not — because P/D have access to Torment.

But can P/P apply the same pressure as P/D? Of course not — because it can do better.

While P/D relies solely on applying conditions, once the conditions are cleansed, they’re SoL. P/P on the hand can constantly apply pressure from two sources; condition damage and direct damage.

Is it still vague for you?

People are pointing out that it does not have a strength via 1,2,4, or 5.

That’s because they don’t know how to play using P/P. Like I’ve already pointed out; if your mind set is that P/P is all about skill #3 spam, then you’ve already set yourself up to fail when using P/P.

If you want to debate that great but you need to provide something besides “I have a secret”.

Debate what? How can we possible have a debate when the opposition have no understanding about the main topic (P/P)?

Strentgth by any definition of the term implies that you believe that combination of abilities is “better” than the alternate available combinations.

What makes you believe that the alternative is “better” that P/P?

We can go around in circles asking each other that question.

Please pick any combination of your choosing to compare to and explain how you think it is more effective otherwise you really still have not added anything of value and sound like you are just trolling.

^ Read above.

What about SB though?

Good physical damage
Decent condi damage
Bouncing AA without traiting for it
AoE poison, AoE bleeds, AoE weakness, and Cripple
Blast Finishers
Evade frames
Mobility

Just a simple question: Why should I take P/P over SB when choosing a ranged weapon?

Azure Prower.8701:

The problem with Critical Haste is it can go off at the wrong moments.

Not only that. It makes EVERY THING go faster. Had 4 seconds of stealth when it went off? You’ll only get 3.

It’s been a while since I used it, but if I remember correctly, it also shortens the distance of HS and speeds up the evade frames of weapon skills and withdraw, exposing you to more damage (which is why haste is a no go for a stun breaker).

If you’re using D/D you can time CnD to hit right when stealth ends and crowd surf the clones/phantasms. Try to hit the phantasms as they are damaging, but don’t try to CnD of an iZerker because phantasms and clones react right when stealth drops, so he’ll whirl right through you dealing about 4-5k worth of damage and causing you to miss the CnD. You can keep very good pressure up with a good defense till you find the right one, or when he starts to panic and move which points him out nicely. A good mesmer will recognize the pattern and shatter them right before you can CnD so don’t keep it up too long.

With D/P, keep him constantly blind. A phantasm is an attack, and if they are blind, they don’t summon because the attack misses.

Sometimes it’s best to no actually go for a backstab and reveal yourself. A Scepter/Sword mesmer has 2 weapon blocks and depending on how they’re traited can be as low as 8 and 9 seconds, and they hurt. Patience is really key.

When all else fails, as someone else said, range with shortbow and spam CB.

The rest is practice. A well played mesmser is probably one of the hardest things to beat as a thief.

Dahkeus.8243:

Lamuness.3570:

Dahkeus.8243:

Yes, but D/P is also a lot more dynamic than builds like S/D since the way you use the weapon changes so much depending on circumstance. However, there’s still a lot of thieves out there that don’t use D/P beyond just dropping blind fields and leap/backstabbing (hence why you see people argue that it’s an “easy” weaponset).

Wait, there’s other things I can do on D/P other than 5, 2? I mean it in a sarcastic, but not really sarcastic way. Because there’s not really much you can do outside of a well timed headshot. Maybe 3 -> 1 backstab. I find that when I 1v1 in sPvP thieves that play S/P do 2, 3, you stun break it, 2, 3 again. I only have so many breaks!

Every weaponset seems to be spammy if you wanna put it that way.

If you’re playing D/P like D/D (stealth -> backstab until heartseeker at low hp) with the occaisional headshot, then you’re really not doing the set justice. There shouldn’t be any skill that you spam on D/P outside of hitting HS a few times against someone at low HP and is out of endurance/survival cooldowns.

Ultimately, what sets a good thief apart from a mediocre one when it comes to D/P is how they use the set in team settings and not simply how they fight in a 1 v 1.

^^^^!

This can’t be emphasized enough. You can stop stomps and blind CC’s for your teammates that bring little to no stunbreaks (like a well-build necro). Sleight of hand even gives you the ability to stop stability stomps. Shadowshotting a hambow warrior dropping in with earthshaker can turn around fights.

Edit: P.S. : Headshotting a res while your teammate stomps can also determine the fight.

Dual.8953:

As Backstab seems to be, yet again, the subject of thief hate of the week, I had one random idea. What if they gave stealth skills a visible particle effect, while letting the Thief remain stealthed? No like a full reveal, just say their knife glows for the strike. Maybe do that for all attack skills from stealth.

If they were going to implement something to give some kind of warning about beind backstabbed, I would probably be the most ok with this idea over some of the others that have been proposed. If they could see the same blue glow animation that the theif sees (like a knife gleaming as it goes in for the strike) that would at least mitigate the QQ if nothing else.

Something like:

Non- thief: “Backstab is unavoidable”
Thief : “dodge the blue glow”

Good players already know when and how to avoid it, so you wouldn’t be at too much more of a disadvantage than you already were.

To those who like the idea of a translucent thief like what the thief sees from their perspective: There used to be a bug in the game that if you were in a party with a person on the opposite team, they saw that translucent version of you and it was impossible to get a backstab or use stealth defensively.

Dhuumfire didn’t technically get removed, it got put on deathshroud autoattack. Now you can use a terrormancer-dhuumfire build and choose to burst with doom and autoattack simultaneously. If you go DS> 2> 3> 1 it’s about a 7k condi burst (including terror) in sPvP. Change it slightly to 2> 5> 3> 1 and you guarantee that they’re moving for the torment then get immobilized at the end of the doom duration.

Yes, play one, but don’t give up on thief. Mesmer has it’s problems like all classes do (more/less? I can’t really say) but it’s really the only class that’s almost as fun to play as the thief (for me). It’s going to operate differently though in that it tries to trick people by giving them too much information whereas thief attempts to deprive opponents of information. It’s slightly more effective at range than thief while being slightly less effective at close combat (at least in how I build both of my classes). Burst is slightly lower, but is AoE.

In conclusion, mesmer is really the only other class that has that high octane feel to combat that thief does. I have a warrior and engi at 80 also and have made multiple attempts to level necros, eles, guards, and rangers, but they don’t feel right an I get bored with them so they sit in their 40s collecting dust. Give the other side of denial magic a whirl and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

P.S. played 20/20/0/0/30 S/S + GS and had a blast for a long time with it. Just switched recently to 30/10/0/0/30 S/T + GS and am having even more fun.

….I’m sort of at a loss to this “thief dumbing down gameplay part” of the argument.

You have an initial strategy to win.

Opposing team counters said strategy by sending a fast attack class to hit an unguarded/vulnerable point.

You counter that strategy by adapting your strategy.

That is the essence of skilled play/leveled complexity.

You are complaining that you have to react to your opponent rather than just steamroll your way to vicory. You even pointed out how easy it is to push the thief off of you, so yes, you might need to leave a player behind to guard a point, but recognizing when to advance a player to the next point or hold them in reserve is part of good gameplay.

Omri.8196:

mompen.7952:

Do you think this will work with a mixed zerk/valk armor set?

I was thinking of using head, chest, pants valk, and the rest zerker, or do I loose out on a lot of defense that way?

You wanna squeeze as much vitality as you can, believe it or not its your best friend now. The crit damage nerf may have pushed people towards condi meta even more, and here vitality serves you best.

Quoted for truth.

@ mompen: Runes of the wurm are also good right now if you don’t like fluctuating power and need more vitality.

@swagg
Well considering they just nerfed burst by about 20% I thought you’d be happy with that. Also the trinity wouldn’t make this game better, it would make it far worse since you’d have to rely on someone else doing all of your healing. I’m happy we’re not in a “[insert class], lfg” and not getting back, “nope, sorry, need a monk.” I’m happy that this game relies on both build and reaction time to play it successfully. The skill stacking you’re so fond of still exists as a central part of combat, but it requires some modicum of coordination between 2 or more players, which I especially like. An example, a guard and I (thief at the time) went up against a warrior and necro. He was able to put down a light fild and I was able to whirling axe (stolen skill) on top of him cutting the necro DPS out of the equation for about 3 seconds, turning the tide of the fight.

As much as I dislike the change to crit damage during this last patch, I like where guild wars is going right now. People are asking about builds, skills traits, runes, and general helpful tips again.

Just as a finishing question: if you’re truly getting instagibbed, how would having a party members who has to juggle their cooldowns amongst the entire group help you not get instagibbed? Combat would have to be slowed down to a snail’s pace and limited to a smaller scale for something like that and party organization would have to have more dedicated slots in PvP situations because you would have to bring at least one healer.

I get that the guild wars 2 model is not what you think it should be and you have come up with ideas to change every aspect of every class out there. Guild wars 2 is the model of what I think a game should be, and I like where it’s going.

Read your post. You want to eliminate roles that exist in the game simply because you don’t like them or don’t feel those mechanics should exist. If you have to change every aspect of something for you to enjoy it, it might not be time to move on.

Swagg.9236:

Vlad.1739:

Somehow feel this thread was made to be inflammatory but, thief is not overpowered in structured pvp thief has a role to fulfill. Thief is only really good at one thing and that is its role.

Yes, and that role doesn’t exist in GW2. That’s why it’s overpowered.

That is to say you think the role shouldn’t exist in GW2. It does because thief is filling it (proficiently).

Dagins.5163:

And what if you don’t want to eat the soup? Surprisingly, even seasoned players have problems countering it, because they don’t know what to expect.

Anyway, for WvW d/p is mostly better option, but only because of its chasing capabilities with shadow shot, since noobs (especially warriors) tend to run away when they are low HP, and there are lots of situations like this. In sPvP its a different story, and there it is truly fork vs. spoon argue.

If it’s working well for you that’s great. TeamBattleAxe has been the only video I’ve seen that made it look good. In my original post, I was trying to suggest that D/P and SB might cover the same situations and more. I also didn’t consider bringing 2 ranged weapons on a thief when I read your original post because I don’t think like that. It’s much easier for me to give up ranged weapons for a melee only build. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Dagins.5163:

@Maugetarr
You just said something like ,,couldn’t you use spoon instead of fork in a restaurant?".

Actually, I use two weapon sets (like majority here) – p/p with <surprise> shortbow.

In that line of analogy then I was trying to suggest that using P/P is like using that fork to eat a bowl of soup; you can, but there are better options.

You should clip the other video with the chaining of sic ’em and knockback and link that instead.

I feel your guys’ pain on this one. It seemed like a throwback to GW1 mesmer, which was pretty cool. Sorry.

Your’s sincerely,
~A thief main

S/D is still where it was. Decent/good damage and mediocre/good survivalbility (depending on your and your opponent’s skill). I was playing my warrior today and an S/D thief killed me 2/3 times we fought in PvP partly because he was good, and partly because I rarely play my warrior, had to relearn the timings, and was trying a new build but I digress… it ended with him ragequitting…. so it is fairly counterable if people know when to attack/CC.

Dagins.5163:

yolo swaggins.2570:

From what I’ve witnessed, its probably because of its low utility and poor synergy with itself.

Then you haven’t witnessed much. The utility P/P gives is great (easy interrupts and stomps), and all attacks (projectiles) have synergy with black powder, but there is even more.

Stolen items work the best with pistol main-hand and pistol off-hand. Example: you are ranged, but axe stolen from a warrior combined with smoke suddenly makes you very dangerous in melee. ‘Throw gunk’ is very effective aswell, because you can apply multiple stacks of confusion. If you combine it with ‘panic strike’, this is very hard kicking. ‘Throw feathers’ from thief allows you to proc a combo field on your way x5 or create a gap for safe unloads, maybe even both.

There are many very effective synergies only possible to P/P. Condi P/P is bad, but somehow people I meet are surprised when they realize I’m playing it power.

Couldn’t you gain the same benefits from using D/P + SB along with the increased mobility, untraited AoE, not to mention the group utility with the blast finishers?

Viking Jorun.5413:

HeNnAz.8913:

Viking Jorun.5413:

HeNnAz.8913:

This guy plays a ranger for sure, no one that kittened can’t resist the sweet aroma of badness and bearbow that is ranger. Please /uninstall OP.

cough

see signature for ranger eating thieves for breakfast

And it wasn’t actually that good :/ all you did was finish off a thief who was silly enough to engage 3 at mid point anyway, even if he was trying to troll cap it really wasn’t a smart thing to do. Oh well goodjob anyway?

I realize that. See my latest video for a fair 1v1 against a competent thief. This one just shows that Shadow Refuge isn’t a get out of jail free card, like most assume. I can’t fathom how many times I’ve knocked a thief out of shadow refuge using simple camera placement as if I were playing a ranged action RPG with a crosshair.

but, but, but…. thief has no counterplay!!! How….what?

head explodes

Omri.8196:

Glad you like it maugetarr, I’ve been testing it in spvp too and most of the time I too maintain 12-17 might stacks, which makes me backstab for a good a mount of damage. It’s not bad at all for spvp.

But this is more of a wvw build to make up for the crit damage nerf, I still like trickery more for spvp mainly because 4 seconds revealed makes d/d a bit slower than trickery builds.

It is very hard to drop the exciting kill or be killed playstyle of trickery. When I have the armor to put it on and the gold for the runes (assuming they don’t get nerfed like people are calling for) I will probably pick up a set for pve/wvw

So I tried this out last night in PvP and it definitely is a great new balanced build. It pairs up extremely well with warriors nearby who hand out might like candy now. At one point I lookef down at my buff bar and realized I was maintaining 12-17 stacks by accident.

Had some nice backstabs even against classes tanky builds.

Burnfall.9573:

In support of my thief guild members; they want to remind everyone that, thieves will remain Op with their Perma-stealths for a very very very long time in this game.
.

And we the community must face the reality and move on to other stealth challenging and class balancing mmo’s who values their community concerns.

(2 years of false hope and deception is enough for me to tale that Great Opportunity).

why not!!

Be gone Deceiver!

We have witnessed the true nature of the the real oppressors

Those who would play a class that has access to godmode condi-evasion are the same who would suppress the voices of the poor thief when they try to expose them for the phonies they are!

Honest rangers admit they’re OP

The rangers in my guild laugh over vent when a “stupid thief” tries to fight or run.

You, sir, must look in the mirror and witness the vitriol and bile which you spew at the weak!

As the saying goes “he who points their fingers at others should first point the finger at themselves”

Cogbyrn.7283:

Maugetarr.6823:

Along that same line, wouldn’t counterplay to backstab then be blocking/dodging/interrupting the attack that puts thieves into stealth with an obvious setup? Appropriate play stops the ability to backstab. The only non-counterable access to stealth a thief has is blinding powder. Even if you manage to let the thief get into stealth, you have the opportunity to halve or negate all of the following burst.

I would also like to reiterate that backstab multiplier is 2.4 where the total combined multiplier of the autoattack chain is something like 2.26. If it takes the thief longer than 2 seconds to land a full damage backstab, then you are taking less damage than you would have from their autoattack in that timeframe. If you make them land it from the front, you’re taking significantly less than you would have from autos. Backstab has the damage it does to make up for the loss in pressure that happens while sitting in stealth.

Yes, actually. Stopping a Thief from getting into Stealth is an option. As you said, though, Blinding Powder + Heartseeker is extremely easy to use, but extremely difficult to defend against. Comboing Steal with CnD is a little more difficult to do, but seeing the slight left-arm pull-back from 900+ range and dodging within a half-second is much more difficult to try to do without guessing in some manner.

Really, it’s all the little things. Thieves can get back into stealth pretty easily, all things considered. Some ways you can train yourself to avoid consistently enough to make it a fight, but the game doesn’t lend itself to that result: you have to pursue it aggressively. You have to accept that the Backstab can land even if you dodge it and set yourself up to deal with that result. If you down a Thief in Shadow Refuge, it’s very, very possible that the Thief will have plenty of time to get him/herself back up.

This is mostly from a WvW roaming perspective, which is a Thief’s playground. I get that. It just feels TOO much like a Thief’s playground for me to not mention it on threads like this.

And if you want to pull the “Game isn’t balanced around WvW roaming” card, that’s fine. But if it’s balanced around Conquest, then remove Stealth from the game entirely and give the classes who can currently stealth different tools. You can’t contest a point with Stealth, so get rid of it. Give the classes different options. Or make it a short-term distraction that is used for utility, not damage, while compensating for the loss of damage on Dagger somewhere else.

Though I could be wrong. Do many organized tPvP teams run a stealth-based Backstab Thief to jump the enemy when they move from one point to another? If not, then all we seem to be left with is a pub-stomping troll build. Is that good game design? I just don’t think so.

I do think giving a few select utilities the ability to remove Stealth but not apply Reveal in an area would be interesting, and I think that using an ability while in Stealth should remove Stealth regardless, but only apply Revealed if it does damage. This applies to all classes, including Mesmers who blow Phantasms while stealthed and remain stealthed. If Thieves need to be compensated in some way for this, then do it. I’m fine with that.

I doubt ANet will change it, and it isn’t going to stop me from solo roaming on my Power Necro. I still think it’s one of the more interesting/polarizing mechanics in the game, so I enjoy sharing thoughts on it. I don’t want Thieves to be free kills, I just think there’s room for improvement.

Well I think thieves were already in a decent place, and burst was reduced by about 20% and sustained damage was reduce by 10%. When I play an alt, its usually a glass mesmer, and that usually had no problems taking down thieves, but it has the tools to so. I use GS on it and most of the time if a thief drops shadow refuge they end up dying after I knock them out of it. Warriors, engineers, guards, and necros also have the tools to deal with it. Before changes are made, let’s see how the changes to spike damage affect thieves because any proposed changes that seemed unnecessary (to me) before seem even more unnecessary now.

yolo swaggins.2570:

:( I didn’t want this thread to turn into another thief/anti-thief thread.

Welcome to being a thief!

Glad you’re enjoying it at least.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I would have much less of a problem with Backstab if the Thief’s opponent was consistently rewarded for dodging it, more than taking half-damage since you got stabbed in the front (if I recall, stabbing in the side still gives full Backstab damage) or potentially taking full damage if the Thief gets to your side in time. Sometimes the Thief doesn’t attempt the Backstab until the final moments, so your dodge is enough to escape the threat. But not all the time.

That’s my biggest problem.

And “counter-play” isn’t “dealing with the aftermath of an opponent’s play”. It’s actively being able to play against an opponent’s play. To use DOTA 2, the counter-play to Pudge’s hook doesn’t come after you get hooked. That’s Pudge executing his play and you now having a really bad time. The counter-play is being able to be generally aware of the hook spots and keep distance/creeps in the way to insure you can’t be hooked.

Appropriate counter-play stops the play. That’s my take, anyway. I’ll accept doing a head-count and dodging if I have to, but even that isn’t sufficient at times. Why shouldn’t it be?

EDIT – The issue is that you dodged an invisible attack successfully, and the game still allows you to be hit by the same invisible attack at basically no cost to the Thief. Name another mechanic where dodging a class’s burst is rewarded by being hit by the same burst 1 second later. Usually, dodging a burst is a time-buying mechanic that costs your opponent some sort of cooldown before they are ready again.

Part of my issue with stealth is how frequently a Thief can go back into it, but even that would be less of a problem if Backstab wasn’t so forgiving.

It’s fine if you think everything in the game is a non-issue because something out there can deal with it. That’s sort of the impression I’m getting, regardless of what it takes to deal with the mechanic in question or what sort of effort is put into utilizing the mechanic in question.

I just don’t think Stealth promotes fun gameplay. It promotes frustrating gameplay. That’s how I see it.

Along that same line, wouldn’t counterplay to backstab then be blocking/dodging/interrupting the attack that puts thieves into stealth with an obvious setup? Appropriate play stops the ability to backstab. The only non-counterable access to stealth a thief has is blinding powder. Even if you manage to let the thief get into stealth, you have the opportunity to halve or negate all of the following burst.

I would also like to reiterate that backstab multiplier is 2.4 where the total combined multiplier of the autoattack chain is something like 2.26. If it takes the thief longer than 2 seconds to land a full damage backstab, then you are taking less damage than you would have from their autoattack in that timeframe. If you make them land it from the front, you’re taking significantly less than you would have from autos. Backstab has the damage it does to make up for the loss in pressure that happens while sitting in stealth.

Thief mechanics can carry you to a certain extent at lower skill levels vs. lower skill levels, the problem is that once you hit a certain point (where your enemies have played/understand the thief) the difficulty spike is dramatic. People know how to build against/react to/mitigate burst damage and and don’t panic or flail anymore. The don’t even guess with AoE, they just use attacks and that are (almost) guaranteed to hit you in stealth (guard GS pull> whirling wrath or necro deathshroud 4&5 are good examples).

BurrTheKing.8571:

Krittz.6013:

As a warrior, I will say that conditions SHOULD be your downfall.

You should only need 1-2 of those defensive mechanics listed (if any at all).
If you want to kill, kill. If you want to defend, defend. If you want to be balanced, then you will not kill hard enough to another balanced build. The changes to how Power works is actually better than before. For example, if thieves actually want to spike like before, they have to be a tad more squishy to do it.

Try a 6, 5, 0, 0, 3 build and just kill them before they kill you. <3
(Or be annoying and run heavy support shouts heals and remove conditions or another carry-me build. :P)

I already tried that trait loadout in PvP and due to Crit damage..I’m sorry…Ferocity being lower and the fact that most condi builds are built tough you’ll end up getting kited at soon as Zerker Stance ends. I’ve hit a full Bull’s Charge + 100b followed by a Evis that crit on a Necro and it didn’t even get rid of DS.

Well, I continue to use my glass thief in PvP (no condi removal in stealth) and while I haven’t had a lot of time for solo queue, coupling lyssa runes with both sigil of generosity and purity has worked pretty well. You’ve just
got to make sure you clear/transfer poison before healing and treat condis as physical damage. Occasionally I still get condi bombed, but it’s been working decently.

Wow. Someone came to the same conclusions I did. Glad you already did some testing on it too though!

Balanced D/D suffered a lot during this patch. If you were mixing some PVT armor in you got hit pretty hard because the possible crit damage of armor got reduced only from 17% to 15.6%. If you were relying on full zerker trinkets to make up the majority of crit damage on your build, that got nerfed from 44% possible crit damage to about 25% possible crit damage Since incoming physical damage is 10% lower now, Any PVT armor you may have had probably should be replaced with Valk armor and Zerk/Valk ascended trinkets are probably a good idea. The crit line also making up the backbone got a 10% crit damage nerf.

Until D/D gets more utility, you’re probably going to have to go full glass (6/6/0/0/2) or just go D/P since burst damage was cut by about 20%. Balanced D/D won’t have the damage or defense to keep up anymore.

Edit: After reading around on some of the other forums looking at various builds/discussion, it may be possible to use some of the new might runes to make up for the crit nerf. If you pulled out something like 0/6/5/3/0 with might on dodge, might on signet use (w/ infiltrators signet), sigils of battle and force, you might be able to sustain long enough with trinkets to really start building momentum up if someone wants to give that a whirl in PvP.

Azawrath.7304:

So what is the best way to get better? I have over 2k hours logged in on my thief but there are just some player, about 60% of them are warriors, who I cannot win against. I don’t know if its just that they are better than me or it is the build they use, or a combination of both. If it is the build that is countering me I guess the solution would be to keep dueling that build and learn how to fight it. Any other tips to get better?

Yes, D/P is a pretty effective way to deal with warriors. Before I was always torn between D/D and D/P because I liked the damage of D/D more but the utility of D/P more. Now that the burst of D/D has been cut by about 20% and the sustained damage lowered by about 10%, sustain is the name of the game and D/D doesn’t have the utility to keep up. Glass trickery seems to be working pretty well for me now with lyssa runes for condition clear. I haven’t spent a lot of time in WvW yet, but it was still working for me in sPvP pretty well.

Specific D/P strategy against warriors: Bait out berserker stance so they won’t be immune to your blinds during the next part and keep your distance when they pop it. After it ends, BPS>HS>Steal (in the middle of HS)>Backstab> BPS> Whirling axe (stolen skill). With a 2/6/0/0/6 build, you’ll poison them on the steal cutting their regen nicely while the whirling axe in your BPS damages them a fair amount while keeping you safe from them and ranged allies they might have.

In PvP you should be able to take on average warriors this way pretty nicely, even some of the absurd condi tank ones. Some warriors you simply wont be able to touch though (at least in PvP) and it’s better to walk away or have a necro help you if you need the point. This is where I disagree with Sir Vincent III because sometimes you can be an exceptionally good player but not have the correct tools for the situation. (D/P has the most broad tool set imo)

Sir Vincent III.1286:

If you’re looking for buffs, you’re looking at the wrong places. Example;

Warrior:
Merciless Hammer: Damage to stunned and knocked down foes has been decreased from 25% to 20%.
Healing Signet: Reduced the passive heal by 8%.
Pin Down: Added a new warm-up effect. Increased the cast time from .25 seconds to .75 seconds.

Those are buffs for every other professions including Thieves.

Healing signet got an 8% nerf.
High crit damage builds got a 10% nerf
> healsig got a 2% buff by that roundabout logic.

I will say that I’m going to be investing more in vitality and less in toughness now though.

gartz.7013:

@Magetarr.6823
i thought about using that when i logged on today. after a few matches i realized that i don’t have my dagger out that much that i can make good use of it. i start with sb until i find a good time to pin in a BS down quick…sadly after a a dozen hot joins and a few solos matches..im kind of upset at the state pvp is in

I tried it last night as well, but I can’t tell whether it’s helping or not because sPvP is a zergfest right now. It’ll probably take a week or two before it settles down. It seems so far that either I have virtually no conditions or I’m overwhelmed with conditions and need to pop runes of lyssa. There’s not really a middle ground right now. I’m going to continue to try generosity on both my bow and dagger to see what happens.

Youko.5982:

I just noticed that the confusion damage of this trait is different from PVE and WVW. It seems to have higher damage on PVE than WVW. Both are without food buffs.

Is this normal behavior? There were no detailed information mentioned in the patch note for this one.

They split confusion damage and retaliation damage in wvw/pvp/pve a while ago. I don’t remember exactly when.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Interceptor.2653:

NinjaEd.3946:

People can pretend all they want that AE is good.

It’s so kind of you to give people permission to have an opinion on something.

why soak up cc when you can dodge it?

Just in case this is a serious question, you’d want to soak up CC with Stability when you:

1. can’t evade the CC (Static Field cannot be evaded)
2. aren’t able to dodge (no endurance, immobilized, or don’t see the hit coming)
3. want to keep dealing damage (can’t be using skills during a manual dodge)

That’s exactly what it’s for, to give a slight protection after a stealth attack. Some people just doesn’t understand the value of this.

I rather do backstab -> stabby-> stabby -> stab -> stab instead of backstab -> dodgy -> dee -> dodge -> dodge because ol’ hammer warrior is angry for getting backstabbed.

It’s such a short duration though (apparently it’s 1 second base and the .25 comes from 30 acro) that combined with reaction time and pre/after cast, something like hammer F1 will probably hit after the stability wears off unless they cast it before you revealed yourself. Let’s also not forget that you’re probably doing dodgy-dee-dodge already since getting hit with warrior hammer is like getting hit by a …. well… hammer: it still hurts even if you don’t get stunned.

Dahkeus.8243:

RedSpectrum.1975:

Dahkeus.8243:

Why is this in the thief forum?

What the hell are you holding? A soda can?

Why the hell is this expansion leak coming from a soda can?

Where the hell did this come from?

Why should we believe you?

Wtf?

Dahkeus I think Bewildering Ambush backfired on you I’d lay down for a bit.

Pfft, I’m not even going to bother picking up that trait, let alone using it.

Also, I just realized where the can is from. Still don’t understand what this has to do with Thief.

I can’t figure it out either. It makes just about as much sense as drinking a red bull and the slapping on a holographic wing skin.