Guild Wars 2

gartz.7013:

with already low condi removal. i just can’t justify taking out lyssa runes. and i knew about the s/p nerf…i used it occasionally and honestly I’m not to upset by it.

What if you added in sigil of generosity which is now available in PvP. It could improve both your DPS and survivability once you put their conditions back on them.

So just a quick question about it. Even in their new nerfed state, perplexity runes give you 8 stacks for the same amount of time. If you took sleight of hand and interrupted them, you’d get more confusion damage in addition to the reduced steal CD. Not to knock testing of the new stuff, I was just wondering if a more well rounded build could be created by that combination of runes/traits, especially with S/D since you could get TS in there if you happen to miss the steal interrupt.

Nice video though and thanks for testing some of the new stuff out.

In sPvP? Gonna try purity and generosity on bow because of the separate CD’s now. Probably generosity OH on melee to to give those condi bunkers some of their own medicine back.

In WvW probably bloodlust.

Carpboy.7145:

I think 10:1 or 12:1 would be fine. The stupid thing is this was for PVE, and yet nothing has changed there

If they changed it, I would think they would go with that 12:1 option as it would still be a nerf, but not nearly as big.

I played my mesmer and not my thief today, but with the decreased boon duration and overall changes to some sigils and runes, I’m going to reserve judgement on how big of a nerf this was since it seems to be on both offense and defense (boon duration builds for guards and eles). It appears balanced power builds got hit pretty hard, so at least while we’re dealing less damage, were taking less damage. Condis may have to be dealt with at a later time. I’m not happy with these changes, but I will wait before jumping down ANet’s throat on this one.

Tl;Dr : Waaaaaaay too many changes to see how this is going to shake out yet.

Jana.6831:

I don’t think I will get the math behind my whole set+traits by knowing that 1% crit damage is 15 ferocity.

It works like how precision does now

21 Precision>1% Crit Chance (w/ 4%base)
15 Ferocity>1% Crit Damage (w/ 150%base)

Zero Day.2594:

Burnfall.9573:

Zero Day, both are indeed old videos and guess what?

Only one of them remain viable and un-nerfed since than.

guess which one it is?? i know you will deny it: again and again yet the Truth stand.

hints: Sword/Dagger, OP condition short bow, unbalanced/God-Mode/OP design. mechanics, utilities and traits, unlimited-area 360 degree teleporting position, perma-evades, perma/stealths, perma-spams, cheap-zero-low-skill class requirements, only survivalist zerker class.

Ah! Okay!

Here’s another video,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFBCqatHTcY

From Feb. 7th, 2014…. Just for you i checked all the patch notes (wiki as them), and there werent any changes since then. So this build is still active.
Clearly OP too, says so in the video… and just watch how he massacres everyone in that video…. OOOOO PPPPPP….
And at 2:13/2:20… He killed a thief! …. I mean if everyone says thieves are OP…. well ranger are more OP since this video just proves that they can kill them…. Right?

@Maug
lol… it’s fine… youtube has so many videos…. I wonder if he can come up with an excuse for each one. And tbh, I’m just being silly, like always… And after all… we all love Burnfall and Sundeskal (hope i got it right this time…. haven’t seen him around).

Thankyou Zero Day for exposing the truth about rangers. Look al all the perma evades and permaburning and permapoison the OP ranger oppressors have access to.

How long have we been lied to that rangers are underpowered?

How long will ANet show favoritism toward the golden child ranger?

Rise up and shout the truth about rangers from the highest mountains

How long will rangers and condition guards dominate the lesser classes?

No more I say

This highlight video has removed the wool placed in front of my eyes by a class of deceivers!

As the saying goes:
“How can we trust the lies of the rangers who have stolen the precious CDI topic to gain even greater power?”

Burnfall.9573:

Maugetarr.6823:

Burnfall.9573:

Zero Day.2594:

Evilek.5690:

Ranger has stealth to, Ranger has antistealth spell, Ranger has rapid fire(autoaim spell vs invisible) and many other.

L2P your class, go and train your skill and you killing Thief on breakfest.

D: but what if….. the ranger doesn’t bring the anti-stealth and stealth skills….. what if he doesn’t use rapid fire as well as many other option…. Isn’t the thief OP then?

Anyways…. It’s kind of cute.
Also, you’re beating a dead horse, that’s turning into pulp into dust. (OP) Don’t think there’s been a single week where no one complained about stealth on any forums… x.X can people at least get more original…. like say something else is OP about the thief…

Burnfall.9573:

…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpUk9QvJ8bE

…

I love this game! It’s “pick the youtube video as evidence” game!

OOO OO OOO
I got one…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLfDNjWqa_s

^ RANGER TOO OP, nerf next patch PL0X…..

At 2:44, he even kills a warrior! So impressive… clearly OP.

I kind of like the music in the 2nd one over the commentary in the 1st one… :\
Btw you can find more if you search in youtube “<class> OP gw2” loads of videos as “evidence”.
(Btw, both are old videos, done by some randoms….)

Zero Day, both are indeed old videos and guess what?

Only one of them remain viable and un-nerfed.

guess which one it is?? i know you will deny it: again and again yet the Truth stand.

hints: Sword/Dagger, OP condition short bow, unbalanced/God-Mode/OP design. mechanics, utilities and traits, unlimited-area 360 degree teleporting position, perma-evades, perma/stealths, cheap-zero-low-skill class requirements..

Literally every skill on S/D (in PvP) has been nerfed except the autoattack. In fact, Sword #2 (IR) which that player was complaining about was specifically nerfed after that video was made.

The “unlimited 360 degree teleportation” is specially limited to places you can walk to and surfaces often contain features which prematurely end the shadowstep.

Please do some research or try playing the class yourself before you comment on something about which you have limited or skewed knowledge of.

By the way, once in stealth, thief is invulnerable to Every conditions

seriously, what is wrong with this picture?

Now can you see why they’re OP > Perma-Stealths> Perma-Invulnerabilities>God Mode

Including Warriors and Elementalists

God Mode, " is a game mechanic or cheat that prevents the playing character from being harmed, sustaining damage and ultimately, dying.¹ By contrast, invincibility or invulnerability etc..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_mode

“God Mode is an ability, often entered through a cheat code, that gives the player god-like abilities. God Mode usually imbues the player with the powers of invincibility. When included as a cheat code, God Mode has also been known to provide the player with certain abilities and effects beyond general invincibility "

http://www.giantbomb.com/god-mode/3015-28/

I do know my research and know thief class pretty well; i belong to a thief guild, isn’t that enough?

See Thief “Nerfs” > In PVP Only

Truth

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/PW-6In-not-5-Pvp-only/first#post3841886

November 2012: Dancing Dagger: This skill’s damage has been reduced by 50%
Cloak and Dagger: This skill’s damage has been reduced by 33% in PvP only.

June 2013: Larcenous Strike: Increased the initiative cost to 2.
Shadow Return (Infiltrator Strike Toggle): This skill is no longer a stun breaker.

October 2013:Larcenous Strike: This skill now steals only 1 boon.

December 2013: Sword—Shadow Return: Renamed to Infiltrator’s Return. Added a .25-second cast time.

BTW, belonging to a guild doesn’t make you an expert in that class. I belong to a guild that has all the classes, and by your logic that’s enough to know every counter to them and all of their strategies.

For your future reference before you talk about thief nerfs so you can look through all of them: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Updates

Xeyon.6419:

Yeah haha Im like the only person who uses them. It has been a concern of mine for awhile but It never really bothered me till recently when the updates to servers made them start failing completely somewhat often, so now I have to work with occasional failures due to server timings and the blind failures.

But yeah, they do in fact not work like all the necro marks, since its only one attack for thieves the entire thing misses, while for necro some of the marks having pulse effects that continue after the first attack misses. However, If it is a single attack mark, it will miss for all targets if the necro is blinded. (Something that also makes no sense, necro marks should totally not be blindable if you walk into them)

Something else to note, ranger traps also miss when blinded. As do all the offensive shouts in the game. How Either traps and shouts missing from lack of eyesight makes any sense is beyond me.

I think you are thinking of wells for necros, not marks. Marks are the patterns they put on the ground and do not pulse iirc.

If it’s standardized to work against ranger traps and shouts, it’s probably working as intended (even if it doesn’t make sense).

Burnfall.9573:

Zero Day.2594:

Evilek.5690:

Ranger has stealth to, Ranger has antistealth spell, Ranger has rapid fire(autoaim spell vs invisible) and many other.

L2P your class, go and train your skill and you killing Thief on breakfest.

D: but what if..... the ranger doesn’t bring the anti-stealth and stealth skills..... what if he doesn’t use rapid fire as well as many other option.... Isn’t the thief OP then?

Anyways.... It’s kind of cute.
Also, you’re beating a dead horse, that’s turning into pulp into dust. (OP) Don’t think there’s been a single week where no one complained about stealth on any forums... x.X can people at least get more original.... like say something else is OP about the thief...

Burnfall.9573:

...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpUk9QvJ8bE

...

I love this game! It’s "pick the youtube video as evidence" game!

OOO OO OOO
I got one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLfDNjWqa_s

^ RANGER TOO OP, nerf next patch PL0X.....

At 2:44, he even kills a warrior! So impressive... clearly OP.

I kind of like the music in the 2nd one over the commentary in the 1st one... :\
Btw you can find more if you search in youtube "&lt;class&gt; OP gw2" loads of videos as "evidence".
(Btw, both are old videos, done by some randoms....)

Zero Day, both are indeed old videos and guess what?

Only one of them remain viable and un-nerfed.

guess which one it is?? i know you will deny it: again and again yet the Truth stand.

hints: Sword/Dagger, OP condition short bow, unbalanced/God-Mode/OP design. mechanics, utilities and traits, unlimited-area 360 degree teleporting position, perma-evades, perma/stealths, cheap-zero-low-skill class requirements..

Literally every skill on S/D (in PvP) has been nerfed except the autoattack. In fact, Sword #2 (IR) which that player was complaining about was specifically nerfed after that video was made.

The "unlimited 360 degree teleportation" is specially limited to places you can walk to and surfaces often contain features which prematurely end the shadowstep.

Please do some research or try playing the class yourself before you comment on something about which you have limited or skewed knowledge of.

Woah. Someone who used traps enough to discover this!

I would think they should follow the same rules as necro marks, but I’m not sure whether those are affected by blinds since I usually dodge roll through them.

Dude…. kill steal….

Could be changed to be something more like this. It would trade the channel time for the range, but would fit in nicely with dark pact.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Vampiric_Bite

or maybe this if that CD is too low for you

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Vampiric_Gaze

P Fun Daddy.1208:

I haven’t commented on stealth threads in a while, but I sort of feel compelled to reply to Zero Day’s above post. No, I refuse to quote the thing it’s too darn long

If you are only playing to win, you have no reason to care about balance. At all. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, and though I can’t entirely understand what pleasure you get from it I don’t think there is anything wrong with playing solely to win.
But really, there is no logical reason to care about balance when you will simply switch to whatever build is best anyway, because the game gives you whatever you want just for playing it however you want. It’s not like WoW where the top gear takes several years to get for people that sleep, because even I with my job and my college classes can manage to have some ascended gear (and I would have more if I didn’t spend even more time not playing video games).
So really, why do you care if (x) gets a nerf?
You won’t stop winning, you’ll just switch builds to whatever happens to be better and keep winning regardless unless someday the game actually becomes entirely balanced and there isn’t anything that really gives a concrete advantage anymore (it’s a pipe dream, I know, but it’s also the only situation where you would actually not just pick the next most powerful thing after a nerf).

I just see no reason for someone who cares solely about winning to worry about balance except to take advantage of a lack of it.

He probably cares about fun too though. Thief and (shatter) mesmer are the most fun to me, and I’d have to say that both are in a pretty decent spot right now. If he’s talking about the sirlin article though playing to win is still relevant as it talks about using strategies people don’t know how to counter until they figure out how to counter it. Until they figure out how to counter it, it’s something you can rely on to finish the fight pretty quickly so you can move on to the next fight or turn the tide for your group fight.

The thing about thief is there is a (relatively) low skill floor and a super high skill ceiling, and it’s largely dependent on your opponent’s skill up to a point. Once your opponent knows how thieves operate and what moves to block/dodge/blind, the fight tilts much more towards the opponents favor. All the suggested changes that people make, while they might out noob vs. noob or even moderate vs. moderate, they tilt the tables way in favor of the thief’s opponent once you get to good vs. good. The thing is, until people roll a thief and realize how often they get stomped by decent/good players, all they ever see is the losing side on their main. I’d say thief is right in the middle right now in terms of power, which is why they are adding more in stealth skills and now on revealed skills while only nerfing poison field pulses (for the sake of uniformity with engis).

Here’s the sirlin article again for a quick read. It’s pretty interesting.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/intermediates-guide.html

Edit: For those who refuse to click on a link, The part that I find the most relevant in the article:

“Let’s consider two groups of players: a group of good players and a group of scrubs. The scrubs will play “for fun” and not explore the extremities of the game. They won’t find the most effective tactics and abuse them mercilessly. The good players will. The good players will find incredibly overpowering tactics and patterns. As they play the game more, they’ll be forced to find counters to those tactics. The vast majority of tactics that at first appear unbeatable end up having counters, though they are often quite subtle and difficult to discover. Knowing the counter tactic prevents the other player from using his tactic, but he can then use a counter to your counter. You are now afraid to use your counter and the opponent can go back to sneaking in the original overpowering tactic. This concept will be covered in much more detail later.

The good players are reaching higher and higher levels of play. They found the “cheap stuff” and abused it. They know how to stop the cheap stuff. They know how to stop the other guy from stopping it so they can keep doing it. And as is quite common in competitive games, many new tactics will later be discovered that make the original cheap tactic look wholesome and fair. Often in fighting games, one character will have something so good it’s unfair. Fine, let him have that. As time goes on, it will be discovered that other characters have even more powerful and unfair tactics. Each player will attempt to steer the game in the direction of his own advantages, much how grandmaster chess players attempt to steer opponents into situations in which their opponents are weak."

I think this would have the opposite effect of what you want. Stats don’t need to be neutered the more you go into them, they need to be worth going into to promote real diversity. If there’s a leveling off effect, but you can get 80% effectiveness of the max by putting relatively minimal points into it, you’re just going to push people towards the middle, making actual choices relatively meaningless as there’s hardly any benefit to going past a certain point.

GM traits being roughly equal to each other in different ways would promote build diversity much better. Let’s look at the thief class defensive trees as an example. In shadow arts, you gain roughly 330 health per second in stealth. There is no equivalent for that kind of strength in acrobatics. Even if you only spend 25% of your fight in stealth, you’re gaining at least equal health regen to assassin’s reward (based on initiative regeneration) without having to continually attack/spend initiative allowing you to reposition yourself better. SA strength in GM traits is much better than SA, so there is usually no real decision that needs to be made if you are going to use stealth at some point during a fight (virtually every build except S/P). Creating equally strong traits that accomplish different goals would go a long way to increasing build diversity (which they are working on). Instead of “SRej: gain health” versus “ARew: gain inferior health” ARew needs to be something with a unique and equally strong effect like “ARew: Transfer a condition to your foe upon revealing yourself.” Now you’re making a choice between gaining health (and just removing conditions if you picked up SE on the way) versus removing conditions while increasing your damage output. Right now certain traits just outshine others by far which is what is killing build diversity way more than just flat stats.

BurrTheKing.8571:

EDIT 2: @Maugetarr.6823 I actually have started going back to old school glass cannon Axe/Shield + GS and if you time your skills right you’re correct that many Thieves can’t react fast enough before taking a ton of damage and an Evis and practically one-shot if they’re glassy enough. I almost feel bad for talking smack about it though it is basically a higher-risk Thief build since most of your damage comes from 2 really obvious attacks. The nostalgia for the start of the game is pretty fun as well, that being said a Thief can practically insta-gib you if you run what I do but at least the fight is short either way.

That was pretty much how I ran my warrior for a while and it worked pretty well. If you feel it’s too obvious a combo, you can also go Sw/Sh + GS on a 30/20/0/0/20 build. You get the burst from Sh #4 + Sw#3, and you get Sw F1 + 100b (and I like picking up both GS traits since its a great utility weapon). Really great mobility also.

Edit: Something like this. Yes, the food is correct
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIAQNAseRjMd01ZVIehwJaAw84HgK6ogKmUKsrOA-zECBYfCiEEg0HQUBAZmFRjtKqIasKkYaXER1kCAilRA-w

I like running with condi necros and hammer warriors.

Often with the necro, players can handle condis or damage, but usually not both and have even more trouble with them when used in conjunction with each other.

Hammer warriors bring a great amount of control whether their built to tank or dish out damage. Players have to deal with or at least avoid them by using up dodges which leaves them open to well timed burst. If they can’t avoid the warriors, they leave themselves open to even (relatively) poorly timed bursts once you see that stun symbol pop up.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Let me catch up…

Ok, so let me start by saying that I play primarily small group/solo roaming in WvW and PvP. I’m sure those who zerg surf or roam with a largish group would not have any trouble with Thieves besides their ability to stealth away to never be seen again.

In small group/solo/duels it’s totally different, I never find it enjoyable to spend half of a fight waiting for my opponent to make a move. If you can truthfully claim that you can consistently interrupt Thief’s stealth skills to where they have minimum time spent flailing around I’ll be genuinely impressed. Several of you really love to jump to conclusions about my skill level. I can say with confidence that so long as I am not ambushed mid fight I generally either kill the Thief or it ends up in a stalemate.

What none of you have addressed is the fact that I provided clear evidence that every mechanic in this game has some form of counter but except for one skill stealth has none. Why is it OK for control to be counted by stability but it’s not OK for stealth to be countered by reveal? Stop making personal attacks and pay more attention to my arguments.

While I don’t think this was directed at me since the length indicates that it was probably written at the same time as mine, I would just also like to point out that while I’m on my warrior, Axe/Shield works pretty well for countering thieves due to the rapid clearing of blinds from the fast autoattack and the burst from eviscerate one you’ve baited out their dodges/stunned them. When on my thief, this is the weapon combo I most resist jumping in to fight against.

I would just like to point out that while stealth does not have a direct counter, the process of stealthing has many counters (aside from blinding powder/decoy/torch OH. I will focus on thieves though).

First of all, fear me an stomp are direct counters to shadow refuge already since thieves can’t leave the circle till the end. If you can bait out their dodges until they are forced to use shadow refuge, you have a good chance of knocking them out and revealing (killing at that point) them. The same can be said for engis flame thrower or shield push, mesmer GS, Ranger wolf F2 (once they fix the F2 command to be client-side), guard GS pull or shield push, necro staff #5, etc.

D/P counterplay to stealting requires aggressive play to clear the initial blind and then an interrupt of the HS using many of the methods listed above, plus additional ones like mesmer OH pistol or mantra of distraction, doom, point blank shot or concussion shot, and updraft or gust to name a few more.

Countering CnD requires blocking, dodging, or blinding (like any key attack).

Countering HiS requires interrupting the skill like you would any other heal.

Blinding powder is the only stealth skill in the thief kitten nal that cant be counterplayed, which is why it’s on a 40 second CD.

LordByron.8369:

Stone heart is diamond skin 2.0
As useless and situational as the other.

It will be more frequent to meet a full sentinel thief that an ele with that trait in www…

P.S: nobody not even another thief can kill a thief…
The defense generated by stealth+ mobility has 0 counterplay…only an unreactable burst would work.

This part is pretty wrong. Thieves often go out of their way to challenge/kill other thieves. First of all it protects the squishies and people who don’t know how to react to thieves on their team, and second, it establishes a pecking order where thieves can compare their skills to others, especially since thieves main goal is DPS since there are limited control or support options within the class.

Sometimes these thief versus thief fights are determined by luck or build, but a lot of the time prediction and reaction time determine the winner.

Doggie.3184:

Zeke Azul Falcon.5176:

Doggie.3184:

Serbski.1437:

Do you know the names of the beserker gear available for laurels?

If I infuse an ascended item can I change the infusion further down the line?

“Zojja’s” You can change infusions but it’d be a waste of badges/laurels/etc if you did. Also pay attention to offensive/defensive slots, like armor doesn’t have offensive and I bought one too many power infusions. XD

not unless you make omni infusion to put power in those defensive infusion slots ( what i did ) call it crazy expensive but every power counts!

I can’t even begin to image the horrors you’ve endured. o.o

oscuro.9720:

Where so you buy ascended weapons/armor for badges/laurels

You can only craft weapons/armor unless Dwayna likes you and tricks the RNG god into letting you get one from boss drop, fractal chest, wvw rank chest, guild mission chest and such.

I got my first ascended armor chest from a WvW rank up the other day, problem is that it’s sentinel’s stats…….

@ oscuro: Leveling crafting to 500 is also pretty expensive as you have to make at least 10 (ish) exotic items just to make it to 450 before you can even start refining ascended mats to level. Glad that these are finally becoming account bound.

Frankly I would be surprised if you beat a thief in a 1v1 with a staff build since it’s much better suited to group fights and support roles. That same guild member ele has had close to 10 minute fights with me where he successfully bunkered very well with the staff, but it’s sort of like a thief going into a fight and only using shortbow which isn’t powerful enough to kill anyone on it’s own, but has decent utility.

Happy hunting.

eye floater.7140:

Maugetarr.6823:

@ OP: Since you asked for advice and didn’t tell us what class you play (even when asked by Splatter Pew), I’ll ask as well, since strategies and advice will vary from class to class.

I’ve been playing ele recently. My ranger is actually the class I have the least trouble with thieves on.

Ah, well then my experience with ele is limited, but I will say one of the better eles in my guild who is very difficult to spar against (he uses D/D and 0/0/20/20/30 I believe) typically tries to whittle down my health to about 60% then burst using magnetic grasp and then the Burning Speed+LF combo(since it puts all the damage in one spot)>RoF, and then Updraft+autos if I didn’t avoid the combo but somehow managed to survive, or RtL>updraft if I managed to avoid the initial burst. If it’s a D/D thief, countering a CnD attack with updraft early in the fight then burst can often end it pretty quickly.

This diamond skin D/D build video that you’ve probably seen takes down quite a number of thieves through the course of it. I would recommend adapting his burst combo into your style (if you’re D/D). How he reacts to the thief at 2:10 is probably what you want to attempt since it’s extremely important as an ele to stay aggressive against thieves and push them off of you(or kill them). The big group fight also has a part where he reacts to a thief in the middle of the fight, so that would also be something to pay attention to.

Hope this is at least a jumping off point, as I am currently leveling my ele so I can’t give you as much first person advice as one of my other 80 alts.

@ OP: Since you asked for advice and didn’t tell us what class you play (even when asked by Splatter Pew), I’ll ask as well, since strategies and advice will vary from class to class.

Just gonna leave this here.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Remove-thieves-from-wvw-and-spvp/first

Edit: it appears this topic has been deleted after I linked it. The title should give you an idea as to what it was about

Blind on stealth pulses similar to how might stacks while you’re in stealth. They changed the mechanics a few months ago to make it so that non-damaging attacks put you in combat (such as blinds). Most likely you are pulsing blinds as you run past the mobs.

Just spitballing, but wouldn’t defiant stance overlapped too much in functionality with shelter if it had been given to guardian? I know they aren’t identical, but maybe they share too much similarity to have been thought useful.

BobbyT.7192:

Carpboy.7145:

Or if you stealth to much, or if you do to much dmg, or if you reset and are a skillless 2/3 spamming n00b who cheeses his way to victory. Anything other than that and youre ok. So basically youre only allowed an offhand, and even then…

Actually your only allow the off-hand ( cause I’ve seen some one get kills while rocking only a mh dagger -_-), blind folded, hopping around with one leg, with someone gripping your testicles…. Still even then …..

Did you watch till the end of that video? The last fight was him only using CnD, no mainhand equipped (if you’re talking about the guy I think you’re talking about).

NO WEAPONS ALLOWED AT ALL!

…. oh wait…. TeamBattleAxe with perplexity runes and fireworks…

NO TRAITS OR RUNES!

I have about equal time to oscuro on multiple thieves as well, and like him, I don’t remember exactly when everything clicked for me. It just eventually sort of does, but a lot of it relies on recognizing what your opponents are doing and avoiding their bigger hits while soaking the little ones (as best you can).

As for D/P, in sPvP, 5,2,1 autochain, 5,2,1 etc fits very well into a rotation due to the increased length of reveal, but I honestly wouldn’t recommend doing that as D/P can be a great reactionary set, which really goes back to reading your opponents, recognizing their attacks, and countering them. You can use headshot to interrupt long channels and heals, shadow strike to counterattack strong single burst attacks, and BPS to sit in semi-slow auto attacks. Typically, I like to (try to) use BPS to counter a combo/auto chain while autoattacking myself, then HS out of the BPS smoke field right before it ends (1 and 2/3 auto chain) or when they move away to deal damage and close the gap. Just remember that getting yourself into set rotations rather than playing the person in front of you essentially cancels out benefit of the initiative system: using the right skill at the appropriate time.

Remember that D/X auto is your best friend: 2nd attack restores 10 endurance, and 3rd attack poisons which is invaluable for those pesky healsig wars. Don’t feel bad about chaining Heartseeker when someone is close to down also (but please don’t chain above 25% health) since its intended as a finisher. You can also cue multiple before another thief or mesmer stealths and it will follow them so use that information as you will.

A lot of people swear by using 10/30/0/0/30 D/P trickery for sPvP, but I just don’t like that setup. My 2 favorites so far have been 0/30/10/30/0 (D/P) and 0/30/25/15/0 (D/D). 15 in acro with the D/X chain will let you sit on points and contest them longer through evades/blinds/dodges. 0/30/10/30/0 (Acro: II,III, IX since I don’t care for the gm traits) with zerker amulet gets you somewhere in the ballpark of 18k health, so it’s great for dealing with conditions. Really, just find what works best for you.

Hope some of this helped. Stick with it and welcome to the club.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Maugetarr.6823:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Maugetarr.6823:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

I’m serious, but thanks for assuming that I’m trolling (for some reason?).

I actually couldn’t be sure because the solution provided still relies on the poor nature of last refuge and will still likely get you killed as the whole reason you get revealed from last refuge is that you are trying to stealth, not trying to avoid CC.

Generally with S/D you aren’t constantly going into stealth and don’t suffer from mishappeningly gaining Revealed at 25% health. I don’t see it working well with a dagger build, but both S/D and S/P, and even P/P would actually find this useful.

They might, but you are still relying on a minor adept and a major GM trait that relies on the opponent damaging you enough to trigger it. The odds of it being useful during this are also very slim as there will only be a 1.3 – 1.5 (w/ Traveler runes) second window for this to work. Another problem I see with this trait is that it can never really be buffed, or else it would become OP. While 1 second base is far too short, Increasing it to 2 seconds would allow this to be extended to 3(ish) with traveler runes, allowing thieves to cover almost the entire duration of revealed (in WvW at least) turning the right builds into un-interruptable machines leading to more QQ.

I like the idea of the traits that they are adding, especially both of the on-reveal since it promotes more aggressive play. For a trait named assassins equilibrium, I would have liked to see something like “transfer a condition to your foe on revealed” hopefully curbing the-condi meta and increasing the non-SA survivability of thieves. Currently, I think this trait is weaker than cloaked in shadow which lets you reactively avoid both the CC and damage portions of a hit with a well timed CnD.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Maugetarr.6823:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

I’m serious, but thanks for assuming that I’m trolling (for some reason?).

I actually couldn’t be sure because the solution provided still relies on the poor nature of last refuge and will still likely get you killed as the whole reason you get revealed from last refuge is that you are trying to stealth, not trying to avoid CC.

Edit: The second half I took more seriously as new/non-meta builds are always welcome. Next time I’ll explain myself better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

As an afterthought, is anyone else stoked to see a red post in theif forum around the time that the new GM traits are being discussed?

I like the D/D playstyle more, but it bugs me that only 3/5 skills are truly useful. It partially comes down to a well played D/D doesn’t waste initiative on #3 & #4 while a well played D/P uses all of their skills appropriately. After running D/D for months, I recently switched back to D/P for the self and group utility (heal interrupts, blind stomps, blasting BPS with blinding powder on a downed teamate, etc).

Mice.8921:

Maugetarr.6823:

Mice.8921:

Maugetarr.6823:

So if you backstab for 6k you’ll heal 300 health? Wow, thats almost as good as the passive regen on HealSig post nerf (15th)! Oh, wait, its only almost as good if you can pump out 6k dps continuously :/

You ARE able to understand that this trait is in no way meant to be equivalent to a healing skill, right? It would, in my opinion, be stupidly overpowered if we were able to get the healing of healing signet in a trait and still use your healing skill!

The lengths people are willing to go just to complain about healing signet….

EDIT: It’s an interesting build OP, and one I’m curious to try with S/D so you can CnD to avoid burst, and still maintain health income through traits… while using your heal as additional back up healing….

Sorry. I guess I should have compared it to adrenal health, but there are so many sources of regen it’s easy to overlook some. Realistically it _ might_ be on par with adrenal health if you can keep the DPS constant, meaning that thieves just recieved a minor master level trait for a GM one, not a “godmode”.

In that regard I agree with you, it is a little underwhelming for a GM trait, BUT it is also important to remember that in no situation should you ever attempt class balance with cross-class comparisons that only take into account single aspects… For example, you cannot deny that thief would be very OP with a top tier hp pool and heavy armor like a warrior… Yet if you were to simply compare our innate defense with warriors, we (and every other class in the game) would be seriously underpowered. So, again, you can’t just compare our one GM trait with a trait from another class without taking into account other effects.

Its important to remember that if a trait gives you access to something that is a little out of the norm for your class it will be weaker. For example, the new elementalist air trait applies damage on interupt equivalent to the damage from a 10 point mesmer trait (according to clarification offered by a GM on the new trait)… If you assume that mesmers and elementalists should have exactly equivalent interrupt abilities, having a GM equivalent to a 10 point trait would be hilariously under powered…

As to this trait… if you assume signet of malice and this trait, using S/P you should be able to offer frequent stuns/dazes, higher hps than warrior healing signet, and huge evade uptime, before you even consider your utilities and other traits/runes/sigils/etc…

MATH: Warrior healing signet offers 393 hp/s… signet of malice is 133 hp/hit and this trait .05 * dps. Assuming pistol whip hits for 3k/dps you will be getting equivalent hp/s even assuming that pistol whip only hits once/second… 3k dps on pistol whip is probably impractically high, but hitting more than once a second is very possible which would compensate… Furthermore, you are ofc, evading and your target was stunned at the beginning… Both of which contribute to damage negation… Assuming your target is a warrior (b/c why not) and their usual DPS is 1k/seconds, the evade from pistol whip effectively adds 1k hp/s to your pistol whip (remember, you have to take in to account more than one factor)…

tldr; Class balance – in an interesting game – should never be as simple as 1:1, saying that it should be is effectively asking for the removal of the class system: removing distinguishing elements between classes….

Going to have to agree with you on this one,but this is a much more thought out approach to this trait than godmode incoming. This trait seems underwhelming considering the other GM traits it’s competing against.

I would like to complaon that I was mislead by OP because he used SB against the supply crate and OH dagger against that mesmer.

(Nice video. Lol’d)

Mice.8921:

Maugetarr.6823:

So if you backstab for 6k you’ll heal 300 health? Wow, thats almost as good as the passive regen on HealSig post nerf (15th)! Oh, wait, its only almost as good if you can pump out 6k dps continuously :/

You ARE able to understand that this trait is in no way meant to be equivalent to a healing skill, right? It would, in my opinion, be stupidly overpowered if we were able to get the healing of healing signet in a trait and still use your healing skill!

The lengths people are willing to go just to complain about healing signet….

EDIT: It’s an interesting build OP, and one I’m curious to try with S/D so you can CnD to avoid burst, and still maintain health income through traits… while using your heal as additional back up healing….

Sorry. I guess I should have compared it to adrenal health, but there are so many sources of regen it’s easy to overlook some. Realistically it _ might_ be on par with adrenal health if you can keep the DPS constant, meaning that thieves just recieved a minor master level trait for a GM one, not a “godmode”.

DeWolfe.2174:

Zacchary.6183:

Read this and you’ll understand why.

I’ll raise your web blogger with one Captain
In essence, it’s about ideology and values. The use of stealth lacks valor.

This is why I make sure to heartseeker from the front so I can sleep at night.

Interceptor.2653:

Lyssa’s will still be “OK”, depending on how long the duration of the converted conditions ends up being. Five to five is still the best answer we have for a condi-bomb.

Agreed on this point. Random boon on heal will also still be decent with withdraw.

It will however prevent pre-popping BV against decap engis, hammer wars, and ward-heavy guards. Oh well.

So if you backstab for 6k you’ll heal 300 health? Wow, thats almost as good as the passive regen on HealSig post nerf (15th)! Oh, wait, its only almost as good if you can pump out 6k dps continuously :/

Impact.2780:

I use this skill quite often in PvP. It’s a nice ambush and teleport between nodes, just takes some experience in where you need to place it and where you need to be for it to work. What it does need though, is an indicator of how much time you have left before “Destroy Shadow Trap” times out. “Shadow Pursuit” could also do with a longer window to respond when someone triggers it.. what’s the point in marking someone if you only have a few seconds to respond? So many times I need as little as five more seconds to finish helping a team mate before I pursue the marked player, and don’t get to use it.

RedSpectrum.1975:

I may be wrong but I believe it is a stun break only when someone is marked

Destroy Shadow Trap and Shadow Pursuit are both stun breakers, but Destroy Shadow Trap has a cast time. You break your stun, and start the long cast animation which is identical to hide in shadows, which screams “interrupt me!” and you not only get instantly disabled again, but when you do, you lose your teleport because it’s now on full cool down.

Increasing the rollover time of shadow pursuit by 5-10 seconds would go a long way to making me use this skill again and it being a great stunbreak to use in combat rather than just dropping it beforehand.

Well, we knew it was coming when they asked about it specifically in the PvP forums. Actually sort of ok with this one.

glaphen.5230:

Maugetarr.6823:

@glaphen: Just wanted to mention that GS +S/X (typically I use shield) is perfectly capable of killing people. On a 30/20/0/0/20 you can have 5.25 seconds of immobilize on the sword burst, so typically a syrategey is to cripple them with autos, Shield bash, final thrust, savage leap, burst (weapon swap cancel), HB, whirlwhind, blade trail, rush. Some of that might miss, but it’s actually pretty hard for a variety of builds to deal with.

WvW is filled with uplevels and bad players. Thieves can win 1 vs 5s because people don’t know how to resurrect the people at their feet, they just stand there and don’t even swing at the air.

While I won’t disagree with you on this, I was actually referring to sPvP where people are forced to try to stay on the point so the majority of this becomes easier to land.

@glaphen: Just wanted to mention that GS +S/X (typically I use shield) is perfectly capable of killing people. On a 30/20/0/0/20 you can have 5.25 seconds of immobilize on the sword burst, so typically a syrategey is to cripple them with autos, Shield bash, final thrust, savage leap, burst (weapon swap cancel), HB, whirlwhind, blade trail, rush. Some of that might miss, but it’s actually pretty hard for a variety of builds to deal with.

Travlane.5948:

Maugetarr.6823:

I wonder if they thought about how much weaker this is mechanically than cloaked in shadow which can be used reactively also and would prevent both the CC and the damage from the attack in a shorter timeframe.

I’m happy that they are introducing “on reveal” traits to encourage aggressive gameplay, but how about something like “transfer a condition to your target on reveal” which would improve non-SA sustain and help curb the condi meta since crit damage is being brought down. It would also open up new S/D, P/D, and D/X builds.

This trait only seems useful for escaping guardian wards right now.

pfft. no. why do i say no?

the line of warding and circle ward they use with hammer are actually wider than they look. so by the time you get stability for 1 sec…it expires as you are still walking across and you get knocked down. you will be knocked down on the reverse side if you make it tho.

You would be able to dodge roll out, but that is literally the only thing I could stretch my imagination as to where the stability could be purposefully used. Everything else would most likely come down to luck since it would be dependent on their positioning and you being in stealth before the skill was activated as it would be ridiculously short to land a CnD and then stealth attack to gain stability after you recognize the attack and before it hits.

I wonder if they thought about how much weaker this is mechanically than cloaked in shadow which can be used reactively also and would prevent both the CC and the damage from the attack in a shorter timeframe.

I’m happy that they are introducing “on reveal” traits to encourage aggressive gameplay, but how about something like “transfer a condition to your target on reveal” which would improve non-SA sustain and help curb the condi meta since crit damage is being brought down. It would also open up new S/D, P/D, and D/X builds.

This trait only seems useful for escaping guardian wards right now.

I like some new GM traits and don’t like some others. Some seem OP while some seem UP, but they can be adjusted later. Overall I’m ecstatic because the game is heading in the direction of more permanent content and skill hunting like in GW1. Now we just need some hard mode maps with more rewarding content.

Chicago Jack.5647:

Why do many people think Thief is OP? Because the general population – especially those who visit these forums – are nothing more than general WvW Killshot bait.

They refuse to learn how to play and instead go onto the forums and cry about their problems.

Fortunately, there are a few people who actually DO know how to play, and they (surprisingly) are actually playing the game and figuring stuff out. Instead of kittening on the forums about OOHHH PEEEEE and try to get all the attention because they whine like children and people laugh at them.

But thieves are supposed to driving other damage dealers out of this meta! Theres no way to deal with such high damage thieves!!!

Well assuming all crits, you could pump out about 6k damage during an AA rotation on dagger for a balanced build. That translates to 300 health over ~2 seconds, meaning a pitiful 150 HPS assuming everything hits and crits . Since it’s competing with HK, you can’t depend on backstab for the burst heal, which on the same balanced build would still only yield about 300 health. It would need to be 5% of total outgoing damage before it might be comparable to the other GM traits.

Another point to this though is that it’s going to have to scale extremely well before it would be worth trading stats for. I mean, say it scales at 1% more health gained per crit for every 100 healing power (very generous), what offensive stat are you going to trade for that considering trading offensive stats will also hurt the healing. Say you trade precision for it (in spvp maybe trading out a zerk amulet for a valk one) on a x/30/30/x/x lyssa runes build, you would go from 300 HPow to 629 HPow but go from a 57% crit chance to a 26% crit chance. Now you go from (critdmg)(.08)(.57)=.046critdmg to (critdmg)(.1129)(.26)=.029critdmg which is a decrease in overall healing. Without running other numbers, I would think you’d see similar decreases in the healing when trading offensive stats for it, not to mention trading DPS for inferior healing. With the increased toughness from the valk amulet, you might see a neutral change to health gained vs damage taken.

The one they mentioned for thieves seems meh, but I like the direction they’re going especially considering that this is only 8/40 of the new skills. There’s probably 1 new one per line per class. Hopefully a non-SA one is a condi removal.

Kyon.9735:

Maugetarr.6823:

LordByron.8369:

I perfectly agree with you and exactly as i said they should balance shadow return as they balanced ele….

Thus as you said removing breakstun from shadow return and other defensive skills and putting it into signet of shadow and ambush

That would be coherent to what they did to ele skills

Thank you to proving my point.

The break stun was removed from lightning flash because stun breaks were too concentrated in the cantrip skills. They moved a lot of stunbreaks around on a lot of classes at the same time to try to increase build diversity. Other cantrips have too long of a CD for their effect, but that’s a different topic.

Problem is it did not increase build diversity for eles at all. They put the stunbreaks in lackluster skills which only made it a nerf to cantrips.

PVP Perspective:

After watching the EU bracket for the Mistpedia weekly 2v2 PvP tournament earlier today, it was a general consensus in the twitch stream chat that S/P PW spamming thieves should be punished. It’s literally spam 3 to win.

Stun + Evade + Damage in 1 button. This is literally the universal answer to anything. Of course it’s not the first choice of weapon set in WvW because Stealth + Mobility is more important there.

I’ll have to agree with you on this that it didn’t really increase build diversity, but it’s what they were attempting to do by moving stunbreaks to lackluster skills. Those lackluster skills are still fairly weak while the skills that they removed it from are weakened. Elixer R on engi is a perfect example of how an awesome ability went to “meh” based on these changes. Ele build diversity didn’t really increase because cantrips, at least from my experience with the class, far outclass most of the other utility skills even after nerfing LF.

My statement though was an attempt to illustrate why they removed the stunbreak from LF but not SS/SR, not whether it was justified or not.