Guild Wars 2

Shortbow is not viable for mainhand because its designed around AoE dmg. IMO its one of the best AoE weapons of all classes. But thats the problem in itself, its not designed to be good single target DPS which is how most fights are. If anything i think shortbow is fine the way it is; excellent AoE’s and utility and pistol should be buffed for decent single target DPS.

I would love to see ranged DPS be close to on par with our melee dps. Especially with the nerfs to dodge and mobility. Its almost like they want us to facetank dmg.

Kadin.2356:

Oh I forgot to mention either remove Detonate Cluster or change it so it actually has functionality. Currently there is no scenario in which I would ever use it.

I use it all the time. Great for hitting moving targets, and i think it adds more dmg but not sure on that.

I like the idea of HtC. Its like “got you” and your all like “no you dont” but it doesnt work anything like that in actuality.

I think a good change to this change would be
Stun break
Mist form for 3seconds(same mechanics cept can be broken by atking)
Swiftness 3 seconds

edit;
nvm mist form has movement increase.
You could also make it the same as mistform where they are taken out of combat until it wears off depending on how long the ICD is as a counter balance.

think peoples main concern with obtaining precursors now wasnt the cost or time involved but rather the fact it came down to dumb luck, and that people wanted a way to work towards precursors rather then blow large sums of money down the mystic toilet hoping for some return.

gonna test out a few serker builds and see how i go. Mostly wanted to avoid serker builds bc of the constant downs but if i can find one with some sustain i might go back to dps over venomshare.

Thanks for the reply. And its only going to be the chest piece for now. Just bc i like the appearance. Then again, I’m having trouble finding pieces that match it, its doesnt seem like much goes with it, so not even sure if i’m gonna craft it yet.

I really like the ascended armor chest and I’m planning to craft one in the near future but cant decide on what stats. I probably wont be crafting another one for awhile.

Was thinking of either doing Dire, Soldiers or Sentinels since the vit/tough would be beneficial to any build.

ATM running a condition venom share build and will probably run a condition set up for WvW. But at the same time, conditions have their limits and there are alot of times in PvE where hard phyiscal DPS is best.

Opinions? If you could only have 1 stat armor for a range of different builds, what would you craft?

At the moment i’m just picturing a venom share thief with thieve’s guild/ambush lurking in shadow refuge waiting for some poor unsuspecting victim to happily stumble by.

Travlane.5948:

for thief….you require enough stats to do dmg. u cant just run power or precision and a mix of this n that. thief is so fragile it needs to be as strong as it is weak or it wont balance. it has to be super defensive with evades invis/blinds or run full gank you kitten before you gank mine. go ahead and try run a zerk gear with 0 0 x x x and then tell me you are doing good dmg. lol . video plz?

Your making up stuff here, i actually said the exact opposite of what your asking. Why gear for phyiscal dps that requires 3 stats for dmg when you can stat from condition that only requires one. I’m sure you already knew this but lvl80 gear has 3 stats, meaning that i can have condition dmg on every piece and since i dont have to bother with 2 other stats to dps i could concentrate on defensive stats. If you bothered to check out my build you would know this.

Also skelk venom+leeching venoms scales alot better with healing power then withdraw does.

If you have something against venom share builds… thats fine. but please dont go talking non sense.

Doggie.3184:

frans.8092:

Only perfection is good enough

+5% is still +5%.
Same reason to take this as to pick traits or upgrades that increase damage by 5%. Same reason for every other little bit +%, they all add up.

If 5% wasn’t important we wouldn’t have so many +5%~ boosts on traits.

In PvP you have a limited hp pool making 5% more or less meaningless. With a large enough hp pool then yes 5% would be noticable but not by much. Put it this way, if a fight lasted 1 minute and you did 5% more DPS, you’d save 3 seconds of time.

In pvp, for example, if you did 8k dmg per a hit and the target had 12k hp, it would take 2 hits to kill that target, if you added 5% dmg that it would still take 2 hits, if you added 49% dmg to that.. it would still take 2 hits. If you did 1k dmg on a target with 12k hp, it would take 12hits, if you add 5% dmg to that it would still take 12 hits. But if they had even 1 more hp, then doing 1k dmg would mean it would take 13hits while with with the 5% dmg it would only take 12 hits. Its too variable to say that 1 person doing 5% more dmg would always win, even without probability. It woould more or less come down to who hit who first.

KillaFu.2790:

tattoohead.3217:

If you had 2 equally good players dualing with the same class/build and one was wearing the new ascended armor while the other one was not… It would make no difference the winner of the fight would be the one who didn’t make any mistakes not the one who had 5% more armor and 30 more power.

Well, if you play this game….

If you had 2 exact players with same class/build and play (a mirror image) the one with Ascended will win (without factoring RNG with crits etc)

I’m sure someone could do the math to prove that wrong. With approx 5% difference in stats, first to atk wins.

i wish blind worked on defiant, but it would be quite OP. I think a good compromise would be making it like stuns and removing stacks, so that way blind would still be viable, reliable and thiefs would have a good place in parties.
If blind ignored defiant it would be quite easy without a boss overhaul to almost permablind bosses. If it worked off defiant, it would either take alot of skill investment to keep near perm blind up or atleast work towards deminishing defiant stacks so better CC options could be used.

On the point of venomshare, i’m currently running blinding powder traited for regen. Its a real life saver and makes this build really quite useful. Gives me a chance to ress and a counter for CC.

Travlane.5948:

MyCondolences.8172:

30/0/30/0/0 is the only build its worth running in. I’ve been running it today in that build and it can be amazing, Heals me for 12/15k of my hp and heals allies for 6.5k.
IMO:
Fail skill if not traited, best heal for venomshare builds.

thats if u use clerics. which means you do crap dmg. which also means you have no condi removal and no extra evades and no stun breaks no defense no util invis. nothing. your a sitting duck for 36-45 seconds.

forthose of you whom havent bought a set to make this build happen. heres a tip. DONT> anything u do for productivity with this build will be outdone by EVERY other class.

interesting concept. this is even more deadly than d/d 30 30 0 0 10 d/d full zerk in wvw. no defense at all…. none. and u sit auto attacking for 98% of the time.

What I’m running atm although using skelk venom for heal.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYUQNAoYVlYmiPXaS0E/5EC3DmCqeKvCOo2jbymiJA-jkBBoOCiZQFRjtGsIasadER1qJYeFER1RBATA-w

Not using a single cleric’s piece and i can still do good heals and moderate dps aswell as having excellent sustain. People too close minded to think that condition requires only 1 stat while physical DPS requires 3.

30/0/30/0/0 is the only build its worth running in. I’ve been running it today in that build and it can be amazing, Heals me for 12/15k of my hp and heals allies for 6.5k.
IMO:
Fail skill if not traited, best heal for venomshare builds.

So, done my first tests with this build today. Its really quite tanky. Ran TA and had hardly any trouble. I was also dealing out decent DPS through conditions, keeping blinds up on vets, add some decent healing to party and over all had great sustain.
As i thought earlier, the DPS isnt amazing, but its not horrible, if its a race to the finish then this build isnt for you, but for those times where staying alive and keeping your party alive, this build works really well.

I can say its not the worst elite out there but in no way do i understand how its an elite anymore. Its probably worse then other stuns. Does it even take bonuses from condition duration, stun duration or additional dmg on stunned targets?

There’s alot of stuns out there, without alot short cooldown and longer duration…. as well as cast time. Skull crack anyone?

Ascended armor is a really really really small boost, like +5 for main stat and +3 for secondary. Was only a few more points of armor as well.

Only real reason to make it is
A. You like the looks.
B. You need the AR for FoTM
C. Are a perfectionist and have to have the best stuffs.

The change in the acrobatics line is absolutely horrible…
Firstly let me say that the only build i can think of that would heavily invest in healing power is a venom share build, meaning that the increase in Assassin’s reward will not only be noticable in 1% of thiefs but the can’t even be used with venom share bc of the already heavy investment in traits.

Venom share requires 30points just to get, and another 30points to optimize. With this change venom share builds would have to neglect deadly arts just to have enough points to invest in Assassin’s reward losing 20% CD on venoms and 1 extra strike on venoms.

1k Healing Power Deadly Arts vs Acrobatics.
Assuming they are equipped with 5 venoms including the new heal, thiefs can trigger 20 venoms every 36 seconds.
Healing from leeching venoms alone, you can cast a venom 1.66 times a min, with 20strikes at 500hp each for a total of 16.6khp a min.
Without points invested in deadly arts, you only heal 10khp a min.
Assassin’s reward heals about 135hp a hit, and at 1 initiative/sec would heal for a total of 8.1k

So investing into assassin’s reward would mean a 1.5khp/min increase in your own regen for a loss of 6.6khp to the rest of your party, and this is not including the 800hp you’d lose from 1 less hit from skelk venom.

All this for a completely useless trait. Honestly if you made it a 5point trait in the acrobatics line, i would completely avoid the line, randomly telported in a 600 radius when we are one of the squishiest classes, without a stunbreaker… You’re kidding right? There’s plenty of ground targeted skills that are almost instant death, coupled with a stun, i forgot our job was giving free kills.

Anyways TLDR
Buff to assassin’s reward only affects healing power which is only used by venom share builds, which is at a loss for using it. All other builds would see no benefit in the buff but would have to invest an additional 10points to trait it, making it alot harder to get without severely hurting your build.
Hard to catch, is a piece of trash and should be removed. Hell just change it to a stunbreaker and make everyone happy.

Xaylin.1860:

I’m going to try something like this for PvE (Venom Share and Boon Support). Runes of Speed for the laziness. Could as well go with Might runes (e.g. Hoelbrak) or boon duration runes for even more party support (e.g. 4 Altruism plus 2 Water/Monk).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsaFFpnDNZai/cig7RRh6T9UQ2xqp4m2E-jEyAYLBRySgICgJvhsm9iYxsIasqHMlLRUNA-w

I also thought about 30/0/30/0/10 but I would prefer having the extra Initiative for Black Powder.

Again, i think builds like this are useless. You have next to no healing power so you’re leeching venoms will only heal about 350 per a hit. Fury is quite easy to get and a few might stacks on party wont make a world of a difference. Vigor is one of the only benefits of this build.
Without Exposed Weakness and 30points in Critical strikes your missing out on approximately 60% dmg from traits so even in full berserker gear your dps will be subpar even further so given your poor crit chance.
You also have no real increase to survivability or sustain, 14×350 is only 4.9k from leeching venom plus another 2.8k from new heal so roughly 7.7k group heal every 36 seconds or 213hp/sec. Or about 12k self heal which is only about 20% more then going full serker using withdraw.

Well if venom share doesnt work out for me i’ll just continue playing warrior.
In PvE atleast i see no reason to use a DPS thief when i can just play warrior, dish out similar dmg and not have to worry about dying in 2 hits.

yeah, dont get the point of your build.
Your neglecting most of your dps for a few boons and no real boost in survivability. You also trade your utility slots for a low healing power regeneration. Only useful aspect i can see of this build is near perm vigor up keep but the radius of that is worse then that of venom share and since it activates on steal, only people at melee range will benefit.

Sorry i dont see how that build is at all helpful for party members.
With the exception of vigor, venom share provides everything this build offers but better, aswell as additional heals and more dps.

@Maugetarr, what kind of build are you talking about? physical or condition.
Also i’d be interested in seeing this build and what it has to offer. I dont understand what your saying tbh.

I think we’re also forgetting, that so far we’ve only seen a preview of the changes that come tomorrow. I’m not saying that they’re going to fix venoms or do anything besides what they’ve already said, but until patch rolls out tomorrow we have no idea.

play warrior… and when you feel like playing thief again just type /godmode off

@aLovedhater, happy to see someone else doing a venomshare build. feels good not to be the only one, but on dec 10th as it is now, assassin’s reward is getting moved up a tier so you’ll need to put 30points in acrobats to use it.

actually that made me think, why is basilisk venom still an elite non that stun breakers work?

Travlane.5948:

either way it needs a BIG change…..and its not undoable. i think the F2 F3 F4 are the best way to do it…that way you could replace the utilities and just leave the other traits alone

I was thinking the best way to do it would be adding an f2 and being able to set a venom.
I think they should function much in the same way as Guardians Virtue of Justice.
Was thinking you could have a choice between 4 venoms, burning, chill, poison, torment.
And i think the current venoms should be replaced with new venoms cept for devourer. Like add a stun, condition swapping, etc venom.

@Travlane, they would need to be brought down to tier 1 really. Bringing them down to t2 wouldnt change anything, you’d still have to go 30/0/30/0/0 in order to get quick venoms and leeching venoms.

Possible solutions:
1. remove devourer venom and swap it for a burning venom and over all increase the effectiveness of venoms. Might just be me but i think the power of devourer is what’s holding venoms back.
2. Give venoms an active and passive.
3. Remove venoms from utility slot and add them to fkeys.
4. Mess around with traits so you dont need to invest so many points to make them practical. Either by combing or lowing tiers.

mrmadhaze.8706:

Venoms in the current form are the best way to waste all utilities and traits doing something that necros and engis do just smashing the face on the keyboard: spam conditions.
And a thief class should be a… thief class (spike damage or condi i dont care) not a nurse or a buffbot. Pity devs don’t understand it. Too busy to buff warriors. Godkiddomode ftw!

My builds going to be condi
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYUQNAoYVlYmiPXaS0E/5EB3DmC1n6VwraPupNjJA-jECB4iCik0AUIRMDqIas1gFRjVrjIqW3AzroIa1SBAzyK-w
Is what i’ve decided on atm. Might make some tweaks if i can think of something better.
Also not sure if merciful ambush works with shadow protector so that might be another change.

Going by the replies in this thread no one should be playing thief.
Everything a thief can do, another class can do it better.

Anyways, despite what people say, I’m still going to try out this build and see how it goes. At the moment i have no reason to play thief when i can go /godmode on Warrior and do more DPS and have more sustain then thief. In context of PvE thiefs are the jack of all trades, master of none, they can do a little bit of everything but always worse then someone else. I’m hoping to take advantage of this and make an interesting build that’s fun to play and brings something to the table. At the end of the day, if it fails, my thief will be no worse off then it is now.

Arkantos.7460:

definitely NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
because venoms are USELESS in solo roaming PVP

PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

edit: Actually why the hell would you run a venom share build for solo roaming in PvP!? o.O

Why are you talking about clerics set when I’ve already said I’ll be running a mix of settlers/shaman or Dire depending on how well it scales.
I plan on running a condi build, actually quite close to your Panicond build with a few minor supportive tweaks.

My intention is dungeons rather then WvW so not sure how my DPS will compare to a DPS build but I’m hoping to be useful in other ways, since not all fights are DPS races and If all goes to plan i’ll be able to keep those glass cannons alive and still dish out some useful damage while I’m at it.

Maesk.8753:

frans.8092:

Viking Jorun.5413:

So, something to note from the livestream is that it has a 4k individual heal PLUS 4 stacks of skelk venom which have a 650 base heal, giving you well over HiS’s heal with support opportunity.

It’s not what the tooltip says.

But it’s what the devs showed us on the stream, so….

http://dulfy.net/2013/12/06/gw2-pvp-developer-livestream-notes/

4.3k initial heal x 4 charges of shelk venom which heal for 685 each.
Untraited its nothing special. Traited it could be amazing for venom share builds assuming you dont miss and lose charges.

edit: Traited:
2 stacks of might on each party member
5k heal to each party member + 4k on self
36sec cooldown
1750dmg from each party member(not sure how it scales with power)

messiah.1908:

w8 and see as for now the healing skills doesnt seem too good to use even with a group

They said 7.4k group heal with clerics + 4.3k+whatever healing power adds to that on self. Thats fully traited ofc, but it seems reasonable assuming you dont waste charges.
Although i guess you lose the utilities from HiS/Withdraw.

Anyone else planning on making one on the 10th?

After playing warrior I’m finding it really hard to go back to a DPS thief. Hate to say but warriors are superior in almost every way besides the access to stealth in PvE. But i really enjoy my thief and want to play it again. With the increase in base initiative regen, less necessity to stack crit, and a new venom heal i feel like making a venomshare support thief.
I’m probably going to follow the pandicond build, for condition stacking so i can still provide decent DPS in a group although i might swap the Dire gear out for settlers/shaman depending on how much additional heal i get for the additional healing power.

From livestream and quoted from Dulfy

Thief: Skelk Venom. 4300 initial self-heal and 685 heal for every attack for the next 4 attacks. The heal for every attack can be shared with allies. Quick Vendom will bring it down to 36 CD. Leeching Venom allow you to heal even more. Warrior can get about 20% HP from this shared heal (5.4k HP or 7.3k HP if you equip cleric amulet on the thief).

4310 initial heal
685 per strike with venom, 4 strikes

Would be nice for venomshare build assuming all atks land.
Fully traited 9k self heal, 5k heal to rest of party, 36sec cooldown.

Puru.4217:

Why would a venom even heal you to begin with anyway, at least it should do something to the target.

Thats what i’m thinking. Venoms are meant to hurt your opponent.. It should atleast be a leeching atk.

Really really hoping that they make it leeching and unblockable(or atleast trigger heal on misses OR at worst not lose a charge)

Viking Jorun.5413:

MyCondolences.8172:

I think, if they make the new venom heal makes your hits ignore blind and unblockable… i think that it would make an interesting healing skill. Think it could also use a leeching effect, its a venom after all.

I’ve been saying this since they announced that the thief heal would “change everything”. The only thing I could think of was a venom that had life steal. Life steal would also open up the heal for burst builds as well considering life steal adds damage on top of your normal hits, potentially increasing your damage dealt by CnD+Mug+Backstab+Heartseeker by 2000 extra damage.

I was looking forward to making a venomshare thief when i read the new heal skill was going to be a venom. If they can make this worthwhile i’ll bring my thief out of retirement. If not, i always have a warrior.

I think, if they make the new venom heal makes your hits ignore blind and unblockable… i think that it would make an interesting healing skill. Think it could also use a leeching effect, its a venom after all.

stof.9341:

Well, the heal can remain blockable and missable. If it means it heals more than all the other heals we have currently.

For a longer CD, even when using a trait, it sure deserves some advantage. The instant cast isn’t advantage enough when Withdraw does it too.

Its going to need to heal for 1k a tick without leeching venoms for it to be any good, even then it will need to be traited. 5×1k=5k heal which is still less then HiS. Or in a venomshare would only be 1k more health then Antitoxin spray.
Although traited would be a 1.4×6(8.4k)hp group heal which i think would be appropiate consider the 60point investment.

Venoms should have an added passive effect that either trigger on hit or every so often(which wouldnt apply to party members) and then an activation that works similar in the way they work now.

Wouldnt venomshare builds be better off just using Antitoxin Spray?
Seems to me like it would basically do the same thing… except better.

I’m just hoping they do different appearances for each main stat. Sort of like what they did with ascended weapons(cept looks not color since you can dye armor).

@Agony, nice i checked out that calc, its a good indicator of the dps a build will do.
Although it doesnt show actual DPS, still a good reference.
I’ll probably play around with it some more and see if i can come up with a build.

Empower Allies would be worth investing in but i cant say the same for the grandmaster traits. I’m aiming for a build that can still DPS and i think 20points in either of the defencive lines is the limit before i lose too much dps.

edit:
TBH i’m really curious on ppls opinions of cleansing ire and its effectiveness compared to other condi removal.

Deathspike.1870:

MyCondolences.8172:

Would really appreciate some opinions and suggestions. If i joined your party with this build how would you feel?

I would question your weapon of choice when you swap to the Hammer, but I would not mind that choice. The rather popular 30/25/0/0/15 has better damage, and this build does not bring additional utilities for the team. It will be able to survive more, but surviving is meaningless without your team doing the same thing. I would much rather see you bring (healing) banners or (healing) shouts, and perhaps even +150 power for the team from that same line. Being a more survivable build is fine, but you just might want to consider bringing something for the team instead of selfish signets and traits.

My 2c

Fair points there, I want to still be able to do a reasonable amount of DPS.

Also after watching a video, i remembered why i started using GS in the first place, not for 100b but rather for whirlwind and rush.

Also traiting for inspiring battle standard and hender my dps even more. I know warriors can through out some terrific dps, is it worth really worth it for regen?
And i think shouts in general are pretty terribad. Cure 1 condition on party, 10stacks invun with less then 50% uptime, i’ll already be able to do 12 or so with axe/mace, FGJ seems decent but i dont think 1 good shout makes up for 2 bad ones. Also using the 3 mentioned shouts, it equates to about 200hp/sec casting them as soon as they’re off cooldown.

Delay.6908:

Rip doesn’t hit significantly higher then tremor if your in melee range since tremor hits twice, and im pretty sure if you dont need the interrupt casting tremor (as long as you dont cancel your auto attack chain for the final strike) is a very very slight DPS boost.

Actually tremor is more DPS then Impale/Rip, not including the torment stacks which would be quite hard to compare since the damage would be alot more varie depending on build. EG low dps or high con builds would take more from torment stacks.
Effectively Tremor takes about the same time as 2 auto atks, Rip/Impale is about the time of 4. I did the maths near the top of this thread if you want to read.

Dual Axe is fine, just dont use #5 because it is in face a loss in DPS.
Axe auto atk is great DPS. Offhand really just comes down to what utilities you want, none of them are a noticable DPS gain, calculated 1% at boost to DPS at most.

AFAIK best pure axe build is 30/10/0/0/30 although you can move those 10 points around depending on what you want.

lchan.2169:

what?……you cant stand using someone else’s build, but you wanna ask for suggestions?

Exactly. I’m not claiming to be perfect, maybe i missed something. Its a matter of personal preference, I dont mind tweaking a build if someone can make a useful suggestion, but i prefer not to use cookie cutter builds.