Guild Wars 2

Going to write this in my downtime since it seems so many people are having trouble with the class. I’ll start with staff and go into D/P after. Feel free to ask specific questions on match-ups or further opinions if what I provide doesn’t cover questions.

A little background. I no-lifed the game for a few years as I went to community college. I formed the team SYNC which took 2nd at the 2013 PAX invitational. I co-founded The Abjured with Noscoc and stepped off the team due to school and disagreements about roster changes.

Both builds can be found on my twitch page twitch.tv/narcarsis. Runes are largely up to choice. I prefer Daredevil runes on staff, and Scholar/Pack on D/P while swapping to Svanir against Necro heavy/centric teams. Air/Fire on melee sets (Fire over Blood because it’s affected by percentage modifiers such as Bound, Havoc, and Staff Master while Blood is not

I think staff is the strongest weapon set at the moment, it has a lot more staying power than both S/D and D/P with Staff Master. The auto attacks are on par with dagger and have a fluid/snappy response time in comparison with sword autos. Weakening Charge has good damage but leaves you vulnerable as you can’t evade during the cast time – it’s the ability I use the least. Debilitating Arc is extremely good for avoiding immobilize/burst combos and the main use for the skill – it’s good at baiting burst. Dust Strike is one of the best abilities; against running enemies it can hit twice, does good damage, can proc sigils, and is a fast blind. Vault is the main damage and utility skills. It’s a hard hitting skill, small evade, and extremely useful for navigating terrain to kite on side nodes (mine, henge, quarry, waterfall). It’s also extremely good cleave on downed bodies, asking with auto attacks and bound. Overall the weapon set flows well and rivals D/P in that aspect.

Havoc ties in nicely with Bound and all melee burst. You already have access to weakness and Impact Strike is on a low enough cool-down that you can avoid the cool-down reduction.
Staff Master makes staff what it is. The damage modifier is good by itself but the endurance regen boosts the weapon’s viability immensely. It increases both evade uptime and damage uptime (Bound). I do not think Absolutist’s Resolution is a good trait, as having condition clear dependant on an enemy will get you killed in high level play. Opponents will stop attacking you after a successful condition bomb, and you will end up falling over faster than you can clear damaging conditions against players who know how to cover their conditions (condition clear is last in, first out). Pulmonary Impact isn’t useful on staff as you won’t be focusing on interrupts.
Bound is, in my opinion, the best option for your dodge. Lotus is annoying for people to deal with and procs sigils, but not optimal and doesn’t make use of the percentage modifier. Dash, while good, is ironically easily kited by good players. The dodge will often over-shoot you past your opponent who can about-face as soon as you begin the dodge. Bound on the other hand not only boosts your damage but does a good bit itself. It’s good pressure in fights as you avoid the damage being thrown around.
Deadly Arts traits are fairly straightforward, and I’ll quickly explain Improvisation versus Executioner. Improvisation provides far more utility than any other trait for Thief (and possibly in the game). Double steal and the instant cool-down reset together make Improvisation more than enough take over the damage bonus from Executioner.
In trickery you have the choice between Thrill of the Crime and Flanking Strikes. I prefer the haste and you can often find fury from teammates (Revenant, auras from Tempests, etc). While Bountiful Theft is extremely good I prefer the cool-down reduction and condition clear from Trickster. I’d argue that it’s mandatory, as you need both the condition clear and increased healing to survive against several match-ups as well as team fights. Your cleave and Impact Strike also make up for the lack of stability rip to finish of players (as well as stealth to prevent stomps). Sleight of Hand gives more Mug, more Improvisation chances, and more utility from stolen abilities – as well as the daze.

Most utilities aren’t interchangeable. Withdraw is necessary for condition clear, especially with chill becoming a damaging condition. It’s also an instant cast ability. The new heal would be good, and possibly better otherwise.
Shadowstep is the best utility for Thief (double stun-break, condition clear, gap close/disengage). Signet of Agility compliments Daredevil too well to replace, and increases survivability as both a condition clear and endurance regen. It’s also an extremely good team utility (does the same for teammates).
The last slot is up to choice. I take Blinding Powder in most situations and Roll for Initiative when I need more condition clear. Refuge is obsolete with the amount of cleave and access to reveal floating around.
Impact Strike is extremely good (better than basilisk’s in almost all situations). It’s good CC, with a 2 second daze and a knock-up (sweet looking uppercut). It’s ability to instant kill those who you hit with the Finishing Blow (it bypasses downstate on opponents who you would have downed otherwise) and the knock-up interrupting downstate abilities (barring Thief and Ele) makes it one of the strongest skirmishing and team fight utilities in the game.

Classes to avoid one on one: Tempest and Dragonhunter. Tempest is largely a waste of time and not an easy match-up. Dragonhunter is basically impossible (there is only one Thief build that can reliably kill DH and it’s bad in every other situation).

Thief is fine.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Are you using Daredevil or do you plan on sticking with the general D/P build out of curiosity?

EDIT: after simply checking out Twitch I should say, do you prefer DD?

I use Daredevil, and I prefer it. It’s a good traitline.

bliss.4305:

Caed on Ranger

Don’t speak for me please, I played ranger for a few hours, I’ve played thief far more than I have ranger since patch – and will continue to do so.

Watch the last broadcast for hope ^^

TheGuy.3568:

Sigh… he meant that you can interrupt hs to deny stealth. If it had an evade frame than that wouldn’t be possible. I doubt he was trolling just pointing out a legit issue that would lead to more thief hate if it was added to the game.

It’s oki, some things go over people’s heads.

Reikou.7068:

To be honest, Heartseeker should probably get evade frames.

And no, makes stealth access far too easy.

Thief is fine, does well.

www.twitch.tv/narcarsis/c/6944089

T raw.4658:

And it needs to change.

Even Steal….

That’s a very subjective and touchy subject. Certain skills I can agree with being instant cast (steal being one of them, and it’s not because of bias). My point of view is that huge damage or extremely large CCs should most likely have a tell. Steal’s damage is minimal and its CC is more of a reactionary interrupt (small) than a large control (things like 4s Fears, 3s Daze, Stuns, etc) – all of which is traited for. In addition it’s a teleport, which should also be instant (again, my opinion) in order to escape certain abilities properly or to be able to chain with your own abilities.

The only instant cast I really have an issue with is Mantra of Distraction – and that’s because of Confounding Suggestions, not the ability itself. As I stated I think small CCs can be instant cast, but when you have a trait that turns those into larger CCs for free then it becomes somewhat controversial.

Terrorsquad.4802:

There are infact skill which are instant but cant be casted while CC’d..

That’s a falsity. Anything that is truly instant cast can be cast while stunned regardless of being a stun-break or not.

Edit: To elaborate things like Overcharge Shot and Updraft may seem to be instant cast but have an after-cast that prevents them from casting other things during that time, and similarly prevents them from being cast during CC.

As for the “used to be” that was changed over 2 years ago. So I doubt you’re really referencing something that was changed before most thieves even ran the weapon set.

Edit: Grammar is hard when you’re on a phone.

Kiting a Thief shouldn’t be easy. They have no ranged pressure and mobility is the strength of a Thief to begin with. Thieves pressure is from melee, they have little defence in the ways of stats/boons (no source of protection) which is the reason that they have access to blind to begin with. If you want to kite then dodge the Shadowshot, it’s easy to see. Unblockable is a lesser of two evils, when the alternative is a 900 range instant pull that has no counter and forces an interrupt.

As I said earlier the only suggestion that would work is moving the blind to the strike, and that wouldn’t change much of anything. You can break Aegis easily and since you can’t seem to manage blinds now I highly doubt anything will change for you.

TL;DR: It’s a learn to play issue.

BurrTheKing.8571:

The more obvious solution is to make the order of the attacks different:

1. Trigger the unblockable teleport projectile that deals no damage.

2: Trigger the blockable blind and strike that are now the same attack.

This means that you avoid the potential reverse-pull but also allow players to counter the blind.

EDIT: Or if possible just make the reverse pull not happen if it’s reflected and just have it blind/damage the teef instead.

Your second suggestion is the only one that would work, as the teleport and blind are currently tied together. Same goes with the edit – reflect and block fall under the same category in the game engine.

In my opinion if you tie the blind to the strike it won’t change much of anything, you’ll likely still complain about blinds. There are ways to force people out of blocks or negate the affects. Aegis is easy to remove and certain abilities can stun/interrupt through block (Choking Gas + Basilisk Venom, Warrior Signet, Necro Fear Mark, Guardian GS pull, etc). Unblockable abilities add counterplay to the plethora of blocks in the game – removing them only increase the strength of things like Gear Shield, Aegis, Shelter, etc. The things broken at the moment are those that are un-dodgeable (Taunt, Blinding Dissipation). Nothing should be un-dodgeable/un-invulnerable.

There’s a reason Shadowshot was made unblockable. There used to be no counterplay to using Shadowshot on reflecting enemies. Mesmers with reflect on distortion, guardian walls (yes, people used to use the reflect wall), and anything else with reflect would cause Shadowshot to reflect back to the Thief, teleporting the enemy to them – away from their team – and interrupting any cast they were using forcing them to attempt to cast the strike portion of the ability. You could cancel heals through distort, move people 900 range out of position into your team, etc. There was no counterplay to it and they fixed it in the only way that the game engine allows. The blind/port is unblockable but the strike is still a blockable ability.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Hello thieves! Take some time from instagibing me and talk about the new specializations! Either answer my questions directly or simply post about what you feel is important for the devs to know about the new changes.

Questions:

1. A lot of thief builds got rolled into one (Panic Strike + Exe + Shadow Arts + Venom + Trickery Thief is possible!). How do you like the fact that thieves can do this?

Other classes are allowed to do similar things – seems reasonable enough.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. I’ve heard some people say they don’t like the critical strike line. Do you agree and why?

I disagree. The line provides useful traits; I prefer the new Practiced Tolerance since the creation of Marauder’s Amulet. No Quarter is a strong trait and a good replacement for Executioner. The only somewhat weak traits are in the Adept slot.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. I’ve also heard some people say that S/D is dead and that acrobatics sucks. I tried out a build with Don’t Stop and Hard To Catch and had trouble dying but still got some kills! How do you feel about S/D and Acrobatics? Have you tried the line?

S/D is fine, however Acro is a weak line. The nerf to vigor in addition to Feline Grace hurt the trait line too much, despite having some strong traits (Swindler’s, Hard to Catch, Don’t Stop). Don’t Stop is a redundant trait since thief doesn’t worry much about chill/cripple and immobilize can be cleared with Withdraw, Shadowstep, Sword 2, and Signet of Agility.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. Thief got some new condi traits. Have you tried making a condi build and how did it go?

In competitive play condi thief will not work – other classes do it better. You don’t have the same condition spread or condition damage.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. Improvisation vs Executioner. Which wins for you?

Improvisation.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. Dagger Storm and Thieves Guild got turned into a trick and a deception. Are you taking them now that they can be traited?

No.

It’s Karl* with a “K”. Show the man some respect.

Karl is a viking.

Your D/P CS build is bad.

Loboling.5293:

assassin s/d thieves

Loboling.5293:

viable

What.

Mefiq.7039:

stealth doesnt stack. If i get 2 sec stealth and prolong it with shadow Refuge it will end after 2 sec anyway, Rly fun patch, i can see the trend right now, 1st making shortbow 5th skill unusable due to “no valid path”, now breaking stealth, lets nerf thiefs on HP and DMG and later lets delete thiefs why not, i know its fun to break them patch after patch but there should be end to it.

Just want to clear the misconception of them “nerfing” shortbow 5. The port changes did not affect any port locations, it just prevents you from wasting initiative on a port that would fail anyway. The port changes made in that patch were a quality of life change that significantly improved the game – not the opposite. Stop spreading misinformation please.

PS It helps people learn, letting them avoid questioning why their ports failed and their initiative disappeared.

Just to clear up some misinformation the changes did not change where you could port to, they simply prevent you from failing your ports.

IE: Those “misses” are what you see when it says “No valid path to target”

The game prevents you from wasting initiative, cool downs, etc in order for you to have a more positive experience. If you can port, it will port you. If you wouldn’t be able to port the game prevents you from wasting the resource. The changes are possibly some of the best changes not only to teleports but in the game as quality of life. It’s there to benefit you.

Taking a trap means not taking a different utility. You’re most likely overreacting.

Warhorn/Shouts sounds more fun. Bard play

PS; Any “BM” is just playful.

TexZero.7910:

Except Thief is going to get shouts.

They will be Ventriloquist.

I’d be down with warhorn/shouts Bard specialization

I always forget to highlight my VoDs on Twitch but I had two pretty memorable moments yesterday – I’ll try to comb through and see if there’s any other fun or good plays to watch when I stream (from past VoDs and in the future). Feel free to comment, just thought some people would enjoy:

http://www.twitch.tv/narcarsis/profile

PS stronghold is PvE not PvP

To put it simply I don’t agree with you on any of that. You have automated condi clear which requires no thought, you have a passive immobilize which you only have to touch someone to proc, you can ignore positioning with the 1 point in shadow arts + withdraw. The only thing you have to actively think about is landing steal, and if you proc inprov you can do whatever you want for another 21.5s. The only downside to panic is what you mentioned and the reason I don’t play it – less damage. Everything else the build does for you with little effort to be effective. The only build you listed that takes less skill is turret engi. You don’t have to agree with me – couldn’t care less of you did.

Also sorry for grammatical errors in any posts – typing on my phone

I’ve played the class for a long time, and I can honestly say D/P Panic Strike is the easiest build I’ve played in the game – not just for thief. It’s unenjoyable to play because it requires little to no thought process for how effective it can be. So when asking for a rework I don’t think a lot of top players will look at the rework in the way you want. Nerfing thief in the wrong way will result in pushing them out of the meta – but buffing them would, in my opinion, be extremely unnecessary. The class is extremely strong once you learn it and can outpreform all (most in certain comps) alternatives.

My suggestion is to keep practicing and try to find a consistent group of people to play with. This will let you see where you go wrong a lot more easily than if you were solo queuing.

Good luck,
Caed

[It was too large for one post.]

Dave.6819:

Snip

Thief requires a lot of practice, muscle memory, class mechanic knowledge, rotational strategy (sPvP).

1v1 is heavily based around not only what the class you’re playing can do and the class you’re playing against can do, but who the player you’re fighting is. You learn their habits, how they play, and nit pick until you pick up on how to fight them. Eventually after fighting a lot of different people you begin to get some overlap on playstyles, scenarios, and mindset of each matchup and the cumulation of your experience will let you to adapt to whoever you face. Thief is a class that it is possible to win every 1v1 vs any other class/build if you play properly, and the only other class that I believe can do that is D/D ele – and even then you may stalemate, not necessarily win.

sPvP comes down to how good your team is. If you’re team is not that great you will never be able to accomplish much of anything, as entering a losing fight generally results in your team dying, and you following shortly after. If you attempt to backcap your team will die and you’ll be quickly outnumbered. The flip side is that if your team can’t kill anything then you will feel useless. As you enter a team fight you’ll be the first target since you’re the only threat to the enemy team. As such you will die quickly to multiple players and the only peels that are very efficient in this game are offensive peels.
However once you start going down the path of having a competent team and a good base pool of knowledge in rotational strat (when to rotate, where to go based on enemy #s, friendly #s, your team’s health/condition bar, status of the fight [if you have comms], and map objectives), class mechanics (of every class), and you have developed the muscle memory for quick reactions then you will become a lot more potent than the majority of other classes.

There are things a thief can do that cannot be copied by other classes, and they are (to be honest) extremely broken in comparison. Blind spams are extremely efficient against every other zerker class, headshot is extremely powerful when used correctly and can completely lock down someone in combination with steal (incase they have stability), stealth spam allows thieves to reset regardless of how poorly they play (and in the case of panic strike this is exponentially increased by improv), withdraw is one of the few instant cast heals and removes immobilize (while HiS is the only heal in the game that grants stealth – a very good disengage, and also removed poison, burning, and bleeding), Steal is an extremely low CD for how much it does – despite being traited into. The list goes on, this one is mostly for D/P since that is what I play and believe to be more powerful if used to its potential, however S/D is also a powerful set and has a lot of the same things (instant teleport gap closes, return that removes a condition, a reliable evade frame, stealth access). All of these things + Shortbow (repeatable blast finishers, unblockable poison, evade frames, heavy AoE pressure on downed bodies, and huge mobility) allow thief to constantly out preform the majority of other classes because it has more at it’s disposal and initiative can be a forgiving system.

I still play Critical Strikes D/P (2/6/0/0/6) because I think it is a more well rounded and efficient build that be more potent than Panic Strike (6/0/2/0/6) when played properly. The problem with that is Panic Strike is probably the single most forgiving build that has been in the game. You can play the build asleep and still attribute something and kill other zerker classes with ease (excluding DPS guard, but only on the ‘ease’ – still possible to do). Steal’s 21.5s CD in tandem with Improvisation give you an extreme “I kittened up” button, that has a chance (a good chance) of resetting major CDs. Withdraw lets you ignore occasional positioning errors in which you would get immobilized or burst, not only with the immob clear but the evade frames. And whenever you mess up past the point of salvageability you can stealth and leave. With a competent team Panic Strike is extremely easy to play. Crit Strikes however doesn’t rely on your team as much, puts out a lot more pressure allowing you to kill more than just other zerker classes, and has the same disengage potential. However it is less forgiving and requires you to think more about when to burst, who to burst, which skills to use, your positioning, your teammates’ positioning, and your enemy’s positioning.

There is nothing in this game that requires a macro. On top of that macros are predictable, easy to dodge, and don’t allow any room for reacting to change – playing with macros will make you a worse player. If you’re having problems with doing certain things you can practice on golems in the mists. Also check your ping to make sure you don’t have connection issues that interfere with skill timings. The more you play the less you’ll think about timings and you will begin to focus on what the enemy is doing/trying to do. The game will become more like chess as you will do all of the abilities/timings from muscle memory with little thought.

Good luck, and have fun.

Acandis I think you’re missing the point he’s trying to get at. High MMR matches you with even lower MMR players to offset the average. I don’t think I have ever played with people as unexperienced, ignorant, and just plain unintelligent as I have since the patch (granted not all are like this). People who sit on the points, don’t attack other players, don’t res teammates and only do what is the equivalent of AFK while asking/raging at teammates “Why are we losing?”

Sunfish.5970:

1. SAB
2. Super Adventure Box
3. That thing that was like a mini game inside of gw2….it was like a big jumping puzzle, i forget the name of it.

+1

PS As someone who’s played thief since beta Heartseeker is pretty garbage unless you’re getting stealth.

http://www.twitch.tv/loljumper/c/1817891

Mind you this is when Heartseeker was actually good too

jim.5380:

bountiful theft was granting u as much might as u removed

No.

P.S. It has never granted the full might stacks stolen… ever. The only thing that does is Larcenous Strike.

Improv has been one of the strongest, if not the strongest, traits in PvP for almost 2 years. There’s just not many options to fit it in a build.

They killed streaming when they removed solo queue – it was about the only content that people could stream consistently for PvP. Now matches are tedious and 80% of the time (if not more) they are blowouts for one side or the other. It’s not fun to play nor is it fun to stream/watch. Hard to be enthusiastic about something when it’s a chore to do.

(Same result from other accents)

Teef comes from French Canadians attempting to pronounce “Thief” to no avail… the result is “Teef”.

You’re welcome.

Apologies, my interests lie elsewhere currently. Pursuing things to further myself outside of the game. I can forward this to Toker when I see him – maybe he’ll stream more. I’ll stream when I have time.

Huygens.4075:

Narcarsis.5739:

A tiger doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.

Grrrrrrrrr

Thread salvaged.

This is honestly getting more pathetic with each post…

Mbelch.9028:

Narcarsis.5739:

This is pathetic… Mod can close the thread.

The truly pathetic thing is that you had to post this.

People are talking about measuring kittens, that’s literally the only reason you posted this. (Check your main post, you LITERALLY compared kittens)

I recorded it too, as I’ve recorded many duels. But I haven’t ever posted one where it shows names, especially not against a person who fought multiple times.

Anyways, yes let’s close the thread so I don’t need to look at forums anymore.

I posted it because people were so salty, I find it amusing. I don’t care about what other people think about me but helping the community learn something (and as a side benefit getting amusement from your mini cult) is a worthwhile reason to post.

A tiger doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.

This is pathetic… Mod can close the thread.

Dood I love salt.

This is something that’s been asked for for a while, really pleased to see it as well. Thank you Grouchy

They’ve had is fill the same form 3-4 times and have never done anything with it.