Guild Wars 2

Think you mean shadow’s embrace for stealth condi clear?

Anyways I wouldn’t say BV is the worst elite, it’s just not as attractive from a broad view because it’s supposed to be “elite” not weaker than a 10 second cooldown off a warrior skill (skull crack). As far as dueling purposes and runes go (more than just lyssa have proc’s off elite use) its pretty good. Often with whirling axe, stolen skill from warrior, I find myself being kited while I use it. Obviously people know that skill hurts especially from a power thief, so I’ll use BV, jump in, and although it’s not long 1.5 seconds of them soaking up whirling axe is great. As an “elite” skill I’d say its pretty far down the list in strengths, atleast for pvp/wvw. Still it’s got it’s place in a lot of thief builds.

Thief could use some methods to condi transfer. We are supposed to fight dirty, between stealing boons and stealth I can’t see a more fitting addition that not only compliments our legacy but also deals with a persistent issue thieves have, which is normal means to deal with the condi meta.

I don’t think 2 per condition removed would at all be balanced. We would be spending 50% of our resource, and what if I don’t want to waste the initiative clearing those conditions (short duration, gana wear off soon anyways). I wouldn’t mind it costing 1 per condition cleared, atleast it won’t destroy any chance at counter play just to clear a condition. If the 2nd part costed 0 initiative, +1 per condition removed (up to 2) I feel like it would bring sword far up from its overrated builds. They removed the stun break and now added a cast time, its lost almost everything with no compensation (same story with #3 on s/d).

Sword #2, PR (master trait in acrobatics), lyssa runes, or food (condi removed on heal skill). Other than that I don’t see out of stealth condi removal to be all that suitable. You can get generosity or purity sigils but that’s not a thief mechanic, I wouldn’t call it a fix as much as a Band-Aid for the time being. Atm condi removal outside stealth is difficult and requires a lot more defensive play just to keep things off vs stealth which is upon entrance and every 3 seconds for 10 trait points.

Unless chasing a warrior, I don’t see how you lose anyone with thief underwater. In wvw ruins you can detonate the #5 early to get to corners quick, or just let it do its thing. I think our lack of underwater stealth is shameful but hiding in water is silly enough, not to mention couple HiS with #5 harpoon gun in the opposite direction and they usually lose you (don’t aim at them, it does damage).

Is this on the to-fix list for the upcoming balance patch? Just curious.

@OP

In wvw, yes.

In pvp, no.

Wvw allows stats that are availibile in pve, which includes dire. While this isn’t exclusive to thief, it is what makes their condi build viable.

In s/tpvp there is no condi build for thief, its way to easy to recover from their DoT and it’s just too difficult to manage. It’s not even a skill based thing, its a duration/damage thing, and trying to maintain any pressure with bleeds and torment is just not possible.

P/d (the only viable condi build) has bleeds, vulnerability, torment, and immobilize all on its own. Cripple from caltrops (utility/trait) and poison from 5 in DA if they want. It’s not necessarily needing ALL conditions to be viable, its more just the pressure you can apply and bleeds on thief wear off really quick in pvp making it hard to get those high stacks. Without high stacks bleeds aren’t that effective.

Dagger auto attack also applies poison on the 3rd hit keep in mind. Just forget blinding him and just keep the poison up. If he is honestly hitting that weak just evade every now and then and wiggle him down.

You can also start ooc and initiative with choking gas, then swap immediately to your melee set and attack versus waiting on the cooldown of weapon swap. If you throw like 2-3 fields on the node, it will cover it and unless he removes those conditions at the very end it will last long enough for a weapon swap rotation.

First off, get some vitality. If you intend to do fractals you need some leeway to soak up a hit or 2, especially at 40+.

Also sigils don’t stack, so don’t put the same in everything.

Full zerker is meh in pve, you can get downed rather quick even with good dungeon experience. For thief, throw in some valk or cavaliar for the defences + crit dmg. You won’t lose your hard hits and you’ll gain some extra survivability. After 50% crit chance the rest almost becomes obsolete.

You seem to know the general idea of adjustment in pve(weapon change, trait change, etc), so no advice needed there.

Underwater although not common, I use RFI, shadow’s Signet, and scorpion wire. It’s only 1 situation I run in water for and that’s fractals but you can do w/e in there. The good utility skills are not available in there so just choose skills that keep you afloat.

As for ascended gear, pick something that you feel comfortable with. I don’t mean to sound so bland but its not something you can just salvage/sell/restart. Between making thief, getting 80, and understanding your strengths/weaknesses, you should have an idea of what you’re missing. Generally vitality is more rewarding on thief because it works on condition damage AND attacks, high toughness on thief is a waste in many ways. Don’t go futher than 2400/2500 armor rating on thief, at those numbers you’re likely losing a ton of damage vs gaining little defenses.

Overall you have to learn dungeon mechanics before you invest into full asc for them. I’ve used zerker/valk mixed trinkets and valk armor + zerk weapons. I have 17k hp, 2100 armor and ~3000 attack (varies between 3000 and 3100) with 108% crit dmg. I can hit things but I need to be careful to not be hit by boss attacks or I really get punished. I’m not squishy where I can’t take a hit but I’m not beefy where I can soak them up. Pve is fairly flexible but invest in some vitality to atleast take a hit without going down.

I’ve posted this prolly a hundred times by now.

Karka venom: Transfer conditions to your foe on attack.
Number of attacks: 3
Venom duration 30 seconds.
Cool down: 45 seconds.

Ways to deal with condition meta? Veteran karka’s do in fact transfer conditions on hit, and we are supposed to play “dirty”.

Only then would I seriously pressure my guild leader to allow venom share in our groups. ATM I don’t feel like any of them bring enough to the table to be acceptable.

SA 20 (Patience) gain 1 initiative every 3 seconds you remain in stealth.
Infiltrato’rs signet (1 ini every 10 seconds)
Acrobatics 20 (Quick Recovery) gain 1 initiative every 10 seconds.

D/p #5 + #2 over and over. Perma stealth is still alive, you just have to look kitten while doing it. Also throw in blinding powder on #5 d/p and you get 7 seconds right there incase you get low. I’ve messed around and its easy to maintain assuming no one is around to step in your HS range and reveal themselves.

As far as s/d doing it, I don’t think so. If they have deception skills 20% quicker (SA trait) still no. They can’t spam stealth, so I don’t know what exactly it is you saw but it sure wasn’t a s/d perma stealth-er.

Spider venom: Only use is for healing venoms because it has the highest number of strikes. Otherwise, not all that great even with venom share.

Skale Venom: It’s ok but more so for condi builds and even then its a long cooldown (or heavy investment) to have this apply any real pressure.

Ice drake venom: ….. aweful skill. Devourer venom by far beats this.

Devourer Venom: Good venom skill, especially with venom share. It’s got the potential to make alt+target very strong in keeping someone locked down.

Basilik Venom: Good skill for runes like lyssa (or any rune set that proc’s off elite skill use), and very good in duels. As far as groups go, it doesn’t stack so keep that in mind.

Skelk Venom: Alright in groups but requires an investment to make it plausible. Try it if its’ you’re thing, it has potential.

Liquid Blade.6529:

Thank you guys for the feedback.

I’ve been staring at different stats to use based on the responses, and it’s made me change the traits around as well. I’m still going to have 30 in CS. But thinking in terms of survivability , Acrobatics or Trickery has it’s own advantages. I don’t say Shadow Arts, because I have no use for it with how I like to play thief.
Because of that, I’m dropping any consideration of healing power, since I can see that I would need some investment there for it to work.

With the following gear I’ve gotten: hp=16k, power=2129, crit chance 62%, armour=16.5% reduction.
The gear being Cavalier weapons, Assassin armor, Berserker/Valkyrie trinkets.
Traits: 15/30/0/20/5

I don’t feel like I need to invest more into toughness, since there’s quite a large diminishing return in the % reduction after the initial boost from the weapons. Health, is much higher than any of my usual-ness. Runes/Sigils I’ll wait until the update comes out, since I need more time to think.

What do people think of those traits though? 20 in Acro allows me more health, dodging and pain response, though, if I went 25 into Trickery, I could boost my damage up by 15% with “increased damage per initiative”, which works well with 30 into CS. Which with the additional traits feels more beneficial that 25 into DA.

You can try that, or 25 in acrobatics. Either one (minor trait) isn’t 100% power each time but the major traits along the line have their uses. If you like steal and how their traits flow with it you can go into trickery, or if you like the evasion and extra vitality you can grab acrobatics. The only thing I dislike strongly about trickery is that it has condi dmg as the trait line stat. Other than that the traits within it are really good and have many uses.

I already feel pushed over. They just play warriors and make pve content meant for them. It’s no wonder I can walk into Arah after 8+ month break from there and never die let alone get low. Warrior is easy mode in pve, which seems to be their primary focus in updates and even then most people are unsatisfied.

They really should have a Q and A with known thief players or just general questions in a forum. They call us “dirty thieves”, maybe they feel so bad for making us dung that they don’t want to touch us. A little exaggerated but they truly don’t care about us. Since release I have seen very few attempts to rework thief and even then those things get undone because it gets too much attention from Q.Q’ers. I’m shocked we have retained our 35 second steal cool down for this long.

I’ve asked Viking about his choice of celestial and it was just a few pieces to make AR in his eyes, viable. Zeolots might be acceptable in small amounts but most damage comes from crit dmg being drastically high, and with that, high crit chance to make use of it. If he is 25/30/x/x/x he can’t really invest into any trait line for good sustained healing anyways, so 15 in acrobatics would simply be the best for the additional health and dodges. Boon duration might help offensively(might stacking, or fury from CS) but 25/30 doesn’t give any protective boons so it will basically be dodges/evades.

Personally for dps, I wouldn’t go any further than 15 into DA but near 100% up time on conditions boosting dmg by 10% may be a way to indirectly boost his crits (higher base from that and 250 power). Only reason I advise not going so deep into DA is you already have 30 in CS, unless you like to play pure glass it’s not worthwhile especially for something as vulnerable as s/p without good evasion or condi removal (no reliable stealth from 15 in SA, no PR from 15 in Acrobatics). You need some way to maintain good initiative as well as steady recovery and 25/30/x/x/x has no method to that.

Our healing scales are on the low end, for everything.

The only good heal we can constantly keep up is Shadow’s rejuvenation and that also scales horribly with healing power. The thing you have to keep in mind about healing power is what you’re losing by investing into it. If by going full healing power on a thief, you can go settler’s or cleric’s. Either 1 you’re damage will be aweful, and you still don’t have the beef that a guardian in full clerics does, because their healing power scales really good. The regen stacks and scaling should be slightly increase (no wack a mole) for thief, to where people see similar effects from the offensive support of thief vs support from ele or guardian. Not necessarily giving boons left and right and water fields, but we have venoms, which are hefty investments. Make the investment more worthwhile.

Travlane.5948:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Travlane.5948:

Stabu.1763:

Travlane.5948:

what is your goal for wvw? zerging or roaming?

Roaming!

if u plan on doing only 1v1 or MAYBE mediocre enemies on 1v2 then d/p is the way to go. if u play on doing 2v2 or 1v2 or 1v3 etc then id say p/d is the way to go. basically direct dmg for even 1v1 s and p/d carrion condi for larger attrition fights.

While those are two viable options, they aren’t exactly the only way OP can go. D/D burst takes much more skill and is just as apt at 1vX fights as D/P is, and he can always go P/P if he enjoys the playstyle (and having dual Quips with unload is more hilarious than a ranger spamming 1 with The Dreamer).

i personally dont like d/d bc the only line of defense lies within your utilities.

deathblossom was meant to be the defensive part of d/d but its obviously a total bust.

personally if they turned 4 into some kind of super low dmg but high utility skill on d/d that would have high evade or something it would make the set much much more viable.

dont be decieved by yishis. hes decent. well good. but anyone who looks back can vocalized that they had clairavoyance while playing. also it takes him weeks to make 1 video. when i made my vids i put mine in mostly unedited from a couple of hours straight in wvw. anyways to cut a long story short…all you see is those fights that happen 1 out of 20 times and put them together in a montage making it look viable. when in reality 80% of the time or more you either run….lose….hide…or have so much help from allies. its hard to actually get a 1vx fight and win…. especially with d/d. you need mediocre enemies in addition.

d/d is good … wvw is just not tha best place for it.

I’ve seen his videos. Even he admits to many mistakes of either missing CnD or getting caught up in chain immobilize/stuns and having to back off and recover. He is good but d/d has numerous flaws because the #3 skill has no place in any build, not condi or power (maybe in pve, but this is about wvw). I’’ve switched between d/d and d/p and for the sake of utility and BS’s, I’ve stuck with d/p (mainly because I love #3, dunno how many times I’ve said that but tis true^^).

Viking Jorun.5413:

Did you not see the PvP variant of that Shortbus build I posted a while ago, Ninja? It’s pretty kitten successful at holding point, you just have to get used to not spamming shortbow 3 and landing off point. Pair it with S/D and you’ve got a potent dodge bunker as long as you don’t resort to stealth, which is a last ditch effort when holding point.

It looks a little strange on paper but I can give it a shot. I’d prolly tweak a thing or 2 just for my taste but it looks like against melee, it’d be pretty fun to play with.

In wvw/pve without foods, oils, world buffs (just after reset) or any outside influence I get

3014 attack power
46% crit chance
2180 armor
17,205 health
108% crit damage

I have a cavaliar amulet so I can bump the armor to 2306 and just lose 41 attack power and 3% crit chance (same crit dmg). With foods/oils its a whole different story, atm Im messing with hidden killer because I figure 20% of a non-crit BS seems a bit silly, I want to make sure my BS is consistent and with force and fire sigils, it can hit rather hard even against hefty targets like guardian/warrior. It’s risky to play but I utilize blinds/evasion and stealth to throw my enemy off and try to maintain stealth long enough to get a BS off and kite them some more. I don’t risk spamming aa too long or they may get a combo off on me, I like to dance around them as much as I can and prepare another BS.

The only troubles I get is being pummeled with condition damage which forces me to pull off and recover most times. I have enough vitality to soak up a burst or small flow of cleaves from the train if I get caught, yet can hit the backline real heavy. In pve I often don’t use thief for anything but fractals and I’ve basically retired that so my build for there is a bit lost. I know in dungeons thief has to constantly swap out major traits to stay on top, there is no 1 build for them in there.

Liquid Blade.6529:

NinjaEd.3946:

Liquid Blade.6529:

I find toughness a difficult stat since, with current gear, I’m sitting at 2,500 armor, and I still get hit stupidly hard from some things. I feel like I need it, but I’m not sure what it’s doing.
It’s mostly my ability to heal quickly that keeps me alive in those situations. However, I can see that healing power probably isn’t useful.

Though, I thought healing power only affected yourself – basing that off giving an ally regeneration is healing them through their own healing power.

I’m confident enough to say I’m a good thief. So dodging is second nature. But I’m not near perfect.

What I can gather from this conversation is Vitality is something I should look at the most, because I already have mid Armour without stats.
With Practice Tolerance though, I miss out on either 1) Gain Fury at 50% health or 5) 10% damage with pistols (only use on certain bosses though). I’m just concerned how I can keep decent fury, if I were to say not go 15 into trickery.

The fact that everyone shys away from non-power main stats worries me. I’ve seen that Full Assassin is slightly less (or slightly more with Ascended?) than Berserker damage. However, Could Assassin’s be more useful if I’m pooling around different stats?

For example: Valkyrie weapons, Assassin Armor, Berserk (with vitality) trinkets. That would give me predominant power, but assassins would pick up the crit chance due to the lower amount of prec on trinkets and none of valkyrie.

Assassin’s is the alterantive to zerker ONLY IF you lack precision. Precision is the primary stat on assassin’s, and for some builds it helps a lot. Crit chance is a lot easier to achiev on thief than power, because the cs tree is full of goodies while the DA tree is more filled with maybe’s. I wouldn’t go any further than 15 into DA unless you’re a venom spec, just because of how much CS boosts your dmg.

That’s interesting. I understand 30 in CS, just because. Well duh. It has heaps of benefits.
25 in deadly arts is for the condition damage, damage boost (which because most of the time a mob has a condition, it works. Then it’s a straight 250 into power. If you don’t put an extra 10 into DA, where do you put it for the extra Omph in your build?

If I go fully into CS, I get executioner. 20% extra dmg + 100%+ crit dmg is huge and is what lets me dish out heavy hits without standing around too long. Pulling off heavy hits means a general loss in sustain so the sooner I can get it off and dodge out the better.

Major traits can always be adjusted, but when looking at the stats of each tree CS is much more attractive with crit chance and dmg. I don’t have full ascended yet and without power food or anything into DA I can top 3k attack. I run a lot of valkryie pieces as my personal flavor because I can get enough crit chance from traits and zerker weapons. As far as defences go, I’m usually prone to stick with 15 into acrobatics even with D/X because it can help me avoid the train of a zerg as well as getting out of large AoE fields.

Liquid Blade.6529:

I find toughness a difficult stat since, with current gear, I’m sitting at 2,500 armor, and I still get hit stupidly hard from some things. I feel like I need it, but I’m not sure what it’s doing.
It’s mostly my ability to heal quickly that keeps me alive in those situations. However, I can see that healing power probably isn’t useful.

Though, I thought healing power only affected yourself – basing that off giving an ally regeneration is healing them through their own healing power.

I’m confident enough to say I’m a good thief. So dodging is second nature. But I’m not near perfect.

What I can gather from this conversation is Vitality is something I should look at the most, because I already have mid Armour without stats.
With Practice Tolerance though, I miss out on either 1) Gain Fury at 50% health or 5) 10% damage with pistols (only use on certain bosses though). I’m just concerned how I can keep decent fury, if I were to say not go 15 into trickery.

The fact that everyone shys away from non-power main stats worries me. I’ve seen that Full Assassin is slightly less (or slightly more with Ascended?) than Berserker damage. However, Could Assassin’s be more useful if I’m pooling around different stats?

For example: Valkyrie weapons, Assassin Armor, Berserk (with vitality) trinkets. That would give me predominant power, but assassins would pick up the crit chance due to the lower amount of prec on trinkets and none of valkyrie.

Assassin’s is the alterantive to zerker ONLY IF you lack precision. Precision is the primary stat on assassin’s, and for some builds it helps a lot. Crit chance is a lot easier to achiev on thief than power, because the cs tree is full of goodies while the DA tree is more filled with maybe’s. I wouldn’t go any further than 15 into DA unless you’re a venom spec, just because of how much CS boosts your dmg. You can always mix things up between zerker assassin valkryie cavaliar, w/e but zerker is stronger than assassin in the end.

And 2500 armor is ok, but don’t bother going futher unless you intend to lose even more dmg. Always experiment and find a healthy balance but I personally never go further than 2300 armor to keep my dps high. That’s coming from traits/trinkets to supply toughness, still maintain 100%+ crit dmg.

Cynz.9437:

they are nerfing clone generation on dodge… i wouldn’t lv mes tbh

as far as thieves go, i guess we either will have to remake our gear or join the condi train…

For a patch that’s been pushed back to march, I’m sure that’s not all.

Idk the full patch notes, let alone even a sizable fraction of them but I keep hearing rumors that Mesmer is getting some hefty nerfs. Not sure if its pvp/wvw/pve specific or if its even true but its passed my eyes enough to raise suspicion. I’d wait till the balance changes are officially released before making any long term class change.

Same way I felt right after the cd of steal was reduced to 35 seconds. I made a steal spec that many guildies laughed at, and suddenly I was killing his “unkillable” guardian in spvp. As much as I like running an underdog spec eventually it gets attention (nothing stays original forever) and whether im the 1st or 25th person to run it, eventually it’s just too stale for me to bare. I’ve tried for weeks and months trying to make a good p/d build in spvp, and it just don’t work.

End result I’ve stuck to being an “assassin” despite my attempts to break free. Even if I only use stealth every so often, I don’t feel all that unique. I’d be willing to try some bunker spec if I can get a good idea (seems to revolve around s/x and 30 into acrobatics) but I don’t think it’s something I’ll enjoy.

Yeah, 15% crit dmg isn’t much to be loseing but its the crit chance that hurts. I wouldn’t mind to spec 30 into acrobatics for the defensive out-of-stealth style but I hate how they have barbarian’s instead of knights. In Acrobatics I already get a lot of vitality, and add PT from the CS trait line and I get plenty of health, I need toughness. I know anet mentioned more stat amulets in pvp incoming so maybe I’ll get my wish but for now, I rather play with live grenades and hope I don’t pull the pin to early (d/X zerker assassin spec). I’ve messed with pw and its either too slow or puts fourth more risk than stealth spec’s do. I’ve never tried pw in wvw because of how poorly it performs in pvp, and with roamers being out and about I feel like it is much riskier to play.

That’s the notion I’ve seen with pw thieves. If they catch you with say BV or DV and manage to spam some pw it kinda hurts but often I’ve seen their attempt fail with a simple break stun from SS and they wasted all their burst letting my jump on and beat them to a pulp. Honestly I havn’t seen many pw thieves in wvw, but I’ve seen a good share in pvp and they don’t do well at all. Maybe it’s because im in a tier 1 server and the most I see is “zerg here, zerg there, snooze”. Im just glad my guild isn’t big enough to zerg.

Taking celestial out only lowers the condi dmg from bleeds by 23 dmg over 3 bleeds (same duration) but bumps the direct damage of each bomb by 23(mix of zerker valk and cavaliar). The extra power also benefits your other skills. I can kind of see the healing power use for AR but it seems like a heavy loss in direct damage just to make it viable. I tried that food btw, it is really nice^^ Makes dealing with condi spammers soo much easier.

Viking Jorun.5413:

dominoeffect.4216:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Do you like killing people or living? This is important.

How about both

Blasphemy! Haha, just kidding.

If you don’t like stealth, OP, go ahead and give my build a try:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsaVlYmSO3dS6E/5Eh3jyOWzqVgmdP4q81KA-j0DBYfREREgaAiWGgQAM5pIaslhFRjVNDRVLoqkYaXQ6XwmeQ2eAGfLrWKAsFGB-w

Just curious, why celestial?

That health is per target hit. It also includes things like choking gas and caltrops (both utility and trait). Its significantly lower because of that but requires an aggressive play style while the warrior one is just… passive.

If you’re going for damage and looking at your gear, don’t bother with healing power. None of the stat combos that offer healing power give you a good bonus to any dps stat. Either primary stat is healing power, or the healing power item doesn’t give power at all, only item to give healing power and crit dmg in pve is celestial and thief doesn’t work well as a hybrid.

If you want some sustain without losing your dps Valkyrie and cavaliar can work. Don’t go strict valk or cavaliar, you still need some crit chance to make use of crit damage but there are some nice ascended items for thief like

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Godrock_Amulet
Or
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vine_of_the_Pale_Tree

That still give precision and crit dmg and power, and a little bit of vitality. At level 80 that’s 180 health (10 health per point of vitality) per trinket. Thief has medium armor, but the lowest health pool (along with guardian and ele) so vitality naturally is more useful. Thief can get high crit damage very easily and with stat sets like Valkyrie and zerker and traits like Practiced Tolerance (7% of prec added to vitality) you can top off 17k hp without losing your damage. Go into acrobatics and you get even further.

Overall you can keep your dps and survivability in pve, dodging hard hits and recovery is just learned along the way and isn’t gear based really. Practiced tolerance is a really really good trait if you have a lot of precision and not much vitality, letting you focus less on vitality gear. You can mix in cavaliar with some assassin’s but even with 25 points into DA, power is only a secondary stat for assassin’s and cavaliar so you lose quite a lot of power. I’d recommend some zerker or valk if you have enough precision, where power is the primary stat. Crit dmg helps a ton but percent’s scale better off high base numbers. If you feel you die too easy, try 15 into acrobatics for the extra evasion and vitality instead of trickery.

Interceptor.2653:

NinjaEd.3946:

I think your super power is being hell bent on making sure everyone just runs your build in wvw and forget about reality.

It’s a good thing that just because you think something, doesn’t make it so.

In reality, I encourage people to play whatever they like in WvW. Thieves can go for wombo-combo backstabs, condition based P/D or D/D, venomshare, Acrobatic S/P or S/D, or whatever they like. I have played most of them. Unlike PvP, WvW is a mode for everyone, where even weird builds can work pretty well.

Sorry if you prefer a game mode with explosive stat combinations and consumables.

Indeed, it’s very unfortunate that I prefer the game mode where I get to do all of the customization that this game was predicated on. Truly, I have no taste in the eyes of mankind.

Sorry, but you’re no “career thief”

So… what have I spent 750+ hours on? Is my life a lie?

750+ hours makes you a career thief? I’m done lol, I don’t even know what to respond to that with, I’ll leave you to your silence.

As for the amulet discussing, crit dmg is significantly less in pvp than in wvw. Gear certainly sets your build apart from one another but I feel like what really puts you at high dps is your traits and rune choice in there. 20% crit dmg from zerker or valk amulet(+jewel), or 30% from traits(not including special major traits for weapons like axe mastery or honed axes)and various amounts from runes. Amulets are like a foundation in pvp, wish they had more variety though like ACTUAL valk (power/vitality/crit dmg, I have enough prec) but I suppose there is a reason they went with toughness and healing power :/ Hope the crit dmg change doesn’t affect pvp too much, our damage is risky to pull off as is.

Interceptor.2653:

NinjaEd.3946:

Traits can’t be swapped in combat, and you can’t know what build you’re up against until you are up close to see their weapon which means you’ll be in combat unless your enemy is just terribly new.

You can overcome some of these personal problems with experience and practice.

pvp

I don’t care about PvP. You can ask one of the other ten people who play, if you need advice on how to play your profession in a mode with different rules and missing functionality.

Multi use skills don’t necessarily solve multiple issues.

What they do is allow you to react to more than one situation with the same build. Shadowstep has a stunbreaker for that Warrior stun chain, condi cleanse for battling a Necromancer, and/or a long-range teleport for chasing or escaping. It is the bee’s knees if you’re trying to make a build that’s pretty good for a lot of things.

Ss definitly helps and its almost chipped into every build I run for the sake of flexibility but it isnt clearing conditions as efficiently as shadow’s embrace or even PR.

I feel like everyone has a superpower. Yours appears to be the ability to state obvious things while countering something that nobody actually said. I’d prefer to have x-ray vision, personally.

Im afraid you need eyes to make use of x-ray vision. Your “solutions” are obviously stated, and also drastically misinterpreted in how you display them.

I think your super power is being hell bent on making sure everyone just runs your build in wvw and forget about reality. Sorry if you prefer a game mode with explosive stat combinations and consumables. I bet you use the protective booster too, 5% is too good to pass up in your eyes. You either post something from another build and think they arn’t losing something else by using it, or you post an example based on your meiocre build that prolly hits like a wet noodle and can’t go further than a 1v1. Sorry, but you’re no “career thief” just because you waste time thinking of ways to troll in wvw.

Interceptor.2653:

This isn’t about builds, this is about people saying ridiculous things. You said that “[Thieves] lack heavy condition clearing”, which is demonstrably false. We have tons of access to condition clear. I listed basically all of them, and your objections were all of the “butbutbut my damage/build!” variety, as opposed to actual reasons that Thieves can’t run those clears.

NinjaEd.3946:

So the solution is run full condi clearing?

The solution to your particular problem — which is something else entirely — would be to add some flexibility to your build. You can do this through:

1. Slottable traits, which can be swapped on the fly,
2. Food, which takes two seconds to switch (even in combat), and
3. Multi-use skills that solve more than one problem (like Shadowstep, which is condi/stunbreak/mobility all in one).

That’s it. I can show you where the toilet paper is, but you have to handle it from there.

Traits can’t be swapped in combat, and you can’t know what build you’re up against until you are up close to see their weapon which means you’ll be in combat unless your enemy is just terribly new.

Food swap isn’t possible pvp, try again. Also trait/utility/weapon switching isn’t allowed.

Multi use skills don’t necessarily solve multiple issues. Their use is more extensive than say a flat stun break but it doesn’t mean you’ll line up to solve 3 problems at once, and its a long cool down even for having 2 parts (only 1 of which clear conditions, and its the 2nd part). Ss definitly helps and its almost chipped into every build I run for the sake of flexibility but it isnt clearing conditions as efficiently as shadow’s embrace or even PR.

frans.8092:

NinjaEd.3946:

You said im making bad choices in my build, when really its just choices.

That was about condition clearing, if conditions are a problem the build needs more cleansing, if you don’t add it in, while having trouble with conditions, you are making bad choices. I think that was the reasoning.

So the solution is run full condi clearing? I don’t get where the reasoning comes from, you can’t run into a fight and assume your enemy’s build, it will always differ. Against a guard or warrior (running back to their group) they’re likely heavy on defences and condi clearing is likely the least of your worries (can’t swap trait lines on the run). I want to kill them asap without them just waltzing through althought guardian probably has the hardest time trying that. Either way I don’t wana stick around long enough for more straggelers to appear, I’m in the mood to burst em.

Suddenly on the way to a camp I run into an engi who is condi spec’ed. I have moderate condi removal, heavy burst, sustainable evasion. However that’s not even half the issue, engineers are pro’s at outlasting in a fight and I have to either get a combo off immediately or limp away filled with conditions. These things get even much worse when they ambush you and you don’t have the upper hand to swap utility/elite/healing skills. It’s not a bad choice to run burst and its not a bad choice to run heavy condi removal, but you can’t have everything neatly nit. Staggelers and roamers are everywhere, there is no 1 build to deal with them w/o various problems along the way.

Mystogan.4157:

i have condi removal in stealth. also i disagree. i play both thief/ necro and necros have no trade off. spectral has stun breaks, wells have stun breaks even minions, and signets. every build for necro CAN use a stun break if needed or wanted. its not even a choice for thief. venoms is the one of the few ability niche that does not have a breaker. on top of that thieves are super squishy even if you put point in to tough or vit.

Stun breakers aren’t supposed to fill each utility skill type, its about fulfilling the various playstyles. Venom’s really aren’t a playstyle that thief lives/kills off of. Portals, evasions, and for w/e reason being stunned and suddenly going ape-kitten on the guy (haste) as a surprise. Venoms are utility skills and it would make 0 sense for them to behave as a stun breaker. We could use better stun breaker skills or traits (uhherm, Hard to catch) no doubt and venoms certainly need a buff or rework for some (ice drake venom) but a stun break just isn’t the answer.

Also when I see a necro’s stun break wurm, I often kill it and laugh as they lost their get out of jail free card. They often place it on far ledges that get them to safety, they aren’t likely to throw it in the middle of the battle spot and expect it to stick around for the right time.

Geiir.7603:

NinjaEd.3946:

Coronit.9432:

Link to Anet playing fractals?
Never saw or heard something about that…

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

Hope you laugh as much as the guy narrating this tragic tale in the background.

That’s just sad. A P/P thief with scorpion wire and signet of shadows in fractals?! This just proves that they have never really played thief or understand anything about the profession…. :/

I sincerely doubt that guy is a part of the balance team but still they chose him to represent thief on an official ANET PATCH PREVIEW. I mean if they care so little about their image for thief just throw your hero warrior in there and have him not die over and over. How is anyone supposed to look forward to a patch if the preview just has the camera dead or downed all the time?

TBPH, I don’t see why we consider pve an acceptable measure of balance. All the events and dungeons are just dps focused atm. Granted thief has more to worry about IF they get hit in say fotm 40+ but its shown that they can solo things. It’s also shown ranger can solo bosses like mai trin, it doesn’t mean ranger is op, it just means the player knows the boss mechanics and easily avoids them. Also warrior clearly dominates the pve realm, it’s an easy mode class in an easy mode environment what more could you ask for?

Balance should be focused on wvw and pvp, that’s where profession balance should come from. Failure to make content in pve that requires things other than strict dps isn’t to blame on the profession it’s to blame on the event. Thief can BS for 17k+, doesn’t mean you nerf them it means you make stages or penalties to dealing damage at certain times. Guardian tanking grenth or even champion karka in southsun, or thief tanking legendary risen priest in arah, doesn’t matter. Pve is just a giant scale where things 1 shot you at a certain point, nothing inventive let alone balance worthy.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Ninja, that wasn’t what I was saying at all. I, personally, am able to survive much better stealthless than most people can with stealth. I’m not making any claims for what is more survivable overall.

ahh misread. I also forgot when people say “most thieves” they usually mean “most thieves are baddies” hence cannot live without stealth. Stealth-less thievery is fun you got me there.

Coronit.9432:

Link to Anet playing fractals?
Never saw or heard something about that…

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

Hope you laugh as much as the guy narrating this tragic tale in the background.

1. You probably run into some mean people. I havn’t had the misfortune of being kicked for being a thief, but I don’t doubt that those people exist. Dunno what to tell ya.

2. Same deal. Even with the horrible set up of 4 thieves 1 Mesmer in tpvp, no one “kicked” one another let alone left. We fought and without question, had our buttocks handed to us.

3. Similar to the first.

4. Often spvp has to take some hard exclusive hits for the sake of balance. In spvp all classes have less options, for the sacred ground of pve and wvw, they don’t want everyone to suffer so some things are done separately even if it makes for an uncomfortable transition between game modes.

5. We aren’t he only ones with stealth. More so, it isn’t that affective even if you were to place it right in front of an enemy veil, because even without stealth you can trigger it, some roamer can come by and ruin it. It’s not that great of a trap for wvw.

6. People cry as long as there are people listening. Just look at the “why do people complain?” thread and see the mockery that is made of them.

7. not sure.

8. Generally along the lines of what the thread is about.

I think that’d be a judgment more than a fact that steathless thieves survive better than those who use it. In a 1v1 it may be close but a 1v2+ it starts to lean more towards stealth just because most people are chickens with their head cut off and the thief can lurk in their stealth while they wait for the right time to pounce.

My s/tpvp build I only use stealth for the small condi clear but i never spam it nor stay in it for more than 7 seconds (bps+blinding powder). I can say not abusing stealth is hella fun but when overwhelmed it helps to have that reset or escape to live and fight another day. Also i dont use sb in s/tpvp but b 3 spam is just funny to watch haha. More often than not they die moments later because the evade duration wasn’t enough to get a utility skill off cd for their escape.

Ezekiel.1985:

Leeching venoms provides a very decent heal, yeah.

Don’t waste your time on skelk venom (the healing skill #6 venom) though.

1. It’s underwhelming compared to leeching venoms, especially with its cooldown.
2. It forces you to give up whatever other heal (be it stealth heal or signet of malice)
3. With these things in mind, YOUR VENOM CAN MISS AND YOU DON’T GET IT BACK.

Point 3 absolutely makes it ridiculous and useless for me. I would be MAYBE, MAYBE willing to give up malice for it if venoms didn’t ****ing get used on miss/block/evade/whatever. But they can and do.

True on skelk venom but it does have a base heal outside of the attacks.

I think if they made each venom hit count per swing, vs per target it would be a HUGE buff. For example, you use sword and swing at 3 people within range. You manage to hit 2 people but the 3rd person dodges or blocks, still consumes the charge without your consent so to speak. I think if they limited it to 1 strike per swing, so if you used cluster bomb with a venom and only 2 people of 4 got hit it would consume 1 charge onto 1 person, that way you can utilize leeching venoms a little better.

Just a thought.

They’re alright but the issue is it only affects soo many people for so little attacks. In s/tpvp it can be useful because the player count but you also have to strongly invest and even so, healing power on thief scales HORRIBLY.

You blamed poor profession design on a name choice?

I don’t get what your aiming at with that, aside from the fact that thief has a hard time staying alive without stealth so they should be renamed Ninja or assassin depending on their build.

I wouldn’t say stealth-less thieves die quick or are even weak. But compared to a thief who uses stealth they are easier to kill because anet made soo many stealth skills on them, they are almost supposed to work with it. It’s a bad concept but you look at the way stealthless thieves work and the way stealth thieves work, it’s much easier to lose target and hide in the shadows (not referring to the healing skill). Those with a higher skill set with thief can comfortably work outside of stealth but neither one is better than the other for how much they have to invest to make use of it.

Even so, it isn’t all that it’s hyped up to be, and people lose sight of that when they get ganked so.. they come here.. and vent, when its a simple l2p issue that’s forced on everyone. There is no introduction to stealth counters, you kind of get dumped into this pool of piranhas and are expected to fend them off with no experience. Some people make it out and no longer have the issue (ppl who play thief a lot, people who do their research on skills/tactics to counter them). Others just demand nerfs because it’s easier to nerf something than it is to balance it. I think we as thieves have seen the ugly truth behind that.

Issue with condition clearing? You get condi clearing.

Issue with damage output? Its very clear what stats you’re looking at.

Issue with stun locks? Keep a break stun on you.

Issue with stealth? There is a HUGE list on things that “work”. None of them are labeled as a stealth counter however, so its much harder for people to know them without asking or seeing them in action. That’s why people who play thief know their counters so well, not just because they know how skills work on their end, but they find people who have answers to their actions and start putting the pieces together. Until people ask or anet (or someone respectable) puts out a tutorial with each profession using counters against stealth targets we will never stop seeing nerf posts.

Interceptor.2653:

Food swapping seems rather undecisive for a build […]

This is why I do better than other people; finding edges at the margins that others don’t take advantage of.

Still doesn’t work in spvp though. Thief in s/tpvp is highly overrated, which is where most of my concerns lie.

Interceptor.2653:

NinjaEd.3946:

If I’m a power build and I want more damage and more condi clearing, I have to make a choice. I can’t get high spike damage and still clense myself of all DoT and be beefy with high mobility. it doesn’t work, no matter how one looks at it.

Who the heck are you arguing with? Nobody is saying any of this stuff. Builds are about choices; I’ve said it myself a hundred times.

You said im making bad choices in my build, when really its just choices. No add ons to that, I can’t spike and have the survivability of a sword/x acrobatics thief in wvw group fights. I’ll lose one thing or the other in various amounts, it will still be there but not in its fullest. My build has condi clearing, it doesn’ have the kind you speak of though because I went for more offence. If I went more defence I would lose that offence, in the end I won’t be where I want to be and that’s fine. Feeding my skills I already know of isn’t solving my problem as much as changing it.

Food swapping seems rather undecisive for a build, even if it can be used in combat. Especially if you go from wvw to pvp where there is no food. Don’t mistake it for a lack of coordination, I can follow a zerg and clean up a camp with TP open while I’m looking for a weapon skin, its just I don’t think food is meant to be flexible to that kind of degree let alone reasonable (some foods are 8+ silver each)

If I’m a power build and I want more damage and more condi clearing, I have to make a choice. I can’t get high spike damage and still clense myself of all DoT and be beefy with high mobility. it doesn’t work, no matter how one looks at it.

If I want really high dps, I want 30 into CS. 40 points remain. Now I want mobility with substantial evasion, 15 into acrobatics at the least (leave it at 15 so I don’t need to do X-X values). 25 Points remain, go into SA most likely because the toughness as well as more condi clearing as well as some extra might. That’s just an example, not what I run. And I’m using dagger because backstab is quicker and safer to get off than trying to get pw which can be negated by stability as well as blind (for the stun part) and even retaliation. I can use SoM to help cover some of that up but now I don’t have the mobility of withdraw nor the condi cleanse of it.

Point being, I have to choose what I want and I’m not going to be able to get all the flavors at once. I don’t think anyone on any profession can, there is always going to be some soft spot in a build. It’s not poor decisions its just plain and simple decisions.

By losing damage to get them, yes. You’re also talking about a rune set up, a food set up, and specific skills, basically leading to a build set up. Not everyone follows the same boat, some people actually go far into CS or SA and don’t use sword. Some people don’t use withdraw with lyssa or scented pultry soup, some don’t use BV. It’s not all lined up for all builds to have your version of “heavy condi clearing”.

Interceptor.2653:

NinjaEd.3946:

~2200-2300 armor 16-17k health. IMHO health is better for thief than heavy toughness investments. Why? Because condition damage ignores toughness, and we lack heavy condition clearing.

Some of us lack heavy condition clearing. Anyone who uses a Precision-based build can use Lyssa runes, and “remove all conditions and gain all boons” is about as heavy a condition clear as you’re going to get.

Withdraw + poultry soup is also a really strong condition clear if you can fit that heal into your build. Also, IS/IR hasn’t gone anywhere if you have a Sword, and anyone can slot Shadowstep or Signet of Agility. Reliable omni-condition clear is not necessarily limited to Shadow Arts.

SS is a 50 sec cooldown, I’d prefer using it for when I’m locked down by stuns vs using 2 stun breakers to clear conditions. I have used it in the past but to me its a more valuable stun breaker than condi clearing, simply because it moves you (position is key on thief)

I strongly dislike sword. It isn’t fast nor is it very fun to play imo. Kudos if you’ve found the enjoyment of it but with s/d or s/p I dislike it outside of pve. Signet of agility is just … lame lol. I wish it was a stun breaker vs endurance regen, endurance is much easier to get than stun breaking. I’ve actually been looking into the scented poultry soup food (100% 1 condi clear on healing skill), as I can control it a little better and for skills like withdraw, Its quick. Lyssa runes don’t fit into every build, even for how good they are. Not saying condi clear is absent on thief, simply saying they need to invest to take care of it while classes like warrior guardian ranger and even engineer don’t need to worry as much (stronger condi clearing skills, some of it passive, higher health pool/defence rating or both.) Still vitality is more suitable than going into something like knights and having 3k+ toughness but very little health for the sake of the condi meta.

~2200-2300 armor 16-17k health. IMHO health is better for thief than heavy toughness investments. Why? Because condition damage ignores toughness, and we lack heavy condition clearing. If you want to avoid melting you need a good amount of vitality. We have medium armor so its not too bad there, although a good investment into Shadow arts really makes a difference even if it’s 20 points.

If you go into acrobatics or use valk gear, you can usually get a good enough vitality amount. There is no need to sit on 20+k health unless you have something special up your sleeves with valk and acrobatics full blown.