Guild Wars 2

I’ve been running healbomb bunker builds very similar to Dirame’s and having some fun but I can still get smashed fast by a D/D that knows what they’re doing. Thieves give me a lot less trouble but good ones can get me.

Do you guys have any advanced tactics for dealing with a good D/D? (I mean the kind that are built probably berserker amulet but you can’t land any real damage on them because they’re either under a reflect/projectile absorb or dealing too much damage glued to you with CC to recover from and healing the small windows of damage you do land.)

The thing about the “esport meta” engineer, such as condi nades, and I find this similar to power ranger which is my main, is with very fast reflexes and proper counters I can compete with a lot of builds 1v1 but as soon as it’s 2v1 I’m insta downed and can’t get away (on eng, ranger is troll city and peace out to reset and return or more usually rotate).

This is most prevalent with what I now consider “the usual suspects” that are making GW2 PVP really boring for me in general to the point of wanting to quit:

Hambow
D/D Ele
Any flavor of thief, they’re pretty much all the same for how you have to deal with burst.
Shatter mes that knows what they’re doing

Every strong comp contains 1 or more of these classes which I consider the true meta right now. If a skilled one of them adds on me 2v1 it’s usually insta down even in a strong bunker build like heal bomb setup with cleric amulet was my last favorite. (Mediocre or unskilled I can hold out 3v1).

I got annoyed at the cheapness of these builds and switch to condi turret myself as I like the concept of turret in most games and it’s really hard to argue with the tactical advantage of something that can continue to deal 4k power damage while you’re spreading condi’s seperately (see the DD scenario above, you can still only throw one attack at a time usually and can’t if you dodging) turrets can also greatly help to remove downstate for you without stopping to stomp as you’re continuing to pressure standing players which is huge.

Like I would like to continue lying to myself that there is a skill level of 2v1 with engi bunker builds but it’s only going to be versus the brain dead/terrible or greatly outclassed gear setups in WVW.

Therefore it’s either cheese to compete with the builds listed above or become one of the above (and I hate playing every one of those for style/cheapness reason).

For myself if I continue to play this game it’s probably going to be turrets because they are a style I enjoy if the cheapness does detract from the fun somewhat, there’s hardly anything meta out there that isn’t cheap (If you tell me mesmer pets, stealth/evade spam, and warrior defenses aren’t just as cheap as turrets you’re sorely delusional)

The class with player skills I can respect totally is D/D ele in fact which is also the strongest class capable of everything in this game (mobility, cleave, spike, heals, several counter/invuln modes and stomps all in one package) however I don’t believe a class should be capable of being a monster with unlimited skill ceiling either. I do not like the style of D/D personally and won’t play it, I just want to stick with my eng and ranger but I’m a little discouraged now after hitting pvp rank 80 and champion hunter and seeing the real structure of most pvp matches out there.

Benjamin.7893:

Because you’ve only been playing pvp casually. Many bought this game for the esports they promised before release.

Do you see esports somewhere? I certainly don’t.

That’s true, I could care less about esports.

You’re better off with the MoBAs if that’s what you’re looking for since they’re 100% focused on that and GW2 has this giant PVE game and scope attached to it.

For large scope MMO PVP this game is still the best though. Dev teams can only be stretched so thin.

I’ve PVP’d in most every major MMO and the PVP here is the best, mainly due to the physics and counter mechanics. Here even with a good build you still need skills to pilot it, even in case of very passive builds such as PU mesmer, Turret engi etc. and they also tend to have a lower skill ceiling (while a low skill floor as well) even though I will rage against them in mapchat for lulz.

In EVERY mmo there is imbalance but here just for a random example hambow warriors have an easy counter of a competent thief spamming blind. You will never escape imbalance but this game has the rock paper scissors concept down the best IMO.

The major flaw is the brain dead stupid queue system that sucks afk players in and gives them dishonorable ban for being alt tabbed, screwing up rank matches with 4v5s and generating player ire.

However other than that it’s great! You have multiple S modes, multiple WVW etc which is rare and hard to implement in MMOs properly in the first place.

I don’t mind Skyhammer either because it’s just another environment placing the favor on CC instead of the typical bunkers and decaps. They would probably be best to add another more traditional fighting map and lessen Skyhammer in the rotation that way than get rid of Skyhammer. Or at least make the hammer room larger and less prone to gimmick kills is all.

I would hope they add some maps where the focus is a bit less on point domination and tone down eles a bit since they can do the job of every class in one would be my only balance related suggestions.

Team fortress has a good example with the cart push mechanic of a non domination PVP mode.

So every other game out there with a matching queue system does not suck players into a match until they click a confirm box.

People do not want to watch a queue for five minutes and do nothing else so they will alt tab, attend to real life, get the pizza at the door, etc.

The ranked match should not vacuum players in and then saddle HALF OF RANKED SOLO Q MATCHES with someone afk and conversely kick a large amount of the player base for having a life beyond watching a 5 minute queu and hand out needless 3 day auto bans.

This is the worst queue system I’ve ever encountered in a game and the fix is simple:

IF THE PLAYER DOESN’T CLICK ‘JOIN MATCH’ HE OR SHE IS NOT FORCED INTO THE MATCH AND THE SYSTEM GOES TO THE NEXT PERSON IN THE QUEUE. NO HARM NO FOUL

Seriously ANET fix this ASAP.

Epidemix Revenge.4862:

If I play support bunker guard yeah I am gonna go wherever the biggest fight is. But as a bunkerish MED guard or any other kind of dps role..

I feel like I am a noob if I do or a noob if I don’t

Right here is a little of what I was talking about in my last statements. Yes it’s great to have a boon spam at mid but it is greater to keep home ticking points during that whole fight so if no one is defending home you may need to change your tactic. Your boons will help at home at the same scale they do at mid. 1v1 you’re booned 1v2 it scales up equally when people start showing up. Don’t put the scaling over the current tactical need of the match.

My advice to the OP is not to listen so much to other people.

They’re usually:

-Clueless
-Giving advice 10-20 seconds behind the constantly evolving situation that is PVP which is useless advice.
-Not taking into consideration the type of build, mobility, decap, support, burst etc that you are and giving you “advice” (petulant whiny criticism) for their build.

Have map awareness, see what your enemies are doing. If they’re constantly probing/flipping home and you’re a slow bunker, stay home.

If they’re crushing your team 3v3 at mid or higher, rotate harder as their comp is just better than yours and you’ll have to outrun them on caps and point opportunities.

Pay attention to feed scenarios. Don’t feed the enemies, and capitalize on your own if you can.

Pay attention to one time only point games such as NPC kills Tranq etc but not to the point where you’re behind on caps and spending a quarter of the match on a contested one.

Press the advantage when you’re ahead on caps, break the fortress door, assault the lord a little. If you’re behind even just faking it as a distraction for a bit (shoot the base, shoot the lord and leave) it can sway a game if too many noob defenders rush to stop you. (Provided your team is not stupid and caps instead of rushing to help.)

My personal pet peeve as a glassish roamer is bunkers that immediately leave a point after I just helped them cap vs. enemy situation where mid or home is constantly assaulted. I end up bunkering that point way more than I should as a roamer because no one proper is doing the job and I know an enemy is going to be right back in respawn + travel time seconds.

That comes from a cowardly mentality that even though they are in a bunker build or at least a heavy assault they want to cling to at least a 2v1 instead of doing their real job and preventing walk some on caps till the team can get back. Even I can do this on power ranger quite often, and even 2v1.

sminkiottone.6972:

Imo Signet of the hunt is only good for the initial burst, but is it worth ? I prefer to use Traveler runes instead and gaining that extra util slot for something less situational.

It’s an easy yes for me because:

-Pets lack enough damage and at 25% slower they might as well not be on the board IMO for how many hits they will actually land on a player. Traveler only works for yourself.
-Runes can make a huge difference but traveler runes don’t help a power spec very much beyond the speed.
-Of course the burst is helpful and it’s on a short CD.

Totally agree with the rest of your post.

Justine.6351:

I want this patch cause it will be SOOO good for the ranger. Im a little concerned it might end up being crazy OP though and put the ranger in a spot where people will hate them for it like people hate thieves currently.

In my mind, R.I.P. thieves, your reign of terror has come to an end.

It will not be crazy OP but put LB/GS power rangers more on the table instead of being a joke that people are embarrassed to get killed by currently (which troll aspect I will miss XD). If people hate a class that means it’s effective in some basic way.

Thieves will still be able to blind spam us down for the most part. Speaking for a power spec. However they will not be able to walk away free from a stun/maul burst will be the major change. The RF tracking won’t be as long but it doesn’t matter since they always move to one HS leap/pistol sneak distance anyway and the faster burst window will be better overall since it can free you up for a second action faster is the real key.

The net result will be that good thieves won’t be able to get away with making so many mistakes and cover them up with blind spam and stealth heals as they do currently. Good thieves will still have the advantage of dictating terms of the fight at close range countered by rangers dictating at long range.

I specialize in killing thieves because as a power roamer and guy that starts on the edge of combat setting up with a bow I have to kill thieves or be useless.

I went through many iterations of sic em builds. Ultimately I can’t live without LR and SoTH (for my speed AND pet’s speed and occasional extra burst) so there is only one slot up for grabs in power IMO. This is now the condi clear sig for both that and extra stun break. It is ultimately more useful than sic em because:

Not all thieves even use stealth, and the good ones are going to avoid a pet. We’re talking s/d and perma evade both that can juke a pet forever effortlessly. Even P/D can by virtue of not having to be close to a pet to attack in the first place.

The lesser thieves I was going to kill anyway without the help of sic em. If a thief is actually vulnerable to sic em he is vulnerable to getting outplayed with the weapon sets alone for the most part I find if that makes sense.

After the patch update my only optional slot will change to signet of stone because the toughness and ability to trade burst in the thief’s face will be far more useful than a maybe pet boost from sic em only applicable to 3/4 of thieves, and far more useful in non-thief scenarios as well.

Eggyokeo.9705:

But I don’t want use my pet as an extra utility button, i want it to tear things to shreds and I be the utility. I like to run build where my pet is the majority of my damage and i focus on cc so and keeping the pet alive so it can do the job that i want it to do.

Then you need to play Mesmer.

“Keeping it alive” by summoning a million copies of it and that bypasses the poor AI as well when you can continually dump pets on the enemy’s head.

Personally I wouldn’t mind getting our 30% damage back and having pets only as a short term extra summon that also does real damage. This way it would help bypass the AI problems if we could resummon them more often. They could be faster and higher range on the summon.

At PVP rank 78 I feel I’ve hit a real plateau with builds but this looks like just what I need to break into the upper competitive echelons. Thanks for posting this.

Fully agree with every point except longbow 4 which I find very reliable as long as I watch my elevation angles carefully. Poor pet AI could be greatly made up for with extra pet movespeed, damage or summon cooldown reduction (cough cough mesmer).

I’d add GS 1 lack of damage also. For a medium armor wielding a heavy weapon GS1 should hit harder than most 2h’er as the tradeoff for the ranger is generally in the other class’s favor with everything else being equal. It’s a glass power weapon and Maul is nice but easy to evade without a ton of setup work.

Dead Muppet.9718:

It being your easiest matchup… I doubt it. Stealth is the anti kiting ability. Latency screws #3 #4 on longbow. not to mention trying to move spin and use these abilities.

Yeah I don’t know why these guys pop out of the woodwork with this nonsense about thieves going down to one RF and it being their easiest fight. It’s like they want to keep power rangers in the gutter.

DeceiverX.8361:

Dead Muppet.9718:

Longbow ranger specced full glass will lose 100% of the time to a thief of above average play.

Thieves also have better mobility, better escapes.

There is no real reason to take a glass longbow ranger over a thief.

This is simply false.

It’s almost entirely dependent on the ranger’s skill level. If the ranger is good, he will actually very likely win. RF’s stealth tracking with a proper spec can in all honesty 100-0 most thieves, PBS can cancel out a lot of their essentials (CnD/HS through BP) and force them on cooldowns with utilities/steal. Pets can force them from SR, and a quick-reaction barrage can cause them to maintain low health, forcing them to either waste the skill or waste its healing effects. I find thieves one of my easiest matchups on my full glass longbow ranger.

Dead Muppet is right unless you’re fighting average or below average thieves. Good D/P thieves can keep you blinded at all critical times simply by spamming 3 and followup with BP. S/D can keep you from ever finishing any burst chain, and P/D can continually CND off your pet and just lazily open from stealth with occasional shadowstep to break your burst again.

Yes I know and practice all the techniques described above with additional ones of my own and it is just too easy for the thief of above average skill. I run maximal condi removal with blind removal on dodge AND condi removal on suvival traits and it still only costs them 3 initiative to stick to me and reblind for the garden variety D/P, or a shadowstep #2 for the rare s/ds, or a cnd off pet for the p/d.

My reflexes and jukes are top notch as well.

As someone else said in another thread you will never see thieves complaining about rangers on the thief forums. Glass thieves trump all other glass power roamers with the possible exception of a good shatter mesmer (utility, quite a bit of invis and misdirection, 10k bursts from maximal range through pets which the RANGER desperately needs to be able to compare to.)

I can duel a good thief for several minutes but LB “burst” just isn’t great enough for the window you have usually. I realy wonder about the type of thieves you’re fighting if you claim otherwise and suspect you’re facing wvw builds not the competitive scene in spvp.

Try this build if you want to ignore the meta and go power:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJARTjMq0yaHLGsw1agDhqdJ8BjArAw972CV9FXlWF-TJBFwAEeCAVLDA4SAMf/BA

Damage? The parrot is an absolute monster, paired with cats and pinning your victim down with muddy terrain ensures both pets can deliver that damage along with a bit of might stack while you plink away and dance around them with well timed stealth and KB.

LB opening → Stealth → muddy terrain → Pet F2/Swoop/stun/maul as needed.

Focused? You probably have the best disengage in the game besides thieves with the most condi clear, on demand condi clear, lowered recharge on GS for swoop, blocks, and swiftness on weapon swap. Use this to rotate points, or just leave a midpoint battle and get out of combat quickly to recharge and get back in there. Make the enemy waste their best combos and time in a pitched mid battle on the ‘squishy’ ranger as they all clear right away and make them drop target while you LB stealth and heal or circle back.

Need to bunker a bit? Enough toughness dodge and natural life along with muddy terrain and stealth target drops to keep your opponents from getting a good combo grip on you while you delay a cap and you can certainly win a lot of 1v1s in this build and stop that cap cold.

LB knockback is excellent for decap at the same time. If you have to leave the point it’s easy to come back and KB them right back off it so their gain is minimal. Granted not a bunker build but just describing the tactic if you need to do it.

Otaking.4675:

Aylpse.6280:

Just tried soloQ, I was told to kill myself by my teammates, whats worse is I’ve had suicidal tendencies since I was 7.

What build ARE you running and what are you doing with it? Specifics would help.

Also, of course there is no reason to measure yourself by the opinion of a bunch of basement dwelling kids in their 5th year of college pursuant to a 4 year degree with an overinflated estimate of their own self-worth.

I am sure you have worth outside the sphere of video games. You seem like an educated empathic sort (or extremely skilled troll XD).

Really who gives a F about video game leet proz in the first place. Right click block is a very easy way to stop tactless slobs.

Aylpse.6280:

Just tried soloQ, I was told to kill myself by my teammates, whats worse is I’ve had suicidal tendencies since I was 7.

What build ARE you running and what are you doing with it? Specifics would help.

Aylpse.6280:

Fluffball.8307:

If all PvP builds are failing for you, it sounds like you need a refresher on the typical PvP meta in general. Do you know the typical roles and strategies? Are you able to succeed on other professions?

Also are you playing hot join? It can be extremely difficult to get anything going on hot join because it’s just a clusterkitten of randomness. You might have the best build ever and know all the right strategies, but you’ll get steamrolled when the “zerg” comes to take your point. If you’re playing hotjoin, never do that again and do solo or team arenas.

Yes, I’ve been doing a lot of hotjoin trying to find a good build, soloQ is less stressful? o.o

Edit: I can confirm my build is part of the issue, no damage in it.. trying the build posted here.

In hotjoin you find things like:

Overabundance of thieves because it’s the easiest class to ignore the actual domination game with and just look for burst opportunities so poorly skilled players can feel better about themselves. I am willing to bet that most of your losses in hotjoin revolve around thieves since they have a huge advantage over bow use and predictable melee like a pet and some of our movesets.

Teams of pubstompers or friends on voice chat that go spectator so they can all switch to the same team.

People joining their own game with their alt account so they can knock you off your stomp and rez themselves when they’re in trouble.

SoloQ players tend to cut out the shenanigans like these and play actual domination builds to focus on capping points instead of trying to troll you with ‘doolz’. Namely builds that don’t sit in stealth for 7/8th of a match.

I play power competitively and effectively so build isn’t everything esp. in YoloQ. Much of it is your comfort zone with your chosen build especially your keybind setup. I’d much rather have someone comfortable and effective with their personally designed build on my team than a bad player that thinks a build in the meta list is going to win the game for them.

I would recommend picking a build in the style you like and making it more defensive than you may be used to if you’re still having trouble. Learn to be effective this way and then put damage back into it once you figure out what defense you can live without. My current power build is all defensive traits and zerk amulet for instance in order to stop the condi meta cold, yet still having enough damage to be effective with the right pet setup and combos.

Hotjoin can still be useful if you really understand about the abuses going on that I described above and realize if all the players on your team are so weak against the pubstompers that they are getting picked off in seconds there is nothing you’re going to be able to do to last against 5 players with 3 points capped and nothing else to do but lie in ambush outside of the spawn. I have no qualms about deserting a silly hotjoin and getting a new one if that’s the case, waste of my time. It’s a faster way to practice new builds but once you get comfortable say 2v1ing with it, you should be spending time in arena instead for sure.

In SoloQ you can still find some pretty terrible players on your team since many times PVE’rs that just want their dailies can’t find the hotjoin button in favor of the Arena buttons but overall it is much more balanced environment.

I’m running SPVP only and a LB/GS build without MM.

Since it’s made of totally defensive trait lines, I run zerk amulet.

I don’t look at LB as a primary source of damage but an opening tool to soften up someone with some pressure and vulnerability stacks, regain position with invis/kb, or get/protect stomps for myself or my team. It is very effective in these regards.

The actual kill is usually done through pets and a GS charge in with Swoop/daze/Maul. I get much more mileage out of GS skill recharge trait than Quick Draw I’ve found.

I realize this isn’t ideal for plinking from the back of WVW zerg, but if it’s just tags anyway is sigil of fire and barrages along with some cleave dips in from GS that bad?

I wish barrage wasn’t so slow…but the MM line is something I can live without even as a frequent LB user..in SPVP at least.

I am of course for LB being buffed especially read the wind should be default behavior. If mesmers can so much more damage at 1200 range through walls and around corners I don’t think a buffed LB is going to hurt the game much. It might put power rangers on more even footing with thieves in effectiveness is all and thieves tend to make most other power roamers obsolete in this game which is kind of boring.

The LB certainly does suffer from trait bloat though, and I don’t know of any other weapon that has so many traits just to buff it to something useful. They should all at least be consolidated into one trait and free up room for other ranger buffs, but even better LB itself should be buffed.

Regarding Sig of Beastmaster, I find it needed in more glassy X/X/0/0/0 focused builds but it’s one of those things that should be kept as a tradeoff of some kind. LB is just a weak weapon as far as damage goes.

In short the problem is more with LB than the trait line, although it wouldn’t hurt to remove trait bloat.

-Rapid fire is not burst, just look at your combat log sometimes. The game adds all those little hits into one big pretty number but their rate is not much better than AA if even that.

-Barrage is too weak, slow, and the self root is very dangerous.

If Barrage were made more of a normal aoe such as found in thief shortbow that you could fire off and move with some more damage or lowered CD, Rapid Fire made actually DPS or burst worthy and Read the Wind default behavior it would go a long way.

jcbroe.4329:

RoyalPredator.9163:

At part of mesmers, they do serious ranged spike damage.
Sunday morning in EOTM: Chased a mesmer who had ~75% HP and wanted to hide from the zergfight they lost, but when he realised he got trapped beside rocks and falling, he turned around and tried to brake out. It was like 12k HP loss in 2 sec for me.
If I weren’t at full health, it would be a one hit kill from range.
I’m lucky he didn’t spawned that GS spinner clone that usually makes ~8k dmg meanwhile I’m dodging it!!

12k Hp Loss… And I’m not a glasscannon…
When will we make that dmg with our “Rapid” Fire?
After these moments; Mesmer is the superior ranged DMG.

Do they sacrifice anything? Or anyone else?
Even Stealth has no rules apart from braking out of it on will.

Speaking specifically for mesmers, they sacrifice virtually all of their condition removal to do those kind of numbers, and really don’t have much to begin with either.

That being said, I’m not disagreeing with you, and if rangers are supposed to be the maximum single target ranged damage relative to mesmers being the runner up competitor, than I sincerely believe ANet has a lot of work to do, and not just on the longbows skillset, but on the fundamental idea that there is a huge efficiency disparity between trying to operate a pet at melee/skirmish range versus 1200/1500 range that needs significant addressing.

Yes I too am tired of seeing 8k-12K spikes at 1200 range from a few pets. They also fire around corners, through any wall or obstruction and continue to damage and lengthy cripple at this range.

Condi removal isn’t a huge sacrifice on a stealth based class. If they can’t land attacks to apply conditions in the first place…yeah.

Mesmer is the real ranged winner in GW2, not ranger.

Chokolata.1870:

Birds are better vs thieves and mesmers because you have a limited time frame for your pet to damage them and they do 2 attacks at once. However, they lose damage because of that stupid swiftness buff cast time. Cats are better vs warriors, guardians and other classes with higher defense and no stealth.

I have, however, started using utility pets with a lot of HP more, like spiders and pigs. Pigs are awesome!!

I love the idea of extra stealth ranger with trusty uber pig Siamoth and joke about it in mists sometimes as besides Rangering my other interests include Trolling and long walks on the beach but trying to pick up a feather mid fight and use it is just going to get me killed in 90% of PVP situations. T_T

Benjamin.8237:

Want to win EVERY 1v1 you fight?
0
2
6
6
0

Take the pet damage trait, go with two birds. Take pirate runes. Go shortbow and Sword/Dagger. Fire + Air on each weapon. Survival of the fittest and Barkskin. Lightning reflexes and mud trap thing. Take the signet that passively cleanses conditions.

You are super tanky, have tons of sustain from fire + air and your birds will 1 shot thieves.

I’m trying this with LB/GS in a power setup and EB instead of Barkskin since I feel you can never have enough condi removal these days esp. in the case of blinds and cripple/chill in the ranger life.

Seems like a pretty good style but have you tried it with cats?

-You have swiftness already from 2 skirmish so bird swiftness is somewhat redundant.
-You’re running Muddy terrain to help cats land hits.
-Cats on stationary or crippled targets are going to wreck birds dps imo due to vuln stacks and their own bleeds.
-I’ve sat and observed the bird vs. cat rate of attack and it feels like double on the cat side to me. This is vs. stationary target.
-I know the bird has one 300’ range attack vs. the cat’s 130 but it’s still just one attack and then they don’t have one in place of swiftness buff.

jcbroe.4329:

Actually, the entire sword animation would have to be changed so that the autoattack doesn’t act as leaps anymore, which is the reason you can’t interrupt them with a dodge (leaps are the only skill you can’t interrupt with a dodge, presumably because you aren’t grounded).

This would require a skill team, balance team, and art/animation team to “fix” a skill that is arguably 50/50 love-hate as far as the community expresses.

Understandable that the weapon has a learning curve and even then can still be frustrating, particularly on the new map today, but even then, it takes a lot more work to make what most people think is a “simple” change than what people give the process credit for.

It would be simple to just speed it up, it’s basically a clunky heartseeker and thieves have no problem dodging out of those because they are done with very fast and back on the ground.

Speeding up sword one and sword two would go a long way.

-the barrage and rapid fire can line up nicely with quickness from pet swap as well.

DesertRose.2031:

Otaking.4675:

What about vulnerability stacking? Ranger is really good at this through LB esp if paired with sigil. Are there other classes that can do it better?

25% = 25% of everyone and every pet’s bonus damage. I don’t think that’s insignificant.

If you’re using a Longbow you need to be 1000+ away from your target, meaning you are very restricted in where you can place your banners and spirits to affect the whole team, you won’t benefit from Empower Allies, and your allies won’t benefit from your Spotter, and you won’t get any Might stacks and Fury your team creates during a fight.

Maybe I’m missing something but how is a LB Ranger “really good” at stacking Vulnerability?
All I can see are 10 very short-lived stacks through Opening Strike, 10 more from Longbow #2, and another 5 very short-lived stacks if you have Remorseless from Longbow #3.
So, expect for the first 5 seconds of a fight a LB Ranger inflicts on average less than 9 stacks of Vulnerability, and less than 12 with Remorseless.

A Warrior gets around 9-10 from Rending Strikes, an Dagger/Focus Ele gets 5-20 from 5+ points in Air Magic, dunno how much a Thief gets from Sundering Strikes, but I guess somewhere between 5 and 10.
A grenade Engineer gets over 20.

I don’t fault your logic but a few points…and I come from a purely PVP background so I don’t know the higher end PVE details.

-Cat maintains an average of 5 vuln (BM traited and MM condition duration trait) and 5 stacks of bleed by itself.

-I found I could stack up to 23 Vuln in the first five seconds of a fight in the heavy training dummies in mists using cat and sigil. Granted sigil of frailty is equal to every class but it goes well with LB’s 10 hits of vuln applying rapid fire.

-After this opening I’m going to swap to GS in my build for might stacking purpose along with pet swap etc and jump in to receive buffs anyway, then maybe cycle back out, depending on fight reapply LB stuff, repeat etc to maintain those stacks.

-1 barrage and 1 rapid fire takes 9 seconds anyway to swap back into melee effectively negating the AA penalty at short range since AA doesn’t fire while channeling anyway In other words I might as well point blank channel two abilities and swap back to GS after closing range so as not to lose DPS time moving around.

I was maintaining avg of 12 but my current build has very little condition duration with only a 2 in power.

How common is vuln stacking on those other builds in PVE, just wondering about the relative opportunity cost as well.

What about vulnerability stacking? Ranger is really good at this through LB esp if paired with sigil. Are there other classes that can do it better?

25% = 25% of everyone and every pet’s bonus damage. I don’t think that’s insignificant.

-I don’t care about PVE, in fact I never PVE and just today I finally learned my skills in PVE after levelling to 80 by purely SPVP. It’s not the only character I levelled that way. Any crap you throw together is possible to work in PVE for the most part I find.

-I don’t have much problem with sword #1 except it is a tad slow. It’s very nice for sticking to engies for instance but when a thief stealth drops you, you fly past them , giving them your back most often which gets you dead. Otherwise it’s ‘ok’ for PVP but a bit too slow.

-Sword 2 is atrocious unless you are just using it for another bunker dodge. How to pressure a target with a sum total of zero forward movement? If it moved forward first, then back you’d keep the same evasive properties and also be able to use it to stick even better and kill things. Simple camera flip and drop target and you have the same initial evade if you wanted, or just hit them first and leap away and stay leapt. I don’t really understand why anyone thinks back first is better in PVP unless just using it for bunker dodge #2.

Most enemies counter you after you leap in not before when you just leapt to distance to give them extra telegraph time to see you coming.

Look at my greatsword, look at me leaping in and killing that guy, now look at your sword, now look at you wishing someone would come by and kill that guy for you, now look at my greatsword again. Now it’s a diamond. Now I’m on a boat.

In the meta too if you can power roam and counter a thief roamer, your meta usefulness went way up IMO. You can be at home/mid almost simultaneously and stop/protect stomps easily from range and maximize vulnerability at range before going into a victim with GS in this build. It is a ton of fun.

I am having the most success in SPVP in a power setup using PVT amulet and a BM centric build with might stacking.

I have tried so many variations of power LB setups specifically against thieves because they are rampant and the ranger’s greatest counter class IMO since easy blind application and stealths really screw bow. It doesn’t matter what you can do against other classes if a thief can press three buttons and you fall over dead so you have to design against them IMO if you want to play power.

I have switched off wolf/spider to cats due to the best bleed stacking. Wolf fear and kd are awesome but cats have the most precision and bleed trait to be able apply the most pressure and you can rely on none of the wolf cc so the bleeds have the most probability of being useful consistently among RNG evils. BM line maximizes the effectiveness of Sic Em and is the ranger’s answer to the ease of thief stealth in a power setup. The slight healing boost helps.

Wolf fear vs. thieves becomes a niche situation in which you’re getting a couple seconds hoping pet is in proper position for refuge, or desperate on the ground or trying to save a teammate. It’s sort of planning for failure against thieves in a power setup as I usually kill them now before the refuge.

The cat bleeds are there all the time and especially for every sic em. I also use vulnerability sigil which on ranger stacks up FAST due to rapid fire/opening strike and provides cover conditions for the bleeds from pet. I’m considering dumping sigil of battle for on swap poison is the only change I’d make at this point.

GS is a must, I did a very long stint with sword/dagger and wh and only if you are a bunker I believe are those any good to reset the fight with total healing with evades. Otherwise, their evades are just putting off your death for a few seconds. weak hits and putting you out of position a lot get you killed in a power setup vs. thief as well as you fly past a stealth drop to present a perfect back target. OH Axe locks you in place on #5 which is also a death sentence usually in power. Condi/bunker sure, but not power. You need the burst from maul, you need the positional and daze to land it, and you need the block to counter blinds mainly.

In any zerker setup you cannot be fast enough to mitigate and dodge every single thing so your margin of error is too low to be useful for long. 6 seconds of sigil build protection is not enough either as warrior/ele have this kind of thing for days and heavy armor or massive healing ability so you’re way outclassed on that front. A thief has 15-18k with stealth for days and you have 18k with a blockable stealth on 9 seconds…you’re a glass duck.

Upon making the setup changes below my success against thieves rose dramatically.

I am killing a LOT of thieves out there and my counter classes now are down to the best condi classes such as necro, strong p/d thieves, and sword warriors applying torment to stop LB kiting (I really can’t stand that they put torment in the game to weaken kite centric builds further). I absolutely love this style of ranger and will keep making it as useful as I can in spite of the meta.

I don’t really care about e-sports level of competition and tactics primarily involving dumping mass aoe and pets on a point because that is what made Warhammer Online a crappy PVP game in general, though it had many shining moments. I will play the way I want to play.

So if you’re a casual PVPer like me and just want to kill thieves as power, give this one a try. I seriously went from dying to most of the above average ones to hunting 95% of them down. Of course I’ve killed a lot of thieves in zerk setups but never any that were well above average.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRnMqQLL2KIGsAXLGAQoWFAtnhWIGePtVbRfxVptA-TJhGwAIeEAf2fAaZAAXBAA

Viking Jorun.5413:

Otaking.4675:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Otaking.4675:

If they would reverse sword 2’s directions and take out all the delay from it and speed up sword 1 a bit it would be an exceptional weapon.

You could burst an enemy with it from point blank AND leap back instantly after with sword 2 and also execute dodges in the middle of sword 1 chains.

Instead of telegraphing that you’re leaping back with a huge delay, and then a second telegraph if you want to get back in their face.

You could use it for mobility a heck of a lot better too.

Reversing the direction on the sword 2 chain is a horrible idea. You can still use it for mobility with either a macro to 180* your character or by simply flicking your camera 180 degrees, and it’s important that the backward leap is on the primary attack, as it’s meant for a gap-maker, to give you a break and choose either to get back into the action or swap to your ranged option and kite.

…which would still be completely doable on a reversed sped up sword with the added bonus of a point blank hit first and without the obnoxiousness of camera flip, unless you were intending to double leap away, which would make more sense. Not a valid counterargument.

Anytime you need to make a macro or flip camera more than 50% of the time to use a basic attack I’d say that basic attack is a fail and needs a redesign.

Don’t be naïve. You have obviously never stepped foot in a PvP arena if you think that leaping into an enemy will prevent an attack from connecting. It’s a defensive measure, not an offensive one. Reversing those two skills would be a detriment to the sword in PvP. Period.

Don’t be obtuse, with a faster animation it certainly can. Thieves do it with inf strike constantly. You could also preload the first hit. It could easily be a juke measure, and both offensive and defensive which is superior to either instead of a clunky defense as you seem to be so satisfied with. Just like inf strike on thief sword 2.

Not many in this thread agree with you that sword is fine.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Also this statement mae me lol…right off the top of my head: Hambow throws fire field under thief, thief leaps to hambow’s face with steal, attack didn’t connect. XD

I tried the sb/trapper variants with a couple tweak for yoloq (namely drop spirit for entangle) and the trickle down effect doesn’t work that well since the team is largely uncoordinated more full of roamers and will separate instead of stack leaving this build hanging without enough personal defense. Things did melt very well with a ton of effective aoe conditions so I can see the effectiveness in TPVP comp but I was left high and dry too much. I went back to my regular power roaming in yoloq with better success.

Thanks for making this thread though I didn’t have a good reference point for what people think of as condi meta ranger and now I do.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Otaking.4675:

If they would reverse sword 2’s directions and take out all the delay from it and speed up sword 1 a bit it would be an exceptional weapon.

You could burst an enemy with it from point blank AND leap back instantly after with sword 2 and also execute dodges in the middle of sword 1 chains.

Instead of telegraphing that you’re leaping back with a huge delay, and then a second telegraph if you want to get back in their face.

You could use it for mobility a heck of a lot better too.

Reversing the direction on the sword 2 chain is a horrible idea. You can still use it for mobility with either a macro to 180* your character or by simply flicking your camera 180 degrees, and it’s important that the backward leap is on the primary attack, as it’s meant for a gap-maker, to give you a break and choose either to get back into the action or swap to your ranged option and kite.

…which would still be completely doable on a reversed sped up sword with the added bonus of a point blank hit first and without the obnoxiousness of camera flip, unless you were intending to double leap away, which would make more sense. Not a valid counterargument.

Anytime you need to make a macro or flip camera more than 50% of the time to use a basic attack I’d say that basic attack is a fail and needs a redesign.

If they would reverse sword 2’s directions and take out all the delay from it and speed up sword 1 a bit it would be an exceptional weapon.

You could burst an enemy with it from point blank AND leap back instantly after with sword 2 and also execute dodges in the middle of sword 1 chains.

Instead of telegraphing that you’re leaping back with a huge delay, and then a second telegraph if you want to get back in their face.

You could use it for mobility a heck of a lot better too.

Sword is mainly a garbage mirror of thief abilities.

1: Corresponds to HS with slow animation and slow tracking and some self root.
2: Corresponds to Infiltrator’s Strike with lousy slow animation and slow tracking with majorly self rooting leaps in place of teleport.
3: Corresponds to dagger 3 and sword 3 on thief..this one is the best of the bad lot as it is a decent evade and poison. Personally I wish it had more forward range which is the same thing thieves complained about on their sword 3 before it got redesigned.

DeceiverX.8361:

D
For condi P/D, you’ll need to swap out LR for signet of renewal. For blind spam, you’ll need to just time your skills right for a stealth reposition and try yo fight on your own terms. Pistol offhand blindspam thieves are incredibly difficult to counter as almost every class, rangers not being an exception. Keeping them at your longest range and forcing them to use their initiative before they can get to you is your best bet, so playing hyper-aggressive at range and then re-positioning after they start getting close will offer you an edge.

I find the condi p/d far, far easier than the inf strike perma evade s/d type. I don’t find signet of renewal anywhere near enough for the condi meta and run empathic bond in all builds now is one reason. Another reason is I am extremely fast to kb/evade and keep distance and they either have to use all their inf to tp to me while pet sic em eats them or get kb’d out of a smoke pool because they had to stop to cast it.

On the other hand the s/d perma evade played well is eating me alive, neither I nor the pet can hit it pretty much, sic em or no. I get like one bird off in stealthed warhorn before I’m in trouble. It and some well played warrior that know when to bow and when to stick to me in melee are my toughest matchup. Everything else can be handled.

I run 4/4/6/0/0 both lifesteal sigils, vamp rune, zerk amulet lb sw/wh mainly vigor lb traits and anti cc traits, empathic bond. Sic em, LR, and Signet of the Hunt usually.

It is inf strike spamming S/D thieves I’m having trouble against in a power build lb sw/wh. All the other types are not much problem if I’m playing right.

GS is a waste of time against good thieves and I go SW/WH for unpredictability and extra blast heal/utility/birds.

The stay in place thing sounds great but that also opens yourself up to stealth backstabs and easy bask venoms. I can’t believe people win like that versus good thieves.

What is this great condi bunker 1v1 build with condi because with 2/6/6/0/0 traps sb/sw/torch undead rune, bleeder sigils, rabid amulet I’m finding the setting of the trap or even bonfire makes me very vulnerable to stop and cast. I might as well be on necro to be so vulnerable and throw stronger condi stacks through boon conversion as well and contribute more.

In power, even in zerk builds I can do sustained zerk damage through extreme kiting and making most classes without teleports have to spend so much effort to come after me they wasted their time also off point and frequently dead. I feel that so much more of my survival comes from evades and positioning than the amulet choice it’s not going to matter much survival wise to switch off zerk in power..for longbow user that is. Except that I can’t be as much of a threat and make them run sometimes = less survival.

On the power side I feel I can beat a lot of builds and I’m not so sure sniping off point is “not helping the team” because if a power ranger can just throw 100% of their damage at max range + stomp protection with KBs it’s pretty effective and I’ve seen many “2v3” and even “1v3” with 1-2 guys on point and me off turned around this way. However certain thief builds (really just inf strike builds, most others are not bad to me now) can just roll over power ranger and plus the off point sniping is a lot like what a thief would be doing to contribute anyway and bursting people down with easier stealth stomps mid point so it’s hard for me to judge the overall contribution of power ranger against thief anyway in soloque.

For team queue to me the stronger meta comps are like dual hambow bunker guardian thief and one lighter off class like triple med guard or condi necro, shatter mes, or second thief. Ranger just doesn’t seem to fit into that puzzle well because he’s going to miss the buffs off point sniping in power or not apply condi as well in condi, or not sync up with thieves and general melee play as well unless he’s melee himself and then ..why not bring a necro instead.

Longbow may be a terrible weapon for the meta but it is decent in 1v1s, and this carries over to soloq a bit.

First off don’t listen to any replies that are “hurr hurr I kill all the thieves on ranger always”

They kill all the bad thieves in SPVP and downlevelled thieves in WVW mainly and can’t actually understand the difference between a good thief that they used selective memory to edit out when they got ganked and the awful thieves that they are able to kill with that mentality.

It’s the moderate to good thieves that matter and those are who you want to learn to kill.

Speaking from a power perspective:

In S I run a 4/4/6/0/0 build, zerk amulet, vigor traits, condi removal trait and condi removal signet. You are not going to kill half the skilled thief builds at all if you die in the first condi burst. All life steal sigil and vampirism rune to help with the weakness of power setup which is sustain.

GS is awful because they can dodge the block kick and the maul just moving out of range easily and the cleaves are too weak. The leap is only good for running (and I find warhorn better in many cases) and a laughably predictable burst. Some players fall for that burst, but again, they are not the players that matter. I’ve had way more success vs. thieves with sword/warhorn. Sword for stickiness/unpredictability and warhorn for free bird hits out of stealth and resetting the fight a bit with the extra heal blast from spring as well as a bit of res/teamfight and movement utility. Sword/dagger is another good option for the long evade possible on 8 second dagger 4 with the right build.

Wolf/drakehound is also important for the maximum CC. I believe they are the best pet setup overall due to this but esp. with thieves as others have said.

This build can kill most classes and can take on most thieves as well. The very best d/p that are aggressive with blinds and s/p teleporting builds that are defensive with multiple teleports I still have trouble with.

Even mesmer invisibility and target drop/switch is not enough to escape the bow kb-rapid fire if you’re very fast as I am but thief still can evade or cause a lot of facing error misses by teleporting to my face constantly.

I could and have run a condi version of my spec and have an easier time against thieves specifically but I enjoy power too much. Thief with stealth and blind spam is the weakness of many a power class such as hambow and we’re no different. I’d rather have serious trouble versus a small percentage of setups and be able to kill everyone else than the alternatives.

We are Rangers and the build most of us want to play is at Range and that is our most unique strength to put out sustained damage but the thief has TP, blinds, and target drops with stealth for a heavy counter to our strengths especially in a power setup.

GS with a leap, cleave and torment access, maybe even another fear.

There’s no reason to leave necro at the bottom of the pack for mobility and anti-pve (turrets & pets)

Dark shroud is more of a kitten mode than a beneficial mechanic and the extra hitpoints aren’t much more toughness than a warrior can come up with. Warriors can be way more threatening with the same TTL or greater due to the juke power of leap and threatening cleave attacks while in their natural form with access to everything.

Attrition on this class is a myth and a powerful base weapon like everyone else has would go a long way. I don’t like homogenization of classes myself but they are unwilling to do what it takes to make a true attrition class it seems.

Kain Francois.4328:

OP Asks: “Why does [PvE] Necromancer suck?”

Because every time someone suggests something which will fix Necromancers and give them a role in high End PvE and Fractals of the Mists, people shoot it down because apparently all our problems will be solved with more survivability and cleave????

I don’t PVE at all so my post is about PVP. It’s a free space to discuss what you want, just clarifying.

One thing that is extra obnoxious is due to the lack of mobility and healing even if you’re winning on a point you can be easily zerged down from enemy spawn as you’ll never be out of combat fast enough. You have to leave the point to rotate and get out of combat but sometimes it is impossible due to faster classes rushing their third 1up from spawn.

The fundamental incompatibilities of this class with SPVP just pile up.

NeXeD.3042:

King your seeing what I am. It’s a prime example of why you don’t leave the zerker necro alone. He doesn’t get focused I could take videos of me not getting focused and it would basically be me maniacally laughing at mea king people run into walls.

His gameplay is not bad it just doesn’t show what he does when he gets in trouble. Comboing is one thing responding to being attack with different things is another

Honestly I’ve jumped back on power wellomancer 6/2/0/06 just due to this with three wells might stack and lich. Since defense doesn’t really work at high play I might as well be ‘offensive support’ and just stay out of all fights except when I can creep up and sway a cap battle our way using targeted well and lich. It feels really noobish but it works and my time to live is about the same in any play style but MM which can’t bunker properly anyway. Instead of pulling someone out with spectral grab just run targeted wells to be better and more versatile. I could drop wod and put grab in its place but the wod is one of the few things to hold off a focus for a bit.

Dumped traveler/speed runes for strength since you can’t kite worth a crap anymore versus good players due to torment. It’s better to be highly threatening and at least instantly force them to change their play style this way than spam a few condis at range etc. I just wonder how it compares to a glass staff ele and who can do this play style better as I never see staff eles.

Lich is awesome for sideline nuking when they either don’t or can’t focus you with good positioning.

I will say that spectral grasp is probably underrated on necro esp. in combination with well but again engie has magnet, boon stacking, escapes hard cc solid pets, heals etc.

Plenty of room for scorpion wire on thief builds with a faster cooldown too if the main strength of it here is to pull someone out of a mid brawl and gank them on the edge.

Without trying to detract from your enthusiasm for your build or make a disparaging judgement on your skill at building or playing, I watched this video at least for the first third of it and I feel it is a shining example of bad players rather than the power of this build or any strength of necro.

Rather than leaving it at that I will deconstruct a little of why I feel this way. In your first set of engagements in spirit watch you got the complete drop on an engie from behind who was otherwise engaged fighting another player.

Right away you can see their team is very bad as the score is 177 red to 350 blue, blue owns all points and yet they are still fighting in the streets and not on points. They probably got sucked into a stillness battle that lasted too long from the look of it as their 3-4 were taking to long to take down someone bunkerish on blue at stillness and that’s when you merked one engie off the edge. Any class with some burst could do that.

Next up we have a five step juke that any decent player would have just turned around and walked the five steps to finish killing you and some end of the match battles against demoralized bads and a non minion necro using axe that didn’t bother to fear you. Your chain fear of the ele was decent and fearing the guardian into the pit was ok but the opponents were just awful in general due to the score and their lack of focus on you.

I’ve found really awful teams in tpvp lately versus yoloq and my theory is yoloq is actually tougher quite often because people used to soloing in yoloq can be a lot tougher than mainly pve guildies who got together for a night of ranked tpvp at times. There are certainly great tpvp teams out there with a team build and focus but there are also a lot of pve-centric disorganized guildies too. I have more bipolar experiences in tpvp than solo ranked where people can be disorganized but consistently good. I’ve been really incredulous how bad teams in tpvp can be sometimes and I can only explain it by casual guildie night. I’m curious as to which type it is in your video. I haven’t watched past the spirit watch segment because I got bored by that point. Again I’m not criticizing you or trolling just pointing out how bad the opponents in the video are and the only reason I bring it up is because ‘showcase videos of bads’ paint an inaccurate picture of the class.

NeXeD.3042:

So….. what happens when someone stuns you. We get focused as necros and when a hambow sees us they go right for us, especially when he figures out you don’t have any sort of stun break. I made the build to deal with boon spam that’s currently going On in the tpvp with the new strength runes everyone is better at stacking might than us so rather than trying to fight fire with fire I decided to extinguish theres.

You’re right we’re bad at might stacking, but it’s not impossible. I have strenght runes and sig of battle and strength on my staff, and also taking in account reapers might I’ll usually have 10-17 stacks of might on. Go into staff for 3 might (battle sigil), drop all your marks an get 2-3 might (strength sigil) and than do some lifeblasts for 1-2 might each

[/quote]

It’s not boon classes that are the problem for us. We have a use in boon stripping but I can’t shore up our defenses enough against other classes to be able to launch it consistently. I’m trying to improve the necro’s weaknesses as much as I can rather than overboard on their strengths. Their weaknesses are too crippling and their strengths are not overpowering like you find say on a thief. Boon strip is only good to catch boon stackers unawares when it comes to actually killing them (unless you bring another class to do it for you in a teamfight) and classes have a ton of condi cleanse.

I ran my thief a while instead to think about it more and one of the best is actually reaper’s protection for ‘stun break’ although it’s not a break but a counter esp when you have extra fear duration traited. I could kill every necro but the ones with that traited consistently and easily.

I ran this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc00bbRNm2webighSyW4DiOBCgzlykIKA-TJRFwAAeCAPuIAK3fIaZAA

but my first real opponent was a mega condi cleanse bunker style ranger, I could keep him at 5% anyway but condis just fell off him while of course binding roots and their many immobilizations versus concrete shoes made it not much of a contest. Hambows were not a problem with dagger 4 and wod + chill. Blind is definitely the answer to hambow and chill doesn’t hurt.

If we can’t shore up defense to any real degree against enough classes it’s back to stunning offense and hope you make the enemy panic and forget how to play as Bhawb put it which is one reason I went back to the hybrid. One stun break is not going to do much for necro anyway. We can be the slowest thief in the universe with spectral walk and wurm I guess…no synergies, nothing for that style of play just a bar full of crap and 2 stun breaks on 40-60ish timers. This is a problem with necro lacking mobility and target drops as well as they are good to defend against any class and here I am trying to piece enough stuff together to defend against all these different setups.

I think I could trait that hybrid with reaper’s protection and spectral wall and take care of my ranger problem and add to offense value from power damage while keeping boon strip. All in on conditions has its own weaknesses.

I think even if necro had ds fear not single target but aoe it would make a huge difference. This would fundamentally put more CC into the game but …look at hambow already. Necro needs more power in their base weapons. DS bolt could be a cleave, I don’t know. They just can’t put enough together.

flow.6043:

Otaking.4675:

You can predict where thieves will be in 4 seconds and hit them while invisible quite often. Especially if you lead with dagger chain.

I believe you are confusing the 4 sec revealed debuff (3 sec in WvW) with actual stealth uptime. Thieves can be in stealth for much longer than 4 seconds.
And what kind of thief lets you land an auto attack chain? He’d have to stand still within 130 range right in front of you for at least 2 seconds. That’s just not going to happen.

I believe you are not reading basic tooltips about thief. Standard stealth is 4 seconds. Even SR is 4 seconds you just stack more due to standing it in and stacking pulse.

Good thieves aren’t going to do several things listed in this thread.

Cloak and Dagger first. It’s pretty easy to spot and very predictable once you get used to it. Use Grasping Dead to cripple them at range. When they do get close, either be ready to dodge Cloak and Dagger or use Deathly Swarm to blind them (thieves are very vulnerable to blinds). If they miss two Cloak and Daggers in a row, they will be forced to use their heal or a utility or just stay revealed, all of which put the thief in a bad spot.

You are not going to see a good thief coming at range in SPVP. They will wait till they can stealth util and los you on approach or you are engaged otherwise.

You will not dodge cloak and dagger as they’ll get it off a pet or turret while waiting on your 2 evade. Their blinds will go off before your slow dagger cast if they’re built right.

We can semantically argue what good thieves do all day.

But you’re all expert necros and never die to those easy thieves. Just stand in a mark!

lol

You can hit invisible thieves with a dagger chain. 1,2 in front of you and 3 chain behind you works well as many of them think they’re the only ones who knows how circle strafe works.

They either have to attack near the end of that four seconds or combo stealth off something else in combat, you can swipe near the something elses like turrets, pets as well and catch them out. Thief sense is kind of like spiderman’s spider sense just something you have to develop.

flow.6043:

Just because a new player is asking for help doesn’t mean you should give bad advice. And I don’t think Waffler’s post is condescending at all. You have to save up your skills for when a thief reveals himself, wasting them on potentially nothing when the thief is stealthed leaves you defenseless when he is actually attacking you.

Otaking.4675:

against a good thief you’re not going to have time to throw them when visible

Actually that’s the only chance you have to beat a good thief, downing them in stealth is pure luck.

You can predict where thieves will be in 4 seconds and hit them while invisible quite often. Especially if you lead with dagger chain.

Otaking.4675:

NeXeD.3042:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc0UebNNe2webCchCyDIAi+Dmg8lytYMA-TJRFwAAuIAPeCAK3fIaZAA

Have you tried any condi builds?

This is a terror build focusing on removing boons, it may be a little overkill on the boon removal but with the current boon spam kitten I’ve found it to be pretty good.

I’ll take a look at it, condi is not my favorite but I’m due for another round of backline team “support” anyway. I’ve had some luck being a backline boonstrip cannon. (hotjoins not confident enough in the build for arena) corruption and woc both but good D/D eles for instance will intersperse their invulnerabilities between your boon strips even if you carry two I’ve found. I should run sc/fc cond due to that but I was married to sc/wh a while for kiting.

I hadn’t had a chance to play with Dhuumfire yet since I left before all those changes so I modified your build into a hybrid power.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc0UebjNm2wfbCchC63MAi2Y/gJgutA-TphGwAGOIAIeAAF3fYZZAAXAgCHBAA

I lose crit and bleeds (hopefully making up for it with power and might) but gain a ton of defense in the LF/DS department with dark shroud due to signet of undeath and have plenty of access to might and dhuumfire after setting up a bleed stack. Mainly I dropped well in favor of signet of spite because with this setup I can be completely ranged without the easy to evade well and both corruption and signet of spite have 1200 range and zero or quick tells. I’m not sold on the pet being in condi spec but I am trying it for extra distraction and uptime over the standard plague form. Thieves again make giving up plague form a pain.

The theory is I’m tough enough for most not to bother coming after me while still being able to do serious nuking with hybrid power and still heavy conditions damage at maximal ranges. The pet does fit in with backline support better.

I found I had enough boon stripping and/or damage to get through boons not stripped to down any target. I don’t really like going ‘all in’ on boon stripping due to targets that are a major threat to you that don’t stack that many boons. Mainly thieves.

The problem with this though is you still need someone to peel for you I feel, which meant I didn’t even consider running this with my guild today and just picked up Ye Olde Hambow instead who can shrug off many 2v1s and is good against all types of classes in a team or 1v1 environment due to plenty of hard CC in the base weapon and might stacking.

I notice you say you don’t have trouble with thieves in condi and I wonder where you encounter terrible thieves that can’t kill you with scepter out. I have little trouble with thieves in power spec personally but that is with standard melee weapons. Good ones are a pain for me with scepter or staff out even in hybrid mode for condi builds. I’m talking about thieves that can almost kill you in the time it takes you to swap to staff for some marks or half your life in the time it takes you to DS and fear them off.

They can dodge roll through pre planted marks and just facetime your condi from scepter until it’s time to fear you and burst you down which all can happen in seconds. Even with DS up. I need more practice vs. good ones but I have trouble believing condi necs have little trouble with thieves that know anything about what they’re doing. If anything is making the difference in your build for thieves I figure it’s got to be Retaliation vs. my Might stacking. I should probably give retaliation more game time but I usually tend to try to might stack especially in a hybrid setup.

Waffler.1257:

Otaking.4675:

When they’re invisible, random golem charge, DS 4,5, dagger swipes, marks, wells, everything you have that is not targeted.

That is actually the worst thing you can do against a thief, even though you can’t see the thief, the thief can still see you. This means that not only do your random attacks have a low probability of hitting the thief, they are almost guaranteed to miss because the thief will simply avoid them. Then the thief comes out of stealth and hurp durp you have no skills because you randomly spammed them all at nothing. …especially spamming wells at invisible enemies, those have pretty long cooldowns, are you new to necro? The most you would want to do is use a low cd mark or two to stand on so you have warning to when the thief is about to hit you.

Hurp durp against a good thief you’re not going to have time to throw them when visible and those of us that have been playing necro a long time know where a thief can get to and usually are in 4 seconds of invis. It’s general advice for a new player that didn’t even know #5 could hit a thief in stealth.

It’s not like you can give a laundry list of how to kill a thief and follow it step by step. Yes wells are better used when the thief is in your face as long as he’s not any good and fearing you out of them in the 5 seconds you have of him bursting your feared backside before your hp and shroud run out hurp durp.

So take your condescending attitude and ego and shove it, thanks. Nerds like you are a dime a dozen that can’t converse with other people without being insulting so I suggest you learn some tact out in the real world before coming at random strangers on the internet as well. If you have a real need to gratify yourself by feeling superior to others, I suggest you give your local kindergarten a shot.

NeXeD.3042:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc0UebNNe2webCchCyDIAi+Dmg8lytYMA-TJRFwAAuIAPeCAK3fIaZAA

Have you tried any condi builds?

This is a terror build focusing on removing boons, it may be a little overkill on the boon removal but with the current boon spam kitten I’ve found it to be pretty good.

I’ll take a look at it, condi is not my favorite but I’m due for another round of backline team “support” anyway. I’ve had some luck being a backline boonstrip cannon. (hotjoins not confident enough in the build for arena) corruption and woc both but good D/D eles for instance will intersperse their invulnerabilities between your boon strips even if you carry two I’ve found. I should run sc/fc cond due to that but I was married to sc/wh a while for kiting.