Guild Wars 2

DrWhom.3105

Please just swap the Outmanned and Bloodlust buffs, something like:
Outmanned:
No armor damage, +150 to pow/pre/etc
Bloodlust:
+20% MF, +20% XP and +20% WXP (for each 3/5 held). Keep the stomps = points part.

Everyone wins.

More like:

Outmanned:
150 to pow/pre/etc, +3 points/stomp
Bloodlust:
+20% MF/GF/WXP/XP/Karma (for each 3/5 held), no armor dmg for 2

It just feels as if the wvw devs are doing what they want and just waving middle fingers at the wvw-ers with steady power creep. WvW was my only passion. The 1st real big hit were the 10lvl “guard” masteries. Now this…
sarcasm/ I wonder what is next “stack skill” we will see > lvl 10 mercenary bane giving you 250 toughness for 5 quaggans killed? Way to go, you are awesome, just what we(duh, you) want! /sarcasm

Did you miss the “trololol” in the end? Because if you are serious I can only pity you.

I don’t like this calculator.., but ok, see what I meant as an overall build.
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-c;4Zw-_0I5V-Vd0;9;5T-JJ;108A;118-46;7udbTudbTm-Fv-A-6;2VhVlWqXv21475230C-2ie
Shadow Refuge/blinding powder are suggestions, I’d personally drop blinding powder for something else. With precision stacks, food and oil, you can still get to 60%+ crit chance.

Anelyn, you are giving him not a “newbie friendly” build… and from his posts I gather he is one. He can go with mine, until he is ready to up his game I think, since mine is generally a 33333333 build.

deepkumar, for full burst, and since SoM + PW usually keeps you at 100% hp I suggest http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Scholar (although divinity/eagle/6x ruby orbs are alternatives too) . For sigils… maybe perception and accuracy, or go 2 x Perception, then switch to Force and Accuracy(you just need to waste more gold on 1 additional s/p set.

Well then… for PvE let me suggest a S/P // SB stealthless build – 0/30/0/20/20. 1,9,11 in CS, 2,9 in Acrobatics, 5, 7 in Trickery. Use Valkyrie armor with Scholar runes, everything else Berserkers. You will still be quite glassy, but you will have unlimited Pistol Whip initiative, so your evade uptime will be quite high. Use Signet of Malice as a heal, Infiltrator’s Signet as one of your utilities and Daggerstorm as elite. You can still burst a player down with this build in wvw(infiltrator strike+PW, PW precast+steal, PW precast+Infil Signet combo), but if you get focused by several, you will die(you need stealth for solo roaming in wvw). Clearing a camp solo from npcs should be a piece of cake though.

Let me help you here, hope these screenshots aren’t “too vague”, since my reports got ignored I guess.

This thread makes me feel embarassed to be a RoF member.

Zenguy.6421:

Draygo.9473:

Stealth traps prevent you from stealthing, they do not prevent you from using stealth skills.

And the difference is . . . ?

It’s a simple stealth mechanic. Whenever someone has a “revealed” debuff(what the trap gives for 30s), they can use as many utility/weapon/combo field skills giving stealth – they won’t work.

Also – you don’t need to be in stealth to activate the trap. Several days ago I trolled 1 server for 90 mins, contesting their 1/3 of EB. They used several traps on me, worked quite good.

I can just imagine it:
“Hey guys, our standpoint is that WvW is all about taking objectives, so we buffed the loot you get from mobs and champs and reduced the loot from players. Have a nice day. Sincerely yours…..”

Oh great… with the pathing bug allowing guardians and thieves to port on keep/sm walls(towers are safe) this device sounds like a disaster in the making.

Troop.1369:

I remember a couple of months ago, one of your community managers said something about trying to punish zerging. Still waiting…

I remember a couple of months ago, one of your community manager said something about trying to reduce skill lag. Still waiting…

I remember a couple of months ago, one of your community manager said something about trying to correct and adjust the unrealistic World vs World achievements. Still waiting…

Applause deserving post… or more like tears deserving/rage inducing.

@deepkumar the best time I’ve had was making a build I could call “my own”. There are many builds to choose from, the most fun is making one, then gradually throughout the game to think “what if I switch this for that, how will that work?” and in the end have something that works fine.

@Anelyn I mainly use S/D//SB, but actually carry pistol in my inventory and switch when I think the situation is better for the set – I have noticed I am having much better time vs warriors and other thieves with S/P in 1v1s. However, S/D just works overall for me better, not even for the Larcenous, but for the cnd, since my build is 0/20/30/20/0 (4,6,11 in SA). It all depends on the build/playstyle.

@pantsforbirds Are you seriously advising him to go full zerker? Are you trolling? While I agree partially – the weapons and trinkets should be berserkers, but the armor must be either valkyrie/knight/soldier(or mix of these 3), depending on how glassy you want to be.

deepkumar, for PvE S/P//SB with quick recovery and signet of malice works just fine…
However for wvw, S/D is a superior set over the S/P, except in some situations.

How do you guys think things would have looked if Flanking strike cost would be up-ed to 4 ini, with larcenous activating with 0 initiative cost IF flanking strike connects(I mean – deals dmg, not if it’s blocked/etc)?

Thanks Veritas. I was actually just curious about what his build would look like, because out of 8 months wvw-ing it was the 1st time I saw such one. I am resigned that against some classes/builds I just can’t win with mine.
Actually I dropped combat for a bit to switch some utilities and the offhand dagger for offhand pistol. With S/P I could pressure him much more, but the encounter ended only when 2 passing by players from my server jumped him… and then I saw the major weakness of his build – no escapes at all. After thinking even a bit more – I don’t see it useful even in zerg vs zerg fights… no wonder I haven’t seen such warriors.

The story goes like this – yesterday in WvW I met a warrior and had a nice and long 1v1 fight with him. He was probably a mix of carrion/apothecary gear (from what I assume) with +condition duration food.
As a sword/dagger thief with heavy initiative regeneration, condition builds don’t threaten me that much, but he was managing to put enough heat on me and was decently tanky so I couldn’t pressure him back enough and the fight ended in stalemate.
So here is my question, since I have no warrior, but am curious – can you, pro warriors theory craft me his build – he was using sword/sword // sword/shield weapon sets, I also noticed he was using sigils of geomancy, and he put confusion stacks on me several times, so I guess he had at least 20 in Strength for Distracting Strikes(did my research). That is all I can help with.

pcpsong.3850:

I got an infraction for raising this issue. GG Anet

Oh? Did they play the “Do not engage in staff call-outs.” card on you?

Stay on the ele and pressure him with IS toggled, for when/if you get knocked back/down and use flanking/larcenous in the right moments. Don’t waste initiative on cnd and if you stealth via heal/utility, don’t waste time to try to land a daze – dazing is nice, but keeping the pressure on him is more important.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlUmKOHdy9E/5Ex2jd6Ti6fAs6MoZLB-jUyAYLBRCCERAkKAk+KiGbxtIas6aMlLRUt9eR1SBExYA-w
I theorycrafted this build in 5 mins. Factor in might stacks(at least 5), bloodlust stacks and additional 15% more dmg for the next 5 attacks and you have a recipe for disaster to someone that didn’t see the thief coming. Great build… if your goal is to kill 1 unaware/slow to react enemy every 40s.

Black Teagan.9215:

Pavel.8531:

Minutes ago I won 1v5 in wvw. I bet they were mad “omg thief such BS, OP, nerf!”, while they were just terribad. 2 d/d zerk eles(lol), 1 zerk ranger, 1 zerk(I guess? his armor was quite low) guard and 1 upleveled… Every time I downed someone, or cnd-ed someone what they did was stopping moving, stopping attacking and overall being sitting ducks.

Yesterday, a single non buffed mesmer kicked really hard my applied fortitude 25 precision stacked kitten . Not even in one moment of our fight did I feel I was winning. Several days ago same thing did a beastmaster ranger… list goes on – I bet they don’t cry “thief op” on forums.

See a pattern?

Im sure they only use dmg skills or trust the passive effect of their signets. No challenge for every class.

Not true… the pure dps output from 4 zerker “bots”(can’t qualify them as players) can kill most classes, that have nothing as an option to get some pressure off in some way(like thieves and mesmers) even if the player playing the class is extremely good. And that is why the most experienced roamers have switched to thieves… to be able to evade death from “blob bots”. And here we go – several blob bots, thinking they are so great when they roll with the zerg meet a pro roamer and think “we outnumber him, so we SHOULD win”… crying on forums ensue.

Minutes ago I won 1v5 in wvw. I bet they were mad “omg thief such BS, OP, nerf!”, while they were just terribad. 2 d/d zerk eles(lol), 1 zerk ranger, 1 zerk(I guess? his armor was quite low) guard and 1 upleveled… Every time I downed someone, or cnd-ed someone what they did was stopping moving, stopping attacking and overall being sitting ducks.

Yesterday, a single non buffed mesmer kicked really hard my applied fortitude 25 precision stacked kitten . Not even in one moment of our fight did I feel I was winning. Several days ago same thing did a beastmaster ranger… list goes on – I bet they don’t cry “thief op” on forums.

See a pattern?

It does break stun, Neutro, it does, even if it’s not activated by enemy. However, sometimes a pebble on the road can screw your teleport(the shadow trap).

I guess he used either shadowstep, then hide in shadows/blinding powder and ran with infiltrator strike/ infiltrator shots far enough, or had placed a shadow trap.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Last_Refuge
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadowstep
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Trap
As for locking him down… if he has shadowstep/shadow trap available – you can’t, it’s either burst him down, or he runs away. Conditions might work to tick him down from 20% hp to 0%, but with the traits Shadow’s Embrace and Shadow’s Rejuvenation… not likely.

I have to appologise to Dzago – me stumbling on your golem party in SM was unintentional, while I was testing the limits of a bug/glitch. I didn’t warn Overlook for the incoming golems though, I screened everything from the moment of my entry, to the moment “golems at keep” was called, if you don’t believe me. I tried to party the commander there to say “sorry and don’t worry, won’t tell” but he wouldn’t party me.

Yep, the title says it – in some situations “targeted” teleports get you right on top of the walls. It has been like this quite a while. It’s easy to do unintentionally while fighting. And extremely easy to do intentionally if that is what your aim is. Can we get a fix, please? I like trolling, but if someone with more malicious intent – other than “let’s startle these guys” start abusing it, it won’t be nice.

edit: And while I was testing, suddenly – boom I stumbled on an enemy zerg building golems and probably got mass reported.

You think we are having it bad? Ask grenade engineers and barrage hunters what happens when they meet retaliation.

I have only one question about this thread… Why hasn’t a mod locked/deleted it yet? It’s, by itself, baiting for a “disruptive bevaviour” however you look at it. I won’t say my opinion, because the sarcasm is just begging to get unleashed and that will just give more food to thief hating trolls.

Imo PW is quite good. The only think it needs is a bit more damage(15%?) to compensate for the root and so it hits harder than auto attack.
I find the skill great in pve with SoM and great in WvW against bad-to-meduim good thieves. I use s/d but when I see a roaming thief, coming my way I immediately switch the dagger for pistol, works wonders.

It’s not that simple man – 1st you need to lvl and gear up(recommended weapons – s/p // sb, but check how other sets work too). Then, when you go to wvw, through lots of deaths you will learn where your limits are and what build works for you the best.

Mif.3471:

So even more encouragement for people to zerg from tower to tower and never defend anything…

LMAO at first I was like “O, that is nice!”, but after your post “Oh shiiiiii!!”.

Good to know. Too bad you said exactly the same thing (or if it was another from the anet team, sorry) 3-4 months ago. How long will we have to wait? Months? Years?

Hicci.8761:

Guardians are thieves worst opponents.

Nope, Guardians (95% of them) are very predictable, with almost exactly the same bunker build and gear. They are easy to fight against, and if not win – draw. The worst thief enemy are the (good)engineers because they are the most unpredictable class and have some pretty nasty CCs and aoes.

And sorry OP, but as someone with over 1+k hours on guard and 700+ on thief, I am flat out calling you a liar. At lvl 14 you just don’t have essential skills and traits to do that(not to mention damage for offense and defense for survivability). I am waiting on a video to prove me wrong though, I will eat my words and revere you as a guardian god if you show me a video.

Several months ago, we got reply from a moderator or something, that they know the achievements are unrealistic(after someone calculating the time needed to get yakslapper – I think it was 1 year… if you kill 609 yaks/day (too lazy to search for the buried thread)) and they are thinking to lower them to a reasonable level.
So! Expect this fixed after just a short time – year or two.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-e;4RwkZ07-FOVd0;9;5JTJ;252-53A18;2CJ-F;2V19cV19cn-FvF6-6;2VU-ZWq1i214u42kVJV2q;5cW5P-V5;9;9;9;9;95k3E
^My full build with foods and infusions I use (they are wvw +5 power ones, no such in the calculator so I used the “normal” +5 power ones) and everything. I switch the signet while running from 1 place to another. With full precision stacks you hit 69% crit chance.

Calysto, remember this is “sustained dps” build(with IS + CnD for downing low hp enemies in zerg). That said – you don’t need CS I. If I were you, I’d pick VIII with 2 signets. Also – Infil Signet + Quick Recovery… you definitely don’t need SA V (and IV is the best thing ever).
About your skills… the only thing out of place (I am using slightly different utilities, but I don’t have anything against these) is your elite. You will be opening up with IS, which is a 1s immobilise. Basilisk is redundant, unless you want to go full Lyssa set. Just keep in mind, daggerstorm works nice with infiltrator strike/shadow return.
What I didn’t mention(there were some things, but what you listed works too), I did so on purpose – play, experiment, see what works best for you and what you think if changed will work better… Make a skill/trait build that will work best with your playstyle.
P.S. Just trust me, SA IV trait is the best thing ever :P

Nope, you need more, so you are able to take an occasional burst – somewhere between 14 and 17k. Compensate the precision loss (because of the valk pieces) with food/oil/stacks if needed.

While I agree S/P is much more unreliable than S/D, it isn’t so bad.
+It is very easy to solo camps with it.
+ You can play a bit more frontline, because of PW evasion (even if you don’t hit anything, chance is people will still mass spam you and you can always “2” after the PW duration, making your team skip on dps, that would have went their way instead. while you still stay alive.
+ S/P are so rare, that in most cases enemies don’t know what exactly to expect.
- Static combat.
- Retaliation hurts a lot.
- No in combat stealth except heal/utilities.
Just remember that after 2, 3, you can use 3, f1 combo too. And Sigil of Paralisation works decently well with PW.

Fames, I think the most common D/P build is 0/20/30/20/0… traits are very easy to figure out even on your own. Gear… mostly zerk, maybe some valks. It’s an “easy mode” build.

I thought the Topic was “boring”, not “annoying”. Because thief fights are anything (keyboard smashing from frustration at times included) but boring.

Back on topic – bunker guardians are boring to fight.

You can always try S/P, more of a “fighter” type weapon set.

Zacchary. there is revealed after a backstab, so let’s not doubt what the OP claims, ok? And sorry Caino, I tried a lot of things but never managed to make a “double backstab”. It might be just a combat log bug? Because if it was possible in any way to achieve it would really cause an uproar I assure you.

0/20/30/20/0 is indeed a very good choice for a S/D build. My build was like that (currently trying out a 0/30/20/20/0 s/p build) and with several valk pieces and rest zerkers you can put quite the hurt, while still being able to take hits and engage in prolonged fights.

Xae, I admit, the skill threshold of thieves differs a lot than this of an engi – even terrible thieves can be devastating vs medium and less skilled players(especially if they don’t know how thief skills work), but good engis will beat bad/medium thieves every time and even good ones in most cases. Strange, huh – low skill – Thief wins. Medium – Thief. Above medium – Engi. Imo (based on 1v1 encounters with engi roamers) Engineer is the best “anti thief” counter, even worse than Guardian in good hands.

And I did say earlier “It’s logical to me that active blocks should trigger revealed, all other – not since the attack doesn’t connect”(not sure about aegis/guard focus block). I play s/p thief, with stealth only on utilities so I don’t care much about “that” thing especially, just following logic. AND by that logic – blocks should block attacks only from the front 180 degrees – you want to tell me it’s logical that you raise your shield/mace in front of you and suddenly you block attacks from all directions? Also, phantasms shouldn’t miss when the mesmer is blinded, warriors should… etc, etc. So yeah, logic sucks.

I have met such thieves, prior to playing one (even prior to the haste nerf, so it was a real “GC 1 hit” build), on my guard. Ok, they were doing 15k to my guard (17k hp/3.1k armor) with their full burst combo. After that, I pop heal, and they run because they are “out of gas”. Once I knew how this combo worked, I was taking less than 9k, because of rightly timed positioning/stun breaks/evades/blocks/blinds.

Are you happy now, that I linked you the previous thread? Search next time. Btw note the “the day I lose 1v1 against thief on my engineer is the day I uninstall GW2” comment. But of course, it’s not your skills that are lacking, it’s the class that is OP(the general noob belief).
/thread

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Fighting-thieves-in-WvW

Helping you out. Btw I am a thief and engis(good ones) are even worse than guards to 1v1.

As someone earlier said. there is a reason CoF parties are 4 warrs, 1 mesmer. Now go and google how to use an edit button an not quad post.

Dark Lord Killer.9473:

Reset is the point where pretty much all server have most people online in WvW, isn’t it smarter to wait a couple of hours with the update untill it’s implemented?

Just something for the future

Are you new here? This is like… 4th? time they have done this. That’s how much they care about WvW.

Burnfall.9573:

Infact

98% of the commanders are thieves- (rarely dies)

(Well Obviously)

That says alot..

Indeed it said a lot about your credibility and now I can calmly sign you off as a troll. And don’t expect further replies, I do not converse with trolls, no matter how they bait.

Sure, why not, it’s logical active blocks should trigger revealed. Also though, it’s logical that active blocks “block” attacks only from the forward 180 degree arc. BOTH in pve and pvp.