Guild Wars 2

I think the price should be cheap, but, the npc should be in LA – so you have to switch maps, not “now I need mortar mastery, wp twice and done, ready to defend”(random example).
Actually scratch that – it’s better to be dynamically scaling – badge cost of like 2-3x your rank.

My advice is – don’t take 1v1’s vs thieves. Thieves can always reset the fight, unless they are determined to fight to the death(or duel setting), or you can burst them before they go “oshi…!”. I am not saying you can’t “win” by making them run(guards are one of the easier professions to do so), it’s just pointless to take a fight in the open field like this. Just ignore them, use staff 3, line of warding and continue running towards your objective.

This change (to CB 900 range) was so illogical. It was never OP, it needed like 3s to reach its 1200 range destination. And even how physics in real life work – shooting something in a trajectory gives it more range.

Jine.6130:

Perma stealth is just to strong. They could abuse the walls for stealth. I don´t know the number of the skill, i guess it was 5, but they were able to stealth on the walls with that.
I could see the red circles where they hitted the wall, but my grenades and flamethrower weren´t good enough to kill them and they never were clearly visible.

See? Why are you even wondering how can they, the OP explained it perfectly well. (el oh el)

Sorry, OP, but I have 2.4k armor on a fully Zerk/Valk geared char and I have never been backstabbed for more than 9k(rare cases, mostly 6-7k). You are doing something wrong.
I think maybe the thief also had to be the most 1 kill hit wonder – 25/30/0/0/15 d/d build, with full stacks of bloodlust, highest tier food and oil and activated signet of malice(plus basilisk venom) to do that much, probably with the 1.5k range trait on steal too, so it can “snipe”. This is literally the “1 shot, 1 kill if they don’t stun break and evade, return after cds are up after 30-40s” build. Sorry, but this build imo is close to useless in wvw.

Jine.6130:

I could see the red circles where they hitted the wall, but my grenades and flamethrower weren´t good enough to kill them and they never were clearly visible.

Man, this is almost as gold as “I saw a kittenton of red circles from cluster bombs”. OP, please learn what you are talking about.

crouze.3078:

there was no change. just tested it in the Mists. 180° behind the enemy triggers the effect while the other 180° trigger the other effect. Was always like that.

For the “was always like that” part… nope. I tested it extensively too right now… and it’s a really small change. Now, the center of your character’s body has to be in the “back” 180 degree half – before your weapon arm was enough(easier for tactical strikes from right). I find this a fair change.

Actually no, Zikory, Anet screwed up the doors(and I think very recently at that)… it’s extremely easy to phase through some gates, even if you are not intentionally trying to.

Psychotic.3560:

Would be nice if you guys could stop walking through our Keep gate.

Anet screwed the keep doors, it’s not us… I won’t say how, but it’s extremely easy phase through certain doors, even if you are not trying to intentionally do it.

I actually tried yesterday almost full apothecary set with 10/0/0/30/30 build. d/d // sb
And it’s great in pve/dungeons and wvw zerg running and small scale combat. The minus is, if you get ganged (to be read: “take a fight more than 1v2 with no backup”), your death is almost certain because of somewhat limited mobility and stealth.

I used 6 runes of Undead, 2 dagger sets – 1 set with sigils of corruption (just going, killing 13 mobs then switching to the “fighting” set and running in the fight), the “fighting” – with sigils of agony and hobbling. I wasn’t sure for the short bow, put agony there too, although that’s debatable.

Traits: Mug in DA, Power of Inertia, Pain Response and Quick Recovery in Acrobatics, Uncatchable, Bountiful Theft and Sleight of Hand in Trickery.

Utility Skills: SoM, Caltrops, Roll for Initiative, Infiltrator’s Signet and Daggerstorm.

Basically, the idea of the build is – very high evade uptime through death blossom and dodges, while healing all eventual hits through SoM. I don’t know if Anet thought making DB 4 ini is that big of a change, but it sure feels like one.
Oh, my stats are, when using food for -condition duration(yeah this build is weak vs conditions, that’s why I use such food and Pain Response) and quality tuning crystals and 25 cond stacks – 1716cond dmg, 776healing power, 2628~armor, 16.2k hp(without server bonuses).

Nope, these 100 power/cond dmg and 250 vit stay until death(not even downed, only death).

I regret having spent 100 euro, buying gems for a game that makes me more and more angry with every next balancing patch.

akamon – yes you got that right – thieves need to stay for the whole duration in the area of the Shadow Refuge. If they get pushed/knocked/feared/etc out of it before the full duration is over (4s for 10s stealth) they instantly get the revealed debuff. Also, the run up to you and stealth part, it’s probably they run up to you, hit you with cloak and dagger and if they have the “blind nearby enemies when you stealth” trait, your 2 downed skill will miss(kinda illogical, but oh well). Same if they use utility blinding powder.

Bogey.5423:

Should be reallocable, like traits. I would even go farther so that cost of reallocation should be moderate (like 3s50c for traits), but NPC for reallocation could be in LA so that you have to leave WvW to reallocate rank points.

I like this… NPC for this in LA with a dynamic badge cost – 2 x your rank.

I am very sorry about what happened just now in EB, to all the Vabbi attackers. I was so bored (I was the thief), me and the ele were building siege in your base(I wonder when the trick will get fixed), when we saw you enter. This made our reaction (because we were using team chat “wow, vabbis spawn? lol so many of them”) unfairly quick, for which I protested, but was ignored. Again, I am very sorry.

(I am not that other Pavel, just to note)
I respect the Vabbi and FoW players for not giving up. I respect all my enemies, but I am so bored… At least a guildie taught me some fun thing, a way to enter the Vabbi spawn on EB. I have fun killing merchants and seeing how long can I survive vs the occasional invulnerable enemy. I don’t see why they get so mad I do this though, it’s not like I can kill them and they still get loot from me – win/win for them.
And man, the Grub and Spirit have died so much already…

Hans Jornungsson – forever in the Eternal Battlegrounds.

I just had to count how many the OP’s posts were in this thread before deciding should I take this seriously or not. 13. Move along, nothing to see here.
Oh, maybe there is only 1 thing I can agree on – that Larcenous should activate only on a hit from Flanking.

It’s your choice, really. I’ve had some of the best times, asking for a rematch/official duels like this, talking about our builds, even once when I was guarding Mendon and a group of around 15 players came and started sieging and one guy invited me and said “We come in peace.” to which I replied “Good, now start running, because our whole zerg just wp-ed :P”… I guess it was just your luck.

News flash – we didn’t like the past “surprises”(AC disaster, Traps nonsense) you served us(ok, most of us)… Maybe you should actually announce your plans more often and Listen to your playerbase’s feedback/concerns about them.

I and a guard met a P/D apothecary geared thief in wvw… and I kid you not, this build is impossible to win against 1v1/2v1. We didn’t lose(stalemate), but we were pressured. 1v1 he would have won. I don’t see it being of much use in larger fights, or even for taking objectives. I have tried full carrion… But direct damage seems to work better in most cases.

I am not sure where to post this, but I had this strange encounter with a Guardian in WvW just now. There was no lag at all, but he kept moving in short, shadowstep-y bursts(every 2-3 seconds), besides his normal movement. Now, before saying “this skill, that skill” – I have over 900 hours on guardian and we have no such skill. I took a screen of him already far away from me, then another, with his name, when he was so foolish to accept my party. I know these can’t be a concrete proof, but if you want to check him out, pm me.

Instead of anti supply/stealth traps, we should have gotten traps that apply a condition (cripple/10 stacks vulnerability/poison/etc.) for 20s to up to 50 enemies in 1200 area. Imagine the possibilities for tactical fights. Smaller groups could set up a “minefield” and try to lure and defeat 2x+ their numbers in an open field “ambush”(also, the setup time should have been much longer(15s, to protect from flash trap building in zerg vs zerg), monetary cost much lower, supply same). THAT could have been fun.
But what we got instead? "Hey derpmaster, they took the supply camp, let’s set up 4 supply traps on the road to the tower and /laugh at them from the walls while we use the “totally balanced” ACs."

If they want to waste 15 badges (yes, it’s 15 badges AND 500 karma) to stop me from trolling them for 30s, they are welcome.

WTF…. here goes my hope of Anet actually admiting their mistake and reverting the 80% idiotism. News flash – defending, even prior to the AC buff, was never a problem if you had enough siege and players in the tower/keep prior to the enemy arrival (a.k.a. having good scouting). Guess Anet really prioritizes zerglings and mindless play, now instead of good scouting you need 1 semi afk player on a superior arrow cart while all others follow a blue dot on the map in hope of finding an empty tower to PvDoor.

And the field battles? Flash ACs will still mostly decide them, great job Anet, your balancing team needs commendation, for work well done. /sarcasm

Sure, data before panic. We don’t have any reasons to fear the Anet WvW balancing team, right? Right? RIGHT? Look what great job they did with the ACs.

Atherakhia was probably joking… if not I can only say “lol” and I am a thief.
Also, Waffler, Rapid fire can’t be evaded by strafing, it locks on to you(although now that I remember, I have never tried strafing vs Rapid fire so I might be totally wrong here).

No. As long as the JP requires you to queue for the wvw map to enter it, it is better to stay account bound.
Even actually if that wasn’t the case, badges should never have been put in chests anyway, only players/lords/claimers should have dropped them imo.

When I still played guardian in wvw, I had no fear of 2 thieves at once, you are doing something wrong. Also, I thought how to kill my guardian with my thief… and the answer always was “I will need help, impossible 1v1”.

nagymbear.5280:

Pavel.8531:

I only see a lot of people that don’t know thief mechanics get trolled by 1 good s/d thief here. However, I do agree chaining cnd is imbalanced in wvw. IMO you should get revealed debuff 1.5s at the end of a stealth, even if you have not attacked anything(normal 3s, if you attack).

I almost agree with you. But for those classes that don’t aoe with each auto attack 1.5s is enough to press tab, press a skill, and say the F word. And chained cnd is truly imbalanced. One of these updates ANet will have the huevos to implement what was in plan, to get revealed if you’re out of stealth no matter what the reason. Thieves will still have evades, shadowstep, and blind to defend.

I am a fully time wvw thief player and my reasoning behind a 1.5s reveal is just so the target of the cnd can evade/block/whatever, making the chaining much harder vs good players. As it now stands, all you need is to practice 1 min cnd chaining vs random npc and you have the timing, so you can stay visible for 0.1s, if your goal is to just troll with cnd in a zerg. As a thief, you know that missing 1 cnd is trouble, miss 2 in a row and you are almost for sure dead.

I only see a lot of people that don’t know thief mechanics get trolled by 1 good s/d thief here. However, I do agree chaining cnd is imbalanced in wvw. IMO you should get revealed debuff 1.5s at the end of a stealth, even if you have not attacked anything(normal 3s, if you attack).

I love trolling people like this – activate > run to them > they jump me > lolol suckaaaz. It’s even better when a horde of angry enemies are chasing me and I use this to return where I started and look at them with the mob mentality just continue running in a straight line, away from me already, while I /laugh.
(I hope this is working as intended/never gets fixed)

Let me tell you a story, month or 2 old:
So, I was roaming and suddenly saw a staff ele. “Food” I thought and jumped him. The following battle was long and painful, I barely managed to down him, /bow-ed and went away, thoroughly impressed. He was predicting a lot of my moves and aoeing the right spots, zoning me out. Yeah, maybe the fact he had a “Champion Shadow” title had something to do with it.

I thought this was a troll thread, I am surprising there are so many posts.
On topic: I can imagine the OP “I’d rather my server lose, than a thief kill me 1v1! Now it’s Personal!(logs on forums)”.

Defending was never hard, if you had siege and people in the tower/keep “prior” to the enemy force arriving, even before the patch. Now, I see only “build arrow carts” in team chat. We build them in towers, we build them in keeps, we build them on the field, we build them in the NPC camps… I guess this buff to the ACs(and the skill tree is ridiculous too) really balanced them, thank you…. NOT!

I like that, they definitely should add traps, that say “Suckeeer!” and both enemy servers lose 1000 points if you someone steps in them. 100 gems in the gemstore only.
/sarcasm

Now seriously, I hope they are balanced, but I have sooo little faith left in the Anet balancing team, that… I like the JP change though.

Daendur.2357:

if you do flanking strike witout target it change to larcenous strike

and even if you miss

Oh… I thought that’s how it is supposed to do… I hope it’s not a bug, just faulty description… as a long time S/D user, the moment I used the new Flanking Strike, I realised the best part about is – if you “burn” 3 initiative prior to engaging, you can just IS, press 3, press 5 = profit – 2x CnD dmg hits + 2 boons(if target has any).

Since there is way too many pages of name calling and arguing, let’s keep this simple.
Let us make this a petition to ArenaNet. Whomever thinks AC normal fire(1) should be reverted back to pre-patch condition, write +1 as a clean post. Whomever don’t —1. No need to write why do you think it should be like this, the other thread is good for that. If you think something else should be done to balance them – write it and add a +1 on it.

+1

I have been using S/D since forever and with 30 in SA (ini on stealth, blind on stealth, regen while in stealth) I feel quite good, both in pve and wvw. The 4s revealed made the fluency in PvE baad, but now, since it’s/will be soon reverted…. go for it.

Aeolus.3615:

Thesilentflute.8761:

Make it so the enemy factions cannot see outmanned buff It is a green light to rush as much as you can as fast as you can.

No info should ne displayed as boon/foods/ upscaled lvl, etc etc.

only guild and server should be observable.

+1 from me too.

Why is this even on the wvw forums… Burnfall sorry to bring it down to you, but Scorpion wire is, in 95% of the cases used as an unreliable trolling tool, it’s that easy for the skill to miss(by the target just walking a bit to the left/right), be evaded or obstructed, that the fact, that you got pulled with one speaks volumes. Yeah, definitely the most op Thief skill, they should remove it and buff heartseeker dmg with 25% or something. /sarcasm

I beg to disagree, it’s your job to “command” (aka look at the map and take decisions where people should go and what should they do, not charge first in the enemies). So you can play whatever class/build you want.

1 – I use s/d with a 10/30/30/0/0 almost full GC build and it works wonders . Flanking strike is bad, because it doesn’t keep with the target, sometimes you can miss a totally still target too, because of its bad movement.

Definitely Mace Head Crack from guardians. I play s/d and most tanky guards are so sure thieves are no threat, that they just stand still and try spamming blocks when you melee them. Usually I just poke their aegis, then steal, then just drag the fight for 45 secs, intentionally taking damage and just poking them with shortbow. Then IS in, f1, f1, f1, 5, 1. 10s daze = dead overconfident guardian without me taking any damage.

I am happy, that not only I hate stealing from eles and especially engis. And yeah, the net and staff look much better.

This is a very general question (I mean, there are a lot of answers). The best advice I can give you is: Go to the pvp lobby. Then you can try builds you create yourself on the training npcs, until you find something you like. You will feel good that this is “your” build too, not something you googled

I usually equip shortbow, try not to be even remotely close to the front lines, while tagging enemies and placing max distance cluster bombs. Daggerstorm is situational, good when used with shadowstep. With the shortbow, every shot equals 3 enemies eating ~1-1.5k dmg each. Cluster bombs are good 3.5-4.5k dmg too. I get a lot of loot bags like this and I do feel useful, seeing numbers fly, but if I wanted to play like this, I would pick a staff ele or something, I much more enjoy roaming.

Talking about WvW – with 10/30/30 build and 119 crit dmg, most backstab dmg I’ve dealt vs 80 lvl characters, while I was trying main hand dagger was 7.5k. Funny story though, several days ago I tried the d/p 0/20/30/20/0 build, because it seemed interesting (not my style after I tried it though, I prefer s/d). I was just continuously stealthing, when a 80 guard passed by, without aegis so I decided to poke him. Same equips, 109 crit dmg and 16 might stacks. Boom 12.5k, and according to his health bar he barely had 1k left. I was so shocked by this number, that I left him run and started checking if I saw correctly. Yep, I had. I still have no idea why this happened, 16 might stacks shouldn’t result in double dmg…

I can contest keep wps all day, no matter how many people you have, if you don’t know how to position them. I will even teach everyone here the easiest way I have found: Equip sword. Put shadow refuge. Wait for 10s stealth duration. Press 2. Go and poke the door. Press 2. Repeat after 3 mins.
Does that mean stealth/thief is OP? Nope, the system where all you need is to touch the door for the keep/tower to be contested isn’t the best. I am loving it though, when I am bored I go troll an enemy server by keeping all their towers and keep on EB contested, often with a dozen or so people chasing me, unable to do anything.

My biggest grudge with last refuge is when I shadowstep in an enemy group and use daggerstorm. When I see I am getting low – shadow return, but I am already in revealed state.

Jinks, please note I said “exactly after the chain is finished”. I am not saying there are no things to CnD. In that meaning, 3 or 4 seconds revealed doesn’t matter. While in PvE you always know you will hit the milisecond revealed runs out.