Guild Wars 2

Flanking Strike’s pathing.

Garenthal.1480:

I’m surprised we’re seeing major changes to abilities at all this late in the game’s development, to be honest. It’s pretty troubling that the developers have suddenly changed their tune from ‘We want players to build their character as they please, if something is perceived as overpowered then we want people to learn to counter them’ to knee-jerk nerfing.

It’s an MMO, I’m sure this is the first of many.

I’m not sure why they don’t just try the City of Heroes route where some abilities work slightly differently in structured PvP.

High five, Knyx and Big.

I love my Thief, but I’m not adverse to some dial tuning. I can’t imagine that we’re one of the those professions that only needs the nerfs and not buffs or fine tuning in other areas. If they did that, then I’d raise an eyebrow.

But I also play a Mesmer and Elementalist, and between the three I really feel like the classes aren’t exactly where they want them to be, even with the best intentions. Heck, hold any profession up against the Warrior (the only one I recall them saying was “finished” back this summer) and everything needs refining.

And that’s cool. It’s an MMO. I’m used to this.

I’m excited to see what tweaks we get.

Jumping off of ledges with Shadow Step and Infiltrator’s Strike can be a fun way to toy with people, because you can zip right back up.

In PvE I can spam it even without Initiative bonuses, as it strikes so slow that it refills by the time I’m ready to do it again. In PvP, with the proper set-up…I’m not doubting you or thinking you’re wrong; just based on PvE I can imagine how absurd it’d be. I’ve never tried it.

I’m just wondering if there are possible counters to this that haven’t been addressed. In my experience and in reading this thread, it sounds like the sharks are the biggest issue to this particular scene.

If you really despise your first Thief’s race, it would be worth it. I understand wanting to be satisfied with your character’s appearance and style.

I don’t see them adding a race change option because of the personal story…I suppose they could just undo it and restart you, as they’ve done that before to fix some glitches people had. I don’t see them offering it, though.

It’s said that our base speed is still quicker with it on. Again, I can hardly tell when I take it out, and when I do notice the difference on my other characters, I’m not entirely sure.

I go back and forth on this one. I’m told you’re still faster in combat, but I can never really tell.

I just know the ranged blind is handy so I still slot it.

@Shintai

Argh, I confused the Strikes. Sorry!

sachiel.8051:

We should have a sit-in on the thief board and talk about all our elementalist problems there. It’s where the dev’s are probably hanging, chatting about their preferred class, so our posts will finally get read.

As a Thief main with an Elementalist Alt, I can assure you we don’t get as much hang out time.

@ Shintai

Just in case you didn’t see:

The following profession skills now hit 3 targets instead of 1:

Elementalist Dagger: Lightning Whip, Lightning Touch
Mesmer Spear: Stab, Jab, Evasive Strike
Ranger Spear: Stab, Jab, Evasive Strike, Dart, Counterstrike
Thief Spear: Stab, Jab, Poison Tip Strike, Nine Tailed Strike
Warrior Spear: Stab, Jab, Impale, Mariner’s Frenzy, Parry

October 1st patch. I like it, Lightning Whip is more fun to break out now.

You can indeed transmute these across characters. I’ve seen Rangers and Engineers also using our hoods or Engineer goggles.

Acquire a Transmute Stone.
Roll a new Thief.
Complete the tutorial and run to a bank.
Deposit your Hood/Headband/Mask.
Get back on your other character.
Purchase a…oh, let’s say the generic Medium Mask every vendor sells.
Transmute the starter item and mask. Make sure you select the item first, then the mask’s stats.

It will say soulbound, but it’s not. You can freely move them around as long as this item is a non-soulbound item level (White or Blue). Once it’s on a Masterwork or higher, I believe it’s stuck.

That’s some amazing armor. And tattoos.

Scorpion Wire in the WvW puzzle.

I was almost a charr thief, but stayed human. Let us know how it goes in this thread. I’d love to see pics; I haven’t seen too many charr thieves.

Flanking Strike is great, and will be better once it has it little quirks sorted out. The trick is it’s not something you use all the time, like DB or PW can be. It’s an Evade and rips a boon off. I’ve also had some impressive crits on that second strike.

The key is to learn to balance it with your Dodges and Energy, and pop it when you want a boon gone – even when it hiccups, the first strike always hits and is the boon ripper.

I think the best way to learn FS is to fight the NPCs in the Mists. Go up against the Warrior and Guardian and play around with it.

I actually agree with both Mr Big and Tulisin. Sword Dagger is fun for it’s Dazelock (even in dungeons), and Dancing Dagger is an amazing tool. Once I had Rare and Exotic weaponry, I loved when I’d get jumped in Orr, and in WvW and sPvP I welcome a chance to throw Dancing Dagger in a crowd – as long as you have at least two targets, three is better, and a Ranger is just a free kill, it’s some nice burst.

It’s value compared to Black Powder is debatable – I don’t find too many people who are willing to stand in the pulse; I always find people standing too close together. Then again, I try not to 1v1, even as a roamer. Get in, flip a fight, and continue on.

And Headshot is nice, but if you slot an interrupt like Wire instead of taking it, that’s just a risk you take. It’s called flexibility.

No problem, friend. I’m glad you’re enjoying Thievery. Basically the better class of gear, the more budget it has. This avoids (so far) the problems of gear in Warcraft, where I have an epic, and you have an epic, but my epic is still of a higher item level/budget, so it’s better than yours.

Ideally the way GW2 works is that yes, Exotics trump Masterworks trump Rares, but no Exotic can ever outvalue another Exotic. It’s more about customizing for your traits and playstyle. I didn’t stick with the original GW for very long, on account of friends refusing to leave WoW, but if I recall they handled gear the same – it was about min/maxing yourself, not min/maxing a system.

On the whining front, this may be why GW1 didn’t have official forums. It’s why I left GW2Guru, so many people who would rather be closed mindedly miserable than play the game.

I’ve seen some petty coat looking tops on male thieves. I just now saw a reasonable approximation of Connor from AC3 in Divinity’s Reach – had the Revolutionary style coat and the Anonymity hood.

I agree Shadow Arts and Trickery are some support tools, but I don’t necessarily think Venom Share is mandatory. There are a lot of useful traits in the two lines that vary depending on the situation.

I’m not going to give you hardline Trait choices because I switch them up depending on the situation we’re running into. I’ll just say that Shadow Refuge is awesome, Smoke Screen is underrated, and Thrill of the Crime and Bountiful Theft go a long way into making Steal worth burning on cooldown if you don’t already.

And a general mindset, when it comes to roles and builds, some people like to tell you X can do it better, why bring Y, etc. That may be true, but it’s good to know X can do it at all because Y isn’t always going to be around. Know your class and mechanics, and know the OTHER professions’ mechanics. And know your combo fields.

Is that Lucius Malfoy?!

Yeah, as far as Stealth goes, when I’m on my other professions, I’d rather deal with the current Thief than any of the old WoW Rogue builds. Or TOR Operatives back in their prime. Or DAoC actually making stealth truly more than a set up tool.

It’s just to get you going until you get an OH, mainly. If you look at them, you also see where the Dual Skill “evolved” from.

I’m farming with Backstab lately, it’s efficient in all the best ways for me.

I’m going to bake you a whole dozen AND beg to play tabletop with you!

Enerjak.2475:

Let it be known the pact is lead by a Necromancer, because Necromancers are win.

Then why did he reroll to get a Greatsword?

/bull rush

It’s cool, Trahearne is going to fall to the allure of necromantic arts. You could tell by his devotion to Orr and it’s rituals the Risen beasts. He’s going to be corrupted, in the best way a villain can be – you can also take his side and see where he’s NOT the Villain. He has to.

It’s the best way to make him interesting.

This is my feeling on MMORPGs (Not RPGs, specifically MMORPGs) making You, the Player Character, The Hero: It doesn’t work. The very concept is immersion breaking. Being A Hero works, but not The Hero.

The best comparisons I can make are these games:

City of Heroes/Champions Online – Opinions on the games aside, and just focusing on how they approached it, you were A Hero, and became somebody special to the Big Names in the universe. It worked because of the whole concept – this is a world with a lot of spandex, and you’re one of many. The narratives were overarching and general, and it rarely came down to You Must Save The Day – it was usually you pitching in, so epic were these threats.

World of Warcraft – What I liked about this all seven years I played was that even when you did big things, you were always a cog in the machine, just another soldier/adventurer. Sure, you were around for some important moments, but you weren’t Leonidas giving the speech, you weren’t even one of his officers. You were one of the grunts. I thought it was pretty brilliant, considering the RTS roots. It helped the player world feel “lived in”, raid farming aside (and GW2 is just as guilty of instance farming if anyone wants to play that card).

The Old Republic – The problem with Old Republic is that no matter what, you were The Chosen One. You are the Chosen One of the Jedi Consulars. As an Operative/Agent you are a specific Darth’s “Hand”. You’re The Best Bounty Hunter in the galaxy, proof by contest. As a Smuggler, you’re essentially Han Solo with the Millennium Falcon – not any smuggler with a rustbucket, it’s a very specific tale. As a Jedi Guardian you…well, there’s a key story moment to the whole franchise there.

It sounds awesome…except in an MMO. Partied with friends or strangers of the same class? They have your exact sidekick. The same status, if you play together. It bugged me, and I’m not even a heavy roleplayer.

I truly do love most game’s lore and stories (even WoW,), but when you want to make the player character the focus in the way Old Republic or GW2 does …it doesn’t work, by virtue of the game being massively multiplayer.

The only thing that interested me about Trahearne is around the Orr campaign, it occurred to me he might eventually fall victim to his Necromancer origins – not become a pawn of the dragon, but just falling to the “Dark Side” in a future story. I don’t think that’s actually going to happen.

I haven’t played a Sylvari, just human, Norn, Asura, and Charr, so I’ll need to try it just to get a better bead on Trahearne. As presented on Claw Island, he confused the hell out of me: Necromancer expert on Risen. I get that. Oh wait, now he’s wielding a legendary great sword. O…kay. I was fine with his status as co-leader with me (I don’t care what he fronts, he all but tells you “Yeah, they trust you more” and asks me for every important decision, even when it’s “his plan”), it’s just how he came to get it that falls down for me. We definitely needed a little more lead in or interaction time with him – it’s been noted before that around Orr he’s totally stolen the stage, which I’m alright with…he just never did anything to earn it. Any of Destiny’s Edge I understand and can fill the blanks in with, but Trahearne has nothing I can work with. Why does everyone cool owe him favors? Why does he always have a plan (like Batman!)? What drives him?

As a character, he reminds me of some bad Roleplay I’ve done before – you can throw 18 Charisma on the character sheet, you can write about how witty and loveable and inviting your character’s personality is, but if you can’t actually SHOW and DO it, don’t do that.

Any future content with him is going to have a struggle for my interest. I wish I had more groundwork with him, because I already roll my eyes at him.

For the personal story, I mainly play Humans, so I’ve done every option (Not in every combo). I thought all three origins were well done, although some of the stories don’t pair as cleanly as others. Luckily my Thief was a street rat who wanted to join the Circus (Tim Drake and Jason Todd were the first two thoughts to come to mind, don’t ask me), and that worked.

I think the Sister and Parents stories fell the flattest, on their own. The circus sort of wrapped up, while the other two drop some great ideas and then it cuts out and throws you into the general story – I’m hoping there’s future content about these choices.

I’m hoping it’s potential for future content.

Whoa, Jennah loves Logan back? Having only played GW2 with no book knowledge, I got the impression she was throwing him clearly in the friend zone and just taking advantage of his adoration to get some work done.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:2009_December_human_02.jpg

I haven’t seen that NPC. Not like being an NPC counts, since you can rock Jennah’s hair if you wanted. I know it’s from 2009, but it gives me hope for additional styles.

Stacey Pilgrim, Scout extraordinaire. I liked the way Stacey was portrayed as always popping up out of nowhere to harass her brother or slickly bailing out when wanted in the Scott Pilgrim movie, so that was my little joke for the Thief class.

That’s not to say I don’t care about lore or RP – my other characters have more lore appropriate names – but she was the little alt that became a main.

Darn. I hope the lineage thing doesn’t play out too much in expansions, sounds like my character should have been from Ascalonian refugees. Then again, it was generations ago, so who knows her storied history. Thanks for the clarification.

Mirtis.6847:

Somehow i fail to understand the whole issue about backstab, Except for the invise delay.
Do you guys like…Bend over and wait when you see a thief go invise or wha?

That’s what I imagine. I Stealth and see people either turn tail and run, or run in circles jumping while waiting me out. Thanks for the free opening.

I went Valk/Berserker after researching and seeing Nefarious’s recommendations on my way up to 80, and that’s what I invested in for my first Rares. I’ll back Nef and Vexus up; you still hit like a truck but now you can take hits.

For PvE/WvW I went 4 Valkyrie, 2 Berserker on Armor, and I have a mix of Berserker and Valk trinkets (Maybe a Rampager or two, if I recall – it was a light day on the TP). With the healthy HP buffer and our own mobility and stealth (both of which offer Condition wipes) I’m always the last man standing in dungeons. In WvW I can jump into the fray with little fear.

It’s smart on their part. You’re choosing what stats you want to focus on, and the itemization budget is the same for everything. No more “Item X is better than Item Y and that’s why I lost” debate.

Items are costly because it’s meant to be the time sink that keeps you playing and perhaps investing in the Gem Store if you’re impatient.

@Saurus

I need more than a blanket OP cry (in fact, try presenting the argument without the term, just be objective) and a veiled accusation of ignorance to the Thief community to go on.

Playing a Guardian, Ele, and Mesmer (I got bored of the Warrior) in addition to my Thief, outside of a few “Argh, wasn’t paying attention and reacted poorly” moments (which is a danger from everyone) in sPvP, I don’t see any justification for the hate beyond Stealth, which isn’t the amazing perma-boon that kneejerk complainers make it out to be.

If running away is the problem, Eles, Warriors (charge tracking Shadow Step, whee), and other professions have ways to keep up. And if the Thief is running away, don’t chase – if he’s fleeing, you probably were going to win; in WvW it’s not the big picture, in sPvP you should have teammates (maybe even a Thief) to help you stamp him out.

This is one I’ve been playing with since last week in PvE (dungeons) and WvW.

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.7.1.6.20.13.0.0.0.0.154.168.174.176.178.0.0.0.0.0.0.468.467.0.481.488.0.497.0.0.515.0.0.0.20.25.15.10

I run D/P and P/D because both have their uses and give me versatility – I like to play saucy with the Backstabs, but if I need to fall back, Pistol is how I do that. Shortbow goes in during major AoE moments.

20 in Critical for Keen Observer, Side Strikes, Opportunist, and Furious or Signets of Power. I like to run with SoS, and the blind is handy (especially since it’s ranged), so with the blind and stacks of Might, I feel the Signet pulls more weight.

25 in Shadow Arts for all the baseline traits and Master of Deception. You can slot whatever you want in the other Trait, which is what I like about it – I change both up quite bit. MoD is nice, though, since I run with Blinding Powder, Shadow Refuge, or Shadow Step (stun and condition remover). I like Blinding Powder for it’s on-demand Stealth action if the momentum of the fight is in my favor.

15 in Acro for those two very nice baseline traits, and Inertia, since you may as well get Might for dodging.

10 in Trickery, and here’s where you can scrap this line and invest in others if you want, but I like getting Initiative on Steal, and Thrill is a lot of perks for something you do quite often. But you could cap out Critical Strikes or Shadow Arts if you wanted – my last build ran 25 in CS and 30 in SA, but I kept looking at my boons after Steals (or lack of boons) and going “Huh.”

I like all three of our Elites, to be honest, I find each one situational. Guild for PvE, Basilisk or Dagger Storm for WvW (since I’m rarely in a 1 on 1 situation, I think both cater to the scenarios you run across).

I think the challenge is in actually landing the backstab, which isn’t exactly the IWIN Button some people make it out to be. CnD has a cast time and has to land in kissing distance, Powder-Seeker-Stealth is a big Initiative chunk, and in other cases you’d be burning the heal or utility – some Thieves have the confidence for that.

And Backstabbing back to back still throws a 3 second CD in between opportunities to do it, not actual stabbing.

As mentioned, there’s also the server fighting against you, which I agree needs to be fixed, because I don’t want to be cheap as much as you don’t want me to.

obtuse.8291:

I’m not sure it has a strength. at least for thief. There’s no sustained damage possible via conditions only. at best you could have a mixed approach with some condition damage and some power, leaving neither weak. Trying to be a superspecialist could be a mistake in this game. Hybrids may end up most viable

I also build for the Hybrid approach. Focusing/forgoing one and the other seems like handicapping myself, I’d rather do decent at both and work to synergize them. When I say Hybrid I’m not mixing Berzerker’s with Carrion or anything – but if I can get +Condi through a traitline or that Exotic/Rare that isn’t QUITE what I wanted, I don’t knock it. A boost is a boost.

There’s a lot of back and forth between Dagger Thieves about Death Blossom being useless to a Seeker/Backstab build, but I’m not clear on why you wouldn’t want to pack it all – get your bleeds going, then lay into them when you can to keep the pressure up. Looking at the Traits and how it’s possibly to get a decent spread instead of going heavy into one or two traitlines, I think that’s ANet’s intent.

I may be wrong, though. The game is still young, and it looks like they’re still figuring things out.

I really appreciate you breaking it all down.

I think OH sword would be cool for those swashbuckler types. I’d say just expand MH Sword, but that’d screw with itemization, so two swords works for how over the top the Thief already is. I’d like the 3 skill to be a Riposte or Parry.

Overall, I’m for Maces or Rifles if ANet is going to seriously give us some weapon love. Some of the models might look ridiculous on us, but a Mace is pretty Bandit like. The Daggers already give us the Assassin and Cutthroat motif, Swords for dashing swashbucklers. I say give us the Ruffian option.

While I’ve played the original game with a friend, I’m relatively new to Guild Wars and playing catch up on the lore. I was curious what comparisons might be made when it comes to the human kingdoms, mainly for lore/Light RP’s sake.

Cantha is Asian culture and Orr seems to be heavy Middle Eastern, with an emphasis on the Arabian Nights motif. Where do Elona and Kryta fall?

When it came up in my story, I chose a Krytan lineage, as in my quick middle-of-the-quest-Wiki-research they seemed to be England Middle Ages (I’d say Arthurian, but then we have the Sylvari…)

I’d appreciate any lore experts giving me a quick crash course!

The flavor text makes it. Rad.

I concur. I’m currently playing around with a D/D and D/P set with heavy Shadow Arts and Crit focus.

D/P offers a lot of utility, and I run the Dagger OH because Dancing Dagger is great for crowds and I pull other blinds off with Blinding Powder, Shadow Refuge, and CnD (Traited for the last two).

It’s part of my effort to break my “Must always run with a shortbow” mindset. I’m not saying it’s amazing, but I needed a break from my S/D play.

What’s great about the Powder is that unlike CnD, it doesn’t mean I have to stealth. I usually do, but in dungeons it’s great to drop a powder and roll back sometimes and then go into Dancing Dagger.

He’s got to be bugged on some level. That fight is ridiculous.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/45902-lowells-ultimate-spvp-thief-guide-wip/

Scroll down to 5.4, D/D builds. Those are Unicorn specs.

Spear’s block is so awesome. I wish we had it on Sword.