Guild Wars 2

Signets are quite useful if they are traited, although that takes quite heavy investment in disc while dropping some useful traits.

The thing with zerk stance vs signet of stamina is their difference in usage.
Zerk stance is mostly used as an aggressive tool (you can still use it defensively), the main idea is creating a gap for you when you’re buffed up with adrenaline, ready to burst with lbow and hammer in quick succession while at the same time you ignore any effects from the enemy trying to stop you from reaching him. For example in that 8 seconds you have full immunity against blindspamming thieves, neccys, engys who have no way to slow you down except pop plague to try and stall you or try to CC you to buy some time.
Signet of stamina is pure defensive tool, it gives you “vigor” in it’s passive state and it’s purely a tool against condioverload similar to lyssa.

Same thing with balanced stance and dolyak signet. Signet suffers from longer cd, but has better defensive usage, while stance is more mobile and can be used both offensively and defensively.

The reason why in spvp most people prefer stances are due to the lower CD on stability and in the case of zerk stance. It’s better to ignore condis for a brief time so you can setup your damage than to cleanse one overload just to get overloaded 2 secs later.

apt is like a “hipsterwarrior”.
Zerk builds weren’t hard to play btw. They were fun and more reactive than other braindead burst builds, but not hard in any way. They just weren’t that effective compared to other professions.

Cleanse yourself more! Watched a bit, average gameplay from average player. You seem to be having fun atleast. ^^

Why do you think stamina sig is better for sPvP than zerk stance btw?
Since other than a few skill/trait choices this is the regular GS/mace+sh build.

Nikkinella.8254:

Not saying it was. We have necro and runes of perplexity mainly to thank for that. My point is, that conditions are the best counter for it. It may not have been the cause, but a lot more people are running condition builds now. Pretty much all you see now are the stun build warriors and condition builds of every other class capable of running a viable condition build.

We probably come from different aspects of the game PvP wise (I play less wubwub and more tPvP). The reason why CC warr emerged was due to condimeta arising not the other way around. You see CC warr is the hard counter for condinecros and engys (a bit against rangers also, but it takes ages to take them down).

AoE condispam+S/D thief pushed out the main powerbursters from the meta, since zerk ele and mesmer can’t pressure enough on point without getting overwhelmed by condis, they can’t win 1v1 against S/D thief or condineccy. Currently warr is very resistant to conditions and can shut down every condiprofession. He can run that due to the lack of powerbursters to harass him. That type of warr is still very suspectible to spike damage and still easy to train down by coordinated (power)spike.

When meta focuses away from condis, then mesmer, ele, D/P thief will emerge again and we’ll probably see less warriors in play. Not gonna comment on Rune of Perplexity and other highly imbalanced “PvE” stuff.

Yup mace+shield/GS warr was totally the reason why condimeta emerged.

/sarcasm

Yeah, but anyone who has atleast a little bit experience should be able to counterplay this build. All in all I don’t really care what they do with it, since I don’t play it. I’ll still be effective with my own stuff.

Still think GS/mace+shield isn’t as effective as similar alternatives. I play hammer/mace+shield and it’s much more evil. Hammer+lbow is pretty neato with the constant cleansing aswell.

Only positive side I see on this build is the cleave ability and mobility, but I’m still wondering how people still get hit by 100b. Whirlwind is what’s scary on GS if anything.

Welcome back Vic. Healing signet is totally usable in tPvP now. Works best with atleast 15 in def to get adrenal health and soldier+zerk ammy. Very good sustain and a great 1v1 spec if you add some condiresistance there through cleansing ire and zerk stance.

Rednik.3809:

Psybunny.8906:

Why are you wubwub tryhards in pvp forum? Wubwub and pvp are night and day. I can easily 2v1 against bads in wubwub.

I can 1v2 against bads anywhere. Can’t see how it proves something, though.

Because wubwub is an imbalanced clusterkitten. Warr is OP as hell in 1v1 situations with the foodbuffs in wubwub, but totally in balance in tPvP. Also most of the QQ comes from wubwubers who have no experience fighting people head on and only like to spam blast finishers in their protective blob.

Why are you wubwub tryhards in pvp forum? Wubwub and pvp are night and day. I can easily 2v1 against bads in wubwub.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Those banner regen “bunkers” crumble against any decent pressure. They’re strong 1v1 and MAYBE 2v1 but only if the other guy is bad. Guardian still has much more survival.

Had the same experience when I tried out the condibunker thingie with regen banner. Good sustain 1v1, but totally melted in bigger fights and doesn’t kill stuff quick enough 1v1 to be useful. I still prefer hammer/mace+shield for AoE pressure to get some breathing space for myself. Might try out hammer/lbow, but I think I’ll miss blocks/reflect too much.

Harry plays spirit ranger and is sad that CC warr hardcounters that gimmick spec.
Why are warriors running sustainbuilds with loads of condiremoval? We got rolled by condis/other GC when running pure glass so we had to build against it.

Why we previously still got rolled was because our heals sucked hard compared to other professions and we were a total faceroll profession to play against. Now our heals are in a good spot and you actually have to think when you fight us.

Now ask yourself a question, what to equip if you’re getting stunlocked by a warrior?
Maybe it’s time for YOU to adapt, not the other way around.

@OP: Experience and knowledge of other professions.

Full zerk PvE = Healing surge
Atleast 20 points in def and tankier wubwub/PvP = healing signet

If they feel the need to get some sort of response out of you by PMing and harassing you, then they obviously lack some important social factor in their life. That pretty much screams like “Pay attention to me!”.

I usually ignore those whispers or respond cheerfully, since as a bit of a kitten myself I know that happy responses like that kitten these type of persons off the most.

Poxxia.1547:

Psybunny.8906:

There are kittens in every area of the game, but there are actually a lot of nice people in pvp also. That type of players usually try to stay quiet though, so they wont get overwhelmed with the sea of nerdrage that exists out there.

Kinda hard to comment on this without generalizing, but I don’t feel it is nerdrage; I frankly feel, that many of the offenders suffer from serious social inabilities/disorders. Be that serious cases of ADHD, dyssocial/dissocial personality structures etc. either way it is unfortunate, that they seem to find it completely legitimate to let out their social frustration on innocent people, who in no way have deserved such a treatment.

The irony is, that when you/I talk to some of these offenders who turn out to have some kind of social disorder, they have in some cases turned around and played the victims … saying they have a right to be in the game as well, no matter what harm they do. Seriously …….. .

And yes, I am aware of my margin of error here, the rough way I estimate things etc, but gaming communities have imho become sick to the core due to the lack of consequence and the degree of silent approval. Only some of the rather tight groups seem to be healthy, but once you hit the casual mid-ground you end up with too many of the cyber-bullies who should rather spend time in therapy than gaming.

Another good example why unnecessary flaming/arguments start is due to online environment being really bad at conveying emotion/intention. Sincere comments are seen as sarcastic and due to that past experiences influence your response to a random new stranger a lot.

Also what started as a small comment from competitive frustration might lead to a huge argument due to “stereotyping” the other person as the usual “raging kid” and ofc the ego pride a lot of players have.

CC warr + S/D thief = thief rips stability and warr stunlocks the target, alternative is whatever other burster.
S/D zerk ele or shattermesmer works well also due to the crazy amount of burst both of them put out.

There are kittens in every area of the game, but there are actually a lot of nice people in pvp also. That type of players usually try to stay quiet though, so they wont get overwhelmed with the sea of nerdrage that exists out there.

I know that many do not find that comfortable, that I am in fact a male player. As a fellow GW2 casual player I also wish for more customization in my home instance, namely in the kitchen/dining area.

Nice taste in music.

Very unique and interesting build. I can actually see this thing working, I’ll definitely give it a try today. Maybe even banner of tactics for better “bunkering”.

S/D thief and staff mesmer are hard counters for this build. L2P thieves, L2P.

Love you. <3

Sexist!
Also, you should post your attention seeking in guild recruitment.

JoakimFA.4713:

I don’t wanna be one of those kittens who say it, but anyone who says Warriors are OP at the moment is seriously just a L2P issue.

I dread to say that, since it has become such a cliche sentence here, but it applies here 100%.

OP, go play warr a bit in pvp since you obviously have no idea how that profession works and you need practice playing it to understand it. The following is from tPvP wise, not including wvwvw since condi reduction foods make warr a real beast there.

And btw everything has a counter, that “OP builds” biggest hard counter is a S/D thief. I can’t imagine losing to any warr when I play that build. Or you know, anything that can dodge and has a stunbreak for mace F1. If the warr is using signet just keep poison on him constantly and keep damage up.

LeGi.3921:

Psybunny.8906:

Good luck in finding a team, shame that [ugly] burnt out.
Why do you have 25 months in your year?

@spoiler: its month/day/year so 5th of august to 25th of august

thanks for the good luck, some people already asked but till now nothing is fixed.

You’re not NA, are you? I thought most of Europe used DD/MM/YYYY. Just nitpicking, sorry for the offtopic.

Nerf Lyssa when you nerf mindless AoE condispam. That’s the only reason most of the thieves are running Lyssa FYI.

Sword in dungeons is just silly.

Good luck in finding a team, shame that [ugly] burnt out.
Why do you have 25 months in your year?

Try swapping to Soldier+zerk ammy. Since you’re taking full advantage of unsuspecting foe anyways a bit more survivability would do wonders. I really like the concept of your build.

Just wait out Endure pain, it’s 4 sekittenraited and has a long CD. He can get a 2nd one at 25% hp if he is heavily traited in Def tree, same deal applies there. You just need a bit of patience, pull back with sword 2, put some distance between you two and kite him a bit (you can still apply conditions, so dagger 4 and sbow 3 is a good choice). If he has a ranged weapon use your stolen whirlwind.

Once endure pain ends continue as normal. Warr should be one of the easiest fights for a S/D spec since you have a free “stunbreak”.

Wubwub feels 90% of the time like beating little naughty children with a broomstick. You feel a bit ashamed, but it’s still strangely satisfying.

P.S dat OP swordstun.

I’m actually enjoying NOT using a GS a lot now. I absolutely loved that weapon, but at the same time hated it. It isn’t effective on its own and needs a “babysit” 2ndary set or a utility to do any damage, plus I always felt forced to invest hard in traits for it.

Defektive style sword+mace/mace+shield feels very natural imo, my take on it is 0/10/30/0/30 with reflect on block and vigor on stances. Feels natural and skillful to play and has loads of tools to be unpredictable.

Was very good to listen to. Competent warriors who know their stuff and can analyze the current situation objectively. GJ guys.

To be honest Cruuk you were pretty much dancing around in far without neuting or killing anything for minutes and minutes. Seems pretty useless in my opinion, if the strategy is to rely on opponents being stupid and bringing other people out of midfights then there must be a better way honestly.

What was the reason for not stomping the guard with stealth/blind once you actually managed to get him down? The 13:30 thingie just seemed like a bad move, since you could have easily won that 2v2 by helping your teammate, bursting the 5% hp guard and then getting ele in a 2v1, but instead you’re being a kittycat and sit down. Also y u no interrupt ele rezzing. If this is top thief gameplay in NA, then I’m really disappointed. Can’t be bothered to check the full stream.

Not really seeing how wubwub permastealth spec is any way useful in tournys imo. I guess it’s good for soloq if you want to play a spec that relies only on yourself. I do like the unique approach though.

I use this both in wvwvw and in tPvP. Focuses on evasion and “dancing” with your opponent. Very hard to kill and pretty much uncounterable in 1v1 by melee professions.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlYmSO3eS6E/5Ey2jean4JNF0UD2pgrsKA-jEyAYLBRySEpCAJPl10ngYVsIas6aMlLRUNA-w (for some reason my ingame hp is 15.6k, for tpvp use zerker ammy).

Main idea is to use terrain to your advantage, strike from a place where there is no LOS and be smart in your ini management. Sword 2 is both your iniator and damage mitigator. If you’re fighting backstab specs or just feel like you’re gonna get spiked then lay down sword 2 beforehand so you have a safe “stunbreaker”.

Simple rotation:
sword 2→steal→sword 3→dodge behind→autos→(if boon then sword 3)→dodge→autos→(if stun/daze/fear/condition sword 2 back)

Skill usage:
1: main damage
2: damage mitigation/iniator/cleansing/breakstun
3: boonrip and main damage
4: almost never use/can be used once when chasing
5: almost never use/can be used on critters when you need to position better/use on stomping

inf signet: thief stomping and extra ini. Swap it for SoS in wubwub.
shadow refuge: panic escape, stomp denial, rezzing, counter for long stealths.
shadowstep: panic stunbreak, can be used aggressively aswell to decrease distance, guardian stomping

Fighting various specs:

• Shatter mesmer: keep constant pressure on him. Withdraw negates his doubleshatter completely when you fail to dodge ileap. Mix sword 2 and autos to keep the clones running from one place to another, dodge when they try to shatter. Avoid GS5 with sword 3 or dodge to behind the mesmer, use the stolen buffs to keep putting pressure on him. Force the mesmer to use his distortion then spike with basilisk. Only use dagger 5 if the mesmer stealths, counter mass invis with shadow refuge, make sure you dodge inside the area to negate focus pull or gs5.
• Phantasm mesmer: basic playstyle is the same, but use CnD on clones to make them lose target constantly.
• Guardians: if they are bunkerish then you can train on their back as much as you want. Main idea is to force out cooldowns and renewed focus. Rip as many boons as possible, mix it up with sword 3→dodges→autos→sword 3 or double sword 3 if basilisked. Long fight guaranteed. If they are squishy harass with sbow and force them to use their burst then spike down.
• Warriors: lol most are freekills. Only threat can be a lbow spec if he is extremely good, with everything else you can just dance around with him and keep him running. Keep your distance and force out endure pain/block.
• Eles: Staff ele is freekill so are squishys, full bunkers can be a pain to kill completely. Requires quite a bit of chasing. Swap to sbow when he has shocking aura up and punish chill aura with stolen chill. Cleanse burning with sword 2.
• Engys: Stay on sbow mostly. Punish boonspam and running away with S/D. Cleanse burning asap, bleeds can be somewhat ignored.
• Ranger: powerspecs are freekills, bunkerspecs require a long fight. Focus on ripping prot/regen from him. If he uses troll’s ungent then spike after the heal. Cleanse bleeds with sword 2.
• Necro: powerspecs can be kited to death (you don’t want to “facetank” powernecro) and then finished off with sword, condispecs are harder to fight. Avoid wells/staff marks, make sure you always have sword 2 to break fear. Use basilisk to cleanse condispike and punish. When they use lich form/plague form then rip stability and stolen fear→autoattacks.
• Thief: everything should be fairly easy and based on player skill level. Avoid getting into D/P daze lock, always have a option to back off and try spiking squishy backstab specs down asap. P/D should be easy to go against, just cleanse the bleeds constantly when they get higher. Against high sustain permastealth thieves it’s better to swap to backstab for a moment, you wont push out enough spike damage to get them down with sword alone. Otherwise it’s pretty much the same, counter shadow refuge with your shadow refuge, if he is low and uses it swap to sbow and clusterbomb the area.

All I see from you is:
“>werlegion, amirite, problem?, umad?, hue hue hue, trollface.jpg, heaven”

I think you’ve mistaken gw2 community as something else. Your inability to adept to thief changes over the past months shouldn’t be vented onto players who seek honest advice. If you can’t be mature enough to help others out and you see everything as a personal nerf attack to “your” profession then you shouldn’t post at all. Other people deal with the changes to certain professions by adapting to it and gladly give out tips to improve the overall gameplay for other players aswell. Furthermore, it’s not like thief is awful in wubwub or smth.

DanH.5879:

1. he is looking/asking on the wrong forum for his worrior class, how to play it
2. i still believe the answers i gave, are good (after all, a-net should help their customers!)

a. for a general thief defeat is to CC/launch him when he does SR, because it’s his gtfo card
b. don’t be a noob to stay still asking for backstabs in the back, if thief is in stealth run in circles, changing direction every time (facestab is 1/2 damage of BS)
c. and try to dodge the C&D, succesfully dodging 2 of them WILL make the thief re-think the situation
d. for d/p pros, you can evade/block his HS, staying outside the blind field, doing this, will make him loose 9 ini, which hurts…
e. thieves guild don’t do too much dmg (unless they have fury), they are used as diversion only and as additional dps, i guess they can be ignored since they don’t backstab for 35k !

happy now?

on this forum i am not needed to tell what skill so use on your worrior/guard against a thief, just some general guides

yes, the offtopic was kind of rude, but maybe i am tired of all this whining (i can’t kill thiefs, they are so OP, omg) and then new nerfs come our way….next month same thing….next month same thing….same thing for many months now ? 8?9?10?

why a-net doesn’t put free guides how to kill thieves ?!? make skills on other classes for auto-revealing stealthed targets in a small area ?
i will not make anymore suggestions, because my ideas are just being ignored (the PVE condition problem we have, has been here from the beginning of the game, but instead they are busy nerfing left and right)

and eng is not my main, it’s the 2’nd, and working on the 3rd: “deutsch”

You clearly need to L2P, I’m having zero problems on my thief.

And this is the correct forum for such topics, players who play the profession that you’re having the most trouble against know the most of it. They can give the best advice on how to counter them, explain how they act or what messes them up.

Should record and make a compilation of funniest rush fails.

DanH.5879:

Heienkatso.9628:

They usually win me 90% of the time if they know what they are doing.

they are winning you ? omg, that is terrible
but hey, maybe you can win at poker online ?

OT: the usual l2p mixed with “thief is OP again”
answer 1: you can ask a-net support for tips ? (make a ticket)
answer2: request MORE thief nerfs via ticketing system as above

Don’t be a kitten kthxbye, he is not whining about OP thief, he is looking for tips to improve his gameplay. You’re the type of player that has given thief players the type of reputation they have atm.

90% of wubwub thieves are bad and predictable. Play a bit of tpvp as a thief and you can counter them perfectly. I play a roamer warr and if they don’t have a stunbreak ready when they engage me they are 100% dead unless they play non-glass sustainbuild or smth nonsense like high toughness p/d, but that build is not a threat to me anyways. If they play full zerk a single whirlwind will take around 50%+ of their hp.

I’m mostly zerker with few knight pieces, melandru runes and ofc the imba condi dura reduction food. Hard CC/stunlock eats thieves for breakfast.

Currently making my thief into the same evasion spec I use in tPvP to try it out in wubwub.

1. It’s D/P not P/D, D/P is alternative backstab spec to D/D.
2. GS 5 goes through stealth, if you hit them you have a guaranteed pull, if not you have an indicator to his position.
3. If they dodge GS pull try to interrupt them mid heartseeker just after they lay down black powder, shield 5 can do that perfectly. This denies them stealth and leaves them vulnerable with a lot of ini spent.
4. Thieves hate retaliation, GS 4 is good for this.
5. Watch out for the basilisk venom icon, if they try to backstab you from distance just dodge after you see the heartseeker animation from black powder field.
6. Shelter is best pvp heal on guardian.
7. Invis =/= invuln, keep moving erratically and keep autoattacking at all times, if you see your autoattack chain goes through then you’ve hit him.
8. Don’t stand in black powder fields.
9. Use hammer 3 and 5 (he’ll need to waste a stunbreak) to zone him in, you’ll outlast him in a face to face battle. CC first, then damage. Thief is an excellent profession to evade/kite telegraphed attacks.
10. Don’t panic with your skills, don’t spam everything.

P.S I’d use some knight pieces and soldier runes instead of that PVT. 15-16k hp and high toughness guard is totally fine for pvp. I’d suggest carrying a scepter+focus or scepter+shield with you. Scepter melts thieves.

Velron.3729:

This gives me an idea…def going to get on my Warrior later and put Kick on the bar.

Doing it on Engi is fun, but its expected…can’t wait to do it on Warrior lolz.

Tried it, was kinda fun, but blind will destroy you.

Awful map, basically an engy trollground. CC warrior would be next contender, but he is totally shutdown by blinds trying to land anything and suffers from lack of mobility for such a big map. So physical builds are out.

Skills which teleport or skills which hit an enemy midanimation when near jumppad totally fail and start doing some magical things.

Being able to stealth cap/fire cannon is broken.

Totally hate the breakable floors and the trolly nature of this map that only give hard CC (knockback/launch) professions the edge and hate instakill so much.
Also the unblockable/dodgeable cannon which forces you off the point is ridiculous.

I like the map lookwise and I can understand the idea, but atm it’s just too buggy, doesn’t feel thought out and extremely frustrating. Would fit in a FPS/TPS. Give me a shock rifle and I’m all up for this map.

13k heal from engy heal combo is indeed a bit too strong imo and ofc that spec can still get nasty damage from burn on crit trait. Bleed+weakness+burn on autos. So lovely for any meleechars trying to nuke him. :’(

S/D thief is strong, but I have no suggestions on how to balance it, if you overbreak the sword, then it becomes useless again and thieves are only left with a nerfed D/P backstab spec.

For the love of god make rush work properly, I’m pretty sure devs are aware how that skill functions atm and bull’s charge is TOTALLY borked in wvwvw, no idea why it’s behaving like that in there.

Also, they should fix the “staggering” animation some skills have. I bet a lot of you have noticed it when dodging other warrior’s bull’s charge, shield bash and so on. The end of the skill has like a delay or smth when it’s still trying to connect with you, it gives you extra time to react and dodge away in peace.

Warriors are hell fun in wubwub, mainly thanks to imba food and better stat management, but they suffer hard in spvp.
Got myself new armor for wubwub and I’m having tons of fun, I actually prefer roaming with warr over thief atm, since I can jump into big fights aswell. People are really awful there though, noone can 1v1/smallfights properly and it seems that stunbreak is something mystery to them. Gotta love skullcracking them overconfident D/D thieves though.

Using this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNApeRjcOxu1QuQMxBEkCNMLOPUCmoJUKmj6A-j0yAoLI8VAJIgkFICBQyTYN7BmATUZsIas6aMlLRUtMAMjB-w

Vigorous Precision/Critical Infusion minor traits make me drool.

Kaon.7192:

Completely agreed on all points, especially the ridiculous implementation of the burning proc traits for engy and necro.

Totally agreed.

Good thread and well written posts OP.