Guild Wars 2

Had some nice duels with Gibe, my thief is perfect counter for his spec so he pretty much didn’t have a chance against that spec. So was necro, hard to play with low lifeforce though and I definitely felt constant pressure. Necro is quite strong atm though and usually I just wore him out. I mostly lost in warr vs warr duels (I played mc+sh/GS and s+sh/lbow), Gibe has an evil stunlock/stability focused build.
Didn’t try mesmer, ele, engy or offensive guard because I’m not so good on them.
GG and fun were had.

Later we did a friendly duoqueue match together which was a pretty faceroll win. Overall nice evening.
Gibe has a fun to play and strong build, but I’m not sure if it earns a spot in a team.
I hope you don’t mind if I post it (from memory, might not be 100% correct):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAS3ejcOxu1QyQMxBA0DsqKrTBlUPmzu4A-TsAg0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNGZZxGBA

I’ll be online in about 3-4 hours. I’m interested also.

Kyrion.2749:

Psybunny.8906:

P.S I haven’t run a single stunbreak for ages in PvE, everything is 100% reliably dodgeable and scripted there.

You probably haven’t played PvE for ages too

Tournas have gotten more focus lately yeah, but I’m still a PvX player (wubwub gets the least attention) dungeons haven’t changed at all since I last played and I do occasionally jump into PvE for some runs.

Gibe.8172:

The main reason is the target system, doesn’t matter how focused you are you’ll eventually always waste some skills, and that’s the reason i consider them OP in 1 v 1.

In 2v2-3v3, it’s another story.

So you have no problems against BM rangers and S/D thieves?

Sounds neato.
Why don’t you like going against mesmers though?

Priceless sarcasm. Yeah Empathetic, we just need to L2P that warrior sustain.
Warrior is a good, strong class, the only problem is every other class is above good and strong. Warrior is the only balanced class with drawn out animations and weaknesses honestly.

EU or NA?

/15 chars

You just killed the premise of this whole thread. Not sure if on purpose or not, but gj.

Anyone else wanna say how weak they are now?

P.S I haven’t run a single stunbreak for ages in PvE, everything is 100% reliably dodgeable and scripted there.

I had the feeling that this was a pvp discussion, since you know this is the only gametype where spammable stunbreak matters.
Anyways, Travlane are you kidding me? You can say in a straight face that thief is worse than a warrior in pvp?
Thief has the best mobility ingame in tPvP (Sbow and Shadow trap y u so nice), very strong as a roamer/good duelist and still has one of the highest bursts ingame. It’s still the best direct damage roamer who can prevent a stomp 100% with SR. Stop kidding yourself that the profession is weak it’s incredibly strong in the right hands.

P.S Protection vs Stealth = Protection can be stripped, corrupted and the person is targetable all the time, Stealth is a targetdrop that allows for smart positioning, gives you a tactical advantage, ability to ignore most of the downed states and ignores every single target skill (and backstab pew pew). If you like protection more, play the fotm “backstab” ele spec.

stof.9341:

There’s a big difference between Shadow Return and mesmer staff 2 : the former will only move you 2 units away if you fight on top of the white circle.

Don’t fight on top of the white circle? If you get jumped unexpectedly you still have your shadowstep (use utility like regular professions for stunbreak).
If you don’t get jumped by a “backstab” ele or a basilisked thief then there is no reason why you would use the skill in close range. And yeah it is a bit different than staff 2, sword 2 is a reliable in-out button on weaponskill that is both an instant gapcloser that ignores impairement condis and a fake stunbreak and can be used much more often than staff 2. Ah ofc a reliable poison/burning whatever cleanse when you still have long lasting condis on you after a fight.

You can either force the opponent to deal with your constant dancing with sword 2 to autos or if he tries to lock you down he is forced to camp your white circle which still gives you control of the fight. It forces him to move to a specific area and you can swap to sbow and keep kiting him. Mixing dodges, sword 3 and Withdraw gives you enough evades to mess anyone up in close range. And if you don’t either prepare your sword 2 in advance for safe “stunbreak” for unexpected situations or open with it from a safe starting place when going melee range, then it’s the players fault not the skill being bad in any way.

Not to mention that the skill allows Z-axis dancing which is incredibly strong against most professions.

Only “negative” sideeffect of sword 2 is that the enemies can see your return location so a necro can spam it with marks if he wants to.

TL;DR Nothing much changed with the skill, stop whining.

Kyrion.2749:

Engels.8537:

Stop crying, go and roll other class and learn to apreciate what the thieves have,

Nice for you to mention, because of all classes, thieves are probably the ones who value the most what they have…

… Basically because with each patch, they have less, and less, and less things.

Oh noes, might fall to the same level as those inferior classes?
I play S/D evasion thief (zerker ammy, 20/30/0/20/0) in pvp, I definitely don’t have “crap” defense.
Shadow return nerf is barely noticeable, can still port back while stunned and since all the stuns are very low duration anyways it doesn’t bother me at all. Still works like a spammable teleport→mesmer staff 2.
<Insert usual l2p comment>

Terror is not the problem. Burning and extra condicover by torment that allows burning and bleed stacks to stay is. Also weakness change has increased necro survivability a lot and the reason that everything dies from condipressure before necro goes down. Currently a balanced necro is one with 0 lifeforce.

Same reason why engy is as strong as it is. Stupidly strong burn on crit traits on both professions. Burning+bleed+weakness on elixir gun autoattack, gg melee chars. And oh hey, even if you get caught somehow from that perma vigor/swiftness and get bursted you can do 4 blast finishers into a 20s cd waterfield heal and get back 13k out of your 17k hp by doing some finger gymnastics. (Let’s not buff warr heals, too stronk in PvE.)

Focus more on making powernecros viable into a high damage, DS mitigator that is still suspectible to CC, make vampiric stuff viable by making it take advantage of healing power a lot, so necros can effectively tank by lifedrain, DS management and by being a meatshield. And stop this stupid trend that specs with high sustain can burst like glass cannons, looking at you “backstab” ele (although this is mostly QQ atm and I just need to l2p).

Kukchi.6173:

Enmity.3428:

The majority of frustrated and dissatisfied [Warrior] players will simply and quietly exit the game.

That or play thief

Guilty :/, been maining thief in tournas for the past few months. S/D evasion spec is most similar to my view of what warr gameplay should be like, a bruiser that can keep on his target effortlessly and deal out decent sustained damage. Lbow is pretty ok on warr atm, but it requires way too much effort, correct team composition and can still be shut down easily.

Probably that using food that reduces condi dura+stats that aren’t obtainable in spvp makes warr ok against bad wubwub players.

Warrior got nerfed hardest due to changes not related to it’s own traits/skills, but mostly by the new “aegis-blind”, buffed weakness that destroyes our damage and the new wtfhax condi supremacy meta.

Strength tree totally useless in pvp now, going 20 there to pick up GS damage boost is not worth it, since all the adept traits are subpar. Moving an ok trait from adept to grandmaster due to a 3% damage/crit chance increase is NOT A BUFF, somewhat understandable PvE wise though.

Leg specialist nerf is huge, no more double immo from bladetrail, no more AoE immo from hammer. Replacing sword 3 with the slowest and telegraphed attack ever on a profession that suffers from those problems the most makes me wonder what the devs are smoking. Rush is not fixed, is still clumsy and sometimes doesn’t work properly and it seems they’ve broken sword 2 aswell.

Good buffs we got were Cleansing ire, adrenal health taking healing power into account, making signets viable and endure pain cd decrease. Berserker’s stance has too long cd and too short duration to make it viable. Atleast due to cleansing ire, lbow is viable, since it can cleanse blind on demand..

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

I just want to point out that his 10k eviscerates could still be done pre June patch.

Moldran was running a pretty balanced spec (20 to 30 points in defence) in beta actually and could still push out these numbers. "OP"’ness was due to beta doom (30% on next attack)+int sigil with no ICD and beta brawn that enabled to push out such numbers without being full glass. And of course the tiny tiny thing that no-one knew how to dodge/stunbreak/block/evade extremely telegraphed attacks in beta.

About:
Edge of Sanity or [MAD] is a group of friends and ex-guildmates, with a very strong core and tight community. Taking a semi-hardcore approach on various aspects of the game, our main focus is still to have fun and enjoy the company of others.

We prefer quality over quantity, which reflects in our recruitment policy.
We’re looking for friends not numbers. We expect participation in guild’s various activities, people showing iniative and interest in discussions that are related to guild management, direction and health. This is, because our main goal is to grow stronger as a small community of friends.

We do not require any set activity per week, although long term absences have to be notified and we do regular roster cleanups. We strongly agree that real life always comes first and notified absences are fine.

At the moment, we’re most active in dungeoning, guild events and tournament play. We casually visit WvWvW for some roaming and fooling around, but players with purely that focus will probably be disappointed.

What we can offer you:
– Good company and bad humor in guild chat/voicechat
– Daily dungeon runs for laughs and easy coin&tokens
– Support and advice regarding game aspects and professions
– Various weekly Guild Missions (Bounty, Challenge, Rush, Puzzle) and custom events
– Semi-casual WvWvW roaming with small groups
– Custom Arena for PvP practice and proper tournament play with guildies and VOIP (TS3).

What we expect from you:
– Activity and loyalty
– Good sense of humor and a friendly attitude
– Willingness to evolve and adapt
– Imagination and an open mind

Rules: http://gw2mad.shivtr.com/pages/rules

If you find that it’s something that you as a player are looking for, then feel free to contact us ingame:
PvE/GL: Aireroth.7596
PvX officer: Psybunny.8906
PvP officer: isilnor.7026
For more info go to http://gw2mad.shivtr.com/

If you pop frenzy after starting 100b, it has absolutely no use. Since it doesn’t apply quickness to ongoing skills.

My 100b spec I’ve been playing for fun. Quite effective, but as always with everything warr related, it’s not viable in high-end pvp.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNApeRjcOBv1QGPMRCA8hruMUiJlC7mLVQMA-TsAA0CnIwRhjDHDOScs4MQYZxECA

Wouldn’t a axe+mace/mace+axe setup make more sense?
Mace 5 to set up eviscerate, Mace F1 to set up axe 5 are just a few examples.
P.S. Divinity runes suck.

PowerBottom.5796:

Eurantien.4632:

PowerBottom.5796:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Jasher.6580:

I can crush a Phantasm Mesmer with my Sword/Dagger Thief. Cake.

While an incredibly well played s/d thief does have a chance of beating a phantasm mesmer, I highly doubt that one as arrogant as you could do it effectively.

OOOOOOOOOOH SNAP! ^^’

Srsly though: A good S/D-Thief can probably beat everything atm, but I think that certain Phantasm-Builds do have a decent chance against it. Certainly a better chance than Shatters, cuz you probably won’t catch the S/D-Thief with an Immobilize-based burst. :P

Immobilize based burst? Like a sword 2 coupled with the spam of 3 iduelists?

Nope, I was comparing how a Shatter-Mesmer would do against an S/D-thief compared to a Phantasm-Mesmer and I think a Phantasm would do better, because the S/D-Thief has such an easy time escaping shatterspikes. And with the Phantasm-Mesmer having much better sustained-DPS, I guess it would do better.

I wonder why Shatter-Mesmers atm don’t use the Pistol anymore anyways; just add the Trait for Fury on your Phantasms (the cloak or 8s Blurred Frenzy are decent, but not crucial) and while the focus-pull is amazing, the Pistol-Stun is good as well and you can just add tons of ranged sustained DMG in between spikes with the Duelist. Especially if you are in a Teamfight and stay at Range with GS, an additional Duelst placed on a hard to reach place can simply add tons of DPS.

Besides, ppl seem to forget that the Mesmer and every other class as well, has another Option to get Quickness (which is even AoE), with the Centaur-Runes.

Pistol OH is basically only damage weapon and no team utility, focus OH is mainly a utility weapon.
Focus 4: stomp/rez interrupt, AoE pull for teamspike, pull to get those nasty spammers off the ledge, team swiftness, directly counters shadow refuge.
Focus 5: free stomp against warriors/engys, quite ok as damagedealer since you can pull people into it, but mainly good for negating ranged spammers.

papaganoosh.7908:

If you think the most abhorrent verbal abuse doesn’t go on in RL sports or past times then you are sadly mistaken. Especially in sports. You try and throw someone off their game in any way you can to win.

That’s just bad sportmanship, the same way as all the dramatical acting in football worthy of an Oscar.

I’ve noticed that pretty much all of the trashtalkers are those who play the worst.
Those who can actually play well stay very humble or keep their thoughts and tongues to themselves.

When I hotjoin, I usually target the loudmouth and I deliberately do my best to be on the opposite team to him and always focus him, it doesn’t matter who he talks smack about. I just find that kind of behaviour annoying and it’s fun to make them rage even more. The ensuing ragequits are hilarious and responding with love and care to angry whispers is very satifying. I don’t usually bother with reporting unless it gets borderline annoying.

That said, I don’t usually see many trashtalkers in tournas. Maybe one or two bad apples, but those are usually the players who need more practice and have no place in tournaments yet. Competitive environment is much more mature and good games are always appreciated. In my competitive past when I used to play UT99 and Wolf:ET extensively trashtalk was pretty much non-existant. Of course there were some nice rivalry and some rubbing between some teams, but in the end, the attitude of “GG&HF” was the most important. It seems that for some people “my mother’s nightly activities” = comptetive gaming now. That’s pretty much the “pub server” attitude and isn’t related to anything competitive at all.

Moa is one of the strongest elites in the game and it’s the most effective bunkerbuster in game. It takes one player out of the fight completely, turning the fight to uneven numbers and effectively winning you the teamfight. Moa the bunker and you can focus him down in a matter of seconds, again effectively winning you the teamfight. It’s incredibly strong in 1v1 and very useful in teamfights.

Ever get the feeling that some players try so hard to hold on to the past for the sake of nostalgia that they can’t objectively appreciate new games?

I think he won’t appreciate buying a medium cashshop set for a heavy armor profession, just saying.

I killed 3 mesmers and 1 thief one after another in the span of 2 minutes today in wvwvw. It’s not really a show of anything. People are so bad there.
If you want I can skirmish with you a bit in spvp Callahan, you can train against somewhat proper thief gameplay. I’m EU though, so I don’t know how it works out.

You can be effective with this build ONCE. Whenever you crit someone high with a rifle, you’ll become target number one. Non-pug/organized groups will focus you down in seconds or they’ll just send their thief to harass you. I think most of your success is due to lower lvl play and having the asura advantage of hard to read animations. You won’t have that advantage higher on the ladder.

I basically cringed the whole way reading the trait/utility choices.
Got any recordings? I’m honestly intrigued to see this thing in action.

A couple of things though, since you’re familiar with the current meta, aren’t you afraid of S/D thief at all and getting your 180s CD stability ripped? What support do you bring to midfights except the banner regen? What makes you better than a guardian for bunkering? Guardian for example gives AoE regen/protection/stability/helps with ranged and melee CC/aegis/burst heals/cleansing 2 conditions per shout (turns one into a boon) and 3 from virtue/denies rezzing and stomps with sanctuary or shield of absorption. I can’t see the use for this build.

Homebunkering maybe, but not as a midbunker and if homebunker, can you 1v1 aswell as a BM ranger?

“Condition builds and whirlfinishing in firefield for massive damage in PvE.”
In tears. :’D

Axe 4 and 5 are useless in every way, 5 was okish with lifesteal foods when it had no ICD and ONLY as a 2ndary weaponset. About adrenaline generation, you can do the same with 100b+whirlwind→swap→full adrenaline and actually do some damage in the meantime. Warrior condition builds don’t come even close compared to powerbuilds in PvE and in PvP we suffer with conditionbuilds with other reasons like lack of unique conditions we can apply so we can’t cover our bleeds well enough. Lbow is a good condi weapon, but oddly enough it actually works better in a powerspec.

About axe offhand:
Axe 4 is even worse than GS F1 and that says a lot, it needs its numbers tweaked and add something else than worthless 2 sec fury.
Axe 5 needs to reflect or put some debuffs on it’s use (massive vulnastacking with axe+axe or put bleeds on it maybe?).

Failing to avoid CnD killed you basically. Overall S/D thief is a pretty hard fight for a terrornecro, especially on a point like henge that has a lot of obstacle and Z-axis. Best bet is to hold out for a bit and get someone to help you.

Although bad-bad play on thief’s part, it took him 1.5 minutes to kill you and you didn’t even have any DS to protect yourself. You did good since you didn’t lose the point in that timeframe.

Not impressed at all. Is this the “sick” skill level of wvwvw players?
Your other video was nicer, although the thief was quite bad, I liked the HS interrupt you did in the beginning there.

I think instead of kitten ing people off with ego stroking you should keep your videos in one thread or a link your channel in signature. I haven’t seen any “sick filth” so far and nothing that actually deserves posting/making videos off.

Don’t ask for something you don’t actually want. This will be more painful for you than you can imagine. Removal of stealth (which won’t happen anyways) will be substituted with even more evasion due to thief’s low hp/armor. Even now my thief uses stealth only as SR and CnD (only when stomping) and trust me that spec is not nice to fight against. One thing is seeing your target, the other is trying to land anything on him.

If you’re a thief player and actually look for a non-stealth gameplay it’s totally there, though I must agree our support options are limited. Atleast SR is still the best stomp prevention skill beside sanctuary though.

Defektive.7283:

… when it’s ready …

Defektive you went full Anet.

On a more serious note, next balance patch will hopefully bring some nice trait rework and our warrior community can start theorycrafting hardcore again. When the time comes, let’s all play nicely and share our ideas with the rest of us.

Can’t wait to blow dust off my warrior tPvP wise.

Arganthium.5638:

ChaosDoom.8459:

Thanks for the feedback. Just one question (I am a new thief), when you combo stealth (Black Powder + HS). Does your HS consider an stealth attack, meaning after executing HS you will be revealed? If so, crit chance will not be important as Hidden Killer ensure you 100% crit chance while stealth.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Here’s how it works.

The combo applies only after the entire animation has finished, meaning that you don’t gain stealth until you deal the HS damage (assuming you deal HS damage). This means that if you’re visible and use HS+BP, then you’re going to go into stealth, assuming that you don’t have revealed. However, if you use this combo and hit something while stealthed, then the Revealed hits you, and the combo tries to apply but fails because you are immune to stealth as the result of Revealed.

Correct, that’s the whole premise of D/P backstab combo. People also often wonder why steal doesn’t break stealth. The finisher is applied at the end of the skill.
Explanation from D/P backstab combo:
BP (Stealth field)→HS (You start going up in air, no stealth is yet generated)→Steal (Damage and gapclosing)→HS (Lands on target, generates stealth at the end of the skill after damage is done from HS)→Backstab

As Arganthium said, when you’re already stealthed HS follows the regular rules for breaking stealth by dealing damage and putting the revealed buff on you. If you don’t deal damage then stealth isn’t broken and you can chain the combofinisher.

Necro OP.
/15charrs

Oidmetala.8426:

hi, jojoh

i agree with u, but dont whant a beastmaster nerf, i think this build is balanced for tournaments and its the only one we can use atm…
only at 1vs1 servers its sad to use him, but there are other sick builds like phantasm mes also.
and guild wars 2 i not a real 1vs1 game…

only what i whant is more tournament builds viable for rangers atm, because its not fun to play always beastmaster at tournament, i love to play ranger and i whant join teamfights also… maybe bring trapper back dont know, but its a bit to weak atm using trapper in tourny…
i rly hope anet will make more builds viable in future, for ranger and all other classes…

and atm the “meta” looks more like beastmaster will be leave tournamets, im pretty sure about this, that we will see at near future not much more beastmasters… my team also dont whant beastmaster in team…
i only know 3 good teams which use a beastmaster atm in high ranked tpvp

We actually dropped BM spec from our composition, since it felt that ranger contribution although it’s good is too passive and absolutely limited in teamfights. It can duel pretty much everything 1v1 and win 90% of those fights, only engy and bunker ele are nasty opponents.

Biggest problem we had was when homepoint isn’t pressured at all, ranger is left in a passive state and your whole team is left in an constant 4v5 situation on other points. This is also what I disliked the most when I played BM for a while. BM doesn’t hold out so well against a 3v1 push also. We swapped our whole composition for more mobility/damage focus and rabid engy is playing our “ranger” role. A strong argument for engy choice was pointcontrol, teamfight ability, mobility and elixir “rezzing”. Though ranger’s spirit elite can do similar results the overall flexibility of engy seems better. I’m not suprised if BM ranger focus will start declining even more.

Anastasis.7258:

http://www.twitch.tv/tarcisanastasis/c/2347311
warrior vs 2 mesmer

http://www.twitch.tv/tarcisanastasis/c/2349316
warrior vs thief and ele.

Also can beat H.G.H engi, BM ranger in 1v1. (it’s not 100% win ratio, it’s like 50% win ratio when I against BM ranger, and about 70% win ratio when I against normal H.G.H engi.)

So, please quit saying warrior is horrible when you are a not good at warrior. It’s not warrior’s problem, it’s your problem.

Are you still playing 20/0/20/0/30? I gave a lbow/gs build a try myself when dogged march came out and as you said it was suprisingly effective against squishy HGH engys for example and it totally shut down terrormancers, but against decent BM rangers it was still hopeless if they were on the same level as me. And getting trained in midfights was very painful with almost no way to escape against coordinated burst. Definitely needs another burster in midfights though to bring down bunkerguards/eles.

I ran with hoelbrak and fire-fire sigils.

Travlane.5948:

Psybunny.8906:

snip

wait wait wait wait…..99% of D/P thieves run 25 30 0 0 15 ???? really wow. tell me what is the “meat and potatoes” of this build? where does the dmg and defense come from? im gonna love this one. :P

It’s a tPvP spec obviously. It’s pretty much the regular backstab spec that is very similar to D/D. Only difference is that it has much more utility than regular D/D. Main combo is (basilisk) 5-2-steal-1, execution speed is around a second. Dazespam to autoattacks against single players is quite effective finisher aswell, shuts down very slippery targets pretty well. It’s not played like the wubwub “permastealth” build where you stack up invis.

Combo damage comes from:

• Steal gives you fury/might/puts a condition on target (+10% damage)/mug non-crit damage
• 5-10% dagger damage (force on mainhand+dagger training, you can use an “Improvisation” or “Back fighting” as alternative if you don’t want dagger training)
• Can use might for Assassins signet trait if you prefer it. Personally I don’t like it, staff guard can buff you well enough in midfights.
• +20% damage from executioner when target is below 50% (heartseeker from the combo will take target below 50% when you don’t do the burst against a full hp target).
• +10% damage when you’re over 90% hp from Scholar runes (you’ll do your burst from full hp usually)
• As a bonus Sigil of Air on offhand that can proc from mainhand skills

Your main active defense is shadowstep for stunbreak, sbow for mobility, spamming from offpoint and Z-axis abuse and d/p 5-2 for stealth to drop target, but again 5-2 chain plays a much lesser role in tPvP than in hotjoin/wubwub for example. If you fail your combo you retreat and try a clean opener a bit later.

Shadow refuge plays both an offensive and defensive role. Offensive uses are solo or group stealthed bursts. Defensive uses are of course clutch target drop when getting trained (needs very clever placement, since the area will get nuked hard), as a distraction (positive side of the last reason), very good clutch stomp prevention (someone is almost finishing stomp on your guard->drop SR and cancel their stomp attempt->2 people rez and get him up in 1.5 secs).

Since this is not wubwub spec, you’re not on ini regen/stealth focus. 15 points in trickery is to accommodate the quite expensive opener combo. It relies more on positioning/mobility as an active defense rather than stealth chaining. It’s because you don’t have the time to play around as a roamer, target must be dead in less than 10 seconds in sidepoint fights.

Let’s just hope for something nice in future tweaks and those godawfully slow balance patches.

P.S. Psy = “Psychedelic” not “Psycho” ^^

I played with thief and I tried pressing 4, didn’t get swiftness, must have been a bug.
Also, Ranger and Necro swiftness comes from warhorn 5, another bug!
Updraft seems to be on Air 5 aswell, what madness!

Anet, fix this!
Thanks
Psy..

Describes current situation very well. Engy has made trap builds and I’d say even necros obsolete, but hey atleast you have one very strong 1v1 spec/homebunker build available which still makes you viable. Professions like warriors have no viable builds and in current meta necros don’t really have a role either.

Stardrift.7360:

Moonrabbit.1543:

And what is a hardcore player? Someone who bags groceries and puts them into the casual player’s BMW when he’s not trying to justify his existence through a game? Stereotypical comments like these are not well taken and are not constructive.

Yet you just used one. Oh the irony… As for “hardcore” gamers, your words not mine, are those that try to grasp the finer aspects of a game w/e badmouthing a profession on the forums. I probably hit too close to home in your case didn`t i? Are you in your 40s? Then good health to you and enjoy your time in your favorite MMO. But don`t expect changes to be made that benefit you and hurt countless others just because you feel entitled since you ahem “get your groceries bagged in your bmw”. I know people in their 40s late 30s that are so vile and entitled via electronic mediated entertainment that makes me shudder to think someone with that much life accomplishments can be that repulsive. In a MMO you don`t get a saying in who should get what just because you feel you deserve more. Oh and before you reply saying “that`s exactly what you`re doing” keep in mind that changes were already done to the thief by requests from other players. I just want some of them reverted…

Psybunny.8906:

@Stardrift:
99% of D/P thieves play 25/30/0/0/15 in tournas. Go backstab aegis/ranger evade/mistform more, since it’s obvious you fail at “instagibbing”. It’s not my problem you don’t know the basics of when or who to burst.

Oh is THAT was i was doing…so silly of me.

I previously played the popular 25/30/0/0/15 D/P backstab spec, but now I’m playing S/D&Sbow with evasion/boonrip focus. If you need help on your thief gameplay, feel free to whisper me.
This is the build I’m currently using:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlYmSO3eS6E/5Ex2jeuTeqpgmysTBXtKA-TsAg0CnI4SxljLDXSuscNKYZx0CA

No thanks. Based on your cookie cutter build, ur the guy with the mop in spvp – hugging the necro/guardian while spamming LS when some poor straggler is down 50%. A mesmer will make short work of you while with a necro u will start good then bite it in the long run. Killed some of your kind, got killed also. I guess if i`m bad then u are just as much. Seeing how zergy is a spvp i`m never w/o 30 points in SA. At least i try to down someone alone. So maybe you should pm me for some tips. Beating to death metas that aren`t even that good only accomplishes the agenda of the nerf enthusiasts and the devs that support them: strip everything good and replace it with something shiny and new that maintains the illusion of balance.
TL;DR – first guy accused me of hating on elderly casual players and the second just copy/paste a build every bad thief runs.

Oh my bad, I thought you were actually having a tPvP conversation. Nevermind, carry on with your “zergy” Hotjoin heroing.

A tip to fighting mesmers, since you seem to badly need it (considering your other QQ threads about their superior mobility compared to thieves and those unlimited invulnas dude!). Use your sbow to clusterbomb clones, dodge ileap, when they shatter dodge towards it and be cautious when a mesmer comes melee range.
Necro is one of the easiest fights actually, but again DS is so OP and scary, right?
You’ll do better if you’d learn the difference between marks and wells.
Most of your overall attitude can easily be improved if you actually played other professions.

I don’t hug the guardian or bunkerchars, I hug the lovely valk S/D ele when roaming and I nourish myself on “permastealth” thieves who have stolen http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Rain somehow.

Dahkeus.8243:

Psybunny.8906:

@Dahkeus: Who runs S/P in tournas?

Doh, that was a typo. I meant D/P.

And for sources of people running D/P, you can pull up the builds used in recent tournies posted in the PvP section of GuildWars2Guru.com’s forums.

That explains a lot.
Yup D/P was extremely popular and still is, the “classical” was my previous spec on thief aswell.

@Stardrift:
99% of D/P thieves play 25/30/0/0/15 in tournas. Go backstab aegis/ranger evade/mistform more, since it’s obvious you fail at “instagibbing”. It’s not my problem you don’t know the basics of when or who to burst.

I main a warrior, but I’ve pretty much ONLY played thief in pvp for the past 3 months, since warr is still not viable. Before that I mostly played bunkerguard and trap/BM ranger for a bit when it started getting popular. Due to playing profession that is handicapped in tPvP (warrior), I actually did something unheard of. I played other professions I had a hard time beating, familiarized myself with it and used it to outplay them. I fell back to those previously listed professions though, since against equal skill level opponents the lack of profession balance starts holding you and the team down.

It’s funny that you brought out mesmer, since that’s the profession I have the least amount of experience on. My knowledge I gained when I learned how to play against that profession by actively playing it for a while is no indication that I’m somehow related to that profession (you probably took that from one of my recent posts where I gave advice to a newcomer).

I previously played the popular 25/30/0/0/15 D/P backstab spec, but now I’m playing S/D&Sbow with evasion/boonrip focus. If you need help on your thief gameplay, feel free to whisper me.
This is the build I’m currently using:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlYmSO3eS6E/5Ex2jeuTeqpgmysTBXtKA-TsAg0CnI4SxljLDXSuscNKYZx0CA

My previous spec pre quickness nerf:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlUmCP3eS6E/5Ex2jeqTe6fgs6MoZLB-TsAg0CnI4SxljLDXSuscNKYZxkCA
(played for a while with assassins signet after that though)

Grab a buddy and those bunkers drop pretty fast.
But seriously taking down a good bunker should be a group effort.
You’re not supposed to go 1v1 against sustain specs, you won’t win or you just waste a lot of time to bring one down. Main point is to outnumber, burst, kill and use that mobility advantage to roam to another point.

Ele is an excellent roaming buddy for a thief. Both have really good mobility and can keep focus off from eachother while taking advantage of eachothers combofields.

Another role for you as a roamer is to support points where fights are already ongoing, you’re not the iniator, you’re the finisher and the one who bursts a target down when he is getting low, backs off to another point or denies rezzing with poison+clusterbomb pressure. As an advantage you require the least amount of setup to deliver your burst compared to a mesmer or an ele for example.

Some thief gameplay style:

• A far assault ele/similar is harassing your homebunker, you move in unseen, burst him down 2v1 or just force him to retreat, make him waste his time recovering and you can move on in the meantime.
• Some GC roamer is harassing your bunker/buddy in midfight, deliver a coordinated burst+CC with ele+mesmer for example, and this will kill him in a few seconds. Your main advantage is the ability to keep insanely good on a target.
• Your team is focusing midbunker and trying to make him pop his cooldowns, you sit back on the ledge putting poison to reduce healing and clusterbombing+autoattacking to pressure him. When an opening comes and he just popped his big cooldown or if the bunker gets moad, you swap to melee and deliver your burst, killing the bunker in an instant.
• Rez denial in teamfights through poisonfield and closerange clusterbombing.

There are specific roles the thief is not so good at as other professions, such as far assault/home bunker (unicorn spec is subpar imo). But thief is still an excellent roamer choice and insanely good on maps such as khylo/forest for example.

As McFribble said, it’s a team game, so lose the solo mentality. Of course you have more freedom in your decisions as a roamer, but overall it’s still a team effort to win a game.

Chesire.9043:

Navzar.2938:

No cast time, so it can’t be dodged

Stopped reading the entire thread at this comment.

Corrupt Boon has about a 50% chance to fail entirely for no reason. Doesn’t have to get blocked, doesn’t have to be evaded (which it can be)—it just fails. Ask any Necro that runs it.

The same goes for Epidemic. Our best utility (or rather, our only useful ones) fail THAT much just because. When Anet decides to fix this then I might call it strong skill, but until then calling it anything that even hints at OP is just a joke.

Atleast it goes through aegis now.
It can be evaded/dodged, requires LOS and facing your target, if you have a pebble between you and the target, tough luck, full CD. Btw did they remove the cast time, I always remember it having a slight delay when used. Haven’t played necro for a while though. Is it still as unreliable as before?

I suggest starting out with a Phantasm spec with illusion signet. It is a bit beefier and better for beginners.

When you feel comfortable on it, move on to shatter specs. The playstyle is different, but shatter is dominant in higher play for it’s utility/teamfight damage.

You can spec selfishly in hotjoin while you learn (grab decoy, nullfield or mirror images, mass invis if you want), but since you’re highly valued for your teamutility slowly practice only relying on one stunbreak (blink or mirror images) and invulnas from sword 2 and F4 for damage mitigation.

Good starter weapons are GS and Sword+Pistol on phantasm spec, it’s a dueling spec though and requires quite passive play. When you move to shatter then pick up either GS (more aggressive) or Staff (more defensive) and Sword+Focus.

An example what I run when I play mesmer and which is the “classical” shatter build in tournas currently: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsdRlwzyqHTTnGZ9ICqHYH49dkU0asWJF82FC-TsAg0CnI4SxljLDXSuscNsYZx8DA

As Arganthium said, read the forums and definitely watch osicats tutorials for example, they are very well made and he explains stuff very well. You can also check twitch and similar for gameplay vids from such players as Purie, Cutie, Azani, Xeph, Zorbi, Helseth, they are very talented mesmer players in tPvP.

The skill is totally fine and I think a minor bugfix doesn’t really require a multi-wall-of-text QQ thread. Didn’t have a single issue on S/D in khylo today. Inf range was obviously not intended. It’s like the “END IS NEAR” always with you guys.

Does anyone really die just to 333333 spam? Only situation I can understand spamming it if for example you and engy just 2v1 stunlocked someone who popped a million boons. Autoattack does much better damage and 2nd hit of 3 is much more useful if it’s unpredictable and mixed between autos and dodge for swiftness imo.

In that bunker vs thief situation, I think on equal skill level S/D will kill the guard. It’ll take quite a bit of time, but that set can easily push out enough pressure to make the guard pop his cooldowns. If the guard is more experienced and keeps good CD management he won’t lose though. S/D thief vs DPS guard is more dangerous fight for the thief imo.

@sorrow: From my experience it’s pretty much 50/50 D/P or S/D, though I agree S/D is getting fairly popular in EU.
@Dahkeus: Who runs S/P in tournas?

evilapprentice.6379”

Pretending you can thrash people just by spamming 3 was probably true for the first 3 days after the patch, when people were caught of guard. They had minimal experience against S/D, FS finally pathed correctly, and Anet made the smart decision to split the strikes so the thief wasn’t a sitting duck for half the duration of every FS (So even those who knew how S/D worked were in for a surprise). Now that people have had a week (way longer than that, but It didn’t take more than a week) to play against it, it’s just a strong spec with applicable counters like any other.

Well said! I agree completely.

@evilapprentice: I don’t like double melee playstyle at all. Can’t live without my Z-axis, poison, AoE spam and mobility. Sbow is too valuable imo.
This is what I run, might play around with a few traits, but so far I feel extremely comfortable on it.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlYmSO3eS6E/5Ex2jeuTeqpgmysTBXtKA-TsAg0CnI4SxljLDXSuscNKYZx0CA

Stardrift.7360:

McFribble.2349:

Please don’t cry fowl because you can’t 1v1 in a team oriented game

Your post is contradictory. Since it`s a 1v1 setting, hence the group situation is taken out, if you can`t 1 v 1 someone that means the class is broken beyond repair. I don`t want to mop up. I don`t want to run away with my tail between my legs and i don`t want to skulk like a rat till everyone leaves a point so i can take it. I wanted the instagib build. I literally begged to revert the changes so i can 1 v 1 some lonely player that runs to his zerg instead of hugging some power house that can 1v1 1v2 1v3 1 v x with or /w my help (cough mesmer, necro, ele).
It`s quite the paradox – when the instagib build was viable, taking 1 lonely player once in a while, mouth breathers cried that it`s unfair even though in a group match taking 1 player out while blowing every skill has little to none overall impact… Guess if i want the “assassin” archetype that hits hard and fast and then retreats to regen i have to play a…warrior. To add insult to injury a warrior has more sturdiness making him the cannon w/e the glass part.

Oh my god, how can you be so horrible and wrong in everything.

First of all, thief is the perfect predator in tPvP and excels in taking out single targets (instagib is still doable on glassy targets btw). Just run 25/30/0/0/15 d/p or 20/30/0/20/0 s/d for example and you’re good to go. Stop pretending that the “viable” basilisk+cnd+steal+backstab required anything more complex than a “mouthbreather” could do and if you can’t adapt to a different playstyle then maybe you overestimated your “skillz” a bit.

Second, warrior is the worst profession in tPvP currently. Are you talking about this 3 second regen as that excellent sustain? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dogged_March

Learn your role in tPvP and you’ll have no problems playing with a thief. Unless you’re talking about pro wubwub ganking or hotjoin heroing. You can run absolutely whatever there.