Puz – TDA
I would have to check, but there are often sources of damage that do not show in combat logs. Not sure if that means I haven’t toggled some sources in there though..
I’ll join a private server with you and test it if you like!
Puz – TDA
The first three got cinematics, the next three got articles. I hope Thief gets one or the other, though it could be the staff is far too busy prepping for PAX.
Pun intended? :P
Puz – TDA
The whole problem with venoms is that they have to balance them in two ways. First to be a good utility skill, worth of picking. Then they also need to keep in mind that venoms can be shared, meaning there is a chance of many more applications.
In the first aspect, venoms are rather sad (compare needle trap, 6k+ dmg with condi setup, vs a few hundred for spider venom).
In the second aspect, for an organised group, they are rather on the strong side. Some would claim OP, but you do need coordination if you wanna use them fully!
So the only way to make poisons actually viable is to either remove sharing and buff them. Or to somehow have a toggle option, share venoms and they are only 33% of their full potential.
They won’t remove sharing, being the only actual group thing we have aside stealth.. So let’s hope the second option is possible and will be implemented at some point.
An in between option might be to increase the leeching venoms trait, for only the thief. There you can add the missing damage perhaps.
Puz – TDA
Basically they adjusted most classes to do what thiefs could do previously (but without access to the cheese mechanic stealth)..don’t you like it when you’re on a level playing field?
Which is precisely why this is just plain wrong. Everyone does the damage a thief can. But every other class has more passive and active defences compared to what a thief gets.
So something that was once balanced around doing more damage but being squishy, now deals the same damage, but is still way more squishy than anything out there..
Puz – TDA
What actually bothers me more is how thief skills get toned down, where as other classes get the same kind of stuff boosted.
Two simple examples.
First, stealth: Thief stealth has been lowered in duration and reveal has been upped. Then the new patch introduces more and longer stealth for mesmers. Up to 30-40 seconds I hear.. Why would the class named as the stealth one be less good at it than a mesmer?
Second: Conditions and their removal. Our only reliable source to remove conditions got hit bad. No more cleansing the first second when you enter stealth. And we really cannot stay in stealth long, except for the very deathtrap called Shadow Refuge. How does that go along with number one then?
Then condition damage, everything went through the roof. Except poison and bleed. Exactly the two conditions we as thieves get. Bleeds have more than halved in effectiveness compared to before, on my 1821 condition damage thief setup.. I thought you said it would go up past 700 condition damage compared to before?
Then duration on poison also gets lowered, again.. While you give more duration and easier access to others. Example, engineers get 50% duration from a trait. We now get a mere 2s poison from sb4?
I’m not sure if it is on purpose or not, but thieves seem to get the short end of the stick every time. There is absolutely nothing we are the best at right now. Everyone else does the same burst (or better) and gets to live longer and gets both passive and active ways to avoid taking damage. While the thief just falls over after 2s of stealth that didn’t clear anything..
Puz – TDA
Can you please keep in mind what classes can and cannot do while balancing this back out?
I main a thief. And we do not have condi clear readily available. The current burning meta (or condis in general) make us neglectable in anything but a quick kill and run. Which is precisely what people hate about thieves in general.
What we have for condition clearing is:
1. Shadows Embrace, now either bugged or nerfed not to remove conditions the first second. So you have to wait 4 seconds. With current burns, that means you are dead.
2. Hide in Shadows, you shouldnt have to use your 30s cooldown heal to clear burning. But its our only reliable way.
3. Tricksters, use a trick to remove 1 condi. You need to slot tricks, which isn’t handy in most situations. And you need to spec into a traitline for it.
So my request would be. Slightly lower burning. But if conditions are supposed to be even half as strong as they are right now. Then all classes need access to active condition clearing on a lower cooldown.
At least thief (and mesmers) are completely screwed on this part in the current build.
Puz – TDA
Which is actually the worry. Where is the out of stealth condition removal for those that don’t want to be condition based?
Im considering DA/CS/Trick for a power-burst spec. But condition clearing will be a *…
Condition based people will probably run SA and Trickery and get both clears (almost for free). Where the power thieves are stuck with putting tricks in their slots or have to go SA to clear.. Really shortsighted implementations these.
Now lets dream about this getting fixed with our new trait-line or weapon-choice!
Puz – TDA
Even though the thief seems to lose some nice traits and dmg bonuses. The overall loss/gain remains to be seen.
With executioner + hidden killer + panic strike possible in a spec, expect people to cry about instagibs! And that’s just from two lines, so you are free to pick buffs to steal (trickery) or healing and condi removal (SA).
Everything still hinges on one point though. How will the condition changes affect everyone and everything??? They really should have split that part of this patch from the rest and drop it first. So we could adjust to those changes before redoing gear.
Puz – TDA
I actually like how they split up traits from stats. This way you can actually tailor your setup to your needs even better!
A free or reduced cost window would be nice. But the method seems affordable enough!
Puz – TDA
For all those that add HOT to an account that already had access to GW2, the core game should be added as bonus gems. It will cost them nothing, but compensates us ‘veterans’ for the ‘high price’ if you only gain the expansion.
Puz – TDA
which teleport ? i have like 3 of them lol
You can use steal, shadowstep and Infiltrator’s signet for this kind of move.
Your other port would be shadow shot. Which could do a similar action for a backstab if timed right. The other ‘ports’ can also be used to line up a backstab. And can even be used one after another to do so from a lot further away.
These moves will require some practice, especially on the timing and the distance you can use them from. But they will make you that much more dangerous since you gain more options and have the element of surprise on your side!
Puz – TDA
He is using SB2 + teleport + SB2 (second use detonates it). If you port the arrow will port with you, so you can detonate on top of your enemy.
Also, backstab is your nr1 skill while you are stealthed with a mainhand dagger. Which hits quite hard, from behind.
Puz – TDA
There are already a lot of good replies in this thread (and they luckily don’t contradict like some people like to point out..)!
What I can add is this. After you’ve mastered your class it is also very important to know your enemy. What are their cooldowns, what hurts and what can you avoid.
I’ve recently duelled a few medi guards as both D/P and D/D. They both work, but D/P has an easier time with the blinds and access to stealth.
As a D/D you are at a disadvantage vs guardians. Since their blocks often remove your ability to stealth. A good medi guard can usually get me in a stalemate, where the first real mistake on either side will finish the fight.
My approach is to burst at the start, to make them ‘panic’ and use some cooldowns. Then revert to bow and have them charge me. Once I know their cooldowns are gone I go back in to pressure them. Problem is that their cooldowns are often shorter than your own. So you really have to keep track of them all!
Hopefully soon I can find the time to work my recordings into a video. There are a few nice medi guard duels in there.
Puz – TDA
I’m going to say engineer so hard, they can hit you with way more conditions than you can effectively deal with
So, we are in a discussion where thieves say that they switch to SB to keep the pressure up on the engineer. Yet you post a video of an engineer fighting a thief that doesn’t have (or doesn’t switch to) a SB?
In a pure 1vs1, where you don’t need to contest a point, a thief should be able to nibble down an engineer. The way they do that is to burst and then range pressure, rinse repeat.
Puz – TDA
I’m going to say engineer so hard, they can hit you with way more conditions than you can effectively deal with
Only if you let them.
Sadly for engineers, I have to agree on this. If you swap to SB and only pop in and out for a backstab now and then. There really is very little they can do. Pull is too telegraphed, which would be the only real way for them to catch us.
Puz – TDA
Since you mention it only being your first and third day playing. You are doing pretty okay.
My main tip would be, don’t burn your endurance so easily. Especially against hammer warriors, you need to be able to dodge. Yet you throw your dodges as soon as they are up. Leaving you open for the stun chain.
Don’t worry about warriors though, warriors and medi guardians can be very tough opponents for thieves. Practice what to dodge and what to interrupt/blind. D/P relies on blinds!
And as mentioned by others, D/D is hardmode. And those hard hitting ones are most likely running 6/6/2/0/0 variations. Giving up almost all utility to hit as hard.
Just keep having fun with the thief and try to learn from every defeat. And soon you’ll beat those pesky cheese mode warriors.
Puz – TDA
I’d say, play the class, in the way you think fits you best. Then once your learn the basics, go and research enemy setups and work out how you will fight those in your spec/setup.
And then, practice a whole lot more!
It all comes down to knowledge, staying calm and timing right. Which you cannot learn watching or theory crafting!
Puz – TDA
Good effort and fun video! Keep it up. Ignore the pro-thief wannabe try hards.
Really enjoyed the video, makes me want to build in a similar fashion.
Some people really don’t understand that sometimes, if you’ve got nothing nice to say, don’t say it. OP obviously was showcasing a video, not asking for opinions, and he received unnecessary negative attention.
Indeed. Nice video, some good skill at timing and being patient. Which is what a thief is about 99% of the time.
I have played against some of the ODS. And you really seem to be into the way you play. And even made me play a bit different around you. Which means you are effective in your own way! :P
Cya around on the battlefield!
@all those that say they have seen better. Like, be constructive or please just move on. And I dare you, make your own video and let us comment.
Puz – TDA
A nice mix build that doesn’t go just for pure damage that can be killed by one wrong move, is more enjoyable to watch than a guy that pvp’s for 5 weeks and takes out his 5 perfect fights and claims he is pro.
Using SA, is not a bad thing in my view.
I completely agree with this. All the anti SA since it’s not for pro’s shouting is just saddening.
For a chance against good opponents with the very high chance of getting adds, SA is what can still make the thief fun (for the whole session).
Sure it’s nice to run a more ‘pure’ damage spec and pwn noobs in your perfect cut video. But that’s not what most of us are doing out there when we play. I play for fun and quite often I respec ‘back’ to SA since there is just too much adding / zerging going on to enjoy the purebred style..
Puz – TDA
….
Not to mention how quickly in sPvP when you get in trouble, youre able to let go of that fight to add into another fight instead of being downed like you should have been if you were outplayed. If you were not so enabled to run away, you would be points scored by the better fighter, not get away and turn that into points scored for your team.
Which is entirely dependant on the role the thief has in sPvP. Even if you could change this, you would also have to change the effect stealth has on point capturing / holding. Since our entire mechanic that lets us reset a fight and get away with it is also the reason why we don’t have any other role than kill and be mobile.
Puz – TDA
I’ve done the same as you the past week. Level up my lowbie engineer in wvw. It is probably the best class to do this with. Due to grenades that can cause nasty damage + conditions and do so from max range!
Now for joining bigger groups. Realise that you are a possible rally-bot and play accordingly.
Raids to join:
1. Join public raids. On my server they are the blue tagged commanders.
2. Go to EB. More stuff switches hands in EB compared to the other maps. More caps = more xp!
3. Don’t follow Yellow tags, they are guild raids and don’t like anyone tagging along.
4. Have fun! And get to 80 that way!
Puz – TDA
Only time I see this being a problem is in gvg fights. Zergs don’t coordinate CC, especially not near their own. Small scale doesn’t have enough CC’s to worry about really.
Puz – TDA
Pretty much this. I’m one of the few good longbow rangers playing PvP and I rarelly lose any 1v1s against thiefs. We are well equiped, but if thiefs use LoS in their advantage in maps like Niflhel they can beat us.
Also thiefs should always try to get as close as possible to the ranger and burst them while moving around them. Not many know how to track their target with their camera using their rapid fire, and thus will just cancel their skill and put it on CD.
This sounds spot on. Pressure them, and stay close. Use your port out if in serious danger only. Most don’t expect you to push on and panic. Also they are usually soft as hell. So once you hit, you hit hard.
Puz – TDA
it’s like none of the devs are efficient at thieves and they just keep nerfing them
until they manage to beat us
Sadly, they can hardly nerf the class enough to make everyone stop playing them. It’s just the style I like best, even if I can only tickle people to death, I’ll find a way!
It might even be that the harder they make the skill vs reward ratio the more reward we’ll feel when we do win that 1vs1 or x-vs-x..
They will never beat us!
Puz – TDA
The cheese warriors can be hard. They simply have a lot of pressure. One of the best things to do is make sure you can keep range and do damage while staying out of melee.
If you are power, use short bow and keep pressure up with poison and auto-attacks. While using nr3 to evade backwards. It’s definitely harder for power builds.
Easier is a P/D condition setup. You can use nr3 to stay at range and apply torment. Then just back up using auto attack from pistol. While running my dire setup I almost felt sorry for warriors. If you manage to open up with a poison field from SB, then go P/D, steal, nr1, nr 3, nr 1 they go down so quick, especially when chasing you due to torment!
All in all, you cannot miss your dodge/evade against some of the high burst/stun stuff. One mistake and your shadow step is gone. Another and you are in really big trouble!
Puz – TDA
Every thief is in essence a hybrid. We always do both straight up dmg and conditions!
Most workable hybrids are those with pistols. Like P/D or even P/P. There are also some D/D that go for a mix between bleeds and backstab!
Puz – TDA
P/D + SB Dire Condition Bunker <—- most annoying
Puz
You don’t need to power up later on. Your conditions are actually stronger with full dire set compared to carrion, because of food and crystals. The only thing you’ll lose is physical damage, but the survivability you get from dire is far more needed than extra damage from CnD.
Aye, I meant that you can pick traits aimed for more stealth and healing in stealth while learning. To possibly swap to more condition / duration based.
I would stick to full dire indeed!
Puz – TDA
I’m currently running a ‘troll’ build. Seeing so many FOTM warriors out there I opted to go P/D + SB with Dire gear. Makes me tough, do very nasty condis and I can simply stay out of melee range with both nr 3 skills!
Do still get stuck in too deep being a toe-to-toe kinda person. But if you play this safely, you’ll whittle down any enemy you want.
In larger fights this obviously is less straight up dps. But the poison you can do from stealth is rather amazing!
It’s a great learning spec. First go more into defensive abilities until you are comfortable surviving. Then slowly respect into more output until you hit that sweet spot!
Puz – TDA
To reset a fight you either have to be out of combat for X amount of time or move X distance away from contact. The problem with that is a warrior can move X distant faster than anyone else so they can reset their health alone with the other person still in combat doesn’t have their health reset and then they rush back in and try to fight again with them now having the advantage. The combat reset system need to be changed in one aspect. The X distance from contact. It needs to be X distance from player to player so both have their health reset and not only one.
A simple fix would be, nerf the speed at which you regain health out of combat. Perhaps make useable ‘potions’ (crafters rejoice) for them to speed it up out of combat. Or force them to sit down (and thus stay in fighting range) to increase regen rates.
Puz – TDA
One question I have would be about combining current exotic armor with some ascended parts.
I see wuvwuv (the celestial crafteds) have higher crit % on two pieces. So it might be best to balance those into the setup for the ‘soldier’ bits? Has anyone checked out the options for say chest/helm/another celestial bits?
If not I’ll open up a spreadsheet tomorrow if I get a chance. General setup atm is a mix of berserk/valk(for guild runs) with travelers. But I am slightly overly tanky as it stand (nearly 20k with stacks).
Puz – TDA
(edited by Puz.8529)
anyone of you has tips for defeating a mesmer when im with dagger pistol? stealth is abit harder to get, not to mention more expensive
I run D/P a lot. It is indeed harder to fight mesmers with compared to D/D. Especially with the changes to ini. But it’s still doable.
You really need to time your burst (just like in other specs). I often prefer to engage with my shortbow out. Hop around, target the clone nearest to the mesmer. So you deal dmg to the real one and kill the clones. Then I stealth and use SB immo to lock them down. If they use their tools out of burst I switch to D/P and set up backstab.
Keep shadowstep ready for the shatter and have fun fighting a very powerful enemy! :P
Puz – TDA
We found a few ODS last night, 2 thieves and a mesmer. Vs our three (thief, guardian, mesmer). Was a fun fight. With about 2 randoms coming in and dying in between. The norn thief surely can get away nicely to regen! :P
Hope to see some more of you soon. Fun fights.
Puz – TDA
Overall I have to say, it’s mainly down to their choices and skill. In general, anything glassy is free wxp, unless they can time their immo’s or avoidance skills really well.
Other than that in this order:
1. 95% of my fellow thieves! :P
2. Rangers. They have no means to fight back or escape.
3. All others, except necro/warrior.
4. (Condition) Necro’s. With their life bars and ticking amounts…
5. Warriors, why don’t you give one class everything. Luckily most are still just scrubs on an OP class. But a good warrior, ouchy..
Puz – TDA
Very nice three way match-up so far. Good fun without one seriously superior or inferior server in the mix!
Keep up the fun!
Puz – TDA
There are various ways that could make the thief more support friendly.
- Changing some of our fields to say water (although that might also work into being OP in smaller fight).
- Making our stealthed traits also work for friendlies. Say people you stealth when you have ini regen traited gives others endurance or some other form of boost.
- Make venom sharing more friendly and possibly change the venoms to be more group oriented.
Puz – TDA
Thief is a very well suited zerg character. You get lots of ranged damage, easy evades (sb3) and good mobility!
You don’t need crazy amounts of hitpoints or armor, at least not once you get used to the playstyle. I run with 16k health/2500 armor and 0/30/30/10/0 build.
Just make sure you only use your stun breaker when really needed. Since that is the only ‘shortcoming’ a thief has for these kind of things.
I usually go just to the left/right of a zerg, Daggerstorm past. Drop some aoe blasts on the squishies at the back (that pile of rangers/necros running full zerker gear).
Then just run around the edges with your shortbow out. You’ll tag a sick amount of stuff and will be a real pest to the enemy!
Always keep both Hide in the Shadows (although Malice is a nice option as well) and Shadowstep ready for when needed! And see them bags roll in!
Also on towers you cap quickly, shortbow up, use shadowstep for the last stair and daggerstorm in there right away. Sure exotic bag and guard bags on top of it!
Puz – TDA
Although mud slinging can be very amusing. I would like to correct something said in this thread (mainly by Desolation). I am from Gandara, so will comment on stuff you say about us!
Now onto the stats:
Statement: Gandara has the same amount of coverage around the clock.
Where this to be true, then why does Desolation gain MOST points during nighttime. Where we probably have 5 players for each map.
Proof: Look at the charts. http://mos.millenium.org/servers/view/21/114
Check out the blue line in the income evolution chart and where it is highest. Yes, that is between roughly 4 to 8 in the night/morning where you finally come up on top and start gaining lots of points.
Now the same thing for your current matchup!
Proof: http://mos.millenium.org/servers/view/15/
Your high point income moments all start between 1 and 2 AM. The time where most Europeans sleep or go to bed.
From that time the other servers have a struggle until their numbers are enough to compete (mind you, that in our case this meant we still had 1:3 odds against us, but we’ll win such fights).
Short version: Deso wins through night points. Uncontested, no fights required point income. I don’t like that, but hey it’s the way the game works atm. They outnumber ALL servers in the silver league matchups during those nighttimes..
Puz – TDA
It’s a dangerous thing to start with. What makes a ‘bad’ commander and when do you act on it?
I do agree there should be some form of input towards aNet regarding bad commanders. We have one person on our server that just runs around tagged up doing bad stuff without any regard to leading anyone or even capping points or stuff.
Yet he still draws people to him with the symbol. And he makes it harder for our actual commanders to play their role right.
It’s quite a tough cooky I guess!
Puz – TDA
I’m loving the league. It brings out many people to fight and it matches us up against opponents that are within our power to compete with.
However, it also causes queues, which can be annoying! Guess it was bad timing to bring pve content to wvw at the same time as the leagues starting.
Puz – TDA
If you level alone killing solo/duo mobs quick > Thieves Guild. (easier vs veterans)
If you AoE kill a lot > Dagger Storm.
Puz – TDA
Thieves are actually quite decently balanced. As far as a stealth class can be balanced.
The interesting part, against bad players we can appear OP.
Against good players with decent gear, we actually don’t always have enough tools to break them.
If a thief keeps stealthing on you to regen and come back. Keep your stuns ready for the point where he would usually hide. Thieves really don’t have that many reliable ways to get out of trouble.
Puz – TDA
For me it’s the Lionguard shield. Since we run in Banana color (still find it annoying you cannot dye shields) and it’s nice and big and shield like!
Puz – TDA
For servers in a league where they know they cannot compete it’s a very big deal. You’ll be fighting above your weight 7 weeks in a row.
But as it stands right now, servers that have dealt with those tiers for a while seem to be heading for the top of silver league (wether they do that on purpose or not).
Which just feels wrong and endangers servers near the top of the silver league. Those servers have no role in the gold league and it would pretty much kill off some servers if they would end up in there..
Puz – TDA
They should just decide to make last weeks ranking be the league start listing. Otherwise we’ll see two weeks of utter pointless wvw in several matchups.
You can easily see servers losing points on purpose, as mentioned above, a bunch of AR run around naked for example.
Puz – TDA
Hi there, your post has been linked on our website and should hopefully get some ‘leader’ response soon.
But you can also visit and ask around here:
http://thisisgandara.com/
It’s our wvw site, where the guilds coordinate and share!
Puz – TDA
I must say, Deso has the most zerker players of any server I have encountered in GW2 o.O
Really? I found that JS had a serious issue with non armored people as well! :P
Puz – TDA
The whole point of this system would be to balance it all out. Since you are not completely dominating the current matchup you aren’t as far away as the current points would suggest. So you go down a tad. Which is normal.
One would however expect the other two servers to get in a similar matchup and lose points as well. Since that is the way of the system! Just wait and see I guess.
Puz – TDA
How about one of the three has at least one weaponset with x/p for easy stomping? And with three thieves, a target really should get more pain quickly?
Puz – TDA
The main issue with warriors is their sodding regen + stuns. Right now I time my bursts in between their stuns/knocks and kite away with SB during the time they are up. Don’t get locked down and slowly reduce their tools.
But they are surely in a powerful place right now! At least it makes for interesting duels
Puz – TDA