Guild Wars 2

This is fake, the title would have said Thiefs need nerf

hihey.1075:

Fights against PU mesmers with 4 invis (The Prestige, Decoy, Mass invis, Veil) can last really long. Especially if they are using a Staff instead than Sword+Pistol.
Anyway, a few tips:
when they go in stealth, they will probably have Aegis when they reappear: just attack them with your backstab, doesn’t matter if on the back or on the front. They will dodge most likely after the attack, so don’t keep attacking, just use it once. Keep stealthing as they waste all their utilities and go full offensive when they have used Veil+Decoy really close to each other.
It’s the only spec against which I won’t hold my back about stealth, and will spend most of the fight stealthed. I’ll give them some of their own medicine and usually drop a ballista and a /laugh on their corpse.

I can vouch for this, I had a fight with a PU mesmer and it took 15 minutes. Be extremely careful when they are on low health, do NOT get anxious and try to finish them, even mesmers can have tricks up their sleeves. Take your time, you’re not going to kill them fast anyway.

The toxicity of this thread is reaching biohazard levels.

I dont know, I think PU mesmers dont have a hard time against thieves in general in the first place

I can’t really pinpoint a specific problem, and no one has to agree with me, but I feel as though, by trying to balance the classes, they made it ironically harder for us to survive. Here’s what I mean, we barely have any real physical protection what with a low hp pool and what-not, and most thieves usually have one stun-breaker on their utility bar (shadowstep). I personally believe Anet feels like our stealth fixes everything and the problem is, it does. Yeah it cleanses conditions, but it helps with not getting hit. Heck, if I get stunned and my SS is on CD (I am one of those that only have 1 stunbreak and strongly feel as though steal should be a natural stunbreaker) I use blinding powder. Why? It obviously doesn’t break stuns, but it hides me in stealth giving the illusion that I broke out of stun and sequentially went into stealth, when in reality I’m still there. But stealth fixing so much is also what kills us. It’s a double edged sword. You can say “Oh Red, don’t use such stealth heavy builds” and I have, but at the cost of little condi removal, only real thing to help are Lyssa runes, and I hate using those. they are good but I dont like using what every other thief uses (I use Travelers so I may not have much say in that but still). So with the addition of like 1 more stunbreak on my utility bar, let’s say RFI and IS, I now lose the condi removal I’d have to invest into Shadow Arts for. To close, I feel like the false perception of thief invincibility has actually made us more vulnerable than we need to be. There is a difference between a challenging profession, and a punishing one. As it stands in the current META and with all other builds, the thief class will punish those who haven’t the discipline and drive to learn it and use it against the other classes, most of which are in a much better spot. And you can’t blame them, no one wants to play a class that takes weeks to master. Yes I’m proud to be a thief, but I can’t speak for everyone, especially the warriors that are warriors because the other classes proved to be too much of a chore, like the current thief.

ryan.6217:

Wow I totally lost who i was. I’ve spent the last 5 months on this game trying avoid all stealth skills and cheap tactics. This thread reminded me why i started playing thief in the first place, Because i like to win! I guess i shouldn’t whether or not other players think i’m cheap. Winning is winning lol. Here’s to Shadow Refuge!

*raises wine glass

I respectfully disagree with the new flamekissed armor set and am one of the many that bought the original set, is there a possibility a ticket can be made to get a gem refund?
Thanks in advance

That would only benefit smokescreen and black powder though right? That’s pretty specific

RoyalPredator.9163:

It is easy to be a big boy when being OP
Will laugh mad and long when Stealth gets a nerf,

Tell me about it right ?! I’ll laugh when we get nerfed even more but that warrior over there CC’ing you into oblivion and getting off bursts even higher than me sometimes is getting stronger and stronger, but no one notices him whose the real thief here….

As a thief, it’s expected that when we fight, it involving ducking in and out of combat either by stealth or actual distance to re-engage, but that statement can be considered too general I suppose. As a thief, do you fight your battles with “honor”? Only attacking when it’s convenient for both you and your opponent and fighting till the very last bit of hp, or do you use every trick in your book…or utility bar, to keep the fight going as long as it takes for you to win, even going as far as playing dirty enough to lure enemies to a field advantage with mobs or constant resetting til you claim the victory? Essentially, do you agree or disagree with the thread’s title?

Dee Jay.2460:

AskTheDust.7384:

how do you jump with HS for not a full range but only in an area of a circle from BP?

You angle the camera upwards and so only leap a fairly short distance. It works reliably but is fairly inconvenient to do it combat.

What I find funny is that I don’t stealth nearly as much with my D/P weapon-set as I did with my D/D build.

Well considering stealthing with DP costs 9 ini while DD takes 6 ini, without two on stealth, I can easily see why. Assuming you used trickery, that 15ini pool would leave you with 6 ini left going on 7 after one stealth so it’s not hard to see why you’re stealthing less with DP, however, it offers more blinds than DD can offer.

A common argument is that DP takes more skill to use than DD. Now it’s no right or wrong answer to this, but I personally believe that’s not true. However I am also not saying DD is more skillful. To explain, you have all skills useful for DP, so one could say “Oh we need to manage initiative.” Yeah, okay, but not really. It’s not like you’ll need all of those buttons all of the time. In the brunt of a fight with a melee warrior, I’ll barely use shadowshot since he’s going to be on top of me all of the time. In fact, why bother constantly stealthing, Black powder will mitigate the fool if he’s dumb enough. And as you’ve said, headshot if only really used when they are healing and one isn’t healing every second of the fight…actively anyway…so that’s another 4 initiative I don’t have to worry about constantly. So DP initiative management is only really a concern if youre constantly focused on getting a stealth out, but DP gives you the tools to not have to worry about that so much. DD on the other hand has so little to work with, calling it cheese gets me angry. DD stealth can be prevented in more ways DP stealth can be. Wanna know how to stop a DP thief from stealthing? Interrupt. Wanna know how to stop a DD thief from stealthing? Interrupt, blind, blocks, evades, keeping your distance. Imho you cannot justify DP being harder than DD. At first, yes it’s a hassle to learn all of your skills, but when you become a natural with DP, ini management comes as second nature to you as holding your breath while swimming, AND you have more skills to work with, double win!

It rustles my jimmies honestly. It’s nerfs like these that pigeon hole people to one build. two handed weapon combinations are DD,DP, PD,PP,SD,SP. DD I think gets hit the hardest of these because (autoattack included) either two or three buttons are used for it depending on build. If DD had a reliable #4, it wouldn’t seem like the stone solid and unchanging set it is, just from that one move being fixed. We would have a nice little ranged attack to add new tactics into play like, hitting a mesmer clone to bounce it to the player when they are on low health to finish them or if we semi-spammed it at an oncoming warrior, they’d think twice about charging in not because of the cripple, but because of the damage they’ve just suddenly noticed they are taking. As it stands now, they and everyone else (even other thieves) laugh at dancing dagger when hit by it.

Guardian.5142:

Thieves lit the grail-shaped beacon and got spanked.

You obviously need more peril…

And this is coming from a Guardian so I’d listen to him. In fact, most of us thieves have come to hoping we’d be ignored just to avoid yet another nerf.

What build do you normally use? And to add, condition engineers are en extremely good counter to thieves, so losing to one isn’t unnatural, but advice can be given.

Basilisk Venom,Deluge Deluge Deluge Deluge Deluge, Escape, Deluge Deluge Deluge, Basilisk Venom, Deluge Deluge Deluge

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Chrispy.5641:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Chrispy.5641:

Anet got the ‘massively’ part right atleast in MMORPG, since Deborah is the most common name in Kryta, and roughly 33% of all humans had their parents murdered by the White Mantle…. (/sarcasm)

White Mantle was 200 years ago. My parents were killed by Centaurs.

The White Mantle were 200 years ago, but they are also still right now, and are still very much around, but since Guild Wars 2 is not human focused, we may never actually see them outside the personal story.

and my 33% comment came from this if you really failed that badly to get the sarcasm in my comment::
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ashes_of_the_Past

I don’t think you understood the part where I said my parents were killed by Centaurs. If you meet me in TC, I’d be more than willing to tell you my RP story at the Dead End bar. My asuran wife could even introduce you to some of her friends back home in Rata Sum.

I’m actually rather curious as to how ,RP-wise, you managed to marry an Asura, being honest.

Tachii.3506:

9k CnK, 19k Backstab on 2k+ armor? Holy cruddery.

And the 3k steal means nothing to you ?!

Contrary to popular belief you can beat a DP as DD as long as the Dp is of lesser skill than you, you may not want to hear this but part of it requires being hit. When you feel hit is about to BS you, start AA’ing toward where you believe he is. Once he facestabs you since your back should have been away from him,, CnD and then BS him quickly. Normally I find that they HiS right after this, that’s when you should too. And then repeat. Yes you have to land CnD but this means your are dealing more damage over your stealth than he is. AA’ing is crucial as it will help clear blinds if you hit him in stealth, allowing for more cloak and daggers. If there are mobs, you can use those to stealth. Otherwise, if he is of the same or greater skill level, there is a high chance you will lose that matchup.

Hey man but its so cute I mean he’s so small

Awwwww

By itself it’s a very powerful skill but in terms of team play, all it does is let you rez others and maybe get the jump on another group. Just play how you want. Different teams need different things

10 out of 8 necros? That is alot…

Arganthium.5638:

@Mrbig: if you’re going to tell me my my his wrong, you sure as hell better have the evidence to back it up. Ironically, the person I was speaking to in the thread from which my quote was borrowed also tried to say that my math was wrong, linking me to some guy named Arcturus who had come up with a different conclusion than I had. I refuted his methods through some basic facts.

And if you’re going to doubt the usefulness of Trix in my build, go do some research into the build and then tell me what you think.

Why would cereal help you in the first place? No I’m doubting you Argy….

Brando.1374:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Thief
10% damage when attacking a player from the side or behind. Not HP dependant.

Yeah but then you see they boost prec and condi dmg, which doesnt really benefit a power DD build. (condi dmg)

Dee Jay.2460:

Ok so I’ve just replaced my Beryl Orbs with Runes of Strength and am actually impressed by the DPS increase.

I recorded a series of Backstabs against Karka and had them average around 5000 with the Beryl Orbs (112% Crit-Damage).

With Runes of Strength the Backstab damage increased to roughly an average of 5200, which is substantial against softer targets. Auto-attack damage increased too. It just goes to show how much better Power is than any other DPS stat.

Well power is the most important DPS stat. You can have a massively high crit rate and damage but if your power is like only 100, not really much damage you’re putting out. On topic, I’ve been using wurm runes, which give pretty nice power and crit damage but you’ll be trading that other third thing for an increase in vitality. On paper that is nice but honestly there are some fights lost where added power would’ve been the better option than added hp. I guess there are no blanket runes out there.

solrik.6028:

The key point to stealth is:
Stops new damage
Does not stop old damage, i.e. conditions

I put down my spike trap without the ground targeting trait. The small radius makes the thiefs position easier to guess. When he walks into it, he gets bleeding with cripple. Then I shotgun him with either poison vollet (he’s likely to heal within 10 secs) or splitblade. He’s dead if he took the shotgun to the face.

Not true, Shadow’s Embrace, we shed a condition every time we enter stealth, and shed a condition every 3 seconds in stealth. Unless youre a necro or engi who can burst massive amounts of conditions, I usually wouldn’t recommend killing a thief with condi’s, especailly if the main ones are bleeding and poison

Dee Jay.2460:

Aren’t these video all the same? Chain Cloak and Dagger until enemy makes a mistake or has blow their CDs.

Profit.

While the commentary is nice, he’s really only stating the obvious. You Cloak and Dagger because frankly…what else does one do as a D/D Thief?

GW2 combat is so shallow that these explanations don’t really add much to the overall understanding because there’s not much to understand.

I like Yishis, my favorite GW2 WvW videos by far, but can’t help feeling that GW2 has a really low skill-cap. Explanations in WoW added a lot because combat was deep and there was lots to know about various classes. But in GW2 you fight every class the same way because your build is only capable of doing one thing well.

And in this case it just happens to be Cloak and Dagger and Backstab.

PS: Also, this seems identical to his previous videos.

On the surface you’re absolutely right, but also on the surface, in that regard, anyone can go out there Cloak and Dagger and have as much success as Yishis does. He knows how to position himself, knows when is the right time to Backstab. Many times he CnD’s but the backstab never comes because it’s just safer to stay put. Most are far too scared to blow their utilities in such close proximity to one another but he knows when and where to use each of his utilities in his videos. Am I saying he is successful 100% of the time? Of course not, no one is and he’ll tell you that flat-out. But he even 1v1 some direct thief counters in his vid and comes out successful. That’s when just simply 1-5-1-1-1-5-1 becomes a bit more reactionary.

Here is his newest vid in case no one has seen it yet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEEYhovtwBo nice job once again Yishis

Necromancer, I love the idea of a tanky light armor class that’s philosophy is just to outlast your foe

Auesis.7301:

It…never had a stun break.

Sadly it hasn’t. I wish it did. SS, SR, BP/SoS doesn’t offer much in terms of stun breaking and we can still steal when cc’d…..

Viking Jorun.5413:

RedSpectrum.1975:

I’m just going to leave this here.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dervish

Well the Dervish doesnt exist anymore >:(

I literally had the same idea awhile back. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Scythes-for-necromancers-D/first#post3050167

Engineers, that nade spam and condi spam. I just dont fight engineers anymore it is way too hard as a DD thief

I’m just going to leave this here.

Yeah no it pulses dmg. Here go to Orr and get a throw gunk. Throw it at an enemy then run up to them and CnD. Youll literally have no time for a BS before youre revealed

Holy crap this got revived? Well I may as well add the necro version, enjoy

I’m rather upset about the change of SoV. I too was hoping for a ll factor on my dire condi necro to make it -that much more- sustainable. *sigh

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

SoV used to be akin to a perma retaliation, but they changed it last minutes so now it’s basically a pseudo protection? If thats the case all it does is soften blows now. I couldve sworn it was originally supposed to steal health too……

Alice.8694:

What: Tier 3 Human Cultural Armor
Why: Thieves synergize with this armor more than any other, this is OP and should totally be nerfed immediately.

I would say you copied me, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you just agree with me

What: Human Cultural Tier 3 Armor
Why: Basically every thief wears it, and every thief does 30k dmg backstabs and sword slices as well as stealths and teleports, COINCIDENCE?!

Usually she has her usual look, but I figured she could have a more eye candy approach since sylvari are already eye candy wit dem colors

evilapprentice.6379:

Master of Timespace.2548:

Stealth trap is the only thing that I know of, that can do this.

Stealth trap is one of the 2 things in the game that targets and completely shuts down an entire class mechanic. The other being Sic’ em, both targeting thieves.

To be fair, stealth isn’t our class mechanic, initiative is. If you took thieves out of the game, which it seems that’s the end game, stealth will still be there.

The clones never move backward, they will not have chaos armor around them, the one with the chaos armor is the mesmer, if you hit the “mesmer” and his health drops way to low for a seemingly weak hit, that’s a clone. Clones don’t evade, and Im pretty sure clones don’t have titles. But generally if you click around, the one with the boons is the real deal.

Burnfall.9573:

SoLeciTO.3490:

Kadin.2356:

A thief violated Burnfall at some point in the past so now he trolls the boards to unleash his righteous fury (don’t blame the guy, being a ranger that’s about the only option he has).

Is just amazing how much time he expend trolling in this forum.

Maybe Sanduskel created another account?

About the topic . . . i really have hope in devs, the changes seems to be really kitten thief but i’m sure they will compensate.

No, this is my account, not Sanduskei

As the saying goes, “stand for what is right, fight for what is wrong”

In other word, I defend those who want change for the best, i fight those who want change for the worse.

Sooo I expect a thread in which you rant on yourself sometime in the future.

So if it gets blocked it counts as venom usage but no healing? Nothx

Fun Fact: There is no such thing as a male whip-tailed lizard. All are female and reproduce by a method known as ‘parthenogenesis’ or false egg production. This results in both mate being pregnant with offspring that are direct clones of the mother. The more you know

Imagi.4561:

A friend of mine, and one of the Thief community’s most passionate theorycrafters, says “Thank you for asking us for counters. You are better than most people.”

And indeed, thank you for being willing to learn. Most people come, complain, and leave.

I’m RedSpectrum.1975 and I approve this message

Actually, from past experiences, your clones and phantoms will start to attack the moment stealth is dropped. How much damage depends on the time while seen.

As for stealthing on a whim, most don’t like doing that. I think the most amount of times ive chained was three. Think about it, why would I want to lengthen a fight so your team can come or your skills cooldown?

And idk if you know this or not, since most associate DD with glass, there are non glass backstab builds that are popular. Imo these should be your main worry, once a GC wastes his opening attack and you deny it, he’s done. However a balanced thief will do a bit less dmg, but are able to stay in the fight much longer and fold easily. Ironically they stealth more since they have different utilities, go figure.

What: Human Cultural Tier 3 Armor
Why: Basically every thief wears it, and every thief does 30k dmg backstabs and sword slices as well as stealths and teleports, COINCIDENCE?!

Dammerung.6419:

RedSpectrum.1955

there are decisions being made when one stealths off of a clone. People don’t just stealth off of mesmer clones to just be in stealth, also considering DD get’s its main power attack off of getting stealth. Guarantee if we could backstab without stealth, we’d be stealthing a bit less.

I just can’t agree with this line of reasoning. People stealth because you are, for all intents and purposes, immune to damage and can dictate how and when you want the fight to continue (all the more evident with the stealth up-time that a D/D thief can maintain). This is especially apparent in a fight with a mesmer where 50%-70% (depending on your weapon choice) of their offensive skills requires a target as well as having no offensive aoe’s (except chaos storm and mirror blades). Now this is purely from a mesmer perspective since other classes could handle a D/D thief with melee damage or aoe spam with a lot more ease when they stealth. Regardless, it is in a thief’s best interest to remain hidden when fighting a mesmer to remove 50-70% of their effectiveness.

As for your guarantee, if thieves that run the D/D build didn’t require stealth for a backstab, how would that effect their thinking at all? Should I attack this person in the open where they could potentially counter me, or should I stealth and do it, eliminating any retaliation? Not to mention it would become a lot more difficult to get behind your opponent when they can see you. Seriously, backstabs become easy mode in comparison when stealth is involved, and no thief with any sense would attempt a backstab without stealth in this scenario. Furthermore, lets say that stealth was eliminated entirely for this argument. It would then be almost impossible to run a full glass build in such a situation, in which case, as the opponent, I wouldn’t have to worry about the staggering amount of damage that this thief could do with one hit.

1. You misunderstood my point, when a thief stealths off of one of your clones it is so they can look at the situation and thus control the fight, otherwise, mesmers are in control of the field when the set up their clone playground. The decisions usually are, should I attack now or wait just a bit longer? Is that the right guy, am I sure? What kind of phantom is this? Maybe I should chain CnD it to death so it doesn’t kill me while I’m revealed (thank you Yishis). And careful with your terms, DD has no stealth uptime adding. each stealth with CnD will be 3-4 seconds, no more. It’s not like D/P and therefore, the CnD can be countered. If a DD thief is running at you, you know what they’re going to do.

2.The point of a full glass thief build wasn’t about stealth, it was about damage. Before the thief collapse, a full GC’s utilities and traits barely had anything to do with stealth. And as for the guarantee, it was a blanket statement, not just for mesmers. Of course you’d want to be in stealth as long as possible, mesmers are very dangerous opponents. And you are not invulnerable while in stealth, the mitigation comes from lack of awareness, which is kinda what stealth was made for. And just think, I don’t see why even bring up the point o open field fighting etc, if we focues less on stealth, dont you think we’d function a bit differently in other areas to compensate ._.