Guild Wars 2

If those patch notes are true, it looks like Spec. Wal may have its spot on my bar. Now I can take advantage of the deflection, AND fear which should last longer thanks to the necromancer runes and traits

Great, just what the community needs, more D/P thieves :p, but seriously nice job with the number crunching. I’m hoping in the end we get a D/P build that has near the damage D/D brings with it’s balanced build. I’ve lost too many battles as a D/P where I would have won with D/D but my damage wasn’t high enough :/

Also the name itself, withdraw, not something youd use for gap closing I think. But that’s just the name

Honestly this myth is debunked at this point. Unless you’re naked or uplvl’d, ONE backstab is definitely not going to 1hko you. Unless we they go full GC and max bloodlust stacks with food and the best possible crit chance and even then. Besides, most of us thieves don’t go for gc specs.

Auesis.7301:

Bolt, Incin, Quip and Dreamer here:

http://imgur.com/a/T3km9#0

Would have got a 2nd Incin, but I want the unique 5 Legendary achievement (Sunrise for Mesmer is last).

Auesis you spoil the hell out of your thief :p

What runes do you recommend to sub for divinity’s? Surely there are stats that we focus on more than others.

Soulstar.7812:

The drop rate is .4% on the wiki drop rate.
you need 4000 chests to get a 100% chance to get one weapon with the common coffers.

I have no clue what the drop rate of Rich Coffer, but if I had to guess from what others are saying it’s close to 1 out of a 100.

This isn’t how statistics work. Each individual coffer has less than a .4% drop rate of a ticket individually regardless of the others. That means that out of 4000, you may get no tickets. It’s like flipping a coin and it landing on heads six times in a row. You would think that on the 7th try, there is a high chance it will land on tails since it kept landing on heads. This is not true, as each trial is independent on the ones before it.

In conclusion, 4000 coffers may be too much or it may not be enough, but just because the first 2,000 didn’t get you a ticket, doesn’t mean the few will have a higher chance.

I also see mesmers use blurred frenzy when they think the thief is near, that usually helps. Requires some educated predicting though.

style.6173:

At this point the thief class is maybe average at best. Unfortunately, it has turned into a class that is basically only good at killing those with no skills. That is sad. Hopefully anet will buff the thief soon.

I demand my shadow step to give me ten seconds of stealth, end in a flame blast, heal me for 5,000 and have a recharge of 5 seconds! >: (

Sir Vincent III.1286:

WonderfulCT.6278:

I have to dissagree with your post as well, mesmers are very easy to pick out from clones and standing there with them is not going to help. It just reduces their dps and makes getting close and landing hits easier since they aren’t moving.

I said;
“Even though Mesmer has a limited access to stealth, they can still hide in plain sight. This is what drives me crazy when a Mesmer knows their profession too well. "

“So the lesson is, if you stay at the back trying to attack me from ranged — you’re a dead man walking. Instead, blend in with your illusionary crowd and you’d be safe.”

So where did you get your idea from?

And those who said that they can CnD the clones, this is what I said;

“Another thing I hate the most is the Confusion upon shattering an illusion because if I get it wrong, I get a painful stack of Confusion.”

It is fairly obvious who are those who has not fought a good Mesmer…only kittenty ones.

Take your aggressive judgmental comments somewhere else. Don’t even bother replying to what I said if you’re not even going to comprehend what I posted.

Patient thieves shine on mesmers. If traited, CnD will stealth you for 4 seconds, if your CnD kills a clone, you have 3 seconds of confusion, your stealth will outlast and outheal the confusion and the dmg given by the shattered clone. CnD’ing off of the clone is one of the better tactics for a DD thief, and I don’t remember me ever quoting you directly and insulting you/doubting your playstyle. The mesmer class was one I, like many others, feared greatly. But it turns out that that tactic is actually one of the better ways to deal with them. As for hiding in their clones, anyone’s guess on how to counter that counter is as good as mine.

I actually think that for a clone based mesmer, not phantom based, a DD thief will be your worst nightmare since they ( and I do this tactic with clones mesmers) will just CnD off of your clones. Your main battle mechanic will make the fight easier. So stand in your clones to avoid a backstab.

Dustfinger.9510:

Rednik.3809:

spoj.9672:

Who would want to have a relationship with a charr anyway.

You clearly underestimate the diversity of personal preferences.

And a scratchy tongue on your face to wake you up in the morning :P

I’d prefer a leafy one…wait…is a sylvari’s tongue leafy? Then do they produce saliva? GAH why do they produce so many questions!?

Silferas.3841:

Sifu.6527:

I disagree.

Pulling off Steal CnD + BS is harder than 5-2 then Steal/InfilBS.

d/p : use basilisk venom, mark target, detarget (depending on whether you have already been seen, as using basilisk by hitting enemy with black powder prematurely can utterly funk your whole combo up, giving enemy more time to stunbreak or even having the effect pass), use black powder, retarget, use assassin’s signet while using heartseeker (if you use it before this point you are loosing one or more of the empowered hits by black powder), use steal, use backstab

d/d : use basilisk, use assassin’s signet, use CnD, use steal, use backstab

I fail to see how possibly any combo ever could be more simple than pulling off CnD backstab. You might have in mind pulling off just a backstab without usage of any combos or stuff like that (seeing akittenting CnD can be tricky… as I have previously stated), which would be quite pointless in spvp/tournaments seeing as if you fail your burst combo the first time, you gonna die babe, unless you run real fast. In regards to pve : backstab builds suck. There is also the WvW thing for which I hold no regard whatsoever, since basically everything and anything works there (player skillbase is somewhere in between the floor and satan’s bathroom.

@RedSpectrum: there is only one D/P build and it’s 25/30/0/0/15 with full zerker and scholar’s runes. There is a remote chance you might be talking about WvW, where stuff like being upleveled from level 13 matters much more in a fight than having a weird trait setup.

There isn’t one DP build, just like there isnt one DD build

@Arganthium
I am not saying you are wrong but I do think you are basically saying DD is utter trash, even if that’s not what you are implying. Let’s take a look at things from a DD perspective, because we already know how DP works. What class would you need a gap closer for mainly when fighting? We can say rangers are a main one, mesmers, and maybe even necromancers. Those are the main classes we need to take at for a range.

Now then, if I need to get close to a ranger using DD yes I could heartseeker, or I could evade my way toward him. Both would work but are risky, especially the evading one. However what I DD user would do, an experienced one, is that they would CnD off of the pet and make their way to the ranger, maybe a HS or two in stealth so the ranger can’t predict movement. A mesmer, same scenario, CnD off of clones and make your way to the mesmer. Necro same thing, assuming they have minions, if not then other tactics are used and a kitten ton of heartseekers.

Classes like Warriors and Guardians, while risky are fought in CQC with DD, with the blind on stealth trait letting you get a free damageless stealth, though I admit, not as effective as the field. And DP is the easiest way to fight a thief as a thief. Which is why I carry that set as my secondary.

The point I’m trying to make is that I don’t think either is better than the other. Believe it or not, one scenario I have seen and even did better with DD is against a mesmer. When you stealth with DP, you are usually very predictable as to your location, think about it, you HS toward the target, so the have a good idea where you are. But a DD user can CnD off of clones, and zig zag their path and confuse the mesmer. Once a ranger pet was running back to its master, I CnD’d all of the way to the ranger off of the pet, I can’t do that with DP as I didn’t know his location. But to satisy your argument, DP does offer blinding and a more reliable gap closer. The thing is fighting with DP makes things a bit easier due to your tools. With DD you have to be much more weary of your surroundings and dodges.

General thing I’ve noticed, if they love range, they will usually have something for you to CnD off of to compensate, if the love CQC, you can CnD off of the person, however you have to be more careful during the fight.

Sifu.6527:

Silferas.3841:

What D/P has:
- same burst, if not higher than D/D
- on-demand stealth
- on-demand gap-closer with really good damage (people underrate that skill, it’s even better than using heartseeker prematurely to use it, since it also blinds the enemy and increases your survivability)
- instant daze (whoever doesn’t use this skill at all is wasting D/P’s potential. Ever tried dazing people as they were about to cast their important spells like heals or ulties? Daze is perhaps even stronger than a stun, since you can stunbreak out of a stun)
- blind field (destroys other thieves and melee classes, also makes taking down boss objectives like svanir a breeze)

Now as to the other reasons why it’s better than your D/D build:
- as you said, you are using “constant high damage backstabs”. You can do that on d/p too the same, with the exception of not having to actually hit anything with CnD. In WvW people just might find a critter or something else to hit, but in tournaments you have to hit your opponents and that doesn’t work out well without a gap closer, since they are obviously avoiding your CnD (which costs a lot of initiative, so missing even one makes blind field stealthing more cost-efficient). Also, if you hit a critter with CnD, you are loosing damage that still gets done with blind field stealthing through a heartseeker.
- now as to the way other thieves actually play: in tournaments slowly killing by backstabs is not viable. You MUST burst somebody down, or you go down yourself, or even worse your whole team looses the teamfight, not even mentioning that taking your time killing enemies on point slowly looses you the game. Also, other classes like warriors can pull of better damage over the time you stealth and backstab 3 times and don’t need to stealth for that, so there’s basically no reason for any team to want a thief that plays the way you do.

Basically the only thing d/d has right now is the ease of pulling off the combo, which isn’t really hard in the first place.

I disagree.

Pulling off Steal CnD + BS is harder than 5-2 then Steal/InfilBS.

I agree with this disagreement, if you have a build dedicated to D/P like 0/25/30/25/0, its burst is definitely not as high as a D/D build like 25/30/0/15/0|30/30/0/0/10|0/30/30/10/0 to name a few

I know that steal
(i know that feel)

I go full 30SA and with that might and my 98% crit dmg, 0/30/30/10/0 my backstabs at most hit an 80 character for 7k, nothing compared to those GC’s so it takes alot more than SA to make us OP

I run with both, DD DP second. Everyone already said it strengths but I personally can fight some classes better with DD, like mesmers,necros and rangers.

savints.6281:

RedSpectrum.1975:

savints.6281:

RedSpectrum.1975:

In pvp there were two scenarios he used mist form and I did an educated guess on where to land the shadow step. Such a great feeling when you do this for the first time. So what class can we not counter an interrupt? Mesmers don’t count if the do theirs early enough you can quickly use a shadow step in that .5 second window.

As a thief you can counter every down state interrupt in the game with proper timing on blinds, steal, or shadow stepping.

Oh and one thing about the mes, if you stealth fast enough and they don’t have a target, they can not use there down state stealth/clone.

See I didnt know that, thanks! (the thing about the mesmer) In the case of eles and mesmers and even the really experienced thieves, I think luck is also a HUGE factor as well.

I would only say that ele might have the luck factor there, as for countering the thief down state shadow step, its 100% going to go off if you have steal up, when you kill a thief and your steal skill is off cool down, just target that thief and when he goes to shadow step, just just use steal and it’s gg for him.

If your steal is on cool down and you have shadow step up (which you should be taking almost 100% of the time) just pan and watch for that shadow step, it’s really easy to pull off once you get the hang of it, and you will be “pro” stomping thieves like a G in no time.

I know what you mean, I meant those thieves that know you can steal stomp them, so they wait til the last possible millisecond so that when you do press steal, youve already finished the stomp so youre next to them in a “well this is awkward” fashion.

savints.6281:

RedSpectrum.1975:

In pvp there were two scenarios he used mist form and I did an educated guess on where to land the shadow step. Such a great feeling when you do this for the first time. So what class can we not counter an interrupt? Mesmers don’t count if the do theirs early enough you can quickly use a shadow step in that .5 second window.

As a thief you can counter every down state interrupt in the game with proper timing on blinds, steal, or shadow stepping.

Oh and one thing about the mes, if you stealth fast enough and they don’t have a target, they can not use there down state stealth/clone.

See I didnt know that, thanks! (the thing about the mesmer) In the case of eles and mesmers and even the really experienced thieves, I think luck is also a HUGE factor as well.

In pvp there were two scenarios he used mist form and I did an educated guess on where to land the shadow step. Such a great feeling when you do this for the first time. So what class can we not counter an interrupt? Mesmers don’t count if the do theirs early enough you can quickly use a shadow step in that .5 second window.

Post a pic of your main character and a song that you can think of that best represents them
Conspiracy

Ryorn.3740:

Anything up right now?

Jade Quarry has the evnt about to begin

I carry a sword to use Larcenous strike to steal the retal and protection. But the reef drakes! Dat retreat! Wth is up with their power?!

Funny how Faren is voiced by the same guy who voices Feron (Drell Mass Effect 2)

Yes, yes this actually looks very nice, however what exactly is “Breathe” for? What happens when it runs out? And does it regen ooc?

Only thing Im skeptical about it that Seduction elite. Other than that it looks cool.

Nobody likes a third wheel……

Also dat sylvari not too far from her had dat leaf dress that looks really nice, side note that chat made me lol

agreed, this would make browsing so much easier

Lady Kasmeer Meade….nuff said ._.

Also in addition, that sylvari had a nice plant themed beach attire dress that would also be very nice.

was actually what I listened to, especially for the chorus, but THATS NOT VIABLE ANYMORE because they see me coming now….

Azraeel.1238:

Evade thief? Let’s make a trap that removes all endurance for 30 seconds next … -_-

30 seconds for thieves remember the goal here is to kill us off.

Travlane.5948:

overuse? could this be because anet attached EVERYTHING to stealth? :P noooooo couldnt be lol.

init regen
init gain
heal
health regen
aoe blind
2 might per invis
2 condi removed per 3 sec invis
backstab
sneak attack
surprise shot
tactical strike
Cloack and dagger
(basically all our important attacks)
50% increased mobility (only works 33% bug)
escape option

i mean thats not that much attached right? :P lol oh man.. 3 out of 4 utilities use stealth too…the 4th is shadowstep.

evade spam thief is …. interesting but not a highly competitive build.

CnD say deal dmg grants three seconds of stealth. for me at least it should say, deal dmg, grant four seconds of stealth, gain regen,gain two stacks of might, run 33% faster, next attack will be critical if from stealth

LightningBlaze.4913:

More likely this is because most thieves overuse the constant stealth mechanic in wvw.

But you can’t blame them, see how long you’ll last with an evasion build when a large group finds you.

Travlane.5948:

i rolled a necro… i wanna feel needed/usefull in a zerg fight. gonna make him beast mode.

Ive been had a necro, thief is still first though, but by god you will definitely notice the lack of mobility and stun breaks. My terrormancer saves her precious stamina while my thief is like “stamina? I have that?”.

No swinsk don’t go! If you go they (thief haters) win! We can’t let them win!

JUN YANG.4328:

as we all know thief its not a fast runner.. without stealth how possible to escape? meaning once you trap it.. u will die hard.. :-(

before i had save all the money to buy a T3 gear. tramsution stone. and i even ran arah to get token for her as well.

lucky my character only lvl30. having do crafting yet.. I am gona spending my money to the others . theif only become my storage. until they change the trap time again..

OOC Signet of Shadows makes you faster, but use infiltrator’s arrow, shadow step, and a ton of heartseekers until that revealed wears off.

Doggie.3184:

Here’s a Sylvari Swimsuit pic for your Calendars. =3

HAHAHA OMG LOL LOOK HOW HE’S HOLDING IT X’D
my mind is dirty right now <.<

As much as I hate these new traps, it’s not as bad as it seems. I’ll admit we are acting like there is a trap every 2 feet but they are most likely used in keep and around camps. So you just need to be wary when around major areas that are called out in map chat a lot. And if you are suddenly stripped from stealth out of nowhere…..run, dont look back just run.

Travlane.5948:

really the onnonlygeneral bama. care to duel? me and my stealth trap vs you and your thief?)

I do believe he mains an engineer, some thief you are for not analyzing your enemies first

Honestly thought this was going to be a complaint thread, you win.

swinsk.6410:

This is possibly the worst addition this game had ever seen.

It was never meant to target the veil Zerg.

Clearly meant to target solo thieves in wvw.

Any solo player can easily drop it in a 1v1 battle.

Soon all roamers will be carrying them and shadow arts will become pointless…

Anet has just forced all thieves to drop stealth in wvw because it too much risk to run into one if these traps.

Good job anet! I tried to warn you. Further removing any build flexibility thieves once had.

We need someone to make a build that utilizes evasion AND stealth. Anet has this last shot to fix their mistake by playing with our traits for better
EDIT: And to whoever thinks this was made for a veiled zerg you are obviously blind, do you think a vieled tank of a warrior needs that stealth to win his battles? Or the necro? Nope. They couldnt care less, portal bombing was effective as well.

Sunflowers.1729:

Travlane.5948:

Sunflowers.1729:

Travlane.5948:

@sunflowers. lets pretend ur a ranger for a moment. you have 10supply+ stealth trap. you are alone and found a thief coming at you from afar starting invis. what would you do? try place trap? or pray you are better than the thief and fight to risk running aaaaaaaaaallll the way back if /when you die. if i were the ranger, i would personally use a quick invulnerability and drop a trap leaving 1 sec of free hitting. usually dodged. wasted a trap/10 supply but ur alive and theres a dead thief or running thief.

not just this scenario….but a thief can abuse it……….shadow refuge + set stealth trap wherever. nobody would know. amazing in thief v thief or thief v mes

If I am a Thief I will see that he is placing a trap and not fight him there. It’s like if someone runs to an supply camp I won’t fight him there either, because of all the guards.

i fight people in supply camps but depends on build. anyway point is. IF YOU FIGHT….its a loss tothe thief and a WIN for whever placed it…..if they DONT fight you…you still win by not dying / waiting for backup. either way its auto win / auto life. its a game changer.

point of the game is not to run in a 1 v 1 ……or in a 5 v 5. its to fight.

Are you serious? Think what happens if they use the trap:

Roamer uses 10 supply
Thief chooses not to fight at that area
Roamer wastes 10 supply.

How does anyone not see this?

Actually it’ll be a stalemate, while you’re all like “uh uh I ain’t goin over there”
They’ll be like “uh uh, I ain’t leavin here”
<.<
>.>

I actually felt bad he seemed so helpless and lonely. He was like “W-where my stealth go? :’(”

It’s mostly true. We can evade everywhere with the right builds, but at the end of the day, going stealth is the best way for us to mitigate massive punishment, so we are getting hit hard. Yes the affects mesmers too, but imo not nearly as much. Ive fought plenty of mesmers who didnt even use stealth. EDIT: though id prefer it, for the love of God stop turning me into a moa, it doesnt work

Travlane.5948:

Sebrent.3625:

At the comment by Travlane that “most people use auto-targeting so heartseeker isn’t good mobility”…

… most “bad” players use it. Good players long ago understood that by turning it off, they could better leverage their skills the way they want. If someone wants to turn on something that restricts them, that is their choice, but it doesn’t diminish the viability of the skill.

true alot of bad players use it and overuse it. i personally barely touch the skill. i think i have used it on more downed players to finish em off than when they are up. auto targeting is VERY usefull when playing a thief. other than that its a hindrance :P so is it better to have it on or off? depends on how good you are at targeting/how you ahve key binds setup i suppose.

There are some advantages to having it on, like when I know the person is offscreen and about to die, so I press heartseeker to finish them off, scenarios like that. But it does screw you over when you try to use heartseeker to run, but you auto target the group behind you, or the mob in front of you to your left causing you to go into combat slowing you down and you can tell Ive had my experiences lol.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Thanks guys! How do you do it with steal? :x I am new to stealing so haven’t really tested if it breaks animations.

The only time you would use steal to stomp is on a thief, if it is ready to use, press it the second they shadow step, and youll blink to them without stopping the stomp, and a tuft of hair as a trophy for your accomplishments

Chaotic Storm.2815:

i’m a 50/50 on this, I love the exotic nature of sylvari, but I also love a women with long legs and lets face is norns got that in spades

Its like….picture throwing a hotdog down a hallway. :/