Guild Wars 2

SoI went into WvW to get some [practice, I love the terrormancer:D The CC’s hurt still but these guys are quite fun with the bleeding and the marks, and most of all, the fear!

You guys are missing an even more obvious effect, assuming it pulles out out of stealth, our stealth moves will also be stripped from us. That like, taking away an attack from another class

R.I.P. Shadow refuge…….I miss mesmers swinging me out of it now…..

……………

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Doggie.3184:

…signet of shadow’s passive can cause a 1 second blur effect every 10 seconds in combat that evades anything instead. Then I wont have to worry anymore.

The movement speed is a big plus during combat. It is a major advantage that allows for quick positioning and flanking.

Just leave this skill as it is. If you really want something different, then suggest to Anet to add a skill that does exactly what you want it to do.

Of course you cannot deny you secretly want this signet’s active to be a blinding, massive aoe flame blast that does 10k dmg at its weakest and it instastomps while giving you 10 seconds of stealth. Why are you guys looking at me? That’s perfectly balanced……

In PvE and dungeons its annoying since the NPCS will go rampant, but in WvW is can be better sometimes. If the enemy see of of you dissappear then be prepared for an aoe hell storm. If they see the downed guy still there and you are no where in sight then that allows you to rez….usually. Whats more annoying are when people leave the freaking cirle before it goes away, I find myself typing in all caps (WAIT FOR THE CIRCLE TO GO AWAY FIRST)

Doggie.3184:

Please don’t make videos with awful dubstep music. ;/

What about this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBkAxzIRaXw
i think it fits our class

Idk why people are getting so mad that they are saying stealth should be just called invisibility when it doesn’t even assess the point the OP is making. But I’ll bite, since you guys want to bring hiding in shadows and bushes, that tells me you want to bring this on lore terms. For those that actually have a thief, we go “stealth” many ways, some of the main ones being throwing feathers of tufts of hair or even dropping a smokescreen to blind people rendering us “invisible”. The times we actually use magic to go in stealth via Shadow Refuge or Hide in Shadows can be technically considered stealth too. Take a game like the Halo series, Camoflauge technology works by bending light around the source essentially making you hide in darkness. So in that regard, thieves still do stealth, they do just as the skills suggests, hide in the shadows, if there is no light than there is darkness right? So they are hiding, games like Splinter Cell and MGS don’t have “magic” so stealthing is more realistic.

It’s about perception, even irl a stealthy person is invisible. invisible-not able to be seen. That’s the purpose of hiding in bushes or on ledges or what have you, it doesnt matter if they are hiding via technology or magic or flat out hiding, because to you, their target, they are invisible, no matter how they did it. So arguing that stealth is really invisibility is a futile argument sense they are basically the same thing, some of you are acting like the difference between stealth and invisibility is being able to see the person. If they are seen, they are being neither, if they aren’t seen they are both, which means, they are the same thing.

And as for OP, unless you roll a thief, you have no idea how much a crutch stealth is, because even that alone wont save you.

I think it slows them down, makes them feel lax. Kind of like an insects primitive nervous system, the obvi diff being sylvari aren’t primitive.

My D/D build utilities: HiS, SR,SS, SoS. I really want blinding powder since DD has no gap instant gapclosers like DP does so going into stealth without a target would be great, but that speed is useful, especially when I can’t stealth stomp so the blind is the next best thing, especially on guardians. That feeling you get when you get one to the ground and pop SoS, they use the bubble only to get a miss and wonder wth happened.

It’s definitely a change from other classes. To start you have initiative instead of cool down. Whereas thief haters say that this makes us OP I can say this gives us a false freedom of choice that many new thieves fall for. IMO, cooldowns on powers give you a reliable rotation to work with to stay in a fight, taking my necromancer into account. And I do not have one, but lets be honest, DD Eles are the best example of this to use, its all skill rotation with them. For a thief it’s harder because the game is telling you you can use whatever you want, but pick wisely lest you waste initiative for nothing. Don’t get me wrong, most battles for me are like CnD, backstab, autoautoauto, Cnd, Backstab, autoautoauto(I missed the parts where I dodge, shadow step, heal up and steal).

Our best defense is our agility so that has to be used to its fullest. I will admit, my main and first ever character was a thief so at first I had nothing to compare mobility with. Then I max’d a necromancer and by God, thieves def have so much mobility. And they need it because if you take it to WvW, I guarantee cc’s will be your end 8/10. But overall it just takes practice practice practice heck Im still learning somethings.

Oh my, the amount of evasions was absurd!

Arganthium.5638:

RedSpectrum.1975:

Sons.5493:

i beg to differ, while a skilled thief would have a better chance vs another skilled players our current meta still puts us in a lower winning chance by game definition, a good shatter mesmer or a good ranger, heck even a good ele will just kitten the heck out of the skilled thief.

See the part where you said “heck even a good ele” DD eles in general I avoid. No just NO

I love fighting eles. They seem to have this air of “lol I’m an ele, that makes me superior to you” about them, which apparently makes them think that they can keep running while I’m murdering them from behind.

You know what? Youre right, Im not standing for that >:(

Sons.5493:

i beg to differ, while a skilled thief would have a better chance vs another skilled players our current meta still puts us in a lower winning chance by game definition, a good shatter mesmer or a good ranger, heck even a good ele will just kitten the heck out of the skilled thief.

See the part where you said “heck even a good ele” DD eles in general I avoid. No just NO

evilapprentice.6379:

People who keep telling you to go D/P (Like myself, in the last thread you posted concerning D/D builds) aren’t doing so to screw with you. Check any of the stickied thief guides if you desperately want D/D for stylistic reasonss.

But if you want “Lots of Damage, burst, a viable survival, etc”, you want D/P. D/D is a clearly inferior set for what you want.

Actaully, I go with both DD and DP in the same build, I fight mesmers better with DD as well as necros and warriors. The other three classes I fight better with DP with the execption of eles since I use whatever on them, normally i dont fight them because I literally cannot kill a dd ele. I just dont fight them

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

I’ll help you learn Necro in PvP, if you like. It’ll cost you less money than going head first in PvE or WvW, and get you familiar with the class.

Sounds cool message me ingame when Im on. (cant atm school woes)

My main is a thief, that being said Im used to zipping around, avoiding battle changing stuns, going stealth often and keeping up high pressure on people. Yeah the low health is a turn off for many as well as the lack of CC, but it’s something you get used to. My second character was a necromancer,80 of course and I have played with her many times, in PvE. So I decided to run her in WvW (condition mancer 0/30/10/30/0) and I didnt kitten her, she has full exotic gear as well as runes of the undead so I thought she was pretty set and by the Gods. You guys have nothing to work with! Barely any evasion which forced me to get locked down with immobilize many times. Death Shroud helps everynow and then, I understand the mechanics of popping in and out of it to save it.

With conditions, the mentality is to wittle down your opponent which can get hectic when they are right on you cc’ing you and their teammates are there to help take you out. But overall, I’d say I just feel sluggish. No mobility, no reliable access of stun breaker, deathly swarm is one but let’s be honest, not that reliable since it needs to hit someone. And what’s up with the downed state?! When I go down Im at half health causing me to get eaten in like .3 seconds.

Regardless, it’s going to take some practice(and money) but I just wanted to say kudos to those who do well with the necromancer, from now on I’ll bow after a fight with one if I turn out the victor, if your teammates let me =_=. Cheers.

Perhaps I can help a bit since, well, I’m a thief, who just so happened to use D/D D/P. To start, as someone said it’s not just you, even we get kitten off by D/P thieves, which is why i carry the set on me. But anyway, don’t feel like you’re seen as bait, I know for a fact that necromancers need to be handled with extreme caution: a big slip up and you’ll find yourself with more conditions than a corrupted DD ele. We try to focus on close range for necromancers since, especially the staff ones, focues on aoe and ranged fighting. A tip for D/P thieves I can give is to place marks only at your location when you have the gut instinct they are ontop of you. If you place them away, they can be dodged or rolled through. If you place the marks at your feet and see it break, do a dodge roll soon after.

The main problem here is that you’re most likely dealing with a class that is invisible a large portion of the time, and will prob heal every 15 seconds (withdraw). D/P thieves use HS a lot since believe it or not, we lack in power from other builds. So backstabbing and hs are the main ways of dmg, in addition to auto attacking obvi. Save your fear marks, when they go into shadow refuge use it then, fear them out. If you are quick enough, use that dagger #3 move to keep them still and now you have two options, both of which require the staff: place marks at their location since they are immobilized, or place marks at YOUR location because if they have a good amount of health, they wont withdraw but rather steal, D/P #3 to you, or any other shadow step toward you. Placing marks at your location will send them straight into your delicious conditions.

They are by no means an easy opponent but show them who the true master of death is btw, if you use a skill that chills them they will most likely spam heartseeker or use D/P #3 to get right on top of you so be prepared to dodge. And use DS wisely to eat up some damage. Staying inside wells also helps, immobilizing them and then placing a well at their location like the blinding one will give you an upper hand, this will most likely force us to withdraw or use another heal. The ultimate trick here is baiting, don’t spam skills.

EDIT: Any thief loves lich form, it’s quite easy to counter, I recommend plague.

Ok so what do you guys do when you are having a battle in which neither of you could kill the other? I had a fifteen minute (i’ll pause there, soak that number in)……………………………………………………………..fifteen minute duel with a staff mesmer that only ended because we just decided to stop fighting. Despite some of the crucial mistakes we both made (i made one REALLY bad one that im surprised he didn’t capitalize on, thought i had DD ready but it was DP so i pressed number 5….) we just couldn’t seem to down the other. Right when either of us thought victory was a button away, lol nope. So much stealthing, so much blinking, so much combat log updating.

What do you guys do? Do you just continue to fight it out? Or do you go all sneaky and just get away?

KyoHanakaze.8145:

I never really thought of my Sylvari as attractive until this thread…now I`m just like uhm yes pls. I`ll post pictures of mine when I get done babysitting,

This honestly made me lol for some reason +1

Another way to stay hidden without aoe is to chain CnD off of a wall. should work for everyone if you time it right but i also have some init regen on meh

i would think valk or knights

Zikory.6871:

So if that’s the case would smoke fields and blast finishers equal Invulnerability instead of stealth?

EDIT: If so this would mean any group fight would come down to which teams thieves can keep it up better. Lets do this, I’m in! Perma stealth? pfft Invincible army’s.

hell yeah! with 15 characters of course

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

is having 5 sup divinity runes necessary? or will having ruby orbs cut your survivability down too much? div runes gonna break my wallet and my faith

I pretty much ran this same build, He using those runes since they give you everything and an added crit bonus. You can use sup runes of the wurm as they give you health, or the equivalent that gives you toughness. As for your weapons and trinkets, everything is ruby to give you your potency, so no, youre fine

Funny thing is, The Bible is the most stolen book <.<

Warjin.8942:

randomfightfan.4091:

Very much so thank you. Was disgusting trying to use this. My gw2 playing time was dropped down to nothing except doing my dailies but now I will be able to enjoy my favorite class again! All the other nerfs I can see as being warranted, they suck, but I see where you’re coming from.

The only tears here are tears of joy.

Really 1 second made a difference lol, yeah ok, what ever man

But 1 second did make a difference. If you’ve played a stealth heavy build, youd see that.

wait is this live, like if i play RIGHT NOW i will have 3secs?

Uruz Six.6594:

I should agree with Dasorine, but right now I’m just too fond of Hide In Shadows stealth and condition cleaning.

Doesnt it heal you the most too? And as for the aggro dropping, Ive said this before, I dont get why people are still worried about this. The enemies wont continue to attack you while you are in stealth, this just means they wont walk back to thier spawn anymore when they dont see you, and you have 3 seconds to escape or reposition

Incurafy.6329:

urbanevil.7145:

Im all for other thief’s getting there game on, but seriously? d/p = cheese, everyone know’s it even thief’s who run it, know it.. Good vid, but bad opponets + cheese spec = zzzzzzz.

There’s no such thing as “cheese”, get off your high horse, it’s getting old as kitten hearing people say that using a specific set or build is “cheese” and therefore shouldn’t be played.

---

Honestly man, this has got to be one of the worst Thief videos I’ve seen yet, and here’s why:

1. The gigantic black box in the bottom left hand corner that feels like it covers a quarter of the screen is distracting enough as it is, but the changing text on it is just kittening annoying. You’re in some pr0 clanz son, we get it, it’s at the start and it’s in the thumbnail, we don’t have to be reminded every 5 seconds who you are, what your build is, and what guild you’re in.
2. The flashing render crap every 10 seconds was even more annoying and disruptive than the big black box. I paused it at the right frame and it just looked like a poorly rendered video so I’m not going to blame you for this entirely, but come on man, watch your video before you upload it so that you can fix ridiculously obvious errors like these!
3. You’re a skill clicker, and holy kitten was it painful to watch… I was just waiting for you to start rotating on the spot like a keyturner and I wouldn’t have been too surprised if you did.
4. Watching you in group fights against upscaled players where it was usually XvX and not always 1vX was just plain boring as kitten. Seriously.
5. Generic music that we’ve all heard a billion times combined with no game sound effects = boring and uninteresting.

Overall, I give your video a 2/10, I didn’t even get past the five minute mark it was that bad.

Sorry mate. ;\

Sheesh destructive criticism much? This is why no one likes us.

This coming from a balanced build shadow fighter, my rhythm is all kittened up. I like to use D/D so when facing multiple people, it’s amazing how that 1 measly second has caused me money in armor repairs. The sad thing is, MONTHS of rhythm and habit have to be gotten over and it upsets me. Now even I find myself in dire need of HiS and find myself purposely waiting for the revealed debuff to be gone, yeah that has happened before but not nearly as much :/

We use Denial magic, like mesmers. But we’re cooler <.< cuz…..well cuz thats why.

ChibiLlama.6439:

I thought they just ate like normal plants… through photosynthesis o.0 At least, I’ve never -seen- a Sylvari actually eat anything.

It has been confirmed that they do eat since they are very active and thus, photosynthesis alone wouldn’t suffice for the energy they require to move.
HOWEVER they do still undergo photosynthesis but it makes them feel better, lightens their mood

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Yes but the above thoughts really ruined it, first comparing them to a pitcher plant filled with acid and digestive fluids… don’t really want to “insert” anything in there…

and the second stating poop vomit. So…

I meant their acidic stomachs, assuming they have structures akin to one….

not an ingame photo but a commissioned one. She’s the silent type

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

RedSpectrum.1975:

I personally think, that they break down everything if they are anything like pitcher plant acid and such.

That makes me less interested in using a certain limb of mine on a Sylvari.

My sides! ROFL!

Thanks to a fellow forum member, Shawtell is now in the realm of art

I personally think, that they break down everything if they are anything like pitcher plant acid and such.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

For whatever reason, the Sylvari female voice reminds me of Lara Croft. Regardless, human females to me are just… not that attractive. Norn females are tougher than Charr men. Charr… eh. If I went for Asura, I’d be close to a pedophile. Female Sylvari have the most attractive personalities, honestly.

Your sylvari is quite the, uh, seductress ._. I swear if she has a modest personality Im going to slap you because those clothes arent worn for no reason <.<

Incurafy.6329:

Artificer.3468:

My favourite was when i was sttomping a tough condi thief after an intense battle and as he ported away, i used steal to finish the stomp unhindered.

+10

Without a doubt the most enjoyable use of Steal.

I can top it…sorta. Same scenario except you are in the middle of a zerg and while youre stomping the thief, he ports, and you shadow step to him since my steal was used earlier on him :p, and when you complete the stomp and the enemies are roflaoeing at your location, you shadow return and use the stolen hair to slip away, as if you were some sorta thief in the night…..

it was sneal attack, it looks like unload but its not, it does add stacks of blood though

Considering my thief is a sylvari I think she bloomed from the get go.

Briix.6872:

swinsk.6410:

Hrm, very interesting. I was watching Caed’s stream the other day. He mostly hit backstab first then steal while already stealthed, but it fails a lot. The damage is instant. I don’t think I saw him once BP+HS+steal to backstab.

I will try this out.

EDIT: Once you get good at the D/D burst it’s really easy to pull off. Just don’t do it while someone is evading or has invuln up, but that goes with any burst.

BP -> HS -> Steal -> BS is what you could call the full combo, but it is very viable to also just stealth up and do BS -> Steal. Once get used to it, you miss very rarely and it’s a nice and quick way to finish off a fight if you’re helping out the point defender. But again, BS -> Steal is possible to do with D/D.

iNaddict.8021:

D/P burst requires black powder first.. a little setup.. whereas D/D you do it instantly.. as long as you arent being obvious about it you can hit CnD and Mug.. easier than BP ->HS ->MUG..

not to mention D/D burst hits harder.. the other point i wanted to make is that you need Mug.. i personally find it difficult to include mug in a trait set for D/P..

That’s true. It’s a bit harder to land the full burst with D/P. It does hit for about the same amount of damage though. There’s very little different.
If you look at the skills though:
D/D:
Autoattack (BS): Very convenient, and is the primary source of damage.
HS: Again very convenient for finishing off players with low health.
LDB: Not useful at all in a burst build.
Dancing Daggers: Got nerfed a long time again and is not worth using.
CnD: Very useful, of course, as it is used for setting up the BS and possible staying alive a bit longer.

So in D/D you have three useful skills.

D/P:
Autoattack (BS): Same as in D/D.
HS: Same as in D/D.
Shadow Shot: Has the same initiative cost as Dancing Daggers, but instead of just slowing down you enemy a bit you shadow step to them. One of the best skills for taking down a fleeing enemy.
Body Shot: A bit high initiative cost, but it can be used to interrupt their heal skill, when they try to finish someone or when they try to res someone. Very useful.
Black Powder: Blinds everyone that stands in the circle and can provide stealth together with HS. Also very useful.

From my point of view it’s pretty clear that D/P is just superior to D/D. It brings so much more utility and useful skills than D/D does.

Also, here’s a build where Mug is incorporated: http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.7.1.10.20.0.22.22.5.0.154.168.169.176.178.2.2.24.453.459.0.466.471.477.0.0.0.0.0.0.515.0.0.25.30.0.0.15
It’s pretty much what Caed is using.

D/P does not have body shot, it has headshot.

No Walking.6349:

I just can’t see taking it over thieves guild though…like EVER. And as far as timing goes, it takes a whole second just to cast. So you’re locked up for a second, to lock up your enemy for a second and a half….makes no sense to me at all. I think it’s a very weak elite.

That’s understandable but take this scenario, Lets say you have mug btw for all intensive purposes: Youre fighting a D/P who has unparalleled access to stealth. You pop your thieves guild. If he’s well trained, he will dance around them while invisible to get to you. He will do that all day, I should know, I-I’ve seen it.

Same scenario, you’re fighting this guy and even though it wasn’t mentioned above, let’s pretend you have him to half health and you got some pretty good dmg to deal. Normally at half health he will dance around an restealth until his heal comes back, but not this time, this time you have BV! So you cast it carefully and before he slips into darkness, you mug to him, but you don’t stop there, you cloak and dagger too! Oh but the pain isn’t done! The mighty backstab is here to save the day! And if that still doesn’t work, you usually have enough time to heartseeker for a finish.
Now see how useful it can be? And not just with thieves, with any class it can turn the tables if used right, them being still for 1.5 seconds letting you burst helps, alot.
(to be read fast)*WARNING above scenarios are imaginary based scenarios and your targets can be subject to use a stun break to break out. Any misuse of basilisk venom can be subject for reviewing in which a completely irrelevant aspect of the thief will get nerfed. users must be 18 years or older to handle. Limited uses per fight, results may vary

Daecollo.9578:

Guardians get almost as many blinds as we do.

they can also warp

It can literally turn the tide of a fight, and if you use it on a GC, that 1.5 seconds can let you get a free mug, CnD BS which believe me, can make all the difference. You wont see how dire that 1.5 can be until you use it
EDIT: or you can just burst the kitten outta ppl with it :/

stof.9341:

No, that’s not how it works. Your bouncing knife counts as you doing the damage. The problem is that rally doesn’t work like that. Rally works when something you participated in the kill dies. Kind of like in PvE where you need not only to do a little damage but to do significant damage to get loot and XP and the like.

What happened was that the reason the wolf was badly injured was that the mesmer nearly killed it in your fight, then you finished the job with your bouncing knife but not doing enough damage to tag the kill. The mesmer on the other hand got it and he rallied.

…….I hate cheap interferences -_-

And you’re a new thief?

Auesis.7301:

I assume you’re talking about WvW. He/she killed an AI mob.

So I’m fighting this mesmer. This guy was good, he had me on defense for the first half of the fight and I figured I need to act, like now. So long story short he’s on the ground and I have 1k hp left, 6 stacks of confusion and a badly injured wolf biting me, all utilities on cd, I go down and throw a dagger hoping i would target the wolf, instead it hits the mes, bounces off of him, hit AND kills the wolf, rezzing him and not me #wtf and you can guess what happens next…..gg wolf, gg

Sir Vincent III.1286:

ShoeMoney.5249:

If someone asked you to define a thief what would you say in 144 chars or less? Now I know its a fantasy game and not meant to be real life but play a long.

My definition – A Criminal, someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goal. No morals or ethics. A bad guy. A outlaw.

My thief is a hero not a criminal. He is born into nobility and recognized as honorable. He’s a good guy and part of society.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t dress in black at night and hunts bad guys.

I think this is a Batman reference :p