Guild Wars 2

Sebrent.3625:

This is sort of why I wish they would change up the Thief a bit. Make them a bit less reliant on stealth but give them something to compensate for having less stealthiness. I think It’d make them more useful in a variety of fights instead of having them being an alpha skirmish/duel class while being mediocre in large fights … though I’ve seen some really great use of caltrops, shortbows, etc. in large fights … maybe a l2p since Thieves have so much more incentive to duel/skirmish that they aren’t doing the large battles nearly as much as others.

I also think it might better enable non-sword thieves to take on Tanks (without exploiting culling). Right now, someone with plenty of protection/regen/etc. needs those boons stripped if you want to reliably kill them … that largely falls to Thief Sword.+Dagger

I’m proud to say I do participate in large fights, my own way. There will always be those players who are just a wee bit too far from the group.

dbl post
and 15 characters later

Sebrent.3625:

@Dasorine
I never said you can’t guess. I’ve said that the issue is that you have to guess because there are no indicators. There’s a difference. That difference is quite apparent if you fight a good warrior and then fight a good thief. Versus the warrior, you’re seeing him using abilities and reacting. Versus the thief, you’re seeing him stealth and guessing when to react.

Hell, I saw one good thief change it up quite a bit by not even backstabbing one stealth. He instead let the player waste dodge rolls, etc. for 4 seconds, stealth ended but he didn’t have reveal since he didn’t attack from stealth so he immediately cloak and daggered. The player he fought did as has been suggested on here, he guessed when he’d be backstabbed. He even blew both dodges and a block to prevent being backstabbed. However, instead of being a noob and attacking him, the Thief simply waited, smiled, and restealthed versus his opponent who was now lacking several defensive options he had just blown.Could the player have evaded the cloak and dagger? Yeah, if he hadn’t already blown his dodges, etc. stopping the backstab that never came.

This is the same for “knowing the general path” that a Thief is going to take when stealth. You don’t know which direction they are going to go. They have 360 degrees to choose from. Yes, a noob thief will be very predictable. A good thief will not be.

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@Stiv
My post said nothing about having trouble with dealing with Thieves, only that what I posted was not applicable to my Mesmer nor my Ranger (traps are AOE but not spammable and work differently). Most thieves are noobs that try to glass cannon … 2 shatters and you go poof and I’m very fast at generating illusions and shattering :-)

The thieves that scare me are the patient ones that will reset our fight until they win. After a fight has been reset 4-5 times I’m going to make a mistake and they get me … when I realize it’s one of these, I use my escapes to try to get away as the best I’m going to get is a draw (we both stop and bow to each other then move along).

Also, while half of those thieves steal into your Blurred Frenzy (see: noob thieves), the other half laugh as one of your defenses is now on cooldown. It may be a short cooldown but that’s more than enough time to be hit (even killed). Now you have to waste defenses on longer cooldowns if they do anything else “dangerous”.

That’s a true thief imo. The one’s that aren’t about killing you in 3 hits, more so they know that when they are in stealth, they have the upper hand. And they see you panicking, backpeddling, swinging away, while they just sit, and wait, patiently for that one mistake. And hell if their stealth runs out, just CnD again. In a way, we have all the time in the world.

Timbo Jimbo.5927:

Yeah I have hidden killer for the 100% crit and I do run the trait for 7 percent increase from the sides or behind. Some guy in game was just trolling me because my crit chance was to low lol but glad to see I am in normal range.

Yeah dont worry about him. My chance is only 36% from the front, yet I still use the sigil of air, and still get a good amount of lightning strikes out

uberkingkong.8041:

I’ve been playing this a lot, I don’t see that many mesmers compared to warriors and thieves, I actually see more warriors and me personally I have issues playing against warriors when I play my thief because stupid 100b.
As for thieves it really isn’t that hard to play against them all you do is move in circle and if you know there going to try backstab you just keep attacking the air of where you think they are at.
100b warrior is so stupid, I get immobilized and BAM down, and some people think they got backstabbed or whatever but its actually a warrior doing 100b on you, not a thief killing you.

God as a thief I hate that bullrush 100b combo so much. Yeah I shadow step out of it, when it’s not on CD. And they say we just press two buttons to win a fight.

Sebrent.3625:

RedSpectrum.1975:

koroshi.2658:

No wonder people are whining about thieves, they run full glasscannon expect to survive a burst class… I just started an engineer a week ago, first stat i went for was toughness, thieves? I hunt them.

:O How could you hunt your own kind?

I imagine easily with a flamethrower, bombs, and/or grenades, lol!

You just answered your own conundrum of how to deal with us, I hope you know this.

Your crit chance is fine. I assume you have the trait that increases crit chance from behind or the side right? Regardless, you’ll attack fast enough to where you will see alot of crits. There will be times where that one hit you needed didn’t crit but that’s life.

As a little side note, this requires extreme luck on the account of stupidity, but if you are about to stomp an ele, and they do mist form, get shadowstep ready while you are in the stomp animation, hopefully they will stop in range and you just warp and finish them.

koroshi.2658:

No wonder people are whining about thieves, they run full glasscannon expect to survive a burst class… I just started an engineer a week ago, first stat i went for was toughness, thieves? I hunt them.

:O How could you hunt your own kind?

Most likely stole to your location. That’s pretty much essential when you want to down a thief. Or infil signet as Logi mentioned. They probably had their finger on the button to press the second you dissapeared

Sebrent.3625:

A thief that dies in stealth either:
(1) Needs to l2p
(2) Got unlucky

The thief can see their opponent, but their opponent can’t see them. As such, the Thief can react to their opponent much easier. Failure to do so is on the Thief’s head.

It’s the difference between seeing your opponent and reacting to what they are doing and not seeing your opponent and blindly guessing with melee/AOE attacks/abilities.

Not always true. I’m a backstab thief so when I go into backstab mode (stealth) yeah I can see my opponent, but when they are swinging and attacking every inch of air around them, makes it kinda difficult to get it there without getting hurt.

Wryscher.1432:

If it makes you feel any better, i get killed by 9k eviscerate warriors all the time. It is like mini game now, how long can i fight until a warrior sneaks up on me.

Dat bullrush 100b, easily the most used combo ive seen from them

Duelist Gear
must be 15 characters
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rA7u9ydy0p4/UHHjdjcCVGI/AAAAAAAAAWU/xvtID4ThIJ8/s1600/Thamira_H.jpg

For the most part this trait has saved me with its prolonging my stealth allowing me to escape. The times its gotten me into deep trouble was right when I’m about to CnD it sets off bringing me out of stealth and giving me revealed.

I’m sorry I can’t do it. If I have a dagger off hand it will be used :/. You should kill Columba now and see what he says should be nerfed about us this time though.

Authority.6145:

Go to the pinned thread of thieves build. check out the last comment and try it.

sigils: air main hand para off hand
bow: fire.

He’s goin fo dat straight up glass

Mine:10/30/30/0/0
sigils: air, force
sb: fire
valk armor
berserker everything else
wurm runes

Eduardo.4675:

RedSpectrum.1975:

Those rare yet beautiful times your CnD sets off a strike/blast and then the follow up bs sets off a strike/blast

Those must be very rare indeed, as they have 5 secs cooldown, and cooldown sigils once they proc, the cooldown is applied to any other sigils… unless, of course, you mean, C&D, wait 5 secs, BS…

I’m a patient backstabber. It may be rare since ive only seen it once, and it was used in conjunction with a HiS :p

Sillies, thats a charr elite skill I think and if it’s not a charr elite then it is a pickup but im pretty sure its an elite

I guess ultimately, experience is key to fighting other classes. Also you can be a nice little thief and make a how to counter on one of the other classes threads. That’s what I did for mesmers. Just be careful because they hate us.

What you need to do is see it with your own eyes. No really face a thief and watch what he does when he goes into stealth. Then you’ll see how useful it really is. Cloak and Dagger is a great way to go into stealth whenever you want btw. Or the combo of Smokescreen heartseeker

Sadly, any bunker class will be difficult, especially mesmers in WvW where confusion might as well be another attack. The trick is knowing which is the real one (which I’m sure you know) and try to CnD off of the clones. And dodge forward with those guys not away. As for other thieves, if you both go into stealth it’s anyones game. In WvW I try to use animals if they stealth first to CnD around. I find that basilisk venom helps A TON when fighting the usual thief. Emphasis on usual, not everyone can be beaten all the time. As a D/D Backstab (plexi-glass cannon) thief, I have considerable trouble with D/P thieves since they dont even need to hit me to go into stealth. Usually I just try to avoid battle with them. The thieves you should def fight are the ones that have the signet of malice though. Usually there is little to no stealthing with them. And if they pop refuge, any thief that is, go in there swinging. The last thing they’ll do is attack you and waste precious stealth. I’ve also noticed that if you are fighting a thief in WvW and all they do is DB, as a backstab or Swordsmen you generally will have the upperhand with that fight. Others will prolly have more info though

Those rare yet beautiful times your CnD sets off a strike/blast and then the follow up bs sets off a strike/blast

Crucify.1649:

RedSpectrum.1975:

Also what utilities do you plan on using? I can understand the freezing for easy backstabs, which is good don’t get me wrong. But I think skale or devourer(whichever immobilizes) or one of my favs, basilisk venom may be easier for you to open up a massive burst in the time its active. that’s just my input though.

One more mention, what do you think about Sigil of Intelligence, a one-time Hidden Killer. I will be in stealth before I weapon swap from S/D.
Utilities – Shadowstep, SoS, Shadow Refuge, Basilisk Venom. I try to save basilisk venom when I really do need it, I don’t want to open with it because it is quite obvious, easily dodged.

Personally I would not try to worry about trying to kill in one opening because lately people have been smart and avoiding the Dead before Seen scenario. I would stick to building around actual fighting since not everyone will be bursted easily. Perfect example, yesterday I saw a lone necromancer, got BV ready, stole, cnd backstab. Health barely went down. Fortunately im built for combat not just roflstomping wanderers so that battle(took a full 2 minutes) ended in my favor. If I was built to only do pure raw damage on the first go then I would have been in serious trouble. But I cant strees enough, if it works for you then by all means go for it.

I fell so CSI, just highlight the text. I have experience since my sylvari’s a thief. She does this kind of thing…wait

Also what utilities do you plan on using? I can understand the freezing for easy backstabs, which is good don’t get me wrong. But I think skale or devourer(whichever immobilizes) or one of my favs, basilisk venom may be easier for you to open up a massive burst in the time its active. that’s just my input though. And of course, basilisk will need creative thinking without mug to greatly assist it for an instant gap closer and petrification.

Crucify.1649:

RedSpectrum.1975:

A question, why do you want hydromancy on your dagger? Most use air or fire for that extra damage. I know your crit chance is only 32 but mine is 36 from the front. From behind or the side yours will go up to 39%. Added your attack speed and you will still dish out crits like crazy

Originally, I was thinking of using S/D as a setup for D/D backstab, Infiltrator + Chill for 3 seconds on weapon swap. Although, now that you mention it, I’m not quite sure. I’ll try it out most definitely.

Yeah I mean when you have your daggers out for 9 seconds, it may help to have the extra chance for those extra bursts of damage. Someone can correct me on this but I think air gives better dmg but fire gives aoe

Rayya.2591:

RedSpectrum.1975:

See what the true question should be, is how to counter a thief, as a thief. Two stealth thieves makes for a very on edge and nail biting fight

backstab /lotus strike /double strike /wild strike icon , changes when you hit enemy , even stealthed ( add to this devourer vennom /panic strike-trait ) when you see the first auto attack icon changes use cloack and dager and backstab. and you kill the enemy thief stealthed.

The auto attack trick I know, but what if he pops say, HiS a ways away from you? Do you start backpeddling swinging the air?

A question, why do you want hydromancy on your dagger? Most use air or fire for that extra damage. I know your crit chance is only 32 but mine is 36 from the front. From behind or the side yours will go up to 39%. Added your attack speed and you will still dish out crits like crazy

See what the true question should be, is how to counter a thief, as a thief. Two stealth thieves makes for a very on edge and nail biting fight

Thanks for the replies guys

sure
let me get it, note that this is pvp so the stats wont be WvW PvE accurate
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.7.1.10.13.0.20.22.5.0.154.169.168.176.178.2.2.31.453.0.0.466.468.476.486.485.481.0.0.0.0.0.0.10.30.30.0.0

I want to roam a bit with S/D in WvW for some more combat mobility and riskless gap closers. My current build is 10/30/30/0/0 with valk armor and zerk everything else. Btw armor has wurm runes. Pwr out put is near 3k with 36%crit chance with 96% crit dmg. Would a S/D be suitable? And I primarily run D/D SB which works but I want to try things.

what makes me happy is that you use a build similar to mine, this can now be done updates schedule

Iove.3902:

You have problems with Rangers? They’re free kills for me unless I know they are running 30/x/x/x/x — they have a 6sec Invulnerable state that way, and is recognizable by the Signet of Stone buff.

My problems are usually when I’m playing p/d and find an annoying Necro for Guardian who can just remove or tank my bleeds away.

When I play d/d I fear Mesmers. I can’t keep up with the clones. It confuses me. /sad

The point wasnt that I had a problem with rangers, its just that one evry now and then that is built like a tank

Some of us are new thieves here, some of us have been thieves since before the game officially came out. But on thing we can agree on is that as a thief, some battles are ridiculously easy and some are just downright hard. What are some specific moments in WvW or PvP that just make you say, “oh it’s going to be one of those battles”. For example, when I see a ranger and I sneak behind him for a backstab, and a full critical backstab barely takes out his health, I just know im in for quite the workout at that point.

pffft no such thing as overkill when everyone wants you dead

Razor.6392:

utilities are there: immobilizing (devourer) venom / blinding powder / shadowstep

and believe it or not, I’m always comfortable with my initiative. 2 ini gain on stealth helps.

hmm, I’m not saying it’s bad, but a lot of people would feel comfortable with 15 initiative, but it works for you so that’s what matters. Are you sure you dont want bask venom for an elite and replace dev ven with shad ref?

117 views and no responses is FAR ENOUGH
Overall it seems pretty solid. The armor will give you toughness, and the rest damage. Just need to focus on mobility to stay alive which is generally what D/P’s do. I like the fire sigil on shortbow idea, I came up with that in pvp, its hilarious. The only thing that will be your bane are conditions. what are the utilities? And the one thing that will probably hurt in the long run is that you only have 12 initiative. To go into stealth with pistol off hand then heartseeker will use up 9 of that so you may want to rethink the traits a bit.

Here is my thief shrouded in smoke:3
The second is in case the smoke makes it hard to see

A supply camp is a supply camp. Whether you’re 5 or 30 you’re still capturing what’s not yours and this gives the “owner” the natural right to defend their territory

Kardiamond.6952:

What the “mesmer defenders” (jportel is there, surprising) are failing
to understand :

“But we don’t get to use it in 1 vs 1!”

No class can use their number 3 in a 1 vs 1. NO CLASS. This is not an argment.

“Confusion isn’t useful if the enemy spike you.”

Mindblast, your auto attack in downed state, hit like a truck for direct damage. On my glass cannon build, I get hit by 1.5k by mesmer mind blast. Now me, I hit for max 500 damage on a glass cannon, with a random useless condition.You have three time my damage (number are from my experience, can vary) and you add a confusion stack, which is one of the best condition in the game in WvW.

“Just stop attacking if you don’t want to get hurt by confusion”

Yeah, if you ever found yourself in something else then a 1vs1, you know you can’t stop attacking. You ether continu the fight, or spike the mesmer. Sadly, with people around you can’t always spike. Especially since you know Mesmer has a guaranted interrupt on the first spike. If you continu to fight, you find yourself with a constant 4 stack of confusion and possible 1.5k auto attack.

“But we can only auto attack and use rogue to damage”

False. Your phantasm doesn’t despawn on downed. If you had any clone up, they continu to damage until killed. This can add a lot of damage.

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Don’t worry mesmer defenders, I’m not all bad.

Personally, I don’t think phantasmal rogue is too strong. It’s a really really strong number three. I agree. But all numbers 3 are strong. Even Elem DD which have one of the worse number 3 (tho they have the best number 2) in grasping earth, does a good amount of damage. With the 3 sec bleed, does as much damage as rogue. I can hit for 3-4k with my number three on my engineer, and knock back people.

Now the issue isn’t number 3 of mesmer, it’s the whole package. They have a premium number 1, a premium number 2, and a premium number 3. All their downed are good. And they also have clone to support them.

If you compare it to engineer or warrior, you see the unbalance.

Actually, thieves can use our number three, we just need to use 2 first to stall, then three. Yes, we can virtually interrupt a stomp twice. Which is hilarious since one time i had a dwoned fight with a warrior, and he used his 3 but instead of hiiting me dead, he tried to finish me… so i warped for the first interrupt. Then he found me, and I used number 3 for the second interrupt. Then he died…..LOL

I love how people assume since one thief can do it we all can. Make a thief an try to zerg surf okittenerg that has even a slight clue of what they are doing and watch how fast you’ll go down. As a D/D backstab thief(THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM GLASSCANNON), it’s surprisingly hard to remain in stealth for an entire fight, even with culling, because I need to approach you, use cloak and dagger, then when I backstab you those next 3 seconds of my life are the most dangerous. D/P thieves on the other have something us D/D backstab don’t: the ability to stealth without using a target. Just smokescreen and heartseeker, which can be stacked. Some also use blackpowder on top of Hide in Shadows and Shadow Refuge. It’s these guys and the P/D variant that are known for not being seen for a whole fight. I’m not saying they aren’t skilled, D/P especially takes considerable time to get used to. Also I’m not saying that D/D thieves can’t zerg surf, there are videos of them doing just that. My point is not all of us can just freely stay invisible and laugh at the morons running around looking for us, some of us actually need to use, uh, discretion to stay alive. If you ever try a D/D backstab, you’ll quickly learn that it’s going to take a lot more than just stealth to stay alive. No screw that. Any thief and you will learn. Yeah maybe some of us were born with daggers, but for the most part, most of us have died plenty of times to get to even a fraction of what we could do now.

I’ll admit some things can get out of hand, one scenario:
In WvW two D/P-S/D thieves (deadly weapon combo) were harassing one of our groups. I knew I could make a huge difference in the fight since as a thief myself, I know the best way to take us down is to slow or stop us, that being said, I prepared a basilisk venom steal combo. Problem is, I couldn’t. Reveal lasts for 3 seconds, when I saw the thief it was to the point where I only saw their avatar. No name or targeting could be done. Before the name and targeting could actually appear, they re stealthed on one of the numerous people at their disposal. So culling gave them an extra two seconds of stealth after attacking out of it and before I could even target them to keep them still, they restealthed. What got me angry was the lack of doing anything. When they went into shadow refuge, my teammates just stared at it. When the thieves made a mistake and missed a stealth, no one used any sort of cc.
Here’s a tip guys, unless it a P/D, when a thief uses shadow refuge, that most likely means you hurt them enough to where they need to use it. It’s a defensive skill we try not to use it unless we really need to. That being said, if they do use it, run in there swinging. The last thing a thief will do in shadow refuge is attack you and waste 15 seconds of stealth and health regen.

Torres.2890:

IDarko.4709:

SoS doesn’t work againt the guardian bubble but it is brilliant against most other classes.

SoS does work against Guardian bubble.
Nr1 is a channeled skill, you probably SoS too soon. Wait until he raises his arm to pop SoS.

this, it does work, HOWEVER what wouldn’t make it work is using it too late (rofl) or if you use it and he does number 1 first to get rid of blind

Osu.6307:

I think CD’s are fine, but I would reduce speed to walking speed when stealthed. Kind of hard to sneak up on someone at a full sprint.

This would completely destroy the point of Cloak and Dagger. I dont need to say more.

I agree with the no repair cost thing but as for the mobs, as a thief, I kinda depend on those to stealth when fighting other thieves so, I have no qualms about them. Of course, the needs of the few do not outweigh the needs of the many-_-

bitterjo.1695:

sostronk.8167:

Sounds like someone got owned by a thief :p

LMAO! People may gripe about thieves, but when they wanna skip something safely ahemvoletileblossomsahem, everyone starts staring at the pretty lady in the T3 underboob top….

Or when they want a free ride through the bomb hallway in cof p3

gimmethegepgun.1284:

RedSpectrum.1975:

It really doesn’t matter, the only way I can see that 13% damage actually mattering is if you find yourself in a 1v1 in WvWvW when you have full exotic with berzerkers gear and your opponent having full ascended exotic gear, see how exact that scenario is? Let’s take this to pve, we’ve been wrecking mobs with masterwork items. Ascended only really matters in dungeons. In summary, you don’t even need Ascended. 13% damage? What are you trying to have a spree of 1v1’s in WvW? Do you suck at killing NPC enemies? They simply aren’t needed and if you don’t like how you acquire them then don’t buy them because I cannot stress enough, in most cases they aren’t needed

Then they shouldn’t be in the game at all.

Neither should legendaries in that case but they are as well. They offer slightly better stats than max exotics, so in theory everyone who doesn’t have a legendary should die right? Anyone who has a legendary are by far the superior dps people, you can’t survive the Cursed Shore either unless you have legendary weapons. And seeing as how like 10% of the population has legendaries, the high level areas like the Cursed Shore should be riddled with blue x’s. Legendaries are in the game for their aesthetics, not their stats. Ascended gear is in the game now for agony resistance. Like I said this is one of those only times where it matters, but other than that, it doesn’t matter, that’s just Anet giving them purpose finally. Hell, being a sylvari offers no significant gameplay from a human so they shouldn’t be in the game either. That’s your logic. Quaggan backpacks, I was fine without em, and now that they are here, still not noticing a difference in gameplay. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be there, they are there for those who want them. If you don’t want them then that’s ok just don’t make a fuss over it. Q

It really doesn’t matter, the only way I can see that 13% damage actually mattering is if you find yourself in a 1v1 in WvWvW when you have full exotic with berzerkers gear and your opponent having full ascended exotic gear, see how exact that scenario is? Let’s take this to pve, we’ve been wrecking mobs with masterwork items. Ascended only really matters in dungeons. In summary, you don’t even need Ascended. 13% damage? What are you trying to have a spree of 1v1’s in WvW? Do you suck at killing NPC enemies? They simply aren’t needed and if you don’t like how you acquire them then don’t buy them because I cannot stress enough, in most cases they aren’t needed

Kaon.7192:

Articluna.4509:

RedSpectrum.1975:

Yeah it hurts. Thief was my first class so i can safely say ive learned the ins and outs so i dont fold easy, and I can say ive brought more to the table than guardians, not in the form of buffs but in flat out making a dungeon easier. COF Path 3, I can stealth everyone past the bombs. COE I can Infil Arrow across the lasers making it so thats one less you have to worry about. COF Path 1, I can shadow step past the flaming boulders. I can rez when most cant thanks to shadow refuge. I dont need a stealth kit for hacking making me favored amongst my friends for those objectives. The dredge boss in FOTM, I can literally pull him into the oil aoe with scorpion wire making the fight 5x easier for you. when played well, we can make dungeons easy.

While I personally love having thief in my group, just like I love having good elementalist, ranger, warrior, mesmer, engineer, necromancer or even guardian , and while I do play with guardian -not thief- as my main, I still need to point out something here.

1. You can stealth, granted.
2. No need to Infil Arrow. Everyone should be able to do little jumping, even backwards.
3. No need to shadow step, it’s should be easily doable by any player worth their salt no matter the class.
4. Yes – you can stealth, granted.
5. Yes, you can still stealth.
6. Isn’t scorpion wire under same (defiant) rules as every other pull? Such as guardian GS#5 (guardian, who’s bringing way less to table)? But yeah, you’ve 1200 range instead of mere 600. Then again, its rare to see failure here simply because mining suit was moved too slow..

Anyway, don’t get me wrong. I love having thief in my group – you just had bad arguments. I love praising (good) thieves for their clusterbomb-spam on (water)fields, their large arsenal of blind and the damage they bring to the table – compared to poor little guardian-fellah.

Have fun

Yes scorpion wire is affected by defiant stacks. For that fractal I tend to use pistol offhand to headshot the defiance away and then scorpion wire. =)

Cluster bomb is another great example of Thief utility. I love it when rangers use their healing springs because it means I can literally do over 9000 (!) points of AoE healing in that period. With all the fire fields that tend to go around I can pretty much keep my entire party at full might stacks using melee range cluster bomb alone.

Yeah I headshot is what I use to strip defiant, and while anyone should know how to jump, sometimes having no pride lets you complete a dungeon faster and more efficiently
EDIT: And while I see how youve pointed out how stealth is the main argument here, I can argue how ,my main mechanic makes me that versatile in many situations

How a thread that has to do with asura vs humans, in an asura forum, is not going to get biased responses is beyond me :p