Guild Wars 2

you don’t lol.

Or you fight some 30 min long fight where both of you just do negative damage to each other, and regen/bore each other to death.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Karolis.4261:

Even thieves hate on D/P. That says something.

It’s mostly because it’s EZ mode thief. EZ mode anything is usually frowned upon by the gaming community.

More like Shadow Arts is EZ mode for WvW. Pretty much like PU on mesmers.

Any weaponset with Shadow Arts is EZ mode, D/P, D/D, S/D.

I’d like to see builds be balanced around matchups, each build having an equal amount of matchup advantages and matchup disadvantages.

Kinda like fighting games.

And when I say matchup advantage/disadvantage, something like a 6/4 advantage, or a 4/6 disadvantage. Nothing ridiculous like 8/2 or 1/9 like we have now.

Just going to point out that the sigil setup you have is incredibly inefficient and very gimmicky.

You’re probably better off with Energy and Force/Accuracy on both sets, OR Fire and Force/Accuracy, not both Energy and Fire, until the “feature patch” when they rework sigils.

Allows for more control and you won’t need to have to keep track of some weird internal CDs for sigils.

You don’t want to switch weapons hoping to get endurance only to get none because your sigils of Fire proc’d triggering the CD.

I still think getting rid of the Solo Queue leaderboards altogether and renaming it “random arena,” would be very good for GW2…

you can heartseeker into a Black Powder up to 4 times. If you’re trying to maximize stealth uptime then this is the way to do it.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Please don’t insult my knowledge of the meta if you don’t read my post thoroughly enough to give a valid and well-thought answer explaining the details of why I’m wrong and you’re right, and your credentials for your authority on the matter. You must SoloQ a lot, where the meta is nowhere close to the TeamQ meta. I know exactly what the thief meta is, and you too can find this constantly updated thread explaining the rapidly evolving thief meta: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Guide-to-Thief-Guides/first

(D/P trickery is still the meta; thanks, troll. Toker’s build has never been a viable format in Team tournaments.)

You kinda lost all credibility with this post of yours, just FYI.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Yes, this is the solution. Nerf all the teleports. That’ll balance the thief for sure! /sarcasm.

Do you people think before you type? I mean – do you think of all of the possible applications of your suggestion and how they might affect every other aspect of the thief? Pistol Whip burst thief may be easy to play, and it’s quite gimmicky, but so is Killshot warrior (whom you won’t see coming 1500 units away while fighting his team mates on point), Fresh Air Ele, and phantasm burst Mes. They all die if you fart in their general direction, and rarely do any top-tier teams take these due to the above mentioned fact. They lend little to no benefit in actual roaming, and face it: the only time you die to one is fighting them with the pressure of one or more of their team mates. You people also don’t know what the thief meta is, apparently, because it’s still D/P trickery burst. The closest thing the S/P set has to meta is a 10/30/0/0/30 trickery build running a soldier’s amulet and barbarian’s jewel, making you hit for only 3-4k pistol whips if you’re lucky, and actually playing the set as intended rather than spamming 3 (which you’ll be accused of when playing S/P anyway). Good opponents will know exactly when the pistol whip evade ends and capitalize on that frame, since the thief is still rooted. If you’ve got a burst against a full zerk pistol whip thief, hit them at the end of that frame after you’ve figured it out and they’ll die instantly.

Glïnt/Quaggington,
Team Queue Leaderboard rank 474

Please don’t talk about “thief meta” if you don’t know anything about the meta at all. Good day.

Is this the build you were running when we dueled a while ago?

timmyf.1490:

If you don’t care about making friends and getting to know the people you play with, yeah, a guild is useless.

You can do that with a friend’s list.

I’ll be honest here OP. The issue is with you. Specifically, you seem to be far too meek and scared for some reason or another.

Aediph.2873:

I wanted to ask where Knowledge Crystals come from on the /map channel, but I feared that I would get trolled and flamed.

I wanted to ask where Knowledge Crystals come from on the /map channel, but I feared that I would get trolled and flamed.

So what if you get trolled and flamed? What do you have to lose?

Its the internet. Just take your chances. If you get trolled and flamed, so what? Do you suddenly lose $100 of your personal value?

Just do it. Nike style, and after you’ve done it you can be on the other side trolling and flaming (or not its up to you) others who’re in your current predicament.

Its fine. Go watch Sizer play. Great for juking and repositioning both yourself and your opponent.

“water runs downhill” or whatever, but it would be rather silly to deny the fact that S/P Trickery is indeed an incredibly effective build, both in theory and in practice.

To be honest, in GW2, being “in a guild” does absolutely nothing for you.

Like you’ve highlighted, other than guild missions, guilds provide nothing to the player.

Its basically an extended contacts list.

vincecontix.1264:

The thing is though defensively SP is now much weaker after the change to ir and the reduction to the after cast was such a minor buff. Over all since Dec 10 patch sp is alot weaker than is used to be.

That “minor buff” allows you to get double the damage you used to in the stun-phase assuming no stunbreak. It also means you’re rooted for a shorter period of time, and gain the evade frames faster. ATM PW can pretty much be used as an on-demand Blurred Frenzy with a stun packed in there.

Also curious why you say the defensive capabilities on S/P are now much weaker? I’m pretty sure the current initiative regen system of 1 init/1s provides more initiative, even if you took the quick recovery trait before.

Current: 10 init/10s.
Before w/ Quick Recovery: 7.5+2/10 (9.5/10)

Gwalchgwn.1659:

I find it funny how S/P seems to went from crap to “cheesy op” or “low skill tier” in a year time while it didn’t get any substantial buffs (compared to the nerfs that it got)

but it did get buffs. Indirect buffs, but still buffs.

Sleight of Hand/Bountiful Theft to strip Stability = Free stuns.
Increase to Initiative Regen means that PW can be spammed more often
Evasion frames
faster animation between stun and slash.

I wouldn’t say they’re “cheesy OP.” At high-level play, and between players at the skill cap, S/P can be beaten with any other weaponset. But the fact is, the build has a really low skill floor. You literally press 3 and watch things die, perhaps even worse than S/D ever was.

How about a simple spectator mode for highly-rated team arena matches…

Malforo.6391:

d/p is the easiest but if youre not good then any decent s/d thief can easily wreck you

theres so much more to d/p thieves, people just dont know about the little details and tricks

D/P is easiest for what? Running SA and permastealthing? Yeah, but you’re not gonna kill anything like that.

What they need to do is make it so that a SINGLE PLAYER can cap bloodlust for their team.

Currently it requires at least 2.

If a single player (unhindered) could cap bloodlust for their server, it would create a lot more action in the ruins IMO.

I’d say its maybe slightly harder to roam as S/X due to slightly less access to stealth to disengage from zergs. But still kind of irrelevant, as most other classes don’t have access to stealth anyway and they can still roam.

In actual combat I’d say S/X builds have a lower skill floor than D/P.

In the actual matchup of S/X vs D/P, I’d say in a duel situation, D/P and S/P are 50/50 assuming two highly skilled players.

D/P vs S/D is probably 60/40 D/P’s favor.

At the lower-skill tiers, S/P absolutely dominates all matchups.

gesho.9468:

Stealthasaur.2198:

I can keep an engis healing turret interrupted on my thief and Im pretty sure thats a close to instant skill so, pretty much anything. Its also pretty easy to predict when someones going to heal based on their rotations/hp left.

healing turret is not insta. also depends when you interrupt it, deployment or burst. both together are 0.5 + 0.5 =1sec and ver visible too.

Is it even possible to interrupt the burst?

Arikyali.5804:

Haha, touche. But I’m talking about the guards who know what they’re doing against a backstab thief, not the dps guard I managed to kill in pvp by landing a stun after a venom.

That fight was too easy, I’m not counting it as a win for my kill list. I’m after the big prey, the dps guard that can avoid a simple stun trick. I need to know when to drop the stun, how to make him panic, and figure out how to escape his attacks as well. It’s not going to be endless lockdown stun.

So bait them lol. You’re making something complicated out of nothing. How you kill the DPS guard is still the same. Land your stolen daze.

Lupanic.6502:

if a warrior is coming for close and kill the guy on the spot nobody gives a kitten. If an engi is coming for close and just decap everything is wrong

Warriors have their own set of issues that everyone already knows is a problem.

Depends on your ping.

At 200+ ping, I can barely get 3/4s with prediction and often get 1s on reaction.

I’m sure if I played with lower ping, I could get 1/2s etc.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Quick background. I studied law before switching to a business degree. I just pointed out my legal training because I really hate lawyers who try to convince laymen they’re right, when in fact they’re completely wrong.

/White Knight mode

Back to the issue at hand. There is no need for any more proof outside the GM’s decisions on first hand accounts. They have full rights to kick you without providing documented evidence. They have full rights to suspend you without providing documented evidence. And they sure as heck have full rights to cancel your account without any refunds for cause if they feel you’ve violated any provisions in the User Agreement.

The terms “cheating” and “exploiting” are broad, and can be defined as Anet sees it. Buying Rare weapons for 10 Karma? It was a mechanic in game that Anet didn’t intend, so when people took advantage of it, it turned into an exploit. AFKing while getting rewards based on the actions of other players, that can also be considered an exploit. Not to you maybe, but if Anet feels as such, then it is. That’s all you need to know.

And Mr. Smooth Penguin here is right. Anet has full rights to kick your account and ban your account for whatever reason they feel like. They could ban your account because they didn’t like the way you smelled. They don’t do it (too often) because its just bad business practice and will eventually lead to a bad reputation.

The issue at hand here is though, that this is exactly what they are doing. They’re kicking and banning people for literal kittens and giggles and no other logical reason (definitely not any breach of EULA,) and so anet needs to be reprimanded for this. Perhaps not legally, because legally they’re doing absolutely nothing wrong, but in terms of reputation etc.

Arikyali.5804:

Easier said than done, since most guards will expect some kind of stun – either from my venom or from the daze.

Everything is “easier said than done,” but that’s what you need to do to win. So do it. You asked how to defeat DPS Guards, and I gave you the answer. Now you just need to be able to execute.

TheThiefMaster.3812:

No i don’t , i don’t spam anything is the point.

Not even #1?

Stop trying to pretend you’re “skilled”. The only objective way to see if you are or you aren’t is if you win or you lose. How you do it doesn’t really matter.

1. Land your stolen daze.

2. Shortbow. Very bad matchup for thief. Need to play extremely defensively. Kill Blood Fiend first if at all possible.

3. Probably: dodge the burst.

EverythingEnds.4261:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

biggest joke development i’ve ever seen . . . you have totally no idea what’s going on in PvP. Better leave the drowning ship before it’s too late.

Drowning ship?

ANet would never admit that.
They’d rather pretend, it’s a submarine!

This is pretty good lol.

TheThiefMaster.3812:

It is, I find the 3 Spam to be cheap , nothing skillful about it which is why lol’ed when you asked me to learn to short bow .

You must also believe that 2 spam actually works…

TheThiefMaster.3812:

Not interested in spamming 3, hopefully that gets nerfed too :-)

The option is there, but you choose not to take it. It seems like a player issue more than an issue with the build.

TheThiefMaster.3812:

d/p is cheese no matter what build you run with it :-)

The shadow art hate makes me lol so much , some of these spvpers ………eh

Try roaming without condi removal in WvW only way you won’t be back at your spawn every 5 min is if all you face are scrubs , you simply aren’t going to kill a good necro, condi warrior , PU mesmer (heck even eles are running mostly condi now ) without SA.

Learn to shortbow.

You also don’t have to win vs every single opponent. No matter what build you run on any class, some matchups are just going to be bad matchups for your build. That’s the whole point of roaming. Fighting fights you can win, and avoiding fights you can’t. Not smashing your head against a brick wall and hoping you are successful.

Playing D/P with it is different than playing S/D with it. They’re better and worse at different things. One set is not objectively better or worse than the other, thus being more or less difficult than the other.

One example is that S/D thieves have a much easier time vs DPS/Meditation Guardians than D/P thieves, whereas D/P thieves have an easier time vs Hammer Warriors.

I also sincerely challenge you to do more outnumbered fights without SA. Perhaps you will see why I consider SA in general cheese.

Amonatory.2453:

So what you are saying is, using d/p and zerking someone down in seconds isn’t cheese? Please keep running the standard pvp build 10/30/0/0/30 and say it requires skill. Make me laugh more.

We’re 50/50 right now, so I’ll give you some benefit of the doubt. But you really should try playing 10/30/0/0/30, especially against all the broken stuff in WvW. Because if you don’t think it requires at least some semblance of “skill,” then nothing in this game does.

Amonatory.2453:

Okay, this is coming from a thief who does outnumbered and duels almost everyday. The pure amount of skill this build takes is 0%.. I’ve faced snuffles, I know exactly how the build works. Sure, I main s/d but that’s because s/d is fun.. But in all seriousness this is beyond the dumbest thief build I’ve ever fought. You get the thief low (which is hard, because high armor) and they heal to full just by pressing 5 2. Snuffles is enough, we don’t need anymore cheese d/p thieves running around.

I’d say Shadow Arts in general is cheese, requires no skill…

Basically the thief version of PU Mesmer.

Oidmetala.8426:

do i need to play every profession in high end area before i can write what i think about it?

Well… yes, at least one profession anyway. Or else everything you say is simply a L2P issue…

Proposal Overview
Exclusive rewards and prizes for top players for each season not available anywhere else in GW2 that allow prestige etc.
In general, PvP-exclusive skins.

Goal of Proposal
Lack of incentive to play PvP at all.

Proposal Functionality
It would be similar to the “X of the Arena” titles given out a year ago for players who did well in Paid Tournaments and gathered many Qualifier Points, that to this day still remain the most prestigious thing in GW2. Titles, exclusive armor/weapon skins, etc. not available anywhere else in the game. These titles/skins/whatever will only be given to the top X number of players in each season, and should only be available for that season. These should also be account bound.

Other rarer, but not Account bound PvP-only skins should also be available, allowing PvPers to sell them on the TP etc. (Like the GW1 crystaline sword from HoH)

Associated Risks
None.

Its a pretty strong steal, and one of the key components to killing super tanky warriors these days.

caveman.5840:

i run a sword build in wvw
a 10% drop in damage will hurt
but i really wish we would get back the stun breaker on the sword or some other way to deal with mass cc .
or i will be FORCED "not cool " to go with a condition build :S
less damage and no stun breaker and the sword is useless

at least now we can deal damage with our lack of mobility with the sword

Why don’t you be like everyone else and just run a stunbreaker (or two) as utilities?

Probably slightly after June 25, 2013, just to give a few days for PvPers to actually figure out how broken warriors had become after that patch.

Dee Jay.2460:

I don’t really care for the minor buffs and nerfs here and there.Disabling Shot is probably going to be most noticeable.

Improvisation will be nice, no doubt, possibly even OP. We’ll have to wait and see.

But what really annoys me is that REAL Thief problems like:

• Last Refuge
• lack of condition removal outside of Shadow’s Embrace.
• little/no sustain outside of Shadow Arts and evade-spam.
• huge amounts of utility piled into stealth.
• etc.

Are still ignored. Like not even acknowledged…..just completely ignored as if ANet had NO IDEA they are even a problem.

You know why nobody could predict these changes? Because they make no sense. They are completely random and don’t follow any logic or feedback.

You could try running a non-SA build and you’ll see that almost all your issues are resolved…

I think the change to detonate is good.

First of all, it is an increase in damage. The extra bleed stack per cluster more than makes up for the loss in direct damage. Even for a power build.

Secondly, it adds another dynamic to proper SB use, which I think its great.

Thirdly, it allows Condi-SB to become viable. 6 bleed stacks per CB Detonate? I’ll take that.

Travlane.5948:

im a very good and experienced thief…actually.

in the sense of what disabling shot does. evades and gives cripple. thats it. nothing OP about it. people just want us to be easy bags…bunch of QQ babies.

so rather than deny my points…u just call nub. doing that is actually…nub. basically your only point is “nananana boo boo” ? c mon …come correct brah

Experienced? Probably. Good? Not by what you’ve tried to say in your comments.

Normally I’d do a writeup about why you’re wrong, but this time I think I’ll just listen to Auesis’ advice and not waste my time.

Travlane.5948:

so tell me this…is it stronger than 4 secs of invulnerability? (no it only lasts 3 secs if spammed)

is it stronger than 5 secs of block (no it only has 3 secs)

does it allow you to get away? (no each only pushes you back abuot 200-250 range)

does it do much dmg (barely any… even in full zerk its only a couple/few hundred)

does it give long cripple? (no only like 1.5 seconds)

do other classes have both weapsets on cooldown for 3 secs of dodgign? (NOlol that would be so bad…..eventho we sacrifice all attacks if we spam it)

so there is nothing OP about the skill no matter HOW you look at it. there is no argument. to say this is op you would have to nerf dozens of block/invuln skills and other long evade skills like blur. they dont even have a drawback. b ut thieves lose all initiative if we go for a full 3 sec dodge. get real.

Yet another PvE thief yammering about things he has no clue about. This is literally why we can’t have nice things in GW2.

Improvisation change is the best change by far.

I predict post-patch, for PvP at least, 10/30/0/0/30 (current meta)

and perhaps 25/30/0/0/15, or 20/30/0/0/20, both with Improvisation, and probably Shadow Refuge/Shadow Step/Blinding Powder, vying for competition for D/P traits.

Other alternative would be the 4-sig might stack thief with Improv.

In general, I think these changes are pretty good. Perhaps not direct buffs to Thief, but good for the health of the game. Less spam, more skillful play required.

Not sure if anyone else has this, but this has been here for a while now.

Gonna post to (hopefully) make sure some anet devs see this and fix it.

Basically, the helmet (and possibly other pieces) of the male Sylvari T2 armor stretches to very weird proportions when in combat. I am not sure if this affects the female version as well. I think this happened during the Sylvari Armor dye channel changes, but I cannot be sure.

Bonus. The Nightmare Shortbow has been bugged since forever, and the bowstring is always pulled back, even when stowed/out of combat.

Hey Anet,

We’ve been noticing that you have many unanswered questions about the Glory Removal update that is coming on March 18th in the maintenance build. So, I’m opening this thread up for Anet to post their answers here, and we will hope and pray as much as we can.

Thanks!

The build works fine in WvW. Here is the version I personally run in WvW so you can see my gearing.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYUQNAoaVlUmaPHdS5E/5Ey2jdqC5JvHk1YZWaFoJA-j0CBYfERjEFBjsIRUBgZmCR5maslhFRjVXDT5SIS7K1W0FRrGA-w

I know many other good PvP thieves such as Caed, Falchii, Muffinz, etc. all run the same/similar build when they play in WvW.

Obviously it is not as forgiving or cheesy as Shadow Arts, so you need to be mindful of the inflated numbers in WvW. However, it is definitely usable as-is, simply with a higher skill floor than SA, and IMO a much higher overall potential than SA if played right. Just find a nice gear setup you are comfortable with.

Well, thieves in WvW are relatively stronger when compared to thieves in PvP…. but so is almost everything else.

Gameplay wise its pretty much the same depending on your build, just need to pay attention to the significant stat inflation.

Allie Murdock Rank 11.

pvp is doomed.