Guild Wars 2

adozu.6398:

given, they did change sword 3 somewhat making evade spamming more costly, but it’s not really a meta-shifting change.

Exactly my thoughts. It does prevent 3 spam and encourages thieves to count dodges and enemy cooldowns, which is good, but at high tier the gameplay for s/d remains quite unchanged besides giving adding a little counterplay to the thief. Most of your sustain damage came from porting in, doing a few auto attacks and porting out anyway with occasional dodges in between. The change also encourages thieves to go into the pseudo-tanky spec as S/D no longer has the instant burst.

First of all, I’d like to make it clear that this is sort of a QQ post about my choice of weapon set getting the nerf bat – I’ve played a D/P thief ever since the Dancing Dagger + Cloak and Dagger nerf (and after getting rekt by a hipster thief called Caed Aeterna who made me see the capabilities of what D/P could do). A QQ post as this may be, I’m not complaining about the rather unfair nerf to BP field 5. It’s something thieves will adapt to, no problem. Rather, with the post I wish to highlight the balance philosophy that drives ANet to make certain decisions, and hopefully get a reply from them with an explanation behind what they did and why they did it because I can’t make any sense of it.

About a year and a half ago, thieves used to live up to their “high burst/spike, squishy class” philosophy. We weren’t a class that could hold a point or assault one on our own. We aimed at getting around the map fast, using ports to get to high ground to scout positions and +1 fights to turn team fights in our favour. The way this was countered in high level team play is by calling out a thief’s position and being aware of where the thief was at all times. Mesmers used to be just as squishy back then as they are now, and in fact were primarily taken as close point holders, and thieves were a problem but nothing completely unmanageable because good teams could communicate where the thief was and have something like a valkyrie elementalist sit on him during the game to peel for their own squishes.
Then came S/D, and everything changed. Thieves were now assaulting far point, a la Jumper, and could still get out alive from 1v2s and 1v3s. Thief was no longer a “high spike, get in – get out” kind of class, but rather a team fighter that could camp mesmers and elementalists without taking any counter pressure and disregarding all sorts of positioning and such. As a result, we started shifting towards a bunker-ish meta that made the game unfun for everyone, thieves and bunkers alike. After months of the thief class running rampant with quite literally a broken spec, ANet decides it’s time to tone it down. But how is this managed? Not by sticking to the class philosophy of thief being a high burst class, but rather making it a class that could do sustain damage and still remain slippery as hell. The problem in question, imo, was always the sword #2 skill. However, with this latest patch, the thing ANet decides to nerf about the S/D thief is their on demand burst. Now this is something I simply cannot understand. Sure it “might” offer little more counter play for other classes, but as long as thieves know they can go ham and still have a way of escaping unscathed, that’s what they will do. You can still use your infiltrator return to LoS or move back to your team after you’ve unloaded all your damage onto someone or evade non-stop all the way back just to bait out enemy CDs, and this is something that really needs to be addressed. The new changes do not stop the sword thief from being the apex predator of everything that is berserker.
Now onto the D/P change that personally affects me. The blind field for pistol offhand was invaluable for securing stomps, and gave the thief his only chance of beating certain melee specs – warriors, beast master rangers, necromancers, thieves. Why was this changed? The blind field is definitely not a problem in team fights and by nerfing the utility of the only thief spec that remains true to the “land burst or die” philosophy, you’re indirectly encouraging thieves to follow the S/D path. Is this this the direction you want the thief class to take? No longer burst, but a safe class that can still put out a lot of pressure on anything that’s squishy? Anyway, the point isn’t that the nerf made D/P unplayable. Certain specs I went toe to toe with might now be even more challenging or unbeatable after this nerf, but we’ll get better and adapt. The rant is about the fact that the game is slowly moving away from the high risk, high reward play style that I personally enjoyed and still not addressing the little risk, high reward gameplay that it created for thief more than a year ago.

Sorry about my english. It’s a rather long post and english is not my native language.

Also, since these are my personal opinions on a somewhat controversial topic and there are bound to be disagreements, please refrain from overindulgence of emotions in your replies, especially if they are directed towards me.

Lux.7169:

For example, thieves SB5 teleport is invisible when used with a normal weapon. However with the legendary SB the rainbow unicorn on SB5 is not invisible and so when in stealth makes it nigh impossible to sneak around with teleports when a rainbow unicorn is giving away your position.

Or the highly telegraphed D/P3 skill which is MUCH easier to dodge when using incinerator.

That’s an easy one to solve, isn’kitten Don’t use a legendary weapon.

Wow, this autocorrect is kitten.

Should host weekly “mini golf” Skyhammer tournaments, just to showcase how silly this map is for anyone that wants to play some serious PvP.

Bhawb.7408:

Anyone still complaining after seeing that preview?

Yes, they are over buffing rangers.

The new PvP UI (PvP build tab) does not support underwater combat. Adding all the underwater data for every character of every account was a little over the top, not to mention removing it made the UI cleaner. They had to let it go for the sake of simplicity. Trust me, you’re not missing much.

You need to be in combat with your target for pulls to work 100% of the time. As for push skills, I haven’t had this problem and they’ve always worked for me so I can’t help you here.

Believe it or not, no matter what they do, all the builds in this game are going to be “no skilled no brain” once you’ve reached a level higher than the average player. Here’s my suggestion: either stop being casual/semi-casual and form a real team that can brainstorm over how to deal with this oh-so-strong staff elementalist OR remain casual and understand that you’re not the best player of this game and you can be countered based on builds alone, just like that celestial staff ele can be.

No change to conquest pls. There are people that actually enjoy it (me, for instance). Sure, add other game modes with ghosts and braziers and orbs, but it’s been proven over and over again that conquest is a mode that keeps the cheese in check. Okay, maybe Hambows and Turret Engineers can be used as a counter-argument but overall conquest does more good than harm imo. Also, 2v2s/3v3s. Those are really fun. I do want those.

+1
INB4: merged as post #1001.

If you’re sitting at home, and their home bunker is not, it’s a 4v5 at mid, meaning your entire team can potentially get wiped out. There are different things to do after you get the home cap. This depends on the map, your team comp and how things are doing at the mid fight in the current situation. But before we discuss these options, it is important to note that home bunkers aren’t exactly “bunkers”. Home defenders are supposed to have good 1v1 potential, but with the survivability that they can hold off a 1v2 till help shows up and maybe even some decap potential. Candidates for this role are: warriors, spirit rangers, engineers, necromancers etc.
What should you do after you cap home? Depends.
Are there 5 at mid and your team doing a good job of sustaining themselves? Head mid to help out with the fight.
Are there 4 mid and they have 1 AFK at their home node? Take our Svanir/Chieftain etc. and wait till you have a guy knocked out in the mid fight before you join mid. Ask the respawn to watch home while you’re at the mid fight.
Are there 4 mid and the fight you are losing the fight? Ask respawn to watch close while you pressure far and try to force one off of mid.
A lot of the times, even trading nodes with the other team’s home bunker is a good option.
Honestly, it all comes down to experience, and knowing what fights you’d be the best at. For example, you’re a necromancer holding home, and there’s an engineer at mid. You can join that fight, train the engineer into a down state and force a snowball from there. Or, you’re a turret engi and there’s a ranger holding far. Go ahead and go far to get a decap forcing someone from the mid fight to help home.
Whatever you do, AFKing at home trying to “hold it” against nothing is never a good option.

vincecontix.1264:

ingame graph

Where is this? I’ve been wanting to look at PvP statistics for a while now.

Why does it matter? The weapon strength can be anything arbitrary as long as it’s consistent across the board.

go ahead and merge this with the other thread while you ponder over whether your community enjoys this kitten map or not. #esports

Did this thread seriously turn into a “nerf D/D” thread?

2 0 0 6 6 S/D, no doubt. Best build in game atm.

BlackBeard.2873:

Not raging, but I would ask if you think that a class that has so much inherent mobility (map control) and incredibly 1v1 capabilities (thanks to stealth, evasion, blinds, etc.), as well as common support options like shadow-refuge, and excellent ranged aoe damage/poison (shortbow) deserves to have even MORE teamfight capability beyond that?

I think a good niche for thief (that would open up roles for things like mesmer/burst ele) would be a very selfish roamer with best mobility and excellent 1v1’s, while the other high-dps builds bring more team-support capability. Why would I ever want to bring a mesmer (besides portal) if thief can also strip stab and interrupt stomps (with more than just shadow refuge), and owns the mirror with such a burst profession?

A D/P thief or an S/D without acrobatics has little 1v1 potential, good mobility and little team support. Unlike with current S/D, a 2/6/0/0/6 build has to really outplay their opponents to have a decent chance of winning. Hambows, Eviscerate War, DPS Guardians, Engineers, D/D Elementalists, Terrormancers, Minion mancers, phantasm mesmers, condition mesmers – these are all tough encounters if not hard counters (as they should be, since they are built for their 1v1s).
As to why one should bring a mesmer, shatter in particular – AoE boon ripping with shatters, null field etc. (thief has 3 boon rip on a 22 sec CD with 30 trickery), portal, moa, time warp, feedback, aoe healing/condi cleanse if playing mantras, boon share if playing with chaos line and signet etc. There are a lot of roles mesmers can fulfil in team fights, some of them largely unexplored. Also, if there’s a problem with mesmers not being able to fill a role – fix mesmers, don’t break thieves.

Thief since 2 years. Stopped here to say S/D (current meta build, not the weapon set itself) is broken, annoying and cancer to the game. Feline Grace needs to go. The trickery line is not the problem.
EDIT: To those that are raging over the trickery line, if it weren’t for s/d, trickery is the only thing that gives thieves a place in team fights. It’s either that, or going venom share.

Voted for you, Marvindoll!

Remove it from solo queue, pls.
See previous topic with similar title for reasons. Making another since no dev response received.

Necros are pretty balanced. The heavy damage comes from Lich, DS 1 or wells, all of which are highly telegraphed, like all hard hitting hits should be. Reflect their projectiles, corrupt/steal their stability then CC, get off point when wells are on them etc. Maybe Chill of Death needs to be looked at, but otherwise their damage is justified.

It’s way too strong and unbalanced.

messiah.1908:

step by step

1. press left click
2. press about face (bound key to it)
3. use withraw
4. press right click to get back 180

If have a left mouse pressed, my about face doesn’t work. The way I do it now is about face -> withdraw -> reposition camera after right clicking. I’m sure there’s a way to make you face forward again. That’s what I’m looking for. Maybe some other settings are causing different results for me and you?

Just so this thread doesn’t get deleted, here’s something constructive:
1. The map favours extremely cheesy 1v1 or 1v2 builds for sky hammer that secure kills based either on pushing or pulling people off the map or by cheesing via stealth (PU and such). Conquest makes sure these builds do not become viable, but Skyhammer encourages them.
2. There are numerous bugs on the map. For example, you can use Cloak and Dagger off of any off the breakable glass panels, the sky hammer panel, or any of the side nodes. You can perma-stealth using this till your scorpion wire is up. You cannot counter this with Stability, as any good player will likely steal it before they attempt the pull. Other bugs include respawning at the bottom of the map, players returning on to the map even after they are pulled etc.
3. Skyhammer does massive damage, covers the entire node, cannot be dodged or blocked and leaves little counter play and your only option becomes to leave the node. A well timed immobilise or stun spells certain death. This is certainly not balanced in any way.

But for reals ANet, do you like seeing a “sky hammer sux” thread every day? At least talk to us. Why keep this map in the solo queue rotation?

It’s on purpose. The arrow you fire has a travel time. Shadowstep, Steal and Infiltrator’s Signet, on the other hand, are instant.

Hello, fellow thieves. Could someone explain to me how to effectively withdraw forwards? I’ve tried to practice it multiple times with the about face key, but it doesn’t happen in one smooth motion. Maybe I’m missing something. Any step by step instructions or pointers appreciated. Thanks.

Step.1285:

Here are some particular things I have problems with in PvP:
- Guardians/Warriors hurting me for insane amounts of damage while being extremely tanky and regenerating all the damage I do to them.
Warriors can do that. Most run Soldier’s amulet (tankiest amulet there is) and rely on stacking might to dish out tonnes of damage. They also use Healing Signet that regenerates their health passively, every second. However, all their abilities have huge tells and are rather easy to dodge. As a mesmer, you have a much better chance of killing a warrior than a lot of other classes. Rely on using line of sight, terrain and kiting abilities to the best of your advantage. This stands for all 1v1s.

- Hammer users stunning and locking me down again and again and again, to the point where i use up all my dodges and stun breakers and just accept my fate.
Warrior hammer has 3 stuns you need to be wary of. Earthshaker, which is quite easy to dodge. Staggering Blow, which is quite impossible to dodge. Backbreaker, which is also easy to dodge.
Guardian hammer has an immobilise, a Banish (blowout) and a Ring of Warding for CC.

- Thieves that come in out of nowhere and 3-shot me, or disappear into thin air when I manage to ambush them (usually only to come back after they’ve healed up and kill me anyway).
That’s the thief mechanic. Teleporting and disappearing all over. As a mesmer, I must warn you that this is going to be your hardest match up. It takes a lot of practice to defeat thieves as a shatter mesmer. This means learning what they are doing and countering each of their moves.

- Rangers winning pretty much every 1v1 I attempt against them.
As a shatter mesmer, Rangers are not too bad of a match up. Overall, if you’re having trouble against specific classes, you need to get better at your 1v1s. There is no shortcut or magic build or rotation. Learn what, why and when your enemy does whatever they do.

- Most other classes being able to run away with a bunch of dashes if I gain the upper hand in a duel.
Disengaging is really important in the game. They will do that. You should do that. Call it being a wuss, but that’s clever play. Learn all your Blink spots on every map for escaping yourself. Learn the proper strategies of effectively using Portal and learn when to chase after enemies or when to stay on point.

- Enemies always knowing who I am and who my clones are. Am I not being elusive/tricky enough or are they exploiting a counter-mechanic like targeting the real mesmer with Ctrl+T?
Mesmers aren’t fooling anyone except new players. The more you play the game, the more non-issue telling the real mesmer apart becomes. Clones cannon dodge, strafe or use any other abilities besides their auto attack (the rate of which is also slower). Also, your buff bar gives it away.

- Enemies dodging my burst or going invulnerable during it almost every single time I perform it (I’m on a shatter build right now).
That’s the proper counter play to your burst. In order to make sure you land yours, you need to bait out enemy cool downs, count dodges etc.

- Starting games – am I the only one who has no idea what to do at the beginning of a new sPvP game? Do I go to the nearest capture point? Follow my team? Take a secondary objective?
It is really important to know your role in any PvP game. As a shatter mesmer, you’re usually a roamer. Watch Twitch streams to see how other mesmers move around the map.

- People leaving the team. It seems that whenever the enemy team has a decent score advantage, people keep leaving the team, forcing the game to get autobalanced after a while. I find it hard to win in an outnumbered situation, and while I know I can’t stop players from leaving if they deem the game to be unwinnable, I don’t quite know how to make the most of what I have and try and scrape the game back on its feet.
Unfortunately, this is something we all have to deal with.

Anyway, does anyone have any tips for what I’ve mentioned above? Are there any other things you can mention to someone who has little idea what he’s doing in PvP? :p
The game has a huuuge learning curve. You need to stick to it if you enjoy it and eventually you will get better. The game also has questionable matchmaking, so you’re sometimes placed with opponents that have a much higher skill level than you do. For that, I advise you to use the “Play Now” button instead of “Join Solo” till you get a good idea of how the various maps are played, all the secondary objectives, your class match ups, your class role, rotations etc.

Hope this helped. Good luck!

Unfortunately, yes.

zone.1073:

Longbow, since the beginning of time, has always been a strong pressuring skill….
As soon as players realized they couldn’t bully a warrior around anymore, and that they don’t die instantly, that’s when the complaints about longbow started rising up.

That’s no argument as to whether a skill is balanced (Pistol Whip and Disabling Shot were unchanged since alpha and recently got nerfed, for example). Lots of things about warriors has changed since. I personally feel Combustive Shot is a little too over the top since it’s a single skill that does a lot for the warrior – condi clear, amazing counter pressure, might stack building, adrenaline generation etc. and needs to be looked at. All the rest of the stuff OP listed is not OP per say, but there’s little to no counterplay involved besides clearing your burns (which could be really RNG due to the way condition covers and cleanses work).
For the health of the game, whenever you lose a duel/team fight etc, you should be able to reflect on where you went wrong and be able to develop a solid game plan to counter that. Passive abilities (I hate using this word since the entire trait system is balanced on “passives”) leave little room for that and there’s a lot of RNG involved for its counter play. Nerfing Incendiary Powder would obviously take away a lot from engis, but it needs to be redesigned so its compensated in some other way, just like Dhuumfire.
An example: changing Incendiary Powder to "100% chance of applying x seconds of burn on weapon auto attack, ICD y seconds ". Whenever the skill is ready, an icon pops up on the tooltip of the Engi (sort of like Incendiary Ammo), which can be dodged. This way the engineer can save his auto attack when opponent is CC’d to land it 100% and the opponent can prepare for it accordingly, especially by counting the seconds when it’s back up etc.

Crovax.7854:

Rome.3192:

Guardian:
1. Binding Blade – Hard to dodge for me, but I usually get lucky with random dodges on this one. If not, I dodge when they are about to pull and it fails quite often. Get ready to stun break.

That’s a bit of an understatement, considering the pull can’t be dodged oO

What Zach said. Timing your dodge when they are about to pull will knock you down on the spot instead of pulling you all the way. Sort of like how Magnet or Scorpion Wire would fail when you pull a target that’s out of combat. It doesn’t work every time, but worth a try if you know you don’t have your stun breaks up.

I’m only going to list the abilities with big tells that can be avoided if you’re looking out for them. The best way to prepare yourself against such abilities is to carefully watch animations, know enemy rotations and look out for weapon swaps (on in elementalist’s case, what attunement they are in and which ones are off CD).

Warrior:
1. Eviscerate – Just be ready to dodge as soon as they switch to axe. For shield variants, you might have to dodge both Shield Bash and Eviscerate. Put out some gap so you have the time to react. Cripple via Dancing Dagger or Shadow Shot also helps.
2. Pin Down – Personally, this one’s a bit harder for me to dodge, but you can usually predict
as they’ll open with it or will use it when their weapon swap is off CD.
3. Earthshaker – Same as Eviscerate. Most might use hammer #3 first, so blind them when you get immobilised.
4. Backbreaker – Pretty big tell. Easy to dodge or kite if not already stunned.
5. Arcing Arrow – Big tell and they usually blast in Combustive Shot, so another easy to avoid skill.
6. Whirlwind – They will try to get in melee range and reposition before they spin.

Guardian:
1. Binding Blade – Hard to dodge for me, but I usually get lucky with random dodges on this one. If not, I dodge when they are about to pull and it fails quite often. Get ready to stun break.
2. Zealot’s Defense – Dodge into the Guard so you appear on the other side of this.
3. Whirling Wrath – Dodge and proceed to kite this.
4. Mighty Blow – Big tell. Easy to dodge.
5. Leap of Faith – Big damage for a gap closer. Easy to dodge.

Thief:
1. Backstab – Don’t get hit by it. Be erratic with your dodges, blind field, constantly move around etc.
2. Steal – 30 Trickery variants will use this as a stun break, so bait them to use it by immobilising or stunning and dodging immediately afterwards. Count time when it’s back up (usually by paying attention to their buffs via Thrill of Crime + another 10 secs). This alone can decide 1v1s.
3. Pistol Whip – They will precast it before they port, so dodge when you see them perform even at a distance.
4. Larcenous Strike – Another hard hitting skill that can be easily dodged.

Ranger:
1. Rapid Fire – Just interrupt this. Dodging won’t help.
2. Maul – Easy tell. Don’t dodge too soon though.
3. Crossfire – Just kidding.

Engineer:
1. Bombs – Avoid em.
2. Nades – Avoid em.
3. Incendiary Power – Meeeh, just avoid engineers in general.
4. Big Ol Bomb – Especially important while cleaving corpses. Count to 3, then dodge.

Necromancer:
1. Spite – I’m not very good at avoiding this. It’s a 1-win button. Good luck. Try to blind or dodge through necro when you expect it.
2. Marks – I just spam short bow 3 hoping I don’t get hit by chill or fear.
3. Enfeebling Blood – Easy to dodge. Weakness will end you.
4. DS 4 and 5- Interrupt them both.
5. Doom – Blind/dodge when they enter DS, especially when they are stunned. That’s when they will usually use it. Otherwise, dodge before DS 2 hits you.

Mesmer:
1. Shatters – Dodge through the clones running towards you.
2. Mirror Blade – Easy to avoid when at a distance. Close to impossible point-blank.
3. iZerker/iWarlock – First one is easy to dodge.
4. Illusionary Leap/Swap – Paying attention to the sound effect helps against this one.

Elementalist:
1. Phoenix: Must avoid. Random dodge when it’s up and they attune to fire.
2. Earthquake: Avoidable most of the time.
3. Ring of Fire – Stay put or it will stack burns if you keep moving in and out of these.
4. Fire Grab – Big tell with sound effect. Expect it after you have burning on you.
5. Burning Speed – Easy to avoid. They will spin around before they use it.
6. Auras – Shocking and Frost are both bad. Kite a lil when these are up.

I think that covers most of it. There are probably other ones I forgot to list out, but the important thing is to pay attention to what your opponent is doing and react accordingly.

That’ll teach.

I was in this solo queue, and I can confirm the OP is hacking.

Arganthium, you’re an annoying kitten, and so are all these Sizer fanboys, but I remember you were the first to popularise the build. You should get the credit for it. But then again, the reason this build is seeing use now is because you don’t have to put as many points into Crit Strikes as you already how some of the crit damage from that line and wide usage of Strength Runes which boosts your damage and makes boon stealing even more important than before. Which obviously makes the build much stronger now than it was before.
Anyway, to all the people that don’t understand the point of this thread, it’s no fun being laughed at for using a certain build, only to discover that a year later every single thief is using it and giving the credit for the build to someone else. Also, please stop saying it doesn’t matter who comes up with it first. There’s a LOT of people that constantly try out new builds, and finding a new build, sticking to it, putting it to use in top tier play and popularising it is no easy feat and deserves the credit.

What’s a Green Arrow?

Unfortunately, when it comes to competitive PvP, you’d usually want to go for what’s best rather than what’s most fun to play. If it’s a GS warrior you want, you could always go with Greatsword + Longbow or Mace/Shield + Greatsword, both of which can offer a degree of success.
Other competitive specs that successfully incorporate GS are Mesmers and DPS Guardians. Then there’s also Power ranger (and some beastmaster builds).

Thief is not in the best of spots when it comes to 1v1, and you really have to outplay your opponents in order to have any chance of winning. Following match ups assume I’m running a berserker thief without any investment into Shadow Arts.

Warrior – Really comes down to if you can evade/blind the key skills (Earthshaker, Pin Down, Eviscerate, Impale). Matchup can go either way.

Guardian – DPS guardians are another hard matchup, especially the sceptre variants. Burning is your biggest enemy here. Sword and GS guards can be kited around. Bunker guards are a waste of time.

Engineer – Impossible to win assuming even skill level.

Ranger – As long as you land all your steals, this one should be pretty straightforward.

Thief – Depends on build/weapon set/personal skill, but a thief should strive to win all 1v1s against another thief.

Mesmer – Easiest class to win against. No contest here.

Necromancer – Depends on how much Death Shroud the necro has. If you don’t get spited and save your ports for fears, this is definitely winnable. Power variants are much easier.

Elementalist – Saving Steal for heavy boon rip will deal with D/D. S/D has a really easy time against full zerker elementalists.

As you can see, apart from mesmers, other thieves and to some extent, rangers (axe mainhand is still troublesome in conquest), there isn’t a single matchup that I feel I can easily win as a thief. It all comes down to outplaying your opponent. Tells you a lot about balance and that all classes are equally strong now.

4s weapon swaps will break a lot of classes. The ability to switch from melee to range will be extremely strong on a thief but broken strong on a mesmer, considering how clone production skills have low CDs (phase retreat, mirror blade etc).

Good guide, Aeroxe. There needs to be more D/P thieves out there.

5)Shadowstep+backstab gives you a blinding backstab

I think you meant Shadow Shot + Backstab.

7)For steal to land, you must be in the line of sight.

Not required after the latest patch.

They need to revert the change where you get to pick your own teams in hot joins. People should be given an option to play with their friends via other game modes (like 2v2s – please do this ANeT).

Hi, my name is Rome, I’m and 24 year old physicist, and I play on Seafarer’s Rest. I’m primarily a PvP player that’s looking to get into PvE.
I’m looking for a guild with chill people that can teach me dungeons, guide me through WvW and carry me in fractals. In return, I could help the guild players that want to try PvP with everything PvP related (builds, strategy, rotations etc).
Feel free to contact me via this forum post or in-game mail. In case of more than one guild offer, the number of females in your guild shall serve as a tie-breaker. Good day and hope to see you in-game soon!

Zero.6592:

He makes a valid argument why D/P can be better than the more popular S/D, and IS better for his style.

I never said D/P isn’t viable. I exclusively play D/P myself. The OP was asking whether 2 6 6 0 0 (aka Shadow Arts) is viable, and for that, the answer is no. Shadow Arts gives you a stronger 1v1 build, but you lose on a lot of team utility for team fights and quite a bit of raw damage. Also, since your primary source of damage comes from might-stacked backstabs, it means you need to spend a lot of time in stealth while your teammates take fire. Not only that, but a build that heavily relies on backstab is quite easy to shut down with proper mitigation skills and positioning.The build is also quite prone to your combos getting interrupted since you lack the bigger initiative pool and regen from the trickery trait line. The only real use of the sustain from Shadow Arts is for 1v1s, which you can’t afford to undertake in conquest, since you’ll be losing the point by staying in stealth.

Air/Fire on D/P and Ice/Fire on Shortbow is what I currently have. Not sure if it’s ideal.

Mijo.3274:

1. i like DP 2 6 6 0 0 playstyle a lot, but is it viable in tpvp?
2. do people actually use that shortbow in fights or only for fast movement?
3. what do you do in the 4vs4 classic fight at the beginning of arenas?
4. what burst rotations you guys use? (i think SP have the best burst right?)
5. Is it even possible to kill a DPS Guardian as a thief? (they eat me alive…)
6. Is it mandatory to dress like a ninja and use only Abyss dye on the armor, do it actually give some kind of stat boost?

1. Nope.
2. As D/P, you’ll want to spend most of your time in team fights in shortbow, switching to D/P when chasing targets or bursting down the ones with low HP or cool downs (By team fights, I mean 4v4s etc. In 2v2s or smaller skirmishes, you’ll want to stay in D/P a lot more so your partner isn’t pressured all the time). Shortbow offers a lot more than D/P in team fights. Strong auto attack, AoE, poison, weakness, evades, ports etc. Also, shortbow is amazing for corpses.
3. Position myself and look for the targets I want (enemy squishes like thieves, mesmerise etc) while spamming poison, auto attacks and blast finishers. Determining which class is the one caping enemy close, and make sure they are not free to leave their point. Peeling for my own team’s squishes.
4. Depends on the circumstances. Never try to burst an opponent during the start of a team fight. Instead of black powder – heart seeker – backstab, black powder – heart seeker – surprise shot is much much better if your team can fully utilise your immobilises. As D/P, you have to adjust everything based on what your opponents are doing. For 1v1s, always try baiting their defensive cooldowns and dodges before you even attempt a burst.
5. They are pretty much a hard counter and requires 0 errors on your part. As a D/P thief, I’d say Headshot is your best friend here. DPS guards lack stability, and you can usually interrupt their GS whirls while blinding their offensive utilities like Smite Condition. Always anticipate their gap closers and dodge them as they have a hard time staying on target. Always save your stolen bundle for when you know you can land it. Aka, watch their virtues to make sure they use their blind on F1 and aegis on F3 before you go for it. Some like to chain the daze to 8s, but if they have their stun breaks up, that would be a waste. Again, bait out their skills, avoid their burst, land yours. Pretty much how to win any 1v1.
6. I’ve had much success playing a human female thief with revealing armour. I’ve heard asuras give a better advantage, but this hasn’t been confirmed. I kid, ANet.

I’ve recently started using Dagger Storm in my S/D build and so far I’ve found it to be of pretty good use. 8 second of stability when canceled or on demand projectile reflection and AoE cripple, plus a whirl finisher, is actually very strong. My only qualm with it is how dodging in the middle of it cancels the skill. We have stow weapon for that. A damage buff to it would make sure I always take it instead of Basilisk Venom, but even the added dodging functionality would make me take it over Basi on sword specs.

No.

Same. Had two disconnects in two consecutive games before I decided it’s a good time to stop queueing.

Zach.3264:

All classes have potential to do well in SPvP.
The more you play your class, the more you learn. Stick to one and get good at it.

This. You should find a class/playstyle that you enjoy. Having fun is what’s most important for any video game. Don’t go around looking for what’s “most effective” as its effectiveness will vary with every balance patch, meta changes and such.
Edit: Also, if it helps, I’ve played thief since I’ve picked up this game and the alt profession I enjoy is Engineer.

1. Intelligently utilise your CDs. Don’t be too panicky about using them.
2. Count and bait dodges before you burst.
3. Use any terrain or line of sight to your full advantage.
4. Know when to engage, and more importantly, disengage. If you’re in PvP, make a proper call when disengaging from fights that you cannot win, or you’ll be screwing your teammates over.
5. Know all your ports.
6. Practice all the various combos (example – steal + C&D, steal/heartseeker + backstab and some advanced ones like infiltrator return + C&D for disengages etc.)
7. Understand the potential of every class and key skills that you have to dodge/interrupt/blind. Be extremely wary of skills that can one-shot you or set you up for one. (example: earth shaker/pin down/eviscerate, iLeap/shatters, pistol whips, signet of spite, phoenix, magnet etc.)
8. If you play off-hand pistol, practice interrupting obvious heals with huge tells (example: consume conditions, hide in shadows, ether fest, troll unguent, ether fest etc.)
9. Understand the potentials of all the bundles you can steal as a thief and use them wisely (example – blast finishers through healing seed, whirling axe whirl finisher, blast/projectile finisher in throw gunk etc).
10. Landing your steal is a must. Missing it is not just an extra skill you’ll be missing (most bundles that you get are key skills you must land for 1v1s with any class, which is detrimental to help beating it), but also the various trait benefits that might be in your build (example – mug, lotus poison, bountiful theft, sleight of hand, hidden thief etc.).

There are many, many things to learn as a thief, to be honest, and there’s always more to learn. The ones I listed above were all I could think of mentioning right now. Hope it helps.

Hi, I’ll try to answer your questions.

and how I should build my thief if I wanted to go both, or lean more towards pvp more then anything

PvP builds are (more often than not) different than your PvE builds. For doing dungeons and such, you usually want highest DPS. For PvP, you want to fill in specific rolls for your teams and be more supportive overall. All thief weapon sets are viable in PvP (wait, except dual pistols). Pick the one you enjoy and you can get a PvP build for it.

so the amount of skills are set for us? sorry if I am asking like dumb questions, it’s just I’m pretty lost right now in this game :P

You can slot 5 weapon skills (from each weapon), your heal, your 3 utilities and an elite at any time. In PvE, you are free to trade these out, as the situation demands, once you’re out of combat. In PvP, these skills are locked from change at the start of games.

also not sure, but is there a way to reset your skill points? I may have bought some useless skills because I thought they sounded neat, but weren’t as good as I thought

Yes, in your traits menu, top left corner, there should be a “refund traits” button.

also how does this games pvp work? do I need gear or is it equalized?

All PvP gear is normalised. Theoretically, you can start competing at the highest level the second you purchase the game.