Necromancers are indeed a tough encounter. You really have to play your kitten off if you want to beat a somewhat decent necromancer. Here’s what I usually do:
The only time I’m going to engage a necromancer 1v1 is when I catch him unaware. So first thing is to make sure I dent his health bar to get him with a backstab (preferably with a shadow-shot backstab to negate his enfeebling blood when he switches to DS). He’ll probably switch to DS at this point for a fear. Dodge it (also avoids the weakness). Interrupt the DS 4 and 5 skills with headshot. Once the necro is in staff, dodge like a mad man. Dodging + using a port helps safe-trigger the marks if he lays them around himself. If the necro goes scepter, use your blinds. Just watch out for their transfer as they can return the blind back to you. Save your Lyssa condi clear for the signet of spite, in case you get hit. Their heal has a huuuge cast time, so get good at interrupting it.
Always keep moving and be unpredictable with the movements. A lot of their skills require ground targeting.
I only saw the macro/complain thread about google, but im more interested in the build.
Google or anyone willing to share/teach it ?
edit: got it is shown at start of finals match 1
30/30/0/0/10
Important traits: Mug (DA), Panic Strike (DA), Signets of Power (CS), Executioner (CS), Thrill of the Crime (T).
Important skills: 4 signets + basilisk venom.
Important weapon sets: D/P with a hacked S/P
Forget burning, I want a thief minion build, with 6 minions that outdps whoever tries to kill them, and also they’ll suck up all dmg that is trying to be done to me and work as shield, and give me armor for every one that is out. Also I want 20k hp + a button I can press for getting 50% extra hp and protection. And a gtfo button that puts every condition in the game on someone.
If not, I’m fine with a healing signet that outheals 70% of glass cannon S/D thieves autoattack.
You should probably reroll to a necromancer or warrior. Think about it – why shouldn’t you? If it’s because you like stealth or initiative, that’s your unique mechanic. If it’s because you enjoy the class, you shouldn’t complain. If it’s because you already have the thief 80 and geared, you’re just lazy.
Me and a lot of people that I’ve talked to have experienced an abnormal amount of lag on this particular map, which resulted in a disconnection for me on two separate occasions. Others can probably confirm this.
The last time around such a topic was made, I believe the developers asked us to /ip in game. Maybe something else too, I forget. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do the needful at the time. I’ll try to update this thread with the IP once I get the map again. Maybe others experiencing the same problem can reply back to this thread with that information.
I started playing thief last year while I was still in college in the United States. I moved to India in January this year, and believe me, it’s much, much harder to play a thief properly in tPvP. If you picked up the class yet, I would highly recommend not going for this one. The only reason I’m still playing a thief is because it’s what I love and have somewhat mastered. I’m in the top 200 solo queue, but haven’t done team queues very much due to the latency issue.
Hammer is pretty easy for thief to deal with, you can just drop a pistol 5 and dance on them. LB is a pain in the kitten for thief though.
Brb Berserker Stance. Catch ’em in their Blinding Powder.
@OP: Another thief (go shadow arts and train the thief all game if you really hate him), an engineer, a warrior or a one-shotting elementalist that catches you off guard are the classes I personally find the hardest to deal with. Well, maybe not another thief since after playing a thief for a solid year or so, you kitten on 99.99% of the ones you encounter.
I can’t tell if you’re joking about this, but a Shaman’s amulet staff ele can be a pretty strong far point assaulter (provided it hasn’t been caped yet). With buffs coming to the staff skills (which might include a cast-time reduction for Eruption), I can see how this will be viable in the future.
The reason why S/D plays the way it does it mostly because the other skills in that weapon set aren’t at par with the #3 skill. Even with P/D, you see people use all five of their skills now to try and cover up the bleed with torment and cripple.
Personally, I really like the initiative system for the thief. I’ve been playing an engineer lately, and it’s actually just the opposite of the D/P thief I’ve been playing for a year now. With D/P, I have to manage and conserve my initiative for when I know I might need it. If I’m fighting a warrior, for example, and I know his hammer is about to be off cool-down, I know I need to have black powder up. Similarly, when I know a class is about to heal, I will try to use my auto-attacks to make sure I have enough initiative to get that headshot in. On the other hand, on my engineer, I just spam all my damaging abilities and there are maybe 1 or 2 skills that I would save depending on the class I’m fighting.
Is it just me, or has something just like this also recently just started happening with the treb on khylo? I find myself getting on and off of it without hitting F while in the middle of a heated battle to defend it. It’s extremely annoying.
Yes, I’ve had that happen to me as well. That, and how the trebuchet sometimes rotates a 180 degrees when you try to use it immediately after repairing it.
There’s this issue with the cannon room on Skyhammer that a lot of times if you press the interact key too fast, you get ported in and back out. Can we have some sort of delay on it so this can be avoided? Sort of how the buffs in Temple were made to not cancel channeling if you accidentally press interact more than once.
Spirit Watch is by far the worst and most annoying map. If i wasn’t such a nice person, I would afk right from the start. I rather play 10x Skyhammer in a row than once this ridiculous thing.
Danicia, I understand that the forums are currently being polluted with a lot of negativity about the game and the way it is being handled by the developers, and there is a lot of exaggeration from the community that goes around. I personally feel the developers are doing a pretty good job, and that things take time, but I don’t have much experience from other MMOs to compare how they fare when it comes to these things. I still play because I continue to enjoy the game, and think ANet has done a fantastic job with it so far.
That being said, I know there are a lot of people that disagree with the way ANet has handled things in the past, and emotions run high within these people because they love the game, not because they detest it. Now, I’m in no position to tell you what to do, but it would seem as a community coordinator, it should be your job to ensure the negativity on the forums is toned down not by censoring the material that may incite it, but by properly communicating with your community on why things are the way they are (like you have done now). Deleting that particular thread was downright disrespectful towards Xeph and everyone that had posted in it.
Well, first of all when they say it hard counters certain builds, they aren’t talking about a 1v1 situation. In team fights, if a thief is speced as a D/P or D/D and is on one of the squishy classes of your team (a mesmer, an zerker ele etc.), your own team can peel for that person to relieve the pressure. The way it used to work was: a mesmer is getting chased around by a thief on graveyard, he calls it and someone from the mesmer’s team starts putting pressure on the thief forcing the thief to use his defensive cooldowns or retreat away from the mesmer while the mesmer can continue focusing the called target. When it comes to S/D thief, there is simply no way of counter-pressuring it. If the S/D thief is on the team’s mesmer, and you call out another player to focus the thief, he’s only going to start evading 8 times in a row, wasting all his opponent’s cooldown while still doing damage to the mesmer. This essentially pushed zerker mesmer and eles (or squishy classes in general) away from the meta.
To break a guardian’s aegis without breaking your own stealth, use headshot. This will remove his aegis at the cost of taking away your basilisk venom. If you reallly want to get that stun in, you could invest 30 points in Deadly Arts to make venoms last two strikes instead of one. Or take Bountiful Theft.
I got hit by an unusually painful heartseeker today. As I’ve been on a break from GW for couple months, I thought something was changed about thieves. I however took a screenie of the combat log, as it was pretty hilarious how fast I dropped.
Note that the first C&D hit me for 6.2k, which still kept my 17,6k healthpool above 50%. 7,5k HS seems pretty high to 50%+ hp target.
Oh, I think I got around 2,6-2,7k armor.
That’s extraordinarily insane damage from a C&D. Even if you’re absolute glass, you shouldn’t be taking that much.
Necros, mesmer, engis, ranges are toooooo op throwing you out the clif or AOE condi you in 3 sec.
Necros, mesmer, engis and rangers are indeed OP here. And so are warriors (fear, knockbacks), guardians (banish), thieves (scorpion wire from stealth) and elementalists (tornado, updrafts). Which class do you play?
10 Deadly Arts for Mug
30 Critical Strikes with Executioner, Side Strike and Signets of Power/Signet Use/Furious Retaliation
30 Trickery with Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft and Sleight of Hand
It’s one of the decent specs a thief can run with at the moment, and my choice of trait setup when I’m running D/P. Send me a personal message if you want specifics on the trait choices or how it plays.
Doesn’t really address the necromancer OP issue. 17% terror nerf isn’t all that much and I suppose you now need to run 30/20/20 instead of 30/30/10 (a lot were already running 30/20/20).
Hi, I play from India and have been looking for players in my time-zone to play with. Hoping to start a team with players from similar time-zones as well. As far as the latency is concerned, I don’t think I can ever compare it to what I used to get when I was in the US, but as long as I’m doing average with it, I’m not complaining. My in-game name is Nitschei, and I play a thief (r53) on Anvil Rock (US). Hit me up.
For PvP: Pistol Whip is pretty solid in PvP, and personally I really like the way it plays. Pistol offhand is simply too good. That being said, PW has real problems with retaliation, which basically shuts you down in team fights as you have no option other than waiting it out. This single problem puts S/D ahead of S/P.
For PvE: Sword/Pistol is arguably the best melee weapon you have. It has AoE stun/damage, has high damaging (albeit slow) auto-attacks, and the blind field, which makes it better than S/D. Also, for PvE, you’re better off saving your initiative for blind fields while using auto-attacks as your main damage source. You can put a few points in Trickery and get the signet trait in Crit Strikes to sustain your initiative if you find yourself using PW too much.
Posting this in the sPvP forum would probably get you more responses.
At the moment, D/P and S/D are both very good builds, with D/P being at a very good spot since the blind and Sleight of Hand buff. D/P offers you more control, whereas S/D gives you a better chance at 1v1s and acting as a bruiser for your team. However, with the recent buff to necros and almost every comp running one or even two of them, S/D has slightly lost its effectiveness in team fights. D/P has the superior skillset overall, with every single one of your ability being extremely useful. Shadow Shot is better than ever, and landing Headshots would prove invaluable in team fights, denying your target from using their high damage skills, heals, disengages etc (coupled with Bountiful Theft, you’re almost guaranteed to land those interrupts). I would say get used to D/P and compare to see what you’re more comfortable with.
13.6k backstab is extremeeely rare. I smile to myself every time I land an upwards of 9k backstab in PvP (and this is after Executioner has come into play). To maximize the damage, though:
25/30/0/0/15 – Mug, Dagger damage, Side Strike, Signets of Power, Executioner, Thrill of Crime.
Scholar/Ogre runes, Sigil of Fire + Force, Berserker’s Amulet/Jewel.
Shadowstep, Refuge, Assassin’s Signet.
Make sure you burst the target while you have the initiative (hopefully on a target with a condition and less than 50% HP, lulz), and do it quick as the stacks of might from Signets of Power last 5 seconds. Hope for the best. This is the max possible burst you can attain as a thief.
I’ll be honest here, it looks like neither the mesmer nor you knew what you were doing. Here’s a good video from a good thief on how to duel with shatter mesmers (the mesmer he’s fighting is really good as well): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9_UR1dCoT8
Good luck with the team! I’m looking for a team as well and will be happy to join you guys. R51 thief with a lot of tournament experience (1500+ games).
Yep, auto-attack. S/P’s burst used to be the hasted pistol-whip, but that’s no longer an option, so auto-attack’s your best bet. Sword/dagger with the 25/30/0/0/15 utilizes flanking strike for the bulk of its damage (which can hit quite a lot) whereas the 10/30/30 build barely ever FS.
Shadow return doesn’t have a height barrier. The general rule of thumb for all the teleportation skills is this: if you can get to the area (even if it’s on the z-axis) WITHOUT having to jump, you should be able to teleport on to it as well. This arises due to high the pathing is on the maps. However, there are some areas that have their pathing intentionally blocked – keeps, enemy base on foefire etc.
While the video was incredibly entertaining to watch, I don’t get it at all. How can there be a whole group of people that can’t keep a target up time, let alone outplay it? I’ve never played WvW myself, but in sPvP, even if you’re 1v3 with a bunch of level 1s, it’s pretty much impossible to win. If the gear/food buffs give players THAT much of an advantage in WvW, I fail to understand its appeal.
Don’t forget that in WvW level 1’s will still be wearing level 1 gear (It gets scaled up to level 80 but they don’t get a free set of exotics, just the stat equivalent of what they’re wearing at level 80 so whites with no stats give just a tiny bit of armour and that’s it)
So all those uplevel characters you see will be vastly weaker.
Then of course there’s the fact that WvW is the “Casual” PvP so you’ll see a lot more terrible players which coupled with the gear scaling further increases the gap between a good player in full Exotics/Ascended and a bad player in Masterwork/Rare gear.
The appeal generally comes from the mass scale fights, the ability to do small scale roaming against bigger odds (May not always win, but it tends to be a fun fight) and that not all WvW players are terrible/undergeared.
So, say if you’re a level 10 in all whites, you get scaled to an all white level 80 gear? What would that for a berserker set be, like a 400 power/precision 20% crit damage (minus all the traits) or much more? That doesn’t seem all that much of a handicap when it’s a 1v10, especially when the game allows you to res each other all the time. Also, is it common for zergs of 10+ people not to have a single player that is geared or knows what they are doing?
its same in tournament if i wish to win i need run and take point, i dont need to kill.
Either you’re lying, or you’re playing a completely different game than everyone else.
have u ever won a tournament just going forward and killing all in u way?
No, because the game mode in sPvP is a conquest. You win by controlling points, not killing everyone in your path. If that’s what you’re looking for, you should try WvW. If that doesn’t appeal to you either, the game’s probably not for you.
Conquest (spvp or tpvp) makes for alot of 1v2s, 2v3s, 3v4s, and 4v5s.
This kills the spirit of competition
TTK is too short for this game to be based on a constantly uneven format
Like you said, the game mode is a conquest. If you’re facing a 1v2, the rest of your team is left with a 4v3. The only real overall advantage you get in team fights is after you’ve downed one. Knowing what fights to engage, where to spend your resources, map awareness and proper point control make the game REALLY interesting once you start to get a hang of it. We have had this game mode for over 9 months, and people are still struggling with it (people in general, not you in particular). I understand that some people just want to kill other classes without needing to worry about the strategies etc, for which we have WvW at the moment.
I completely stopped following that thread, thanks. He doesn’t say they’re changing Hundred Blades, though. He just said he agrees that something needs to be done about the said skill. Boon-hate will probably be the first buff to warriors, they sound pretty clear on that. They are considering everything else.
While the video was incredibly entertaining to watch, I don’t get it at all. How can there be a whole group of people that can’t keep a target up time, let alone outplay it? I’ve never played WvW myself, but in sPvP, even if you’re 1v3 with a bunch of level 1s, it’s pretty much impossible to win. If the gear/food buffs give players THAT much of an advantage in WvW, I fail to understand its appeal.
What im saying is, that when im focusing phantasms, I’m doing no damage to the mesmer, while he is doing damage to me.
And what I’m saying is, 1v1s don’t work like “spam all the skills on the other person to win”. If focusing the phantasm for one second kills the mesmers damage by a kitten ton, then that’s what you do, regardless of him damaging you in the mean time. The “he is damaging me while I’m not” argument would hold for a lot of other things – conditions, Endure Pain, Death Shroud to name a few. Yet you play around them to the best of your classes abilities.
Each class in the game has very interesting mechanics and a good player needs to know how to counter them effectively. For the damage you claim the mesmer does, the mesmer is either running a shatter or phantasm build. You play an ele, thief and engi, all of which have high cleave damage to handle the phantasms of a shatter build. Personally, I find it easier to spend the time to kill the phantasm after dodging it. There are no “free shots” from either of these builds as the damage from the mesmer’s other skills would be pitiful (besides the shatter, handling which is a different issue altogether and the phantasm is getting shattered anyway).
To deal with a shatter mesmer effectively, kill the phatasms meaning they will have to waste more resources to get another illusion up. Avoid Illusionary leap at all costs or condi-clear to get out of the immob if you happen to eat it. To avoid the shatter, dodge INTO the clones (not away), as that will force them to shatter instead of chasing you around. I’m not very proficient with engineers or elementalists, but if you need a more in-depth explanation or in-game demonstration of handling mesmers as a thief, feel free to send me a PM. Demonstrating it would probably be much easier for me as 1v1s involve countering what your opponent is doing rather than using a fixed rotation every time.
TLDR: Worry about the phantasms and shatters. It’s the bulk of their damage. They don’t get much of a “free-shot”.
GC or not mug should have been adjusted as it is certainly one of the best bang for buck traits on any crit build. Taking just mug gives steal a poison for 10 seconds, a free mid-range HS and the ability that is stolen. Add in Hidden Thief trait followed by BS to the mix and most characters will wilt under that damage. This also means easily dropping 10k damage on a player before the thief is even seen.
Just clarifying: if you take the Hidden Thief trait, you can no longer use the HS+Steal combo as that will reveal you (or any +Steal combo, for that matter). Taking the Hidden Thief trait also means you’re investing points from the Deadly Arts tree into the Shadow Arts, which greatly reduces your damage and you can no longer inflict poison upon stealing or the 10% extra damage from that same poison.
