Guild Wars 2

yes I came across it, I normally keep bountiful in it’s place because of that.

wait for your called target (unless you are the one calling), pressure, if they pop stability steal it quick, back out and wire them to you. Unless this zerg you are against is super tightly stacked (almost never – too many pugs everywhere), you can find a target without retal, and without something crazy going on like a shadow refuge and 4 ele’s charging CE.

If you are in the right place, you can make the calls about “let’s not shoot those people crowded around the guardian light fields and the purple feedback bubble.”

That’s like saying “Well, so many aoe condition removals in the zerg, may as well no drop any necro wells or marks”.
It isn’t like you can’t see the retal, or perhaps steal it off of your target (and depending on your 2-4 other people running with you, they can strip too perhaps).

But yes, retal/reflects, and being focused once roll/wd/step are on CD are its weakness. The main weakness I saw however, was pistols lack of piercing. Once they fold back into the zerg, bodyblocking saves them. Again, it’s when I have been feeling under the weather and is for when I don’t feel up to roaming solo.

Greetings fellow thieves. We all know unload spam is laughable, but I’ve found it’s true calling.

Straggler assist!
0/30/0/10/30

Practiced tolerance/pistol damage or preference/executioner

Might on dodge or vigor on heal

Thrill / ricochet or bountiful/sleight

P/p, swap sb. Fire /force. All zerker gear. Runes of speed(cheapo traveler). Zerker trinkets, I use call upgrades in them. With the vit I have a decent hp pool.

Utilities: open, step, open.

You have an immobilize. You have heavy concentrated damage. You can swap traits to burst higher with venoms/signets. Downing sub 50% and keeping pressure on any who try to rez.

Playstyles: attach to the side of your Zerg. Partnering with good range bursters, or other thieves hunting the other zergs squishies out of place is your goal. You assist in locking down, interrupting if possible, and then assisting then of course 33333333333.

Anyway, no toughness is sketch, good positioning is a must. My opens are roll, and wire for more lockdown and positioning.

If you don’t feel like roaming but still want those bags, it works provided nice fights (not 20vs mapzerg).

Thought I’d share my slacking few days. Been out of it and tired past month!

Have fun you guys!

Of course they’d never completely redo one! Lol. I could maybe see trait changes, but probably not the scope of what I was imagining.

I love my thief. I only play them mostly, and it’s all I will mostly.

We’re just discussing in a discussion forum.

I enjoy writing, how about you?

(Off topic rant about ‘that other game’, then on topic response, not trying to attack you op, or other poster(s) – rant is general about people commenting on stealth from wow. )
Keep in mind in wow, the common burst pvp spec, USED IT’S STEALTH SKILLS OUT OF STEALTH EVERY MINUTE FOR However many seconds, I can’t remember(more than 4, by far)? If you blew your breaks, their burst is back up before your stuff usually. Not to mention other goodies. Geez, did you guys even play a rogue?
Back on topic: we are counter-able, dynamic, and I like the range of playstyles available to us.

As always, things will be tweaked. Unless they announce total trait line revisions(complete overhaul), or just rebuilding the entire class, you’ll either fit in with the (op/up/stealth spamming/perma evading/etc) cool kids, or you won’t. I believe we’re stuck with what we have for the most part. I try and make due because everything other than my ele and thief are brain dead boring to me. You probably have more hours on the thief than I do; I’ve got two at 80, human and asura(still getting used to human cameras after ~900 on an asura!).

I certainly agree we should rebalance the initiative system to interact with certain mechanics(and weapons kills to a degree, but I digress), but I also feel changes like those should come once more glaring issues are resolved and perhaps other classes are seeing similar mechanic interactions(not calling for nerfs on any class directly, just my opinions on the matter) around the same time to indeed “shake things up”.

For the record, normally running d/d, I love fighting anything. I’ll poke anything just to see if I can. Other thieves especially. Any set/build(barring dire/plex of any class with a few interrupts – which is pain in the kitten no mater what, IMO).
(Speaking honest 1v1 roaming no portal bomb mid fight only to have 9 people jumping on your corpse…)
Landing a cnd on a stealthed target? Priceless.
Yanking one out of SR with a nice sw? Priceless.
Juking out hs spammers? Amusing, at best.
Learning the hard way, with no toughness on my gear? Still fun to me.
(Wvwvw mostly, if you can’t tell :p)

And cloak and dagger is 6 initiative if the cast goes through, hit or not. Dp also has hs(brutal at low hp) for damaging as well. And a nice interrupt for a decent cost and very low damage. It’s set is much less predictable in a prolonged fight with a good one. Than say d/d or the sword sets. Mainly because you could really use every skill on the bar for a reason other than mispresses, or ‘funsies’, but because it was a useful skill worth the ini no matter the build : builds support weapons, or should, as weapons give you the skills combat is based on.

Trait line 1: offensive sustain
Trait line 2: offensive burst
Trait line 3: defensive sustain
Trait line 4: defensive burst
Trait line 5: control

Wouldn’t it be ideal?

I am leveling a second thief. I’ve used 20 booster and maybe 10 tomes. Lw to 500, weapon smith to 450, cooking to 400. This char has 4% map, hell my main is only 87%. I could care less about 1-79, my lagging gear( I can make what I need), or any of that. I want my 70 trait points, exotic gear from the bank, and then back to roaming.

My first was asuran, 900hrs. had to go bookah for aesthetics. So we’re trying to play how we want. I’d love tomes to be available for 3G or something. Not like I don’t know the character.

Ok? It would still be stronger vs range without a cast time on return no?

If it went back to the old way you’d be able to avoid the hammer train/aoe ball while disabled, that is about it(if: ir location was out of way, etc). Range would still track unless it broke Los/range.

I like 33+% with any sort of reliable fury. 30 is about as low as I will go. I normally ride 44-49% in most of the things I run and rely on 100% from stealth.

Crit is gonna get more use out of your Crit damage.
Bigger numbers more often, or more sustain? is all you need to ask yourself as you go through your normal play routes.

Edit: as always YMMV. I do not represent the thief community. All likenesses thereof are purely coincidental.

Edit 2: builds look like basic roaming builds and will do fine once you learn the weapon set/trait interactions. Never tried sigil of leeching, but waiting on revamp before I go crazy with new gears.

common setups are full zerk, soldier chest leg helm, rest zerk, and full valk. use trinkets to match your preference for what you need more of. (cav, valk, zerk).

That is how it worked iirc. It only worked when disabled because it was instant cast, it had no stunbreak portion to it. If you were knocked down, you were still knocked down, just where you used strike from. It was great for juking out cd’s. Sadly, the cast time added caused it to act like any other skill while disabled (barring stunbreaks) – you just can’t use it. BP isn’t a true stunbreak, but due to the instant cast nature – it can be used anytime, disabled or not.

I love Boris and Natasha (will have to come up with new names now that I am a human instead of an asura). Sadly the cooldown is prohibitive, even 20s less and it would be more of a contender in my book. I almost solely use daggerstorm unless I am running a lyssa set, or need that petrification from BV. Which is almost rarely. I even use DS more in PvE. Though as has been mentioned they were almost essential leveling up through the first time and collecting some of those skill points.

I would love for them to take a 5-10% reduction in the damage they do for more nifty tricks like the wire used. I’d like the range one to use body shot a couple of times between unloads.

Oh well. I am fine with just perma Daggerstorm, I don’t see them drastically altering anything in a hurry. And we haven’t heard for TG nerfs yet…

1: d/d main & sb+s/p fairly equally (d/p, p/d < 15% of the time)
2: 10/30/30/0/0 (45%) 10/30/0/0/30 (45%) rest various goofing off builds, testing.
3: 85% wvwvw / 14% pve / 1%spvp

So, I have taken a build that is often used: 10/0/0/30/30 (alternatively, less survivable, more damaging 10/30/0/0/30). And instead of using the general Lyssa or Traveler’s options, I went for altruism. (+3 stacks of might aoe on heal, +fury on heal, and added bonus of increased boon duration stacking nicely with acrobatics).

I had originally thought to use sword and dagger. With sigil of battle and sigil of strength.

I moved onto pistol/dagger. Use the single weapon set swap trick.
the +300 from trickery, and the might stacks consistency are not to be underestimated.

I can keep 12-15 stacks of might fairly consistently.
I can keep perma fury and swiftness.
Get a stacking sigil for the backpack and you have some decent stats sitting in condi or power.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vYAQJAqYl0Mp3plOxwJ0PNR49gsj1saFoZ3Due1qC-zUCBYLBkyAgEBMVtIasFhFRjVxATVaR16TAeDFRrmUAVpMC-w

It’s fun, and a little slower the ol’ anything 30 in crit strikes, but it’s certainly interesting to see people think you’ll be easy peasy when your conditions start off all flimsy, and realize as you are evading damage, everything is hurting them a lot more.

I only put my preferences in traits. the ones required for perma swiftness is thrill of the crime. Power of inertia is just to emphasize the might stacking, as with the food. both can easily be swapped out for anything. Bountiful Theft <> Ricochet… sometimes not sure, I prefer keeping the stripping (thieves, necros, ele’s).

Have fun everyone!
edit: stats window (are off a tad, I have a couple of ascended pieces and currently using valk trinkets/cav back+ammy.)

Ensign.2189:

Fleet of Foot is really for D/P builds where you can stealth at will via BP/HS – it really lets you take advantage of stacked long duration stealth to close with your target and line up a backstab.

In a D/D build it doesn’t do nearly as much for you since you have to get into melee range to stealth via C&D already.

…And I never, ever thought to run that while I tinkered with DP. Kudo’s. lol.

-you have no utilities selected.
-is this for pvp/pve/wvwvw? I imagine roaming/small group wvwvw from the traveler’s.
-it isn’t condition heavy and you have dual skills in crit strikes with two daggers. death blossom is fairly useless for damage per ini unless you are working with condition damage
-with no utilities or context of play, sharing your venoms seems useless, I’d go with s. rejuvenation.
-unless you really really like the minimal single target damage increase from sigil of air, why not fire?
-Fleet of foot is training wheels for landing backstabs, can learn without it and won’t be missing it when it’s gone.

Otherwise looks like a basic roaming build for wvwvw, has applications in pve, and I am not sure how it would do in spvp as I haven’t done it in over 8 months – I imagine not well being stealthy based.

^ all the advice any thief will ever give for pve unless we are reworked.

Sticky a thread called “Thief is OP, anything related to such a statement goes in this thread”

After that all posts outside of said thread about thief being op or needing a nerf, gets a 48 hour forum ban.

…

Nevermind, then the thief forum wouldn’t move…

/cry

More dedicated than myself. I said kitten ascended unless it drops for me (crapshoot there). Could always nail the exo’s you need, gear up and run it. I used to run rares to test stuff before ascended came out.

My vote is still mug, however I am also the only one to comment. Hi thief community! You are just like you were when I left you, just less complaining(somehow), and no useless “feedback” thread with 9zillion replies on front page.

just try them all! it’s only a few sp to retrait. a week on each should let you know what fits you more, since you know the feeling of your thief.

I find fleet of foot to not be needed in most cases. It does make landing a backstab easier, but I honestly prefer the fall damage trait(I mostly wvw) in Acro. If I don’t take that it is mug though, because it’s either that or VR in acro, which with Hide in Shadows isn’t as useful (1/3 uptime on vigor roughly from it).

tl;dr – go with mug, unless you are just awful at landing backstabs in the 4s frame (15in SA).

I couldn’t tell you how many bad people continue to pew pew me through DStorm. It’s 99% rangers, but I get the odd warrior and engi to do it too.

I MEAN THE WHOLE kitten CHANNEL (if they don’t down first).

mikeew.8607:

My biggest frustration with this build that he runs is the gear. He says Valks gear w/Travelers Runes you are talking a almost 100gold investment. The armor is 24 gold and only available via craft so either u make or buy it. The runes are roughly 10g each x6 60 gold for those and 4g and some change for the armor x 6 so 25 gold there about 85 gold.

YEAH! people should all be using vendored white gear and small fractured gems to upgrade their armors they have found killing earth elementals in Metrica Province!

Ermm… (use your own preference, if that IS your preference – earn your monies so you can do it – only took me a week to get my runes. another for a second set on my soldier gear so I can mix/match (I mystic toileted my valkyrie armor(barring trinkets) in July)

Yeah…

Great job Yishis.

I foresaw this many months ago…

we are getting bananas as weapons.

Einlanzer.1627:

Am I missing something, or miscalculating? Every patch that comes and goes brings disappointment because one of the biggest threats to build diversity Thieves have is such a simple thing that it’s absurd how long it’s gone unmentioned and unaddressed.

You guessed it, the weakness of Vital Shot. …

…

Am I missing something, or miscalculating? Every patch that comes and goes brings disappointment because one of the biggest threats to build diversity…

…

Every patch that comes and goes brings disappointment

There it is. Well said.

edit: it’s been suggested numerous times throughout the life of the game. about the aftercast, or cast time, or base damage… take a pick. see your quote. (I mean… but meh, we roll with (initiative) it.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cloak_and_Dagger

it still cost them 6. they just got 2 back(if they hit). Just like it cost your combo for d/p 9. You just got 2 back if you complete the combo.

with the new proposed rate of ini regen, you could still get full ini from a refuge(’s stealth provided). (with the spec you provided (no 15 in trickery))

People good at avoiding backstabs will still be good at avoiding backstabs. I think it’s supposed to cost a good deal to enter stealth. I also when I very first saw the d/d and d/p weapon lineups a long year ago never would have thought:

Hey, that d/p set looks like it’s meant to be in stealth a lot. Even knowing about the combo.

We are calculators and tacticians. when calculations don’t add up in our favor (I can’t possibly make that backstab in 3s…) (I do concur the +1s minor should affect the combo) – we use sound tactics to be able to ensure one within 3s, or we don’t waste the cost associated, that 9 ini could be better spent closing/opening the gap, and regaining a little and see if the calculations run any better for landing it and devoting the cost associated with your prefered burst method.

Of course, we aren’t all mathematicians, so our calculations can easily be flawed…

there’s always room for human error, it just costs armor repairs.

it’s tricky making a bullet traveling quickly bounce off of someone to hit someone else.

either that or we have wonderful powers…

http://alphas.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperkinetic

Arganthium.5638:

Whatever, man. Look, I gotta admit it: the skill level required to get excellent results on a warrior is so incredibly low as compared to a thief is absolutely kittening ridiculous, and yet it’s the thieves that keep getting nerfed still. I’ve written so much about the thief and how to counter it, and have even provided ANet with the means of mathematically proving its balance, and not only have they completely ignored me, but they have in fact swayed with the mindless sheep droning on without end because of their own lack of skill.

Personally, I’m still going to play thief. I’ve played thief since I first got the game, and I find every other profession far too boring to even touch (excluding, maybe, mesmer). I also love the mobility that I get on my thief. I will, however, say one thing in particular: ever since necros became OP, I’ve been playing full zerker gear, which is optimal against condi builds but is generally more fun to play anyways. Since then, however, the purpose has shifted from being directed against condi builds to being against ridiculously OP warrior builds in general. If I don’t run zerker, I don’t do any damage and I get smashed anyways. If I do run it, then I take a huge risk that relies entirely upon my own skill while my opponent facerolls the keyboard. I do an insanely small amount of damage while having to stay at a range and time my dodges well. On the other hand, if I get hit more than once or twice, I’ll probably just drop dead.

I also now have to run 3(!!!) stun breakers as well + shadow return along with immobilize/cripple/chill breakers via Shadow Returns, Withdraws, and Roll for Initiatives at suboptimal times. I still run my 10/0/0/30/30 build, but the amount of effort in order to get anything done is almost ridiculous. Furthermore, guardians have now become so ridiculously difficult to kill that I usually take only two or three stabs at them before I decide to simply walk away. I’ve seen groups of 5-10 people in WvW unable to take down a guardian easily because of how stupid they are right now.

But no, ANet, thieves, of all professions, are completely OP.

We know man, we know… feelsbadman.jpg

Thief is my main (and a very distant second tied together are mesmer and ele), always has been and always will be when I play this game. I’ve kept to my s/p or d/d trickery build and have been full zerker (with an occasional swap to some soldier pieces) for a while now. I don’t see it getting any better anytime soon, at least until metrics put thief as a seriously underutilized class. Even then, I am not sure how that will happen as we have die hards that will probably quit the game altogether before they just switch classes. I know I will – mesmer or ele are not fun enough for me to drop my thief. Nothing else feels right.

Anyway, here, I found a picture of our new overlords. The warriors.

I found a diagram that explains the balancing paradigm perfectly!

Hi there, I am glad that there is finally some red tags in the thief forum. Especially considering the wealth of changes cited to hit us the 10th of December.

Initiative changes:
I feel these are mostly good changes. I don’t see really hitting opportunist that hard, but I really don’t see any of these sweeping changes making many more builds viable/unviable. Direct damage thieves (if that is what their goal is) will still mostly 20-30 in CS line, regardless; I just see p/p and s/p being even less used than currently (unless we really are overreacting to Opp).

Infusion of Shadow: Thank god. Finally. No more permastealth crying. Just stealth crying.

Inf. Strike/Return: If you just don’t want fancy stomps(using misdirection to land a stomp is any different than a stability/invuln stomp how? Aside from we ate up at least a steal or utility, and ate up our return from sw2(in the case of using sword2 to stomp)), why not just make it so it can’t be used while stunned/middle of another action. I am sure die hard sword users will still use their sword, but it just sounds freaking brutal for a class that is reliant on mobility/evasion to stay in a fight.

I get stunned, eat 1/3 my hp in the stun since my reactions suck, and our base survivability is crap, and now I have my sword2 available so I can evac and heal and run away, since my stunbreaker is now on CD and I have no feasible way to counter anything short of going crazy offensive, which with our crap survivability is laughable without poor opponents.

Hard to Catch: I used it before. I hated it. I had better luck with 5pt SA trait. It was nifty for trollesque fun builds, but past that you can’t seriously expect something with a random outcome to be beneficial and helpful in any way in a serious fight. Who knows, it might save you from that hammer train, or, it might just deposit you in all those necro marks/wells that have just been placed. Or it might just put you into terrain and you become a free kill anyway because you can’t go anywhere without waypointing.

I feel if you want helpful feedback, don’t try and force traits no one wants on people. Ask for how we can make those traits that nobody wants better so more people will want to try them out.
i.e. Hard to Catch: When disabled (stun fear daze sink float blah blah), remove said disable and 2 conditions, mirroring them to the disabler. (30s ICD).
No random; beneficial. Might be too much for master tier, but it’s better than the anet alternatives IMO.

I really don’t see people trying out a bunch of quick recovery builds (past the initial hey, it changed! testing). It was lackluster with the unicorn build, and more of icing on the cake than anything then, with its improvement, builds that were ‘hard’ (by thief standards) to kill, are now harder. Those squishy thieves will not much else.

All in all, I feel if a thief is still going to go direct damage, they HAVE to use 20-30 in CS line even after the update. The only variety are where those other points will go. I think it’ll still be trickery heavy and acrobatics heavy (where they were anyway, no? at least in a pvp environment).

-More viable condition removal outside of SA
-More tempting tradeoffs on damage/survival, we all go damage because our survival is crap and gets worse the higher the skill floor of our opponents gets.

I am curious to see how this plays out on my builds that I never used any slotted ini traits, or utilities, past that, this whole thief dec10 update feels like a slap in the face almost. They are a plethora of other problems, and I didn’t even cover the ones I thought most prudent, just responded to the general gist of the thread.

Good day fellow thieves, and Anet personnel.

if you die to range a lot: DS

otherwise: TG

Basi when nothing else useful, or someone gifts you Lyssa’s.

I use trickery heavily and run either s/p or d/d main. Only stealthing it does is stolen, backstabs, and refuges from time to time (not even slotted 60%). The s/p is diminished a bit, with the patch, but it still is effective, just need better timing on pw, and I use it more for the interrupt really – even a few first strikes landed do more than headshot (and i can for some reason just use it more effectively in that manner than headshot). No I don’t feel forced into stealth unless it’s to troll (barring refuge use)

Sigil(s) on pistols = won’t stack, only one proc on crit allowed – if one procs the others ICD kicks in too.
Why soldier’s SB/why health on kill proc sigil?
-if going for defensive loadout with it, why not more knights/something with a main defensive stat if so (EP is already ~5k, offensive stats look legit, mostly).
Looks like a roaming build for wvwvw. The stealth seems more emergency to me, so I would really use Withdraw as healing for the faster cd/movement impairment removal. You still have blackpowder>switch>CBombs for stealth (if you are stuck on keeping in 10SA for condi removal), and your house. Speaking of the 10 in SA, I honestly would drop it, with P/P’s burdensome access to stealth (HiS would have removed most damaging conditions anyway).

If you aren’t dead set on the 10 in SA, I would move them to more trickery (I am a trickery fanboy) for Bountiful (or ricochet since you are gun slinging), or to DA for mug. Even the last 10 in Acro for quick pockets (I would love to suggest hard to catch, but it’s too unreliable in any sort of terrain) or something else.

If you do try out withdraw, change up your 10 point acrobatic trait to vigorous recovery.

I would also change out your malign upgrades to strong (whatever the powers are called). The token condition damage does as much as your 100 from trickery – jack squat.

if you feel you’re going to have easier access to stealth (and keeping the 10 in SA for condi removal), I feel sig of agility is a waste too, unless you’re keeping it for the endurance (try out withdraw/vigorous recovery combo, and you may not need it for endurance). I’d swap blinding powder if I kept the 10sa, and maybe devourer venom or something if not (stacking immobs causes panic stunbreaks, especially when unloads follow).

All in all it’s workable but has a few quirks that just don’t fit my playstyle (but I have run that exact number setup with traits). If you can make it work have at it, but I feel p/p in a power set is just starving for ini because of unload and a sub par auto, thus thinning your chances for clutch stealths with your initiative (hard with having to swap to do so), or eating utilities you may not have planned to use at that moment.

Good luck with it and I hope my broken comments over a 15 minute period of spacing out and half kitten browsing forums was helpful.

This was changed before the 15th. I am not sure when, but I used it a few times just to try it out when I noticed it. It is much better than the ambush trap IMO. it stops stomps if you start to res if they are mid stomp and you can’t interrupt.

I use x/30/x/x/30 for power builds and x/00/x/x/30 again for condi builds…

s/p is great, I notice the pw,, but it doesn’t affect my play. It’s my go to for power builds. I liked SD for a while, but just missed my interrupt(s).

the other builds still work. d/p countered by anything that messes up the 5+2 combo(forcing utilities over the initiative), s/x countered by superior positioning, and d/d and p/p are still viable.

This is a wvw insight. I don’t know if that matters. Some of the players there are fodder…

I’ve been trolling people with p2’s new immobilize recently. The results are hilarious in zergs, just target outliers, call target, and spam immobs!
Warriors. LOCKDOWN.
Eles. LOCKDOWN.
Thieves. LOCKDOWN.
it’s amusing to immob til a few people land on them to stop their escape totally.

I don’t normally condone this type of shameless spamming, but it’s funny, and added a new dimension to p/x.

I guess my rant is to say if you play well you can make it work in wvw, be it roaming or zerg surfing, or small mans.

You have the button for hiding the UI, can we get a way to toggle certain elements from showing, or drag them around?

i.e.

Hide weapon skill / utility bars.
Moving Target bar
Moving Buff bar for self/target
Removing the daily/LW tracker

Often times I want to play with no UI, it looks bad kitten . I love how minimalistic it looks (nothing there is about how I like it, really, but I need some sort of information available).

The target bar gets in the way of my placing ground targetted aoe (resulting in incompleted skills(death generally).

The weapon skills/utilities display is near useless to me most of the time (I have good feelings for range/cooldowns).

Overall I can deal with it, but some more customization (without going the way of WoW) would be great!

Keep up the good work!

‘Be quick, I need to get this cog-sucking golem up and running!’

immobilizes with spike damage incoming (provided you have a target to land it on). You aren’t always capable of being on the offensive.

P/D non condi is just as troll-esque as condi.
Instead of random bleed spikes, it’s just 1/2 unload spikes with some complimentary (43-52ish) bleeds.

(edit: with less survivability unless you put it in utilities, most condition specs are at least a little more durable than their burst counterparts)

(edit(again): I do like it.)

I play both. I spec differently often (burst spec sits at 100%crit damage, 40(no including situational bonuses from traits) crit, and 3k power at around 15khp – many variants).

I get kills on both.

Keeping 3 conditions up is pressure for small stuffs.

Zergs consist of refuge+trops in their siege, stack up bleeds, and step out.

Lyssa is meh. I don’t need more condition duration. Nightmare I have never cared for either. I keep 16-20khp with gear, and float from base armor, to 2600 or so(depending on the many sets of gear/combinations I listed).

Playability is superb, I stay alive much longer. It’s bursty conditions (edit: bursty bleeds, with poison/vuln/weakness covers) that you can keep constant pressure with, not overwhelming with damage at opportune moments.

I also have much more epic fights against people in specs like this because they aren’t over in 30 seconds or less. I enjoy a good fight against a good opponent. When we can dance for a long time, I’d say it’s a good fight, especially if we know we are both close we just need to step up our next swoop.

Opinions though, you know? :P

And believe me, I am all for additional conditions past racials/combos. I’d like access to burning, and if I can’t get that, well chill. And if I can’t get that I’ll just deal with it and keep doing what I am doing!

edit:
Here are the stats in the rabid gear (+1 rabid jeweled with knights amulet and earring).

I is having fun!

Arganthium.5638:

Selver.1307:

Really, no mods, constant complaints. What the hell is wrong with this forum community.

Same as ever. -_-

I know. I know.

Make a plea to the safehouse? or is there already a wing?

Hi there, long time no talk restless thief community. No one cares, but I’m back. Really, no mods, constant complaints. What the hell is wrong with this forum community. I’ve seen plenty without so much assery. Anyway, onto the meat and bones.

20/0/0/20/30

d/d + sb

mug or poison duration(or vuln stacking in rabid gear for covers), Improv. Yes improv. Why? To say I am using it. It’s actually handy with a varied utility section.

Vigor on heal, +2ini/10s

dodgetrops, bountiful theft, +4ini on heal

Gear.

I have 3 sets of gear. All have
2x Krait runes
2x Afflicted runes

2 have 3x Afflicted/Krait.

1 Has in place of the 3/3 for the other two runes uses Melandru (25toughness/-10%condition duration)

Weapons – 3 Carrion daggers. 1 with generosity or purification, 2 with +10% bleeding (2nd is a preference really). Shortbow has a corruption sigil, working toward a second with a better rune investment (geomancy/chill, something).

Armors:
Rabid set.
Apothecary set (Melandru variant)
Carrion set.

Jewelry:
Due to Apoth being so hard to come by(read: expensive as kitten) and the temple’s open so rare (for rabid), I have Carrion jewelry, and a rabid backpiece.
(all chrysocola embellished jewels)

Heal: Withdraw – this is personal preference obviously, but pairs well with vigor on heal, +4ini on heal.
If I use SoM (in pve or something, still rare), I use different trickery traits(drop +4ini on heal)
If I use HiS, I might take out quick recovery for AR so I can get some addition heals in between it’s longer cd, and try and drag the battle out more.

Utilities:
Sig of Agility (open slot, I keep if for dodges/condi – passive is nice in rabid set – 24% crit)
Shadowstep (stunbreaker, mobility, condi removal)
(open slot, I generally run trops, or house, or something useful. On a side note, check out the duration of your conditions from your venoms eating the rare veggie pizza! And another tangent, if you prefer the pizza, over anything else, drop a sigil of agony for something else).

stats:
Apothecary Variant
CD: 1,268
Armor: 2,245
attack: 2,555
crit: 5%
Health: 17,385
Boon Duration: 20%
Steal Recharge: 30%
Healing: 315
Bleeding duration: 70% (17s deathblossoms/ ~5,401 from 3 bleeds)
Shortbow poison fields stack to 20s with full ticks in it, applies weakness (~without~ the lovely cond food, or poison trait).

Carrion: your heals are going to be less, condition higher (1400s), power higher, and same crit.

Rabid: Crit will be 15%, 0 healing, higher condition (13-1400’s I forget atm)

Try it out, melee kite your enemies. Open with shortbows poisons, try and stack em high before you switch if you can, make em fret about a long lasting condition.

Don’t spam DB! It’s got 3 17-20s (depending on how you build the condition duration) bleeds, if you can get 6 stacks up and just play keep away, they’ll blow a condi removal (maybe) and you can regen ini for another few stacks. Save steal when you need ~1.5-2khp AND 3 ini. Don’t forget about Improv, it’s out of kittening nowhere free kitten. There’s nothing else really in the tree anyway. It’s saved me, and it’s been useless, but overall it still doesn’t kitten you as hard as Instinctual response and last refuge.

Give it a go, tweak it to your liking. I really enjoy it in open pve/wvwvw…

(I’ll probably be back to 0/30/30/10/, or some burst variant in 3 days!)

So, uh… those two [pro] – mesmer and necro, didn’t feel too pro, I fought them well longer than I should have them being a mesmer with a focus and a necro with some cleanse ability. good fight.

Trickery and sword go well, just dont use ini unless needed.

+1% damage per ini, stacks with other 25 minors, and can add flanking for 5% more.

But on topic just dodge offensively(on people) with it.
If against bs thief, dodge when you think cnd/bs is coming. Its at least 1 bleed on them.

He’s got stacking mf, cant keep two stacking.

Id second agony and geomancy, though water doesnt have the crit requirement(listed)

Good fight you thief at Astralhome sentry. I let you get too many CnD’s off me. good show

Love,
the condition thief

Because the only p/x are condition (generally), the ones who arent have said stuff, even some of the condi’s say it.

I noticed its underwhelming display within 2 days of starting my thief.
I hate it. I want to love p/x like i love d or s/x and brobow.

Its just impossible except in novel situations.

I concur, something needs to be done.

Everyone hang up your pistols. Sb and sb, trickery and shadowsteps zerg juking til mobility is on the chopping block!

D/d burst wont be affected too much, crits are painful still.
Cond is only affected with p/d missed cnd

Blossomers will stack you in bursts.
Probably try and ride 7-12 bleeds on you, inf return 6-8 stacks, dont let them dodge on you. Get out of trops.

If you catch them mid third blossom with p/w , be prepped with headshot on hishadows.

D/d burst, dodge cnd. If stealth on you, stealth back if possible, or bp and count dancing in it.

Whats your offset?

Edit: first line referring to weakness.
Crits are still full damage.

My broken is the defense mechanic (stealth) is situationally… defensive in pve.

Sure you can ninja communes/chests, sure you can bypass droves of risen, but the second youre in combat, need stealth, and get it, right after however youre back to scraping to stay alive unless someone dragged them away while stealth was up. If no one can do that coming out of stealth acts like a taunt for the most part.

I dont think we’re broken per say… okay maybe in pve.

Heavily fractured most everywhere else:
P/*
P/p
Traits. Everywhere traits.

I know the last one is broad and it’s not just us(thieves) in bungled traits/skill bugs.

I’m really hoping for overall bug fixes(through all classes/areas of the game) onto phase 2:
Splitting finally and forever splitting pve/pvp skills – wvwvw/spvp same ruleset. *consumables still usable in wvwvw, then to phase 3 – each month each class gets its balance/debug/revamp whats needed evaluation time.

Venom sharing can go both ways but lends toward power builds.

Also impractical levelling since it requires 60+.

Splitting gear wouldnt be bad if one was cond, other pow/pre. Though with both of you, cond would be rough on single to single mobs unless vet/champ – dies too quick.

Were very flexible, and by the time you have 10 in a tree you can respec free (w/book) and try another traitline.

Sword – control
Mh dagger – single target
Mh pistol – cond, single.
Oh dagger – kite utility, cnd
Oh pistol – melee mitigation, combo field, interrupt
Shortbow – mobile, cond/power mix, finisher(blast), poison ezmode.

Boon duration isnt a total waste – might and vigor(though iirc one of the vigor traits boon duration doesnt affect…), but that irks me about shadow protector as well.

I dont think +10% pistol damage affects those skills(dual), which was my issue.