Guild Wars 2

Miyani, the merchant who sells items for the Mystic Forge in Lion’s Arch is completely absent. I’ve searched the entire area for her even though she’s described on websites as standing right next to the forge.

Just got this problem too. The Black Cididel bankers don’t function anymore. Had to go to Rata Sum to do my banking.

I get this a lot too, and I do have auto-target enabled so it’s not because of auto-target.

And here I am yet again, still looking for a guild in NA. All previous ones I’ve tried have been completely MIA every time I’ve played the game. Maybe I haven’t been clear enough about when I’m on, so I’ll try this again.

• I’m in the Eastern time zone and usually play the game weekdays 5-10. However this is subject to change on a whim because I play other games too. Weekends I play sporadically.
• In Henge of Dervani, and I’m tried of switching servers
• I’m not an experienced MMO RPG player, but I’m a fast learner
• I’d like to try out WvW with a group I can actually talk to
• I’d also like to try dungeons with a guild because way in hell am I walking into one without a team on voice chat.
• I’m not a “SOOOOO SERIOUS” player, I’d prefer a loose and casual player atmosphere. The more demented the better.
• I have a thief who just hit 80, and I’m planning to make a necromancer in the future.

Come on GW2 community, there’s got to be some group out there for me. I’m tired of wandering around world maps that are as desolate as STALKER.

What traits are you picking? We can be a lot more helpful if we have an idea what you’re specing yourself for.

Right now I’ve just created a monstrously powerful PvE build with 0/30/20/5/15.

I use Steal when an enemy’s back is turned and I’m immediately stealthed so I get a completely free backstab. Then I use Death Blossom and my evade which leaves caltrops a few times to get them down to half HP.

Once they hit 50% HP I either cloak and dagger and backstab again or finish with Heartseeker because I get a 20% damage buff when they do. This could easily be swapped out with a 100% chance of critical while in stealth for PvP.

I’m not sure how this would work in PvP or WvW because I only have about 13,000 HP and my high toughness doesn’t seem to always carry me. But I do have some good options in my major traits to remove conditions which means I may be good at support too.

Perhaps I just need better armor. Some of my pieces are still level 42 or so and I have no rare or exotics.

The enemies in Fireheart Rise (especially the imps for some reason) are respawning sometimes only seconds after they’ve been killed.

It’s an already difficult area, but this kind of thing makes it nightmareish to explore alone.

I’m planning to try a Necro sometime in the future, and this is extremely helpful.

Thank you.

Necoromancer of course!

If you absolutely must have the highest critical rate possible, look for beserker equipment and use food that boosts your critical too before fights in addition to putting points into critical strikes.

But I’d like to see someone experiment with a mix of beserker and other equipment that raises your HP and toughness because right now in my head that seems like a good idea.

But then so did making a thief with pistol/pistol at first.

When used properly, they can turn fights around or take winning to ensuring your complete dominance.

They’re also the key to boss/champion enemy fights.

Combos are based off of two things: effect fields and actions.

An effect field is an area on the ground that does something: for example, a thief’s black powder smoke field. It causes blindness whenever an enemy steps into that field.

Now, there are three things you can do with those fields as a thief: you can
1) Shoot a projectile through it
2) Jump through it with Heartseeker
3) Stand in it and use Dagger Storm

Shooting through the field with a pistol or shortbow is a physical projectile combo finisher. And with smoke, it causes blindness with every bullet or arrow that passes through it. You don’t have to be standing in the field even to get this effect, you just have to have your shots pass over the area the smoke is.

Using Heartseeker which is a leap finisher while in or while in a position that lets you jump through the smoke cloaks (stealths) you.

Dagger Storm is a whirl finisher, and a smoke field creates Blinding Bolts which causes blindness with every hit.

Different status fields cause different effects – like a fire field and a projectile makes you cause burning and a leap gives you a fire aura. So whenever you see a friendly put down an effect field, get over there and attack through it!

Unless it’s a health regeneration. Then don’t use any projectiles because you’ll be giving the enemy health regen. And they’re not appreciative enough to stop trying to kill you if you do.

Well that’s horribly inconvenient. They really should make that happen for WvW too because what works against AI doesn’t always do so well against other human players.

If you’re already level 80, will going into PvP and WvW still let you reallocate your trait points every time you go into them?

This would take a huge problem off my hands because I’m specing almost exclusively for PvE right now and respecing from the trainer is expensive and inconvenient.

You may be better off with pistol/dagger instead. You’ll still get a default attack that has bleeding, but you’ll also have an attack that doubles as a dodge – which you absolutely need if you’re going to use a ranged weapon like a pistol.

Highlet.8039:

The signet will not cure all conditions in a situation like a 1v1 that I assume the OP was referencing. That being said, the thief does have numerous other ways to remove conditions.

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/3999-signet-of-agility

It doesn’t work on the player themselves unless there’s someone else near them?

Well that’s just head-scratchingly poor design I think. Then the only utility that’s good for it is Shadow Step and Return.

At least you can use Shadow Refuge in a pinch though.

Stealing is not something that’s extremely viable once you’re started attacking someone/thing is it? I think it’s best used as an opener because it gets you immediately into melee range and gives you free skill to use right away or save for later.

But I don’t have any PvP experience yet because I’m too busy trying to figure out what kind of build I could make for that and still manage to do alright in PvE.

What about Feline Grace? Is it worth forgoing that to max out the Critical Stikes path?

And what’s better? Quick recovery or Preparedness?

Quasi Mota.7390:

Oh kitten I’m gonna replace Furious Retaliation and check out Critical Haste tonight.

It makes mobs a complete joke. But it’s less reliable in PvP I’m told. Fortunately it’s a major trait so you can swap it out for something else when doing that.

stof.9341:

Haste is exactly the same as Quickness.

No it isn’t. Quickness is a speed boost for movement only. Haste is a speed boost for your attacks. In PvE, haste makes you hilariously powerful because it activates often and lets you make short work of mobs.

It’s however less reliable in PvP because the fights are shorter and you have less margin of error.

Shadow step and return removes three conditions, and the signet of agility removes one (as well as refilling your endurance).

But you may be best off using cloak and dagger as much as possible because it’s physical damage and he can’t reflect that.

That’s why I don’t want to spec for condition damage – there are enemies who are immune to it and you don’t want to be unprepared when they appear.

Weapons don’t level up, you just unlock all their skills after using them for a few minutes. It’s nice.

I’ve finally found a setup that works wonders in PvE, but I’m not so sure it’ll work anywhere else.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Critique-this-build-Seriously-I-need-all-the-help-I-can-get/first

I really need help guys.

I’ve only just now started thinking about PvP with my thief and I’m completely stumped about how I should spec it. I’ve only just now figured it out for PvE but now wondering how I can spec for both or if that’s even possible.

I’ll give you some pointers if you like. PM me.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMkzz9mMaLFMMaLFM0xfafoaqVoc

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMkzz9mMaLFMMaLFM0GxVfoaVRbc

Is Executioner a big enough help to sacrifice an extra dodge for? Or will I be powerful enough to not need it? I don’t touch the power area because I hear equipment gives you enough boosts there you don’t need it.

I don’t want a glass cannon, I want a reasonably powerful killer who doesn’t drop dead if you look at it funny.

Right now in PvE I’m absolutely loving critical haste, because it means an entire attack chain in a single second and it activates fairly often. But is that not effective in PvP?

I’m also hoping to bring my thief to dungeons and general-issue PvE so I’d like to be able to just change my utilities around to fit the situation.

Alright, guess I have to respec every time I do a dungeon because focusing on one thing means you’re terrible at all others. What a bad joke AreaNet played on thieves.

In PvP and WvW I want to be able to survive a fight with more than just one enemy in (no glass cannon), but also drop them quickly. What skills should I be looking for and why?

Are either of these two builds ideal for anything?

The signet of agility breaks stun when activated, but I know I should have more than just one. What other abilities work?

I am now approaching level 80 which means I’ll soon be trying out PvP and WvW games (I know your stats get kicked up to 80 automatically, but your gear doesn’t).

So I’m wondering is my build ready for prime time?

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMkzzc0M0MnFvMMMxvM0xGG0caqVRos

And what kind of strategy would I be best at using? And lastly, would I make for decent support in dungeons?

I see, it’s more a condition/then run setup. But wouldn’t it be easy for some players to remove the bleeds unless they’re contending with multiple foes?

Only one question:

Why aren’t you stealing?

Stealing not only gives you items that can aggravate enemy players even more, but with the right traits can replenish your initiative and stealth you.

Tolfast.6289:

Number 3 skill is nothing like unload, it strikes the target and shadow steps you away, giving you an extra way to evade attacks
Maybe you don’t know how to play this spec, but some people are very successful with it.

The descriptions of number 3 don’t say anything about shadow stepping. That would make it substantially more useful.

But cloak and dagger on a ranged build isn’t that great of an idea because you have no really good way to follow it up – five bleeds is much easier to recover from than a back stab.

But you’re right I don’t know this spec extremely well. And I’m a bit biased against pure condition builds because I think they lack versatility which I believe is the thief’s greatest strength.

It’s not a good setup at all is what it is.

Pistol in main hand for some reason is very poor at doing much of anything because those setups tend trying to do something very half-heartedly.

Pistol/dagger is one of the worst offenders on the list. The third skill is useless, it’s basically a kittened version of pistol/pistol’s Unload. And cloak and dagger is meaningless without back stab – which you can’t do without a dagger in your main hand.

Oh, and where’s your critical haste?!

That one skill alone transformed my entire game. I had been playing without it for nearly this entire time but tried it out yesterday just for the hell of it.

I will never go back.

Haste is not the same as quickness – haste speeds up your attacks to the point where an auto attack chain is a blur. It may be the single most devastating skill the thief has, only challenged by back stab.

You need to use something to prevent him from cloaking, or from hitting you while he’s cloaked.

Remember thieves have a signet which removes all conditions, and two abilities which remove stun too. So have a few condition-causing abilities ready.

Your sure-fire bet though is to travel with a group. Engineers are mostly support from what I gather about their abilities and thieves specialize in 1-on-1 combat. The deck is stacked in our favor from the start.

And once again we learn why it’s a terrible idea to make a glass cannon thief.

Sincartier.4256:

Also… The cattlepult event in Dessia Plateau was a riot. Not only do you get a laugh at all the cows being launched but on the last one he shoots one cow all the way to the tower in the distance. ‘Hum… if anyone asks, we didn’t do anything’ (or something like that). I stayed around, watching him send his assistant get more cows… while I’m watching the next door farm where the assistant ran off to, a guard comes over through the other side of the yard and gives hell to the mad scientist… (I can’t possibly remember the whole thing but this event was pure gold)

Here’s the entire sequence including the guard running over to yell at Mardine. Unfortunately there’s commentary, but you can still hear the important parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-nJmuOd5KA

Easily some of the best writing in a game I’ve seen/heard.

Lemnear.6215:

Asura: That was the last straw, you know. After that question about turtles in the desert you asked it about its mother.

She should be glad it didn’t tell her about its mother.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiuAI-GuOOc

Also, I found the flame legion guys wondering what to do with their dead shaman. They’re in the Iron Marches, Vermin’s Folly.

Sarisa.4731:

The drop rate is low enough that random number streaks will happen. You can immediately get a drop, or you can kill thousands of mobs and not get one. It’s the same for the crystal in Metrica.

Then that is just crap design. “Let’s make an item you need to complete something benign like exploring a map appear completely sporadically!”

They either need to fix this or someone needs to make a NoClip command just for it.

Xyrm.5602:

NOPE, still broken. The catapault is entirely not interactable, I’ve waited here a while.

1 Month in, this stuff is still broken… how is this acceptable?

Did you finish the event defending the cows from the harpies? You have to do that so he finishes his five experiment launches and then launches three for fun.

Parvati.5780:

Shooopa.5632:

I haven’t seen any yet. Been killing dredge for about an hour (which is absolutely painful for a thief) and nothing.

This is a problem for some people guys.

I got mine of those son’s of svanir monsters.

Killed some other things too along the way, but no keys. Focused on dredge because logically they’re the ones you’d expect to have them since they’re digging in the places the doors are.

Zeid Valentine.2603:

I thought Rata Sum was original and cool too but then i couldn’t Auto-run while checking the map with out falling to my death and the fact that everything is layered on top of everything was a bit confusing…

Rata’s small enough though that you don’t even really need auto run. And the levels are actually well put together – you don’t ever need to find a specific door or elevator to get to a specific place on another floor. The one problem with Citadel is the charr love winding staircases.

insidiane.9570:

Shooopa.5632:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-nJmuOd5KA&feature=player_detailpage#t=327s

Okay so this part is awesome as well , really nicely made, well worth it to watch it although I’m not all too fond of the guy speaking through it the whole time but whatever.

I really wanted a video that didn’t have someone’s commentary, but that was the only one that had the two soldiers at the tower talking to each other.

You don’t talk to Mardine. You wait until he’s done launching the three cows and tells his assistant to go get more and then examine the cattlepult.

Read the label on it and then you’ll have an option to get inside the machine.

What IS broken however is Mardine himself. He’s supposed to be a merchant but that’s been disabled for quite a while now.

I haven’t seen any yet. Been killing dredge for about an hour (which is absolutely painful for a thief) and nothing.

This is a problem for some people guys.

I’ve seen two locked doors in Dredgehaunt Cliffs and figured out through the wonders of the internet you need keys dropped by enemies to open them. But no one is dropping any keys.

This means 100% completion of the area is impossible because you can’t get into two points of interest on the map.

I’ve noticed something that surely can’t be intentially designed in this area. The general-issue enemies have respawn timers that probably aren’t even 3 minutes long!

I first noticed this when trying to kill the grawl shaman near the searing crystal. Next to him are another grawl and an Earth elemental. I’d kill both of those in perparation to fight him, but very shortly afterwards they would both respawn.

I thought at first this was a fluke and killed them both again. Sure enough, another grawl came down from somewhere to take the former’s place, and another Earth elemental teleported in in about 3 minutes.

My next thought was this is just a problem with this particular event. No again.

In Tumok’s Last Stand, there’s an event asking you to help two charr plant bombs in a separatist camp. Seems easy enough I thought and got to it. While it was annoying how fast the two were knocked out by separatists, I figured I’d just revive them and keep going. But something in the game code thinks otherwise.

Just like the grawl and Earth elementals, the separatists and their cannons respawn within 3 minutes after they’re killed/destroyed. And that’s not a good thing, especially if you’re playing alone.

Someone look into this please.

Painking.4703:

Playing Devil’s Advocate here Shoopa, the encounter is only 10 minutes, since that’s the timer imposed on you to defeat the priest.

But this guy is the pinnacle of zerging. People are going to die en masse, it’s inevitable, and thus you just really need a huge swarm of players to chip him down before time’s up. The level of interactivity this fight has is dependent on how often he targets you and wether or not you’re in range of banner drop. It’s a dance of death if he seems to hold a blood vendetta on you, a snoozefest if you’re ignored the whole fight.

And therin is the problem. It’s not a boss fight. It’s a cycle of waiting/respawning/more waiting. And the only real way you can win is by having enough people attacking at the same time.

There are no tactics involved if all it is “start running if he sees you.” It’s not how a game should play. Yes it should be challenging because it’s a late-level enemy. But this is not how you make him that way.

Strill.2591:

I told you dodge. Quit acting like you’re completely helpless. Beyond that you can also use instant-revive skills like Illusion of Life.

And I told you, if you call repeating 2-3 actions for 30 minutes or so “tactics” then you are far too easily amused and should just stick to watching ceiling fans instead of playing games.

Start acting like you have a functioning brain and read my posts before mouthing off junior.

If you ever do melee (only doe this when the enemy doesn’t have an insta-kill area-effect attack), do it in quick bursts. Use blinding shot to get right next to them instantly. Blinding doesn’t work on champion enemies so don’t think that’ll save you.

Two things I’ve learned work well on them is heartseek, 1 chain and then fleeing. Or better yet, get within leaping range, use black powder, heartseek into them, backstab, then evade out of there.

You’re not a warrior or guardian, so you never want to get into a face-to-face confrontation. You want to hit-and-run and only do that when you know they’re not going to suddenly turn a 20 foot radius around themselves into pain and death. In other words, NEVER attempt melee on area-effect bosses.

It needs to be re-thought – most of all it needs some sort of area-effect attack.

It does less damage than the shortbow per shot, and every one of its abilities only effect one target at a time. It’s simply never a good idea to use them right now.