Guild Wars 2

Karl McLain.5604:

Hey all,
A heads up: we’re adding an F2 button for the items that you (thieves) steal from enemies.

~snip~

Cheers,
-Karl

Why “you (thieves)” and not “we (thieves)”?

It seems that even though I am thankful that Karl is looking after the Thieves that our profession is still not being represented in the balance team.

I guess baby steps…but dang, one step every 3 years…sigh.

EDIT:

By the way, what would this cost us?

Thaddeus.4891:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Right. It comes down to your party comp and when your party prefer that you use D/D, you have to comply for the good of the run.

No you don’t have to comply. I run D/D because I like being efficient and if someone ask me something specific that I don’t know I like to try it and see if it’s worth it. But otherwise, people have no business in telling other people what to run unless they specified it in the LFG. If they asked for meta only and he bring S/P, I can understand, but otherwise he can play how he want.

Did you miss the part where I said “for the good of the run”?

If they are asking you to switch and you know that it won’t be for the good of the run, then don’t.

The last time I bought gem was February 2014 and spent probably close to 200 USD since launch.

It’s half way through 2015 and I have not spent a dime on GW2…I wonder why?

Meryn.6875:

Yes D/D might have slightly higher DPS, but that doesnt make S/P any less viable.

Right. It comes down to your party comp and when your party prefer that you use D/D, you have to comply for the good of the run.

If it works for you, go for it. If the pugs force you to run D/D while you want to keep S/P, leave them and let them waste more minutes finding a new pug than your damage loss wouldve cost them. This game is all about fun.

I don’t know about that. It’s easier to find another DPS than to find a new party.

thunderfall.8095:

To Sir Vincent III:
Thieves don’t need that health because we have more evades than other classes so we end up taking less damage in the first place. Still, I like to focus on vitality and toughness with my thief.

When you start evading condition damage, then we can talk.

Dahkeus.8243:

I also heard stealth and caltrops were great for stopping doorbeakers, but I didn’t get around to testing that myself.

I have denied the opposition from destroying our gates by simply littering the path with Caltrops and Chocking Gas.

I’ve also seen a Ranger doing the same thing to our path by using traps and LB Barrage.

The minions in this game are stupidly designed. It would have been better if I take the supply myself and bomb the gates myself. The minions are useless.

Also, there’s no stopping someone from trolling and griefing. I can literally help my opponent win by carrying 2 supplies and die at their gate.

Supreme.3164:

signet condi ele: [perma burning/bleeding x(immobilize+chill+condi duration and 1700 condi dmg)] = dead thief ^2

More than likely, an Ele had caught me before, but they are insisting that Engi is a hard counter to Thief…which is never the case.

Rin.1046:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Only Caltrops?

I use Shortbow and stacks Poison also…they melt in seconds.

As far as I am aware Choking Gas now has a damage component and destealths you.

Zietlogik.6208:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Only Caltrops?

I use Shortbow and stacks Poison also…they melt in seconds.

The shortbow arrow does some damage when it hits the ground so it would de-stealth the thief.

With caltrops and caltrops on dodge-roll, these do not deal any physical damage so the thief can stay stealthed and dodge through the NPCs to kill them without much chance of stopping it.

If caltrops and caltrops on dodge had a tiny dmg amount added to it, would fix the issue.

My point was, you don’t need to stealth at all since stealthing doesn’t add any value on what you’re trying to accomplish.

Thaddeus.4891:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Thaddeus.4891:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Thaddeus.4891:

Sir Vincent III

You can spam PW, but not with the best dps build. Anyway, you can still do 2 PW, then alternate between PW and Auto-attack to keep your initiative higher than 6 all the time.

If that’s how you define spamming, then sure why not.

No no. I’m saying two thing here. First it is spammable but for that you need a special build, which won’t be optimal in dps. It’s doable, but not a good idea.

Second, with the meta build using S/P the best rotation would be 2 PW, then alternate between auto-attack and PW.

Then it’s counterintuitive.

The main purpose of spamming a skill is because it brings high DPS for a low cost, just like how we spam Heartseeker on a 25% health target.

If the purpose of your build is to spam PW at a cost of damage output…well, that’s a whole new level of bad judgement or bad math. Because in that case, Dagger autoattack will out DPS PW.

What are you talking about? I don’t have any build, even less a build with the purpose of spamming PW. Dude i clearly divide those two issue, can’t you read?

1) FIRST ISSUE : Yes you can spam, but that’s not a good idea because you need to butcher your damage modifier for that.

Like I said. The main purpose of spamming a skill is because it is cost effective that bring in high damage.

2) SECOND ISSUE : With a normal S/P build you can’t spam the skill, you need to alternate between PW and AA and compare to a D/D that give you less dps against 1 target, equal dps against 2 targets and more dps against 3 targets.

This is irrelevant when talking about spamming, thus it is not the issue.

D/D can bring in a lot of DPS also to multiple targets by alternating Death Blossom and AA.

The main issue with PW is that it roots you and more often with multiple targets, you won’t even hit all of them for the full duration. Once D/D applied bleeds, it doesn’t matter where the target goes, it will take damage.

Aomine.5012:

XD. I find it funny a class that relies on stealth and “hide in shadow” criticizing another class that “all they do is hide in their shell”.

Relies on stealth? Please. Get your facts straight.

Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365:

Yet agains you’re assuming I don’t know what zone Control is when you’re the one missing the Point. You Think the zone Control you’re talking about is effective, when its simply not.

You claim to know yet your replies says otherwise.

Ofc a thief will use the SB against an engineer witha shield, because a competent thief, as you put it, will pay attention to when the engineer reflects or not. The dps itself is far better than any area pressure that you’re suggesting.

Um no. This part of your post says a lot that you have no idea what zone control is.

Now ofc noone will kill the other if they dont comit fully. So lets say they are duelling. The unwritten rules of a duel says: no running away. Obviously both profs. have a good chanse of winning. Wasting you initiative on area pressure is not gonna win the fight for you.

lol @ “the unwritten rules”.

I can make one up as we go along too. According to the unwritten rules, you are not allowed to use defensive skills, only offensive skills…then you just go at it at each other until there’s only one man standing.

If you get like this everytime someone makes you repeat what you’re saying, maybe you should Think twice. Maybe you’re the one, as I stated above, missing the point

L2P Thief then we’ll continue this discussion.

Only Caltrops?

I use Shortbow and stacks Poison also…they melt in seconds.

Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

RedSpectrum.1975:

I’m going to say engineer so hard, they can hit you with way more conditions than you can effectively deal with

Only if you let them.

I have to disagree with you on this one. I also saw you commented that an engineer is worthless if the thief doesn’t attack. That’s wrong too.

An engineer loves it when a thief doesn’t sit ontop of him, especially if SB comes out. That’s when he can spam his pistol skills and proc condis ( if condi) He can fake magnet, he can reflect, he can spam Everything he got without being punished.
A decent engineer will not take more damage from the SB than he can heal up without detonating his healing turret.

Meh, you assume wrong. SB is not for autoattacking, it’s for littering the area with poison fields and blasting it. How often can you cleanse a perma poison?

I’m talking about zone control here — which obviously too advance for you.

No competent Thief will auto-attack an Engi with a shield.

Actually I don’t play thief. But I do main engineer and I’ve duelled against alot of very good thieves. Assuming the goal of both players is to win, I’d say engineers have a very good chanse versus thieves

I’ll take that “very good” with a pound of salt. Obviously you have not dueled a competent Thief.

And if your goal is to win, how do you catch a Thief?

Or you’re just like every other Engi who waits for the Thief to initiate? In that case, you’re one of the boring ones.

You can’t be killed, but you can’t kill a Thief either.

First of all you should do something about your derisive attitude.

I only get like this when I have to repeat myself when someone disagree with me by not reading my whole post.

Second of all, how many times can you blast a poison field unsuccessfully and not have to fall back to regen initiative, giveing both you and the engineer space. Exactly what the engineer wants.

Giving space? lol

An engineer wont cleanse just because hes being poisoned once. The area Control from sb is not effective at all vs engineers. We’re not warriors that get shut down when poisoned.

This is what I’m talking about. You have no idea what zone control is.

If my goal is to win, then how do I Catch one? I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at. Obviously I’m not gonna Catch a thief with an engineer.

Then you’re not a hard counter to a Thief. Let’s end it here.

But as I said if the thief decides to fight Ill have a good chanse of winning.

No competent Thief will bother with an Engi with a Shield.

There’s no point on attacking a turtle when all they do is hide in their shell.

I would have completely agree with you if GW2 has taunt, but it doesn’t.

Ensign.2189:

~snip~

I think what you’re missing is the fact that a Berseker Amulet as we know it may not even exist anymore.

If they will adjust Berserker Amulet so that a D/P 26006 will still work as is, then that amulet will be overpowered when a D/P 00666 wears it.

So it is safe to assume that the Berserker Amulet will receive a drastic change, at least in PvP where gear stats are non-existence but traits stats are.

EDIT:

It does not. It means I dodged effectively and evaded the attack – the entire point of using the dodge. In fact, dodging earlier in this way is more effective, as it positions you to counterattack earlier; your opponent will still be finishing their animation when your dodge ends, giving you the initiative.

There’s a difference between effective dodge and effective evade.

In fact, actually seeing the ‘evade’ is frequently a sign of ineffective dodging – you have not used it to reposition yourself effectively and are still directly in front of whoever is attacking you.

Thus the reward is for those who effectively evade an attack, not effectively dodge.

They are not one and the same.

It is anything but mindless ineffective dodging. The fact that Feline Grace does not play nicely with anything other than slow dodges with poor positioning is a serious detriment to the trait and a big part of why I rate it so poorly.

Well we just have to disagree because the intended use of dodge is for evading attacks and not for repositioning, thus even though it allows you to use it for repositioning, FG will only reward you if you use it as intended.

I can’t say I called it … yet

Sir Vincent III.1286:

There’s no need to re-swap things around — all they need to do is make CiS to have the same value as Shadow’s Rej. As it is now, it’s way too weak.

If CiS applies 5 charges of Blind (which will make the next 5 attacks miss), then we’re talking about a really good GM trait to rival SR.

FinalPatriot.8034:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Here’s a P/P Hybrid build where you’ll never ran out of dodges and evades — and no pathetic hiding in stealth either.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAqa6al0Mp2pNPx3JsPNRVBx1g9uCnIDd/gdGAA-TFSEABJt/ApKBFR/AAm/AS5XMq/YwJBwhnAApAgYYF-w

I’d love to see this in action. Do you have any videos of you playing this in WvW?

I don’t do videos but I use this all the time. It even works in PvP with minor tweaks.

If you’re interested we can schedule and I’ll show you.

Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

RedSpectrum.1975:

I’m going to say engineer so hard, they can hit you with way more conditions than you can effectively deal with

Only if you let them.

I have to disagree with you on this one. I also saw you commented that an engineer is worthless if the thief doesn’t attack. That’s wrong too.

An engineer loves it when a thief doesn’t sit ontop of him, especially if SB comes out. That’s when he can spam his pistol skills and proc condis ( if condi) He can fake magnet, he can reflect, he can spam Everything he got without being punished.
A decent engineer will not take more damage from the SB than he can heal up without detonating his healing turret.

Meh, you assume wrong. SB is not for autoattacking, it’s for littering the area with poison fields and blasting it. How often can you cleanse a perma poison?

I’m talking about zone control here — which obviously too advance for you.

No competent Thief will auto-attack an Engi with a shield.

Actually I don’t play thief. But I do main engineer and I’ve duelled against alot of very good thieves. Assuming the goal of both players is to win, I’d say engineers have a very good chanse versus thieves

I’ll take that “very good” with a pound of salt. Obviously you have not dueled a competent Thief.

And if your goal is to win, how do you catch a Thief?

Or you’re just like every other Engi who waits for the Thief to initiate? In that case, you’re one of the boring ones.

You can’t be killed, but you can’t kill a Thief either.

Thaddeus.4891:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Thaddeus.4891:

Sir Vincent III

You can spam PW, but not with the best dps build. Anyway, you can still do 2 PW, then alternate between PW and Auto-attack to keep your initiative higher than 6 all the time.

If that’s how you define spamming, then sure why not.

No no. I’m saying two thing here. First it is spammable but for that you need a special build, which won’t be optimal in dps. It’s doable, but not a good idea.

Second, with the meta build using S/P the best rotation would be 2 PW, then alternate between auto-attack and PW.

Then it’s counterintuitive.

The main purpose of spamming a skill is because it brings high DPS for a low cost, just like how we spam Heartseeker on a 25% health target.

If the purpose of your build is to spam PW at a cost of damage output…well, that’s a whole new level of bad judgement or bad math. Because in that case, Dagger autoattack will out DPS PW.

Ensign.2189:

Still, it’s very clear that quite a few ‘evades’ don’t actually trigger an evade, because the dodge roll / FS moves you out of range of the attack before the attack would land;

I just want to say that this is not entirely accurate. If you failed to evade a melee attack using dodge, it means you dodged too early and failed at timing. It is not because you roll out of range before the attack would land.

Picture it as an arching projectile. If you dodge while it’s on the rise, you’ll fail to evade — but if you dodge while it is falling, then you’ll trigger an evade.

It is fairly common that dodge are used to create distance than actually evading an attack — this kind of compulsive dodging is not what FG is rewarding nor should be rewarded.

Sthenith.5196:

The point was that rangers don’t complain about being medium armors even though some(most) of the rangers use GS or S/Axe as secondary weapon.

That’s not true at all. A popular Ranger build have Signet of Stone as a staple for this very reason that Medium Armor simply doesn’t offer enough.

Thieves are already high dmg dealers, there’s no need for us to have heavy armor. And it would look utterly rediculous.

Compare to other medium armor wearer? Sure we do.

Not to mention, both Engi and Ranger has base HP of 15k while Thief has 10K.

That, IMHO, is what’s ridiculous.

evilapprentice.6379:

This seems like a whole lot of doom and gloom for no reason. You’re focusing on all the negative aspects without taking into account the positive ones.

First of all, let’s acknowledge that this is all conjecture, both your points and mine below; What we’ve seen in the preview isn’t necessarily what we are going to get.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s take what was revealed at face value, and look at S/D thief.

1) S/D is going to gain a lot of damage in HoT.
Recall that 2/0/0/6/6 is going to change to 6/0/0/6/6, meaning you can take 2 more DA traits. Those traits, as previewed, include panic strike and executioner, which are both excellent DPS traits. Also note that as far as we know currently, amulets are going to be making up for the stats lost from traitlines. 6/0/0/6/6 with a zerker ammy should now have similiar stats to our current systems 6/6/x/x/x. This means S/D should be seeing much harder hits.

2) FG is triggered by a successful evade, not a dodge roll. This means you’ll potentially be getting FG’s benefits when using Flanking strike/Disabling shot/Death Blossom/Pistol whip, and even from ‘Dont Stop’.

3) Swindlers equilibrium can further reduce steal CD, giving you more vigor from BT. If you prefer Hard to Catch, it’s finally been competently designed and will refill all of your endurance.

It’s also worth noting there were a couple of verbal mentions in the stream that were intriguing. It was specifically mentioned that stolen items were losing their damage component, which leads me to believe they’ll be stronger support/defensive utiltiies. I’m paraphrasing here, but when speaking about “Dont Stop”, one of the dev’s said that only dodging projectiles felt weak, and maybe it should be bumped up to any attack. If “Don’t stop” evades any attack while under the effects of swiftness with kitten ICD, then S/D just got a pretty substantial buff.

If you take into account the new higher damage potential and the new defensive options (again, assuming they play out as I’ve laid them out), then S/D thief has gained a good amount of damage and no longer needs as many evades as it currently has.

Totally agree. Couldn’t said it better myself. +1

Thaddeus.4891:

Sir Vincent III

You can spam PW, but not with the best dps build. Anyway, you can still do 2 PW, then alternate between PW and Auto-attack to keep your initiative higher than 6 all the time.

If that’s how you define spamming, then sure why not.

RedSpectrum.1975:

I’m going to say engineer so hard, they can hit you with way more conditions than you can effectively deal with

Only if you let them.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Jana.6831:

Bazzoong.7145:

-Hey chief, look at that a comprehensive list of wanted criminals and information on their whereabouts on the internet.

-Really now? OMG Sergeant you are right, call SWAT we are going in NOW! let’s get those suckers.

So you mean there will be an all guard guild called [SWAT]?

Secretly we are thieves….. i think.

lol I see what you did there

Gern.2978:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

or stealth without wasting Shadow refuge

How do you do that with S/P? Is that something new to the Thief?

That’s really all I needed to read to know that you don’t understand how to play thief.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

and I am able to spam in non-stop during a fight.

Wishful thinking. No Thief skill is spammable.

This too.

All thief weapon skills are spammable. The only limiting factor is your initiative. And with Infiltrator’s signet, you regen most of your initiative from “Pistol Whip” by the time you are finished channeling it.

Mathematically impossible. If you can show the math that it is “spammable” then I will believe you.

As far as gaining group stealth with S/P: You put down “Black Powder” and then you and your group blasts it for group stealth.

Ah, so it wasn’t S/P specific then. Even a P/P and D/P can do it. If that is the case, then it is not a good reason in the first place.

Please play a thief for a while, take them in dungeons and learn their different builds before you criticize thief players or tell them how to play it.

I’ll just repeat myself here;

Sir Vincent III.1286:

They don’t really need to know your build, in fact, they could care less.

What’s important is, if you queued to be a DPS, you better bring in the DPS skills…not support skill. If I want support in my party, I would want a Guardian or Elementalist, not Thief.

It is currently not possible to go over 100% endurance regen according to wiki;

“Vigor does not stack with other effects which increase endurance regeneration rate (such as from certain traits and signets). The endurance regeneration rate is capped at double the normal rate, which is most easily achieved when under effects of the vigor boon.”

With that said, we don’t know what is the actual regen rate is going to be. All we can do is hope that they would actually test this and adjust the numbers accordingly and appropriately.

Gern.2978:

Yes, under ideal conditions you will do more damage with dagger/dagger. I use sword/pistol more often because it has more survivability (all your dammage means diddly-poop if you spend more time in the downed state than hitting the boss)

This really depends on your group composition. When a Guardian tells you to switch it really means that your DPS sucks and he has to tank/heal longer than expected.

And when you go down, it is the Guardian’s fault — but for overall damage, D/D beats S/P.

, more cleave

Dagger cleaves too.

, consistent and readily available smoke fields to increase group survivability

It’s not necessary. You are in a dungeon group where your primary role is to have the highest DPS. Leave the support and survivability to other professions in your group. With S/P, you get too distracted on survival that your DPS suffers. D/D helps you focus on your role in a group.

or stealth without wasting Shadow refuge

How do you do that with S/P? Is that something new to the Thief?

, and still does a lot of damage.

No it doesn’t. It has been proven time and time again that due to Sword’s slow attack speed that it can never compare to Dagger in DPS.

So no, believing that you do “lot of damage” only means that you’re fooling yourself. Don’t do that.

My pistol whip hits for 15-20k damage every time,

Where you ca hit even more for the same Initiative cost. Not to mention, when your target falls below 50%, there’s nothing can compare to the DPS of Heartseeker.

and I am able to spam in non-stop during a fight.

Wishful thinking. No Thief skill is spammable.

Not to mention, there are a lot of boss fights where it is simply not advisable or possible to get consistent back-stabs throughout the fight, subject Alpha for example.

Only then you swap to a weapon set that is appropriate to the fight…and no, S/P is not appropriate to every fight.

In short, sword/pistol just has more utility than dagger/dagger, which I find far more useful in a dungeon group than just high-damage. Especially pug groups.

It seems that you already have made up your mind, so what exactly do you want out of this discussion?

I would have to say that the Guardian is right to call you on your poor choice of weapon set.

Please people, don’t criticize people for using a build if you haven’t done your homework on that build.

They don’t really need to know your build, in fact, they could care less.

What’s important is, if you queued to be a DPS, you better bring in the DPS skills…not support skill. If I want support in my party, I would want a Guardian or Elementalist, not Thief.

Vornollo.5182:

@Swinsk, What rune are you talking about (as in, full name)? I can’t recall there being a “Rune of Fury”, but that’s possibly just me not remembering it.

EDIT:
So I went for a quick check on the Wiki… I can’t find the runes you’re talking about, Swinsk :P

It’s called Rage Rune.

Here’s a P/P Hybrid build where you’ll never ran out of dodges and evades — and no pathetic hiding in stealth either.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAqa6al0Mp2pNPx3JsPNRVBx1g9uCnIDd/gdGAA-TFSEABJt/ApKBFR/AAm/AS5XMq/YwJBwhnAApAgYYF-w

Aomine.5012:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Yeah, that’s a fair point about the engi, although I’d still say it’s one of the harder matchups for thief at least. Fair play.

It’s a hard match up for the Engi also. Engi relies that the Thief will attack and if they didn’t, Engi is useless.

I think you dismissed my point out of hand, and missed what I was saying here. Just because I kill a thief once doesn’t make my build a counter to thief, it just means I outplayed them at that time. My point is if you need to get the same results reliably before you can say it’s a counter.

I did not dismiss your point because it is invalid since you use a scenario where you won against a bad player. Winning against a bad player is winning against a bad player — they just do happen to play a Thief — which means, it is not winning against a Thief.

Whether I’m boring or not is ad hominem and is irrelevant to the argument.

The “you’re” in that statement is not personal, it’s a general statement, not you specifically. I’ll use 3rd person next time, my bad.

If I just manage to run away from a medi guard, it doesn’t change the fact the medi guard just handed my kitten to me on a plate.

That’s because Medi Guard is a counter to Thief. Engi is not.

If I run away from an Engi, it’s because I got bored. They rely so much me attacking them that they do nothing on their own.

My point is simply that just because thief is one of the only classes that CAN run from a bad encounter, doesn’t mean you counter him any less if you have to fight. Since the entire idea of a counter assumes that you have to fight in the first place, deciding that something counters you less because you can simply run away makes absolutely no sense, which is what some earlier posters were saying.

Part of countering a Thief is to prevent them from running away in the first place. If any profession failed on doing that, then the profession or build is NOT a counter.

Engi cannot catch a Thief, thus they are not a counter, compare to Medi Guard, who can also teleport and maintain the pressure on the Thief until the Thief die.

I don’t know how I can say it any clearer than that, so we may have to agree to disagree.

What’s clear is that you believe that as long as you make the Thief go away it means that you have countered them…this is nowhere closer from the truth.

You’re quite wrong. Mediation Guardian is the one who couldn’t catch a thief and with terrible snares.

Engineer actually have alot of ways catching a thief, like using rocket boot, maintaining permanent swiftness, apply on demand movement impairment (Chill, immobolize) and so on. They can also knock thief out of their trump care : Shadow Refuge through shield 4. They also have tool kit that can pull thief if you pair it up with some form of stealth. Basically engineer has alot more chances catching thieves than Guardian. Guardian’s teleport are all on pretty long cool down, and sword 2 requires a target, so if a thief go into stealth, sword 2 wouldn’t work. Also Guardian has more difficulty maintaining swiftness than Engineer.

This is only true against incompetent Thieves. I am yet to see a Condi Engi catch me like Medi Guardians can.

Not to mention Engineer does has Reveal at their disposal, as well as strong condition pressure.

Right, Condi Engi brings Utility Googles somehow replacing Tool Kit, Bomb Kit, or Rocket Boots — it must have been slotted in their back pocket of something.

Zero Day.2594:

Holly TEEFS batman…

Lol Dec. 13th… I see what you did there.

Wasn’t it December 10th that marked the mass exodus? Or is this completely something else?

IGN: Sir Vincent X
Playstyle: PvE, WvW, PvP (casual)
Server: Tarnished Coast
Experience with Thief:

I used to live and breath Thief until the nerfs for the sake of PvP balance started affecting my PvE experience. I’ve run different types of builds as I find it fascinating trying to find what build works for me. I’ve used S/D+P/P 50036 for as long as I can remember and I despise stealth with a passion. It’s unnecessary and very limiting and promotes bad game play all around. I might be a little rusty in my Thief since I have been training with my Medi Guardian, but I can still put up a good fight.

nekretaal.6485:

Anyways what’s problematic about chill is that chill has zero effect on most thief and revenant kills. A condition that counters some hard, but that others get to ignore is bad Rock Paper Scissors design.

Anyways what’s problematic about SCISSORS is that SCISSORS has zero effect on ROCK. A condition that counters PAPER hard, but that ROCK get to ignore is bad Rock Paper Scissors design.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I hate to say this but to me, Chill is specifically designed as a counter to Elementalist that it is working as intended. ArenaNet even gave Thieves Ice Shard Stab as a stolen item from Elementalists as a tool to counter them.

Ah yes, Gunk throw is also the engineers counter steal.

/sarcasm.

It is typical noobie error to just throw the gunk and not leap through it — so I understand the confusion.

That doesn’t explain mesmer steal, the extremely useful when fighting against anything.

Stolen item from Mesmer is one of the best stolen items — but we’re getting off track here.

Just because you question other stolen items doesn’t change the fact that Chill is a counter to Elementalist — else we wouldn’t have this thread.

I am not a big fan of these changes to not being able to mix and match outfits and losing mix and matching transmuted items (i.e. stats, rune, skins combo). I am also not a fan of the Extractor Tool (whatever it is called) for extra gems.

So in other words, I do not like the changes made by this team — not even one bit.

The hero UI still doesn’t default to Equipment for whatever reason and god know when they will finally fix this.

P/P Thief > Lich Form

I hate to say this but to me, Chill is specifically designed as a counter to Elementalist that it is working as intended. ArenaNet even gave Thieves Ice Shard Stab as a stolen item from Elementalists as a tool to counter them.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Yeah, that’s a fair point about the engi, although I’d still say it’s one of the harder matchups for thief at least. Fair play.

It’s a hard match up for the Engi also. Engi relies that the Thief will attack and if they didn’t, Engi is useless.

I think you dismissed my point out of hand, and missed what I was saying here. Just because I kill a thief once doesn’t make my build a counter to thief, it just means I outplayed them at that time. My point is if you need to get the same results reliably before you can say it’s a counter.

I did not dismiss your point because it is invalid since you use a scenario where you won against a bad player. Winning against a bad player is winning against a bad player — they just do happen to play a Thief — which means, it is not winning against a Thief.

Whether I’m boring or not is ad hominem and is irrelevant to the argument.

The “you’re” in that statement is not personal, it’s a general statement, not you specifically. I’ll use 3rd person next time, my bad.

If I just manage to run away from a medi guard, it doesn’t change the fact the medi guard just handed my kitten to me on a plate.

That’s because Medi Guard is a counter to Thief. Engi is not.

If I run away from an Engi, it’s because I got bored. They rely so much me attacking them that they do nothing on their own.

My point is simply that just because thief is one of the only classes that CAN run from a bad encounter, doesn’t mean you counter him any less if you have to fight. Since the entire idea of a counter assumes that you have to fight in the first place, deciding that something counters you less because you can simply run away makes absolutely no sense, which is what some earlier posters were saying.

Part of countering a Thief is to prevent them from running away in the first place. If any profession failed on doing that, then the profession or build is NOT a counter.

Engi cannot catch a Thief, thus they are not a counter, compare to Medi Guard, who can also teleport and maintain the pressure on the Thief until the Thief die.

I don’t know how I can say it any clearer than that, so we may have to agree to disagree.

What’s clear is that you believe that as long as you make the Thief go away it means that you have countered them…this is nowhere closer from the truth.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

My point is that if a certain build has all the tools available to counter the mechanics of another, it’s a counter to that build. Condi engi vs thief fits that imo, but that may be subjective.

My point is, that is not necessarily true. Using the Engi as an example, just because he refuses to die doesn’t necessarily means his build is a counter to Thief only because the Thief can choose not to attack and the Engi does nothing.

At least we agree on medi guard :P

Yes, we do. Medi Guard has the ability to put Thief in the defensive that even if the Thief choose not to attack, the Guard will just beat on their face. Engi is too sluggish to do that to a Thief.

There’s still a problem in your logic though: killing a thief isn’t a hard counter. I’ve killed 2 rangers 2v1 on a plex apothecary engi, but I wouldn’t by any stretch say that my build hard counters rangers, or even that my build was any more than a failed experiment in trolling. All it really shows is that I know how to LoS and they were dumb enough to stand in my bombs and kept attacking with 15 stacks of confusion on them (I kinda see your point with condi engi now i’ve written that, fair enough).

When we talk about counters, we’re talking about all party involves are competent. Your example is invalid since you use incompetent players to support your point.

What I think you mean that if a build RELIABLY forces another to run or die, it’s a counter. Which is pretty much what I said in my first post.

No, that’s not what I mean at all. When someone runs from you, how do you then know that you countered them and not that they got bored and need to take a nap?

The only reliable evidence that you have successfully countered them is when you stab their dead corpse with a banner of victory — otherwise, it’s wishful thinking.

Tldr: the thief ran, big whoop. Doesn’t change whether your build is a counter to theirs or not, it only means the thief realised how much you counter them.

Keep on believing that while the reality is that you’re boring.

The Thief can’t kill you, you can’t kill the Thief = boring, waste of time.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Just putting this out there, but any build where the standard advice for fighting it is ‘run’, is generally seen as a counter. The fact we as thieves are very good at running is actually irrelevant: if we have minimal chances of winning against build X, and are forced to run or die, it’s a counter. If you failed to catch us when we were on the ropes then that’s your problem.

That being said, a competent medi guard or condi engi will likely counter a thief with little problems, due to the large amount of sustain, CC and hard to avoid damage available to both builds.

Letting a Thief run away is not a hard counter.

Bunkering is not a hard counter.

Refusing to die is never a hard counter.

Therefore, a condi Engi is never a hard counter; it doesn’t matter how competent the Engi is, they will only kill an incompetent Thief.

Killing a Thief IS a hard counter and only Medi Guard can successfully do this based on my experience.

EremiteAngel.9765:

from the posts, it seems like there are two hardcounters to a thief.

Medi Guardian
and
Condi Engineer

My question is condi engineer. why specifically engineer? can it be condi mesmer? or condi necro? or condi ranger? or condi guardian?

and if it is the condi that is hardcountering the thief, is it a case of the thief not building himself to have some condi clear abilities?

Personally I run around with condi necro and have fought thieves who know how to clear condi.

Condi Engi is NOT a hard counter to Thief.

Learn how to use your Shortbow and they are nothing to be bothered with.

Engineers aren’t very mobile and can be easily CC’d using a shortbow. The only time a Thief will die against an Engi of any build is when the Thief becomes impatient and has the illusion of grandeur —who jumps in the middle of a turret firing squad while being exploded by bombs or granades.

Shortbow’s projectile can travel further than 900 and some skills have a blast radius that further extend the range.

The typical result against an Engi is a stalemate — it’s boring and I usually never bother with them.

Medi Guardian on the other hand is a beast with AoE, burning, and insane gap closer.

Kury.8210:

Thief specialization name: Dragonshooter. Gotta stick to the set precedent.

More like Dragonbait…

Perma-Revealed and stealthless Backstab…makes more sense.

yolo swaggins.2570:

• Focus is a maybe because foci are used to channel magicks. Thief is a magical class but it’s application and interaction within combat is more physical. However, the difference in playstyle between a more magical role and a physical role is small. Focus could be designed as a way to manipulate smoke (and maybe fire) to offer more defenses. So it is possible.

Arcane Thief…steals magic, drains death shrouds, depletes adrenaline, and shatter’s clone without effects.

Focus
Skill #4 – Shadow Stitch – Target is immobilized for 5s. If immobilized is cleansed, target is knocked down for 2s.

Skill #5 – Shadow Clone – Create a Shadow Clone. All damage dealt to you while shadow clone is active is dealt to the clone and you receive 50% of the damage dealt instead.

D/F
Skill #3 – Steal Power – Infuse your dagger with shadow magic then stab your target. Steal target of energy that reset target’s current death shroud or adrenaline or clone count to zero. Damage increase based on the amount drained from target.

S/F
Skill #3 – Rend Shadow – Slash your foe and infuse shadow magic to the wound. Target receive 3 stacks of Torment and 3 stacks of Bleeding for 10s.

P/F
Skill #3 – Shadow Armor – Absorb the next 3 non-physical damage and shoot your target with a bullet infused of all damage absorbed.

DeceiverX.8361:

Condition clearing has to be made more accessible, and/or health pools need to increase.

Practiced Tolerance will get a buff from 7% vit to 10% vit.

Especially with the absolutely absurd incoming buffs to condi builds and some of the conditions that the thief kit simply has very tough times dealing with, such as confusion and torment (cannot be removed by HiS/Pain Response).

Tricks will have condition removal when spec’d to Trickster so Withdraw, which will be a Trick skill class, will remove movement impairs + x condition(s) (not sure how many conditions yet).

So it seems that ArenaNet is aware of these imbalances and giving us more access to cleanse and vitality.

Cronicle.5691:

Thieves, from a class design perspective, are the masters of close combat, tricks, stealth, mobility, and control. If we look at our current weapon sets we are very spread out in that field from Conditions, hybrids, power play. What thieves have which most of is their ability to get close to a target quickly. Therefor eliminating the need for a long range weapon such as rifle and long bow.

This is a complete nonsense. If you really believe that “design perspective” then it should also apply to both Guardian and Warrior, which are more well armored for close combat. Yet, Warrior get both Rifle and Longbow and Guardian will get Longbow.

The only real change that will eliminate the need for long ranged weapon is if;
1) Steal is 1200 range
2) Shadowstep doesn’t require pathing, meaning I can shadowstep to a LB Ranger up the ledge by making Thief a Physical Projectile.
3) Remove Revealed

With no response to both long range and elevated targets, Thief has nothing other than a worthless stealth that is more punishing than saving just to get closer.

Anet nerfed the range of Clusterbomb from 1200 to 900 to put in the level of the rest of its skills. I do not believe that Anet would want to give thieves the power that rangers and warriors have of “long range” sniping as stealth alone is deadly enough to get in close and do some hard hitting. Combine stealth with long range and we might break the game (Or not, again im just speculating).

If stealth lasts for 10 seconds and it doens’t give Revealed, then I would agree with you.

So it could be plausible that thief might revisit or fuse more with the Assassin class from gw1. (~snip~)Now i am not going to speculate on what these utility skills will do although i have a lot of suggestions, i would much rather focus on why these set of skills could further influence the idea on which weapon set we will get. And this would be the staff.

How did you go from saying a Thief/Assassin fusion to a profession using a staff?

The only logical connection to thif fusion is the use of Greatsword.

Shadow arts was a form of control of ether which let the user manipulate shadows to move around or control. Which would be a great use for a manipulation skill and Staff.

Sounds more a Greatsword fit to me. Or a Rifle, used as a control based weapon causing Daze, Immobilize, Disarm(new skill that disables weapon skills for 2 seconds), etc.

And this would give thieves something new, and something that we need. Casting, range, control, and well fits in to a theme that i my self find most suitable and authentic to the thief as a class.

You’re actually on to something here, but not as a staff Thief but a off-hand Focus Thief.

In some fantasy game, there is an Arcane Thief that uses a focus, mostly an Orb, to steal magic.

If the Thief will have a Focus with skills that can counter any spells or remove (steal) buffs, then I might be even interested on seeing that kind of Elite Spec.

I like where this is going.

What are your thoughts on this matter and why? Do you have other ideas and arguments which could lead to why thief might get a different weapon set like scepter, mace, torch or even greatsword? Remember that our current spec lines could/will have synergy with our elite spec and our utility skills will too compliment them.

You’ve convinced me. Now I want an Arcane Thief that steals magic. go go.

Katalos.5038:

tl;dr: I think leveling in GW2 is way too easy, what do you guys think?

You need to consider that GW2 is rated Teen, meaning you need to be at least 13yo to play. So for someone who is 13 with no MMO experience, GW2 is too hard, thus we’re seeing a lot of dumbing down in the starter area to get this player demographic up and running.

scarydogie.3024:

Mordecai.6318:

T raw.4658:

People not realizing that the stealth on steal trait will be used a lot after hot are funny.

This needs to be a priority fix ladies

So useful its not even in the SA traitline for HoT.
http://dulfy.net/2015/04/25/gw2-core-specializations/#Thief

Descent of Shadows: Master V: Release a blinding powder when you steal or take falling damage. You take 50% less damage from falling.

In your defense its not the easiest thing to pick out

Stealth on steal is not even close to being the same as “release blinding powder” on steal.

It may appear that way, but they are not the same.

Look at it this way;

Steal —> BP = Steal —> Hidden Thief + Cloaked in Shadow

yolo swaggins.2570:

I am glad I am not in charge at anet. I would have shut this kind of behavior down years ago.

You can’t shut down “cluelessness” and playing the profession doesn’t really help them.

Are you playing in the tournament Krono? If so, what team?

I like your play style…I might just watch you more.

I only use this rune for my Thief so I wasn’t aware that other prof can do this.

Thank you, both. +1

Consider this question answered.