Guild Wars 2

The dishonesty. It really is astounding.

Rezzet.3614:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Saturn.6591:

Mimizu.7340:

As Mungrul points out, the players who have multiple legendaries, ascended etc have the easiest combat in the game. Therefore making them as far from the best players as possible. The best players are those who do the same content without all the window dressing.

Well now you’re wrong. Of course it’s easier to fight in exotics than to fight in greens or blues; but that doesn’t mean that someone who usually fights in exotics is less skilled than someone who usually fights in greens. The person in exotics could maybe do better in greens than the person who always wears greens. What tier of gear you’re wearing doesn’t tell anything about how skilled you are; it just means the fights are a little bit easier for you by default.

You missed the point. Imagine if your car is in auto-pilot, when your auto-pilot goes down, you’re the worst driver in the world — since you’ve been accustomed to have the driving done for you — compare to a driver who drove their own car every time.

I think the point here is experience. With high end gears, you are less likely to use your skills, thus you’re not improving your play style and not gaining a lot of player experience.

therefore pooor people= skill masters?
aww yiss i must be a grandmaster engineer running with blues and greens and doing dungeons and wvw just fine

So you mean to tell me that you can’t afford Yellow (rare) gears? Don’t be ridiculous.

I have full rare gears from Order of Whispers before I even have my hand on Exotic gears, and yes, I ran dungeons with them just fine.

Dahkeus.8243:

I don’t see what all the controversy is with this trait.

If your group is stacking 25 stacks of vuln, then swap out Sundering Strikes for Mug on boss fights. On trash fights, I can’t think of a reason to not take this trait, particularly since it works so well with S/P.

If your group is already stacking 25, that’s more than enough reason for you not to take Sundering Strikes even for trash regardless if it works well with S/P. Your group can already do it without your SS — that’s how useless this trait is.

Saturn.6591:

Mimizu.7340:

As Mungrul points out, the players who have multiple legendaries, ascended etc have the easiest combat in the game. Therefore making them as far from the best players as possible. The best players are those who do the same content without all the window dressing.

Well now you’re wrong. Of course it’s easier to fight in exotics than to fight in greens or blues; but that doesn’t mean that someone who usually fights in exotics is less skilled than someone who usually fights in greens. The person in exotics could maybe do better in greens than the person who always wears greens. What tier of gear you’re wearing doesn’t tell anything about how skilled you are; it just means the fights are a little bit easier for you by default.

You missed the point. Imagine if your car is in auto-pilot, when your auto-pilot goes down, you’re the worst driver in the world — since you’ve been accustomed to have the driving done for you — compare to a driver who drove their own car every time.

I think the point here is experience. With high end gears, you are less likely to use your skills, thus you’re not improving your play style and not gaining a lot of player experience.

Several online games have been DDOS lately and those unemployed hackers might have been targeting Anet also. Someone need to hire these people.

Source: http://threatpost.com/us-cert-warns-of-ntp-amplification-attacks/103573

Defensible? You said that you can stack Vul 4-5 stacks but when I told you that the duration is crap against Unshakable mob, you go on ad hom mode by saying it’s a personal problem. lol.

You don’t even see how dishonest you are, I’m just being kind to even discuss something with you.

EDIT: In addition, everyone knows that 3s duration in practice is really only 1s due to lag and skill pre-cast/after cast delay.

Too much dishonesty, it’s mind boggling.

Geiir.7603:

1. Stealth can’t stack.
At least not stealth from weapon skills and combos. This would fix the number one problem that people have with the thief; dagger/pistol. It’s really the only weapon set that people complain about, and it’s by far the ultimate troll set in this game. Access to stealth on-demand that doesn’t require any skill at all to use? I find it cheesy and unnecessary.

If the D/P set is the problem, then only fix D/P.

Keep in mind that stealth is not exclusive to Thief alone and any profession who leap through a smoke field will go on stealth.

2. Revealed debuff when leaving stealth.
This is a huge one, and some of you might think I’m crazy, but read it through please. I want the “Revealed” debuff to be applied every time the thief leave stealth, wether he attack or not. This would really, and I mean really, force the thief to be more tactical and think twice before stealthing. We either have to run, or we have to attack.

If this happen, I would like my armor converted to Heavy and have access to buffs like Protection, Aegis, and Regen — else, no deal.

You’re too narrow-minded in your views on why Thieves have stealth.

3. Cancel channeled attacks
This has bugged me since the beta. When I disappear I find it stupid that AI should still find me and that channeled skills still hit and follow me when I’ve moved. This really need to be fixed.

I don’t have a problem with this. If you look at the big picture, you might think that Unload should be canceled, I agree since it requires visual target, but what about Arc Lightning and Life Siphon? Once these skill connects, it doesn’t really matter if you’re stealth or not.

4. Revert the Revealed change in sPvP
No need to explain. The 4 seconds doesn’t match any AA chains and doesn’t “flow” the same way. It’s a huge change from PvE and WvW and the whole thief doesn’t feel the same in sPvP because of this.

4s never bothered me since we have shadowstep, steal, and blind. The issue with sPvP is that some profession can build tanky and still deal a lot of damage.

Another problem is that the unfolding of the story takes way too long. For quaggan’s sake, it’s been over a year and still not done? I can read a book within a month, sometimes sooner if the book is something I cannot put down. It shouldn’t last longer than a month because they will lose the interest of the players. The same reason I don’t watch T.V. Series, I wait until the whole season is in Netflix and watch it as if I’m reading a book. So, stretching the story throughout the year is absurd.

They should have just release it like the living story where players can complete it whenever they want. That even if they took a long break from the game, they can pick up the story where they left off and not miss out on both story and rewards.

Interceptor.2653:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The difference is the base 10s duration that you can stretch longer with condition duration. It simply scales better even with the 1s ICD, which is negligible having 100% crit chance.

I didn’t ask what the difference was, I asked what the purpose was. Vulnerability has no secondary effects; it just increases direct damage. You want to get as many stacks as quickly as possible, because time spending build stacks is time when direct damage isn’t being amplified. A perfect snowflake situation with long-lasting Vuln stacks isn’t very useful when the mob is dead by the time you actually get there.

Here we go again. Just because you don’t know the purpose doesn’t make “long-lasting Vuln stacks isn’t very useful.”

Even one stack of a long-lasting condition is useful — I’ll leave you to figure that out.

The old style SS was crippled by the ICD. That meant no cleave bonuses, and the low 33% proc rate even meant that 100% crit rate couldn’t even guarantee you’d activate the trait inside the window.

The ICD was never an issue but I agree that it’s even better without it. 33% proc rate is never an issue either, and again, I agree that it’s even better with 50%.

You see that window it too short to capitalize on the damage bonus granted by Vulnerability. I’d rather have someone else apply the Vulnerability than spec-ing for Sundering Strikes myself.

At least now, when I slot SS and push S/P #3 with a high crit rate, my party can get a good 4-5 stacks for several seconds. It’s even burstable up to double digit stacks for short timeframes.

If you’re in a party, there are other professions that can apply it with better duration.

Sure, it’d be better if it was 8s instead of 6s, but that’s not on the table. Strictly comparing the old version to the new one, the rework is considerably better overall, to the point where reasonable people are actually using it. It’s nice that Deadly Arts now has more than one or two viable Adept traits.

Look at it this way, against a Champion with Unshakable buff, that 6s is only 3s — you can’t even take advantage of that ridiculous short window.

The problem with Anet is that they are trying to achieve something akin to Game of Thrones, where viewer are not participating in the story — 3rd person point of view.

While what they should focus on the style of telling story akin to Sherlock Holmes, because to be honest, we, the players, are more like Dr. Watson.

The main issue with Anet is the same issue movies face when they are trying to create a film based on a book. The book has many more detail that a movie simply cannot produce within their target budget or scheduled deadline. Same goes with Anet admitting that they have to cut some things to meet deadlines that in their mind, the story is great, but during game play, it’s incomplete.

I think they recognize that mistake that having to cut certain part of the story to meet the deadline leaves player scratching their head in confusion.

Very seldom that a movie can capture the essence of the book and not ruin it.

Interceptor.2653:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The pre-Dec10 update was perfect with 33% chance and 10s duration.

Perfectly pointless to spec in, maybe. The 1s ICD killed the trait. What’s the purpose of a slow burn of Vulnerability stacks?

The new version at least allows you to get a lot of stacks out there quickly, which gives you something useful to do with it. SS is very good with Pistol Whip builds that have high crit chance; not just for the hit density, but also the cleave.

The difference is the base 10s duration that you can stretch longer with condition duration. It simply scales better even with the 1s ICD, which is negligible having 100% crit chance.

The current 6s base duration scales horribly even with condition duration items.

The 50% chance and the removal of ICD is nice, but 6s is just too low. 8s would have been reasonable.

The heal on dodge/evade sounds like Withdraw.

Impact.2780:

You’re just as out of luck with cloak and dagger missing when using it for sustained heal with Shadow’s Rejuvenation. If you’re using that sequence, the steps to heal are the same.
Difference is just Assassin’s Reward will heal for more if you don’t stay in stealth for 1 second or more, and will heal when the 2,3,4 skills are also used, while Shadow’s Rejuvenation can heal you while you reposition or drop aggro (obviously stealthed first) and activated through non-weapon stealth-granting skills.

The main issue I had with AR in dungeons is when your target puts up Retaliation which cancels the heal you get from AR especially when you really need the heal. Also when I get stacks of confusion and there’s no way to heal myself through AR. With SR, I can sacrifice a hit from confusion to go in stealth and heal.

I don’t intend to tell people where they should and shouldn’t put their points, so I don’t care if someone tries to pick a fight with me over placing points in Acrobatics. The most I’d do is justify my own preferences. If I am in an argument and stop responding, it’ll be because the other party is repeating arguments I’ve already dismissed. and I’ve acknowledged that the discussion isn’t going anywhere as a result (i.e constructive discussion ended with the last constructive response, meaning the other party is the one that stopped taking part). That type of person will assume they’ve won regardless – too stubborn to consider other views properly, or blindly following someone else’s comments who they believe is always right – so it ultimately makes no difference to the end result if I stop replying. Those who have the capacity for reason will be able to draw their own conclusions logically, instead of “that person got the last post so he must be right.”

I also don’t get the notion about “winning” and “losing” since it’s not a competition. We’re just having a friendly, although sometimes disagreeing, discussion.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Right now, she is perceived to be insane and delusional, and that’s a really bad character building if she turns out to be the one trying to save Tyria — only misunderstood because of her radical ways.

Why do I think her version of “saving Tyria” has more in common with Maester Seymour’s method of “saving Spira”?

That’s a typical cliche twist in many stories — bad buy turned savior.

You don’t get the reference.

That’s okay, nobody really played Final Fantasy 10 either

I get it, I have FFX in my PS2.

But the reference doesn’t start/stop there since it is a typical “misunderstood good guy” or “bad guy turned savior” cliche.

We’ve seen this in books and movies like Snape in Harry Potter, Doc. Oct in Spiderman 2 movie, and Laxus in Fairy Tail.

Typical.

edit: my brother’s gonna kill me for misspelling “tail”.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Right now, she is perceived to be insane and delusional, and that’s a really bad character building if she turns out to be the one trying to save Tyria — only misunderstood because of her radical ways.

Why do I think her version of “saving Tyria” has more in common with Maester Seymour’s method of “saving Spira”?

That’s a typical cliche twist in many stories — bad guy turned savior.

edit: typo

Darkstar.6178:

To my mind, this says only that they wanted to make it complex and keep people guessing. Well, they kinda did that…I saw a lot of people stating “I wonder what Scarlet is doing with these things this time.” Just because we know who is behind it doesn’t mean we know how things are going to work out, or really even WHY she is doing it.

There’s a major difference between “keeping people guessing” and “keeping people confused”.

We already know WHY she is doing the things she does, she tells us about it all the time — its what she saw during her delusional, drug-induced state. How much of what she saw is true — who knows? not enough clue to even start speculating about that.

Right now, she is perceived to be insane and delusional, and that’s a really bad character building if she turns out to be the one trying to save Tyria — only misunderstood because of her radical ways.

Impact.2780:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Shadow’s Rejuvenation is better since it basically a “time out” to allow your other party members the chance to stack up a lot of aggro while you’re in stealth. Assassin’s Reward encourages you to continue attacking because that’s the only way you get the benefit, meaning, you’ll never going to drop aggro unless you choose to stop attacking — meaning you’re not benefiting from AR.

The dilemma is, you’d need Warriors in your group out damaging you to keep aggro off of you just to take advantage of AR — but if a Warrior is out damaging you, you’ll never find a group in pugs. :/

Well, you can use cloak and dagger + back stab with Assassin’s Reward for healing just like you’d do it for Shadow’s Rejuvenation (although not sustained unless you take Infusion of Shadow, which if you do you might as well take Shadows Rejuvenation lol).

You can’t really benefit from AR if you’d be doing CnD+BS since only CnD will heal you and if that misses, you’re SoL. If AR heals on percentage based, it would be nice because it synergize with traiting in Acro. More HP = more heal from AR.

Unfortunate, we got what we got.

Assassin’s Reward was never that popular though because you pick up better traits along the way to Shadow’s Rejuvenation (such as In fusion of Shadow, Shadow’s Embrace, Shadow Protector). Shadow Arts offers reliable condition removal, while in Acrobatics it’s automatically triggered at a certain state and has a long cool down.

I totally agree, but beware that you’re in for a long discussion how good it is to spec Acro and when you stop arguing because you can’t take the B.S. anymore, you’d be perceived as the loser. You have been warned.

Ironically, the devs seemed to want to promote Assassin’s Reward, yet it was used more before they attempted to promote it by moving it up a tier. In some builds it was a viable alternative when you only have 20 points to spend on survival.

I tried any build and I’ve never seen Assassin’s Reward as top pick for 20Acro. Pain Response obviously trumps it for healing capability. They move AR in GM so that Acrobats can spec for PR and AR, but sadly, that’s not what’s going on. Players are spec-ing Hard to Catch and AR (sarcasm). lol.

Seriously though, if AR is percentage base, I would drop SA, pick up 30Acro and switch my gear from Vitality to Toughness.

A good warrior will likely be able to out damage a thief any time, if not match it.. Thief damage was constantly nerfed for being seen as ‘OP’ when the reality was thieves were just using full offensive gear all the time to capitalise on the only role the class has.. so now it’s essentially a gimmicky mini warrior in terms of usefulness in PVE (and of course group stealth for trash).

…and stealth revive. We’re Medical Ninjas now.

tattoohead.3217:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

@OP
I commend the effort but that’s not the right solution, unfortunately.

If you make Revealed 10s, you are removing the Stealth Attack from being viable and breaking a lot of Thief builds. You did not address this issue.

What needs to happen to reduce the reliance on stealth is to change Stealth Attack to Flanking Attack — meaning it doesn’t require stealth and can only be used if attacking from side or back of target. Of course, you get 360 degree flanking status when in stealth, thus you can use the skill even if you’re in front of the enemy.

If Anet do this, there will be more builds not relying on stealth because even if they make stealth non-stackable and 10s revealed like you suggested, it wouldn’t matter much because it will not lock us out from our best source of burst damage.

We can adapt when it comes to survivability, what we cannot handle is the continue nerfing of our damage, our broken animations, and buggy skill/trait functionality.

Yeah be sure to add in a CD (a long one) and your golden “Backstab” should just require a back… its not called “Stealthstab”

“Backstab” is possible in front, side, and back especially how the Thieves hold their daggers. Of course a cool down will be in place if it is done without stealth, but if done with stealth, it ignores cool down. Also it would not be possible to gain the flanking status while revealed to prevent a double backstabs. All those fine tuning and balance will be done later anyway.

OIIIIIO.7825:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You’re better off with Corrosive Traps (5stacks/trap @ 8s-10s) than taking Sundering Strikes (50% on crit = 1 stack @ 6s-8s) — that’s how horrible it is.

I consider this post to be of no value based on the accepted view that thief traps are a waste of a utility slot. I have seen two traps used in PvE

1. Ambush Trap for DPS (Better options are available)
2. Shadow Trap for Solo bomb running in the Dredge Fractal

I would advise the OP to not consider corrosive traps.

I see why you think that way, but I wasn’t advising the OP to take Corrosive Traps — I’m merely using it as comparison.

Traps are waste of utility slots, as you said, but if Corrosive Traps stacks better vulnerability and have better duration than Sundering Strikes, that makes Sundering Strikes worst than a waste of utility slots.

The only real viable trait for 10DA is Mug — others are build specific.

When I am in PvE I have 100% Crit Chance and the Vulnerability from this trait far surpasses Corrosive Traps in terms of group utility.

Unless you build heavy on condition duration, you’re lucky if you can stack more than 5 stacks of vulnerability.

The pre-Dec10 update was perfect with 33% chance and 10s duration.

In case you were curious about the skale Venom
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skale_Venom_

There is a quest chain you have to do to unlock the merchant but it’s short and worth it.

I like Skale Venom and that’s how vulnerability is suppose to be, to have long base duration.

Galen Grey.4709:

I honestly cannot understand why people think its so far fetched for Anet to release now zones / contents / races!

why the skeptism, they’ve said they’re going to do it from day one.

what are people skeptical about? that they dont have the know how? ability? motivation? I just dont get it

Well, the last time I believe on what they advertise (a.k.a the Manifesto), I didn’t really received what they said they will do.

Up until now, the bugs that plagues the professions still exist. If they fix the game as fast as they develop the Living Story, it would be nice.

But the inconsistencies in what they said and what they do leaves a huge room for skepticism.

If they say, “it’s ready when it’s ready.”
I say, “it’s B.S. until we see it in game.”

This look promising;

“… but we absolutely are going to do sweeping new features that you would traditionally only get in expansions – large regions, content and progression additions to your characters in the form of growth and professions and races. Those are all things that you will see in the lifespan of Guild Wars 2.”

But how much of that is “dream” vs “reality” is yet to be seen.

Impact.2780:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I was talking about PvE and fractals, of course it’s about ascended gears. And it is toughness and NOT armor. Someone showed me a build they use in fractals and I still have the link to that build. It’s a crazy build with focus on surviving high level fractals.

But like I said, by traiting into SA, you can focus on Power build instead.

EDIT: Here’s the build. This is not my build, it was argued to me that it’s the best in fractals.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAsa6aEFnTIbPqQAgn8KQWdPAAAoqA-jACBojDimIYQ0pmCiZnKrlRFRjVrETDjIq2erIa1SB8ryI-e

Still, take away the 916 base toughness and you have only 1288 from gear =P.

Well then, let me rephrase;

“Someone will then argue that Acro build is supplemented with 2200 toughness (base+gear)…”

Much better I hope. >.<’

I can’t see that build getting many votes for being the best in fractals, but if it works for the type of group composition you and your friend run with, then it can’t be called bad!

I don’t agree with it either, but I understand the main idea of “not dying = more dps” and when this build gets 25 stacks of Might, it’s hard to believe the damage and the survivability. It’s crazy.

The reasoning behind it is that damage output is easier to supplement through buffs and when the buff falls off, it’s no big deal. But if you rely on buffs for survival, then when it falls off, you’re in trouble.

And yes it’s all about the group composition.

I prefer to use stealth+backstab and attacks with good synergy with signet of malice in fractals. As armour increases, each point becomes less effective, so there comes a point where acquiring additional healing, and increasing the effectiveness of your heals becomes more beneficial than increasing armour further.

Yes, I do think on the same line that’s why I think that it’s better to spec SA than Acro even if you’re not a stealther.

So in terms of what’s ‘best’ or ‘optimal’ for survival, you’d take Assassin’s Reward or Shadows Rejuvenation before reaching such high armour.

Shadow’s Rejuvenation is better since it basically a “time out” to allow your other party members the chance to stack up a lot of aggro while you’re in stealth. Assassin’s Reward encourages you to continue attacking because that’s the only way you get the benefit, meaning, you’ll never going to drop aggro unless you choose to stop attacking — meaning you’re not benefiting from AR.

The dilemma is, you’d need Warriors in your group out damaging you to keep aggro off of you just to take advantage of AR — but if a Warrior is out damaging you, you’ll never find a group in pugs. :/

Impact.2780:

@Sir Vincent III
You must mean armour. The highest toughness a thief can get from gear (so excluding traits) is 1312, which with the 916 base becomes 2228. That’s barely above 2200 IF you’re including the base toughness (which isn’t from gear!), and requires ascended weapons, armour, trinkets, and toughness runes and infusions.

I was talking about PvE and fractals, of course it’s about ascended gears. And it is toughness and NOT armor. Someone showed me a build they use in fractals and I still have the link to that build. It’s a crazy build with focus on surviving high level fractals.

But like I said, by traiting into SA, you can focus on Power build instead.

EDIT: Here’s the build. This is not my build, it was argued to me that it’s the best in fractals.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAsa6aEFnTIbPqQAgn8KQWdPAAAoqA-jACBojDimIYQ0pmCiZnKrlRFRjVrETDjIq2erIa1SB8ryI-e

I think you’re better off with Butter nut squash than with ravioli since I don’t think with this build that you’re going to be auto-attacking a lot. You’re better off with Power food than with Precision food so your 117% crit damage will hurt even more.

It’s a strong build IMO.

^ Wow, get over yourself.

If you want to see the build, all you have to do is ask and not discredit yourself by using ad hom.

Interceptor.2653:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Someone will argue that actively dodging is an active play style […]
Someone will then argue that Acro build is supplemented with 2400 toughness from gear […]

Whew, someone is apparently still smarting over being exposed as a non-Acrobatics Thief, and losing an argument badly, if he’s bringing up WvW points in a thread that’s specifically about PvE. Things that apply in WvW (baiting cooldowns from people with a dodge style) don’t apply the same way in PvE against monster AI, obviously.

And it’s 2400 Armor from gear, not 2400 Toughness. Lord. At least get your terminology correct. Weasel wording should be infractable, really.

What makes you think I was talking about you? You’re not that important.

I post toughness because it’s toughness NOT armor. But you’re right, it’s not 2400, I exaggerated, it’s actually 2200 toughness.

You’re better off with Corrosive Traps (5stacks/trap @ 8s-10s) than taking Sundering Strikes (50% on crit = 1 stack @ 6s-8s) — that’s how horrible it is.

Potato.7318:

I was wondering where s/d finds it’s place in PvE, especially with the Nerf to infiltrator’s return and since I like to run a lot of dungeons and fractals, with pugs. :/

S/D is great in dredge fractals since there’s a lot of boons to steal. Other than this, you really have to bring the appropriate weapon, like in the Grawl fractal, S/D sucks.

Sword/pistol does really well against multiple enemies with cleave and aoe blinds.

Yup S/P is great due to PW and blind. PW is great at taking out structures.

I’m not sure why people trait into SA with s/d. This is why I’d rather use s/p.

Traiting SA is about staying power vs super dodging from Acrobat. When we dodge, we don’t do damage. Someone will argue that actively dodging is an active play style even being active is about actively participating in combat like dealing damage or party buffs.

Active playstyle is what put you in the loot/aggro table.

So to minimize the drop in DPS, SA is necessary to give S/D staying power before needing to heal or stealth/reset.

However if you also believe that traiting Acro for dodge and Withdraw for more dodge is your play style, then yes SA would not make any sense.

Sure enough that Acro provides a lot of reason to dodge and every evasion from Withdraw will heal you more, but every time you do this, you’re dropping lower and lower in the loot table.

Someone will then argue that Acro build is supplemented with 2400 toughness from gear, then if that is the case, we wouldn’t need to dodge often or heal often, so having traits in Acro more than 15 and bringing Withdraw wouldn’t make any sense.

Nevetheless, if you gear towards Power instead of 2400 toughness (which you should), traiting for SA is the only line that will provide you with staying power.

D/d performs really well against single target with high DMG with c&d and backstab and aggro drop with stealth if you are with other ppl….I might test this but if someone can confirm this then I would gladly use s/d more often.

Larcenous Strike deals a lot of damage and it’s unblockable and it’s more cost effective than CnD->backstab. However, it really depends on what you’re fighting and what you group compo is, that’s why I recommend to bring all weapon set possible.

Bosses typically buff themselves that’s why S/D is a great set to strip the boons off the boss so that your whole group will deal their expected damage.

Sure D/D’s Backstab scales ridiculously high in a group setting, but without stripping the boons from the boss, your damage output is severely kitten. However, if you have a Necro or Mesmer in your group that can strip the boons regularly, you’re better off with D/D than S/D.

The only time I would use s/d is in the dredge and against the monks in the ascalon fractal for the boon steal which is waaay better than the bountiful steal trait.

Totally agree.

Do you guys still use the vigor on healing/stealing anymore?

It depends on your group composition. Normally as a Thief you just focus on staying alive and deal as much damage as possible — and occasionally, when necessary, strip boons. All buffs will be provided for you.

I don’t really find myself stealing very often in dungeons and in fractals too.

15pts in Acro is great, but no more, IMO anyway. I use steal to get to the pesky caster mob at the back. I IF the closest target, then steal to the caster, deal as much damage or kill the annoying mod, then IR before the IF resets to get back where I started.

And you’re right about the cast time on FS and IR, it’s clunky and unreliable. This is due to the after cast and precast delays. There is an after cast delay after the AA chain, then if you try to FS or IR after that, you’ll be standing there doing nothing for 3/4s, due to precast delay, on top of the casting time while getting bashed in the face. Anet really need to fix this.

scabrous.7835:

@vinc
How you play with the weapons is off the topic. I included only DD in the calc for the convenience and I mentioned what weapon sets each spec uses (exactly the same in Wish’s and my spec *wink*wink*).

Yes, I see that, but I am talking about the application of this build. It might look like it will deal a lot of damage, but without having a solution to bunker builds, you’re leaving yourself out to dry.

So even with the same build, but different weapon set, D/D is inferior to S/D when it comes to application.

@OP
I commend the effort but that’s not the right solution, unfortunately.

If you make Revealed 10s, you are removing the Stealth Attack from being viable and breaking a lot of Thief builds. You did not address this issue.

What needs to happen to reduce the reliance on stealth is to change Stealth Attack to Flanking Attack — meaning it doesn’t require stealth and can only be used if attacking from side or back of target. Of course, you get 360 degree flanking status when in stealth, thus you can use the skill even if you’re in front of the enemy.

If Anet do this, there will be more builds not relying on stealth because even if they make stealth non-stackable and 10s revealed like you suggested, it wouldn’t matter much because it will not lock us out from our best source of burst damage.

We can adapt when it comes to survivability, what we cannot handle is the continue nerfing of our damage, our broken animations, and buggy skill/trait functionality.

Shockwave.1230:

Interceptor.2653:

Travlane.5948:

especially when my claim is pretty well known.

Argumentum ad populum. Epic.

This place would be a lot more boring if it weren’t for the fallacies, the playground insults, and the challenges to duels. Only on the Internet.

Is there a fallacy for someone claiming that because something falls under the potential realm of fallacy that the person claiming fallacy in fact falls under a fallacy themselves?

Added
If not it should be called the fallacy of fallacies

Yup, the fallacy fallacy. +1

Not sure what’s the point of this. The reason why Wish’s build uses S/D is to ensure that the damage output is rarely mitigated by stripping boons, while if using D/D, you suffer when your target puts up their defenses — effectively reducing your damage output.

Using D/D with this build you’re relying that your target will not put up a fight. Wish’s build is reliable and keep things somewhat predictable and consistent by having a lot of control using S/D.

Rascalking.9845:

Incurafy.6329:

As far as I’m aware you just get the duration of the boons from the player you stole them from.

Yes, boon duration affects the two trickery steal traits.

I know it affects the vigor/might/fury/swiftness, but does it affect the boons stolen from the enemy?

Since it’s difficult to know the exact boon duration on your target, we really cannot know for sure if our boon duration bonus affects the boon we stole.

But I am under the impression that we are not really stealing the boon per se, rather the boon is removed from the target then we gain a copy of the type of boon with bonuses based on our own stats and the number of stacks.

This is how Bountiful functions so I think it’s safe to assume that LS functions in similar fashion with the additional copying of the number of stacks.

Tachii.3506:

Fleet of foot should have a shorter internal cooldown. Maybe down to 5 seconds or something. 10 seconds is pretty ridiculous considering how fast you can be hit with those conditions.

Why even bother with Fleet of Foot if Pain Response is so godly and is a must have for the health regen even if it failed to remove damaging conditions?

Fleet of Foot needs to get a major buff to compete with the likes of Pain Response. If you are already putting 20 pts into Acro, you must have Pain Response. Someone here is really convince with that.

Proven.2854:

Viking Jorun.5413:

You can’t avoid conditions on you, and chances are if you’re in Acro you’re not in SA, meaning you don’t have much condition removal. I think it would be balanced to add condition removal every 4 or 5 initiative spent on top of the current Assassin’s Reward healing, which would justify it as a grandmaster trait and add sustainability for acrobatics thieves, because in the current state, you’re dodging until you mess up and get bursts down or you kill them fast enough. With condition specs this is an entirely different ordeal, as the damage still ticks down while you’re dodging and healing with Assassin’s Reward.

Pain Response is really strong, if unreliable much of the time. So if they were going to buff Assassin’s Reward with condi removal and it could be stacked with Pain Response, I could see it removing 2-3 conditions every 10 initiative spent, with possibly an internal cooldown on top of it. It’s really harsh, but with a condi removing Assassin’s Reward, Pain Response, Shadowstep return along with either Infiltrator’s Strike return or the condi removing Signet a Thief would have a ton of condi removal and still have 40 trait points to play with.

But a hypothetical Thief running Assassin’s Reward for condi defense couldn’t take both Sleight of Hand and Executioner, so it might be feasible.

Pain Response is a horrible trait. If it functions like Elementalist’s Burning Fire trait (Fire Magic – VIII) then it would be viable to pick up. Having only your current health as the trigger point is really bad.

Triggering the health regen from PR is nice and all, but the real reason someone would pick it up is for the condition removal. There are many ways to heal ourselves, but very limited on removing conditions. I would like to see PR to require at least one active condition before it triggers.

Assassin’s Reward to remove conditions would be a good buff too. I might actually spec for it.

Kaleban.9834:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Kaleban.9834:

~snip~

I had more fun playing WoW, because at least there you had a good chance at high level drops from bosses.

~snip~

Many thing doesn’t hold true in your post, especially this one.

If that is true, then I don’t see why running the dungeons here in GW2 to get badges so that you can purchase the gears you want is not better than running raids in hopes for a high level drops.

It seems that the problem here is your preference and not the game itself.

Respectfully, most of my post is opinion, and what isn’t is in fact true, or are you going to tell me that PvP has several new game modes I’m unaware of and WvW has finally gotten small group/unit engagements to become meta instead of zerging?

Not really sure what other mode are you looking for in PvP. The only thing that is probably missing is the classic GvG, GW1 style. As for WvW, how exactly are you going to implement a small group engagements in an open world PvP?

In PvP servers, you’ll find Horde vs Alliance zergs happening also, that’s the nature of an open world PvP.

And your reference to running the same dungeon over and over for badges is completely missing the point. WoW had a similar system, yet you could still get unique drops available nowhere else. It would be akin to running the Arah dungeon and having a good chance at a precursor drop in addition to badges. If this were the case, people would not be tossing thousands of gold’s worth of exotics into the Mystic Forge in the hopes of a precursor. THAT is seen as a better option, and that is ridiculous.

You see, you reveal the falsehood of your claim. You just admitted that you don’t have to run dungeons to get what you wanted. Compare to WoW, you have to run the raid to get the stuff you want — there’s no alternative.

If people wants to run champion-train to get exotics to use in the Forge instead of running a dungeon, what’s wrong with that? At least you have a choice on which method you prefer.

To me it’s less fun sitting in a LFR or Dungeon Finder queue waiting for a healer or tank because I have to grind for the items I want — talk about boring and a waste of time.

But you might be right. My “preference” is for a game that is dynamic and evolves, and non-dependent on grind to remain competitive.

You see that’s another false statement. You’ve shown your preference to WoW because you find it fun, yet that game is neither dynamic nor it evolves and it is highly depend on grinding. How many weeks does it take to run SoO just to complete your tier set? Not to mention how many times you have to play in the Arena just to compete.

This was what GW2 was initially billed as, what drew me in, and from everything I’ve seen over a year of regular play, the plan has significantly drifted, or evaporated entirely.

Grinding only exist if you choose to grind yourself even though you don’t have to. Getting something shiny is based on RNG and some people are just lucky, not because they are grinding their life away. People choose to grind because they think that it increases their chances on getting the shinies, but it’s all about luck or maybe they really just like to run around with other players killing stuff.

Working 8hrs/day can be a grind too, but if you like what you’re doing and you enjoy working, it’s not even close to grinding.

What I’m wondering is that the thief didn’t switch to shortbow while in stealth and bombard the area with with Chocking Gas. The poison would have reduced the healing efficiency of the Engi plus the poison damage.

I would bet, that Thief is one of those who spec condition duration over condition damage.

Interceptor.2653:

Because in order to benefit from stealth, I have to give up 15 points in Acrobatics and run Hide in Shadows as my heal. HiS has a 30-second cooldown, and isn’t suitable for a build that never fights from stealth in the first place. Why in Tyria would I give up a 15s Withdraw heal on a build that’s running Vigorous Recovery? Especially since I could also have Lyssa runes (for the #4 ability), or be using Hastened Replenishment?

…Acrobatics is an active playstyle: you either want to be fighting, running, or dead.

Seriously? Hastened Replenishment? And that’s your problem. Instead of taking Sleight of Hand and Mug, you rely on Withdraw to heal you.

If you pick up Vampiric, you get a burst heal after landing a back stab using HiS. Acrobatics is not an active playstyle because you rely on dodging as your main source of survival. SA gives your toughness to stay in the fight which reduces the necessity to dodge attack — meaning you’re doing more DPS; because there’s no DPS when you dodge. That’s the common mistake of someone about SA, they jump to conclusion that it’s all about stealthing and sneaking. The combination of toughness and healing power in this trait ensure that you have a lot of staying power.

You don’t always have the freedom to avoid AOEs or no-target skills. Breaking LOS doesn’t mean that you’re playing against an idiot. Stealth offers no protection from these things if someone can guess where you are, or if you don’t actually have a lot of places to move to.

If you have no where to go, how is Withdraw any better? It’s actually even worst because they don’t have to guess where you are.

It’s worth noting here that this illustrates the difference between someone who plays a spec in real life, and someone who only plays it on paper. You would have never made this mistake if you actually used Pain Response yourself on a regular basis: I constantly have Regen for long durations of time because of trait.

Yes, I thought it’s been obvious that I don’t use Pain Response because it is not worth it.

You don’t “suffer” from getting 12+ seconds of Regeneration when someone hits you. The worst case scenario for this trait is that it activates with no conditions and heals you for 1600+ over 12 seconds or more. Worst case!

Yes that is really bad knowing that your condition removal is wasted.

And you choose to supplement the trait’s short coming with these?

- Shadowstep
- Lyssa #6 (Basilisk Venom or Dagger Storm)
- Signet of Agility
- Infiltrator’s Return
- Condi removal on heal from food

Seriously?

Remember: much of the time, Pain Response makes these things unnecessary.

So “much of the time” those skills are just bench-warmers when you could’ve taken something more useful.

The problem comes when you get into long engagements where health is the factor rather than evades. It happens in situations with focus fire, unavoidable AOE damage, inability to disengage (such as during a siege), etc. Mug and a long-cooldown healing skill are not necessarily sufficient.

You see, the reason why this is a problem to you is because you refuse to see the value of stealth.

I apologize.

Apology accepted. In the future, please understand that there is a difference between 1) your best practices, and 2) actual best practices. You can stay out of trouble if you label your opinions as opinions, and avoid making sweeping generalizations about playstyles that you are clearly not familiar with.

You seem to misunderstood what I wrote there.

You have to be a stealther to use stealth as your primary survival mechanic.

No you don’t. That’s your main problem.

A build predicated on condition removal and healing during stealth needs ways to get there. A build designed around staying in combat and hitting people isn’t going to want to spend 15 points on a trait line that they can’t effectively leverage without unraveling their core style.

You got this one backwards. 15pts into SA removes the necessity to dodge attacks. The reason you dodge attacks with Acro build is because even with your boon duration and larger health pool, you’re still taking more damage. The reduces damage from toughness and the increase in healing power traiting to SA is enough to ensure that dodging an attack is less necessary — meaning you are dealing more damage.

The main test of survivability is how much punishment you can take before you would have to heal yourself. Dodging, evading and rolling away to heal all over the place every so often as a choice for survival is not survival — you are avoiding getting hit because you cannot survive it.

Kaleban.9834:

~snip~

I had more fun playing WoW, because at least there you had a good chance at high level drops from bosses.

~snip~

Many thing doesn’t hold true in your post, especially this one.

If that is true, then I don’t see why running the dungeons here in GW2 to get badges so that you can purchase the gears you want is not better than running raids in hopes for a high level drops.

It seems that the problem here is your preference and not the game itself.

Swagger.1459:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Any thief who cares about their class will stop replying and let this thread die. It’s not happening, OP.

What you’re really saying is, “I’d prefer professions, including thief, remain stagnant so don’t contribute to a topic that tackles real balance and growth preventing issues.”.

You fail to see the sarcasm on this thread.

Elthurien.8356:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Elthurien.8356:

I really think Caltrops should have been updated when Torment was introduced to the game. Instead of a double bleed stack it should do one bleed and one torment to simulate how painful it is to continue running around with shards of steel embedded in your foot.

The thing about Torment is that, it’s an effect that is not physical unlike Bleed, Poison, and Burning. I believe this is the reason why Hide in Shadow doesn’t remove Torment because it’s more like an illusion or mental effect than physical.

So having Torment in Caltrops just doesn’t make sense unless of course we coat the Caltrops with hallucinogen venom to induce Tormenting images to the victim.

Yeah I understand that is what they had in mind with the hallucination, but if you look at how torment actually works, it actually makes more sense (to me at least) that torment is just a painful wound that hurts more and does more damage when you move. There is so many possibilities for torment to be used in a fantasy setting, from open wounds that get worse with movement (such as that caused by caltrops), to fractured bones, sprained ankles, haemotoxins, spells or hexes that wither or twist limbs.

It would require a really deep wound to cause more damage when moving and Caltrops doesn’t deal deep wounds. Actually, poison should deal more damage when moving because it causes the poison to travel faster in the blood steam and will then start damaging your organs. Like I said, unless Caltrops has some kind of venom, the Torment mechanics doesn’t make sense.

S/D = Boon stripper. That’s it.

It used to be a nice weapon set until Anet butchered it to uselessness.

frans.8092:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

If these are not enough, there’s always the pre-cast and after-cast delay that we can add to further nerf this weapon’s skills.

Using a shortbow should knock a thief down every shot. Using pistols should too, we’re squishy thieves after all, no meat or mass.

Ah yes, launching us backwards for every shot. That’s the way to do it.

That’s a P/D condition build. That’s the only reason the fight took that long. If you are fighting against an S/D build, you’ll regret having so many buffs on you. lol

keenlam.4753:

@ Sir Vincent III: you can vote for both, fyi.

Then,

StickerHappy’s Phantasmic Interruptions +1

Chaos’ Shatterlock +1

:)

Einlanzer.1627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Elthurien.8356:

I really think Caltrops should have been updated when Torment was introduced to the game. Instead of a double bleed stack it should do one bleed and one torment to simulate how painful it is to continue running around with shards of steel embedded in your foot.

The thing about Torment is that, it’s an effect that is not physical unlike Bleed, Poison, and Burning. I believe this is the reason why Hide in Shadow doesn’t remove Torment because it’s more like an illusion or mental effect than physical.

So having Torment in Caltrops just doesn’t make sense unless of course we coat the Caltrops with hallucinogen venom to induce Tormenting images to the victim.

I was about to remark about that in my post above, but decided against it. That’s obviously how Anet conceptualized it, but it doesn’t really need to be that way really.

Well in GW1 term, Torment is a Hex rather than a condition. Now begs the question on why did they choose to remove hex only to add Torment later?

Yes, remove the Initiatives as the main resource for skills. Instead, use the Initiative for a finishing move, like how Warrior’s adrenaline is. However, unlike the Warrior’s adrenaline, when we trigger Initiative (F2 maybe), our weapon skills don’t have cool down for 15s. The Init bar to fills up at the current rate, but only useable when it’s 100% full.

keenlam.4753:

———————————————————————————————————
Chaos’ Shatterlock
Link to build thread
———————————————————————————————————
StickerHappy’s Phantasmic Interruptions
Link to build thread
———————————————————————————————————

I like both of these builds a lot.

StickerHappy’s Phantasmic Interruptions is a very solid build and well rounded; also I simply cannot ignore that 102% condition duration and the 2300 toughness, which is a big deal as a Mesmer. The weapon choice of Scepter/Sw and Sw/P are great choices for this build. This is a fun build.

Chaos’ Shatterlock has a higher damage output and very aggressive and the sacrifice on survivability is not crippling since things dies rather fast. The weapon of choice is great in this build too. This build is rather serious, too serious.

It’s a hard choice but the deciding factor for me is which build is easier for me to build that I can actually use on my Mesmer. Chaos’ Shatterlock is easier on the pocket but bring in devastating results. So if I can vote, I’d give the my +1 to Chaos’ Shatterlock.