Guild Wars 2

EZCheesy.9261:

Tried my hand at this today, pretty solid but getting use to the change of pace in playstyle is gonna take a while to adjust to.

so far as i can tell from playing this build is primarily for solo roaming or with a small group. it really lacks the punch for and kind of zerging. Only way i seem to be much use is by swapping out the shadow arts trait for Venom Share.

That said it is quite nice living for more than a few seconds when being hit.

This type of build especially with Shadow arts is really good at zerg killing. Just hang in back or to the side and you get people to 50% before their brain kicks in by C&Ding off anything nearby. They retreat into their zerg or sometimes toward you because they are still clueless and you just C&D/Opener them to death and stomp them in the middle of 50 people. Rinse/repeat. Making sure you get the deathblow with a C&D is really important for pulling off zerg stomps if you don’t slot haste.

Blinding powder and casting the heal with traits gives 8s of stealth as well. If you chain them after taking fall dmg you can get 12 sec..

Not sure if it’s here nor there but they are still sacrificing X utility slots to not be usable during the fight to do that (even if it’s just SR).

Here is the guy’s post I referenced:

“MrSilver.5269:
I hate to admit it, but I was here QQing for the better part of the last week or so. I then decided to roll a thief just to play around with the mechanics to better understand the class.
I only got to level 31ish so although I’m no expert, I now understand the class much better now, and went back to the drawing board to change my entire engineer spec. I was hesitant to do so because I was concerned as an engineer I would hit like a wet noodle. Yes, my damage did take a slight hit, but not as much as I thought due to a mechanic of one of the engineer’s utility skills that evens the playing field considerably. The funny thing is that the solution was sitting right in front of me, and I just didn’t see it.
In any event, the long of the short of it is that by figuring out how to counter the thief, I stumbled upon a MUCH more durable version of the engineer that I am REALLY enjoying playing.
So, I’m here to formally apologize for my QQ.
SORRY!!!!!”

morbidillusion.2759:

Zombiepatrol.9815:

dat bunny.5074:

yey another person who plays a glass cannon build of something prob a ele or necro complaining they get 3 hit or some crazy thing by a thief.

lets run through the list:

1) prob wvw and he has full exotic gear to your meh gear and under leveled
2) your running with around 2k toughness and low health
3) your not paying attention and he just keeps attacking you from behind
4) da list can go on on on from here

Yes, let’s run through the list:

1) Instantly hostile
2) Pulling assumptions about me out of thin air
3) Patronizing someone even after doing the above
4) da list can go on on on from here

To set you straight, it’s in sPvP, with over 2600 toughness and average health, to which I am left with only several thousand after their burst combo(even better, they finally ‘unstealth’ about 3/4th way through their heartseeker should they chose to use the initiative). It’s just not fun to blow utilities to survive the instantaneous assault, and then they just run away to do it again in 45 secodns. It’s not fun to be in a fight and suddenly on the ground. It’s just not fun.

Yeah, the golden thing about thieves that defend this class is that they don’t even realize their arguments actually derive down to thieves being OP, but with logic being perhaps the most elusive human characteristic – ever, no one really notices. Just the other say someone was telling people to “just dodge” backstabs. Which is logically equivalent to soldiers they don’t have to be afraid of snipers because they can just duck under a bullet.

The thing about this game, is that if you think a class is OP all you have to do is create one and go see what it’s like. I got bored of winning in sPvP with my thief.

Theif damage is the highest in the game bar none and they are arguably harder to kill than any class in the game. Sure, they can’t stand on the point but I don’t think that thieves having less than 100% of every aspect of PvP 100% in their favor makes the argument that they are overpowered moot.

You could honestly give almost every class as much stealth as the thief and they wouldn’t be as strong as the theif. Literally just add it right on, don’t take anything away just add it to the abilities those classes already have. It’s insane, and it so sad because almost everything in this game is so intelligently made but someone at ANet has a hard-on for ninjas and thieves got to be insanely overpowered for this long. Thief has straight up ruined this game and that is no exaggeration.

These complaints are so great. No one wants to take the time to learn their class let alone their enemies. I play a Thief but not the type you guys like to complain about. I play a condition thief that I dare say I’ve never lost to one of the QQthieves 1 on 1. The best case is they get to their boarder keep or run away as I get distracted by someone else.

Why should it be a problem to have to blow utilities to counter a burst thief who likely blew 3 cool-downs minimum before attacking you? On most classes it takes just 1 cool-down to counter thief burst assuming you are built right. 1 for their 3, sounds like a good deal to me.

Try panning your camera and paying attention, people act like thieves have toggle stealth and just jump them completely unaware. As soon as one joins the frey they are first priority (as any burst build would be) and lucky for everyone they go down faster than ducksquirt.

If you die because all your utilities are on cool-down or you were at 50% health then you got 2on1’d or worse and caught in a bad position. What’s to complain about?

Some guy came here (Silver-something) playing an engie looking for help fighting thieves. He read the posts, rolled one himself, learned the class then went back and rebuilt his eng to destroy thieves. He found it was an overall better build and he is having more fun. He even posted apologizing for the original QQ. Try that? He is a case study for the every day QQ accept he decided to take it upon himself to educate himself in the game.

Also the Steal/finish to downed thieves is awesome. Thanks for the tip!

Love your vids. I use a similar build but more stealth based than poison. I never got into Q3A. I played Unreal Tournament Instagib mod as my twitch of choice during that era. Used to love provinggrounds and all that stuff.

I like to solo/duo and just run to the opposite side of the map from the zerg and take sentries and camps then patrol the roads around them. Usually attracts smaller scale fun PvP.

A well played Engineer who won’t let you kite him out of his traveling shiitshow.

Dagger storm is a pubstomping ability. It’s only good vs those who don’t know the easy counter. Whenever another thief tries to use it on me even though I’m pistol dagger build I swap to dagger dagger and jump right on them. If they don’t roll out of it and cancel it they will be dead or close to it before its over. Smart thieves roll out immediately when I start melee. Not sure how an ability with such a simple counter can be OP.

If I were to try it I’d probably try go with the venom = might stuff. Go lots of power and crit and use a good on crit % sigil on your pistol then just load up on venom to get might stacks. Also take the ability that gives an init on crits and faster venom CD.

I’d try something like Root venom, poison venom, chill venom, basilisk venom. Then pot shot people until you are ready to unload all of that crap on someone. You can rotate in venoms or just blow it all at once for like 8x might stacks (or use them to CC warriors and stuff in your example)

I’d use Rampager’s gear (Power, Precision, ConDmg)

Something like this:

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3c0000fn7omvn0n300uu0a087888e8l8o8sjp

Just tons of might

I love venom on stuff like Mug but taking a utility for it isn’t happening unless it’s the root in a burst build or in one of those situations where you want to use root/scorpion-wire to screw people trying to run in/out of safety.

Foosnark.1784:

I thought it was just me, but maybe not. It’s actually okay by me, but I wish it was easier to tell when “revealed” is still on you.

Would be great if the entire frame of our game had a pulsing white edge or something when relieved is on us. Just something besides looking at the boon icon. Still just “feel” will always be the best way, even if they gave us a .5 second nerf we will get used to it.

They had an undocumented nerf to the stealth duration cap. You can only get 12 or 15 seconds or so now. Just stagger your stealth abilities so that you don’t go over 12. Refuge itself did have some duration removed due to this with traits but now you can move with 10 seconds so it more than makes up for it imo.

Red Falcon.8257:

Toughness by far.
You get roughly 30% damage reduction with just knight’s armor, it’s like having passive protection.

If you don’t have the HP pool to begin with to let the toughness work, it’s just not worth it. Also can’t ignore the fact that condition dmg ignores toughness completely.

I just don’t see toughness that viable outside of condition builds that have lots of healing who go for longer drawn out fights.

Oldgrimm.8521:

oh, so that means in a power crit specced thief, i cant possibly reach 21k hp, >.<

Yea and that’s probably a good thing :P

You can look into sacrificing crit % dmg for vit or something though.

Oldgrimm.8521:

how to reach 21k hp in PVE?

what are your gears, thanks

A mix of Carrion (Power/Vit/Con) and the Badge set (Power/Vit/Tough). Every item has vit. You can’t effectively do it with a non condition based Thief.

edit: you can also get the same gear as badge (Power/Vit/Tough) from Karma vendors in Orr (not all pieces) and the Vigil or whatever the warrior’s guild is from the story quest if you chose that, I didn’t

It depends on who is attacking you:

Power / Armor (toughness + defense on armor) = damage multiplier.

1700 power / 1500 armor = 1.13
1700 power / 2000 armor = .85
1700 power / 2500 armor = .68
1700 power / 3000 armor = .56

As you can see vs someone with 1700 power, you get more improvement from 2000 to 2500 then going from 2500 to 3000. But if you were facing a higher power opponent you would want higher toughness to be in that “sweet spot”.

But if we just for simplicity say that 2K armor is a baseline. Then having 1500 armor effectively gives a 1700 power person an almost 30% dmg boost against you. This is why glass cannon thieves destroy other glass cannon people so fast.

It’s also why in a straight fight it’s impossible for a glass thief to win vs my Thief with over 21K health and over 2600 armor.

Yea, after playing last night, this change is really great.

For us, Vit by far if you choose one over the other.

Soft is right, the blind must be an attack. That’s what’s happening for sure. thanks!

edit: i guess that’s not what you were saying. It’s for people keyspaming attacks though because it usually stops when that trait goes off. Is the blind part of the powder considered an attack?

The only real nerf comes from the fact good players always watch for the effects of stealth (blinding smoke, black swirl etc) and will be able to track where you are heading better then if you popped it all at once then went on your way. Not a huge deal and stops multi Thief SR stacking.

No it scales your condition dmg up a lot. Once you ramp it up it’s doubling your condition dmg.

Guy above has 1344 which adds ~67/tick to his bleed.

Vital shot is 4 ticks so it adds 268 dmg over 4 seconds. With 100% you get 536 over 8 seconds but if you are solo/duo and not hitting the 25 stack cap you are keeping those bleeds rolling and doubling your condition dps.

Also scales with might.

Yea, waiting to hear someone going all in with it with the signet activation + poison activation giving might and using the signet and 2 poison utilities + BV for a crazy unload.

Was that happening before only with SR I wonder? You get knocked out of that and revealed without attacking, then try to do Powder to instantly stealth again and it fails due to bugged revealed. The latest patch should have fixed that example.

savage.3469:

i often get this, when i have an “o kitten” moment because 3 people jump me while im not paying attention. I pop it and it doesnt stealth me. could be because you can activate it while “stunned” or cc’d which somehow bugs it.

This could be it. I know you can activate it when KD’d but I seem to remember it not working when feared. The blind works, just not stealth.

Rainbow.5169:

Have you checked that you don’t have the revealed debuff on you when using it?

Problem is, especially with this skill, I never check the debuff. I just go by feel. So it very well could be that it’s “oh sit” nature and the heat of combat I’m pressing it a bit too early.

There are quite a few times when I use this ability and I feel like I should have stealthed but don’t. It’s not the display bug either. Usually it’s after a knockdown or somthing. I haven’t quite figured out if it’s another class giving a debuff or what. So far I’ve chalked it up to me jumping the gun and with it being instant, hitting it a fraction too early but not sure.

Ashanor.5319:

Stiv, I heard there was a “stealth nerf” to the stealth cap. It seems it went from 30 seconds to about 15 cap, or so I have heard.

Ah well. Not a huge deal. Just need to stagger sheath skills to get a longer duration. Going to miss the solo stealth rez though. Before when you knew you were going down, you could pop refuge then blinding on top of the 25% blinding trait and have like 20+ seconds of stealth to self rez yourself. Usually after 10 or so people figured you ditched and stop auto attacking the area.

Anyone else hitting a stealth duration hardcap? I never noticed it but maybe because I never tested before. If I let refuge tick up, hit blinding and my heal my stealth doesn’t go above 12sec or so. Anyone verify?

@SapceCowboy when I hit 80 I went will all Rampager rares figuring the vit and toughness from traits was enough to get along. I’ve found that while it was ok, the durability from vit is just insane, well worth the dmg decrease from not having any precision. The added condition dmg of Carrion makes up for it a little bit. I also don’t have to even think about crits anymore. I pretty much know exactly what dmg each skill will do. If it crits, great! The reason I went with the PvP stat gear for armor is basically due to how addicted I have become to the bunker/tanky play-stile. I love being able to whittle people down while outnumbered.

I also ditched the earth sigil in favor of 2x bleed duration sigils when I realized I could hit the 75% bleed duration breakpoint with thsoe sigils and runes 2x affliction, 2x centar, 2x krait with only 10 points in the power trait for mug.

@Emerge condition dmg scales with bleeds fairly poorly. You get 5 dmg/tick for every 100 condition dmg (5% of con dmg+ base/tick) base at 80 is 4x dmg.

I wish that Mesmer stolen buff gave stability.

How does this help heartseeker spammers? Have you actually died to one lately? If my health is above 50% I don’t even bother dodging heartseeker.

yea and they don’t have stability and you can port out of range and and and

Yep it won’t change anything. People will still QQ about thieves killing them in 1.5 seconds. They just won’t have the one 22,000 hit to show everyone in the screenshot.

Pasting my thoughts to this thread too:

It’s hardly anything when you think about it. I can be used with Pistol whip, it can be used with Cluster bombs (10K cluster bombs?), it can be used with unload.
Really all it did to glass cannons is make the build that much more accessible skill cap wise. Now you just pre-cast the signet and get +15% on your Mug, C&D and Backstab along with 2 heartseeker (or whatever based on enemy health) followups… realllllllllly it’s hardly a nerf more of a buff.

It’s hardly anything when you think about it. I can be used with Pistol whip, it can be used with Cluster bombs (10K cluster bombs?), it can be used with unload.

Really all it did to glass cannons is make the build that much more accessible skill cap wise. Now you just pre-cast the signet and get +15% on your Mug, C&D and Backstab along with 2 heartseeker (or whatever based on enemy health) followups… realllllllllly it’s hardly a nerf more of a buff.

The signet change will make 1 pistol whip back to the OP style.. minus one utility :P

“Ink Shot: This skill no longer allows players to shadowstep out of water.”

Noooooooooooooooooooooooweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee……….

I have read cap on bleed duration is 100% but I haven’t tested it personally. I use 75% with my gear and I can say that works at least.

For WvW, I personally use all Carrion except for the 6 armor pieces which is the Power/Vit/Tough PvP/Karma set.

I got Max in both the tough and vit trats. It’s really awesome imo. Max possible health, good amount of toughness ,just durable as bawls (use 2x Krait, 2x Afflicted, 2x Centar for 45% duration + 2x bleed sigils for 65% bleed).

Edit: I personally also have 10 in power for Mug and to get to the 75% bleed break point.

SirWilliam.6937:

It’s not a silly argument unless you are delusional. When I can put 28 k damage on you in 2 seconds and you drop over dead before barely being able to react your class will get the nerf. Don’t get me wrong…it’s fun but after doing this 1000 X over and over…it’s not that I am super skilled but I am playing an op class.

Disagree if you want but you clearly fall into the delusions of grandeur category. We’re not that good..our class is and it won’t last. Just don’t qq too hard when it does end.

Except when I fight you in the build you are complaining about with my over 20k health, lots of toughness and two hard counters you aren’t hitting for even close to that much and I destroy you while you try to run away because you are a cooldown cowboy.

That build is good at killing people who don’t understand mechanics, are low level and/or under-geared. It just so happens a vast majority of those running around WvW have one or more of those “attributes” (you being one).

I have an 80 of every class in all the best gear possible (so therefore my opinion matters more I guess?). Thieves are fine.

edit: Oh and I’ve been playing MMO’s for 25 years too!

mangarrage.1062:

Stats don show anything is the point. I don’t need my name in lights so to speak

Here’s a stat for you Bob is on top of the leaderboard with 10000000 kills
Tom is at the bottom of the leaderboard with 22000 kill. Does that name recognition mean anything? Is Bob a better pvper?
What if Bob plays 19 hours a day and Tom plays 1 hr a day
Then you have kills per deaths what if player 1 plays alot more then player 2 and at the same time player 1 is in the top 3 servers so the fields are always packed.
Again another useless stat
Or lets have progression where someone gets a big shiny greatsword for 5000 badges and you know what getting it first means, you played the most
And then take support players who don’t get alot of kills but make people better by playing their character a certain way—ie a water based elementalist in all +heal gear etc who keep alot of people alive longer he will never get recognition
I do not recall any leaderboard type thing that I ever considered it as a feature that enhanced a game

You track every stat possible. With a combo of them you can tell what people do.

“I remain standing” showing Kills/Dealths along with “Solo kills” ones where you do 100% of the damage looked at together would be a good start. Add average kills per WvW hour weekly/monthly/all time and you take care of casuals etc etc.

Zergers would have high K/D but low solo kills. People with high solo kills and high weekly/monthly/yearly K/D are the guys you want to watch out for. Come up with all sorts of stats for 5 man groups and whatnot so everyone has stats to look at.

Vonleo.2987:

Stiv.1820:

Turn on Friendly Fire. Problem solved!

haha i actually laughed at this comment but man would i like to see this…wonder how it would turn out!

It would actually be amazing (and totally do-able with this engine). They should add 1 more battleground with it enabled. I bet it would have the longest queue.

mangarrage.1062:

WvWvW lack of progression has almost nothing to do with why people are becoming disenchanted with WvW. I’m sure there are a very small group that want it, but I bought this game and am playing this game because there isnt a progression system. Most real pvp players like the even playing fields

This is true but there is no stat tracking or name recognition in WvW either. What “real” PvPer doesn’t want the enemy to know their name? The ones that die a lot and just run in faceless zergs I guess?

sPvP’s ranking and death spam being brought to the WvW side even if options for players to toggle for their client would do wonders for the game. I like everything about the sPvP idea accept the instanced PvP part. Just need that system or something similar mashed with WvW.

Turn on Friendly Fire. Problem solved!

I love the gameplay currently. Playing is nothing but pure fun but I’m very casual and still progressing personally. As in, when I get 42K karma, I have an exotic to buy to complete my armor. When I get 320ish badges I can buy the pants i want. Every time I get ~2.5 gold, I upgrade to an exotic ring or accessory.

Once I’m done with all of that I will just be hording badges, karma and gold with nothing to do with it. I will probably chase some visual stuff but only what I can obtain from doing WvW because that’s what i find fun.

Once I’m done with all of that I will likely slowly stop playing WvW due to the anonymity. If I’m not progressing via some PvP system AND I can’t make a name for myself amongst my enemies then my interest will likely fade. That’s just how I am. There aren’t even server forums for communities to grow. I really dislike the lack of all that in this game. I know it’s to protect the bears that care and their precious feelings but it really just kind of sucks.

I posted some of the changes I would like to see here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Stiv-s-ultimate-WvW-progression-system/first

Shomaruki.7395:

wtf o.o I can’t say DBZ?

Haha but can i say Bawls?

Yep, just not with a z at the end :P

There is no problem with the stealth mechanic aside from culling and that you shouldn’t be able to stop cap progression in stealth.

So a Saboteur from Rift?

Or snooping/purple potion in UO.