Guild Wars 2

Is Cliffside the most time consuming one now? And not a single champ bag whatsoever.

My looty feels.

Staff mesmers.
Staff or mace guards.
Eles with no ice bow or fiery greatsword.
Engineers with flamethrowers.
Full signet warriors.
Thieves with only single target weapons.
Long/shortbow rangers.
A necro.

ITT: There will always be people who will find reason to complain just about anything.

In large raids, power > condition damage, in my opinion.

Aside from that though, wouldn’t Hide in Shadows be a better heal since you’re traited 6 in SA already? I’d also prefer Shadow’s Embrace for the extra condi-clear over the regen. The thing about the regen buff is you’ll likely have it in a large raid setting anyway, but one could always use more instantaneous condi removal.

Mind the insults above, but yes, your Backstab deal exactly the same as D/D, it’s just D/D hits a chunk with Cloak and Dagger and vulnerability stacks.

Strength Runes is now the go-to runes for damage. Allows you stack quite a bit of might consistently during a fight, while doing 7% more damage. 0/6/5/3/0 is now slightly better with Power of Inertia trait for damage.

Your backstab do only like 5-7k now on a Warrior, which is more or less 1/5 or 1/4 of their HP. Expect longer fights and using Autoattacks more.

Got a fractal staff after doing 49 for the first time in a few months. 2 others got an ascended armor chest and an infused ring.

Basically when someone is downed, you have a few choices to secure a successful stomp.

1. Shadowstep stomp – Start the stomp but cast shadowstep during the stomp animation, this prevents guardian knockback and necro fear from hitting you and then shadowstep back as the animation finishes.

2. Stealth stomp – Basically go into stealth before you stomp, this prevents other classes from interrupting you, like rangers or warriors.

3. Steal stomp – Basically only used for other thieves. Thieves has a downed skill that teleports them to somewhere else. You cast steal to immediately follow them to their teleported place to secure the stomp.

They should keep Megaserver off in main cities. Every map chat in Lion’s Arch feels like its filled with different people each time. :/

If you’re a first timer and join a pug group that says “Experienced” then you went to the wrong group.

There’s definitely guides out there. A simple google search got Dulfy’s guide:
http://dulfy.net/2013/10/01/gw2-twilight-assault-aetherpath-dungeon-guide/

The guide aptly give tips on pretty much everything.

For anyone new, I’d at least read up on the 3 I will assume to be the most challenging for new players:

1. Ooze luring.
2. Slick and Sparki fight
3. Pre/Final boss fight.

The crewman boss fight might be challenging? I’ve joined a pug party once that supposedly got wiped 3 times and we beat it like on the first try.

I prefer S/P with shortbow. The interrupt options are great for S/P while it can cleave people who are ressing downed. S/D to me is more of a small roaming party set.

As long as you don’t stay and get AoE spammed you can run the typical 2/6/0/0/6 spec and be fine with it as long as you have Shadowstep, Shadow Refuge, and the break stun signet. Don’t run with the Hammer frontliners, usually flank their back liners like rangers/eles/necros/mesmers.

As someone who solo roam casually and do mostly PvE, I find the usual D/P 0/6/6/2/0 to go for roaming. Open with Black Powder followed by Heartseeker follow it by Backstab or simply observe what your opponents going to do.

Like carpboy said S/D I’d say has a higher skill requirement, since damage mitigation comes to evading properly, and usually relies on Acrobatics and/or Trickery than Shadow Arts.

Overrated perhaps, still better than GS imo.

I don’t main as warrior but ham/bow setup is extremely powerful in 1v1 and is fairly simple to use. Like said already, longbow is an effective counter for thieves. My backstab also takes like maybe 1/5 of your total health, which isn’t a lot when your Healing signet still heals you while you’re applying pressure with longbow aoe. Couples with endure pain, a condi-immune stance, a shout condi removal, and Cleansing Ire and it more or less do come down to a learn to play issue.

Stop relying on the GS for damage in my opinion.

I hope my bloodlust sigil was at least in an exotic aquatic weapon.

Now there will be of course different thieves here with different builds, but I think that just means there’s more to discuss here.

I’m mostly talking about WvW/PvP here (obviously).

I typically find any condi-bunker builds to be problematic. Unfortunately almost every class has this option, so of all the condi-bunkers, I’d probably say a ranger or necro since they can outdps in a ranging contest while laying down condi AoEs if we try to get close.

I only consider myself a decent player, probably not even good, since I’m not experienced with all classes or all builds on the thief, nor is my timing in dodges exactly even great but due to how powerful conditions are in smaller fights, and the lack of condi removals compared to other classes, that would be my issue.

What about you?

PvE isn’t usually related with fun, considering it gets repetitive real fast, and purposely using a non-popular/meta build to create more fun which makes a dungeon last longer isn’t something I’d normally call fun.

Considering we also have limited weapon sets, there really isn’t much variation at all with a thief at PvE.

In my opinion, a fun build is something really glass cannon, with more emphasis on skillful play by timing dodges, placement location, and awareness of the situation. At the moment, ironically, the “meta” glass cannon DPS build with 5/6/0/0/3 or 6/6/0/0/2 would do just that. S/P + D/D, no range weapons.

Considering S/P is a bit too easy to play with, maybe switch to 2/6/0/0/6, Ricochet for Master trait and use D/D + P/D. I say P/D is at least more interesting than P/P and Shortbow. The emphasis to land the CnD provides a bit more variation than just Unload spam or shortbow autoattacking.

NiffyinaJiffy.1532:

With regards to OP, I don’t think it’s necessary to change Black Powder into a darkness field. And I don’t think it’s necessary to remove SA in general. Shadow Rejuvenation is good if you are roaming alone in wvw; and Venom Share is fantastic if you’re running in a small group, especially if it’s with other Venom Share thieves.

I don’t think Shadow Rejuvenation or SA is the problem. I think the problem is that many people don’t want to leave their little black powder ring, and simply stand in it when they’re fighting. D/P is very versatile I think it’s kind of sad that people are restricting themselves to 1,2, and 5 skills and to a very small area. But, I don’t think nerfing is the solution to this. <3 Shadow Shot.

I wouldn’t call venom share fantastic with its limited range and overall inferiority with venom-related skills.

In group play with less emphasis on staying in stealth, one can just get 3 in Acrobatics instead for an extra dodge or the blind on stealth trait for even more blindness. This really isn’t relevant to the thread though, and I’d love to see more changes occur for venoms (and traps).

I think we should be a bit nice to new players.

This is one of those dungeons where you should’ve got a guide or something though. The fight is much easier with stability + melee.

Summoning skills tend to have long CD regardless of class.

I’d say Basilisk Venom is at the moment the most inferior.

Err, yeah.

If you have say, 3 enemies, and your Pistol whip cleaves + crits all 3, you will get 3x the heal. So a 20k pistol whip, assuming all 8 hits crits on these 2 targets, that’d be 2k health regen. Considering you can literally spam pistol whip at least 3 times, that’s arguably better than a heal skill since you’re healing while DPSing. With signet of malice of course the heal is even more ridiculous.

Thus I say in general, any non-boss/crittable enemies scenarios the heal is more useful than the Executioner buff.

As a rather addicted PvEr, here’s some situations in addition to CM and Dredge:

1. Arah in general. Shadow Refuge + Smoke Screen allows for the best survival skips of your party members. Used most often in p1 and p2, with some mileage in p3 as well.

2. Arah Orb carrying part. Shadow Trap allows you to travel most of the distance and I believe a thief can solo it with the right timing. But even without, you just have to pass to one other person. Thief in this scenario is pretty much playing the roll of the Mesmer with the portal.

3. Pretty much any situation where you’re facing group of mobs. This isn’t “gamebreaking”, but perma-blind field pretty much means your party members will rarely get hit in these fights. The most mileage I find is in CoE, where you’re facing the Elite Berserkers and Wolves and Golems which typically hit like a truckload, but with a smoke field from Black Powder, your party members significantly take less damage. I’ve done my share of CoE to know that people do drop quite often since the Elites do burst pretty quickly.

4. Aside from an ele fgs, Thief has one of highest burst for the CoFp1 gate fight, usually taking 2-3 seconds to down the gate control.

I know the importance of DPS, but Invigorating Precision makes staying over 90% HP for a thief really simple in certain dungeons. Here’s a list from my experience of where you get the most mileage out of it:

- CoFp2 – especially the defense part, where I usually stay full health with it with Signet of Malice.

- CoE prior to the final Alpha fight (where Executioner barely has any usage on Alpha) I’ve seen thieves getting dropped way too much in CoE because they’re simply way too squishy, and Executioner doesn’t have a lot of usage before the final Alpha fight anyway where staying alive will help your team’s DPS more.

- CMp1/p3 – lots of elites/veteran mobs here, and the heal makes 90% sustain very easy while you’re still doing damage with Pistol whip. Can even be used in boss encounters since they tend to hit hard with rather quick animations before you can even dodge.

In general: Has a lot of mileage against trash elite/vet mobs where there’s not much point to getting Executioner since they die off way too quickly as is. Of course most trash mobs encounter are ezpz as is but if it’s a subpar pug party the heal is nice.

My opinion though is it needs to be a bit higher, maybe 7% like all the other %-based traits. Can’t really advocate this outside of PvE, and it’s only applicable in some dungeons where there’s a bit too much aggro while DPS is sustained by being healthy and not having to be ressed.

PS: Weapon of choice should always be Sword/Pistol for the heals. Zerk/assassin gear with the typical 5/6/0/0/2 or 2/6/0/0/6 setup.

Separating it in two parts make Headshot redundant considering it does the samething for the first skill.

I always found Pistol Whip to be the comparable version of Blurred Frenzy for Mesmers, Hundred Blades for Warriors, which is that one skill that stills you in place while dealing lots of damage. I don’t see this skill getting changed into 2 parts.

Although D/P might be “easy” to play with, I still think it’s the most useful set simply because all 5 skills have their usages.

The whole “omg OP he can run away” mentality is kind of silly to be honest. If a player runs away from you in WvW it means you won the fight. There’s nothing at all to complain about really. If you really wanted to kill players go to PvP or something where running away will cost them the match or point with more direct consequences.

I feel like thief has no “meta” anymore. Before it was all D/P and some P/D, now there’s more P/D, still some D/P, more sword users, and still some burst D/Ds with strength runes.

^ the above gave a good quick guide on the state of things, +1.

Why on crit sigils when you only have like 39% crit rate? Wouldn’t Sigil of Force be better?

Kaga.7629:

Tachii.3506:

This defensive mentality then lowers the individual reward for others, because suddenly there are now defended keeps and an uncoordinated blob isn’t enough to ktrain, because now it takes longer to secure a keep and success may not even be possible.

You ask me, Why fight?
I’m

Actually I wasn’t asking you at all. I’m asking you to put yourself in the shoes of everyone else who ktrains, because the answers for them are flat out a logical reward analysis and most casual players would choose their individual rewards over whatever you’d reason out for fighting.

Really don’t know why you went really off tangent with tears, kittening at ktrain commanders, and the like. Meh.

ITT: Warriors weapon gap closers still not nerfed like ele’s Ride the Lightning.

The problem with EotM is that the individual rewards far, far, faaaaaar outweigh anything else.

Why intentionally fight other uncoordinated blobs, when you can just secure champ bags and badges objective after objective?

Why fight another uncoordinated blob, when your own is just as uncoordinated and only a minority willing to charge against another blob?

In WvW, PPT seem to make some players wanting to defend and therefore try to “win” a matchup. This defensive mentality then lowers the individual reward for others, because suddenly there are now defended keeps and an uncoordinated blob isn’t enough to ktrain, because now it takes longer to secure a keep and success may not even be possible.

However, in EotM, where the individual reward are just this good, it’s not a surprise most people’s goal is to ktrain. It’s already discussed on every PvE map the potential leveling and reward possibilities of an effective EotM train. It will continue to be advertised as such, as long as individual rewards is way better than any sentimental efforts to “win” in a EotM matchup. Frankly, I don’t see this getting changed anytime soon either. On the contrary, more and more PvErs will realize how good the rewards are, and more will head there specifically for the “ktrain” ride.

No your personal level has to be 31 or above to get that chest.

It’s just like people who are level 1. They will only get one daily chest, no matter what level fractal they do, because their own personal reward level is only 1-10.

In this case, your personal reward level was in the daily chest between 21-30. If you done a level 11-20 fractal you would’ve got a daily chest for that along with the 21-30 chest you got from 24.

CC them.

Mesmer has focus pull, GS knockback.
Warrior has a bunch of stuff, I just use mace 5.
Guardian has staff or hammer.
Etcetc.

Thief I just stealth the whole thing or use #5 shortbow and never even come close to them.

Sometime though you’re behind and the Stonetouch is already casting the move on an earlier target which you just happen to run into (sine I think the skill has like 300ish range?)

But yeah, crowd control is usually the best. Taking the offensive first, so to speak.

well with guard stacks the 200vit should give you more than 16hp even full glass, no?

Dat feel when your entire party get wiped at Subject Alpha’s first fight.

I left the party while I still could. I don’t have the skill or patience to carry 4 other members.

In most of my #puglyfe CoE is the last dungeon I do that will often have the most hiccups possible. Once you introduce the aspect of gasp dodging while stacked and suddenly “some” skill is needed for a smooth run.

Darox.8069:

Don’t you dare suggesting WvW to me

EotM is like PvE in a pseudo-WvW setting without the server drama.

Heh, joining a guild LFG might not be better either. Some have mindnumbing plans to skip mobs when it’s quicker to beat it, some have questionable stacked locations, some really just are obnoxious to other pugs and they can kick you at anytime.

#puglyfe is rife with all kind of problems that can arise.

Just saw a guard with mace + shield in CoE.

My feels.

Evalia.7103:

Narkodx.1472:

Evalia.7103:

Is soldier gear required on a thief?
Right, it isn’t. So why should SA be required? Never ran it, and 1v3-4ing quite often.
I only ever go in SA tree to get 100% stealth uptime combination for the sneaks inside enemy towers/keeps and that’s it.

Sure you do. ONE necro full staff rotation and your’e dead without SA. How do you cure conditions? Shadowstep? 3 every 50 seconds maybe Lyssa runes? – Horrible nowadays for DPS with ferocity nerf. Pain Response? LOL. 2 Points for Shadows Embrace is MINIMUM for WvW. You like fighting multiple people 1v3/4 who are not brain dead? Need 6 for Rejuv. Thief has weak sustain without SA. But don’t believe me go out there in full berserker and ALL DPS traits. Let me know how it goes

I’m running S/D, got enough condition removal by using Sword #2 when required, shadowstep, pain response, signet of agility and withdraw.
But most importantly, with the amount of evades i’m getting from acrobatics, I don’t get hit by them in the first place. And even if I do, I’m always capable of resetting the fight – and probably even better than a SA thief – by simply running away as fast as possible(even if refuge is on cooldown)
But 2/0/0/6/6 is definitely all DPS traits. Just as you say.

I hope the last line is a joke? Sarcasm? :|

If you’re running Dagger main-hand you get a bit of benefit from SA.

If you’re running Sword main-hand you get a bit of benefit from Acrobatics.

If you’re not going for SA or Acrobatics, you better be really, really good to play pure glass cannon and aware of surprising your opponents rather than getting surprised.

The swiftness boon duration means you typically don’t have to spam dodges because I think you need about 5-6 dodges between steals to maintain perma-swiftness running strength runes. In practice, this means if you encounter someone while travelling you have like maybe 1 dodge or less at the start of the fight. I kind of prefer to have more than that so Pack runes give more survivability. The 7% dmg is practically the only thing that trumps Pack runes, but that is somewhat compensated with more fury upkeep + 125 precision.

I also wouldn’t say Pack runes > Strength runes, but I wouldn’t say Pack runes are bad either. Pack runes in a small group play rather than solo roaming I’d say has a bit more mileage too.

Already sold at least 10+ rings to NPC for 5s. :|

But I like the suggestion still. At least give the option to trade in these rings for other rings. Getting two of the same zerk rings and not be able to switch for another zerk ring is mindnumbingly… RNG.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I may or may not get lol’d at for saying this but I find Alpha in COE to be extremely difficult if you’re not stacking. If he gets rebellious and decides to freely walk the room he can be pretty brutal what with crystallizing you and nuking you to death before the crystal breaks and all.

Lmao, I can totally imagine a disaster pug run where people are ranging him all over the place, then getting crystallized, then getting downed by the aoe, meanwhile Alpha regenerates due to poor DPS. CoE seem like it was specifically made to be stacked for, as a ranged fight is like exponentially harder due to poor DPS and more AoE circles and crystallization.

winterchillz.2564:

Oh whoa! Look at that title!

Well now, this is getting a bit scary for me - I main an AH (inb4youareuseless) hammer & staff/greatsword guardian and honestly this thread is frightening. Just to clarify - I don’t join any zerkers/speed parties when doing dungeons on my guard, so let’s see if I’m doing this right:

I prefer staff over greatsword nowadays, in fact I’m not sure when was the last time I used greatsword in general. Why? In dungeons for the movement speed stacking, short but useful might stacks and my 5th spell that blocks creeps when we’re skipping parts of the dungeon.

This is when my hammer comes out -&gt; I stack might with staff and then I switch to hammer and just bash down the champ until my staff’s 4th is off CD, then I repeat the process.

Can I get a place in a party or should I hop on my "meta" thief?

As someone who used to use AH for a long while, I can say that DPS builds are just more satisfying to use. I’m currently running 4/3/0/2/5 and it’s at least a 13% damage increase just from passive traits alone (2 in Zeal, 5 in Virtues, GS mastery from Zeal).

There is then 3 in Radiance which is just fantastic. Blind + 3 stacks of vulnerability + 3 stacks of might upon using a Virtue that recharges itself everytime an enemy dies? Holycrudery sign me up.

Just by switching traits you will see improvement in DPS. You can still use soldier/knights gear or whatever you’re running with to learn how to use a zerk build, but the whole active damage mitigation aspect is fantastic.

PS: Personally I’m not really a fan of Sword/focus. The last AA is some weird single-target ranged move (when doing forward TA in the 4 bubbles part the last AA doesn’t even hit the enemy ._.). I can see the rotation will outdps a single GS on a single target but against trash mobs? I rather just stay on GS (they melt fast as is).

I been using 2/0/0/6/6 with pack runes. It’s pretty fast and is effective against classes that rely on boon upkeep (guards, eles, mesmers, engineers) but burst builds tend to cut you down quick if you don’t time your evades, specifically warriors, backstab thieves, and pretty much any other zerk burst class builds.

Guess I don’t pay attention on these forums.

I start up LFGs daily for pretty much all my runs since I don’t have consistent in-game friends who shares the mindset in doing this. My description is always “lv80s/be experienced pls” and I open most of my dungeons since I can’t expect randoms really anything.

I also end up playing a Guardian in AC/SE/TA since again, I can’t expect anyone that will actually use Wall at the right time or Hallowed Ground in stacked fights, etc. I guess it comes from experiencing so much pug parties gone to kitten just because the party needed a Guard to carry them successfully. Like ACp1 burrow phase where the DPS is so kitten-poor Hodgins dies if nobody kites, SE p1 golem trio fight with nobody using reflects or stability, TA running skips where there’s always 1 or 2 that never bring break stuns, etc.

In all honesty I think now I like the fact that a group of strangers can come together to do something fast and smoothly, which is probably why I’m too lazy to join one of those elitist dungeon guilds. Even some of the minor things like a ranger with spotter + spirit or an ele stacking might or just a mesmer pulling mobs to a corner is good to see in a pug run.

Protoavis.9107:

Maybe, but then there are a lot of bots and chinese farmers in SoE p1 who jump out just before the final boss and repeat the whole thing again doing the whole thing in about 7 minutes and picking up a ridiculous amount of chests sooooooooo can’t be that bad if the farmers are doing it.

Say wut now?

Staff/Hammer guard in CoE.

Is there a worse set up? :|

Cormac.3871:

And then there is that final run to Vallog or Frost. If we don’t have a thief I always suggest we draw out the guys at the bottom and kill them. 90% of the time the group decides to run through it. At least half the time somebody just can’t do it and it ends up taking longer than it would have to fight. Plus we don’t get bags.

Lol without a thief or engineer or heck even Mesmer running through it with those many elites is indeed suicidal for pugs.

Knaifhogg.5964:

CM has been really bad for a long time so now that it’s easier people need to get used to the dungeon again. I just wish more people didn’t skip that much, I wanna loot lots of linen. The packs melt anyway so why skip it.

I believe they drop cotton scraps, not linen.

Some of the skips are just dumb in my opinion. People end up wasting more time relying on stealth cooldowns when it’s faster to just clean the mobs which are easily killed since the April update.

I really don’t get the whole thief stealth thing for path 1 basement. It isn’t even that fast now compared to a group cleaning the mobs due to the April update where every low level dungeon had become a joke for DPS teams.

I myself either play as thief or guardian for this since I can’t expect pugs to SR or reflect. As long as one other party member knows about reflect then the dungeon becomes a breeze. That said I normally have at least one other friend who’s either playing as thief or guard before I pug this.

Also, every dungeon is a “scrub magnet”. No matter what you write there will always be newcomers who either A ) don’t know any better or B ) don’t read or C ) expect to be carried with the other 4 “experienced” players or D ) don’t ever listen to you even if you’re giving them advice on the dungeon. It just so happens SE and AC and CoF are so easy even these “scrubs” can do it without getting dropped.

Yeah the assumption is bad. And as thief you don’t really want to get hit.

It’s my go-to runes for S/D 2/0/0/6/6 roaming though, since it’s a bit bulkier and the 30% boon duration is good even if #4 is unreliable.