Guild Wars 2

maxinion.8396:

Embrace The Bold.7619:

maxinion.8396:

Tachii.3506:

On the same topic Staff Eles and Mesmers are more or less the same. Obvious inferior DPS in dungeons which can only be explained with the label “casual gamers” that play just to have “fun” and using what they feel is comfortable for them.

Right, that’s why almost every speed run meta group includes 1 staff ele, and why two of Europe’s top dungeon guilds are led by folks who main mesmers. Clearly they are classes for casuals, and you know what you’re talking about.

At least you got the bit about staff guards right.

Um I think he was referring to staff mesmers (which are so bad) but you are defientetly right about staff ele, when set up right.

Ah, yes, I see now— I may have misread, sorry. Yes, staff mesmers are terrible, even worse than staff guard in most situations.

But staff ele is top tier, that’s absolutely for sure.

Not when that staff ele only autoattacks and occasionally use fire 5 when off cooldown. Also, in such DPS runs you usually need other ele builds as well, right? Staff ele by itself? Eh. I don’t think I’m that casual to call it top tier when they’re by themselves hitting 1.

And yeah, I meant staff mesmers.

The problem with D/D is that it’s single target. You level fastest and complete dungeon faster when you’re using S/P, because tons of times you will be facing multiple enemies.

You can certainly use D/D still, just that you’ll definitely hamper your party’s DPS and your own DPS when you’re facing multiple enemies. The only AoE is Death Blossoms, and when people say conditions are inferior in dungeons, they’re right about that. This is because enemies gets killed with pure DPS much quicker than the conditions can deal since the damage is more spread out over a period of time.

D/D is thus only used during single boss encounters. Nothing quite match the Heartseeker once below 25%, and the CnD/Backstab chain does do higher damage on a single target than the Sword. Once you’re high enough level, go do Citadel of Flame path 1 with D/D, it feels quite satisfying when there’s multiple single enemies for you to backstab and Heartseeker on.

To be honest the might stacks isn’t that much. It’s just 30% in duration. The real value is the 7% damage. I can see some value in a pet since it is another enemy that the opponent can’t really completely ignore. Another variable in the fight might be an advantage than the flat 7% damage. Although I wished the trigger is not getting struck but actually striking your enemy instead. The getting struck aspect I find disappointing since skillful play is usually all about evading the right attacks.

I doubt many people actually watched ToL.

It’s due to the April update that made Dagger less bursty and update in runes which is a healthy upgrade for builds that use boons. People suddenly felt like their whole world is coming down with the crit damage “balance” and S/D seems to work since it never relied that much on crit damage to begin with. With more emphasis on raw power these boon builds while inferior to a pure burst, has become more viable of an option due to less of a gap between the pure burst and the “bunker” boon build in terms of DPS.

After using the might on dodge food I don’t really like it that much. The food provides about 5 seconds of might base value. Considering one stack of might provide only 35 power, you need at least 3 stacks for it to compare to the standard 100power/70 precision food. That means you need to dodge 3 times to get that 7~ seconds of might.

I’d still prefer the normal 100power/70precision food instead due to its consistency. I also don’t notice that much increase in endurance with the food either. Considering S/D already has so many dodging options, it seems a tad overkill to use. I find for S/D I’m usually dying not because I ran out of dodges, but rather I mistimed my dodge due to lack of experience on other classes.

I think strength runes are fine as is. It does exactly as it is described. It’s supposed to max DPS, it’s supposed to be on the “top of the food chain”.

If you’re S/D though and roaming in WvW then Pack runes is a cheaper alternative and fulfill another purpose: perma-swiftness and almost perma-fury while in combat. It doesn’t quite match the 7% damage increase, but personally if you liked Traveler runes for the movement speed, then perma-swiftness is technically an upgrade.

It’s not really a big deal. In CoE/Arah I would call them out for it since the DPS drop is quite noticeable. But in easy low level dungeons like SE/AC really they could use whatever they wanted, lol.

On the same topic Staff Eles and Mesmers are more or less the same. Obvious inferior DPS in dungeons which can only be explained with the label “casual gamers” that play just to have “fun” and using what they feel is comfortable for them.

What are you using it for? PvE? PvP? WvW? And with what build/trait?

I like pack runes for perma-swiftness. Very good for roaming. (S/D build).
I like strength runes for backstab builds. The go-to for burst glass cannons (D/P or D/D).

I don’t see the appeal with wurm runes except that it’s kind of cheap to make. Vitality + Ferocity without any boost in Power or Precision is kind of weak compared to the other runes.

No toughness needed. Most enemies you just use Black Powder and perma-blind them. If immune to blind, which is only dredge and champ attacks, use shortbow if you’re uncomfortable meleeing and dodging appropriately.

Putting 3 in Acrobatics is usually all the help you need if you’re new to the class. Gives extra dodge and 150 vitality.

>why interrupt

Because of perplexity runes.

Basilisk was nerfed because D/D burst would down anyone short of 3k armor and like 20kHP. To be on the receiving end of Basilisk is no joke. I main as thief and I won’t complain about that nerf.

The other venoms are pretty lackluster though.

dDuff.3860:

Don’t get me wrong, Mate, since it is hotjoin we can’t judge effectiveness of a build correctly. I mean I can go almost any build spec/weaponset on thief into HJ and be effective in my role.
Back to the topic i want to say that 2/0/0/6/6 s/d is a way less “roamer” than classic 2/6/0/0/6, damage is lacking, burst is quite low Try classic trickery build wi s/d with runes of strenght and sigil of strenght – stealing might from engis and warriors is your bread and butter. LS can crit up to 7k on some squishies. Yes, you’re less tanky but you are not supposed to stay on a point fighting warriors and engis, i mean you’re thief huh! Subtlety and planning is your way to play. At least for me. I’m not judging you just giving my 2 cents.
Anyway, 2/0/0/6/6 is a kind of “balanced” build, good for deffing (trolling) a point while you have evades, good for boon stripping, good for staying alive on its own, but the damages unreliable (crit chance even with permanent fury quite average ~50%, don’t forget about 30% crt damage you losing without CS line) so you won’t get that tanky warrior and condi classes will still laugh at your evades with weakness (cut both damage and evades).
In other words I don’t see this build being roamer. But what else purpose thief can fulfil? I want to hear your opinion:)

I’m currently using 2/0/0/6/6 for WvW roaming with Superior Rune of the Pack, which is very fast and I don’t find the lack of Critical Strikes all that damaging to be honest.

If you’re using might on dodge food + Strength runes, one can keep at least 5-10 stacks of might permanently which is something Critical Strikes frankly doesn’t give if you’re going for 2/6/0/0/6. While the bonus to DPS is nice due to Executioner and more crit/crit damage, you’re also missing out on perma-swiftness, an extra dodge, condition cleanses, a more reliable 10% damage increase, and a sustained heal trait.

S/D was never meant to be bursty, so instead of trying to match DPS with Backstab, one might as well try to bring the best out of a sustained build.

Frankly I don’t ask my guildies anymore on stuff like this. More often than not they’re totally lazy and can be more unreliable than pugs with their PTV or cleric gears or “shout warrior” builds or staff eles or rangers without spotter/spirit or necros that don’t go into lich form or engineers that only use flamethrower, the list goes on really…

Wat. 25 stacks of might? Wat.

That’s tested? What do you have to do to get to and maintaining 25 stacks of might?

I’m currently using S/D (2/0/0/6/6) and find it has more survivability than D/D. I run with Rune of the Pack which is faster than traveler runes and provides party boons with Steal as well as the runes itself. Right now I’m using full valkyrie ascended armor with zerk trinkets. With the guard killer buffs it brings me to 20kHP.

Personally I find this build to be better at leading since you will often be the fastest in your party (perma-swiftness without having to wait to blast fields and shortbow #5 to maintain distance). It’s slightly more susceptible to conditions but literally all my utility remove some kind of conditions (Roll for initiative, Shadowstep, Signet of Agility) and lemongrass might be the better food to take as well.

If you’re facing mobs of enemies, generally you should be using S/P and using Black Powder and autoattacking.

If facing a boss, the only time you won’t be able to flank is in a stacked fight. Generally I’d still use S/P and #3 occasionally for the evades. I try to maintain 6+ initiatives though for the 10% damage increase and only use pistol whip if I see a large attack coming. Spamming pistol whip means you usually don’t end up timing the evades very well.

A perfect example of this would be in CoE and stacking for Subject Alpha. For the first 50% you’d want to use S/P and time pistol whip to evade his AoEs. After 50% you can go to Dagger and spam HS.

Objects can be flanked I think, but since some of them have no indication of which side is their back or front (and I haven’t really tested it out).

I haven’t face much eles, but eles are hard to use. There’s a lot of keys to press. It’s almost like a fighting game where they need to pull off a specific combo to get the most out of their skills.

I also know D/D ele has a limited range. They also have a pretty small health pool. If you start the fight with shortbow or P/D they only have so many options in terms of healing. Even if they’re a “bunker” build, which I think isn’t what D/D is about, they’re still susceptible to burst (you just have to make sure your burst isn’t reduced by the protection boon and evaded).

D/P-wise, it might be better to go for Strength Runes, get the signet might trait (instead of Furious Retaliation), and use the speed signet as an utility. (You’d obviously lose an utility here, but with runes + signet trait, it might be worthy to practice timing the blind to avoid knockdowns/burst in the first place instead of a reactive skill like the breakstun signet or blinding powder.)

Because enemies hit much harder and lives much longer, timing dodges and knowing full well what the team can and need to do as well as what the enemy is capable of doing becomes much more important if you want a smooth run.

For example, in the ice level fractal, you’d want all your party member to walk around the cabins instead of straight to the marked camp site. Aggroing every ice elemental is deadly and can easily wipe some party members. You’d also want to bring block/reflect projectiles and stability for that part of the fight as well. In lower levels, you can breeze these enemies since they don’t hit nearly as hard or has much HP. In higher levels, a few projectiles will down any player. (I think one projectile takes at least half of my HP away from a zerk thief build)

Fade.7658:

Tachii.3506:

Well in guild raids, a thief is primarily using SB for poison fields and blast finishers. Usually a power build is better since you can swap to S/P or D/P to kill squishies on the sidelines. P/D doesn’t really have that option.

You can actually see some decent damage with P/D.

Lead in with a CnD for 3Kish, Sneak Attack for around 2.5K-3K, Shadow shot for around 3K, then steal with mug for 1.5k-2k and another Shadow shot for 3k. Auto attacks are around 1K.

It’s not backstab damage, but it;s decent.

CnD does 3k with a dire set? :| That’d have to be crit right? Which dire set has like maybe 30~% crit chance at best? Or would you have Rabid with Dire stuff on? :o

You can practically use anything for world bosses though, as now there will be zergs 24/7. Shortbow is also better at tagging as much enemies as possible without relying on a trait that only gives 50% in hitting other enemies. As for tagging single target champs, D/D HS spam with CnD/backstab usually get the tag fine.

Great runs today (#puglyfe). Did most of my runs that went smoothly and often had an ele that actually stacked might and fury or a mesmer reflecting projectiles when needed. I really just need to add more people on my friends list instead of still relying on RNG for a good team. I now kind of indiscriminately kick players under 1k ap for CoE though. I had a bit way too many cases where I was disappointed in how often they were wiped. :|

Oh. That reminds me. Yesterday I did a LFG for CM with the apt discription of “p3 speed run, lv80s/be experienced pls” and this one player didn’t know why I linked Shadow Refuge, then revealed themselves by going early, then after I volunteered to run it again, they again revealed themselves. Then s/he started calling me out on “not everyone knows what that means” and I was kind of like “but it said be experienced and speed run”… At least they left willingly without me having to kick though.

For CoE I actually use S/P. Anytime he does AoE you pistol whip which basically means you don’t have to dodge like the rest of your party, while still dishing damage. Once Subject Alpha is below 25% you just switch to D/D and spam heartseeker.

I hear words on the street is 2 eles, 1 warrior, 1 thief, 1 ranger. Or 3 eles + 2 of the latter 3 options.

Well if you’re in PvE and you’re not running S/P for mobs and D/D for bosses the majority of your fights, then you’re taking your party down with inferior DPS. I never understand the “play how I want” mentality. Some thieves go for pure condi in dungeons because they think it’s more “fun”. Well at this situation, you’re doing your party a disfavor for dishing out inferior DPS when you could maximize your usefulness by doing the “meta” build.

In terms of WvW/PvP, there isn’t really just one “meta” build. People can now go for just about every weapon set except for P/P. D/P is no longer that effective due to the crit dmg nerf.

Well in guild raids, a thief is primarily using SB for poison fields and blast finishers. Usually a power build is better since you can swap to S/P or D/P to kill squishies on the sidelines. P/D doesn’t really have that option.

2/0/0/6/6 DPS S/D has inferior DPS to pretty much every build out there (maybe even P/P perplexity burst). It doesn’t invest in Critical strikes which if a Sword user does take, improve 20% damage after 50% health, about 20% more crit damage, and about like 10~% crit chance while keeping relatively the same HP with a trait. In PvP, I can only see utility in holding a node or applying pressure with dazes/boon steal

As much as a “bunker” build goes, it doesn’t invest in condi damage like what other classes do (hambow, rangers, mesmers, necros) which means any opposing bunker or even a glass cannon can stomp S/D if attention is not paid enough. If they’re just spamming evade then they’re not dealing damage, which is the same concept as a ‘perma-stealth’ thief.

2/0/6/0/6, with a mixture of Dire/Rabid stats, preferably dire trinkets.

Runes seem to be either krait or perplexity, but P/D only form of interrupt is the traited Steal, or scorpion wire/trap, but that waste a slot when you can take Blinding Powder, a break stun, or the poison venom.

Stealth res and interrupting stompers are on the top reasons I find. The most used builds utilize Trickery whether it’s S/P or D/P, as the traited Steal can bypass Stability by ripping the boon off first.

^ Not finishing a dungeon is rage-inducing, though it’s just as rage-inducing if you’re stuck in a dungeon for 2+hrs (first time I did Aetherblade and Arahp4 ;_;)

Valkyrie amulet maybe?

In my S/D build I use Assassin’s reward for more sustain than the vigor trait, considering I have HiS as heal instead of Withdraw.

Strength runes in general has become the “meta” in like every class.

What’s ToL?

To a lesser extent I think they should make Kholer at least a non-skippable boss. The fight after the April update is now even easier due to the ferocity changes and hitting everything harder in low level dungeons as a lv80. Alas it most likely won’t happen, so now I just have to write “kholer pls” after the Spider Queen if the party got the deeps. Just got 2 rares today in today’s run in one path. :>

Might not be a bad idea actually. With limited time, I’ll roll a dice and what dungeons I get to do next, with Arah and Aetherblade that will seldom get the dice roll. Mhm.

(Too much effort though lol)

The definition of fun in my opinion is trying new things. Doing the same repetitive task everyday for years will get boring quickly. There need to be some small variation. Right now the only variation from doing the same dungeons everyday is the potential loot of exotics, and that drops maybe on a weekly basis only.

That said, I still find FOTM somewhat interesting. The small variation is there, and I don’t do it daily so it’s still somewhat refreshing. But currently with the rumors that the rewards are nerfed I now lack incentive to do it as well as having people in my time slot to do it with.

I got a exo scepter a few months ago and sold it for 250g.

I’d like to run this path more but I have no one who plays in the same time as I do and can invest time in it. Then again, I don’t play that much anymore and after my daily dungeon runs I use my spare time roaming in WvW. Meh.

A decent run relies on all 5 members knowing somewhat what to do. Pugging it is a nightmare. Almost every boss fight/level design can waste time if people don’t know what to do. My most recent memory is me and a couple wasting 10-15 minutes on the ooze part. The thing is if people do know what to do, then it usually goes pretty smoothly (I guess you can say that for everything, Fractals/Arah, etc). The final boss is arguably the easiest part of the dungeon (assuming if people knew what to do), since his HP isn’t that much for a final boss and has obvious telegraph animations.

Hmm. I’m running Valkyrie atm too only because I couldn’t be kitten d making an ascended set for D/P as well as S/D.

But I am using Signet of Agility over SR. The signet provides essentially 3 more dodges (Feline Grace) as well as a condi removal. Keep in mind 3 more dodges is also 9s of swiftness with the runes + 6 in Acrobatics. The passive precision also improves your crit % by 8%, which is why I’m using it over SR.

Wraith.9426:

One that really gets me are the “no necro/ranger” posts. I can kinda understand the stigma with Necro, it needs some love for PvE, but Ranger is kittening awesome to have in your party if they are playing right. Spotter? Frost Spirit? Hell yes! I have 7 80s and play pretty much all of them, and I really enjoy my Ranger.

Yeah well, when they don’t play it right, it becomes too obvious. And they often don’t play it right. I’ve encountered most rangers not to have Spotter or Spirit. I’ve seen way more longbow bear rangers, axe mainhand rangers, and rangers who knockbacks mobs purposely away so it’s no longer stacked nicely for us to DPS it down. It’s these annoying habits and low quality play that make speed runners annoyed when a ranger joins. They not only not provide support for the party, they tend to hinder them with annoying knockbacks and overall selfish play.

Now full signet warriors and GS mesmers are no better in that area, but they aren’t as obvious. I find more often than not rangers belong the “I play how I want” camp. I have guildies who are really nice people but go to WvW and we’d have a bunch of rangers in a guild raid when we lack eles/necros/guards/warriors. Perhaps rangers are so attuned to solo play with their pets they in general stop caring about group play. shrugs

P/P’s DPS is bad. Even on a single target, essentially the only DPS you get is from Unload which P/D might rival on DPS of a single target due to CnD and the stealth #1 attack.

Sword + pistol and shortbow on offhand. Shortbow you can just use #3 to distance yourself if the melee opponents are hitting too hard. Sword/Pistol #3 hits hard and evades while you’re hitting the enemy. There’s also #5 that creates a blind field so melee enemies will not hit you at all while they’re in the field (exceptions are if they’re champs or using a specific skill.)

I also recommend having Smoke Screen, an utility skill, as it blocks ranged projectiles.

I’m back to pugging daily for most of my dungeon runs.

All I write is p1/2/3, lv80s/be experienced pls.
I could care less if they’re zerk or not in AC/CoF/SE. Stuff starts to become somewhat of an issue in TA. I’ve seen tons of pugs getting dropped by the vine champ, or just dying really early with the knockdown while running.

There’s really nothing to add here that could salvage the issue. DPS is part of the issue, but there will always be pugs that has no idea what the dungeon is about despite what you write on LFG. As a rule of thumb, it’s usually those under 1k ap. Anyway, I’m impartial to non-zerkers/zerkers. In that like the OP, I ain’t going to waste the next few minutes kicking players and verifying gear when a non-zerk warrior group could’ve done half of the dungeon already.

Unfortunately without a consistent group I no longer do Arah or Aetherblade since puglyfe is certainly not adequate to handling either of these without the occasional frustration.

Thing is those bunker/tanky builds won’t be able to kill a “decent” thief either. :|

It’s a reality players need to come to grip with. When many people use lfg, they go there because they have nobody to go with. But because people are strangers, we need specific criteria. Many of us do dungeons for gold. We do it because it’s a quick way of getting gold. So no, we don’t have the patience to teach every single pug about how to do a dungeon when the entire point is to do it quick.

Kholer is not difficult even if you aren’t stacking. A guardian wall of reflection or a mesmer feedback or even a thief’s smoke screen makes the encounter easy stacked or not. People stack for maximizing DPS, to speed up the process, not because it would be harder if they didn’t, since dungeons are in general very easy anyway.

There’s obviously dungeons that doesn’t have stacking scenarios. Arah, Aetherblade, Fractals. Don’t blame the players, blame the game mechanics. If every boss did an unreflectable AoE at melee range when 3 or more players are meleeing it then there might be more incentive to do it the “normal” way. (Good luck teaching pugs in Aetherblade and finishing it in any time frame short of 1 hour though.)

nice, lol

/15chars

Bazooka.3590:

Every thiefs use this trait. The best condition removal in the game and its only in adept tier. Broken.
Very unbalanced. Its making the thiefs immortal for the most condi builds.

10 seconds interval is insane but i think this skill should move to higher tiers.
For example:
5secs interval and master tier or 3secs interval grandmaster tier.

Notsureifsrs.jpg

Because they could just accept the gold then kick you out. There’s no incentive whatsoever to believe in these unknown people’s sincerity, since there’s really nothing that’s enforcing them to keep people who give the gold from being kicked.

Sleight of hand was never a necessity on D/P… it’s more of a necessity on P/D and Sword builds that is otherwise poor at chasing. D/P already have a daze move as well as #2/#3 that is excellent at chasing. Though I don’t really know what mode you’re speaking of. In PvP then yeah, sleight of hand is nice on any character. In WvW roaming settings I usually go 6 in SA.

It’s a difficult class to play with, certainly. Since we lack AI allies that usually imbalance a 1v1 duel (necromancer, PU mesmer, ranger spirits/pets), so we can only rely on our own damage (burst DPS or P/D condi pressure), but I don’t think that’s the only way to play.

D/P with 6 in SA isn’t a glass cannon burst setup and has the sustainability for prolonged play due to stealth. S/D isn’t a glass cannon burst setup and has the sustainability to last quite a bit.

And besides, 1v1 isn’t the only aspect of this game, and some classes are bound to be better at one thing than another. I don’t think it’s fair to call it lack of balance just due to one facet of the game (1v1 duelling doesn’t even seem to be intended, since sPvP still has team members, WvW has anybody that could ruin your “duel”, and so on.)

Xae Isareth.1364:

Out of all the bosses I’ve done so far, I think the most difficult was TA Aetherpath boss 1.

Slick and Sparki? I say that fight is definitely up there in terms of difficulty.

Thieves Guild is great in small fight settings. One of the thief does black powder while the other does scorpion wire. They also survive pretty well for the full 30 seconds as bait. I don’t know about going full burst in PvP though.

Agreed with removing the state. In PvE it works but in PvP it’s imbalanced and makes 1vX situations nigh impossible unless there’s a big difference in skill.