Guild Wars 2

Lol yeah, superior sigil of force do not stack.

The current “meta” for thieves in PvE is either 25/30/x/x/x or 10/30/0/0/30.
The first is great for dagger + sb users, sundering strike + dagger mastery in addition to 10% more dmg if enemies have conditions, weakness on poison. I prefer the last 15 in acrobatics for the extra dodge and might stacks.

Is this a rant? Cuz… you should be feeling great if they’re crying because of you. I mean, crying over getting killed by a thief or any other class is… kind of laughable, don’t you think?

Warrior obviously, lol.

Guardian is a close second. Both has more usage in WvW zerg fights and many dungeon/fractals paths than a thief does just by contributing more in DPS (banners/shouts) and support (CCs/protection).

But but, those dreams weapons are easily over 200g each.

Rengaru.4730:

Yeah, it’s way to strong.
Compare it to a balanced skill like Banner of Discipline.

That one only gives a meager 8% increase in crit chance plus 15% crit damage to zerker resulting in an >20% increase in damage.

Wait a moment…

Hah! But you have to manually move the Banner around, while the Spirit is… inherently immobile without a trait…

Well, in the end it’s all about the uptime, and banner can only get a 100% uptime with an adept trait, whereas the Spirit can be up 66% of the time… with a 70% proc chance… when traited…

Ok, so the Banner is stronger, but at least it can’t die. Take that OP Spirit!

Lol, quality post right here.

25/30/x/x/x is most common DPS-specced build. Personally I prefer 15 in Acrobatics, Might on dodge works well with signet of agility; you can get about 5 stacks of might sustained with the signet reduction trait.

10/30/0/0/30 works pretty well too, more for roaming/sPvP though.

Then there’s x/30/30/x/x for the really bulky thief with venom share – which with Skelk venom usually adds up to 15 stacks of vulnerability and torment. I’d say a really good build for someone recently coming into thief.

Pretty much anything with 30 in Critical Strikes is a viable build tbh. They won’t be part of the so-called “meta”, but they more or less works well regardless. Most people wouldn’t even know you weren’t full zerky built since our DPS is usually pretty high with just 30 in Critical Strikes considering how hard we hit with Dagger/Sword attacks. And our damage modifier traits are pretty much littered everywhere.

Wut. From what I observe there are way more raging comments than optimistic ones. I’m sitting at the neutral zone of this. This event brings the worst and best out of different people.

My method don’t involve suiciding the door though, lol.

I hear stories of these kicks, so I never join as a pug to Fractals. I usually have at least someone else (usually I do it with 2 others) with me who starts the Fractal together.

Shortbow: poison fields, spam blast finishers with cluster bomb. Tag up the most enemies in world events. Useful for most situations.

P/P: Inferior in almost every way except if single target and you don’t ever feel comfortable engaging in melee range.

P/D: Usually for roamers and trolling other players with conditions/stealth. Not so relevant in PvE at all.

Usually as thief there isn’t much situations in PvE where you absolutely need to use range weapons. Some exceptions in Fractals and world bosses I guess but most of dungeons are usually melee. S/P with D/D rotation.

Considering running Lyssa Runes with signet of shadow instead.

I also find pain response very random, considering it triggers when you’re below 75% health, and not because you have poison/burn/bleed on you. As a condition cleanse this is pretty bad imo. A condition cleanse build I’d say usually invest more in Shadow Arts, staying in stealth, thuse more of a D/P build with 30 in Shadow Arts than this spread out scheme. You can get the 2 might stacks from entering stealth, which imo, is vastly superior than relying on a venom elite for the might.

Or you can go the other route and invest more in Acrobatics with S/D, tho I’m not very experienced in this area.

There is a lot of difference tbh.

CoE p1 is just having one guy defend while the others press F. Same goes for cofp2 solo run, cofp1 gate, etc. You only need one guy to volunteer, here everyone need to precisely know where the bombs are, which ones to go for, drop them roughly in the time frame, and thus is the reason I won’t waste my time with the organization.

Just leave, really. I’ve kicked a bunch of these ignorant peeps who refuse to change classes despite precise description of the lfg. They can play how they want, and I’ll play how I want.

I use the healing power ascended skin for my zerk gears, lol. But using a hammer on warrior is very questionable for PvE.

Considering I never once have run a fractal without pugs, getting all 5 of us to go for the right bombs at once will waste more time organizing than just do it with 3 runs. :/

It’s hard for me to imagine a method that doesn’t require stealth and be so ideal you’d do it with just two runs, I’m curious to learn such a strategy.

At the moment the quickest way I found for my group composition is thief SR, pick up bombs, mesmer lay portal before they lay down the bomb, and everyone take the port back.

The chest is okay but the helmet, trolololol.

Hammer is good for FotM.

Ayrilana.1396:

People do realize that doing suicide runs for the bomb door isn’t the only way? It’s just what most players settled on because it requires the least amount of effort. There’s another way that is in most cases quicker.

But the bomb timer only respawns after a while, I use stealth + mesmer warp but we still have to wait for the bomb to respawn.

Swapping weapons (not weapon switching) for easy dungeons is a waste of time tbh. I just keep staff on TA because everytime you stand there for a second to swap weapons, some idiot already will charge ahead and trigger every blossom there is.

Same goes for AC. It doesn’t matter what kind of description I put, there will always be some bigshot who think they can handle the spiders and go down, staff is brilliant for spider aggro and burrow kiting. The extra DPS from sword/focus is usually not needed due to icebows.

The most pressing issue is indeed the bomb part of dredge. The spawn is absolutely ridiculous and I fail to see how to “legit” do this part without “exploiting” it with stealth skills.

Anet need to recognize not everyone have 3 hours to continuously sit in front of a computer screen. Dredge atm is the most time consuming fractal by a ridiculously large margin.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/87167-a-guide-to-the-thief-meta/

Linked from another topic. Should still be rock solid.

Well, the upside to balance patch will be 2 sigils on two handed weapons, so expect to see sigil of energy become a norm on roaming builds.

What? I was referring to the Spider Venom, which only gives poison. Most if not all condi thieves build invest at least 10 in Deadly Arts which gives 13 seconds of poison upon steal already. Poison is mostly used to prevent effective healing, not to deal damage with. Even on condition builds, you rely more on bleed and torment for the majority of condi damage.

The issue I have with Spider Venom is there are already 2 better venoms out there, and you need to reserve a slot for a break stun skill.

There will always be griefers and haters. Best to ignore and move on. People won’t get anything out of it by confronting these people.

Yes, Portal Sickness is about like 4-5 minutes. Which means if you started at lane 1, you can go to lane 4. Lane defenders only need like 20 people, you can handpick 1-5 who specializes in DPS to jump lanes.

People also need to realize they need to carry revival skills when they’re on the platforms.

Have a few from each lanes to hop lanes, usually does wonders.

The poison venom is simply bad tbh, sb #4 is enough for poison and the chill venom is inferior to Devourer Venom. A “venom build” invest too much on some rather lackluster utility skills, with venom share I only see utility with the heal venom and skale venom, maybe devourer venom. You have to have a stun breaker in your utility so if you really want venoms, I’d go with the heal venom, skale venom, and devourer venom, with the last utility as shadowstep. Might want to switch devourer venom with Shadow Refuge for more utility (reviving downed allies, etc).

2 hrs? It takes about 30-40 minutes whenever I run a lv49 fotm. However this is probably the most painful for an all pug party especially with party members who never communicate.

What do you mean absorbing hits?

Use spirit weapons? Idk.

9k CnK, 19k Backstab on 2k+ armor? Holy cruddery.

You don’t need max initiative for 25 Critical Strikes, just keep it above 6. Anything beyond 15 in Acrobatics seem like a waste of points imo especially for dungeons since you’re losing out on DPS.

Vol.7601:

Kilandros.2098:

Vol.7601:

Please, I’d love to hear your solution to overflows.

Event on a 30 minute cycle so people are more willing to come and go from the map. I realize I didn’t spell this out—but I’m surprised I had to.

You do know that would make things worse? Players would stay on the map longer since it would be respawning shortly.

Not necessarily. Once they get their daily chests there’s little reason to be masochistic and stay. At first people will stay to complete achievements but later on a shorter timer would help a lot. I don’t agree with 30 minute cycle though, since it takes roughly 30 minutes to complete the event. I’d say a 1hr cycle rather than a 2hr cycle is much more beneficial for all those involved.

You can theory craft a build with http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

I have full ascended zerk trinkets + weapons which is about roughly 50% base crit chance with 30 in Critical Strikes. If you’re using full zerk exotic armor you get about 10% increase in crit chance, but you also lose about 1-2k of HP without valkyrie armor.

Already saw 2 people died in my all pug party today. I’m still laughing.

You can have people switch lanes to aid that one guy on the platform. It worked wonders for us in SBI last night.

25/30/x/x/x. Mug, Sundering Strikes, and/or Dagger Mastery for Deadly Arts. Furious Retaliation, Executioner, Signet buff traits, Side Strikes are your possible choices for Critical Strikes.

You can put the last 15 in anything really. I have 15 in Acrobatics for the extra dodge. You can have 15 in Shadow Arts for the stealth cleanse/intiative regan. Or you can have 15 in Trickery for more initiative + group fury when you use Stealth.

As thief, you should have every weapon set. S/P, D/D, SB, and P/P are used mostly.

Rune is usually Scholar Runes for maximum DPS output. Personally I have Lyssa Runes for condition cleanse. Sigil is like any other class: Bloodlust stacks, sigil of force/night/fire for maximum DPS.

For boss fights that involves stacking, you’re better off with S/P so you can evade their attacks while dishing out damage. Any boss fight that doesn’t utilize stacking near a wall, D/D will trump in DPS. There’s quite a few of boss fights that doesn’t require it: CoF p1 boss, TA bosses, etc.

Er, use retreat + stand your ground instead. Usually helps in full pug teams when theres always that one guy who dont know how to dodge so the aegis/stability prevent the endless knockdowns.

You can have people change lanes/paths to help the ones currently in the energy fields once their Sickness timer is over. After all, you roughly only need 20-25 people to defend, a few leaving would not dent the defense that much, while their help on the platforms will be invaluable.

Thus, it’s no longer dependent on that one lv 20 newbie. It becomes how organized your map can be to pitch in for that one weak platform.

Tips:
1. Have people fighting on the platforms to scream out in map chat if they need more people so people can jump lanes provided their Sickness timer is out. The Sickness debuff is about 4-5minutes.

2. Have one person per lane/path carry the repair hammer and repair barricades when down, the repair box will eventually dissappear thus one person need to have it at all times.

3. You can leave the golem suit to regain HP and go on the golem again with full HP.

Strategy: Have people jump lanes when there isn’t enough people on each of the 5 pads.

High fives, bro.

I believe every class get cried about being OP in their class discussion forums/in game with the exception of rangers. (lol)

It’s mostly a learn to play issue. Once people realize how predictable and cheesy stealth-focus builds are and actually carry break stun moves, they’ll start saying how much thieves suck in this game.

^ You can craft Valk at 400 leatherworking.

But I believe it’s a LOT cheaper to buy them off TP = trading post considering there’s a bunch of them from people crafting exotics to 500 in leatherworking.

Just buy full valkyrie armor with berserk trinkets for the best bang for your buck.

Infiltrator.

/15chars

^ Not really, considering much of our trait allocations in toughness gives us more stealth, one can’t really be targeted if in stealth. Unless in stacked fights, but you’d be giving out blind fields in that situation anyways so it shouldn’t be a problem.

It’s clear thief is more of a punishing class to inexperienced players than the heavy classes in the game. We’re usually squishy and lack heals unless we’re specifically traited in Shadow Arts. Whereas Guardians and Warriors can be full zerk and have more survivability due to more heals, more useful boons, and just more HP.

It’s also clear dungeons/fractals are biased to certain classes than others (Guardians/Warriors/Eles/Mesmers are all you need for optimal runs). This is because Thief is usually a class that encourages selfish play. Again, unless you’re traited in Shadow Arts, without Venom Share, we have very little to contribute to the party. The only thing we usually contribute is blind fields and stealth. But both are luxuries that really are there if other party members are inept in dodging or skipping paths.

We can excel at DPS, but when you have a warrior that can do banners + Eviscerate + Hundred Blades, or an elementalist that has a fiery greatsword in a stacked wall fight and an ice bow against stationary targets, or a mesmer that can time warp and maintain reflects, our DPS doesn’t shine as much.

Long story short, at the moment, other classes does dungeons better because they’re less punishing and can out performs us in any area we excel at. But if you’re a good player, it shouldn’t be much of an issue. However, it is clear there are … certain prejudices when you see a thief in a dungeon. I main as thief and a party setup becomes questionable when I see multiple thieves in a party for dungeons.

It’s mostly about trait allocations.

30 in Shadow Arts give you a lot of Stealth, condition cleanse/heals/blinds on stealth, 300 toughness + healing, and pretty much makes you unkillable as long as you’re aware and uses your utility on time.

Usually 0/30/30/10/0, 0/20/30/20/0, or 0/30/20/20/0 with Valkyrie armor/Zerk trinkets is as bulky as you can get without losing too much DPS. I’d use those if you’re starting as thief and proceed to more DPS builds such as 10/30/0/0/30 or 25/30/x/x/x once you’re comfortable with anticipating attacks.

Er, “hardcore PvE” small scale is Fractals, and maybe Arah/Aetherblade path.

Fractals was updated in December. Tons of people complains about Fractals but I honestly think it’s a challenging aspect of PvE. I’ve seen my share of bad players that’s just inept at the highest fractal levels though I agree that dungeons are mostly an ignored aspect of the game from the devs.