Guild Wars 2

http://dulfy.net/2013/03/11/gw2-dagger-gallery/

For screenshots of most daggers in game (Also how to get them)

Alternatively, you can go into the Mists and look at every item in the game (Aside from Legendaries) in the PvP lockers.

Lunaire.5827:

My main concern is the usefulness of the precision stat considering I am losing power by switching from exotic carrion.

Usefulness of Power in a condition build: Extra damage on the application of conditions

Usefulness of Precision in a condition build: Extra damage on the application of conditions. Can proc Opportunist if traited for it. Can proc Sigils (Earth and Strength are good for Condi builds)

Have you accidentally set it to auto-attack via Ctrl + Mouse 2?

If so, either press Ctrl + Mouse 2 on it again to turn it off, or set another ability to auto-attack

Silver.4798:

I am not sure where the hell 57% crit is coming from, I have most of the equipment minus the trinkets and I am currently at 27%… if that is the case I actually can scale back on the zerker jewels and stick in some valkyrie or knight’s jewels instead!

The build calculator adds the 7% chance from Side Strike trait and the 5% chance from the Keen Observer trait to the total % crit chance.

Meaning if you’re constantly flanking the target and above 90% health then you’ll have the additional 13% chance it shows, if not then you’ll lose out on it (Have to weigh potential crit chance vs what you’re most likely to attain when selecting an amount of precision)

As far as the actual build goes, it look alright. Nice damage should be done (Decent crit chance + Crit damage) with some good defence (2600 Armour and 16.7k health) with some consumables you should be able to be very strong.

I generally like to have at least 14k health as a Thief.

This often means something like Zerker gear, Zerker trinkets + Beryl Jewels and Practiced Tolerance trait with nothing in Acro. Allows 14k health with heavy burst builds (25/30/0/0/15 or 30/30/0/0/10) 15k is possible with the Zerker/Valk ascended gear.

Ideally something like that 14k health with 30 SA is helpful, the extra 300 Toughness and Healing power become more effective with additional health (In terms of the Effective health you have at full health) so 14k health becomes about 18k effective health (Versus direct damage) with a decent buffer against condition damage.

At the same time, if going into Acrobatics, picking up some Toughness gear will help increase the effective health gained by those points.

Gearing fully for one stat is less efficient than using the opposite gear to what you’ve traited (Toughness if traited in Vitality, Vitality if traited in Toughness)

Then of course there’s the issue of Condition Cleansing and Aggro in dungeons to bring into account (If you have limited condition removal, getting more Vitality can be beneficial. Also if doing dungeons getting more Vitality over Toughness can be beneficial to staying alive)

randomfightfan.4091:

I don’t wait any 3s in stealth

I generally don’t.

But for a while I used a P/D condition build to get to know WvW, so to survive a lot of the classes I faced I used the 3 second wait in stealth for extra heals and condition removal. The fact it coincided with the duration of revealed waiting meant that the timing got extra-engraved into my muscle memory.

I don’t use more than 1-2 seconds in stealth anymore (Outside of running away or being chilled) but the timing has still yet to be re-written for me. Especially since I seem to be quite consistent in getting CnD’s off (Though then again, WvW seems to be filled with 90% Rangers so it’s not hard to find a CnD target)

Also, 30 SA doesn’t necessarily need to be focused around staying in stealth. I use the traits Shadow Protector, Infusion of Shadow, Hidden Assassin and Cloaked in Shadow to gain 5 seconds of Regeneration, 2 initiative, 2 Might stacks and AoE Blind when I enter stealth. This setup relies on being inside stealth as little as possible to be able to shorten the time before re-entering stealth to gain more Regeneration, Might and more Blinds.

Disengaging a fight?

When a zerg comes after me, I like to use Shadow Refuge and either run away, or run through them (Depending on how far away they are to notice and how long it’d take)

When a group comes after me – I play as pretty much GC and so a group that engages me will either be annoying to fight (Lots of reviving and controlling me in stealth) or a steamroll (They’ll just counter my stealth and roll over me)

When someone goes in water – Thief underwater skills are lack luster, if someone wants to escape they can. On land, but near water it becomes frustrating to fight multiple targets (I once went 1v2 against an upleveled Elementalist and a Necromancer. Whenever I downed the Ele, they’d just Mist Form into the water and get uninteruptable revive off. Whenever the Necro got low, they’d DS and run into the water and be downed there and get a uninteruptable revive off)

When I take on a target who can deal way more damage I can – GC Phantasm mesmers are prime suspects for this, taking away 60%-100% of my health with a iZerker > iDuelist (Especially annoying if I can down the mesmer but then the phantasms down me while I try and wait for revealed to wear off and get a stealth stomp)

randomfightfan.4091:

and I’ve only found to have a problem with 4s revealed in pve. Been very easy to use in wvw and pvp. Probably my different playstyles in each of the game modes.

I have a problem with the 4s in both…

I guess I just have trouble adapting especially when it’s hundreds of hours of 3/3 (3 Seconds of waiting in stealth for benefit from in stealth traits and 3 seconds of revealed) and then it becoming 3/4. That extra second really throws me off.

In WvW I generally opt for either not using stealth very much (My D/P glassy 30/30 build only used stealth to dive on people in their own supply camps. The stealth being required to prevent mass blinds from the scouts) or I use it often (My current 10/30/30 D/D build is centred around going into stealth as much as possible and only staying in for ~0.25 seconds to throw out the backstab)

This means I do feel the effects of the extra 1 second quite a lot and does mean that I’d probably never get used to the 4 second timings if they were split in PvE and WvW (I spend most of my time in these 2 places)

So they’re thinking about splitting WvW and PvE?

As in like 3 seconds revealed PvE and 4 seconds in WvW?

That’s going to be a nightmare to get used to for any Thief that actively does both PvE and WvW… It’s bad enough trying to get used to a different timeframe as is, without having to worry about different values elsewhere.

randomfightfan.4091:

If it’s in a group situation, the confusion would hit the max spread of 5 targets and be easily cleansable.

Not a lot of classes can cleanse something every 3 seconds, and due to how being perma-stealth is combined with multiple targets (AoE Confusion on stealth means it shouldn’t matter which target you use CnD on) should give decent stay-ability during a crowd allowing multiple uses of CnD for AoE confusion spam. In a group encounter people are less likely to cleanse off the easily re-applied Confusion and instead wait for the conditions from other classes.

This viability shouldn’t be allowed to be gained from a CnD spamming thief (They shouldn’t really be able to do much, if anything since it’s a awful tactic offensively) it should require getting the Revealed debuff in order to cause damage, otherwise people can get taken down by targets they won’t be able to see (If timed correctly the stealth debuff will drop for less than half a second before re-application, if timed perfectly that time becomes non-existent, not even accounting for the perma stealth from BP > HS builds which can provide multiple stacks at a time with the downside of having an obvious location)

That isn’t to say CnD > CnD shouldn’t be available for non-cheese builds to allow defence in highly dangerous situations.

2nd. True you are able to want but you’re still susceptible to aoes and auto attacks. Not as easy as it sounds.

True, but Auto-Attacks would be less likely if the idea is for confusion to cause an increase in survivability via people not wanting to attack (Auto-attack spamming with confusion on can cause a very quick death to people. Especially those with fast auto-attacks) and AoE’s would be the biggest danger though with the ability to move around freely, use Dodges (The build I was looking at went 30 into Acro) and also the higher Health from Carrion gear (Also the heal skill, Withdraw can be used to evade, Hide in Shadows can cause more Confusion, provide regeneration and allow for more time to reposition)

Your last point is very solid and I’d have no idea how to counter it (especially if there were multiple thieves going invis and stacking their srs’) No idea how to counter that but I also don’t know if there’s many people willing to do that sort of coordination to melt zergs. Don’t believe me? How often do you see a group of 5 mesmers confusion shatter a zerg to try and confusion melt them? And even if there were a group like that, how often do the confusions stick without the other 30 enemies cleansing for the targets?

Hopefully there won’t be too many Multi-Thief stacking groups (Though I dare say they’d be some) since there are also other ways to provide similar zerg busting (The mentioned 5 Mesmer, also X Thief + 4-5 x/D Elementalists using Churning Earth from Shadow Refuge) but the amount of confusion a single thief could provide when using it is a bit too high. Especially when the common response from Thieves to non-Thieves complaining about Shadow Refuge tends to be “Just spam skills inside it to hit the thief”

bengobee.8749:

-Having LFG is a way to loose part of the socialization with people.

Having LFG is also a way to increase socialization with people, as it not only allows you to easily meet with people, but due to the way that cross-realm works you can also socialise with people from other realms more easily (You can already do dungeons with people from other realms)

-LFG makes the game less interactive.

It can also make the game more interactive due to giving more people easier access to dungeons/world events/leveling partners/events participation whom aren’t constantly spamming chat with “LFG to X”

-What’s the point in having LFG if you have your guild, and map chat to find people.

To completely counter your first argument about socialisation. Also to allow for people to find groups with people from other realms (Helpful during low peak hours) and also to reduce the amount of spam in chat (When the entire chat can be filled with people spamming what groups they’re looking for, groups looking for members and also regular chat, it gets a bit hard to follow)

-LFG was implemented in WoW with a better reason, because you had to run around the world to get to places, Which can take forever. while in GW2 you can just waypoint. So what’s even the point of having LFG?

To find people to go to said dungeon with.

-I actually enjoy going around the world and seeing a bunch of level 80s in one place and saying to my self, ‘Hey, I wonder what this is all about!’. In other words, having a bunch of level 80s in an area makes the area more vibrant in a certain kind of charm.

Having LFG doesn’t mean that groups can’t be formed the traditional way (Via asking in chat, asking guild members etc) and doesn’t change the fact that 80’s will be gathering up for other reasons such as World Events and such.

It can be.

Using Death Shroud to prevent death by falling and the Spectral Walk method (Using it when close to the floor resets the “Fall height” so you take damage equivalent to a fall starting where you used it) are more effective since they can stop damage from any height fall.

But these are situational; Spectral Walk is a 60 second cooldown base and Death Shroud is depleted after a decent sized fall (Thus needs to be regenerated before another use) while Toxic Landing will always work, and is much more effective for repeated falling.

So for things like:

• Jumping Puzzles
• WvWvW Terrain usage (Constantly moving up and off ledges to provide breathing room/trick people into killing themselves)
• Open world travelling (Allows going in a direct route without having to stop to get LF)
• Times when you will take falling damage but need to keep DS and the utility(slot)

Toxic Landing becomes worth it.

randomfightfan.4091:

Also if someone is just doing CnD over and over on a condition build, the thief will be perma in melee range but only doing maybe MAYBE 1k CnDs. Not much of a problem. Very easily ignorable and if the thief even can’t make it for a cnd or misses one, then you have a very good chance to melt them.

With Carrion gear in the cheese exploiting build I looked at (2k power, 2k condi damage) the CnD would hit for about 1.5k damage on a lot of targets (Non-crit due to no precision) but the main focus would be the huge AoE damage caused by the Confusion (As it is currently the CnD spam is awful due to how little it achieves, a Confusion build would be able to actually perform a role both solo and in group encounters)

Also, CnD thief doesn’t need to be in perma-melee due to having 3 seconds to wander around, leaving melee range and re-entering (Since targets won’t be able to see where the thief is moving, not all will be able to move away from the thief)

If the thief misses/can’t get off a CnD, they can pop Blinding Powder/Shadow Refuge to give them stealth (Since they won’t need any utilities to actually peform this combo)

Which also brings up another good point, Shadow Refuge and multiple stacks of Confusion brought on. Depending on the duration of the Confusion it could get anywhere between 3-5 stacks of confusion (1242 – 2070 damage per tick with the previously mentioned Carrion build)

randomfightfan.4091:

Also I feel the protection idea is pretty bad, no offence. It’s just that thief was designed to dance and dodge around you opponent, not taking the hits, always 1 step ahead. Then again though, I don’t feel that ele should be able to get any protection outside earth… but then you look at d/d and think wtf.

I agree that thieves should be kept around the Evasive theme it’s just there’s limited amount of defensive boons – Regeneration, Vigor, Protection and Aegis.

Add in that there are 2 Shadow Arts traits that provide Regeneration (One conflicts with other sources of Regeneration) and the lackluster/overpowered nature of Aegis (1 application will only prevent a single attack, unless it’s 1 application per second in stealth which would get pretty powerful)

Leaving only Vigor (May be too strong for other builds if a 5 point trait, such as the Endless Dodging builds and other Acro focused builds) and Protection (Allowing stealth to be used defensively against people who can track stealth would increase the ability for Thieves to be played in competitive PvP)

randomfightfan.4091:

Considering that before those thieves only had bleeds to work with (which did nothing due to super easily obtainable cleanses), I wouldn’t feel the least bit bad about giving them 1 stack of confusion every few seconds. Makes it so it’s not super easy to completely nullify a build’s entire souce of dps (not to mention what would happen if you were stacking those against a necro or mes :s Feel bad for the thief already).

Well, without confusion the thief playstyle I outlined only had Cloak and Dagger and Vulnerability to play with (Talking about CnD > CnD > CnD >CnD thieves which have been complained about) allowing these thieves to provide confusion would make it a viable (Also mostly safe, Carrion build can get over 20k health easily and with people not wanting to attack often…) way of doing huge AoE damage in PvP without providing much in PvE (PvE stuff tends to hit slowly and only trigger 1-2 ticks of the average confusion)

randomfightfan.4091:

nothing wrong with that but imo, love the vigor idea, but there’s something I like to call an offensive defence. When someone isn’t willing to attack you due to your imposing threat, it’s an offensive defence. You don’t need protection when fewer people are swinging their twilights blindly in circles, trying to find you.

The concern I have with that, is what happens if someone for example, stacks up a massive amount of condition damage (I looked up a build with 2k Condition damage through Carrion gear (So additional power as well)) and uses the perma-stealth CnD spam tactics to keep applying 414 damage confusion stacks in an area.

Thus allowing them to single-handedly shut down groups of people (They won’t want to attack at the thief, nor would they want to engage in group fights as taking 414 damage per attack they deal is pretty strong especially if cleanses are nulified via re-application every 3 seconds)

Incurafy.6329:

While I agree with you that some sort of boon would be nice, protection on/after stealth would be ridiculously OP in any stealth build. Protection while revealed because of a protection after stealth trait would make stealth thieves too difficult to kill even with a landed CC.

Depends on the duration and interaction.

If it’s something like the Shadow Protector trait in which the boon doesn’t stack with anything (It won’t refresh itself, it doesn’t apply if the boon is already on you from another source)

Also, if it’s short duration (Such as 2-3 seconds, covering not all of stealth duration or not all of revealed) with an internal cooldown (To prevent abuse via stealth combo’s and Shadow Refuge) it would make it useful, without being as ridiculous as the Boon classes (Guardian + Elementalist)

Silver.4798:

I’d be thrilled if they replaced last refuge with giving us vigor for 5s on stealth. It doesn’t make sense to me that a class designed to be “evasive” for its defense has (correct me if I’m wrong) exactly one source of vigor: 8 secs of vigor when you heal from the acrobatics trait line. More please.

Bountiful Theft – Stealing provides you and allies near your 15 seconds of vigor. Up to 2 boons are also ripped and given to nearby allies. – 20 Point Trickery trait.

On Topic:

I’d go for something more defensive to be honest; Vigor on stealth, Protection on revealed, Protection on stealth etc. Something to actually make going stealth a defensive move (Vigor = More dodges to actually be able to dodge the hits thrown at you when stealthed. Also reduces the need to go 15 Acro to be able to actually get additional defence). Due to the inherent problems with using Stealth vs a good player (In that the good player will continue to attack the thief, thus rendering their only defence being dodging, which other classes can often do more of via high uptime of Vigor)

Heck, the possibility of moving Meld with Shadows to the 5 point trait and adding a new 15 point trait is still there (Non-stealth orientated thieves get some but not a massive amount of boost from the additional second of stealth, allowing for a more dedicated stealth orientated minor trait to be put in for those that go 15 points in)

To avoid that feeling of helplessness that players of MMO’s tend to feel when perma-stealth classes can jump on them at any time, Thieves lack the ability to enter a fight already stealthed (Aside from Shadow Refuge, though that’s normally saved to be able to leave the fight if necessary)

To compensate, Thieves instead get the ability to stealth repeatedly in a fight (Every 4 seconds) whereas perma-stealth from other games has to make do with 1 maybe 2 long cooldown abilities. Also the stealth trait line focuses less on boosting up “From stealth” damage (Via increased critical chance, armour penetration etc) and more on giving defensive and utility boosts upon entering/while in stealth.

This gives a much more active and dynamic way of playing a stealth class that leaves people to be able to counter it in various ways (Dodging/Blocking Cloak and Dagger to prevent stealth is one way) making it more interesting way to utilise a stealth class for both sides.

Selver.1307:

Since apparently torches were never meant for thieves.

It’s not that, it’s more you have to consider how thieves skills tend to work:

Auto – 3 Init skill – Dual Skill (4/5 Init) – 4 Init skill – 6 Init skill

Then you also have to account for how these skills interact with being spammable, examples:

Heartseeker – Does very little outside of the low health range it was designed for.
Cluster Bomb – Has long travel time outside of shotgunning (Can still be used as a spammable blast finisher for 3 init)
Cloak and Dagger – Costs a lot of initiative to use repeatedly.
Dancing Dagger – Provides little damage.
Headshot – Provides little damage and short duration daze.

Very few ways a Thief can abuse the skills to become really strong (Best they can do is Black Powder > Stealth combo spamming) whilst also allowing for a careful use of initiative to come into play (Since different abilities cost different amounts, it allows combo’s and gives different abilities priority depending on Init levels and regen)

Number 10 doesn’t really affect me (I knew about the game when it was first announced that development was going to start) and I don’t actually have television to watch adverts.

But seeing what they used? It’d definitely need some work…

Number 9, I very much agree with, WvW is a big part of the game and being able to have a fair chance even if you’re on a server that isn’t the dominant one would be a big step forward.

Number 8, I don’t really mind Magic Find too much (If I was going to get all in a huff about people gearing towards MF it’d be hypocritical if I didn’t react in the same way for people not running FotM builds, both involve players not being “Optimal” for personal gain, be it more gold and loot or more fun) loot is a definite problem though.

When it’s something like completing a Dragon event lasting several minutes and can only be done every few hours giving the same rewards as low level group events that are easily soloed in 2-5 minutes and happen ever 30-60 minutes, it brings much less incentive to do them and makes completing them not very satisfying. Bringing in unique rewards (Be they skins, or usable gear) for events would be a good incentive (If I recall correctly Final Rest http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Final_Rest is only attained through the Behemoth event in Queensdale)

Number 7 I definitely agree on, it’s depressing to see stuff like the first 30 levels on the story interacting with a character (In my case, it was becoming friends with Eir Stegalkin) and then not seeing her again until much later when there’s a random battle that just happens to be with Trahearne and Eir during a certain Orr related storyline (The exact quest is shown in the video when mentioning NPC’s cheering when finishing the personal story)

Number 3 is a good point, having to rely on a 3rd party to be able to reliably organize groups (Outside sitting in LA and spamming chat) is pretty bad. Heck, something along the lines of what City of Heroes had would be good (Essentially what the site provides, with the added ability to select what kind of content you wanted to look for, be it standard missions, player created missions, “Raid” bosses etc)

Numbers 1 and 2 are also big points, the amount of clipping from various pieces of gear, the awkwardness of all the NPC’s you can talk to and items you can interact with (Exacerbated by having the same key to interact with everything meaning when looting you can end up picking up bundles/talking to NPC’s) also various problems in Personal Story (Such as lines missing/incorrect, which when all you have to do is type/copy paste the script used into it seems quite strange) least of all the issues with Event bugs and optimization (My computer runs all other games on max settings, including games such as Witcher 2 completely fine, but yet can only achieve low settings in GW2 and even then, it performs poorly in larger engagements)

naphack.9346:

Smoke Bomb:
We are in the thief forum, not in the Engineer forum.
If Smoke Screen: Which part is useless? You can block projectiles just fine. If you only farm dragon events, you may find it laughable, but it has its moments…
If Blinding Powder: It’s an instant invisibility, much like the mesmer’s decoy. And it is friggin AoE.
If Black Powder shot: Do we play the same game?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Smoke_Bomb_

Downed state #3 skill.

Back when stealth dropped aggro, this skill was very handy for surviving both in solo and in groups (Since you’d stop getting hit and could revive yourself with uninterrupted #4)

Now that stealth doesn’t drop aggro, all it does is delay your death by 1 second and allow you to use the stealth version of #1 which is rather limited in it’s usefulness.

evilapprentice.6379:

When you look at the specifics, it’s pretty easy to see that a necro’s condition removal is much stronger than a thiefs (And rightly so IMO…its a necromancer)

It essentially comes down to:

Necro removes large numbers of Conditions

vs

Thieves have much more spammable removal skills (Hell, the Remove Conditions on/during stealth does much more than most of the Necro’s removals, due to it can be spammed and whilst in stealth it’s much less likely that conditions are being applied (Since attacks that require a target like Necro Sceptre #1, Necro’s Blood is Power, Necro’s Deathly Swarm, Mesmer’s Sceptre #3 etc)

Considering the time it takes for most classes to get up conditions (Aside from Thief, but they generally apply 1 maybe 2 conditions) the repeated small condition removals becomes really powerful (Especially when you combine them, so stuff like Withdraw to remove all Cripple/Chill/Immobilize to leave other skills such as the on stealth removal to be sure to take off the damaging conditions)

Goloith.6349:

I understand what the conditions and their application are for, but the point I’m making is that they are not “bursty”. You’re just repeating what I said. ANET has said multiple times they want Theif to be bursty, and the Engineer to not be bursty, yet the Engineer has more bursty condition builds than what a Thief could ever dream of having. That’s why I’d like to see more viability for other builds/abilities.

So you’re wanting “Bursty” condition build for a thief? Isn’t a Bursty Condition build kind of an Oxymoron? (Engies can have burst-like condi builds due to the way Confusion works, especially vs skill spamming)

Venoms are designed for use by builds that want to prolong a fight or Direct Damage builds that want the advantage given by these non-damaging conditions (Or at least in theory, in practice their CD’s are too long and their applications make it so the entire utility is instantly cleansed)

Thief’s “Bursty” condition builds come from Caltrops + Death Blossom allowing them to get 25 stacks of bleed quickly (Also restack up a good portion relatively quickly) or they come from P/D’s periods of Sneak Attacks giving 5 stacks of bleed every few seconds.

Ideally the builds will have more leeway of becoming “Bursty” if they get access to Burning or Confusion.

As far as HS goes this probably is the #1 reason stealth got nerfed (misguilded in my opinion) because it wasn’t necessarily that people got hit with HS right off the bat, but it was the repeated use after the intial burst. Then people would stealth again, hit with #1, then HS, HS, HS.

Stealth got nerfed because back when culling wasn’t fixed, lots of people complained that the thief was hitting them through “Perma-invisibility” and that they couldn’t see thieves and only had 1 second to see them (2 seconds of Culling with 3 seconds of revealed meant that for only 1 second thieves where visible) so they did a double whammy of removing culling and adding a second onto revealed.

Dasorine.1964:

The complete removal of damage from CnD would have effects in other area’s of the game as well, such as PvE sustained damage (every little but helps there) and such. Wouldn’t be a massive drop and many probably wouldn’t miss it, but it removing it accomplishes very little as well other than dealing with something thats already a non issue.

That’s why I suggested an increase in Vulnerability stacks as compensation. It doesn’t take a huge amount for Backstab to start getting higher damage (Also in group PvE when there isn’t already perma-25 vuln it’d increase the damage done by allies)

CnD cheese may be a non-issue for competent players, but I dare say if it’s kept in there will be a lot of people crying nerf about it. I don’t want to be slapped with a ham-fisted stealth nerf again (Though interestingly, I only started playing stealth orientated builds after the stealth nerf… Go figure)

Also, cutting down the burst combo is something that A-net where looking at. I’d rather something that is inconsequential to most builds as this happen than something like the complete gutting of Mug and/or backstab (Or stealth… Because you never know)

Yeah, it’s due to how these % health procs work, they go by being hit while under the stated % health rather than when you go below that % health.

With a low percentage like 10% (Meaning 2k for a 20k health build) it’s a fine line between dying outright before going below, or the hit that you take when under there kills you off. With a very slim chance of being able to actually get the proc.

If they upped the % to 20-25% health (Also made it not share CD with proc traits) it’d be much more reliable. Like, for example, the Svanir 6 rune bonus.

Ashanor.5319:

If damage of Cloak and Dagger is further nerfed, cost should be adjusted accordingly.

I don’t see why.

Outside of the Burst combo (Also, the CnD cheese that somehow kills people…), builds tend to not utilise CnD for the damage but rather the stealth (To use an ability that does do damage/control)

Having CnD damage nerfed/removed wouldn’t change most builds (It could be compensated with more Vulnerability stacks) but would remove a portion of the Burst combo and make CnD cheese literally useless.

Also a side note: I shouldn’t be able to get 5.5k crits with CnD on level 80’s in WvW…

Daecollo.9578:

That is why 3 second evasion would be way OP, if they screw up they have 3 seconds to teleport/get away and nothing can stop them.

I agree.

The fact that Warriors get 3 seconds of invulnerability at 25% but on a Major Master trait, kind of shows how powerful it is (On a class that’s main way of living when getting to that health tends to be “SMASH FACE!!”)

3 seconds of evadeing is plenty of time to Shadowstep away/Get off most of a Shadow Refuge (Evading also means that things such as Immobilise and Cripple won’t be able to land) and shouldn’t be given to Thieves, especially as a 5 point trait.

It only procs on when taking damage and already under 10% health.

It’s very hit or miss if it does proc, some people get it to proc consistently, others will have it fail occasionally/often.

It shares cooldowns with various traits that proc on % health (Not all of them, only some) which can cause conflicts since other procs use higher health ranges and will tend to proc first.

Goloith.6349:

Poison it’s slowly, but it’s strength is the -33% healing effectiveness.

The poison is there mostly for the -33% healing, meaning that if a target get’s hit by some burst, they’re less likely to be able to recover before another round of burst occurs.

Chill slows the target’s recharge on skills by -66%, but what’s the point if you’re dead from a class using all their abilities and then swapping and not needing to wait for the recharge?

With the duration it comes it, the Chill is more for keeping the target locked down with the -66% movement speed (Also affects Leaps that most classes utilise to escape battles they are losing) it ensures the advantage stays with the thief to be hard to hit with (Now) superior mobility.

Weakness is meant to reduce the amount of damage if you get hit by critical hits, but in reality if you’re getting hit your toast to begin with, let alone getting hit with conditions.

The main point of Weakness for a thief isn’t the -50% damage on non-crits, but rather the -50% endurance regeneration, which prevents the enemies ability to avoid your burst while you continue to evade their damage and keep chipping at them with bursts.

Thief would really seem much more viable with a skill that does burning damage or confusion. Don’t get me wrong they would need to dial back bleed stacking, but at least the enemy couldn’t remove the heavy damage that a condi thief works for with 1 condition removal.

A-net have acknowledged this, and they’re looking for a way to introduce Burning into the thief that fits in (They’ve already started nerfing Bleed stacking in the form of the Caltrops nerf)

P.S. after rolling a Thief I can say even more emphasis that Heat Seeker needs a nerf. There is absolutely no reason that any profession can have this heavy hitting skill with this small of cost. Spam, Spam, Spam is not skillful.
My suggestions:
-Make it cost more (5 initiative) or
-Shorten it’s range (or remove the leap)
-Reduce it’s effectiveness if used consecutively.

Other than that I have immense respect for the people that play this profession!

Heartseeker is fine as it is, at lower levels when targets have small amounts of health a HS at full health will bring a lot of things to below 50% health so the next HS’s do increased damage.

At higher levels the damage HS does to a target above 50% health is not much more than auto-attacking and has the down side of depleting your valuable Initiative supplies.

Heartseeker comes into it’s own to bring down injured targets (50% and below, ideally 25% and below) which coincides with A-nets plan of Thieves being Hit and Run class that deals burst damage to counter Bunker builds and finish off low health targets.

Daecollo.9578:

Most glass cannon builds are ones that try to kill someone quickly, staying at 90% health and not getting hit at all, then exiting as quickly as possible after the kill. They usually die instantly when they are focused.

Actually, that’s just the Burst builds, that tend to try and win using the insta-gib combo (The BV > CnD > Mug > BS)

There are a lot of glassy builds that forego stealth, those that utilize but don’t rely on it and those that use it but utilise other defences (Such as Blinds from D/P) to keep up high damage pressure. These tend to be the high skill builds since dodging is mandatory to live against a half decent opponent.

Daecollo.9578:

Your just making popular builds way better, where my idea offers “STAYING POWER” for non-glass cannon thieves.

Your idea also offers “STAYING POWER” for the popular builds, including Glass Cannons (Also helps remove some of the “Glass” since with a high crit chance often achieved by GC’s the likelyhood of getting the ~600 health every 2 seconds)

Not all GC thieves are the stupid 25/30/0/0/15 build, there are many other viable glassy builds that utilize Zerker gear – High crit chance and crit damage.

Considering that a lot of the popular builds are stuff like 10/30/30 or 0/20/30/20 or some other variation that goes into Shadow Arts and Critical Strikes lines (Even some Condi builds go 15 into Critical Strikes for Opportunist and get decent crit chance to go along with that)

With a good crit rate, this passive 5 point ability will outdo the healing of Perma Regeneration with 560 Healing power (Not accounting for the scaling provided on the trait suggestion) it’ll also do damage as well. If combined up with the extra trait the Life Siphon will be able to outdo Perma-Regeneration with over 1300 healing power (Again not accounting for the scaling on the Siphon)

So, 10 points for better than nearly full Healing power geared Regeneration, whilst still being able (In fact, incentivised) to go full crit + damage.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-Vs-Mesmer-in-duels/first#post1783846

Something to help out with figuring out.

I don’t face too many Shatter mesmer to be able to be confident in my tactics, I tend to find myself getting my butt kicked by Phantasm mesmers (Even if I down them, a Phantasm or 2 that are still alive counter down me and due to Mesmer down + Phantasms >>>>>>> Thief down….)

HiSaZuL.2843:

Classes that stack boons can stack them a lot faster then you could ever strip even a third of them with that. Even if they stood still and did nothing. Its awkward trait that will either be too much or it doesn’t justify points. It has no reasonable middle ground in games current state.

It’s interesting to see the effectiveness of this trait vs something like a Sword/X Mesmer getting out 3 Sword clones.

4 targets all doing a melee chain that rips a boon on the final strike does often just chew through anyone putting up boons (True, it’s at the cost of damage since Clones do bugger all damage, while minions can put out a lot of damage when they’re focusing on a target)

SupahSpankeh.8452:

Also, it doesn’t do damage to the target

Sigil of Blood should do 452 damage and 453 + (0.1 * Healing Power) healing when it procs.

Thus making it deal slightly more damage than Leeching if you proc it every 5 seconds, it should do more healing than Leeching if you proc it often and/or have an okay amount of healing power.

In addition to this, often the Vampiric runes wouldn’t do anyhting at all. I found on one occasion I was turned to mist with 0hp left, and was able to run, leave mists (still on 0hp) and heal. Unfortunately, it didn’t work the other 6-7 times I tested it (on mobs with small but steady damage, and in PVP vs burst damage).

Vampirism runes are pretty good, but have their issues:

The 4 bonus is often disabled after repairing, requiring the removal of all pieces of armour and re-equipping.

The 6 bonus shares a cooldown with the trait Last Gasp in soul reaping meaning that if you have that trait you’ll very rarely see the Mist (Last Gasp procs at 50% health rather than the 10% of the Runes)

Bonus that I noticed:

If at 10% health and entering Death Shroud, it’ll still proc off attacks when in Death Shroud. An added bonus also makes it so you can continue to attack whilst in Death Shroud while being invulnerable mist (Haven’t tested since the UI change in Death Shroud, but I assume it still works the same)

LordSlack.4685:

What about +crit damage %? The math above is all about straight damage % increases, but what about high crit damage?

The math I did used crit damage (Using Zerker Amulet since it was a PvP discussion)

The number in the brackets are the Skill Coefficient * Crit Multiplier.

I.E. The damage the skill does times by how much crit damage you have.

Madara.3126:

and i think in the 25/30/0/0/15 that executioner is the best (+20% dmg under 50% lf) because we already have a cc very high..

Executioner vs Hidden Killer generally comes down to:

Do you want to risk a non-crit, thus blowing everything you have and not getting a kill?

Will your target be below 50% health when the Backstab comes? If CnD > Mug doesn’t crit (Or you don’t stack up your Might beforehand to regain initiative after CnD) or the target isn’t full GC then they may not be if you’re starting with the combo on a full health target (A lower health target may be more secure in this)

I’d like to see it changed into a large life siphon personally…

It won’t be able to crit, so the damage won’t be able to become stupid high for a 10 point trait (No 6k+ crits that occur instantly ontop of other attacks from GC’s)

It’ll provide some sustain to thieves to help them live (Due to health gain) in all builds, be they Condition, Bunker or Burst regardless of stats they go (Currently, only really worthwhile in Burst builds due to high Power/Crit Damage/Crit)

Since life siphoning isn’t affected by armour it’s easy to tune the exact damage/healing to be balanced number.

Of course, to really change how Mug works, they’d need to rethink the base 45 second cooldown on Steal due to having a lesser damage would make it almost worthless (Consider currently the damage it deals vs it’s cooldown… With the base cooldown, a 10k hit with it will only average out to 222 DPS… With 30 Trickery it’d go up to 294 DPS)

Changing the Steal cooldown would also have the side affect of making other Steal traits more worthwhile (Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft, Sleight of Hand, Hidden Thief and*Improvisation*)

Also about the comment on increasing counterplay to thieves – Theives are already shut down by good players (Can counter stealth pretty easily, continue to attack stealthed targets, etc) and so are not played at higher end of PvP. Increasing the counterplay would make thieves even more useless at higher skill levels.

Anvi.1802:

With http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlcmKOHcS5E/5Ex2DfKUe6VAsaPoZLvJA;ToAg0Cno4ywlgLLXOukcNoYWA

You can get 22 stacks of might and +80% dmg. Against a full glass cannon build with 916 toughness, you can deal up to 15K I would say.

Technically yes, but bear in mind, using CnD to gain stealth (I.E. The only way you can in that build) you lose out on the +10% damage from First Strikes due to being taken below 7 initiative (Unless you wait around for 1.33 seconds to regen up, and pray that the target doesn’t stun break and counter you)

The damage that the backstab would deal with the 25 Bloodlust, 22 might, +80% damage on a light armour target with no toughness/protection would be (Including the 3 Vuln from Cloak and Dagger):

981 * 3414 * (2.42 * 2.08) * 1.83 / 1800 = 17139

Compared to something like Eviscerate on the same target with a 30/10/0/0/10 using 13 Might (FGJ + SoM + SoR) + 18 Vulnerability (OMM + Axe #2 + Mace #4)

1048 * 3009 * (3.04 * 2.18) * 1.53 / 1800 = 17763 that can be done to a full health target.

There’s nothing majorly wrong with Necro’s in dungeons (Heck I use mine as full zerker in melee in a lot of dungeons)

It’s just that people tend to favour using Warriors, Guardians and Mesmers in dungeons because those 3 classes are very strong in PvE (Warriors throwing out huge damage, Guardians being really tough to take down and providing AoE boons and Mesmers bring very nice support skills) and people, like electricity, take the path of least resistance (A.k.a. being lazy and want to just steamroll through content)

Meanwhile, classes such as Necromancer, Thief and to an extent Engineer and Ranger tend to bring less group utility (Not a huge amount of AoE boons, not always as much DPS as a warrior can easily bring and not as tanky as a Guardian) that said, these are just the “Most common” views/builds of these classes, it’s entirely possible to make very strong PvE builds with these classes at to clear all content.

Heck, a while back some people started doing full Necro runs of places (Trying to also speed run as fast as 4x Warrior + Mesmer)

With http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAo4kUmLOxfORs9wn7ko+HArODa2SA;TgAg0UcZ4SwllLHXSuGFA

25/30/0/0/15 (Maximum burst damage)

Damage increases:
5% Sigil
5% Flanking Strikes
5% Dagger Training
10% Exposed Weakness
10% First Strikes
10% Scholar Runes
15% Assassin’s Signet

For a total of 60% damage.

Now using only BV > AS > CnD > Mug > BS the backstab will do up to:

981 * 2304 * (2.42 * 2.03) * 1.6 / 1800 = 9896 Damage vs a GC light armour class with no defence.

In order to deal more damage than that, Bloodlust Stacks would be necessary

981 * 2554 * (2.42 * 2.03) * 1.6 / 1800 = 10940 Damage vs a GC light armour class with no defence.

Okay so more Signets to be used for more Might stacks, using 1 extra signet (Extra 5 Might)

981 * 2729 * (2.42 * 2.03) * 1.6 / 1800 = 11690

Still not quite there… Lets go all out with all utilities being Signets for a total of 15 Might!

981 * 2904 * (2.42 * 2.03) * 1.6 / 1800 = 12440

Aw shucks… I guess we’ll have to also use the Healing skill signet for another 5 Might, totalling 20 Might stacks

981 * 3079 * (2.42 * 2.03) * 1.6 / 1800 = 13189

Still short, lets add on 5 Vulnerability stacks
981 * 3079 * (2.42 * 2.03) * 1.65 / 1800 = 13601

In short, using the ultimate burst combo (20 Might + 60% Damage modification) from a thief, requiring running with 4 Signets and pre-popping them, the thief still needs an additional 2 Vulnerability stack vs a Light armour GC target with no toughness to pull off 13.6k damage.

mystafa.6254:

Taril.8619:

JakobGW.5730:

Obviously some BP/HS combos don’t last 3 seconds, and some last the entire traited 4 seconds. I took an average of 3 seconds just, well, because it felt appropriate.

Just want to point out, that the BP > HS combo doesn’t get benefit from Meld with Shadows and will always be a 3 second stealth.

CnD works with it?

Yes, with Meld with Shadows the stealth from Cloak and Dagger will be 4 seconds.

It’s just stealth combos and Shadow Refuge that don’t benefit from this trait (Yet they benefit from all other “On using a skill that stealths you” traits, making this seem like a bug)

JakobGW.5730:

Obviously some BP/HS combos don’t last 3 seconds, and some last the entire traited 4 seconds. I took an average of 3 seconds just, well, because it felt appropriate.

Just want to point out, that the BP > HS combo doesn’t get benefit from Meld with Shadows and will always be a 3 second stealth.

Daecollo.9578:

Your comparing two different classes.

I’m also comparing similar traits, just like you’re basing your suggestion on another classes trait.

Necromancers have almost double the health of the thief and much more condition removal.

While Necromancers have 80% more base health than a thief (18k base compared to 10k base) they also have limited dodging and evasion capabilities, meaning they’re forced to take damage and try to heal up. They also have an entire trait line that’s based around life stealing, having another class out do the majority of their line with no less than a 5 point trait would be unacceptable.

On the topic of condition removal:

Necromancer:

• Consume Conditions – 25 second cooldown
• Well of Power – 60 second cooldown
• Deathly Swarm – 18 second cooldown
• Putrid Mark – 25 second cooldown
• Plague Signet – 60 second cooldown
• Spiteful Removal – 10 second cooldown (Requires a kill)
• Fetid Consumtion – 10 second cooldown per minion (Will transfer it to a minion rather than dissipating it)

Thief:

• Shadow Step – 50 second cooldown
• Roll for Initiative – 60 second cooldown
• Signet of Agility – 30 second cooldown
• Infiltrator’s Strike – No cooldown (Costs 5 initiative in total)
• Hide in Shadows – 30 second cooldown
• Withdraw – 15 second cooldown
• Shadow’s Embrace – No cooldown (1 removed upon stealthing and 1 removed every 3 seconds you remain stealthed)
• Fleet of Foot – 10 second cooldown

Daecollo.9578:

There isn’t an internal cool-down on that ability.

But as you said, Thieves get much more ways to get critical hits than Necromancers.

Also considering the fastest attack speed weapon they have (Dagger mainhand) will only be able to hit 4 times per ~2 seconds which means that it will only be able to proc twice per second (Also requires them to get critical hits with all attacks, even then with the 50% trait (54 health per proc) that’s still only 108 DPS and HPS while these numbers would only need a thief to crit every 2 seconds to gain 91 DPS and 213 HPS (With the trait it’d be 91 DPS and 319.5 HPS)

Also they can get +110 every time a minion hits as well, which can add up to 500-600 HPS from one trait.

Also note, Vampiric Master is a Master Major trait not a 5 point trait, it also requires use of all 3 utility slots, the heal skill and elite skill to achieve maximum effectiveness and can have the minions killed off to stop the healing.

Daecollo.9578:

However, I would as well. I think 5 seconds of Vigor however would be too much for thief.

Well they currently have access to 8 seconds of Vigor on healing and 15 seconds of AoE Vigor on steal.

5 seconds per 5 seconds shouldn’t be too horrible, especially since other professions (Whom have actual ways of reducing damage rather than being based purely around avoiding it) get it and also Rangers have a 5 point trait that gives a permanent 50% endurance regeneration (Half the effectiveness of Vigor for 5 points in one of their best trait lines)

Umm… I’m not going to touch the really high values you’ve put (In comparison to Necromancers Vampiric Precision which is a major trait rather than a minor that does 33 damage/healing)

Life stealing on crit, doesn’t really fit with with the Shadow Arts trait line (Then again neither does Leeching Venoms, Power Shots and Venomous Aura) I’d be much happier with another copy of the “5 seconds of vigor on crit (5 second cooldown)” that Elementalists, Guardians and Mesmers get.

Or heck, even a “When using a skill that stealths you, gain X seconds of Vigor” it’d fit more with the trait line, and give a supposedly slippery class the ability to have access to some decent time of Vigor (The issue it may get is people getting perma-vigor via abusing Smoke Fields depending on the duration)

My necro currently runs a Vampiric build:

30 III, IX, XII
0
10 III
30 II, V, VII
0

Zerker gear + Vampirism Runes
D/F and S/D (Sceptre actually does okay damage in zerker gear) Sigil of Blood + Sigil of Accuracy and Sigil of Bloodlust x2

Blood Fiend/Consume Conditions
Signet of the Locust/Bone Minions/Bone Fiend
Become The Wolf as an elite (It’s #2 is a massive Life Siphon, it can, and has fully healed me from 10% health in a single cast, it also cleaves which makes it more usable in PvE)

Works okay, as long as I time my dodges correctly and can keep my minions alive (If they’re up and attacking my target, the target melts and my health won’t budge)

I happen to do a lot of WvW (I spend about 50% of my time there)

I’m currently 4 PoI and 4 Vista’s away from 100% map completion.

Those last remaining PoI’s and Vista’s happen to be inside Towers and Keep that my server rarely owns (They’re the ones closest to various colours sides, and my server group hasn’t changed colour in the few months I’ve been there)

Making WvW not required, or even making the points in WvW accessible without needing to own all the different keeps and towers (I.E. Have them not inside them) would make it much friendlier to do, without the pressure of having to join a zerg if you don’t want to nor feel the need to buy a server transfer to get completion if your server doesn’t happen to be dominating the other 2 while you’re trying to get completion.

Goloith.6349:

Can anyone explain what the new stealth is after the nerf? Never played a Thief so I was wondering how it affects them. Is it a debuff at the end of stealth that makes it so a Thief can’t be stealth continually or what?

Basically, if you leave stealth via attacking something while stealthed you get a debuff called Revealed which lasts for 4 seconds. While you have the Revealed debuff you cannot go into stealth by any means.

The nerf just made it so that Revealed lasts for 4 seconds instead of 3, which while it doesn’t sound like much, that 1 extra second makes a huge difference when you rely on going into stealth often.

As far as I know, they wanted to look at lowering the Burst damage a Thief puts out.

They also mentioned in the last SotG that they feel the “Mug” trait is too strong in it’s current iteration (As a 10 point trait)

So, the likely result will be a nerf to Mug, but anything else? I don’t know about.

Goloith.6349:

I was wondering what were good level ranges to PvE and which levels were ones to use crafting to level from. I noticed with a few other professions that certain areas were a pain to PvE through.

All levels are pretty good.

It just depends where you want to level at, this way of playing Thief can easily take on things 5-8 levels higher due to Bleeding (Or rather conditions in general) aren’t affected by Glancing Blows and so continue to pump out a lot of damage, that combined with the cripple from Caltrops (Both Utility and Dodgetrops) can allow you to keep kiting things for a long period of time.

Oftentimes if an area is getting pretty difficult it’s possible to just go to another, similar level zone and do some leveling there (Or even a lower level zone, since completion is a % of current level in experience)