Guild Wars 2

Tiborb.1453:

Btw, to counter dashes and leaping skills, conditions that impair movent like cripple or chill should reduce the range of that skills: if you can’t run properly when you are clippled, then you shouldn’t dash/leap away!

Are you clippled? Is your movement speed reduced by half?
Then even your ability to leap is reduced for the same amount.

(For the sake of reality this shouldn’t apply to shadowstep/teleport ability as they don’t involve actual movement)

Leap abilities are infact reduced by Cripple and Chill.

They are also increased by 25% speed signets and Swiftness.

Shadow steps and teleports are not affected by movement speed (Which makes them really strong when immobilized and such)

bhagwad.4281:

It means I had to save my skills for after the thief is downed rather than during the fight.

Well, you technically need only 1 skill to be available to guarantee a stomp.

Considering most Mesmers tend to run with Decoy + Mass Invis/Time Warp + some way of getting illusions out fast (Mirror Image being common, especially for shatter builds)

Unless you’re saying that in a 1v1 you always need to pop nearly every utility and your elite skill against every class (Note: I’m considering more than just Thief vs Mesmer fights when regarding balance of abilities and combos that are available across multiple professions)

That is not a consideration for thieves who can easily stealth regardless with no downsides and no opportunity cost.

Opportunity cost for stealth stomp on a thief:

• Not having been in stealth for at least 3 seconds prior (Revealed)
• Access to stealth (Be it spending initiative on CnD the downed target (Can be interrupted to delay stealth), spending initiative on BP > HS combo (Can be interrupted to delay stealth), using a 40 second cooldown, using a 60 second cooldown or using a 30 second cooldown heal skill (Can be interrupted to delay stealth))
• Needs to ensure they have enough health to survive stomping (It’s quite possible to be downed if trying to stealth stomp at low health/with lots of conditions on)

The downside will be that thieves will be revealed after stealth stomping/if interrupted mid-stomp in the next patch.

I like how you say that being able to get nigh uncounterable stomps off is okay provided they come from situational skills that may or may not be used in combat yet don’t take into consideration that for a thief to get stealth stomps off they often will need to save up Initiative which is used for most of their damage, a thief will tend to have low initiative by the end of a fight due to needing to use it for getting to the end of a fight.

bhagwad.4281:

Simple answer – none of them are spammable. These are skills with long cooldowns that require me to carefully save them till needed. Not like stealth which thieves can enter into at any time.

What does that matter if you only care for 1v1? Blowing a cooldown to achieve a stomp which has little to no counter.

Unless you were infact talking about team fighting in which Stealth Stomp is easily counterable.

Stability stomp? You mean mantra of concentration? – You’re joking right?

I said that Mesmers have access to Stability stomp, I never mentioned how viable running with Mantra of Concentration was.

Also, both haste stomp and stability stomp have counters in that I can target them via my downed skills no matter how fast or how…stable.

Note the part when I asked about not just how you as a Mesmer deal with these stomps, but how you feel about other classes defences against what you have the capacity to do as a mesmer (A lot of classes use CC to avoid stomps, which don’t work against Distortion/Stability stomps for example)

bhagwad.4281:

I think we should make it clear that we’re only discussing 1v1’s. No one is interested in team fighting. As a mesmer, two of my main downed abilities require a target to activate.

So…

As a Mesmer, what are your thoughts on Distortion Stomp, Stability Stomp and Haste Stomp (Since Mesmers have access to all 3 as well as Stealth Stomp) keeping in mind what not only your class can do against them but also every other class can do against it be they downed or not?

Grimwolf.7163:

I don’t think there’s another trait in the game crappy enough to only boost a weapon’s damage by 5%. They all either grant 10%, or grant another effect along with it, like increased range or reduced recharges.

While Thieves only get 5% damage increase on Daggers/Shortbow and #3 skills via traits they also have other things to balance out damage outside of that such as:

7% crit chance when flanking Critical Strikes 10
5% damage when flanking Trickery 10
5% crit chance with #3 skills Critical Strikes 20
10% damage when target has a condition Deadly Arts 25
10% damage when initiative is over 6 Critical Strikes 25
10% damage when endurance isn’t full Acrobatics 25
1% damage per initiative (Up to 15% with full initiative) Trickery 25

With 70 trait points it’s entirely feasible to get 20% passive damage increase for all weapons with various different circumstances.

Most classes don’t get these type of traits, and those that do only have 1-2 amongst all of their traits lines.

Karolis.4261:

And why not to cnd/bs instead of falling into 222222222 train ?

Of course with D/D using CnD > BS > AA chain would be the best DPS for above 50% health.

I was just replying to the person who was claiming that >50% HS did less damage than the first hit of Auto-attack (When it infact deals nearly double)

randomfightfan.4091:

that’s just wrong
look at the tool tip. The damage on this is actually LESS than the 1st autoattack on dagger.

Using my tooltips with 2307 power:

Heartseeker;
>50% – 846
25-50% – 1269
<25% – 1692

Dagger #1;
Double Strike – 2x 474
Wild Strike – 719
Lotus Strike – 719

Heartseeker not only does more damage than any part of the Dagger #1 chain per hit even at > 50% health it also attacks faster (Dagger #1 full chain takes 2 seconds to complete) as it is less affected by the delay after skills (You can chain it instantly, there’s no small delay after the cast animation before starting a new one)

The only reason HS >50% is not used is because it’s better to save the initiative until <50% where the benefit is much larger.

1) Greatsword is more of a defensive weapon, it has evades/knockback/block/stun (The stun also increases pets next hit by 50%) using a more offensive weapon (Shortbow/Sword) would help alleviate that damage difference.

2) Ranger weapons attack fast (Aside from Longbow) thus meaning they don’t do huge hits but rather a lot of small ones while pets attack much slower meaning their attacks hit harder

AreUMadBro.6907:

You think you are right, comparing two underpowered professions. Geez. Rangers, necro and engi are the professions that need buffs, we all know this.

They may need a few tweaks but they’re not as underpowered as a lot of people say they are (I play all classes, Necros, Engies and Rangers are very strong if built correctly. In fact, my Engie does better burst damage than my full glass cannon GS warrior, can do it more often and has better survivability while doing it. My Necro puts out huge damage as full GC and also heals huge amounts while doing so etc)

And your build sword/dagger can be taken out by a simple berseker short bow ranger. Got my point?

If you’re bad, then you’ll be taken out by a SB ranger… If you can play then S/D will maul a SB ranger to death with the perma-cripple, high damage, perma-poison and multitude of evades.

D/P has an amazing #3 – It not only adds additional Blinds, making it a very Blind heavy weapon set, but also is a gap closer which is very useful for a entirely melee based fighting style (Only ranged attack is Headshot, and that’s not really an attack)

P/D also has a good #3 – It puts distance between you and an enemy allowing you to pelt them with bleed autos, it acts as a pseudo evade to get you out of nasty affects. In an average build initiative will be spent on either CnD or this skill (It’s entirely possible to kite someone to death via this plus auto’s. It takes a while and only works against melee/melee players but it can work)

DeceiverX.8361:

bhagwad.4281:

You can’t be serious right? I’ve seen a single BS in sPvP hit for 14k.

Really? Please show me how and when that’s happened after the Assassin’s Signet nerf. It ‘s literally impossible to go over 9k at this point, even running 30/30/x/x/x against full light armor upscaled level 1’s in WvW running 0 traited toughness/vit. I’m a level 80 thief running full exotic gear running power/precision/crit damage on every single item I own, including accessories and I’m fully equipped with superior runes of the scholar and divinity, and I crit for 7k max with assassin’s signet on other level 80’s in WvW. Your 14k is just a flat-out lie and a complete overstatement.

While I agree that a 14k Backstab crit in sPvP is highly unlikely (Did the math on it, using full Ascended zerker gear + Zerker orbs on weapons and armor + 25 Bloodlust + 25 Might + on kill food + 30/30/0/0/10 build against a target with no armour = 16.5k damage (Not accounting for % damage increases in traits) hitting over 9k is actually possible on upscaled targets. I’ve hit for a 10k backstab on an upscaled Elementalist (No signet usage, just popped into stealth and wham 1-shotted with a 10k hit)

AreUMadBro.6907:

It doesnt matter if it is a defensive weapon.

Oh, so should Shields on Warriors and Guardians also deal Warrior GS level damage?

How about Hammers that offset high control with lower damage?

What about those utility weapons such as Focus/Warhorn? Can’t see why they’re not pumping out 20k crits every 10 seconds…

The damage sucks. Sucks badly.

If you think the damage sucks, don’t play Necro… Ranger greatsword not only out DPSes Necro’s strongest weapon (Dagger) but also cleaves, which is something necros miss out on.

we are medium armored, with no defense

Medium armour is still better than all the light armoured classes (Not accounting for other class based defences)

Also, learn to build your character if you believe Rangers have no defence.
50% Endurance regen passively as a 5 point trait, protection on dodge as a 15 point trait for example.

Combine that with the fact that GS will evade on every third auto-attack, can leap out of danger with #3, can block and then knockback an enemy with #4 (Most likely interrupting them) and can outright stun with #5.

Then of course if you really wanted to you could carry around Sword/Dagger combo for an extra 4 evades (Hornet Sting/Monarchs Leap on 8 second base cooldown, Serpent’s Strike on a 15 second base cooldown and Stalker’s Strike on a 10 second base cooldown)

bhagwad.4281:

My main complaint is spammable skills that have no CD. If I have a projectile absorb dome for 1 second, it’s useless because the thief can simply rehit the skill with no downside.

Alternatively you could think outside the box and do something interesting with your 1 second of projectile absorb, such as taking 1 hit from the multi-hit Sneak Attack and then absorbing the rest of the attacks, resulting in the thief losing stealth, gaining revealed and doing minimal damage (One fifth of the damage they would otherwise do)

As far as the cost for stealth goes:

Cloak and Dagger – 6 Initiative
Black Powder > Heartseeker – 6 + 3 = 9 Initiative

Those stealth traits you were on about?
2 initiative from gaining stealth
1 initiative per 3 seconds in stealth (BP > HS doesn’t get benefit from the extra 1 second in stealth trait and cannot benefit from this unless they don’t attack. CnD stealth will leave you with a 1 second window for striking to get that extra initiative)

The fact that Tactical Strike and Backstab have positional requirements that can be nullified by just basic movement (Causing them to miss repeatedly or to hit from the front/side for massively reduced effects) while Sneak Attack and Surprise Shot can have most of their effects reduced by condition removal in addition to Block/Dodge/Invulnerability/Distortion/Teleport/Projectile Absorb/Knockdown/Knockback/Blind/Daze and to a lesser extent Immobilise/Chill/Cripple (Harder to get into position before stealth runs out, outside of using Shadow step cooldowns)

I’d find a thief site pretty nice.

Somewhere where discussions about Thieves can happen without all the “THIEF IS OP NERF PLZ!” whining that occurs over the forums (It’s not even limited to the thief forum, other class forums also include this)

What would keep me coming back to the site would be stuff like:

• Instructional videos – Either showing mechanics (For example, Steal/shadowstep stomping) or X vs Class videos with commentary (Usually more helpful than reading text instructions)

• Thief PvP/WvW videos – I like watching good thieves do amazing things in PvP/WvW. Unfortunately it’s hard to wade through all the bad stuff (GC’s 1 shotting up-level players in WvW)

Both of which would take a lot of time/effort to keep up to date (For example, various things may be affected in patches) and finding good videos will take a lot of work (Making them would also need a fair amount of work)

Edenwolf.6328:

I just cant justify as to why the damage is so kittening terrible. I’d like to see it at least brought up to guardian lvl damage.

GS for Warriors = DPS weapon
GS for Guardians = DPS weapon
GS for Mesmer = AoE/Utility and long range DPS weapon
GS for Ranger = Defensive/utility weapon (Evade on #1, leap on #3, knockback + block on #4 and Stun/Daze on #5)

If a Ranger did the same damage as a Guardian/Warrior with a greatsword with pet damage on top of that… Well, it’d cause some issues with balance, not only due to the high damage that would be achievable but also with the defensive nature (Imagine what it’d be like to face a Zerker Guardian DPS but that also evades every 3rd hit) of the weapon.

As far as it goes, if you want to melee DPS as a Ranger they have a perfectly good Sword that is designed for just that (It does about 50% more DPS than Greatsword currently), also Greatsword is getting buffed in the next patch.

I don’t get it…

A backstab missing/evaded wouldn’t cause stealth do drop thematically (The thief is still hidden, nothing has been done to reveal their positioning)

Backstab cannot be spammed either.

“Oh but it doesn’t have a cooldown!!!” is a true statement but it has a positional requirement;
Meaning that out of the 3 (4) second stealth that has been used to open access to it about 1 (More if D/P and further away) has been used to reach a targets back, then there’s the hit that comes that has been dodged/blocked/missed (Due to target moving out of range via erratic movements) and the last ~1.5-2.5 seconds will have to be used to get back behind the target, because Dodging moves you (So the thief is no longer at your back), Block gives you the opportunity to turn around (If you’ve been attacked, you know the thief is at your back, only a moron wouldn’t turn around to not only get the thief out of position for a backstab but also to wail on them) and moving around erratically has a very good chance of having the thief out of position (Erratic movements = hard to follow)

If the second backstab is not achieved in time, then stealth will wear out (After the next patch it will also cause revealed) and the thief will have to restealth in order to try again.

Addictive.9387:

This nerf won’t change this scenario at all right?

Nope.

Basically the change just means that if stealth times out you get the revealed debuff.

If you always break stealth with an attack then you’ll not notice any change.

Dual.8953:

I’m missing how this change will horribly cripple and thief except for those that spend all thier time hiding.

http://youtu.be/XubClqLgJnY?t=5m38s

At about 6:15 there’s an explanation of why CnD > CnD combo may be useful outside of killing someone in a horribly inefficient way.

While it won’t cripple thieves (Outside of this kind of tanky x/D thief build that utilizes stealth) it will affect builds that utilise the “In stealth” traits and also will affect any build that uses stealth attacks and gets dodged (Not only will you lose out on Initiative, damage, time and positioning, you’ll also be prevented from retrying for 3 seconds)

It’s not a huge “Oh noes thief is unplayable” nerf, but it is a rather haphazard way of fixing what seems to be a singular problem (CnD spam until targets die) which could be sorted via lowering CnD damage (Meaning CnD spam will do less than currently, has a side effect of also toning down the often complained about CnD > Mug > BS burst)

I’ve used it on a perma-chill build I ran for a while. The extra 2 (4 when combined with 100% chill duration) seconds of chill made it very easy to lock down a target.

I also picked it up in a heavy DS build (Due to the extra LF when using the skills) to decrease time outside of DS.

But it doesn’t make much sense in the spot it is at the moment (20 points into the condition line?) though I can’t think of a better place to put it (It seems like Soul Reaping would suit it well, but that line is already overcrowded with traits that are worth taking in a DS build)

Rayya.2591:

The fact that he can use whirlwind axe in front of 2 warrior for 3 seconds without getting hitted or CC’ed , show the quality of the oponents he chose to record against.

To be fair, a lot of his opponents were upleveled (Most of the warriors were, he infact knows this when he states stuff like “I’ll focus the 2 warriors first because they’re upleveled and take a lot of damage”

It’s a good video, also very informative.

Too bad a lot of the staying power comes from the occasional CnD > CnD combo which is going to be nerfed…

That said, it should provide some evidence to those people who keep saying “The only people who are going to be affected by the nerf are those that only CnD spam” as it’s just a tool in the thieves kit for a lot of thieves rather than a cheap trick to be exploited only by the lowest skill player.

Authority.6145:

If I wanted to purely focus on base damage with average/low/decent crit rate how would I go about it (runes, traits, amulet)?

A damaging build with little to no crit?

I had a mess around in a build calculator and came up with:

30 IV, VIII, XII
0
30 IV, IX, XI
10 III
0

Soldier Amulet, Vampirism runes. Focused on using high power (High damage attacks) and multiple sources of Life-steal (Runes + Leeching Venoms (Leeching Venoms scales damage off Power)) whilst having some good survivability (Life-steal + Regen in stealth + Vigor) to be able to last long in a fight.

That said, I’ve not tested it so wouldn’t know how well it works (Might mess around in the Mists a bit at some point)

Authority.6145:

What traits, runes and amulet I need for a purely precision build (so my auttoattacks hit as hard as possible?)
Is there a build set up (traits, runes and amulet) to balance precision with defence (hp/touchness/ect)?

Highest auto-attacks:
30 VI, IX, ??
30 III, X, XI
0
0
10 IV

Using Berserker Amulet + Divinity Runes. Though while it would maximise damage dealt through auto-attacks there’s no survivability.

For a more defensive build with high crits I’d say something like:

0
30 III, VI, XI
10 IV
30 III, IX, X
0

10 III
20 III, VI
20 IV, V
20 III, IX
0

0
30 III, VI, XI
30 IV, V, XI
0
10 IV

Berserker amulet and Divinity/Scholar/Eagle runes (Build/Runes to playstyle)

Signet of Malice – 100 + (0.05 * Healing Power)
Assassin’s Reward – 69 + (0.035 * Healing Power)
Shadow Refuge – 355 + (0.18 * Healing Power)

So, SoM gains 5% of your healing power per tick, AR gets 3.5% per initiative and SR gets 18% per tick.

Authority.6145:

Thanks for the info. Also do you know how I should go about with a venom build d/p? Like traits and the rest?

Unfortunately, Venom builds are the only build type I haven’t used (I can’t seem to make a build I like) so don’t have much information about it.

Bhawb.7408:

I would remove the things that allow things on enter and leave, and keep them at just enter or just leave, otherwise the 5s CD death shroud would be far too strong as a boon tool.

One thing to keep in mind about the 5s CD DS is that if you’re trying to maximise boons from entering/leaving as soon as possible it means you’ve gone 30 points into a tree that buffs DS and are not doing much inside it.

If you’re spending some time inside DS blasting away then you’ll have less uptime on these boons.

As far as Perma-retaliation goes, it’s already achievable if leveraging Axe #3 (3 seconds of retaliation per target hit, 15 second base cooldown. If untraited and hitting the maximum 5 targets it will give perma-retaliation)

Yes.

Though it doesn’t change the tooltip nor the damage.

Authority.6145:

Updated the initial post.

Can someone tell me the runes that they use for D/P and also utilities + elite? Preferably for a SPvP situation.

I personally use Vampirism Runes (Extra healing + damage works well with Withdraw’s low cooldown)

Heal skill: Withdraw (Hide in Shadows if up against a lot of conditions, as my build lacks condition removal elsewhere)

Utilities I run are: Infiltrator’s Signet (Signet of Shadows for WvW)/Blinding Powder/Shadow Refuge.

Elites are swapped around a lot, Basalisk Venom can create some breathing room and allow for a stealth to be set up, Daggerstorm helps against both ranged and crowd control (Only used for damage in WvW) and Thieves Guild helps against tough targets like bunkers and such (Shouldn’t be used vs x/D Thieves though as they can CnD them)

Hehehe…

With that change to Heartseeker D/P would be the new burst combo

BP > Massive damage Heartseeker > Backstab > Mug

Outside of that, D/X thieves become just Backstab machines since they want to be close to stab with auto-attacks/backstab/CnD and Heartseeker will want them to be at range in order to do worthy damage.

Dancing Dagger suffers from the fact that it’s damage was nerfed (Can’t remember the reason that was given) and would be unlikely to get a damage buff.

If it however was given a shadow step to initial target, there would be an increase in mobility for x/D thieves (Similar to what Shadow Shot gives to D/P thieves)

It depends on what your definition of an “Assassin” is.

If it’s going around in perma-stealth and waiting for opportunities to strike at a target, then no, that’s not possible.

If it’s going into combat with a target(s) and utilizing stealth to cause chaos and set up for high damage attacks that allows you to take people out of the fight very quickly, then yes, that is possible.

To elaborate there’s a trait line that gives bonuses to stealthing (Healing while stealthed, extra time spend stealthed etc) and weapons get some very nice abilities they can use when in stealth (Backstab, Sneak Attack, Tactical Strike etc) and to support this off hand weapons can allow stealth mid-combat (Cloak and Dagger for off-hand Dagger. Black Powder combined with a Leap combo from Heartseeker will also provide stealth) as well as utility skills that allow stealth (Hide in Shadows, Blinding Powder and Shadow Refuge)

Depending on how you build your character you can use stealth as a basis for your damage and defence spending a fairly long time in stealth during combat, or you can use it less and depend on it for escaping combat or setting up huge burst combos.

TKO.3406:

I use two one-hand weapons and notice that I only get bluff from the first weapon upgrade (bloodlust) but the bluff of the second weapon upgrade (magic find) never stack up when I fight. So it is not any better than the one-hand weapon.

Stat stacking sigils don’t work with each other.

If you have 2 on only one will work (The one that comes first alphabetically)

If you have 2 of the same stacking sigil, they work together to give 2 stacks of their effect per kill (Dual wield weapons > 2 handed for this)

Then of course you have the “On crit”/“On Swap” and the static upgrades (Force/Accuracy/Agony etc) that work together when on dual wielded weapons yet not available for 2 handed.

On Topic:
I’m not sure about dual sigils on weapons, as I don’t know the reasoning behind the lack of dual sigil support (Maybe due to the higher base damage of 2 handed weapons, maybe due to naming issues, it may be due to sigil order issues (Main hand one will proc before an off-hand one, with 2 handed weapons which one will be the main hand one?) it may even be just a simple matter of how to choose where a sigil goes when trying to put onto a 2 handed weapon (Especially when replacing sigils))

It would be nice to be able to get dual sigils on 2 handed weapons, I’d personally go for just having the stat stacking sigils to give 2 stacks per kill on a 2 handed weapon to be able to match to capabilities of dual wielded weapons…

Luimes.4281:

First off. Has the agony resistance been fixed?

In the SotG video, developers said that all pets and minions (Ranger pets, Necro minions, Engi turrets, Elementalist elementals) will share Agony Resistance of their master after the next patch.

I’ll try and help out where I can:

D/P (Glass cannon variant) vs Glass GS Warrior.

- Stay out of their 100 Blades.
- When low on initiative stay a distance away to minimise risk posed by Whirlwind Attack (If up close there’s minimal time to react to what could be several thousand damage applied to your face)
- Keep moving to negate Bladetrail
- When on the offensive use Shadow Shot and Black Powder to severely reduce incoming damage.

D/P (Glass cannon variant) vs GC Ranger (LB, SB, S/D, GS)

- Open with Shadow Shot
- BP > HS > BS > Stomp

D/P (Glass cannon variant) vs X/D Thieves

- Shadow Shot for damage and blind.
- Stand in Black Powder if they use utility/heal to stealth to minimise risk of stealth attacks (Only for bad players whom are using D/D or S/D as melee range is larger than the radius of BP)

D/P (Glass cannon variant) vs X/P Thieves

- When they stealth, either stand in BP to minimise risk of stealth attacks (Only for D/P or S/P) or stealth yourself (If you stealth after them, they’ll be revealed first allowing an opening strike)
- Against P/P utilise stealth and backstabbing
- Against S/P utilise Blinds to hamper auto-attack chains and SS’s shadow step to counter their mobility
- Against D/P blinds will hamper any Heartseekers and Shadow Shots they try to deal

This is just how I tend to play vs the most common enemies I find when solo roaming in WvW

Faction.4013:

Uchi.2419:

Here’s my Witch Doctor

Anyone know what pieces this guy uses to obtain this look? I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find anything similar.

Probably blind…

Tactical armour. Bought from Karma vendors in Straits of Devastation.

Andele.1306:

You can always just go D/P as the secondary weapon set and have a infinite engages and disengages.

And also do very little damage due to BP > HS needing a lot of initiative to pull off and D/P having no condition damage (Whilst P/D is all about condition damage)

Thieves don’t have infinite initiative to spam off all their abilities all the time.

They have a pool of 12 (15 if traited) and regen 1 initiative every 1.33 seconds, outside of this regen they only have a few traits that allow them to gain initiative:

Opportunist (Critical Strikes 15) – 20% chance on crit to gain 1 initative (1 second cooldown)

Infusion of Shadow (Shadow Arts 10) – Gain 2 initiative when going into stealth (Bearing in mind stealthing without using Heal/Utilities costs 6 with off hand dagger or 9 with D/P)

Patience (Shadow Arts 20) – 1 initiative per 3 seconds in stealth (Unlike other in stealth traits it doesn’t proc instantly upon stealthing. Also stealth lasts 3 seconds (4 if traited) meaning that to get the extra initiative they have to wait until most of their stealth wears off)

Quick Recovery (Acrobatics 20) – Regain 2 initiative every 10 seconds.

Kleptomaniac (Trickery 5) – Gain 3 initiative upon stealing (Base cooldown of 45 seconds on steal)

Then utilities will provide -

Infiltrators Signet – Gain 1 initiative per 10 seconds

Roll for Initiative – 6 initiative with a 60 second cooldown.

Dredlord.8076:

you gave the thief the same score for mobility as a necro, you are so clueless it isn’t even funny.

Thief is easily in the top 3 for mobility classes.

Yes, thieves can have high mobility, but in their attrition spec (P/D) they have very limited mobility. P/D has none (#3 is a melee move to shadow step backwards, but uses initiative and lowers their damage) swapping to SB lowers their damage (No decent bleeds, costs initiative to move thus lowering damage) thus removing the constant stream of damage that is required to be a good attrition build.

Their utilities may provide some mobility, but it’s typically on a long cooldown: Shadowstep 50 second cooldown, Roll for Initiative 60 second cooldown, Shadow Trap (Haha… Like anyone really uses traps on thief) 30 second cooldown.

I do know about this as I have mained both Necro and P/D Thief.

Necro gets a good score for mobility since they can easily remove any conditions that slow them down with Consume Conditions, Deathly Swarm and Putrid Mark there’s a lot of on demand removal of multiple conditions, Thieves don’t have this luxury in a P/D spec they’ll have maybe Withdraw (Most likely Hide in Shadows though for more stealth and offensive condition removal) Shadow Step (50 second cooldown…) and possibly the remove conditions while stealthed (One when entering and one every 3 seconds in stealth)

I’m not sure I agree with all your categories… Some of them seem redundant (No high damage abilities? That doesn’t necessarily mean attrition…)

Categories I’d use would be something like:

• Survivability (Health, healing, other defences) – 7/10
  High health, Heal skills are good (Consume Conditions = Amazing especially for attrition) and DS is great survival tool. Let down by the lack of dodges, limited boons (Protection, Vigor, Regeneration (Outside of Staff)) and limited defence from utilities

• DPS (How much damage is dealt, how easy is it to sustain, how can it be countered) – 6/10
  Direct damage isn’t very high and hard to maintain as there’s limited movement capabilities and lockdown (Outside perma-chill builds) and boons will counter it as anti-boon tools favour condition builds.
  Condition damage is good, not reliant on high stacks of Bleed so condition removal tools have limited effect, can convert boons into conditions and transfer conditions from self to targets. Conditions also have relatively short cooldowns allowing them to be reapplied fairly easily.

• Lockdown (How much disable is available, how easy is it to get it off, how effective is it) 3/10
  A few chills, a cripple and an immobilise. Can be built for perma-chill but still can only lock a single target down reliably. Has access to a few fears aswell, but only 2 are reliable and are on pretty long cooldown with short (1 second duration)

• Mobility (How easy is it to move around, how easy is it to prevent being controlled, can you stay with your target) – 5/10
  Conditions such as Cripple, Chill and Immobilise can be removed and/or sent to opponents preventing loss of mobility. The lack of movement speed and gap closers (Outside DS #2) hamper keeping up with classes with mobility tools (Such as Ride the Lightning, Rush, Leap of Faith, Infiltrator’s Arrow, Swoop, Super Speed, Portal)

Giving a score of 21/40

I’d end up giving a P/D Thief (Attrition based build):

Survivability – 10/10 Regen in stealth, can spec for heals when using initiative, stealth to try and avoid being targeted, can get extra dodges through Feline Grace giving 25% endurance back after dodging

DPS – 7/10 Constant pressure from multiple bleeds, as well as a not-too bad direct damage from applying them and using CnD to stealth

Lockdown – 3/10 Can perma-cripple but uses up initiative that’s needed to deal damage, can use Scorpion Wire to pull someone in but that’s about it aside from Basalisk Venom Elite skill

Mobility – 5/10 has access to multiple Shadow Steps which can allow movement and condition cleansing but they tend to have moderate to high cooldowns. The weapon set doesn’t have much mobility itself and it would cost initiative and therefore lower DPS if used.

Giving P/D Thieves a total of 25/40. Which while not great still beats out Necro’s

Piogre.2164:

All in all, exactly what the theif needed. ANet hit the nail on the head- doing massive burst whilst only appearing for a fraction of a second is not balanced

It’s a good thing they nerfed CnD damage a while back so CnD spam didn’t do massive burst damage. Nor any kind of burst damage. It is a moderate hit every 3-4 seconds (4 if going more than 15 points into the stealth tree)

nor is having the highest burst DPS, highest mobility, and ability to stealth for 90% of the time all in one class.

Well it’s a good thing that Warriors and Engineers have highest burst damage (15-25k 100Blades, 18-25k Kill Shots, 22-24k 100 Nades) and that Elementalists have the highest mobility (Even noted by the Developers. Whom state they want to bring Thieves up to Elementalist level and even further as they’re supposed to be hit and run burst class with highest mobility)

Theif still has much more than, say, tf2 spy- where the high mobility was sequestered to a separate class (scout), and one had to wait through a reveal exiting stealth before they could attack at all.

TF2 spies relied mostly on disguises for the pre-attack mobility, having stealth relegated to traversing large portions of the map in relative safety since decloaking near someone will not only be visible but also make a very noticeable sound to alert everyone.

Thieves in GW2 use stealth in combat in order to have some defences and to set up for backstabs (Think Dead Ringer spies just without the extra loud decloak sound)

Not sure if this is the same thing, but I’ve noticed that if using Heartseeker without a target (No auto-targeting) and go down an decline then there’s a chance to turn around at any point from halfway through the animation to the end of it (After the animation completes, you’ll be facing the same direction as when you cast it)

This makes it very annoying to use whilst travelling anywhere there’s declines.

Olba.5376:

Well, that would mean that they would have to change Last Refuge. Because an automatic stunbreaker with stealth at 25% hp is kinda insane for 5 points.

Well, considering that Last Refuge is awful and counter-productive to survival in 99% of cases (There are times where it can allow you to live, if you’re not currently attacking (This includes using CnD to try and get a stealth)) due to getting revealed due to attacking while it procs.

It also has a 90 second cooldown (Like other similar traits) and when compared to some classes 5 point traits:

Ranger – Natural Vigor – 50% endurace regeneration at all times.

Elementalist – Soothing Mist – Regenerate health while in Water Attunement (Pretty huge deal, even if the healing isn’t very high)

Guardian – Valorous Defense Gain Aegis when health goes below 50% (As far as I can tell, there’s no cooldown) Vigorous Precision 5 seconds of Vigor on crit (5 second cooldown) Inspired Virtue gain Might, Regen or Protection when using Virtues (Onto anyone who’s affected by the Virtue allowing AoE boons)

Engineer – Hidden Flask use an Elixir B at 75% health (90 second cooldown) Adrenaline Pump toolbelt skills give 10% endurance.

Mesmer – Critical Infusion 5 seconds of Vigor on crit (5 second cooldown) Illusionists Celerity Illusion summoning skills have 20% shorter cooldowns

These are all powerful 5 point traits. They fit into various builds and none of them are a detriment to the player unlike Last Refuge which doesn’t really work with most builds (Even stealth builds) and can cause someone to be killed because of it.

Daecollo.9578:

Another silly question… why do we have 30% boon duration when we have little to no boons?

The better question is:

Why do we have 30% Boon duration in the trait line that provides only short duration boons (2 seconds swiftness, 4 seconds swiftness, 8 seconds Vigor, 10 Seconds Regen, 1 Might stack for 15 seconds) meaning that the 30% provides very little while Trickery provides traits that give 10 seconds of Might + Fury + Swiftness and 15 seconds of Vigor (+2 Boons stolen) to self and allies in an area whilst at the same time reducing the cooldown of the ability that grants these.

Why do almost all our traits have a ridiculous GCDs?

I’m not sure what you mean by this… Other classes have similar traits (Regen when hit and below 75%, some life saving ability at below 25%, ability use when CCed etc) with the same cooldowns.

The only “Thief” ones that are unique are the proc on crit ones (Quickness… 30 second cooldown is amazing for that when compared to Utilities and their downsides) and the when target is below 50% health which at least some of them are pretty powerful effects (Such as Fury)

Why are half our weapons useless?

Uhh… None of our weapons are useless.

Only 2 of the weapon sets are weak, (P/P and SB) but at least Shortbow makes up for it with the utility it provides (It’s the preferred off-set for most Thieves regardless of build or content)

Grimwolf.7163:

Not even close. As one example, all of their “On Crit” traits last only 1 second. Small chance for 1 stack of bleeding for 1 second, small chance for 1 stack of Might for 1 second, etc. Full blown useless.

While some of their traits are bad (The on crit ones) some others are pretty amazing.

Take Natural Vigor for example, a 5 point minor trait that provides a passive 50% endurance regen. Even Zephyr’s Speed with it’s 2 seconds of Quickness on pet swap (20 seconds cooldown base, 60 if a pet dies 15 point minor trait to reduce cooldown by 20%)

Olba.5376:

• Heartseeker, 450 range, 3 initiative

Don’t forget that Heartseeker moves further with speed boosts active (Signet of Shadows/Swiftness/Fleet Shadow) as it’s a leap rather than a Shadow Step.

Thus increasing it’s Range/initative and effectiveness as a gap closer (Unless Crippled/Chilled/Immobilised in which case it goes a shorter range making it less effective)

Riselight.3695:

The problem is, you can’t see the Thief

While that is true, it’s not the major thing people make it out to be.

so you don’t know where

I generally do know where to attack when a Thief uses stealth, they’re either running directly towards the back of either myself or a nearby ally or they’re running directly away/towards the nearest cover to break LoS and escape.

The easiest time to hit a Thief is if they’re using Shadow Refuge, as it paints a very noticeable circle that they cannot move out of (If they do they lose stealth and get revealed) thus confining where they can be stood (Also AoE’s can be planted down inside it, can even use Knockbacks to push them out forcing the revealed onto them)

Then if you manage to get Cripple/Chill/Immobilise/Knockdown/Knockback/Stun off onto them you can further ensure that they won’t be moving very far (The only issue can come from the condi-removal in stealth that triggers instantly then once per 3 seconds. But not all specs use that trait and if covered with another condition it only has a chance of getting the movement impairing effect)

when to hit

When to hit is all the time, just mash #1 and chances are you’ll hit a Thief with most of them.

and when you hit, how do you know you have hitted him?

The way you know when you’ve hit them is because:

Any weapon with a chain attack on it’s #1 will progress through the chain on a successful attack.

After 3-4 seconds you’ll notice a Thief lying on the floor trying to revive themself due to being downed by various hits coming at them that they can’t avoid (Stealth neither reduces nor avoids damage meaning if damage isn’t dodged it’s taken in full)

When WvWing on any of my characters, I kill more Thieves than any other profession (Rivalled only by Rangers due to the sheer number of them) it doesn’t even matter what build they’ve gone for, it’s just so easy to shut down their stealth once you realise common movement patterns for stealth (It lasts for between 3-4 seconds at most outside Shadow Refuge, they’ll want to use their stealth attack before it wears off and so will try to reach your back (Backstab/Tactical Strike)

This of course isn’t taking into account the ability to shut down them getting into stealth when they’re using Dagger offhand (S/D, P/D, D/D) as it’s a melee attack with a decently long animation that can be spotted and therefore dodged/interrupted.

Volatility.6729:

Been messing around with D/P and S/D sets on a ~0/20/30/10 (moves around between CS and Acro). Solo roaming in WvW I’m finding that D/P is really only useful for finishing. Black Powder just doesn’t mitigate as much damage as I thought it would, and a lot of people don’t mindlessly stand in the circle. Any thoughts?

Try utilising Shadow Shot a bit more, if it lands it’s a guaranteed Blind and also some decent damage (I’ve been critting about 3-4.5k with it)

Black Powder isn’t really a defensive ability, it’s more of a prelude to stealth (And high backstab damage) or a deterrent (If facing a melee opponent they’ll not want to get close, a good melee will still melee you from the edge of it though)

I’ve been surviving pretty well through applying so many blinds to people through Shadow Shot + Black Powder on top of them (So they usually get ~2 blinds from BP) combined with extra blinds + stealth from Blinding Powder. This is even in a 30/30/0/10/0 build I’ve been messing around in (1v1 in the middle of an enemy camp, 1v2 and some 1v3 fights)

Dojo.1867:

[VI] Agility Training – Pets move 30% faster.
This doesn’t stack with other speed boni which means it becomes useless whenever your pet has swiftness. Overall I find it hard to estimate what this trait does. In theory it should allow your pet to better stick to its target and thus do more damage but from practice I don’t think it helps. Would be nice if it said “Pet attacks cripple for 2 seconds.”. Right now it is hard to see any benefits of this.

This is actually a very good trait.

If you’re not constantly running Signet of the Hunt and your pet doesn’t have perma-swiftness this is an amazing trait.

Not only will it increase the speed at which your pet gets to your target (If using a melee pet) which increases the rate at which you will start doing 100% DPS (This include both starting a fight and also after pet swapping) but it also increases how quickly they come back to you making it more feasible that you can get them to move out of AoE patches before they die.

Nijjion.2069:

What’s going to be better getting maximum condition damage or getting condition duration to 100% and then trying to get as much cond damage after that?

Condition Duration would be most important since extra ticks would add way more damage than is achievable through condition damage.

That said, for WvW and PvP where there’s a lot of condition removal, going for higher Condition Damage to get more out of the short time that conditions are on the target would be more beneficial.

Olba.5376:

I play a thief myself and I honestly don’t see what all the fuss is about.

Ok, the Revealed buff on exiting stealth is going to make some traits a bit ickier, such as Last Refuge.

That’s one of the major things, it’s further restricting builds by making traits (That currently aren’t too great) even worse, including a 5 point minor trait that is forced upon anyone who goes into the stealth line.

It also forces the basic heal – Hide in Shadows – make you to become vulnerable for 3 seconds when using it (While currently, if you don’t attack while in the stealth you are free to re-stealth after it fades)

Olba.5376:

But majority of thieves actually use their stealth skills. P/D uses it, D/D uses it, D/P uses it and S/D uses it. So for those purposes, the change doesn’t do anything: you were already getting Revealed.

As far as combat goes, the difference will be minor but if you attempt to use a stealth skill and it gets dodged? Well, not only is your damage from the attack negated but you cannot restealth for another 3 seconds.

If some changes are being made that they’re suggesting revolving around lowering base damage but giving boon hate mechanics then it’ll force more damage to come from stealth attacks (Thus making the dodged attacks forcing revealed even worse)

While the positive aspects from the change:

No CnD cheese.
Stealth Stomping becomes suicide if other people are around (Unless using Shadow Refuge) – Which isn’t really positive from the point of view of a thief, but in the eyes of other classes it does get some complaints.
…
…
That’s all I can think of.

vespers.1759:

a glass ranger has about 14k hp. is that extra 2k hp going to save you when thieves can do 15k in 2 hits as evidenced by the SS above?

Ranger has a base of 15k health

Thief has a base of 10k health

With Full zerker gear and no traits/runes giving Vitality/Toughness a Thief will die from someone sneezing near them. If they don’t, it means they did something weird like Build so people can’t insta-gib them so they can survive to put out damage.

vespers.1759:

how is it an issue of competence when a class lacks any skill to counter it

It’s an issue of competence when smashing your face into your attack keys on the keyboard can make your character attack and if having knowledge of the most common ways of moving whilst stealthed will continue to damage them consistently.

Also skills a ranger has access to that counter thieves: Flame Trap, Spike Trap, Viper Nest, Frost Trap (They can’t move in stealth = free hits on them), Entangle and Rapid Fire (Will continue to follow them even if they stealth).

Blankverse.4927:

Yes, of course it would be the #1 choice, but keep in mind that:
1) They are extremely hard to get
2) They are rare
3) A player has to spend lots of time/money/patience to craft them

My point is, that all that time/money/patience should be rewarded with something more than JUST-ANOTHER-SKIN.
Some humble PvE bonus is a fair compensation for everybody who crafted a legendary.

You also have to keep in mind:

1) Not everyone wants to grind for legendaries (Takes a lot of RNG and time and effort that some people would rather put into playing the parts of the game they find fun) and shouldn’t be forced to pick up a legendary in order to get the special boosts

2) Legendaries have been and always will be just skins. People who work hard to get them worked hard to get them because they are nice skins (Some of them are debatable, I personally am not a fan of the Dreamer/Quip but other legendaries are amazing). They’ve never been spouted off as being better than any other weapons (Aside from the always being equal to the best quality weapons available, meaning scaling up to Ascended when the Ascended weapons are brought in)

3) People who do WvW also go after legendaries. How would they feel if PvE players got a boost from having the legendaries and they didn’t?

4) They are rare purely because they are skins. If they actually brought tangible benefits more people would pick them up (All those people who are selling them on TP and/or have enough gold/resources to make one whom aren’t using them because they don’t like them currently)

5) What about people who’ve transmuted their legendaries onto Exotics with stats they want on, they lose the legendary tag, will they also lose out on these special legendary bonuses too?

While I’ve never utilised the “Cheese” of CnD spam (CnD > Wait 2.5/3.5 seconds and use it again so it hits the split second stealth wears off to achieve perma-stealth)

It’s kind of a ham-fisted approach to Stealth to give revealed upon leaving stealth.

This kind of change brings detrimental effects to such abilities as Descent of Shadows (Taking falling damage will cause revealed, not huge but still annoying in WvW), Last Refuge may be even less effective and Hide in Shadows may even be detrimental to survivability (Sure it will heal and provide regen, but you’re guaranteed to be vulnerable for 3 seconds at some point after using it)

Not to mention the harsh side-effects of not being able to land a backstab/tactical strike/sneak attack due to targets dodging (Whilst it’s strong currently, they mentioned lowering damage output in favour of “Boon hate” without nerfing the stealth moves, thus shifting more of a focus onto these attacks. Especially on non-boon bunkers…)

If they also screw over stealth stacking, traits like Descent of Shadows, Last Refuge, Hidden Thief as well as abilities such as Blinding Powder and Shadow Refuge will become much worse. Possibly funnelling more focus onto the cheesy “CnD + Mug > BS” glass cannon builds (Since there’s going to be limited stealth to keep you in a fight via damage avoidance, healing, condition removal, initiative regen, Might stacks etc)