Darksyze, I have a seriously unhealthy obsession with hating every word you say. Can you pitch it towards my shrink?
this is so me
some players like DarkSyze should just move on to another game, would save me a lot of facepalms
the sad thing is… some bad players actually still believe teef is op
teef so OP
pls anet give us stealth trap in pvp as well so that there is at least one way of countering teefs!
snip
snip
snip.
you talked about backstab+steal combo from stealth and no one should be able to se that as its stealth. stealth: opponents dont see you or your animations
d/p thieves will often black powder → heart seeker → steal → backstab
interrupt their heartseeker / dodge when they heart seeker and they didnt use their steal yet and you just dodged one of their main skills (thieves use*8* trait points to get a strong steal… its a not-dodge-win or a dodge-lose especially in eg thief/thief duels)
the problem vs mesmer is not the strong steal (which we traited for and took 300 condition damage instead of precision… that always annoys/hurts me a lot) but more the really strong stolen skill which should (and in HoT will) be reworked
Twelve second fears with double skull!
You could already do this. It’ll just be easier to manage as you’ll be able to see the cooldown on steal while you hold on to the first skull :-)
The difference is now you can pre-cast your skull, and then press f1 midway during the cast, to have a 100% reliable fear landing + daze + poison + mug steal. If you time it right, you probably can get another new item right after your steal.
It old days you HAVE to get close to target to cast that extremely telegraphic skull.That’s why I said this is not a QoL but a buff.
currently you can also pre-cast your skull -> steal again -> skull
same goes for guard’s f1 or warriors or whatever…
so i have no idea what youre talking about with it being a buff (as if anet would ever buff thieves in such an obvious way as posting it on the forums… the amount of qq-posts we’d be getting would be insane)
snip
This is all very good, but it doesn’t work against good d/p thieves and their BS->Steal combo from stealth.
you generally can’t see anything [that is melee at least] coming from stealth… thats the whole point of it?
i mean i can see gs#2 of a mesmer while he is in stealth but i can also see sb#1 or pistol#1 on thief in stealth
but these are ranged attacks
the whole point of mug before a backstab is to deal more dmg via mug (which cant even critically hit so thats not a problem) and mainly to get the fury (+ maybe the useful interrupt) if you have 6 in trickery
i cant see a mesmer blinking in stealth… and thats good like that isnt it?
this is supposed to be a QOL change
not a buff
so we should not allow F2 + F1 combo
[…]
no chance for guard to reliably counter
[…]
true that it can already be done
1. this can already be done: activate the f1 skill you stole when you know that steal is off cooldown again – and press it again quickly to steal while your animation is still on the go
so changing that wouldnt make sense as steal is an instant activation and it will/should work unless they change sth about it – which would be a nerf
as they announced it, its a pure QoL change as a good thief knows at about what time his steal will be off cd again
2. medi guards counter thieves
they counter us at the moment when we can use the steal+stolen skill "op"combo
that wont change with this pure QoL change, all the change does is to show you your cooldown on steal – whats wrong with that?
i like the idea of having an icon for steal being off cd so that you can see it – but then for example why not also show us the life force necros have? and i doubt that will ever happen
animation + cast time? no
that would destroy a lot of combos we currently have
also you can predict steals
look at your opponent’s animation… casting c&d while being out of range? dodge it => you will both dodge steal/inf.signet and c&d (likely also basilisk venom) making the thief waste a lot of initiative and their steal
that is how i (S/D thief) beat burst D/D thieves as they heavily rely on c&d but are kittened if they miss it – if they hit it full dmg thieves burst me down 100-0 with c&d + stab
3 aoe blinds… to balance that out correctly i dont think even the 2s reveal if you dont attack from stealth (that i think may be coming with HoT) would be enough to balance that
not sure though as we obviously didnt play it yet
it would certainly deserve a gm trait though, the dmg of your opponents would be so crippled… (unless its like guards WW or an engi grenade)
would be way too hard to balance imo
both for initiative and for dmg/tactical weapon switch
and also, it would make the specialization simply better than the core profession (which is the same for all other classes so far but anet said they didnt want to make them feel like upgrades)
you need to learn to also love scepter/focus as a set in roaming
i like it in pvp but in wvw i experienced that the extra mobility of sword is nice if i want to disengage because more people are coming in
Scrap the first build unless you wanna grab traveler runes.
Also, the reduced CD only helps RoW, which is nice but not worth it in my opinion. I’d personally grab empowering might over that.
As for your second build, I see sword as a condi guard weapon because the auto is so suitable for it. The scepter is much better for a zerk guard, but to each his own. One problem with playing a melee only build on a class as slow as guard is that you desperately need traveler runes, especially if you’re solo. I can literally come up with no situtation where I would prefer sword over scepter on a zerk build and I’d actually choose mace in some instances. Also, you’ll find that your trait setup is very basic, but I’m sure you’ll find your flavour soon enough.
I’m actually running traveler runes
thanks for the tip with the cd reduction though
and i like the strong auto on sword, the added mobility+blind and the projectile block on 3 against rangers
but scepter definitely in pvp
and yeah i noticed that 25601 actually gives me a lot more than 21614 – unless i wanna duel somebody who is running condi (21614) i guess i will stick to 25601 for normal roaming
thanks to the responses!
is there any useful solo roaming build using hammer? (roaming, mainly focused on fights)
The single best thing for a dps guard, imo, is Renewed Justice. Especially if you want to clear camps fast.
Then comes the question if you need the extra condie clear from F2.
If yes: 0.3.6.1.4 I find it the most balanced build, superior to 2.1.6.1.4. Some People just don’t get how useful RJ is. I use Sword/Focus – Hammer with that build.
If no: 0.6.6.1.1 for sc/t – sw/f or 2.5.6.0.1 and 2.6.6.0.0 fo max burst sw/f – GS
problem i see with RJ js that its almost useless if youre fighting another player?
or what would you say?
because maybe i would shortly switch my build to one using RJ for camps but i dont think i’ll ever run 3 points in there just for RJ if i could be meeting other players
3
second
cooldown
didnt even notice…
i hope anet is kidding because otherwise they are simply trolling s/d thieves
i mean its not too bad if you think about it for one second… but then the amount of dodgeworthy skills for example warrior can put out within 3 seconds made me realize the nerf to feline grace is worse than it seemed before
and its a straight nerf as with III in acro and Bountiful Theft in trickery you were able to have (or at least close to) perma vigor before as well
Hey guys
I’ve recently levelled a Guardian as that is the only class that I didnt play more than 100hrs yet (just a few PvP matches back in the days when bunker was still meta)
I’m an experienced player concerning PvP, WvW, General Gameplay and Thief/Engi but obviously need some help from more experienced Guards
So I’ve got 2 Builds that i like: GS, Hammer and GS, Sw/F (I experienced Scepters baddd mobility…)
GS, Hammer 01661
+ more CC (Hammer #3#4#5)
+ shorter CD on GS & Hammer
+ more AoE
+ more Toughness
+ more Vitality
+ more Healing Power
+ more Critical Chance
GS, Sw/F 21614
+ more Mobility (Sword #2)
+ more Blocks (Focus #5)
+ more Blinds (Sword #2, Focus #4)
+ more Condi Remove
+ more Power
also listed the pros of each build in comparison to the other, but I’m not sure yet whether they are good as they are right now (trait- and stat-wise) and I would also wanna know which one you’d reccommend me more for Solo Roaming
(I guess that’d be Sw/F right? The Hammer-Build more for group play?)
Thanks a lot!
i’m a thief main – and i have never seen a post saying thieves should be getting weaker because we counter mesmer (due to the fact that we can constantly teleport after them on S/x or D/P and have the strong steal skill)
Medi Guards are doable for thieves, it’s just a lot of work and usually takes a lot of time
if you outplay them you win, otherwise you dont (unless you are able to burst them down) – same goes for mesmer/thief
or just go pack runes + 6 in trickery (thrill of the crime, sleight of hand)
→ assuming you got no boon duration you’ll have (ideally, but close to) 20/21,5s fury in a fight
Thief specialization name: Dragonshooter. Gotta stick to the set precedent.
My bet is new spec will be called
Poacher.
Fits rifles and thief current skills/ nameYeah, I can see them naming it something like that…. Sniper or Marksman is a bit too cool.
Reaper’s also pretty kitten cool lets not loose hope for sniper
how about 1 hit kill skills?
like warrior killshot
or engr rifle power shotI have seen both destroy a thief in one hit
then a 66200 thief or such would be a counter to almost anything thats walking because it can pretty much one-shot anything that moves
or a mesmer could counter the mesmer – the other way round with bs as well
so nope, not a counter – and btw, at least kill shot is super easy to dodge and power shot is hard to land properly for max dmg
It would make anything with Mug and a dagger off-hand unplayable, because of the reveal caused by mug. So you couldn’t do a steal->CnD combo.
i actually hope anet is gonna fix the combination of hidden thief ( thats the stealth-steal-trait right? never used it so i dont have a clue) and mug – 60606 thieves could save a lot of initiative while also being able to deal quite some dmg with good/cheesy sustain
it is probably going to be named “Sniper” due to OP’s post in reason #2. This “Sniper” is going to most likely be power-based since it fits the theme of the .
I agree that rifle is a plausible choice. However, for the name, I’ll put my money on “marksman”, which is a little bit more lore friendly. Who wants to bet? I’m on EU.
edit: “sharpshooter” is possible, but less cool.
It will be assassin.
you have to remember that we are not just getting a weapon and “marksman or sharpshooter” are not very fantasy related
it will be Assassin, especially since gw1 had an assassin profession
and thats the best reason why it wont be assassin
while i personally dont care about gw1 anymore and i think assassin would sound cool it probably wont happen – look at paragon, lots of people guessed it but a load would have been really disappointed without the specialization feeling similar to the gw1 paragon (weaponwise)
when did any assassin in gw1 ever run around with a rifle? exactly
they weren’t even ranged characters so assassin wouldnt make any sense for the weapon choice
you could actually implement that for every single turret
If my personal wishes came true, make it meditations that have a couple of insta-cast charges.
Thats mantras.
Support meaning healing/buffing/… your allies then no – thieves take out targets in the backline of the enemy’s team so any aupport there wouldnt make sense
Support meaning putting vunerability/immobilize/debuffs for more condi duration or whatever would be something else as that would mean a different offensive support to the team than guards for example with their might stacks have
With my playstyle (solo roamer if in wvw) though any kind of support wouldnt be exactly what i’m hoping for – i think a more egoistic specialization first and then anet can give us some kind of support [maybe with “shouts” that mark the target or so, possibly some kind of scouty support or sth]
Gona have to try that later, thanks for the ideas! im running the dp meta and its not doing me any favors at the moment :P
Actually the two builds i mentioned are also the meta – just in pvp not in wvw :P
i use them in wvw as well though and they work just fine, short simple tips:
S/D 20066 – you mostly use 1-3, rarely 4 (unless you want some minor ranged dmg if you dont wanna switch to shortbow) and sometimes (from time to time against warriors/guards and so on) 5 for the daze
with pack runes you got perma furt and its important to hit your steal
a short tip that helps as well from sizer iirc:
“spam less 3 and more 2”
D/P 60206 – i play it full berserker like everything on my thief because of the low crit chance due to lack of CS (critical strikes) – panic strike + improvisation are nice traits, along with the fully buffed steal (make sure to hit it)
also, this relies less on the bp+hs-combo but opens up way more for some tactical shadow shots and head shots in between
both take some time to learn to play though as they are way more active than anything like x66xx
>1. Condi clearance / we simply cannot keep up with condi builds even if you max out SA
actually if you max out SA condition builds are pretty simple due to high amount of condi removal + heal
unless they are kiting a lot and you are d/d
>2. Heavily reliant on stealth/blinds to stay alive (again for condi clearing, and our low health ((Im gona be stuck at 12k health after the whole guard stack going away…))
true that, but rather “stealth/blind/evade” because of 20066 SA
;3.many would argue we are 1 trick pony’s being backstab or pure spam condi builds
gotta disagree here, play something but x66xx D/D, D/P or so… go for 20066 S/D or 60206 D/P and then things are quite different, nothing like being a 1-trick-pony
but well…
SB being meh? no sir, its just more of a utility weapon
1 = aoe against multiples [immob on stealth]
2 = game’s best blast finisher
3 = nice evade/kiting ability
4 = poison to reduce healing
5 = mobility + spammeable teleport for ledges & so on
i agree with trait changes though (like the loved \cough/ Last Refuge aka Get f___ed by a Minor)
better condi remove apart from SE
overwork of SA as it gives too much passive stuff atm (stealth without SA is pretty lackluster, stealth with SA is really really strong with all the passivity and sustain)
1. Improvisation offers you an RNG utility + elite skill recharge on stealing (after HoT even healing skill) – really nice
2. Panic strike allows for burst combination with mesmer, but also heart seekering or simply auto attacking – you can get quite some dmg off
3. as you said, condi removal – it’s king
26006 can also work because of higher burst but no immob to get it off and it doesnt have the nice condi remove – and improvisation is better than any major trait you can get from CS
i’m actually a thief main and i think 1-1.5s revealed if not attacking from stealth should be implemented
Yeah sure – I’ve had tons of troubles yesterday, not only in wvw but also fractals because my thief was broken – it’s always refreshing to hear that “main thieves” think that thief should be nerfed in this way. You might jump around a bit with S/D but that is not everything the class has got and D/x and even P/D needs stealth for condi cleanse – so please think about your fellow thieves before you state that a nerf like this bug would be great.
dont worry i’m not as stupid as you seem to like me to be
i thought about it and if you read my whole post you would have seen that stealth stacking – which caused the main problems – was something i said definitely shouldnt be changed especially in this way
but try to explain me how 1s reveal after you get out of stealth is supposed to be a major problems… you cleanse at least 2 condis while in stealth if you dont attack/attack at the last second and you could restealth with blinding powder/SR/… while still in stealth to not even get the revealed debuff
the only thing that this revealed changed was perma stealth (that anet didnt want anyway)
and btw i’m not only playing s/d 20066 but also d/p 60206 so it would also change my d/p playstyle
@yolo swaggins: snip
He did explain it – sometimes one needs to chain stealth to get rid of conditions, either because more are coming in or because the most dangerous ones haven’t been cleared off. With revealed that is impossible and the conditions can’t be cleared.
If you want this bug implemented with the trait system as it is you demand thieves to be free lootbags.So very frequent low cool down condition cleansing in combination with stealth is not enough? Your argument actually is that you want unlimited condition cleansing in combination with stealth. I am at a loss here.
But it actually doesn’t matter. I clearly stated that this “bug” alone would not fix things and thieves need compensation. Why are you guys coming up with your straw mans over and over again. It seems like you simply want to silence any “other” voice instead of actually discuss the issue.
i’m actually a thief main and i think 1-1.5s revealed if not attacking from stealth should be implemented
the bug with stealth stacking & SR however was obviously not intended and it’s good that they removed that – should have overworked some mesmer stealth skills like veil that dont actually use “stealth” like from Thieves SR and then added 1-1,5s reveal if not attacking from stealth as that shuts down perma stealth pretty affectively and in real game play doesnt really hurt you
when youre talking about compensation though thats easy:
anet better work on last refuge
while giving us decent condi remove apart from SE in SA (sth people asked for for a long time now)
while thinking about reworking the critical strike’s line in HoT as it’s the weakest line presented so far
while maybe not nerfing the nice active play encouraging trait line acrobatics in HoT due to feline grace (dont come with dodge spam now… of course there are a lot of dodges going on in a s/d 20066 build… because thats litterally the only defense that build has alongside frequent ports which cost initiative… that build doesnt really have any burst to speak of)
When is the preview of other specializations?
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Tarkan.5609
Yeah pretty much the title…
I know we took a week (only?) off, i’m just interested whether they announced when they are gonna continue with the other 5 specializations as i also missed the one where they said they’d take a break after the first 3.
or is there nothing left but guessing/waiting? want my 2 mains to be previewed as well ^^
I personally think so as well – i kinda hope it actually
because as long as Shadow Refuge and general stealth stacking aren’t kittened up (like they are rn) not attacking in stealth would punish you… making “permastealth” impossible
and also the other way round, avoiding the backstab would actually reward you if youre playing as a thief, opting for more (and imo as a thief main also fair+balanced) counterplay
as long as the revealed is not too long though, i’d like 1-1,5s
i didnt play yet since the update so i still have to see how it works out in game but just listening at it i gotta say even though i generally think the change is good, 2s is too much – 1s or 0,75s is more appropriate imo
nobody likes x/D or D/P thieves just constantly stealthing to regen back up but aggressive play isnt changed with this – and it makes evading/avoiding the others backstab for long enough pretty rewarding
especially as a thief who doesnt use SA and mostly non-stealth-focused S/x builds i like the general idea of this
Warrior generally is considered a newbie class simply because its easy. Why is it easy? Because it has so much passive stuff – heavy armor, high healing + immunities (moreless passive) → even unexperienced players can be successful if their opponents arent too good
As a warrior you want to be a hard hitting class… but in order to be such a class with high dmg you need to implement counterplay
for example a thief is squishy and requires stealth for burst
for example a fresh air ele is squishy and after the burst you dont deal too much dmg
the counterplay for warriors is animations
thats the reason why warrior is considered a newbie class: at low skill tier people dont evade your burst and you still have so much passive stuff so warrior can seem god mode
as soon as youre playing against players with more skill though, warrior’s effectiveness decreases consinstently, given the frequent dodgeing/avoiding of your important skills
therefore warrior has a low skill cap and it doesnt sky rocket as much as for other classes, you can of course play mind games with for example pin down and cancel the animation right before it shoots so that you bait dodges – so there’s still a learning curve but not as much as for other classes
at high skill tiers warrior (not really talking about shoutbow because that doesnt totally rely on a few skills for dmg) doesnt really rely so much on your skill but on the one of your opponent and what makes you win against good players are their mistakes and your sustain
i dont think warrior is underpowered, its just the counterplay (that has to be added to any class) is skill
[and therefore also lots of dodges as you need them to avoid warrior’s important attacks, if you get outsustained by one, dont have any cooldowns left and kitten up one dodge/dont have any dodges left you’re most likely dead]
(edited by Tarkan.5609)
2 seconds is absolutely fair, interrupts don’t put the skill on full CD. Supply Crate for example has the same cast time and stun, with a full minute higher CD, and it is really strong.
crate cast time is 1s
Trickery is the best thief trait line imo
a fully buffed steal is awesome if you learn to use it, and then deadly arts also becomes way nicer because of mug and improvisation, panic strike is nice to get some burst off
i dont like SA (apart from SE on 60206 D/P for at least some condi remove as you otherwise lack that almost completely on thief) simply because its so passive and doesnt encourage active play at all – with 6 points in it you’ll get loads of defense so that you kind of have to go for 6 in critical strikes to get some burst which does make you a one-trick-pony (relying on stealth & bs mainly)
critical strikes is carried by two things: the stats on it and executioner/hidden killer (latter one for some – in my opinion boring – wvw builds that mostly arent full berserker)
acrobatics trait line’s 2nd minor is really good, offers you a lot of dodges which makes you less reliant on stealth
i will probably try out 60606 for d/p in tpvp to see if thats viable
and i would probably also use that in wvw, the extremely low cd on steal makes the steal-stealth-trait pretty nice (especially on d/p where your dmg doesnt partly rely on c&d)
probably the main reason why 60206 d/p works atm in wvw as well is because i’m always full bersi, so its also a matter of gear – if you watch out you will almost never die anyway unless you engage without a port rdy (still using infiltrators signet) and especially d/p doesnt offer that much burst making the fights mostly last longer but imo is still honorable as its a pvp build without 6 in SA
how i feel about the honor after HoT is questionable of course as i will be forced to take 6 in SA if i want any condi removal whatsoever apart from shadowstep
but maybe you could also try 06606, even though then mug and improvisation would be missing
for d/d its kind of a weird choice atm i think, 66600 may be nice for burst, and the regen on stealth may be worth trying out for some extra healing
(edited by Tarkan.5609)
All pulls are broken and they’re apparently impossible to fix.
Not the engi one at least for me.
actually it is – i mainly play engi and thief, and the pull bugs out so often
sometimes the opponent doesnt get pulled the whole way or even bugs back to the place he was originally at – making you have to interrupt pry bar by weapon switching out of the kit if you started channelling already (which often fails → important skill on cd)
I love the 3rd idea you have with the npc laughing xD
hate the 1st one though – i mean really… stealth trap?
kittened as kitten, had so many longbow pew pew rangers putting down stealth trap to have an easy kill on me, bad luck for them that i very rarely run stealth builds and could kill them anyway – but stealth traps are annoying, they are totally not adding anything to the game apart from a free thief kill in case some of his cds are gone (if shadowsteps gone and youre a pew pew ranger then goodbye)
and the 2nd idea isnt the best one either – we dont need higher costs on stealth, we need stealth with SA to be less passive and more focused on active gameplay
something anet wants to encourage but exactly the opposite is shown in the preview of HoT, great job really
and for d/p perma stealth x66xx spammers anet should add sth like diminishing return, where it maybe reduces the amount of stealth applied on you if you stay stealthed/restealth too often without attacking (apart from maybe hitting the shot on black powder, dont be so lazy anet)
I didnt even think of that so far… but now that you mentioned it… wow that actually sounds more useful than regen and also makes more sense as the only condi remove apart from Shadows Embrace
in pvp i wouldnt reccommend it in ranked, since d/p and s/d have way more potential
i personally wanna try out 60066 S/P when HoT comes out since it can use the immobilize (from panic strike) way better than S/D
still gotta change the name in your actual post haha
but yeah i agree, good work there
you can use any class for zerging, solo or group roaming
just do which is the most fun for you
if youre a new player or new to wvw i’d stick to a zerg or sth at first and then try solo roaming if you learned a bit about wvw – if you enjoy zerging more stick to it, if you prefer solo roaming do that
thief’s role in solo roaming… well as everyone else’s role it’s to kill and to survive, as a thief you got the strength of burst, stealth and really good mobility (if you use shortbow which i highly advise in usual builds in WvW)
group roaming its role is about stealthing, bursting & Shadow Refuge on downed team members – help take out the target or the opponent’s dps
zerging you should probably farm the backline of the opponents zerg, definitely not stay in the melee train as thats not what thief is for – even though i never zerg, cant offer any more help
poison is nice against their heal(s)
a tip with s/d, sb against gs, sc/f guards is to switch to sb when he’s on gs (gs outdamages your s/d and you can kite him better on sb while doing dmg/cripple/poison him) and use s/d when he’s on s/f as his s/f outdamages your sb
pay attention to his focus 5 and heal, dont spam 3 or waste f1 into it – hitting steal is always important
also, you can get focus 5 down before it explodes, it doesnt deal dmg and you wont have to use an evade/port back/kite to not get hit by it
d/p is about bursting him – let him heal as you cant interrupt that – try to burst again
i dont play d/p a lot anymore though so no real tactics for that
and against hammer… its a slow weapon, dont stay in the 3rd auto attack chain, dont get hit by 2 and 4, you could even stay inside of the 5 with blinding powder
hope this kind of helps
think this should get pinned for all the new thieves or new pvpers
hm nice if that does actually stack up with vigor i will try out the steak – just i think the might it gives on dodge doesnt last long right? like 6s?
btw i also use pack runes instead of strength simply because of the precision and the perma fury it offers me
i am using omnomberry pie on all of my thief builds, be it 60206 d/p or 20066 s/d
gives you ~330 health or so on a crit with 66% (60%?) chance on a 1s cd
as well as some precision
btw does someone know whether the food mentioned above does add up with vigor? (i mean the 40% endurance regen)
hahah well thats the best answer to this topic xD
ehm correct me or something if what i’m saying is not true (didnt pay a lot of attention to the elementalist changes)….
but didnt all of the things you mentioned already happen? back in january?
in case you meant that well you shouldnt be writing in future then :P
Pack
- D/P 60206
- S/D 20066
- S/D 20606
- D/D 06620 (full Berserker)
Centaur
- D/D 06620 (you know the one with Valkryie/Berserker Mix? well added some Knights)
dont use the last three builds anymore, 6 in SA is too passive and therefore boring imo
alright updated my build slightly…
Build
basically everything that changed is my elite and i went from pet’s agility to companion’s might (or sth in around these lines).
i feel like especially without RaO (unless i’m going up against warriors with an anti-soft-CC-spec and possibly necros with corrupt boon) i like the reduced CD on my stability signet as well as my 50% dmg increase on maul… especially if i dont interrupt an opponent
1. does anyone know whether MoC and the 50% increased dmg of the signet of hunt stack up?
2. also, do you think RaO (if used after corrupt boon) or Entangle is better vs condi necros?
(edited by Tarkan.5609)