Guild Wars 2

This has been one of the best launches for a MMO. To say problems are unacceptable is preposterous (i can use big words too) a 1 hour rollback is nothing. Sometimes i think most people have never played a MMO before .

Crit dmg is good for dual pistols. No its not unusual at all that you don’t like using poisons.

Haste+unload for me generates about 30k+ dmg very quickly so i’d say haste is useful for more than PW. Most the time i dont have haste equipped, so many other skills i want to use with shorter recharge.

Ahh, if you are just referring to the skill haste then i’d rather they adjust or remove that and give us something else then adjust the rest of the class.

… I do believe a thief is designed around quick burst kills. if they want to rework the class then just call me a ranger that lost my pet.

milton.1796:

They are meant to be a burst class, bad armour, high damage.
If they nerf the damage what do thiefs have left?
Useless stealth utility skills and no damage.

Well if they bring the damage down to be in range with other classes, or replace the initiative system we won’t be thieves anymore. We will be scouts that run in to see how hard a mob hits so we can inform the rest of our party.

Oh god if i had stealth that lasted that long there would be sooo many more nerf thief threads.

I think MMO’s shouldn’t teach people if somethings not fair whine till “you” feel that it is. It should be more like real life, as in if its not fair, adapt. LIFE ISN’T FAIR, deal with it and be happy, because if you can’t even do it in a video game you will be miserable in life.

I can only imagine if the original ultima online was released now with the ability to loot player corpses, steal houses, and completely SCREW over other players how the community would react now after playing all the soft and fluffy MMO’s that the genre has turned into.

After playing more MMO’s for more years then I care to admit (16 years) I’m very happy with the route they took with this game, and the direction it’s headed.

I agree, thieves have many viable builds and I enjoy playing them all and trying new ones. I think it may be the only class where I like all of the weapons.

I really love reading that people’s solutions are to change the class mechanics. I also love reading how everyone hates burst damage thieves yet, there is an equal number of posts saying these same builds are useless and no “good” player will use them. If that’s the case where are all of the posts saying nerf toughness/vit thieves?

They do not stack, whatever is highest is what you get.

Every build has it’s place and every build can be countered. Using one build over another doesn’t make you better or worse then someone who uses something else. How its used will determines that.

It seems to me that a certain ranger doesn’t like fighting thieves.

Initiative system is designed to be able to spam the ability you need when you need it. If it wasn’t they would have just use the recharge system of every other class. Why does this get beat to death, rise from the dead, and get beat to death again. No matter what you tweak, whatever the current flavor is people will use it. If you change these 2 abilities everyone will just use haste/unload or backstab builds, or scorpion wire/cluster bombs.

I don’t use it as an attack anymore due to this. Now its a travel power for me.

Yes it does but not as much as you would hope. Full DPS it heals just over 100 per hit for me, Full healing spec (including full exotic gear) it heals about 160 per hit.

WOOT now i can play more while at work

If you can survive the initial onslaught and get the thief out of initiative that would give you a good chance to win. If they stealth, use ground target aoe’s, most thieves who are damage spec wont wanna stand in or attempt a backstab if they are dropping life fast. All that said… Thieves are an excellent 1vs1 burst damage class. 30k+ damage is not hard for me to do in under a few seconds, and that’s at range.

I’m perfectly happy with the nerf and glad they didn’t so something like increase the initiative cost or change the damage to conditional.

Wolfe.3097:

Thadren Calder.1397:

Here is an example of auto attack and pistolwhip along with the stats i was at.

your hp is so low i have to imagine you die in the duration of your pistol whip animation in pvp.

Surprisingly no. thanks to haste and basilisk venom. Venom, steal or shadowstep in assassins signet, haste, 2-3 pistolwhips and either roll or shadowstep away. Then venom barely wears off as the 3rd pistolwhip is hitting.

Again i play many different builds, this is just my assassin build. I believe different builds are for different situations. In WvWvW i prefer the assassin, in sPvP i prefer a stealth build with VA, healing and toughness.

C Banks.4358:

Zaaq.2607:

Thadren Calder.1397:

Here is an example of auto attack and pistolwhip along with the stats i was at.

This pretty much sums up what is wrong with this game.

How so? he is decked out in full berserker gear I’m assuming meaning purely glass cannon, if he didn’t have crazy damage that would be something wrong.

Yup, it would be pointless to make myself squishy if fights lasted longer then a few seconds. If thats the case ill switch to my power/toughness/healing set, or mix and match them. Next i’m working on power/vit/con dmg to see how i like that build.

Here is an example of auto attack and pistolwhip along with the stats i was at.

If it was Ultima Online sure, if it was pre trammel UO. and of course not almost 2 decades old…

Jovedrops.7906:

Thadren Calder.1397

4.5k? try 10k+ or 17k+ pistolwhips 10k unloads, 10k clusterbombs

Is this for PvE or PvP? (is there any difference?) Cause I haven’t gone into PvP yet. I still have a long way to go :/

Either, more if they have no toughness, less if they do. but on average most my shots are 8-10k of the ones i specified, and auto attacks are 2-4k

I just use fast cast ground targeting, get in the middle of the enemy just spam my feet, no delay, gives me enough time to detonate for the bonus bleeding stacks and slightly more direct damage.

Not to mention if you know where to aim you can shoot backwards while people are chasing you.

I do like guerrilla warfare nothing like shadowstepping into a group of baddies, laying down 50k+ dmg with my cute little shortbow and teleporting away.

Jovedrops.7906:

I’ve done mostly a Crit build with my Thief and pretty much loving it. HS crits from behind I get roughly 3.5k dmg – how’s everyone elses looking like?

*Edit: I’m lv80 with crap gear too … hopefully once I’m decked out I can peak at 4.5k

4.5k? try 10k+ or 17k+ pistolwhips 10k unloads, 10k clusterbombs

If you go precision get power also , conditional dmg cant crit.

Fine take my heartseeker, but please leave me my 17k pistol whip

Mange.8324:

Thadren Calder.1397:

Stalking through the city at night…

Looks cool, which hood is that where did you get it? If you don’t mind me asking…

Starter hood transmuted appearance over to my level 80 headpiece

Stalking through the city at night…

Toughness needs a boost, for example… Focusing on damage you will easily double if not triple your DPS, if you focus on toughness you will get maybe a 40% defense boost.

But yes, if a game has gear it will of course be somewhat gear based, otherwise whats the point of getting good gear. Skill comes into play that if you know what you are going up against and know your class you can prepare and use skills accordingly.

I use a toughness/healing build and a power/crit build. Have exotic sets for each, which is why i know toughness needs some work, but that being said if i had to fight my 2 builds against eachother i’d say toughness/healing would win almost everytime.

Oooooo drinking games

The darkness will also be affected by the material you color, for example if i use abyss on metal, or even cloth its the darkest black, but on leather its much lighter. So with leather armor and a cloth hood i used abyss on the leather and had to use iron on the hood to match the shades.

When i say metal cloth leather i mean the appearance not the armor type.

If the mesmer is hidden and just using his illusions and i know the whereabouts of his general location i just clusterbomb my feet a few times for 40k aoe direct dmg, not including the multiple stacks of bleeding. But again all this depends on both players skills etc….

I have gear sets for defensive and offensive. I see a lot of people saying offensive isnt as good as defensive but thiefs can be assassins too, sure a dps build may have low defense but if you are caught off guard its hard to ignore 10k crits, even if you do have massive life, and it’s quite easy to find people off guard or not paying attention in WvWvW. sPvP i think defensive is a better choice.

It will go up, gear is the big booster. I’m currently at 69% crit chance, thats without any temp buffs or boosters.

I love the shortbow in WvWvW, one of my best and favorite weapons to use, especially in seige battles, attacking or defending.

This is the most fun i’ve had in an MMO at launch, except maybe ultima online, but i cant really compare the 2. Decades apart and a whole different look and playstyle.

Symbiosis.5418:

Thadren Calder.1397:

As a thief i’ve killed people fast but also been killed just as fast by other classes. TBH necros seem to give me more trouble right now then other classes.

That’s interesting, necros are usually known to be somewhat “easy” for thieves.

I’ll admit, I was surprised, and most necros give me the same problems all classes do and i just deal with them accordingly, but the fights ive had where i would say “what just happened?” it was to a necro.

Ranger is the only real answer. Necros get pets, and pretty much sacrifice them all the time to use them properly. Rangers are the only class that is a true pet class IMO.

AcidicVision.5498:

As a thief that builds around heart-seeker or pistol whip in PvP, I think anyone that has a problem with those skills should try them.

To get the damage that a lot of you are seeing means the thief is going all out precision and power. Traits and gear. Also, abilities are chosen specifically for that burst. Haste and Assassins signet usually.

So what you end up with is a super bursty glass cannon that cannot soak damage, cannot mitigate damage, cannot remove conditions, and can only do a full skill rotation on a target about once a minute. AND we still have to hit with it. Heart seeker isn’t the easiest thing to hit with, and pistol whip roots you in place to be punished if you whiff.

Beyond that we are usually running for our lives to circle cap abandoned command points while we are on cool-down or picking off players with low health from a safe distance with a short-bow.

Minimal investment in to toughness, dodging heart-seeker, or any sort of interrupt once a thief starts running at you usually means he has already burnt his abilities for the attack and you have just nullified the entire thing.

Nerfs aren’t always the answer. Recognizing and understanding how to combat the class is the answer. That might mean you need to try it yourself for a little while to see what works, what doesn’t and how things are actually done.

Very well said, yes we do great burst dmg, but can die in 3 hits if not prepared. Thiefs are suppose to be burst damage hence no recharge timers on weapons. I don’t believe classes need nerfs, but i do believe toughness needs a boost.

Even if they nerf heartseeker, lets say… made the dmg condition instead of direct (because even if they raised the inititive cost i’d use it how it currently is), i would have plenty of other skills that i could focus on to deal crazy dmg.

The best way engineers kill me (assuming my defensive skills are down) is to root me, drop turrets around me, and within seconds im dead.

Yes heartseeker is bad, but other skills can be just as deadly, dancing daggers can crit for 4-8k for me depending on what health the mob is at, with a short bow and cluster bomb i can do upwards of 40k direct dmg (not even figuring in bleed dmg) to everything around me in about 6 seconds. Pistol whip can be just as brutal but better in 1v1 situations.

Uberlicious.3956:

depends where you are looking, in Spvp i see tons of mesmers and they are a pain to kill, but in the open world i hardly see any

Yes a good mesmer is hard to fight against in PVP. I guess this question also comes down to which server you are on. I will agree that warriors are everywhere, but i generally see a good supply of every class.

Gemma.2057:

Daft question, but how is warrior ranged? I dismissed warrior cos I like ranged play most, so I really wanna know please.

Warriors are quite lethal ranged.

Pick a heavy, medium, and light armor class, get them to 30 and join each one to a different guild (story quest) that way you get the achievments for having one in each guild and you will also know by then what type of class you like.

You can purchase additional chartacter slots from the gem store.