Guild Wars 2

try 10 0 0 30 30 carrionr armor and accs with matching jewels on accs and runes are 6x superior adventurer. run all initiative gain skills and spam death blossom you will stack dmg and lots of bleed stacks well up to 25. espeically easy with caltrops. withdraw rollfor initiative caltrops infiltrators signet basilisk venom/thieves guild. runs well with rampagers gear too.

very close but p/d is a lil higher. its a VERY good build.

eh i dont like either. if ur going to do it use sleight of hand.

i stick with 5 0 30 30 5 (btw ur missing 10 points) and p/d p/d one each with 50% energy and another each with 2 agony. full carrion armor/accs and for runes i do 2 krait 2 cent 2 aff. it works its not messed with. i only have draw matches to d/p players bc of their condi removal and rarely to d/d eles but i usually win those 80% of the time after a few mins. i run just shy of 23k hp

bit of advice: never compare 2 very different games :P …i know people complain but just kinda like apples n oranges kinda thing :P

necro and ele blow this build up. i play a similar one with superior adventuere runes….50% energy sigils on 2 daggers superior hydro on the other 2 and 10 0 0 30 30 with carrion accs/armor. aoe on ground plus conditions seem to be its bane….fire and bleeding basically. the direct dmg really can be dealth with. just need a way of cleansing it. eles stack fire alot and also 8 stacks of instant bleed :P.

Ok so along the line some of the nerfs on thief have been justifiable and righteous blah blah blah. 75% of them arent. the reason i say this is in the last 6 months almost 7 now thieves have been good/great at roaming but truly fail to find a contributing niche anywhere else.

So with all the nerfs and only like 2 real buffs (LS and Steal) why are we continuing to get the bat? all the QQers? It truly cant be bc anet thinks 1 v 1 is the most important thing or even A important thing in gw2.

Where is the direction or goal of these going towards? all i see is the game getting dumbed down. why not make other classes better and RARELY ever nerf. then we would all be strong and would come down to player skill…..oh wait…bc older/younger players wont play bc they cant rely on instinct or reaction time or hand eye coordination. my answer: thats what PVE is for.

anyway like i said we are impossible to play underwater now ….. we suck at PVE generall and dungeons/bosses we are laughable. SPVP we kinda had a chance with s/d and that was ONLY bc many people liked to play bunker style….if everyone played zerk we’d die in a blink too. in wvw our SB is useless and so is s/d as it has little defense against more than 1 player. we are literally stuck with d/p or p/d which is not really usefull in larger fights. we are good at roaming and now we are mediocre. we are 2nd/3rd in burst dmg…… id say 1st barely in combat mobility and 2nd in our of combat mobility but dead last in boons blocks invulnerabilty ranged combat weapon choices tied for last in lowest HP and def by far the most squishy REGARDLESS of traits/armor. hell even most our dmg is 50% trait based :P.

ANET: Where is Thief profession headed? or where do you aim it? i;d like to think this is where most of the thieve players heads are at now. we are confused….dissapointed and ready to reroll/quit/suck it up but none of those is somethign i think you want your player base to do. I have never heard in any of the videos from corporate about goals other than mobility which has had about 10 to 1 nerf vs buffs .

PS: most this nerfs lately seems so out of left field i just dont understand. List of:

trick shot
roll for initiative(underwater)
withdraw (underwater)
3 spear attacks(underwater)
cluster bomb(underwater)
shadow return distance on sword
stun break on sword

just to list some. these were all very VERY fun and didnt do anythign huge to the enenmy (other than cluster) so basically you just made it MUCH less fun to play. who cares if we can evade backwards alot to escape a fight….we have only 1 access to underwater stealth…we REALLY wanted that evade combo. stun break on sword? so much for not needing stealth…time to build it back into s/d. cluster bomb? 900 ranger makes me wanna salvage my dreamer. shadow return distance 1200….ptfff another reason to add in stealth….thanks. plus it was fun….didnt hurt anyone…just gave us another way out…..not much different than stealth…plus pve had plenty of uses. trick shot non heatseeking? yeah so many complaints…did we even have 1 complaint? even if u dont want it heatseeking …fine can you make it 2x faster arrow flight with same animation speed…thats fair…no?

plz stop making a game we like worse. buff other classes and give thief a role …..we dont wanna be prebattle blast finishers and thats it. you are goign to make players jump ship to another game when it releases. this is an earnest thread so plz take it to heart and is not made to troll.

thank you.

TO READERS/PLAYERS: plz post what you think about the overall changes/direction of thief and the game and how you perceive it as a player/fan.

@ sorrow

if if players that ACTUALLY MAIN thief wanna come quite rant complain boast or show gratification they are welcome. they purchased the game…prolly paid to play somewhere along the line and have every right as a consumer. dont rant block a brotha :P anet reads these forums for a reason. feedback to improve gameplay and keep consumers happy. happy consumers = spending money and also happy consumers= spread the word about great games which = spending more money! if u dont agree with this there would never have been a thief nerf to begin with. think about it

sorrow.2364:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

CUT

Why did I bothered to read this wall of no-sense?
You just said false, false, false without giving any reasoning backing up what you say.
Do you want to have a discussion or your only purpose is to annoy people?

95% of it was correct :P the only thing right was venoms do have ONE very small niche. venom share in wvw which IRONICALLY makes our venoms weak by default lol. funny how that works :P

Dagraan.2854:

Incurafy.6329:

Craig.2403:

Alex.6940:

Do damage numbers appear in your combat log if you hit someone in stealth?

No, but if it is a chain attack, you will notice the chain progress. Also, if the skill has a visual effect that takes place on the target (most noticeable is ranger’s entangle, which leaves binding roots on the target) it will appear where the thief is, letting you know where the thief was when that skill hit the thief.

99.9999% sure that they do show up in the combat log.

hits don’t show up in the combat log when you hit a stealthed enemy, iv’e tried it before when trying to fight some perma stealth thief, and no standing in the blind field will not get you hit by their heartseeker, especially if they have the speed signet and the trait to give 50% more speed in stealth and since heartseeker is a leap its affected by it.
they’ll just jump right past you and not to mention the mobility they have means you’ll need another theif just to have a chance to get to the blind field in time, and even if he does hit you all he has to do is evade and pop shadow refuge or the heartseeker spam over the blind field again.

i have 6 accounts including a thief and i have never, ever hit something mid leap with the heartseeker, and the middle of the blind field is “mid leap”

when its said you hit somebody mid leap…. i think its when you jump from point a to point b there is a guy right between them even tho you jump past him you still hit him as you land on point b. this is quite common and happens to me all the time. if i stand in BPS you will break their invis withing 2.5 seconds guaranteed unless they use a heal/utility. also swing wildly inside of it :P

p/d bleed is better. i run it as a bunkerish build in spvp and do great. do you mean a build to replace the s/d which got nerfed hard?

animalmom.1062:

hey you get 900 if you arent moving!

heh…right on!!! however the ONLY time you use this while not moving is when u are rooted …and that doesnt work anymore so yeah…never again lol

thieves got like 6 underwater nerfs. and mesmers get 1/2 bleed duration? ill trade EVERY single one of my conditions underwater for the way it was. whats that tell you?> lol i think mesmer cant compare to the beating we took

PS GO CHECK ROLL FOR INITIATIVE UNDERWATER ….that got nerfed too…although not int he notes!

STAY OUT OF THE WATER>….thieves need life jackets and red crosses on their helms just to survive battles in the water now. really smooth anet…..real smooth!

sorrow.2364:

Travlane.5948:

if ur hitting 12 backstabs you will die fast. id own you in wvw and even more so in pvp with that build. guardians give might better and usually running with several so your might isnt needed. plus they heal better and protect dmg better so you are just trying to tag along on their coattails. thieves really have no place in the game other than roaming and now it keeps getting the nerf bat so be realistic. im on dragonbrand if u wanna challenge with you 12k burst build!

Can you please tell me how can a guardian better stacks might compared to thief’s combo finishing into fire fields?

ok so 1 guardian gives out 12 stacks for 5 people for 15-20 seconds regardless if they are next to them or not…..regardless if they are in battle or out….and ,,,are yiou ready???? this is the best part of it all…they do it BY THEMSELVES without require another class to set it up for you and overlap other fields that are important. its like you have to take a time out or have 15 seconds to see the enemy coming. 3 guardians do the same amount of might in 25% of the time. Thief is pre battle buff only and slower stacking them which means less time. thief is good but i wouldnt bring thieves in a 50 v 50 fight just for those reasons when they can be done easier/better by other proffessions. not putting down thief just saying hes just an extra class that does work from what others do better. in a zerg run venom or reroll. simple. :P

it should only be able to be tripped by real players or if it is done by pets it should go to their owners by default.

Kincaidia.3192:

Not only did they not nerf it, they added 300 to the long range steal ability =) So now we can insta-gib you from further away. Because with Infiltrator’s Signet (900 range) + steal (900 range traited to 1200) wasn’t enough – we need 900+1500 = 2700 range. Add in one infiltrator’s arrow (900) = 3600 range gap closer in under a second for exploding your target.

I loves it.

ummm infiltrators arrow is listed as 900 range but you only get about 600 max out of it. :P just saying.

let me put this in perspective for you since its a lil out of your reach. if a warrior wanted to use the same “amount” of skill to close gap if he had the ability per say…. he would have used all his adrenaline….half of his attack skills and 1 of his utility just to close a gap. thats about 60% of his total offense gone just to close a gap. same for the thief.

plz know the class and math before you say such silly things :P lol fail!

squeezebag.4618:

The only OP thing about thief was pre-nerf dancing dagger. Other than that they have just been getting nerfed into the ground because people whine about them constantly for some reason.

this too. nobody complains about thief in a 5 v 5 or 8 v 8 or 50 v 50 setting. its the SOLE aspect called roaming that the QQers are born from. they(anet AND QQers) both ahve to realize that this isnt important. its not like thieves are spawn camping so it should be a big deal. you see a thief…..have a good build or a support build. you cannot have both. bc the build that the thief is using is meant for dueling and will falter in larger combat areas where as the other classes in wvw are quite teh opposite. if thats the case lets nerf every other class to the ground so they all suck at large fights like thief but can atleast duel. see how much fun they have then.

yes theives are one of the best 2 or 3 duelers in game depending on build. engies/mesmers up ther too. anyway but the fact is that 1 v 1 / dueling has no real purpose / relevancy to this game. and anet is balancing the game like 1 v 1 is the most important

i had an idea like this but mine is 10 30 0 0 30. i might take 10 out of crit line for 10 in SA for the condi removal. but will have to see. im running rampagers with it and d/d and s/d. still testing many things.

yeah its horrible. even ss cant go up one step on a set of stairs….LAME!

Coast.5162:

Works like portal until 10000 units.
Any range higher as 10000units makes the limits of shadowsteps apply.
I myself will mainly use it in certain fractals (dredge and swamp).

if only. it is like a really fast spring actually not a teleport. gets caught on everyting rarely goes the distance you mean for it and elevations is a no go.

Kincaidia.3192:

Plus I don’t buy it. You must either a) run with some ishtty thieves or b) BE a ishtty thief. The people I run with seem to appreciate my thief’s skills. 12k backstabs single target and 25k AE damage per clusterbomb + blast finishers ever 2-3 seconds in group fights…… What do you call that?

Oh, I call it keeping up 20+ stacks of might on the group when teaming up with a guardian or ele.

We’re fine PvE.

if ur hitting 12 backstabs you will die fast. id own you in wvw and even more so in pvp with that build. guardians give might better and usually running with several so your might isnt needed. plus they heal better and protect dmg better so you are just trying to tag along on their coattails. thieves really have no place in the game other than roaming and now it keeps getting the nerf bat so be realistic. im on dragonbrand if u wanna challenge with you 12k burst build!

evilapprentice.6379:

Old skale venom had the potential to be powerful with new weakness – they made a conscious decision to keep it as a POS by changing weakness to torment – who thought 3 stacks of “Bleed+” on a 45 second CD even constituted an “idea”?

according to this sneak shot should be on a 90 sec cooldown :P lol. anet is just silly most of the time. idk what they think.

psychical :P love it.

folly dragon.4126:

Weapon Sets as to builds

Shortbow – it was really only the viable weapon for secondary weaponset unless your a niche build
Double Dagger bleeder – my build since day 1 – saw a buff
Dagger/Pistol – still optimal
Pistol/Pistol – still not really viable even with slight enhancements
Sword/Pistol – not optimal, but doable
Pistol/Dagger – still not really viable
Shortbow – as stated, it was only viable secondary before june 25

Axes – (melee versions, as seen in the hands of a char thief npc in blood legion personal story, where are they?)

The goal wasnt achieved, thieves recieved in fact less diversity instead of gaining more diversity.

This reminds me of SWG cu and the death of many classes such as creature handler and bio engineer.

In Anets corner, they only kitten ed of 15% – 30% fanbois, so 8% of their playerbase by changing 1 staple secondary ability range.

the only build i hate playing AGAINST with p/d is against d/p. p/d is MUCH MUCH better than d/p. the only way its not is when u compare it aginst each other then its a draw.

+1 for danH …im very very very close myself. if i dont make this rampagers build work im done. sorry but p/d d/p is getting boring and its not really useable in wvw/spvp ….single target dmg (unless your doing alot like months ago) is just not viable in wvw and invis is not viable in spvp/tpvp.

pistol and traps and poisons were basically ignored. srry torment is cool but 45 secs makes it useless / a liability. yeah i think that i would def like for anet to give specific examples about what our role is in the game in pvp wvw and pve. without saying stupid things :P ….i mean they cant think we are usefull do they?

well trying to be positive here but im workin on testing a 10 30 0 0 30 rampagers build. :P heres hoping we have a chance. btw shadow trap sucks. get stuck on everything i keep trying it just cant make it work.

unbeknownst to this silly man child of a warrior player …… that when he travels with his team mates they entirely run over thieves bc of aoe…cc’s and their personal survivability traits. as the now wiser man warrior child unveils his eyes to the fact that thieves can only do 1 v 1s …..he travels on and enjoys the other 99% of the game beyond 1 v 1s

from what i gather we have about 90% of thieves mad and the other 10% like the patch and/or are posing as thieves. the patch is very mixed from other classes’ perceptions.

the only argument against thief is thakittens strong in raoming 1 v 1 scenarios but that has diddly kitten to do with anything relevant to gameplay/goals.

its like saying necros can stack to many aoes so for now on one will overide the other unless you put them so they are non overlapping. i think thats fair. who wants to walk into 8 marks :P

@sorrow its nto a nerf to the ground. but its not different than nerfing it to 600 bc we still cant get to the top of walls or far enough out from the top of the walls. wvw and pve shortbow is bunk. which really kitten es me off bc i have a dreamer. NOBODY anywhere to my knowledge has EVER complained about ANY shortbow skill on any thief anywhere! yes go find me 1 post out of 500,000 posts to support an anti argument. lol point stands.

thief in this game has no role or match to lore. thief in this game is basically a souped DOWN warrior with a bit of stealth. or mobility has been incredibly nerfed for every large patch now. pathing for all shadow steps traps and returns are bunk. thief had no place in game before patch and now its worse. :P

if anyone would like to tell me where are place is im all ears. and plz dont say cluster bomb nerfing pre battle. nobody wants to be THAT guy that just does 1 thing. and venom share too. the build CAN help the zerg a lil but you really dont do anything other than share. shortbow is what works well with that build and not SB isnt viable in a wide open area like wvw .

Deniara Devious.3948:

Noshiz.8650:

First to Anet:

Thank you Anet for nerfing Cluster Bomb. Now, when we are attacking a tower at WvW i can finally drink some beer and enjoy the view(maybe while eating popcorn), while the rest 80% (all non-thieves that is) of the raid is trying to kill the npc, the players and the siege weapons on the wall. You just gave us an awesome excuse to slack.

That 20% of total WvWvW population being thieves might be close to truth. Meaning that thieves are still overpowered (due spammable stealth + shadowstepping) in that game mode. No other profession has so easy escape from fights.

And if you are missing cluster bomb spam from enemies while trying to defend your keep or tower, I recommend to you transfer to Desolation. Yesterday after the patch I saw so many AoE circles from cluster bomb that I stopped counting them. I didn’t die, but I can see from combat log that I took just about 3k per hit (enemy thieves probably run full berserker ascended gear), while trying to defend against much larger enemy force, but couple of players on our side got downed. So the cluster bomb spam at siege is still very much alive and kicking. Visunah Square, EU rank 1 server, really loves those glass cannons spamming ranged AoE and they often sync it e.g. well timed ranger long bow barrages + engineer grenade kit spam + half a dozen staff elementalists doing meteor showers at same location + 10+ cluster bombs from several thieves. If you don’t dodge away, you are dead in a second.

so many you couldnt count and each did 3k dmg + ….BUT YOU DIDNT DIE> interesting. you really know how to help our cause lol. you are a dink my friend. 20% of wvw is NOT thieves. about 7% maybe 8% 10-12% on a high day. seriously you have no idea what you are talking about.

MECHANICALLY/PHYSICS speaking if you aim an arrow higher it will travel farther and hit its target after a longer period of time (aka slower) ….doesnt this soudn like cluster bomb? no reason it shouldnt be 1200 range. if you stand at the gate of a tower and do any leap skill with a warrior/guardian etc ranger thief w.e. you will have jumped farther than a cluster bomb would have flew from the top of the tower. makes no sense.

steal doesnt break stun by the way.

was this a sarcasm post?

underwater RFI gave you like 2000 distance and same for withdraw almost. now its both at half. but only withdraw is in the notes. wtf?

nobody seen this?

players leap farther than a bow can shoot. funny :P i think my 5 year old daughter makes better bows lol.

lots of things are nerfed not in notes….they are tricky buggers :P

i dont see where this is 50% distance removed in notes…..thought it ws just withdraw…either way way to kill thieves with init requirements and kill our mobility. what ever happened to increasing mobility. you guys really gotta get it together. i dont know many happy players about any large patch ever. overall i mean. of course there are a FEW small things at most like “pretty cool” or “not bad” but overall this is just not fun.

how did blind change?

Grimwolf.7163:

JonPeters.5630:

Recharge rate means the speed at which it recharges, so it recharges 30% faster not 30% shorter recharge. Think of it this way.

New recharge time = (old time / 1.3) not (old time* 0.7)

That is a spectacularly misleading way to handle that. Considering that all other recharge reduction traits and, as of now at least, every tooltip uses a completely different formula.
And even knowing the formula, it’s still convoluted and difficult to perceive.

the proper more elegant way to do it is just pure % reduction of time. but they dont want steal on 18 seconds tho. that extra 3 is too much lol :P

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Torment
- This does damage every second (75% of bleeding) and double damage to foes that are moving (150% of bleeding). Stacks intensity.
(0.11 * Condition Damage + 32) per stack per second at level 80
If Condition Damage = 1, then Torment = 32.11/stack/sec (non-moving)
Torment = 64.22(?150%)/stack/sec (moving)

Bleeding
(0.05 * Condition Damage + 42.5) per stack per second at level 80
If Condition Damage = 1, then Bleeding = 42.55/stack/sec

So yeah, it’s just a Bleeding overflow.

since bleeding stacks intensity why not just make it say 3 more stacks of bleeding lol

evilapprentice.6379:

It’s worked the same way since launch. Now they’re claiming that it’s been a problem since Launch, and they’re only now deciding to “fix it”.

This is called backpedaling. it worked a particular way, now they want it to work another way, but instead of just saying that, it’s called an unresolved issue since launch.

Reaaaaal believable. Jeez, you guys can’t even bullkitten competently.

i know. it was 31.5 secs on the steal with 30 in trickery right? now all the sudden its different even tho the tool tip says its 17.5? so if somethigns changing its bc anet decided it so…not bc of a bug. :P

no matter how you look at it when saying you give 30% faster recharge rate….most people dont know what the recharge rate is to start with so they arent sure if tis worth it.

so sad. i think 17.5 was deserved but thats just me. “I” believe it should be 30 secs base . steal really isnt that strong and we dont hav any more than 1500 dmg on it so its not a real killer. even when mug hit for 6k it was only a few QQers bc its was 45 secs. idk

@coast yeah i agree kinda. when guardians and 2 other classes can have perma retaliation up (broken buff) and some classes perma fury *(engie) and perma swiftness and perma protection etc ….god for bid we have perma vigor :O NOOOOOO! lol or a 1 sec daze every 18 seconds. you know i think warrios can knock u down twice and do a total of like 7 or 8 secs of immobilize within a few quick moves. thief is going down the drain. just get rid of them and add monks. ill play a monk anyday :P

every 21.5 seconds…..they seem to ahve a different understanding about steal recharge rate than most of us and or the way it used to be pre patch/

yeah but our scale venom still kinda sux. the ONLY reason our scale venom is like half as good as mes torment is bc we have venom share……if we dont have venom share we’d prolly have like 5 or 6 stacks of torment rather than 3 for 5 secs which is a total joke on a 45 sec timer. mes have 5 stacks on 10 secs or something for like a 30 sec timer.