Guild Wars 2

The issue is just you. You have to trust that the client will perform the first keypress, not spam a second keypress. And leave it at that. Think of what to do after, while you wait. It is a small issue at times, for example, like when you are CC’d and need to C&D right after that CC to survive, and end up getting two casts on it. I’ll tell you this; find that ESC key! You can cancel the second cast if you’re fast enough.

It takes some getting used to, and as far as I know, we’re the only class that specifically is punished by this, and only punished in any real regard when using C&D, which seems to me like a good thing as it forces you to play well.

I swear if there was no skill queue system, people would complain about multiple casts of skills because of spamming the skill as well.

Adapt.

Because you have an F1 ability that gives you a second health bar, which is separately refillable, and can swap-to-it-on-demand even when CC’d, which gives you a third set of powerful skills/abilities, fancy looking graphics, and adds a unique dynamic to the overall fight, where even at 1hp left, you can initiate a full health bar ability on a single keypress and keep fighting…

And for that F1 ability, we get a lackluster, melee-range ability with a 45s cooldown where we can throw a Fear IF our enemy is a Necro and we didn’t use the ability on some other class in the past 45s…

*Note, lackluster is not to imply that it can’t shine

Hmm…

Good goood…

But missing one thing.

Offhand should be dagger.

Kind of fixes all your problems. I promise.

Edit: Ok I will share. Look you’re doing it half right. But the 3% extra damage with C&D, plus the more Stealth time, is good if you know why it’s good. Pistol is best for PvE or tanking Camps in WvW. But against players, it’s too small an AOE and you can’t hit a blind on anyone outside of the AOE, so it’s kind of waste to use Black Powder against 75% of the classes you face. Only Warriors and other Thieves are affected by the AOE in any regard. Guardians have lots of AOE to negate the blind’s effectiveness. Everyone else is ranged.

I found this nerf doesn’t change gameplay much. It does, however, result in much more forced movement. Because I can’t stack other Stealth on top of Shadow Refuge, I am forcing myself out of the Shadow Refuge circle when before I was content to stay within it and just wait. I guess since we have the extra mobility from Refuge being 10 seconds of Stealth it makes you seek out your target sooner. I sometimes would prefer to stand still, but now I just have to move.

It also reduces the effect of some tactics I’ve been using.

Everything is still possible, just much harder to pull off, which I am kind of glad about. One of my first comments to my fellow Thieves was that the lack of stacking Stealth makes bad players have a harder time compared to those of us who can adapt.

Yes. Also note, the instant the Refuge graphic disappears – or begins to disappear – is the moment you can move out of it. I used to go by watching my Stealth time, but now you can watch the graphic, and move out the moment the graphic is gone.

If done right, you get just over 10 seconds of moving Stealth.

I have noticed there is now a 10 second log-out timer in WvW.

Although this has resulted in at least one kill for me on land, I found that people logging out underwater still get away with it. At the same time, the ‘graphic’ of the player keeps swimming but his hit-position remains fixed, so it’s tough to keep firing on the player. Added to the fact that there is no underwater downed-stomp mechanism, anyone underwater is pretty much free to ALT+F4 as normal with no penalty.

10s is a good start, but if the player is in combat, why is it only 10 seconds? This still rewards ALT+F4 players who log out, but they just have to do it sooner than later. Adding to the down-state time it takes to kill someone, really people just have to ALT+F4 at half health rather than later.

If someone is in combat, the logout timer needs to be much higher to prevent any use of ALT+F4 to escape from combat.

So you guys are staying on SoR for good eh!?
-Danjir

Really wish screen effects were able to be toggled. It really doesn’t bring my any more immersion. It’s just annoying. Pink, Red, White, Black… /toggle off please.

About dead threads; umm… half the time people say ‘search the forums for x number of other topics about this’ and then when this guy does, people complain he revives a dead thread? Come on people.

One thing I note is that you can see enemy map completion icons through terrain without having the person targeted. Same with LFG icon. The Commander buff, however, you have to target the guy to see. Usually this means there are 20 other people around, but sometimes I’ve seen them in small groups and proceed to single them out, downing them over and over while his friends weep at his corpse.

With that said, IMO these icons represent ‘free kills’. The guy spent all his time grinding the map, grinding gold, or always fighting in a zerg. The people I up my game against are the no-frills enemies who have no hesitation coming at you. Although even then, 9/10 times it’s some noob thinking he can take me on.

It’s just like Legendary weapons. I see them and go right for them. They always sit around for 2m after dying not knowing why their 200+ hour grind didn’t get them a win. Love the footstep graphics… like trail markers as they run.

Ok, so was there another update, after the update, where now you can’t move out of Shadow Refuge at all during the entire 10 seconds of Stealth?

Living up to your name?

Or are you seeing a new update with the old mechanics applied?

The Nerf
Heartseeker damage has been reduced by 20% when targets are above 50% health.

The UnNerf
Assassin’s Signet now increases damage by 15% for the next 5 attacks.

Heartseeker Spam Part Deux!

In fact, it makes HS Spam that much more deadly if you use it below 50%… it’s going to be sick.

I went through a bunch of skills and abilities, and I find almost all of them I use in very specific situations. I don’t use Backstab without a host of other conditions set forth. I don’t use Dancing Dagger just for the heck of it. I don’t use Heartseeker unless the situation is right. I don’t use Death Blossom unless the situation is right. I don’t use Cloak and Dagger unless many things click together at once.

I can say the Flanking Strikes buff means I will consider using it more. I see tons of blocks, because I go after Guardians and Warriors the same as any other class. And to know I can be unloading initiative, and damage, into them while removing their boons, during a time they think they are immune to damage, sounds like something I’d like to do in those specific, frequent situations which happen as often as any other situation I encounter.

I’ve yet to get home to test but I definitely will. Maybe they just made it remove the Aegis and that’s it. But if a blocking warrior is taking damage, I’m going to be happy.

I see a return of Heartseeker Spam. AS→22222222222222222222

tdlr

D/D, Dancing Dagger or just Autoattack?

Situational attack is situational.

Depends. Using the TF2 cloak which stealths you after taking a single hit, and showing the enemy that you just died, is more Mesmer than Thief.

But yes, hiding and then attacking from behind is the Thief. Hit and run … depends on your build.

Yes, as noted above, Backstab with the Signet is now doing only +15% vs +50% damage. Meaning, -35% damage on the base hit.

Whereas before your normal Backstab attack was 3000 from behind, and the signet would give you a base of 4500 from behind, you now only have a base of 3450.

Translated to crits with a 100% crit damage increase:

4500 × 2.5 = 11250 damage before armor.
3450 × 2.5 = 8625 damage before armor.

2625 less damage for the same hit before armor damage reduction.

Now, your next 4 attacks do 15% more damage, which in many cases is the auto-attack rotation. Assuming you’re hitting a low 500 per auto-attack, 800 for Wild and Lotus, before crit, you’re now dealing 75 × 2, 120 × 2, or 390 more non crit damage. Add all crits in there, and you’re doing 975 more damage overall for the auto-attack rotation. Meaning, the loss of damage overall is not as significant when you just auto-attack after Backstab.

Be smart, and use the Signet before C&D->Steal/Mug->Backstab->Heartseeker->Heartseeker, and you will see that 5-attack move right there is way more damage than your 50% you had before.

That is, if someone can confirm; activating the Signet, does that proc an auto-attack and waste a charge?

OP still didn’t answer what his build or PvE style was. Sounds like Obama talking policy on the next 4 years.

In every build except the pure Backstab 3-shot single mobs build, this Signet is now much more useful, provides much more damage overall, and provides for much more variety in how it’s used. This is a benefit to PvE builds across the board for those using this Signet. Seeing as no class or build has a hard time with single mobs, I have no idea what build you have where this Signet “F’d” your build up so much you want to rage on the forums about it. Care to explain how this affects your build?

Nine-Tailed Strike – if you use this ability, you obtain a blocking animation and block a single attack, then unleashing a very powerful series of attacks. If you cancel this by hitting the button again, you would gain initiative. I think I saw it giving 1-4 initiative depending on how long you held the block, but it was kind of a waste in that it takes initiative to use in the first place. I don’t know yet, but I assume if you don’t get ‘blocked’ and use the secondary skill, you will gain more initiative than you started out with, not including the initiative regen over time.

Obviously the problem is the other traits are too good. We need to reduce the effectiveness of other traits to make Ricochet more enticing. o.0

I feal nerbs arto powerful.

I see what I wrote wasn’t what I was thinking.

‘Unblockable’ is the mechanic I was thinking about, meaning guaranteed removal of the boon I am trying to remove, without getting any blocks. That’s what I am trying to point out. I get blocks from Mesmers, Elementalists, Warriors, Guardians, Rangers fairly regularly. And many times there are on-block traits that add boons.

I’m not really concerned with the boon removal mechanic as it was.

I am concerned with the fact that now I can apply damage to someone who thinks they are negating all damage for 5+ seconds, and potentially apply venoms or other on-hit mechanics – and remove a boon like Regeneration while they are blocking. I don’t know if this is true, but that’s my focus in all this. Combating the ‘oshkitten’ button on those classes.

I posted in the Shadow Refuge topic but I think it needs to be in the light a little more.

Nerf:
- Stealth only stacks to 12-13 seconds maximum, down from 25 seconds maximum.

For those who were complaining about Perma Stealth, this negates that, and means those who use a lot of Stealth stacking need to do so by staggering their abilities. It doesn’t change too much, but worth noting that no longer can you stack Stealth high and achieve long a duration Stealth.

If it was a dark Asura Thief killing you, I /bow.

Otherwise its someone else who notices that you take 2-3x more damage than most Guardians and is focusing you every single time they see you.

Why does edit sometimes not show up?

I was going to mention that the Shadow Refuge starts stacking on cast, so it’s actually 4 seconds before being able to move out with 10-10.99 seconds of stealth. Meaning, you actually get 3 stacks x 5 pulses of Stealth over 4 seconds.

On Cast:
0 – 3 (instantly shows 2 as the timer shows 2 seconds for 2.99 seconds)
1 – 5 (shows 4 for 4.99 seconds)
2 – 7 (shows 6 for 6.99 seconds)
3 – 9 (shows 8 for 8.99 seconds)
4 – 11 (shows 10 for 10.99 seconds)

At that point, you can move out of Stealth. You overall have 15 seconds of Stealth, 4 of which you must be in the circle.

This also means the +1 Second of Stealth trait does not apply to this skill any more, because it should stack to 20 seconds total if that were adding in per pulse as it did before.

The pathing is weird, however it is a very powerful skill, and is now a guaranteed boon removal assuming you learn the best position to use the skill in. It doesn’t seem amazing but, until you fight good enemies and learn those boons, it will not seem amazing. When you see an Elementalist with 10+ stacks of might, or someone else with the same, such as a fellow Thief who has Might stacking happening, it’s extremely powerful. You’re basically cutting their intended damage by 10-20% by removing all that Might.

I also want to use it to remove Swiftness from certain players who are able to run off while slowing me at the same time. Flanking Strike can evade their cripple/chill and remove their Swiftness. Nice.

Hey guys, back after a forum ban, lol.

Shadow Refuge is now much better in terms of usability.

Before, the Stealth would stack up to 14 seconds (+1s Stealth trait), but you could only move out of the Shadow Refuge AOE circle at 4 seconds without being revealed. If you moved out at 5 seconds, you got Revealed. Meaning, you had to stay put, and eat a ton of AOE damage if you were fighting anyone good.

Now, the Shadow Refuge Stealth stacks up to 10 seconds – not including the time it takes to tick that high, at which point you can immediately move out of the circle without triggering revealed. If you try to move out at 8 seconds, you drop stealth triggering revealed. So it’s basically a 5-second build up for 10 seconds of usable Stealth.

In effect, this is a buff and a nerf at the same time. This is the kind of balance that is going to make GW2 great.

Pros:
- Stealth stacks up to 10 seconds of usable Stealth where you can run away out of the Refuge without triggering Revealed.
- The ability to move out of the Shadow Refuge circle after 5 seconds/pulses, compared to the old 8-10 seconds of waiting (yielding 4 seconds of usable Stealth), means you can escape/survive much better.
- You are more mobile, reducing the amount of AOE you have to eat before leaving the Shadow Refuge circle.
- The Shadow Refuge circle, while still being an AOE magnet, is no longer a guarantee that the Thief is still nearby.

Cons:
- Sometimes an extended amount of time in Shadow Refuge Stealth was useful. The overall duration is now much shorter, by at least 4 seconds.
- The ‘pulses’ end much faster, so it no longer allows allies to benefit from a delayed entrance into the Shadow Refuge circle.
- No longer can you get mutltiple re-stealths out of one Shadow Refuge; i.e. if someone was fighting you in the Shadow Refuge, you could get an extra tick of Stealth→Backstab if you timed your attacks well.

The Unmentioned and Undocumented Nerf:
- Stealth now only stacks up to 12-13 seconds maximum, where before it was 25.

This last nerf is the most kitten of them all. You could before stack two Shadow Refuge with a teammate and gain 24-25 seconds of Stealth, with a total Stealth time of 30 seconds or more. Now it’s limited, and double-casting yields no benefit. Plus, as mentioned, skills which stack stealth when downed, or other skills which stack stealth, are less effective as they will cap out much sooner.

All on-attack skills and venoms waste a charge on your swing. This is because you could be swinging at a Stealth target too. Basilisk Venom is a tough one – one swing. Must use it with a gap closer and make sure it lands to gain benefit. Skill.

If Unload was doing ~6k reliably before, now you can get … 6.9k! Yeeaaahaah!

This ability is now very, very good. Unblockable means that warrior sitting at 10% health and blocking can now be hit. It does make me want to swap my Short Bow out to try it in those situations. I run into them quite a bit, and speeding up that Warrior death would be nice.

For Mrbig: there are plenty of on-block traits and abilities. You want to remove this, not auto-attack and trigger their abilities. Granted this is what I do, because I have no counter to it otherwise, but now I do, so time to adapt.

Someone needs to test if you can Basilisk Venom into a Flanking Strike and stun a blocking Warrior, thus interrupting his block.

“… I don’t know anything about the class.”

Kind of sums of 90% of the “Thief OP!” complaints on this forum. GJ.

As far as using this against camps; no it does not work. NPC’s do see you the moment you break Stealth, and will cast their attack, stun, immobilize, or AOE at you right away. And since you’re visible again every 3-4 seconds, it doesn’t take long before you have to back out to heal.

Soloing a camp is nothing. Grab a Pistol offhand and use Black Powder, and stand still until everything is dead.

Killing off zergs? No, this ability does anywhere from 1.5-3k damage depending on your gear. It’s a medium damage skill for the 6 initiative it costs, and although people can use it to setup their Backstab, they are not using C&D only in that case. No one is just using C&D to take out a zerg when it takes at most 4 seconds between an average 2000 damage attack that anyone could heal or escape from.

C&D is negated by: blocking, aegis shield, shield, damage immune forms, dodging, running away.

C&D is mitigated by: cripple, stun, Moa, immobilize, blind, AOE, any sense of awareness.

But it’s a man-cer. Not that that has anything to do with it.

Thread is about “Good job Anet” not ‘why ppl qq about class doing damage’ even though you tried to pull it that way.

All classes can do massive damage, you just don’t try… Every game, every time, someone is out there blaming a class/profession/spec/build order as being overpowered when it’s simply the application by the skilled player making it so.

For any PvE content, equip a Pistol in your off-hand. Use Black Power, #5, and stand there killing everything. The AOE blind means your enemy can’t hit you. Enjoy.

Can’t rally from fall. Cliffs insta-stomp you.

lol…

Yeah SBI has good numbers all hours I play, so I’m looking forward to that. Map hopping for quick fights before rolling the entire map is fun, but can only take so much.

Why? Because the other guy put stuff at the end of the title.

Well, think if in WoW they removed the Raid Lock. You could run the dungeon as many times as you want. Everyone could get fully max gear for every content patch within a week of hitting max level.

Then what?

What else does WoW bring to the table?

Nothing.

The OP is pointing out that nearly everything in GW2 is done to a point where regardless of what you are doing, you are having fun, and doing something worthwhile. Even sitting around in Lion’s Arch, watching the random NPC stuff happen, is better than WoW and any other game I’ve played to date. That’s all there was in WoW. Most of the best screen shots are 50 people hovering in Org.

And fortunately, all the end-game gear in GW2 can be purchased with the gold and karma you make leveling up, to become fully or near-fully exotic geared the moment you hit 80, never having to farm anything, if you don’t want, although if you do want 10 different sets of every gear and weapon, then yes, you will grind, but only by choice and choice alone.

So, there’s room to improve in future expansions. Awesome!

Skill Diversity is not equal to dozens of skills you hardly ever use.

I only see one build for every class in the game: Damage, more or less.

Nerf the effin Engineer. Wholy Kitten Skrittman that’s burst.

Nah no timer just make logging insta-kill a downed player in WvW or sPvP. Fixed.

I was fighting at the Skritt area in WvW, and was running out, avoiding the last Skritt I saw. He said in a skrittish voice as I ran from him, “Ha ha, you run from Skritt!”

Just for those who don’t think these Thief skills have a place in the game, let’s compare:

Warrior:
Skill: Hundred Blades
Cooldown: 8 seconds
Requirement: None
Multiple Targets Hit: Yes
I will note that it does root you and can only hit frontal targets.

Thief:
Skill: Backstab
Cooldown: Lowest possible cooldown 5 seconds, scaled almost to 10-12 seconds if your target has a shield, is using a shield skill, is using a damage negating skill, or knows how to dodge to make you miss Cloak and Dagger skill wasting Initiative
Requirement: Must be in Stealth, i.e. using 30 second heal cooldown, 60 second cooldown Blinding Powder utility, Shadow Refuge 60 second cooldown utility, or 6 initiative (50% of available initiative to most) Cloak and Dagger skill, must be behind enemy to maximize effectiveness, requires 30 points in a single Trait line to maximize effectiveness. Stealth also reduces movement speed significantly, allowing some enemy targets to simply outrun you.
Multiple Targets Hit: No

Guy just posted about a Ranger Thief spec, and I replied. Read that. Probably very fun and unexpected to see a range-only sPvP Thief. But doable.

Yes it’s possible.

The main thing would be to get Critical Haste in the Critical Strikes tree for the Thief, and put a Sigil of Rage on your weapon. You will get a decent number of Quickness procs and see some rapid fire damage going on.

You could also grab Haste itself, and use that in between to really churn out some effective damage at range.

For the other utilities, grab Traps. Tripwire is a sweet knockdown on an approaching enemy, and the Needle Trap immobilizes to keep the enemy at range.

I’d get 30 in Critical Strikes for good sub-50% health damage, and overall crits, and 30 in Acrobatics for the extra health and longer Boon duration, i.e. longer Quickness. Get Haste, Tripwire, and Needle Trap for your utilities, and grab Basilisk Venom as the Elite (use it whenever it’s up, don’t think about it hard). I think you’ll find it enjoyable if you like range.

I do this on the daily bro. Can’t capture my life!

As a Thief, the Thief is the least annoying. More than likely he is a burst spec. I’ve walked around autoattacking into a burst spec thief, watching my autoattack #1 to get hits and downed an L80 burst spec Thief. It’s hilarious.

Then again, I pan my camera, pay attention to my flank and rear, and everyone on voice comms are talking about what’s going on. So it’s easier to avoid Thieves because we’re coordinated.

So, annoying profession, based on profession alone?

Guardians are the most annoying. They twirl around and chain some damaging AOEs together doing good damage. They apply a shield to themselves and their teammates so my Cloak and Dagger gets blocked and I’m out of initiative and out of stealth. They have knockdowns, knockbacks, and immobilizes all on quick casts and/or instant, and have elite skills which seem to fully heal them, or otherwise tank tons of damage.

Seems Guardians are best at countering Thieves and many do it very well. As a Thief, fellow Thieves are free kills, and I love seeing them in the fight because knowing their weakness makes them easy to deal with.

Engineers are also very annoying as a Thief. But only a few good Engineer players encountered so far, so I won’t list them just yet.

I’ve run into good players of every class at some point; the good ones know how to deal with stealth. They all have given good fights at one time or another, so eh, annoying is always going to be the class you have the most trouble with. Seems like everyone is bad at killing Thieves except other Thieves…

@Sinning
I only run small group. Unless that 2 or 5 enemy players is 40 feet in front of a zerg, they always show up correctly. I never have a problem with small numbers, and rarely does the zerg show problems in all but the biggest Garrison/Keep fights. Do you at least agree, that even if you see 2 out of 5, that you’re still in full control of your character, and can move around without any rubberbanding and without any incidents where you were far away but the server thought you were in the middle of that now 5 man group getting killed?

It is exciting to see all our hard work, dedication, commitment to #1, community organization, and laid back attitude pay off.

Before the latest patch, we were having lag spikes, where you’d attempt to cast something, and it wouldn’t happen for 3-4 seconds. Or when you auto-attack it wouldn’t be instant, it would delay quite a bit. You couldn’t time anything during those times. It was happening when large battles were happening during US primetime. No lag now; even the recent ‘invisibility’ videos on YouTube; there are no rubberbanding players. You can’t see the graphic, but people are fighting, spells are being cast correctly, and everyone moves smoothly around the field.

And thanks for reading / commenting. I just want to spread awareness that although it is a problem and needs some kind of fix, it is also the reason for the smooth as butter gameplay we experience every night.