Guild Wars 2

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Cynz.9437:

stealth isn’t flawed concept…. in fact it is only feature in any game that actually requires you to use brain instead of just random button mash and reliance on armor+ facetank

Well except for the user, he gets to be just as braindead but invisible too.
For some real brain activity, pick up a staff ele, note the lack of stealth, note the lack of any form of button mashing, armor, or facetanking, and then note that you die every time you stop pretending you’re playing chess.

You must die a lot on your thief. The class is all about strategizing and determining your opponent’s next move – just like chess.

Interceptor is right. I’m also not counting the sustain I get from pain response, which with 45% boon duration can keep my regen uptime pretty high, and even permanent if facing another class with high regen uptime (ele, engie, guardian).

aspirine.6852:

Most people would agree on that. But according to Anet the current engine cannot handle all the data.
I would settle for now that elite skills override the 5 people cap. If every profession has a nice aoe elite skill. :/

Oh man… If elites ignored the AoE cap, imagine the leaked thief trap elite or Tornado in EotM. Troll to the max.

1. Thief
2. Elementalist
3. Ranger

Shufflepants.9785:

Interceptor.2653:

On second thought, maybe we should just nerf Sword #3 on Shortbow instead. It’s been a while since they whacked that weapon, and the change to Choking Gas isn’t enough.

Better yet, I feel like the shortbow still has too much range. All the skills should have a range of 600. It IS the SHORTbow after all. The nerf on the range of #2 was not enough. Thieves just spam all their abilities at their feet anyways.

Funny enough, shotgunning Cluster Bomb is a direct counter to stealth thieves. 9/10 you end up with a dead/downed thief after he stealths.

What do you guys think of this build? It looks a bit wonky, as all of my builds do, but I’d like to stay away from the condition meta and prefer rifle (OP siege placement). I like rocket boots for their obvious utility as well as the ability to blast my water fields, and when swapping out Elixer B for slick shoes I can cross huge gaps when running havoc while acting as a support anchor of some sort. Still not sure whether Elixer B or Elixer S would be more beneficial.

The feedback is greatly appreciated, thanks for all of the replies.

Interceptor.2653:

Why not both? In fact, let’s nerf Sword #3 on D/P, too, just because.

Sword 3 on D/P is OP. Needs nerfs.

ParadoX.3124:

Thief only need nerf on the skill 3 on sword, “Oh look at me 2- 3-f1-3- dodge-2-3 f1-3 dodge wtf”

S/P or S/D? Because Pistol Whip is finally in a good place and Flanking Strike has already been nerfed to the ground in initiative cost.

You forgot to mention the heal from mug. Running a trickery sword build, this gives me a 2.5k heal every 20+3/4 seconds, adding 120 HPS to my 110 from assassin’s reward. The 4.6k heal from Withdraw every 15 seconds also adds 300 HPS to my sustain. Adding it all up, I heal for an average of 530 health per second, matching that of a warrior running Adrenal Health and Healing Signet. The healing portion of Mug, I find, is greatly under appreciated.

Rifle or Staff would be my next weapon of choice. We don’t need another melee/semi-melee DPS weapon. Staff with access to a lot of PBAoE CC combined with the leaked trap could give thief an option to play decap, while rifle would obviously be extreme burst range at a 1200 distance. I couldn’t see any other weapon introduced to our class in its current state.

So I wrote up a giant essay on my requisites and such that, in the end I found pointless so I’ll cut to the chase: Will I be able to command effectively as an engineer, and if so, what are some builds that would be suitable to the position?

Professional character artist here — the issue you’re having is in the skeletal structure of the asura. While it may seem odd, all backpieces use a “bone” that they attach to, and that bone never changes distance from the spine bone it parents from. The meshes, however, differentiate but use the same skeleton. This is why a larger built asura will experience no “floating” while a smaller one will. Hope that helps you understand it a little bit better.

style.6173:

This are fake. Someone at ANET would be crazy to even consider it. As for thieves, if they added a new elite, it should be a signet.

That’s what I thought as well, but in all honesty, if the new trap launched the opponent a significant distance (900, more than guardian banish) and had AoE potential I could start to see it being relatively useful, especially if it had a ~60s CD that would be traited down to kitten with Quick Traps.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Turn off your auto-tagetting and you won’t have this problem. The problem lies when the 2nd part of your PW auto-target and fails due to immobilized.

The skill shouldn’t try to turn you for the 2rd part.

This is probably why I don’t have issues. Autotargetting was helpful for a while, but kills your directional mobility skills when traveling across wide spaces with trash mobs and critters. Eventually we all learn to tab target or manual target, and no longer need auto.

roamzero.9486:

Id actually try to use such an elite in Eotm, but its cd would probably be really long for some reason to make it not worth it.

Not to mention that traps are easily dodged if you’re paying attention to the opponent’s animations and know the radius. Being on a long CD would just add insult to injury, and I would rather slot Tripwire which has a 3s knockdown and 5s of crippled, along with a 24s CD when traited (10pt adept).

I can’t imagine an elite having a 24s CD, and it would need an added secondary effect to make it worth taking over the 1.5s stun of BV.

Too bad they’re fake. Look at the mesmer elite. And the warrior one would just be completely awful to fight against.

Hail, Scroob!

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Viking Jorun.5413:

We’ve already explain it to you. The time between the first and second part was reduced to 0, making it so that you cannot move into position after the initial stun. Stop using your movement keys during pistol whip, as this cancels the action.

Read my text again please. I am not moving…

The game faces my character to the target after the first part of the skill. This is counted as “movement” and so the skill is interrupted as I was unable to move due to Immobilize.

Try it in the game, press 3 while immobilized against a moving target . This will interrupt your PW if the target is not right in front of you.

So… This is a bug as It is not player cancelled

It doesn’t affect me, and I’ve been running S/P for months. In fact, I just went roaming for 3 hours today and didn’t have any issues with it while immobilized. It’s just you, sorry.

Step 1: Thief stealths
Step 2: Instead of running around spamming 1, AoE everything. EVERYTHING.
Step 3: Enjoy your dead thief.

Haha. Until you mentioned thief needing to require more skill than the warrior class I thought you were serious, and I used to main a warrior – my legendary’s been on him for a year.

Peow peow.2189:

pp without haste, just silly :P

This is somewhat true. The only time I’ve ever found moderate success with P/P in PvP was when running a zerk amulet/jewel, X/30/X/15+/X, and Haste. With it, you can spam 2 unloads in quick succession and literally down a necro at the start of the team fight. The issue where it falls short lies in being out of the team fight, so while Taquito may find success in WvW roaming with P/P, I can’t imagine attempting to do so with its fragility in PvP.

My thief’s name is Glïnt, because Guild Wars 1 was amazing and the name without the ï was censored and unavailable since launch. Do you want a name that means something to you? Do you want something ambiguous or something that sounds like an actual name? Work with us here, man!

We’ve already explain it to you. The time between the first and second part was reduced to 0, making it so that you cannot move into position after the initial stun. Stop using your movement keys during pistol whip, as this cancels the action.

Sanduskel.1850:

My fellow thieves: do you realize that anet cannot buff thieves with perma stealth in its current state? Whether or not you believe it’s a l2p issue is besides the point. The hue and cry from the population would be deafening. If you want improvements to our class as I do, you should be advocating for fixes to stealth.

As for preventing stealth or being revealed, lol. Decent thieves don’t fall for those

Again, Sandy, saying that something is OP simply because the populous says so, the earth – by that logic – would still be flat.

style.6173:

Thieves don’t need buffs and they don’t need nerfs. Stealth is fine as well. You either kill the thief or they run away because they have no skill. Either way it is a win.

Some people are children that throw a fit because they couldn’t get a stomp off. Not only that, but people run around with their heads cut off when a thief stealths, rather than controlling the fight, using mobility to create ground between you and the thief, and coming back when he breaks stealth or comes out of it. It’s hilarious when people think that “thief stealthed = thief wins”.

To emphasize a point stated above, I’ve found that actually killing PU mesmers rather than ending in a stalemate requires me to put on my A-game and play extremely aggressively. Don’t pull back to give yourself a break, because you’re only giving the mesmer a break when you do. You have to constantly be on them, and be sure that you’re the one controlling the fight. Make them panic. When they start panicking, they make mistakes and the fight is yours.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Simple answer, for any mesmer while it lasts, is to apply stealth every time a mesmer gets clones out, killing them all.

That was hot fixed last night.

Ah, bummer.

I don’t think you know what Prismatic Understanding is. It extends the duration of mesmer stealth skills and gives them protection, regeneration, and aegis each second while in stealth. It’s primarily used in torch condition builds. S/P+GS mesmers focus more on phantasms and burst gameplay, which running PU discourages (and inversely encourages attrition condition gameplay).

Simple answer, for any mesmer while it lasts, is to apply stealth every time a mesmer gets clones out, killing them all.

CC, AoE, L2P.

Rezzet.3614:

i said to myself maybe thieves are skilled and im bad but guess what i made a thief myself and went to wvw and most fights ended by hitting 2 keys F1 and 1 in some cases it was F1+1+2 and since i play asura i used my racial 3 seconds of daze ontop of the stun so enemies could Not stop the heartseek finish

You can still dodge when dazed. Your argument has so many other holes, not to mention the fact that you can’t autoattack people and can’t gain stealth without hitting 5 or a utility on any spec, and S/P and P/P have no access to stealth. These arguments are laughable. Try fighting any decent player just hitting 1 and 2 instead of bad zerglings running back to the blob from spawn.

Kokurai.7258:

i dont think the gw2 engine really supports this idea. i cant recall any instance in the game where the player is able to pilot/drive/ride anything at their control. everything is either stationary or given pre-determined paths.
which also explains the lack of mounts.

Mounts are a different story. While they may seem like vehicles, in most instances of games they’re simply an extension of the player’s model, whereas true vehicles are rideable by more than one player and have a different control scheme. Siege Golems are more akin to mounts than vehicles from a game design perspective.

Eloquence.5207:

Buzzcrave.6197:

Kanenas.4906:

This one teaches us how to kill someone by avoiding damage, good one too!

The amount of ignorance in this thread is to much high and makes me sick! I’m outta here.

I don’t think that kitten have any experience with thief at all. He keeps on saying the same kitten all over again, while using the information that other people reply to him to improve his whining. I’m out of here too, thread full of kittens.

^True Thieves; backing out of confrontation. Watch them come out of hiding later to “+1” a pro-thief wall ’o text on nothing.

Huh. I must not be a true thief, since I don’t use stealth, bow before and after each duel/fight/kill (even when mid-combat) and don’t run away to reset fights. I run the build that just assures that nobody else can run away either.

ryan.6217:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

I love seeing other people give gunslinger builds a try. It’s a very fast, reflexive combat style

Taking a (back)stab int he dark here, but did you play sPvP in the betas? I did, and honestly I’d laugh if i saw a thief not using S/P P/P!

Well, back then Quickness boosted your attack speed by 100% and Pistol Whip could literally stun lock someone and kill them (without stomping) in less than 3 seconds. Unload could do the same thing with BV at range in half the time.

styx.7294:

Stonemist rolls eyes 1.5 years in and I don’t have 10 caps on that achievement.

Well, mathematically speaking while we’re on WvW achievements, I’m nearing 10,000 dolyaks killed. At this rate it’ll only be 498 more years until I have that Yakslapper achievement

Getting a legendary involves mastery of the entire game, not just PvE. Rank 30 takes a day to get, and even less with a Birthday Booster.

My signature describes the entirety of this thread.

Was she Asura? She may have had Perplexity runes with Updraft and immediately used Pain Inverter for the extra 3 stacks.

Tell me more about how a thief killed you with stealth. Personally, I don’t use stealth so any nerfs to it don’t affect me in any way, but this won’t fix either class.

Thieves will still stealth; Rangers will still suck.

Why are the Aetherblades helping fighters of the Mists? I thought they were the bad guys.

Steel Fenrir.2791:

We should do a farewell party for old Lions Arch if that would happen. Oh wait, maybe we should gather for a solemn mourn for its loss? Or maybe both!

Oh my god — you just reminded me.

Lion’s Arch will be the mirror of Ascalon of Pre-Searing, and Scarlet is probably going to decimate the landscape, turning the beautiful city into the wasteland of Old Lion’s Arch, just like Old Ascalon.

Let’s just be hopeful that Scarlet can live up to what The Searing did to scar its mark in history.

Valentin.2073:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Valentin.2073:

i’m really happy that this thread has become an eye-opener to the wvw community. these players have been abusing stealth far too long. they all know that but they refuse to admit it because they don’t like playing fair. i just hope that the dev’s will do something about this issue. it is clearly ruining the fun of a lot of people in wvw.

It’s nothing new. People have been complaining about stealth since beta. Learn to play. Trust me, you’ll find stealth thieves very easy to beat. I had trouble with them until I played one, now I know exactly what a thief is going to do when he goes into stealth and where he’ll be at exact moments in the fight.

dude, i can beat them both in pvp and wvw using all types of builds that a ranger can use. ranger is my main class and i know how to play him really well. i can play ele, necro, warrior, ranger, necro, mesmer and thief in pvp. i know that a thief can spam stealth using black powder + hearseeker. most thieves i see in wvw don’t even know how to time their elite skill because they are so absorbed in spamming stealths. thief is an easy class and everybody knows that. it is a class that you dont even need to study to learn its mechanics. please try playing a zerker ele, ranger, guardian or mesmer and compare their survivability to a zerker thief.

Please stop assuming one popular, easy to play build = the whole class. Not everyone plays the thief like that, and you overgeneralize too much in assuming that every thief is absorbed in keeping stealth up — any decent thief isn’t. I myself run a no-stealth mobility chasing and lockdown build, which doesn’t just do it’s job description. I can take on multiple opponents and best them relatively regularly without the crutch of stealth, and still get called a no-skill thief, when in reality the thief and elementalist are the only two classes which actually regularly utilize their combo fields and finishers mid-combat, to maximize the efficiency of their gameplay and beat multiple opponents. If you’re wasting your time with a bad perma stealthing thief who keeps running whenever their shank fails, leave it. They aren’t worth the effort.

Really though: don’t assume that every thief is bad. That’s insulting to players who actually do show skill in the class but are written off because of the majority.

Valentin.2073:

i’m really happy that this thread has become an eye-opener to the wvw community. these players have been abusing stealth far too long. they all know that but they refuse to admit it because they don’t like playing fair. i just hope that the dev’s will do something about this issue. it is clearly ruining the fun of a lot of people in wvw.

It’s nothing new. People have been complaining about stealth since beta. Learn to play. Trust me, you’ll find stealth thieves very easy to beat. I had trouble with them until I played one, now I know exactly what a thief is going to do when he goes into stealth and where he’ll be at exact moments in the fight.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Another cool looking medium armor.
I found those paintings here: http://yamao.deviantart.com/

Butt Quivers.. Genius.

aspirine.6852:

Going into stealth the second time in a short(certain amount of) time, should give thiefs or mesmers a damage debuff. You stealth twice in a row? Ok you now have a XX less damage debuff. In return you will have certain advantages when in stealth, Cannot take damage or all conditionslost, something like that.

I feel like that would only break it more.

ryan.6217:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Pro Tip: You only need two pistols, one on your primary set in one hand and another in your secondary set on the opposite hand. Example below.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJA6alYm6OHcS6E/5Ey2DgqC5JdG40L1fgrA-jkBBkfA0HwJPFRjtwpIasKkYaXER1A-w

I take your pro tip and suggest my own. Pro tip 4 sigils are better than 2. But yes, i know you only need 2, thanks mate! The offhand set have swapping sigils!

Heh, I deleted two of your pistols before I saw that you had different sigils on both sets. It’ll save you money at the very easy until you can get a full set of 4 ascended pistols at the very least.

Ghorman.1368:

I drop a cow on everyone I see!!!!

Shark Finisher + Toy Spider Tonic is eons better (freaking megalodon eating your opponent).

D/P 10/30/X/X/X, full zerk. It’s a pretty standard build that can take down anyone who doesn’t know how to deal with it with relative ease.

Pro Tip: You only need two pistols, one on your primary set in one hand and another in your secondary set on the opposite hand. Example below.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJA6alYm6OHcS6E/5Ey2DgqC5JdG40L1fgrA-jkBBkfA0HwJPFRjtwpIasKkYaXER1A-w

Dual.8953:

I think this’d replace a few classes in the dungeon meta, or any place where reflects are in high demand. As temping as it sounds, I don’t think D/P should have a tool this good (unless it perhaps gets put in 30 Shadow Arts and Venomous Aura gets merged with Residual Venom. (Then it’d bar the complete glass cannons from using it, and everyone that could use it would have to choose between it and Shadow Rejuvination)(still, that may be even more of an over buff)(Maybe if it had a 15 second internal Cooldown to match our smoke wall.)

If you’ve played other classes, having to choose between two powerful grandmaster traits is always how things are balanced. You’re either choosing survivability or reflects.

RyuDragnier.9476:

To whomever thinks thieves can’t survive without stealth…learn to play. We have blinds (the most outta any class), evades, and teleports. Fight any thief who uses all 3, you’ll find the survivability to be through the kitten roof. Fight any thief using those, Signet of Malice, and running apothecary, and he won’t die anytime soon. Thieves can be terrifyingly survivable outside of stealth if specced for it. I’ve survived running through enemy ZERGS thanks to my apothecary build.

Kept a small 17-man zerg occupied for over 10 minutes at south camp in our BL one time with my apothecary death blossom build – killed 12, the zerg hardly tried rezzing their allies.