Guild Wars 2

So… Does this build actually kill someone?
I mean, how do you actually get people to fight you? kitten easy to just walk away from your trapped area and force you to go out of stealth (after which a quick turn with a Basi venom up for a stun will completely destroy you…), or give up the chase.

Suppose you could kill some baddies with it, sure… Aside of that, this build doesn’t really do kitten.

As Set pointed out, Scrapper only works with Power Damage (sadly, really).
However, against Power builds it is very potent if you run it along with Daredevils Weakening Strikes and Unhindered Combatant. A damage reduction of 27% is nothing to scoff at.
That said, I prefer avoiding hits instead of hoping the 27% reduction is enough to save me, so I’m all on board for giving Defender Runes the top spot here, even above Durability Runes simply because of how useful that heal is and how easy it is to involve in your play.

Exuberance Runes… Meh, not so much my thing (none of these runes really, I’m a fan of more offensive runes), but they would really shine in S/D, S/P and Staff Builds I reckon.
If anything, I’d say Exuberance Runes are the middle ground between defense and offense.

Traps are terribly balanced as it is (perma stealth trapper says hi), until that one’s figured out, I’d loathe to see anything like that in the game.
That said, if traps are “fixed” and/or your idea implemented in a more clever way… Then sure, why not. Suppose it’d make trapper builds at least remotely interesting for people that don’t just want to troll and grief. I’m pretty much always in for anything involving active play.

Hmm, Vulnerability on Flanking/Larcenous Strike might be too strong (quick edit: This due to it’s relatively low initiative cost which I don’t want to see increased + CnD also applying it. That said, S/D could do with a bit more damage compared to the overtuned Dagger/Staff). But I suppose Torment on Shadow Strike might be a good option since P/D tends to be used as a Condi set most of the time. Not sure though, I never play condi myself and I haven’t fought any decent P/D thieves for a long time either.

But wahey, it looks solid enough to me on paper, worse “tweaks” have made it ingame lol

(Re-)Improved damage on Dancing Dagger and a Blind on Cloak and Dagger.
Would help any weapon set using the Dagger off-hand massively.

I like your idea about the synergy between #4 and #3 though… That’s actually very interesting. But how would that Mark behave with Sword or Pistol for a main-hand?
Flanking Strike/Larcenous Strike and Shadow Strike are already good in their own way…

It’s been working fine for me.
Similar to how Sigil of Blood (used to?) be, it works but doesn’t show up on the combat log.
It’s saved my life a fair number of times for sure.

Maybe try out the food “Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew”. Gives you 100% guaranteed Might on Dodge, could possibly be better than a 33% chance on Crit (especially if you do pick up Acrobatics instead of Shadow Arts). You could also benefit of “Furious Maintenance Oil” if you got those, the extra Vitality is probably quite welcome when you’re running such a squishy build.
I’d also consider dropping the Soldier Rings in favour of Valkyrie ones, Toughness is just a wasted stat on Thieves unless you build extensively for it.

Pretty useful for starters I’d say!
At the 3300 range backstab part, it’s worth noting that you must use Steal as last gap closer, otherwise you’ll just get the “out of range” message. It’s also possible to pre-cast Black Powder into ShadowStep to pull of that combo faster (Black Powder -> ShadowStep -> Heartseeker -> Infiltrator’s Signet -> (Backstab ->) Steal (-> Backstab)).

Another potentially useful one for Thieves that do a lot of group fighting (Focus Party for example) is the Stowing of Shadowshot, so that you don’t get revealed. Allows you to gap close without leaving stealth, or prevent you from porting onto the wrong guy and wasting your backstab.

And ofcourse, the good old Sword #2 trick where you jump so that you don’t leave a returning point.

If you do another part, you could include those maybe… If so, maybe stuff in the Weakening Charge (Staff #2) into Steal/Infiltrator’s Signet to land all 3 hits on the same target?

That’s the beauty of thief… there’s so many little intricate tricks you can do!
But yeah, solid video and I’m sure you’ll be helping some starters with pointers and a little prod to get them creative in their thinking

EDIT:
Read in one of the reactions to it about safestomping…
One I hardly ever see is where you use Shortbow’s Infiltrator’s Arrow → Start Stomp → Use steal/shadowstep/infiltrator’s signet to port back ^^

Nah, not needed. Especially now with Daredevil…
I’d gladly see the removal of brainless passive procs, but I don’t see that happening any time soon. Aside of that, there’s better ways to buff Thief that are actually in line with the idea of what a thief’s supposed to be. Increased cleansing through Shadow Arts, return of the trait “Power of Inertia” to Acrobatics, a blind on Cloak and Dagger… But really, biggest thief buffs come through the nerfs to other classes because Thief’s simply in a good balanced spot right now.

Taobella.6597:

you should do it on your thief becuase daily reward are soul bound you use them to buy skill point for you thief so you dont have to waste time in pve save them up till your 80 then buy a bunch of them to unlock daredevil fast : ).

Those Proofs of Heroics were made an account-bound currency a few weeks ago

So, if you want to do it through WvW, you can do it on your Thief… Best stick to Edge of the Mists in that case because in EB and borders, an upscaled Thief is just dead on sight.

You don’t happen to run Shadow Art’s “Hidden Thief” trait, do you?
Because if you do, that’s why. Try it without Black Powder and timing the Steal at the very end of the Heartseeker animation.

If you’re not running Hidden Thief, then I don’t know what it is that’s causing you to get revealed… It’s definitely not a bug I’ve ever ran into.

Considering Thieves generally struggle more with conditions rather than physical damage, I’ve always advocated that Thieves benefit more of Vitality. In fact, I think Toughness is simply negligible as a thief, since unless you build it up really high, you’re still going to get your face hammered in if you mess up.

So I’d personally recommend to instead go for full Marauder, or Valkyrie if you want that extra defensive touch. Vitality will probably serve you much more purpose.

Sticking to my opinion: Tactivators and other Gimmicks such as Cloaking Waters simply need to go.

No.
No.
Please, No.

It’d be ridiculously easy to break the entirety of WvW (as they have pointed out in AMA’s and Streams). Just as a simple example, you’d be able to simply glide your way into SM by standing on the hillside at the Red keep and going straight at it. Ofcourse, you could put invisible walls etc. but those are very prone to buggy behaviour and massive nuisances such as being unable to shadowstep/blink on the walls, that issue was recently fixed and I’d like it to stay that way.

Not to mention how unfair it would be to F2P players that are tipping their toes in WvW… Not having the Elite Specs available can be dealt with and is preferable in certain raid setups etc. but lacking Gliding and such…

So no.
Fun on paper, hell if you actually look ahead.
I’d also rather keep PvE out of WvW, Oakhearts and crap like that are annoying enough as it is.

Works fine for me still… Maybe you got some Ping issues or other forms of skill-lag?

Never did… Would be a nice little buff to SA without making it OP though.

Like Cynz said, a good Rev/Herald should beat a Thief with or without Precision Strike being as broken as it is (tracking us even when cast after we stealth).
A Rev/Herald has almost as much to offer as any Thief in terms of mobility, it’s got just as good (burst) damage and it has way more to offer in team support.

Only time a Thief will have the upper hand is when stealth is “needed” and unlikely to be countered, like say… In a WvW/GvG Focus Party. Even then, a Rev/Herald paired up with 1 or 2 thieves is worth experimenting with.

So yes, a Thief can beat a Rev if they got the same skill, but a Rev has the tools to gain and keep the upper hand, al whilst being more useful to the rest of the team if it’s not stealth that you’re after.

As to who needs nerfs… Well, both really. Our Dagger and Staff AA damage is just ridiculous in WvW scenarios and slightly less so in PvP (lower stats in PvP sort of help out). Rev has ridiculous damage and heat-seeking projectiles on Precision Strike and Hammer AA’s that hit as hard as our Dagger/Staff AA’s, but from a safe 1200 range and also seemingly heat-seeking with an ability to round corners and break LoS if the cast starts on time.
That said, we also both need buffs in other departments…

It’s a flip of the coin if both are good players and it always depends on the scenario/situation. But from a fresh-starting 1v1 or teamfight, the Rev is definitely the better pick in most of those scenarios/situations. [/WallOfText]

In addition to my previous reply, I’d also like to make a case for Sword’s Stealth Attack getting a little buff in one form or another (damage is a lazy way to go about it, but it’d be welcome for sure).
I’ll update this post if I can think of a more interesting way of amping up Tactical Strike without making it stupendously OP.

Agreed on all accounts here.
I’m still a big advocate of having Cloak and Dagger (dagger #5 for those unaware) to put a Blind on the enemy hit with it. Not only would it help S/D, it’d also go miles for (power) D/D users. I supose the Vulnerability used to be nice for PvE, but now that there’s other classes that can easily reach the 25 cap of it anyway, I don’t see a need for Vulnerability on Cloak and Dagger, a Blind would be much better.
As for Acrobatics… There’s certainly potential for the traitline if it’s going to have a bigger impact in the areas you specified. Aside of that, I think the traitline would benefit of seeing a form of the old “Power of Intertia” trait back (Might on Dodge) and a way of obtaining Resistance as really, just the Plasma (while great) simply doesn’t cut it. I recall that the idea “Guarded Initiation” previously involved Resistance, maybe Anet could reconsider that idea?

that’d be very useful indeed!

for sPvP I’d definitely take Fire for the extra added burst, MadRabbit made an excellent case for it above.
In WvW though… Consider using the Sigil of Draining, assuming you use a pistol off-hand, that sigil is rather amazing.

No, sadly it’s not

Sir Vincent III.1286:

If your attacker wasn’t revealed — then how do you know it was a Thief?

Look at the video… Those were clearly Thief sounds and skills.

As others have pointed out, that was a trapper thief.
Kageseigi.2150 gave a great summary of what probably happened, judging by how you were getting hit. Best option would be to just remove Trapper runes from the game, or atleast remove the part where you get stealthed.
However, it’s an issue with Thief and a Thief in WvW, no less… So no, it won’t ever happen.
Next time you could maybe go into your Celestial form if you’re running that trait (even though you didn’t have it ready to go up for this instance, I see) and probably hit your Heal Skill faster when you notice you’re running into a similar situation.
After that, just kite away (don’t continue to move into a straight line). Trapper thieves only work if you stay close to them, really.

As far as I can tell, it’s based on your Gear-related Power and any damage modifiers on top of that (Executioner, Scholar Runes, Seaweed Salad etc.).

Like Jugglemonkey said, make sure you dodge into/through the clones. Dodging away from them will indeed only result in them following you.

Bo is the way forward.

When people tell me to reroll I just go on a rant about how we’re not running the meta 5-man thief team and tell everyone else to reroll.
Yes, I’m just fed up with those ignorant idiots who think that pug matches is equal to ESL/pro-league matches.

I actually like it, lol.
It can be great when timed with an Immobilize from either Shortbow stealth skill or by timing it with a Panic Strike proc. It’s also rather good for downed pressure.
That said, I’d gladly take the stolen skill that Vaxjani suggested. Throw Gear would be really nice indeed…

1. Old Stability
2. Borderlands that allow you to quickly go from location to location (or rather, from fight to fight) without having to wonder “how the kitten am I going to go up/down this mountain?”
3. Removal of Tactivators
4. Meaningful rewards
5. Events that are enjoyable (like a tournament, not a Siege Golem Free-for-All event…)

I’ve no idea what those guys were doing, but they didn’t really do a good job at interrupting your tells and kiting away from your Shroud.

Anyhow, you won the fights so you did well.
Against better Daredevils/Thieves, try to bait out the stunbreakers without wasting too many of your own cooldowns. Notable one to look for is Shadowstep. You can usually bait this out by applying a lot of condi’s as this tends to get most thieves to be a bit jumpy (even if they don’t really hurt… It’s instinct, I supose).
If you think you baited the stunbreaks, use your staff #5 and/or Shroud#3 to fear the Thief. Fear is pretty much our worst enemy and the tells on these skills aren’t as big as the one on Chilled to the Bone so they won’t just blind/interrupt/evade these. If you can impact a Thief’s mobility and/or stealth, you’ll break them.

So yeah, try to bait out stunbreaks and evades etc. You can also look for certain bits of terrain to stand on so that a Thief can’t shadowstep towards you.

EDIT:
In reply to what you just posted… In a fight between an equally skilled Reaper and Daredevil, the Reaper will win. The fact that you run power gives the Thief slightly more breathing room, but you really should be able to win these fights (especially if you start with a lot of Shroud available).

Oh, also… Weakness! You quite often use your Staff #4 at seemingly random moments. Try to use it to either transfer condi’s, or use it to blast the Poison Field from Staff#3 to apply AoE weakness. Any class that relies on physical burst hates having Weakness.

There’s classes that do a thief’s job almost as good as a thief does while providing more support for the team in situations where extra support is needed.
That said, I think we’re likely to see thieves in top-tier play because of the fact that they’re having a rule against Class-Stacking. So you could percieve the thief as meta, while it’d simply be picked because it’s not the worst option out there.

In normal play though, Thief can really shine under the condition that the rest of your team is actually able of playing with a thief on their team (no Necro’s, please don’t push far and leave a thief to full-cap mid…).

So all in all, Thief could certainly be percieved as “Meta”, whatever it’s suposed to mean by your standards.

Any form of 600+ range weapon to kite them with will work most of the time.
You can also make use of the environment to avoid being Stolen onto, look for things like rocks, plants, fences and pretty much anything where you can’t get to without jumping.

I genuinely enjoyed watching this.
Glad you decided to keep on going!

Bound isn’t the be-all-end-all option for D/P.
The vast majority of Thieves use Dash from what I’ve seen. Only in PvE is Bond more commonly used due to the 10% extra damage (even there I see more and more Viper Thieves running with Lotus Training…)

So instead of nerfing Bound which is already seeing less and less play as a meta is settling in, how about you make suggestions to bring our other trait(lines) and weapons in line with D/P? As clearly, that’s the issue here. It’s not Bound, it’s just the rest that’s not on par, while it really should be.

There’s better ways of encouraging build diversity then Nerfing.

yeah like I said when you first put it in guild chat, I’m not much of a PvE-er so my vote goes to the 1v1 tournament

I still play S/D from time to time jsut because I love the style so much.
Yes, the situation has become a little bit better, but with both Dagger and Staff also buffed, the gap between S/x and D/P (or staff) has become even bigger then it used to be.

DA/TR/DD and Acro/TR/DD have both got some potential to just have some laughs with in WvW or in some duelling servers, but yeah. S/D is just not up there anymore, sadly.

You’d effectively nerf P/P and S/P builds that do tend to use Bound quite often.
You definitely deserve a spot on Anet’s dev team.

I get what you’re trying to do here, but really I think you’re being too shortsighted.
The better way would be to go about it by increasing the viability of other traits, weapon sets and utilities.

On the subject of D/P and Bound having too much synergy… Well, most D/P thieves (or any thieves for that matter) seem to use Dash instead. Myself included.

Yes I used them a few times. Thing is with those builds (CS and SA variants) that they aren’t bad. It’s just that the Daredevil variant(s) is/are better.

Experiment and see what works best for you.
It boils down to what you feel that you need… Until a meta settles in, everything is wide open. Something like S/D with a Paladin Amulet and Rage Runes may well be extremely potent.

Point is: Use what works for you, adapt when it doesn’t work (anymore).

S/D thief will be dreadful to play for you. Anything else however, could work until you get to higher tiers of gameplay.

Malchior.5732:

Vornollo.5182:

Malchior.5732:

Vornollo.5182:

However, comparing Rev’s AA to Thief’s AA… Rev is MUCH more sustainable then a Thief. so it’s a ridiculous comparison to make.
So is Thief Dagger/Staff damage overtuned? Yes.
Should Thief damage be compared to Rev? No.

You also have to consider that Thief:
1. Is much more mobile.They can chase really well and also escape really well, while Revenants are more committed to fights.
2. Has instant CC/Utility in the form of Steal which can close the gap, stun, steal boons (like Stab), etc.
3. Is not quite as susceptible to Conditions while a Revenant has pretty much no options unless they use Mallyx, which will get annihilated by Necros.
4. They can equip as much defense (Stun breaks, escapes, whatever) as they want while a Revenant kinda only has Riposting Shadows or Gaze of Darkness, of which, only the former actually gets you out of danger and helps keep you out.
I.E. Thief has options; Revenant has set kits with little choice.
5. Thieves actually have a lot more tools (some spammable) to stay on top of a target AND soft-CC them multiple times.

So, despite being squishier during a fight, they’re also much more mobile, have more options, and have even more tools for sticking to a target while using soft-CC. On top of that, they now deal more AA damage, which shouldn’t be underestimated by any means. Yea, you wont have a Thief just casually walking up to you and AAing you to death, but he will jump on you from far away, backstab you, then beat you to a pulp while you try to recover. This isn’t difficult to do as a Thief. Squishies and roamers will die.

So what you’re pointing out is that Thieves can leave a fight easier then a Rev can?
Great! Means you don’t got to worry about our admittedly OP AA spam.

Yes, we got tools, but so do revs… The entire point I made is that while I agree with Thief’s Dagger and Staff AA being overtuned, a Thief simply cannot be compared to a Revenant.

I don’t know how you made that correlation. If anything, it means a Thief can escape, reset, and come back before you can properly recover and just wreck you with their autos just the same.

The entire point is that they CAN be compared because they’re trying to pull off similar roles: singling out a target and just wrecking them.

However, one of them got their auto nerfed by quite a decent amount (even though we use Energy on ALL skills except AA and we actually have poor Spike potential outside of lolHammer) and the other got their auto buffed by a ton (even though they only use their “Energy” on weapon skills and have ways to regain it faster and MUCH higher Spike damage).

It’s a pretty weird idea of balance on Anet’s part.

Ok, then let’s look at your higher armor, healthpool, boons such as Stability, Protection, Might, Quickness and all that other good stuff that you got solid access to.
And be fairabout the fact that Thief’s Condi Cleanse is not good at all (and we suffer more from condi since our healthpool is lower). We also don’t get as much healing, blocking and so on and so forth.

They’re 2 different classes with different roles.
So no, you can’t exactly compare them that easily.
Anyhow I’ll just say it again because it doesn’t seem to sink in: Yes, I agree that Dagger and Staff AA’s are way overtuned. They could’ve done with half the buf they got (or even without it really) and I’d rather have seen they actually fixed core Thief issues instead. But hey, not going to say no to a buff.

Rome.7124:

good and skill-based class:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/42wokp/thief_after_126_balance_patch_d/

haha.

Yeah, that’s exactly the situation that applies to PvP…
Wrong section.

Anyhow.
Yes, Dagger and Staff AA are too strong, but ouside of that, it’s a proper set.
Also, like Browrain pointed out: If you never saw a thief use Headshot, you clearly never watched a half-decent Thief.

EDIT: Sword, Pistols and Dagger off-hand could indeed use a bit more love.

Malchior.5732:

Vornollo.5182:

However, comparing Rev’s AA to Thief’s AA… Rev is MUCH more sustainable then a Thief. so it’s a ridiculous comparison to make.
So is Thief Dagger/Staff damage overtuned? Yes.
Should Thief damage be compared to Rev? No.

You also have to consider that Thief:
1. Is much more mobile.They can chase really well and also escape really well, while Revenants are more committed to fights.
2. Has instant CC/Utility in the form of Steal which can close the gap, stun, steal boons (like Stab), etc.
3. Is not quite as susceptible to Conditions while a Revenant has pretty much no options unless they use Mallyx, which will get annihilated by Necros.
4. They can equip as much defense (Stun breaks, escapes, whatever) as they want while a Revenant kinda only has Riposting Shadows or Gaze of Darkness, of which, only the former actually gets you out of danger and helps keep you out.
I.E. Thief has options; Revenant has set kits with little choice.
5. Thieves actually have a lot more tools (some spammable) to stay on top of a target AND soft-CC them multiple times.

So, despite being squishier during a fight, they’re also much more mobile, have more options, and have even more tools for sticking to a target while using soft-CC. On top of that, they now deal more AA damage, which shouldn’t be underestimated by any means. Yea, you wont have a Thief just casually walking up to you and AAing you to death, but he will jump on you from far away, backstab you, then beat you to a pulp while you try to recover. This isn’t difficult to do as a Thief. Squishies and roamers will die.

So what you’re pointing out is that Thieves can leave a fight easier then a Rev can?
Great! Means you don’t got to worry about our admittedly OP AA spam.

Yes, we got tools, but so do revs… The entire point I made is that while I agree with Thief’s Dagger and Staff AA being overtuned, a Thief simply cannot be compared to a Revenant.

The funny thing is, people that actually seriously Main Thief, all agree that the buffs to Dagger and Staff AA are entirely out of place and unnecessary.

The speed of Sword’s AA is great, but it doesn’t push it forward to see more play because of how they currently overtuned Dagger/Staff even more.

So yeah.
I see where you’re coming from.
However, comparing Rev’s AA to Thief’s AA… Rev is MUCH more sustainable then a Thief. so it’s a ridiculous comparison to make.
So is Thief Dagger/Staff damage overtuned? Yes.
Should Thief damage be compared to Rev? No.

Staff and Dagger AA buffs weren’t needed.
I’ll take them, but they sure as hell weren’t needed.

All in all, I think our biggest buff is in the nerfs to other classes.

@Dahkeus they did remove the aftercast on Black Powder! It’s ingame, but not in their notes for some reason.

S/D <3
Nothing beats being on a roll with the flowing movement of S/D while listening to good music, when it all syncs… Boy, that’s just magical to me.

Staff lacks Interrupts (for Impacting Disruption) and Stealth access.
Ofcourse, you can use utilities to somewhat make up for that, but meh. You don’t run stealth utilities yourself and there’s better utilities than Distracting Daggers (though not running Black Powder does probably open a spot for them).

Overall, I find D/P simply gives more utility for any job at hand, outside of AoE pressure.
Would prefer S/D back in a viable position though (just the AA speed increase won’t cut it I think) as I just love it’s playstyle. But hey, we all know how likely that is…

Would be awesome, but it’d be too strong to be fair.

No, just no.
Go play Thief yourself before you suggest something like this.
Take it for a spin (say, 10 proper games) before you reply to this topic again.

Cynz perfectly pointed out how ridiculous this entire topic is.

meh, people complain about how you spam heartseeker if you’re not even running a dagger for a mainhand weapon shrug