Guild Wars 2

1) Put free camera on.
2) Run with the camera looking at you from the front.
3) Clipping problem solved.

The sky is blue. The sun is hot. The grass is greeeeeeeeeeeeeen

I’m still playing, but It’s true that I’m playing less. I managed to avoid long loss streak and have a fragile slightly over 50% win rate. That makes me play around 3-4 games a day instead of the usual ~10 games a day.

Still solo queuing on thief, I know I have room to improve and I am quite stubborn. I’m getting interesting games right now. It’s a bit stupid but I’m more at ease playing solo queue than playing with guildies. At least I know losses are either unknown people fault or myself. Looking back it’s a bit sad…..

Good thing is that I invested more time in fractal and WvW. I’m considering learning Raids as well. I’m starting to get a balanced amount of time in all game mode.

There is a new Shadowstep mechanism ? First time I hear of that in 2 years…

TwiceDead.1963:

What will happen to the existing air/fire runes then?

They are allowed to go through the mist after being used for years of slavery.

Sry I’m on EU side. [Teef] has always at least 2-3 people connected so even if you can’t play with us, we can still answer some questions if you join.

Hey,

With the new sigils discussion and the future removal of air/fire I’m curious about your thoughts on them and how it will affect thief.

For those who didn’t see them yet : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Sigil-Proposals-v2

I like some of the new on swap utility sigils, it seems we could get something good on shortbow. The on hit changes seems quite heavy, I wonder if sigil of fragility coupled with CS would open up some heavy dps builds.

I don’t know why, but seeing the list I would try to mess with pistol ( condi & power )…

I don’t raid but the general opinion is that thief is decent in raid. It’s one of the best dps maker with an easy rotation, mainly auto attack on dagger mainhand. You also have a handful of dodges to make life easy.

As for WvW and wombo combo : you just need a zerker-valkyrie or marauder set. power food, you can go dagger/dagger DA/CS/TRI. the combo is pretty much cloak & dagger -> steal -> backstab -> AA with the passive of signet of strengh and agility That’s the most wombo you can get. Hard to land, big burst, not much escape.

Now a usual thief will have DA/TRI/DD and the burst will come from steal + AA on d/p for power. As for condi burst there are pros out there to answer you.

Don’t trust videos too much, they only show success and not the fails that are more common than you think….Ever seen a thief video with a tp back to home ?

There are some interesting things on this part of the forum O_o

Advise to casual players :
- Read the text and effects associated to the skills.
- Open the trait line tab and read trait’s effects
- Use your skill using what you learned from reading…
- Use the dodge double-tap or assign a key to it
- Don’t be afraid to change traits and utilities

all that can be done in 1/2h without moving from queensdale.

draxynnic.3719:

That does raise an interesting question: What about Fort Aspenwood makes it more enjoyable?

I am inclined to agree myself that FA worked better than Stronghold does (although I do still enjoy Stronghold) – but would it be possible to identify the features that made FA work well and incorporate them into a Stronghold-style map? Could we make the defences weaker, but implement a method by which the defences can be renewed rather than being gone for good? Would a map style with an explicit attacker and defender, allowing for multiple attack paths, work in the GW2 setting?

IMO FA works better for several reasons :

- The map is bigger and there are more players. It means you could have very distinct roles on both sides and commit to them fully because you new you could rely on ~10 other people to fit the other roles. In stronghold, I often hesitate on my role since a +1 on attack, defense or summon can shift the game entirely.

- The emphasis was put on the turtles and the juggernauts. Fights were focussed mainly around those and created phases in the fight. The turtles and juggernaut were precious, you had to pay attention to them as you couldn’t really have more than 2-3 turtle waves. In stronghold the door breakers have little values, it’s easy to summon them again.

- There are not really tactical positions to hold. Remember the space between two doors ? It was really easy the pressure the attackers there but if they held, they new that past the second door, they gained an advantage. That was a rewarding moment for both side in case of victory. Once again defending against door breakers doesn’t mean much in term of satisfaction, they respawn really easily.

I think it would work on a 10 man team, 5 in defence and 5 in offence. Is the map big enough ? same for the player base ? I don’t know….

Just open the bags as you get them, otherwise it can become really annoying with a small inventory.

vesica tempestas.1563:

Stronghold is for anyone that enjoys it, and is pvp just as Fort Aspenwood was in GW. Some people just want to battle arena style and hate variety, which is ok as long as they don’t try to downplay a thing just because they don’t enjoy it or have an elitist attitude.

I spent entire days playing fort aspendwood and the enjoyment I get from stronghold is far from it. 5 man conquest with 3 nodes feels right, the size is good. Stronghold lacks something, either in pacing or in size.

Anyway I feel stronghold is not quite there to come back to ranked.

Aiming for early platinum on thief, solo queue only. I couldn’t play as much as I wanted last season and ended up in gold 2 ( I was aiming for gold 3 ).

Some of my guildies and friends are about the same level as me, getting ahead of them is one of my main motivation.

The trade off to queuing from anywhere in the world was that you could only queue as long as you stay in the same instance….

Just deal with it…

I will play this season, just like the other seasons. Solo queuing with my thief and swapping to mesmer when I’m starting to fall. I suppose my goal will be to rank higher than last season gold 2. I’m aiming for early plat.

I’m secretly longing for the glorious forum title “I’m plat, you are not ? it’s an L2p issue”

Play for the pvp part and not the rewards. After a while they will pile up without you realising.

There are, you can speed up things a tiny bit with the news maps reward track. You get magic wrapped bundles and packet, that’s +10 aleatory t6 mats for the bundle….

You can also convert t5 mats into t6 mats with cristalline powders ( you can salvage ectos for that ).

The easiest way is just as cynz described, go to the TP.

It’s good as it is. Going for incinerator was what introduced me to WvW last september. Before that I was doing a bit of pve and a lot of pvp. I decided to try WvW seriously to get the memories of combats and the gift of battle, I joined a guild, got on TS.

Now I have my mats, I’m still doing pvp as my main occupation, but I join my WvW guild on a regular basis.

I think a few cross game mode objects are a good thing.

NeXeD.3042:

Wargameur.6950:

On Necro I always uses #3 then #4 on staff since the #4 is a blast and combo with poison field for AOE weakness….That’s one more condi for additionnal stacks of torments from scepter #2.

same for reaper shroud, you can leap with #2 in the frost zone of #5, do you think a frost aura is that irrelevant to you ? Same for the whirl in that zone + grandmaster condi trait for more bleed stacks. To me reaper shroud is one of the skill set with the most synergy for combos….

To not know how to play them is fine, to say that they are weak is false….

you should get out o the habit of dropping 4 after 3.

Yea, true it’s also a condi transfert…I like playing fear with my necro, so I know I have other ways to mitigate damages…..

On Necro I always uses #3 then #4 on staff since the #4 is a blast and combo with poison field for AOE weakness….That’s one more condi for additionnal stacks of torments from scepter #2.

same for reaper shroud, you can leap with #2 in the frost zone of #5, do you think a frost aura is that irrelevant to you ? Same for the whirl in that zone + grandmaster condi trait for more bleed stacks. To me reaper shroud is one of the skill set with the most synergy for combos….

To not know how to play them is fine, to say that they are weak is false….

Ventari tablet with salvation trait line is crazy !

You can provide easily alacrity to siege weapons users without having to build exclusively for it ( like a mesmer ). It’s quite impressive used on 2 rams.

choovanski.5462:

i’m surprised that anyone doesn’t use combos like second nature.
guess that’s the engineer in me talking.

but honestly use them, they rock.
yes,its mch harder to coordinate finishers without teamspeak in a pug. but in an actual 5 man party it’s really easy. just call the field, then people finish it. your team should already know you have the field in you build & expect this.

using fields, primarily water can increase your teams survival by sooo much.

If you have a marker (from squad options) for water field it’s ok as long as you mark a place a bit ahead of time

bet team support for thief is actually venom share. With the recent changes to signet of agility you also have a decent party condi clear. but except that and stealth bot / rez nothing much

Svarty.8019:

Shaogin.2679:

As an Engineer, I use combos all the time. In fact, I rely on them. And this change is actually a little buff to my Elixir Gun, which happens to have a light field and blast finisher, so I’m happy.

As an expert at combos, I would like to ask you (or another engineer) how easy would you say it is to use a combo while moving, and could a group of 10 people coordinate blasting a field while moving (called on teamspeak)?

You need to use your brain a little and actually listen to the com and it’s ok…I have the impression you think blasting is actually hard…

With instant cast it’s as easy as to put your mouse on the field and click on the blast skill.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Daze

Cynz.9437:

Wargameur.6950:

The sub-forum is not that active these days, so if you look other pages up to 4 you should find answers about your question. There was quite a lot of “I’m new to thief” threads already.

very quick answer for your question:

- thief effectiveness is all about creating opportunities for your team and create unfair fights with rotations and +1.
- don’t spam headshot, learn other classes mechanics and interrupt key skills ( heal, signets )
- Auto attack damages are as good as a backstab if not better, It’s usually not worth except in few cases. ( an exemple : you have a 10% hp ranger that is about to heal and you blind powder offensively to proc a backtab ). Backstab is also very hard to land these days with all blocks and invuln. AA proc poison as well.

Those are superficial answers don’t hesitate to dig deeper

The “guide” to thief guides definitely needs….major update lol. Although i feel like, if one was to write a full guide how to play thief properly in pvp, it would would have volumes of a dissertation. I mean after few thousands of ranked games i still have a lot to learn and improve T_T

So true….maybe we can set up something like a multi contribution up to date guide.

Actually I would love to see a guide with several layers of depth. I’m sure new players would love something about the basis, but I for example would like to see something to identify the best targets given an enemy comp. I know it all comes to experience and practise. But there are definitely some constants in that analysis.

The sub-forum is not that active these days, so if you look other pages up to 4 you should find answers about your question. There was quite a lot of “I’m new to thief” threads already.

very quick answer for your question:

- thief effectiveness is all about creating opportunities for your team and create unfair fights with rotations and +1.
- don’t spam headshot, learn other classes mechanics and interrupt key skills ( heal, signets )
- Auto attack damages are as good as a backstab if not better, It’s usually not worth except in few cases. ( an exemple : you have a 10% hp ranger that is about to heal and you blind powder offensively to proc a backtab ). Backstab is also very hard to land these days with all blocks and invuln. AA proc poison as well.

Those are superficial answers don’t hesitate to dig deeper

Cynz.9437:

Wargameur.6950:

Cygnus.6903:

Wargameur.6950:

The buff to ghost thief made me laugh ^^

That’s only if you ignore the community’s cry to delete this build that should never exist in the first place.

The buffs to Ghost Thief single handedly showed they still don’t give a kitten about WvW.

I know, that’s why it mades me laugh….Just like the +400 post long thread about pulmonary impact needs a nerf and they didn’t touch it at all. That’s ironic.

But come on, you don’t have an army of ghost thief running around and that is not something that will make you lose a match…At most it makes people being more aware of their surroundings and maybe change utilities while running to meet up with their blob….I cringe when I see how low awareness and reflexes non roamers WvW players have…

Should i remind you that probably half of those 400 posts disagree with the nerf.

I know, I read almost everything in that thread. I didn’t voiced much of my opinion since you and the other regulars of the thief sub-forum did it very well.

usnedward.9023:

Wargameur.6950:

It’s ok, pvp reward tracks gives you plenty of mats….Just farm those bloodstone fen / lac doric / bitterfrost frontier tracks.

You new there would be a change incoming, you gambled to keep your currencies….deal with it. You had 2 month to buy your armor.

So you wanna PvP? …go PvE then for your gear. Sounds right…. Sigh. I PvE’d for over four years and just started PvP / WvW serious mode a few months ago and realized that all the complaints of ignoring these two aspects of the game are factually based. PvP / WvW gets ignored. I have two ascended sets one PvE and oe PvP rewards. I have my gear. GL to the new players who want to PvP….they won’t stay long IMO.

I was talking about pvp people complaining about mats…It’s not I wanna pvp, I play 90% of my time in pvp since I bought this game 3 years ago ^^
My main enjoyment comes from playing matches not from reward. It’s a nice side reward worth to go for it. Even more for people playing around in WvW as well.

Those vendors are ok, it allows to have an easier cross-games experience.

“I have two ascended sets one PvE and oe PvP rewards”. I would think you would get more playing pvE for 4 years. I basically got the equivalent of your pve set through pure RNG in pvp bags….

It’s ok, pvp reward tracks gives you plenty of mats….Just farm those bloodstone fen / lac doric / bitterfrost frontier tracks.

You knew there would be a change incoming, you gambled to keep your currencies….deal with it. You had 2 month to buy your armor.

Cygnus.6903:

Wargameur.6950:

The buff to ghost thief made me laugh ^^

That’s only if you ignore the community’s cry to delete this build that should never exist in the first place.

The buffs to Ghost Thief single handedly showed they still don’t give a kitten about WvW.

I know, that’s why it mades me laugh….Just like the +400 post long thread about pulmonary impact needs a nerf and they didn’t touch it at all. That’s ironic.

But come on, you don’t have an army of ghost thief running around and that is not something that will make you lose a match…At most it makes people being more aware of their surroundings and maybe change utilities while running to meet up with their blob….I cringe when I see how low awareness and reflexes non roamers WvW players have…

coso.9173:

why 2 dodges? didn’t the skill now recover 50 endu instead of 100? that’s just 1 dodge less

Chaneled vigor + signet of agility, it’s two dodges in total.

Considering only thief, I’m ok with the changes.

We more or less lost 2 dodges for 2 condi clear. That’s a balanced trade off. At the very least it will shave off my carefree use of dodges and makes me pay more attention.

The buff to ghost thief made me laugh ^^

Considering the big picture, I don’t know if we are in a good place or not….

The animation is smoother now. Space vault !

Looking at all caltrops and traps changes, Ghost thief is now the build with the most diversity in traits and utility !

There is also the allied aoes with a red circle instead of a white.

It’s funny because helping a with a thief in a dh duel is a gamble….you have 50% chances that a trap either destroy you or do nothing….

Burtnik.5218:

Crinn.7864:

Burtnik.5218:

Soltar.9643:

So i assume youre a software programmer urself then? im also fast when it comes to thinking about what to change but im just too uninformed to blame them for that long timeperiod when i dont even know how long it takes to implement such changes.

You mean this (pic)? Yeah so hard to do m8.

Somehow I think MMORPG balance is a little bit more complicated than FPS games.

Somehow i think you missed my point. This one apply to pretty much all games. They havent added new skill/animation or whatever. All they did was changing values in sheets, nothing else whatsoever so please dont give me this crap when mobas balance the game every 2 weeks with one huge major for each new season. Youre not going to balance this game by any means at current pace. By the time you get a new build (without mentioning many possible builds) it will be year 5352 or so with current “balance” team. They havent even addressed major issues. GG another 3 months of waiting for nothing? And some people wonder why Anet revenue is so low and why gw2 is dying.

No we got gravity free thieves animations now ^^ Beware of space vaults !

Stop creating threads for nothing…..

That note is in the general section, it means it affects WvW as well. They use voice chat.
I don’t know what class you play but at least thieves and engi uses combos in a daily basis….how do you think thieves go into stealth ? And engies heal for an insane amount with heal turret ?

I really don’t mind a field that clear condis, light aura was useless….And anet pushes the condi meta more and more.

Shame on me but I started a game and told people if they already saw the new league page, I got 3 instant deco in both teams….

I promise I did this only once and my mesmer is dyed with humiliation pink for atonement…..

That’s awesome ^^

Cynz.9437:

Wargameur.6950:

Ahahah maybe s/d will be our best set now.

Hype for “make s/d great again” people !

People will just play acro staff…. or join the bandwagon of DHs or whatever is next OP and stupidly rewarding thing. Just like everyone did in season 1 when thief class was total trash.

You are assuming they won’t nerf PI and acro staff at the same time. I find you odly optimistic on that one Cynz

I’m so used to my pvp build, I run it pretty much everywhere…

sometimes I swap weapons but my utilities are almost always : chaneled vigor, signet of agility, shadowstep.

I found myself using p/p and venoms + thief guild for champs and hero points in Hot. Venoms shared with thief guild stacks an incredible amount of condis for good damages even on berserk stuff.

You should really play around traits and utilities according to the situation. In bloodstone fen, I used staff and CS + ACRO for easy confusion clear and heal as it did the job better than escapist absolution.

Ahahah maybe s/d will be our best set now.

Hype for “make s/d great again” people !

Tutankhamun.3679:

how to fix CnD: make it a small range forward dash
how to tone down D/P: increase cost of heartseeker (pvp only)
how to fix sword dagger: return #3 to 1 single animation
how to fix dodge spam staff/dagger: increase the cost of vault increase the cost of death blossom (pvp only)
how to generally fix sword: increase auto atk speed and remove cast time on #2 return
how to fix p/p spam: increase cost of unload, increase auto atk speed and dmg
how to promote new builds for: add more condi to dagger auto chain. now plays as a hybrid weapon. or make backstab apply poison confusion torment 1 stack

OR they could just buff everything that is UP and keep everything that is OP the same cuz if everything is OP then nothing is UP

Glad you are not in the balance team ^^ Increasing the cost of everything is not a solution and increasing HS cost doesn’t tune down d/p at all.

I suppose the question is not really what but rather how much ?

I just thought about it, but can they technically apply stealth with bouncing dagger ?

If it stealth on hit and bounce then I suppose it would reveal you. And getting stealth at the end of all bounces seems a bit clunky.

I kinda like dancing dagger idea, it’s quite easy to land but still has counter play. The problem is, if it’s reflected does the enemy goes into stealth instead of you ?

A ranged access to stealth opens up a lot of possibilities for p/d, d/d, s/d.

I like the 2nd version of cloak and dagger better. There is more flavor to it. In the end your dagger off hand is really heavy in terms of initiative, I suppose trickery would still be mandatory to make it work…

You can do like me,

I learned thief the hard way with berserker/assassin stats for a few weeks in pvp. Then I swaped back to usual builds, marauder stats and suddenly meta builds where incredibly tanky to me !

I voted no.

I asked myself a simple thing, Would that change make the game more fun ?

My answer is no. I would rather see other improvements before trying that one out. This season I saw power and condi warriors, greatsword mesmers and condi ones. It seems the power necro was there too…That was fun, diversity is fun. I don’t care to see 2 DH as long as I can tell myself maybe one is burning and the other is trap.

I don’t really like those polls, I mean we all know the problems and the devs too.
I would rather see a poll like this :

We are aware of the following problems and would like to ask our community what they would like as the focus of the next patch :
- Ranked league system
- Build diversity
- Map diversity
- Stronghold improvement

And then something like an official thread with the devs position on the subject. They already have our opinion on most subject there are tons of topics made already.

But I still like the initiative to ask the community

I just don’t know what they have in mind for the next patch for thief…..

What is left ? distracting dagger and cloak in shadow, a swap in traits somewhere ?
I doubt they will touch the init pool…dodges maybe ?

Edit: On second thought, I feel a chaneled vigor tune down on the endurance side.

I don’t understand all the complain behind ghost thief…I mean, how many times do you cross one ?

If you have a zerg build you are most likely to die to a roamer thief if you cross one anyway. If you are a roamer, you shouldn’t get stuck for too long by a ghost thief either…Maybe it’s because it hits a nerve to get killed by something you don’t know how to react to. I suppose it’s an indivual problem in that case.

If you really want to fight a ghost thief there are multiples ways to access to reveal through the game….