Guild Wars 2

Yes! Darker nights! At least in wvw, it would make for such a more dynamic environment. It would also change tactics to an extent.

I understand that the mini-game is not active anymore. But he is still standing there, please let us purchase from him again, I’ve got over 100 of these things I still need to spend. I’ve been out of town!

Mance.5640:

Good defense of your keep in EB BG. We got about 300 badges from killing the lord so many times.

I think SG got to fight some KnT tonight around and inside the keep, was fun. We logged at 1:30, keep the banner rezzing strong! :p

I just walked up to him and res’d him half the time, my banner skill wouldn’t even go off. Charr Warrior ftw.

EDIT: FOR THE GRUB!

Pet swap doesn’t seem to work anymore. I finish my animation, then have to wait the full time before it will spike. Also if I get interupted after the haste stomp, and before the end of the normal time… it won’t spike. So I’ve just stopped doing swap stomps. Rampage as one is amazing. With boon duration runes you have 28 seconds of stability… which is an INSANE amount of time to have stability for. I use it more often than entangle now, as any class that relies on stuns for their burst or cc… can’t do anything to me. And for 28 seconds I get to have complete control of the battle (it doesn’t often get stripped, as I also have vigor, regen, swiftness, and fury up most of the time.

To secure a stomp vs a

warrior, stand behind pet.

guardian – pretend to stomp, then dodge the knockback and stomp again.

Thief – pretend to stomp, move and stomp immediately when they blink

mesmer – pretend to stomp, forcing them to blow the invis. Wait for them to appear and use no other skills (they will hit you with confusion) just stomp

Ranger – like guardian, pretend, dodge interrupt then stomp, if they have a dog or wolf, watch out for knockdown and fear.

engineer – stand behind pet, stomp asap. bomb can ruin your day.

necro – pretend, dodge, stomp

ele – Don’t bother pretending, dps them then chase after thier mist form and stomp. Or leave them to get eaten by your pet and laugh on their trolly corpse.

I do agree, we need pet finishers, mortal-combat-esque. Bear could rip a guys head off, wolf could call in his pack and they rip out his gizzards, spider could lay eggs in his belly and make him explode, bird goes “The Birds” status and pecks enemies eyes out, pig…. I don’t know what pig would do….. etc etc.

I was wondering if anyone found a combination of gear that gets close to being basically celestial (all stats)

I know about the trinkets, but I am talking about combining other gear types to get your totals to = celestial.

KinkyWarrior.1879:

My incentive, is simply fun. Must we have a material incentive o.0?

But at this point, at least for tier 1… with the current mega zerg meta, it’s much less about tactics and skill, and more about who has the greater numbers and engages first. That coupled with the fact that there is no incentive for 2nd and 3rd servers to attack 1st (with the exception of stonemist, but it’s filled with skill lag 24/7 and no one enjoys it) The borderlands end up being a joke and incredibly boring. It’s come to the point where I almost never zerg anymore, and only roam and scout.

There need to be changes, or a lot of die-hard wvw players who play constantly and see all the faults all the time….. will leave. That’s a very large amount of people.

Skill lag for one… is a killer. I myself will leave or log-off when it starts happening, because it’s no longer a skill based tactical game at that point… I am now playing the RNG-skill-mini-game “Will this skill activate? Nope. How about this one? Nope. Can I heal maybe? Maybe I can use this weapon skill? How about this one?”

I love my charr girlie

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Hopefully signet of the hunt actually goes up in speed increase.

It’s a passive effect. You have almost max swiftness and it’s permanent. The difference between 25% and 33% is actually not all that much, especially if you have 1 or 2 ways to gap close, or grant yourself the swiftness boon. You want it to go up? Hate to break it to you but that’s not going to happen.

For those curious → max out-of-combat swiftness is 33%, in-combat is 25%

Yeah they broke it with the last patch. I don’t even do it anymore. Sometimes I stability stomp though.

There are tricks to make your pet move better. For instance if your pet is lagging behind you AND your target, tell it to return to you first, it will run to you very fast. Then tell it to attack the person again.

Ranger will probably get Great Axe eventually. I hope it doesn’t get hammer. I would also love for it to get rifle.

I loves my charr.

firebreathz.7692:

Nothing beats this…

I ONLY like that skin on charrs though.

Paprikaspice.8462:

Rangers generally have an advantage over thieves in small scale fights, especially if you play the popular trap build. Spike trap makes it harder for them to get behind you when they do blinding powder. You can spam traps on the shadow refuge area. Shared agony really messes up their opening combo. Rangers are not easy targets for thieves.

Don’t tell thieves that. They think I am a free kill. Thankfully most of them don’t know anything about other professions.

Wanderer.5471:

So you’re saying condition damage doesn’t work against:
Warriors
Rangers
Eles
Necros
Thieves
Mesmers

Wow so when you use your condition builds you die to everyone but engis huh?? That’s fricken hilarious! Maybe you should ask a fellow ranger for a good condition build, because most rangers agree they are far superior to power builds for competitive play (see above).

Nope you said that, not me. I was saying that relying purely on condition damage is bad, as you can be straight countered. Reading is hard, I know.

Know what else is hilarious? Your failed attempts to insult me.

Wanderer.5471:

Lmao this is LESS of a problem for condition builds than power, with power builds attacks still only deal damage if it lands!!! Except with condition builds, you can exploit small windows of opportunity to apply your conditions and then no matter how much they evade or block etc afterwards damage is still being done. Again, L2P.

With a condition/damage attack you have to rely on 2 things.
1. The hit landing
2. The enemy not cleansing the condition

A straight damage removes one variable from my damage potential. This might take you awhile to understand, so read it a few times and act it out in your head.

Wanderer.5471:

This doesn’t have to factor in food, i play spvp and tpvp. I don’t know what you do in WvW but you can’t directly apply that experience to other forms of pvp.

I do play quite a bit of spvp, but it’s just for my own entertainment. Anet cares little-to-none about spvp. They have done no substantial work on it. It’s current status is a joke and it’s meta is incredibly boring. The level of competition is almost non-existent because all serious pvp players have moved to other games. If all you want to talk about is a broken and neglected pvp mode that is unentertaining and uncompetitive, then feel free to argue about it in your own head.

Wanderer.5471:

Lmao 3 or more? Geez that might be tough, oh wait my build applies:

1. Chill
2. Weakness
3. Vulnerability
4. Poison
5. Bleed.
6. Cripple

Chill – long cooldown, easily avoided. Better hope your enemy is a moron and walks into your traps. Oh you want to throw them? Well I hope he doesn’t walk out of them, or that you miss.
Weakness – Are you referencing axe? A nice condition to be sure, but it won’t effect my pet.
Vuln – opening strike? doesn’t last long and vuln doesn’t help out condition builds. A good enemy will wait out this short duration.
Poison – A fantastic condition, nothing to say, I like it very much. A lot of professions have skills however that directly remove poison.
Bleed – already discussed, low damage, easily avoided. Your trap is easily avoided too.
cripple – your trap is already avoided, nothing to say here.

let me rephrase – “3 or more sustainable conditions”

Looking forward breaking apart your next nonsensical post.

Xsorus.2507:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Xsorus.2507:

Did your server win the matchup?

Yet to be determined this week. But most likely we will end up in second place. SoR cannot hope to beat JQ, so SoR is no threat to them. This means that JQ attacks blackgate because we threaten them, and SoR attacks blackgate because they cannot beat JQ, and their only chance is to play for 2nd place. With the current balancing of wvw, this tier 1 meta won’t change anytime soon. So all we can do is pound SoR into the ground until they eventually drop tier and we can get someone else who would hopefully be good enough to contest JQ coverage. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the current status of tier 1 and it makes sense. But there are good battles to be had so I cannot complain.

So you cannot beat JQ because of Population correct?

JQ has pretty nice coverage, but we have beaten them already in one matchup. As I stated however, we are essentially forced to fight vs 2 servers that have no reason to attack each other.

Wanderer.5471:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

still works well for me. had a fun battle today with another ranger in the water. We downed each other multiple times, kept ressing, had the same pets, finally after a 15 minute fight he started swimming for shore… big mistake. I was on my gs/sb and tore him apart on land in a matter of seconds.

what is the issue you’re having?

are you joking? you think it’s fun to go back and forth downing and rezzing each other for 15 minutes?? What if he didn’t swim to shore, would it have lasted an hour??? Even if for some reason you happen to find this entertaining, this only happens for ranger vs ranger, every other match-up is ridiculously unfair.

Did I ever say it wasn’t unfair? Nope, I didn’t say that. You assumed that, and when you assume…..

You’re a terribly bitter person. I DID think it was fun that we battled for 15 minutes because I learn things from long engagements. He swam to shore because I was finally able to kill both of his pets at the same time, and he was close to down state again.

You might need to visit the emergency room to get that stick out of wherever it got stuck….

Xsorus.2507:

Did your server win the matchup?

Yet to be determined this week. But most likely we will end up in second place. SoR cannot hope to beat JQ, so SoR is no threat to them. This means that JQ attacks blackgate because we threaten them, and SoR attacks blackgate because they cannot beat JQ, and their only chance is to play for 2nd place. With the current balancing of wvw, this tier 1 meta won’t change anytime soon. So all we can do is pound SoR into the ground until they eventually drop tier and we can get someone else who would hopefully be good enough to contest JQ coverage. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the current status of tier 1 and it makes sense. But there are good battles to be had so I cannot complain.

Hjulstad.6317:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Personally I think of my gs ranger as an assassin, so I like skins with more realistic blades (smaller and narrow) I use the skybringer, tribal, kymswarden, t3 sylvari, and basic (white) skin. I actually really like the basic skin because no one else uses it, and it looks very fitting on my ranger. It’s like a precise needle.

What hood is that you are using ? Looks really Good

Thief starter hood

Durzlla.6295:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Durzlla.6295:

Yeah i’m not gonna lie landing maul is a kitten,

Try turning your character into them as you are casting maul (lead them a little bit) and it should land. Also jump right after casting Maul to make the bear attack look more devastating =)

I have done the jumping thing not gonna lie lol, and i normally will try to lead them with maul yes, we -do- hit everything within the 180 radius, so i tend to aim it towards my targets allies in team fights since they normally don’t expect it xD.

I think maul has one of the most rewarding animations in the game. And then it cleaves, which really comes in handy.

Durzlla.6295:

Yeah i’m not gonna lie landing maul is a kitten,

Try turning your character into them as you are casting maul (lead them a little bit) and it should land. Also jump right after casting Maul to make the bear attack look more devastating =)

Wanderer.5471:

What happens if Maul is blocked? Umm idk i might have to wait 4 seconds before i can cast it again, wow my build is crippled. Besides, if you’re picking GS to be a damaging weapon then frankly you’ve no idea what you’re doing.

Let’s examine it:

attack 1: used for some damage and evade
2: used for damage (of which you admitted, i do the same as you even in condi spec)
3. used for mobility/gap closer
4. used for block/cc
5. used for cc/pet buff

So of all the skills, all i’m losing out on is a small amount of dmg on auto-atk which is pretty insignificant, as for cleansing bleeds on maul that’s an issue with every source of condition dmg. Besides if you knew how to play a condition build, you’d know it would be a good thing if they burned their condition cleanse on a 3stack of bleed on a 4s recharge! Seriously L2P a condition build before telling someone a weapon won’t work with it.

You obviously haven’t experimented with GS as I have. It has the potential to deal out quite a bit of nasty straight damage, especially with boon duration and weapon swap fury trait. So while you are dancing around with your defensive greatsword trying as you might to peck at the enemy with your pathetic damage… I am being just as defensive, I have 190% vigor, 3k armor, but doing fantastic damage. And all those cc’s you do… they end up being almost worthless, since after you cc them you retaliate with no damage. I CC them with my GS then cleave their face in half.

Burned their condition cleanse? I don’t know what the hell you’re fighting that has only 1 cleanse on a long cooldown, but they are a horrible player. Warrior can cleanse constantly, and outheal your bleeds. ranger can cleanse 5 conditions in a 30 second span. ele can cleanse constantly. Necro can eat your conditions and heal more from them. engi can cleanse frequently, and can eat your conditions and turn them into boons. thief can cleanse 2 conditions every 7-8 seconds, of which you have about a 3 second window to apply them, if the thief is good (thats not counting their stealth cleanse) mesmer can have as good of cleansing as an ele. Guardian says “what conditions? oh is that what that tickle was?” Oh and this is all assuming that your conditions LAND ON THE TARGET.

This isn’t even factoring for condition reduction food, or runes. Both of which are very strong, and have gained much popularity recently. Conditions builds (with the exception of confusion) are often about the application of 3 or more types of conditions, otherwise they are more or less ineffective vs good players. This allows your enemy to cleanse, and allows you to still damage.

I play condition ranger, warrior, 2 necros, engineer, thief, and mesmer. Tier 1 both roaming and zerging…. so you might want to take my advice on condition builds.

“L2P”. Stop running your mouth and take some good advice.

still works well for me. had a fun battle today with another ranger in the water. We downed each other multiple times, kept ressing, had the same pets, finally after a 15 minute fight he started swimming for shore… big mistake. I was on my gs/sb and tore him apart on land in a matter of seconds.

what is the issue you’re having?

Nope, 2 of my rangers have no traps on their bar. 1 is a longbow/sb ranged dps support. The other is a gs/sb tanky dps beasty.

jkctmc.8754:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

I prevented JQ from being able to react in time and my server took bay. Are you new to wvw? Do you have any idea how useful contesting a waypoint at the proper time is? This conversation is over, you’re very dense and inexperienced.

I’d watch Xsorus Ranger videos, then watch what he does in his Thief videos, with very little time played as a Thief.

He’s far from inexperienced.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Xsorus/videos?view=0

Diagree with him, as I do on “some” issues, but don’t call him inexperienced.

Inexperienced in the sense of knowing little about large scale wvw tactics. I was not implying he was lacking in skill or knowledge of game mechanics and abilities, I have yet to determine whether or not that would be true.

Chokolata.1870:

If a class, any class , has the ability to choose who and when to fight , and on top of that has very good mobility , there needs to be a penalty . The best possible outcome against a solid thief is for them to run . The worst is that you die . That is it .

Hence why people complain about elementalist and thief . The first is just OP , without any doubt . The second , is very badly designed . The stealth has way to much influence on the class , and the 1v1 duel potential is totally dragging down Thief PvE strength .

Thiefs are inherently broken due to design . Elementalists are broken because of balance issues . Please , Thief players , stop comparing the two .

Have you played thief extensively? Ele?

Wanderer.5471:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Wanderer.5471:

Maul – again, so obvious and the only sword skill which actually does damage in a condition spec, now too easy to avoid.

I found the issue you’re having. You’re running a GS condition spec. Don’t do that.

My BM build has no issues. Knights armor, cav trinkets, zerk weps. GS/SB. I can kill anything if I don’t make mistakes

That’s cute, GS was nothing to do with it, i run a different build now, still condition based, still use GS. Not a day goes by without someone i kill asking for my build, so trust me it does fine with condition ranger – maul does 3.4k damage inc bleed without crit, plus it’s mostly a utility weapon anyway so doesn’t matter too much whether you’re power or condition based.

You have 1 source of bleeds with GS, and that’s maul. Then your enemy cleanses the bleeds. MY maul hits for the same damage, but my damage doesn’t rely on the fact that the enemy be too stupid to cleanse the bleeds. And what happens when you miss your maul? when they evade? when you’re blinded? when it’s blocked with aegis? When they blink/lunge away? My auto attack will still do good damage, yours will not.

By relying on conditions, from a weapon that does 1 type of condition on 1 skill, you are limiting the usefulness of your build. You can literally be straight countered by cleansing.

Your build is successful at killing bad players, that does not mean it is good.

“That’s cute”

Xsorus.2507:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Xsorus.2507:

You’re implying that being able to get away from people isn’t useful to the team based on a point system for both TPvP and WvW…

Its implying that there isn’t a balance issue because it doesn’t have effect on the outcome of the match (which i disagree with on TPvP, and WvW I agree with you on, but based on different reasons)

I think you missed this part:

Unfortunately, unless you are way way way far away from your spawn in wvw…

I wasn’t saying 100% of the time running away is useless. It’s situation specific.

Here’s a good example of me running away in a useful way, incase you think I don’t do it.

2 thieves chase my ranger across a borderlands. Half-way across the map I realize they are not going to stop chasing me. I could do 1 of 2 things, port back to spawn, or run up garrison ramp, contest the waypoint and die for it. I chose to contest the waypoint, die, and then respawn.

I could have survived forever running, but there was no point to it, they were going to chase me anywhere I went (It could have been because I was pointing and laughing at them) and my build isn’t capable of countering 2 thieves with the specs they were running (1 a sword dps build, another a d/d burst, both of which are tough fights for my ranger 1v1) I was therefore more useful dying than I would have been continuing to run.

Now if 5 people had been chasing me… I would have run all day. Because more than likely that is a gank group, and the longer I run away, they less useful they are being. Last night I was slapping SoR’s towers and keeps to put swords on them… Then I found out Choo had sent their ENTIRE 70 MAN ZERG to kill me, they chased me cross map for about 3 minutes before I ran out of escapes and died. Running away is useful in these situations as I essentially removed 70 people from the map for 3 minutes and left them on JQ side, as opposed to BG side where they started.

Now does this happen all the time? No. Do I run away from engagements I cannot win? Quite often, I even spec’d so I could do so. Don’t read into things that aren’t there please, it’s terribly annoying having to explain myself in detail, I’d rather kill people in gw2.

In otherwords, 2 thieves chased you down and killed you…

You believe that wasn’t a waste though because you contested a point…

Hence my original point, that what you did really didn’t have an effect on the outcome of the match.

Population does..You did not..

I prevented JQ from being able to react in time and my server took bay. Are you new to wvw? Do you have any idea how useful contesting a waypoint at the proper time is? This conversation is over, you’re very dense and inexperienced.

Xsorus.2507:

You’re implying that being able to get away from people isn’t useful to the team based on a point system for both TPvP and WvW…

Its implying that there isn’t a balance issue because it doesn’t have effect on the outcome of the match (which i disagree with on TPvP, and WvW I agree with you on, but based on different reasons)

I think you missed this part:

Unfortunately, unless you are way way way far away from your spawn in wvw…

I wasn’t saying 100% of the time running away is useless. It’s situation specific.

Here’s a good example of me running away in a useful way, incase you think I don’t do it.

2 thieves chase my ranger across a borderlands. Half-way across the map I realize they are not going to stop chasing me. I could do 1 of 2 things, port back to spawn, or run up garrison ramp, contest the waypoint and die for it. I chose to contest the waypoint, die, and then respawn.

I could have survived forever running, but there was no point to it, they were going to chase me anywhere I went (It could have been because I was pointing and laughing at them) and my build isn’t capable of countering 2 thieves with the specs they were running (1 a sword dps build, another a d/d burst, both of which are tough fights for my ranger 1v1) I was therefore more useful dying than I would have been continuing to run.

Now if 5 people had been chasing me… I would have run all day. Because more than likely that is a gank group, and the longer I run away, they less useful they are being. Last night I was slapping SoR’s towers and keeps to put swords on them… Then I found out Choo had sent their ENTIRE 70 MAN ZERG to kill me, they chased me cross map for about 3 minutes before I ran out of escapes and died. Running away is useful in these situations as I essentially removed 70 people from the map for 3 minutes and left them on JQ side, as opposed to BG side where they started.

Now does this happen all the time? No. Do I run away from engagements I cannot win? Quite often, I even spec’d so I could do so. Don’t read into things that aren’t there please, it’s terribly annoying having to explain myself in detail, I’d rather kill people in gw2.

Loubbo.9852:

Will you stop focusing on the kitten 1v1, something I thought I already mentioned. 1v1 I could care less, it means nothing. Tpvp and WvW where thieves can completely and utterly burst down an engaged opponent in secs without any prior notice and always on thief’s terms.

When I say “small combat” I am talking about team fights. So go back and re-read with that in mind.

I will agree with you that when thieves outnumber an opponent it is strong. OP? No, this is the same for every class. I played with 3 rangers the other night, we were killing 10 man groups by ourselves. I also almost killed 2 decent thieves by myself the other night as my ranger, should I have won? No, there were 2 of them. Was I happy that I almost beat them? Absolutely.

The issue a lot of people have in this game in small fights is that they lack the ability to focus fire. Instead of focusing on the biggest threat in a fight, they attack something stupid like a guardian, or spread their dps across all the enemies around them.

On the topic of stealth stomp really quickly – literally the easiest finisher to predict, counter, and exploit. Killed many a thief that was trying to stomp. If you stealth stomp someone that has friends nearby with interrupts, just go ahead and assume they know nothing about thief.

I like talking in circles, it’s fun.

Xsorus.2507:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Xsorus.2507:

I’ve always viewed the ability to leave fights in the middle of combat as incredibly powerful, I’ve posted multiple times in other games like SWTOR and Rift about this issue.

If the game had a team deathmatch like mode, then being able to leave combat would be useful, as your life would be worth something. Unfortunately, unless you are way way way far away from your spawn in wvw, by running away you are essentially wasting time that you could be useful, and your enemy is benefiting by your power not being used. Same goes for spvp. When you run away, you are no longer defending points, attacking enemy points, etc etc. Sometimes it’s better to actually die, and respawn, as odd as that may sound to you.

The ability to get away in TPvP and come back without giving up points is powerful

World vs World I think you believe that wasting time is not winning the fight outright and going on to take a point or something? Which tells me you believe that World vs World balance should only be considered based on how it effects the over all point system at the end of the match.

I hate to tell you, but if you balance the game like that its not going to be fun for a vast majority as the end PvP scheme is not related to class balance at all, but more with Population balance.

I can be on a server with the greatest players in the game.. but if we’re outnumbered 2 to 1 in WvW, we’re probably going to lose that WvW match

So balancing a game based on that would be silly.

Never once did I mention balancing in my post. What are you talking about?

jkctmc.8754:

[more stuff]

This is what I suggest to everyone build surfing:

Either:
1. Find a build/playstyle you already like, and modify it to your individual playstyle.
or
2. Find a weapon/trait line/utility skill that you enjoy, and build an entire spec around it. I’m gonna have some competitions soon to see who can make the best builds focused around bad traits lol.

I enjoy all my characters, but I enjoy some more than others. The ones I find myself playing all the time are the ones with versatility, as it gets old playing gimmick builds. I found a thief last night who was a full daze build. I have boon duration runes, and I popped rampage as one. There was literally NOTHING he could do to me for 28 seconds. Limiting a build like this not only makes you incredibly vulnerable, but also predictable. I like to carry wildcards in my pocket.

Personally I like making builds, but I was also that kid that really enjoyed puzzles, which is what build crafting essentially is. Most of my builds that are already successful are still works in progress. It took me 2 months to finalize my thief build.

Xsorus.2507:

I’ve always viewed the ability to leave fights in the middle of combat as incredibly powerful, I’ve posted multiple times in other games like SWTOR and Rift about this issue.

If the game had a team deathmatch like mode, then being able to leave combat would be useful, as your life would be worth something. Unfortunately, unless you are way way way far away from your spawn in wvw, by running away you are essentially wasting time that you could be useful, and your enemy is benefiting by your power not being used. Same goes for spvp. When you run away, you are no longer defending points, attacking enemy points, etc etc. Sometimes it’s better to actually die, and respawn, as odd as that may sound to you.

jkctmc.8754:

(stuff)

What spec’s of warrior and guardian are you attempting?

On my guardians I have a full bunker build, and an aggressive offensive support guardian. I never play the bunker anymore (it’s SO boring)

On my warriors I play
- a full tank shout heal death from above (kind of gimmicky, but has multiple uses, and is incredibly fun to play, jump off things all day)
- a zerk rifle warrior build. also gimmicky, but fun, and hilarious to assassinate enemy commanders. It’s also fun to kill bad thieves, mesmers, rangers, etc. Warrior is stupid because it gets to be pretty tanky considering it has full zerker gear on….. high HP pool and heavy armor…
- a longbow condition build. Deals out a LOT of pain. It’s a bit more supporty (I also run radiation field) but it gets a bit boring after a while when you realize all you do is make a big fire field all the time… LITERALLY THATS ALL YOU DO.

I’ve played a lot of other warrior specs as well, and there are many viable ones, but I don’t enjoy playing warrior in solo combat, I feel other classes to it better. To me, warrior is great at many things at a time, and amazing at nothing. Still fun to play, but I’ll eat my left sock the day a warrior finally beats me in solo combat.

Loubbo.9852:

As someone who also plays a thief extensively I’m going to have to say yeah, we really are op. Have a friend run in first, mess around and get one focus opponent in the group to 70% pop in finish him in secs (he used cooldowns/endurance) then stealth finisher. You guys keep talking as if you never have help and are running rambo.

They’re not OP, and yes I do run solo on my thief, as I do on all my roamers. I’m a scout, that’s what we do. I spec for survival and sustain on all of my roaming builds.

The reason most people complain that thief is op is because
1. They know nothing about the class, and therefore can’t counter it. “That thief went stealth, I guess I’ll just stand here and wait for him to attack me, I heard fear takes them out of stealth, I’ll try that”
2. their spec isn’t for dueling, and 99.99% of the time the thief is running a solo spec. You expect to kill a duelist thief with your support build? Shouldn’t have to explain this one to so many people, but i still do…. ALLLLLLL the time.
3. Complainers spec sucks, and they never do small combat fighting, but they think that zerging has made them inherit some form of skill for small engagements. Zerg tactics is very very different than solo or small combat tactics and movement. They require different mindsets, builds, and playstyles.

The reason bad thieves think they are good, and talk about it on the forum:
1. They kill underleveled’s and classes/specs that are not designed for solo combat. This leads to..
2. They are full of themselves. They think that because they killed a support necro that had their back to the thief, it means they must be good. Free kills are just that, free. You didn’t earn the kill, you took advantage of them being someplace they shouldn’t have been. I do it as well, but I wouldn’t brag about it.
3. They play wvw only, and have never engaged good players in spvp or small combat. When they have run into good players in wvw small combat, they run away (see this all the time) I engage thief, thief uses his standard combo, I counter it… then he has no idea what to do and runs away.
4. Many people know little to nothing about thief mechanics, and as a result… get their butt kicked by them because of their lack of knowledge on the class. Same goes for mesmer, and for me right now… GS ranger. I get thief spec’s attacking me constantly where I read their spec immediately and realize they have no chance of killing my spec… but are accustomed to thinking rangers are free kills, so they engage me anyways and die for it.

Sometimes I wonder if they even tell their friends, or if they are just too embarrassed that they got killed by a ranger.

Personally I think of my gs ranger as an assassin, so I like skins with more realistic blades (smaller and narrow) I use the skybringer, tribal, kymswarden, t3 sylvari, and basic (white) skin. I actually really like the basic skin because no one else uses it, and it looks very fitting on my ranger. It’s like a precise needle.

Arganthium.5638:

One other thing- thieves only have one good stealth condition remover, SA IV. Not all builds are going to run it. For instance, most of my stealth-based builds don’t run it; instead, they run SA I and V. I’m a bit of a deviant from the norm, though. Don’t let that give you a reason not to use conditions against stealth-y thieves, though, especially if the conditions are easy to lay down. Things like cripple and chill still hurt when thieves aren’t stealthed, and, when they are and they have to wait a few seconds to remove these conditions, at least you can feel content that they’ve wasted a few precious seconds of their stealth waiting to remove the conditions before closing in.

Do you run a sword shadowstep build? I have yet to encounter a thief who ran no stealth cleansing that didn’t fold like a wet paper towel, unless it was a sword thief. Although I could see a rune of melandru and condition reduction food thief be successful, as it’s just about as good as the stealth cleansing.

Fritz.5026:

Its one of the main reasons I have never bothered to spend any real time on this game.

You just admitted to basically knowing nothing about thief. Your opinion is immediately discounted.

Fritz.5026:

Anyhow I agree with Chokolata. The thief class is just poorly designed. Best mobility, best combat escapes, best avoidance of retaliation with stealth, some of the highest burst damage in the game or condition damage depending on how the player wants to go with it.

Each thing on its own would be fine, but all of them together on one class is just ridiculous.

It doesnt have the best mobility, d/d ele, warrior, and GS ranger all beat it or are at least on par with sword thief.

Best combat escapes – yes and no. To have really great escapes you need to sacrifice other things like your utility skills. d/d ele has better escapes.

Avoidance of retaliation – what? Do you mean the boon? if so then no, that makes no sense. If you mean the enemy retaliating to the thieves attacks, then you are also wrong. As you can hit thieves in stealth, especially if you are aoe or melee.

Highest burst – comes with a HUGE sacrifice. zerk thief has 12k hp. My rifle warrior killshots for more than that, and I can hit them with it while they are stealthed because it’s a channeled skill. if a thief is full glass, you should laugh in their face and punish them for being so foolish. Send them back to pve.

Highest condition damage? far from it. Especially if you have just 1 cleanse skill.

All of them together – Are you high? You can’t have all of these together. You know absolutely nothing about thief.

Chokolata.1870:

Did i mention that the thief used pistol+XX and sword+dagger . If not i am sorry

It would have been p/d. If he used p/p on you and he won, something is wrong lol.

Ryan.8367:

Actually thieves are pretty kitten good for team play , they provide smoke fields and are very good for downing enemies in skirmishes , and also hiding people to revive them in skirmishes. These 3 things alone probably make the thief better than even the ranger in team situations. Rangers get a healing spring, which by the way you would need something like a thief with bow to generate aoe heals or a guardian with hammer to heal for you.

Overall, I think thief provides more utility than a ranger does for pvp team play , dunno about PVE. But that’s just me.

Yes but support thief is just that… support. It offers little else. Where as other professions that are support are able to be just as useful as a support thief, AND bring other things to the table.

And yeah, I don’t know about pve. pve is terribly bland and simple in this game, and I don’t know how people do it all day. pvp all day every day.

jkctmc.8754:

[all the useful things jkctmc said]

It’s so nice to have someone else with perspective in the thread. The “Fear makes them unstealth” one really made me laugh. Just goes to show how little people know about thieves eh?

Tribio.8531:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

It has been said that groups have killed them, but someone or a few people would die in the process…..

Heh, teach me how to kill invulnerable mobs please.. :/

They may have changed it at some point. I distinctly remember being able to damage them, but that they had an insane amount of health and respawned very quickly.

Chokolata.1870:

Meh i have come to the conclusion that thiefs are just poorly designed . Very frustrating to play against . It has nothing to do with Op or UP , just bad design .

I have 12 80s. I have played most every spec in the game, both in spvp and in wvw. I can honestly say thief is fine the way it is. If you’re willing to take on a profession that is literally designed for single target assassination, you should expect to have a hard fight on your hands. All those other great things that your profession can do and contribute to your team, the thief cannot.

With that said, if you read your enemy before the engagement, and during the start of it. You can quickly form a battle plan to counter and exploit their weaknesses.

step 1: Target enemy, check to see what active effects he has. Is he running signets? Is he running venoms? Do you see nothing?
step 2: Is he ranged or melee? what primary weapon set is he using? What is his secondary set? It might be exactly the same and he is running sigils of energy.
step 3: what is his lead in? is it basilisk venom? If so he relies strongly on this, stun breaker or blink away and you have nullified his entire engage. Many thieves don’t know what to do if they can’t land their full combo.
step 4: find out what his other utilities are. is he running shadow refuge? make him use it early. This is a huge skill for a thief to waste. Did he use blinding powder? well if he’s running signet of shadows then he has hardly anything left, blinding powder is also a huge waste if he gets no sneak attack out of it.
step 5: well the thief is probably dead now, good job.

You need to play as the different professions and spec’s if you plan on countering them effectively. Knowledge is power. I have no issue killing thieves with my GS/SB tanky dps build. 190% vigor > thief. Block backstab, evade cnd, daze, jaguar burst. 2 1/2 auto, dodge roll, auto again for 3rd evade. weapon swap for fury and a second daze, by now he will want to heal, so hit him with poison and cripple. He stealthed after heal, run off and then turn back, pressing 3 on SB for the evade, forcing him to miss another backstab. etc etc

RyuDragnier.9476:

And that is why I deal with traps Durz. Thief popping stealth? Drop Frost, Flame, and a Spike Trap. Grats, you’ve just hit them with 5 status effects that can annoy the hell out of htem and make your life a little easier for a while.

Traps are great against melee thieves, but are almost worthless against a p/d.

Wanderer.5471:

Maul – again, so obvious and the only sword skill which actually does damage in a condition spec, now too easy to avoid.

I found the issue you’re having. You’re running a GS condition spec. Don’t do that.

My BM build has no issues. Knights armor, cav trinkets, zerk weps. GS/SB. I can kill anything if I don’t make mistakes

Durzlla.6295:

But you can land conditions while they’re stealthed…. It doesn’t give them invulnerability, see that thief who literally JUST STEALTHED in front of you? Hit him in the face with split blade now that his heals been used!!

You were blinded by the cloak and dagger, and by the time you get rid of that blind, the p/d thief is already far out of your range. Or like me, I CnD, then dodge roll through you, meaning that even if you did attack fast enough to lose a blind and then go for a second hit, you miss anyways. Oh and now you’re crippled because I left dodge caltrops on you.

But you are correct about if they cannot land bleeds, they cannot do consistent damage. Cleansing is almost a straight counter to condition thieves. That is why my thief incorporates dodge caltrops as well. That way when you cleanse, you have either cripple, vuln, or bleed on you… and my hope is that you will not cleanse the bleed.

Chokolata.1870:

I dont think ranger has burst, period . Other then some crazy kitten GS GC build … haha

GS/SB with jaguar, very bursty, even with tanky dps gear.

Durzlla.6295:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Durzlla.6295:

Chokolata.1870:

I do not think he was pure GC, because every stealth healed him , and my attacks did not do the damage they would usually do . Funny bit is that i eat thiefs in SPVP even on my silly bowman beastmaster build . But this fight just seemed awkward

That being said i can completely accept being outplayed or even countered by build . As an RTS and MOBA player i have learned to accept this

I wonder if its their “new” deadly shadow arts build that’s surfaced after the QZ nerf, that’s a scary one because it can throw out some big numbers due to high power + being a thief (highest single target burst PERIOD) and then pretty freaking good sustain from the healing and toughness + shadow arts.

I’ll ask my friend who told me about it if he knows more on its weakness, I think it’s pretty vulnerable to condition damage post heal.

Nothing new about it. The trick to the tanky sustain condition builds is that they rely on their opponent being stupid enough to fight the thief for 5 minutes. More often than not you have plenty of time to run off to a tower/camp/keep. The way to kill them is with burst. If you’re not a burst build, good luck.

Also you should have cleansing, and if you don’t… well I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long.

I personally haven’t seen a clerics thief pre patch, mostly the condi sustain thief or the bursty GC thieves (easy kills).

You don’t -need- burst on the condi thieves btw, they fold into conditions pretty easily and if they can’t keep their bleeds rolling on you for w/e reason they can’t hurt you (Beary bearington says to stop being a kitten and to get over your hemorrhaging)

I don’t know of any thieves who were good that ran cleric’s gear. I’m talking rabid and carrion. The healing ratio on all the healing traits is terrible, so good thieves don’t run healing power gear.

Conditions are useless against a tanky heal cleanse thief as they can cleanse 2 conditions every 7-8 seconds. THey can also avoid most of them by being in steath half the time. This means you have a 4 second window to apply conditions to them. Even less if you don’t know where they’re coming out of stealth, even less if they evade while out of stealth, like most good thieves will.

EDIT: Forgot heal also cleanses three conditions, burning, poison, and bleeding.

Durzlla.6295:

Chokolata.1870:

I do not think he was pure GC, because every stealth healed him , and my attacks did not do the damage they would usually do . Funny bit is that i eat thiefs in SPVP even on my silly bowman beastmaster build . But this fight just seemed awkward

That being said i can completely accept being outplayed or even countered by build . As an RTS and MOBA player i have learned to accept this

I wonder if its their “new” deadly shadow arts build that’s surfaced after the QZ nerf, that’s a scary one because it can throw out some big numbers due to high power + being a thief (highest single target burst PERIOD) and then pretty freaking good sustain from the healing and toughness + shadow arts.

I’ll ask my friend who told me about it if he knows more on its weakness, I think it’s pretty vulnerable to condition damage post heal.

Nothing new about it. The trick to the tanky sustain condition builds is that they rely on their opponent being stupid enough to fight the thief for 5 minutes. More often than not you have plenty of time to run off to a tower/camp/keep. The way to kill them is with burst. If you’re not a burst build, good luck.

Also you should have cleansing, and if you don’t… well I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long.

Was he p/d? This is pretty standard, dodge his sneak attack after the first shot lands on you (you will evade the rest) and that is where 95% of his damage comes from) If you evade the full attack, he will keep shooting until he lands on, so timing the dodge is crucial. It’s very easy to counter, and anyone that says it’s OP just knows nothing about thief.

EDIT: More than likely he was running the heal/cleanse stealth and was a condition spec, meaning he could wear rabid and/or carrion gear and make himself tanky.

Bacon Please.8407:

Normal thief gameplay is not godmode unfortunetly. They won’t be nerfed because of how OP I think they are. Hell, even begginer thieves can be devastating to bad players.

Fixed that for you. Go play thief and learn how to counter. I kill thieves all day on my ranger, and that’s because I have played thief extensively.

D W.5179:

We’ve had groups zerg rush the enemy spawn before out of boredom, just to see who could make it the farthest in. Was pretty fun.

It’s even more fun if you have everyone transform into something beforehand.