Guild Wars 2

I run with mesmer runes, and so I don’t combine that with para sigil (though I heard that you can, and have tried both before).

I run sigil of rage (along with Critical Haste from critstrikes X) and sigil of accuracy.

With SB off-set I run sigil of generosity, though i’m thinking of doing fire or hydromancy.

If I was running svanir runes or altruism or whatever, for sure I’d use sigil of para tho

It’s certainly wrong to say Thiefs. However, what if people consider it a proper name? I am from the Thief family, we are the Thiefs.

As a TC’er, I have seen more jumping this week on our server as well. It may mainly be new transfers. I’m a wvw regular and I don’t recognize the names of all these hoppers.

When i see a hop, I try to:
/no
/bow

Though I’m also seeing a lot of folks who won’t rez for a long time, which is open season for corpse hopping :p

When 10 or more allies occupy the same area (lets say, 10 meters) there should be a debuff applied that slows their movement speed, which renews every few seconds until they spread out.

When troops array themselves on the battle field, they have a choice:

Stay tight and continue to “game” the graphic engine/culling/game mechanics by limiting AOE damage, staying artificially invisible, and easily/blindly buff the zerg with blast finishers, etc.

Or spread out a little and remain fast, using the game engine as it was intended (reduced culling, 5-10 people occupying an AOE’s target location).

I don’t know about you, but the ball of players needs to stop, it clearly wasn’t intended by ANet. You can have a “zerg” without a “ball of players”.

Observations:

When you see open field combat, but everyone is spread out, your FPS are better, there is less culling, and fights can be more tactical.

When you see open field combat, but everyone is balled up, your FPS drops significantly, and appears/disappears constantly, while being much harder to take down due to the AOE limit.

All it would take is a movement debuff to encourage people to spread out. It would be true to life. Tight formations move slower than loose formations (you know this if you’ve ever run a marathon or been in the military, or I’m sure from other sources, it’s obvious, and needs to be implemented in WvW… it has so much synergy with the other rules they implement).

If you’re in a duel, watch for Aegis or Protection.

I agree they are the best three skills for everyone except a S/P, who does not really benefit as much from Shadowstep or Refuge. I mean he does, but just not as much, so can have the freedom to take others.

I think anyone with 15 into acrobatics and a SB off-set can forgo the Signet of Shadows, or at least I have. With swiftness on dodge, you can keep the +33 movement up between Infil Arrows. It’s quite liberating.

I pair this with orrian truffle meat stew for 2 stacks of might each dodge, and with quick recovery (20 acro) and infil signet (the signet I took instead) I have enough ini to still be really fast. Only thing faster is…. a thief using sig of shadows doing the same thing, but only slightly so.

I am S/D, so i run Shadowstep, Shadow Refuge (as you say, just too good, esp with any build built around stealth openers.) and Infil signet.

With infil strike from sword 2, and Infil signet, and Steal, and Shadowstep, I an uncatchable, and if you combine them in that order (infil sig/infilstrike, steal) you can blink forward 2100 distance in zero seconds. Add shadowstep for even more distance. I also use infil sig/infilstrike on critters/npcs in WvW to run away super fast on top of all the other tricks above.

PVT for karma all the way.

Now that you can get back items/trinkets, I’d start with that, actually, and start spending gold on Valk/Zerk/Knights/Carrion armor on the TP as you prefer.

PVT is also a good starter exotic set to mix in with whatever other set you are going to build, and it will make you last longer in a fight, so you can take the time to master our class’s mechanics.

When I read the subject, I thought doubletap was going to be related to “putting two in the skull” of someone in downed state to quickly mop them up. That would be awesome! It would make p/p as useful at finishing off people with X/d.

Thank you have a nice day.

I’m on 13.2b5 Catalyst drivers. I will soon attempt to revert to 13.1 but I was experiencing similar issues with 13.1. I’m wondering if I’m alone in this, and if there are any tweaks can do.

I am getting smooth FPS 30+

When i use any ability, I am getting input lag (0.5-1sec), tested out in the world, in lions arch, and in wvw.

Most annoyingly, when I use a teleport spell (such as Infil Arrow or Shadowstep) my character ports fine (other than the aforementioned input lag after key press), but when he appears out of the port, he does a bit of a stutter step.

I have AA turned off, I have vSync turned off. Even putting all settings to ‘performance’ doesnt help.

Any other folks with this? Any help would be appreciated.

I want to preface this by saying, yes, all current siege strats have a counter. They are not OP and it is an L2P issue if you succumb to these tactics. I agree, so lets not focus on this trope.

Anet has expressed a desire to reward people for playing more defensively.

Siege placement in WvW is currently a large reason for people playing more offensively.

Offensive Siege:

At the moment – the ability to place, for instance, 3 catapults right next to a wall in a secluded area results in a tower being “ninja capped” by a small team. I doubt this was the intent when giving people the freedom to place blueprints.

What I propose for offense is the requirement to construct a “siege camp”. This camp would only be able to be built within the radius of a tower/keep, supply camp, or allied NPC camp.

This would allow some strategic flexibility. You can siege up “rogues”, but it’s only within treb range, so it’s a slower siege but has more access to supply. Or you can siege up “frogs” with it’s nice walled structure for easy defense, but would need to supply run. Or you could siege up outside of the walls of the tower/keep you want to cap, which has the longest supply runs, but your siege equipment cant hit further in (for instance, the inner walls).

This would require a group of players to “supply run”. Even a 30 man zerg, for instance would need to use 15 supply per person to build the camp.

The camp would become the focal point for the siege team to defend while forcing them to “split their forces” to run supply and defend at the same time. This force a zerg to split a bit, another desire of Anet

The siege camp would also, of course, be a focal point for the defenders to “sally forth” and attempt to destroy.

The siege camp would have it’s own build radius, where players could place down blueprints. This would allow for still unique placement (for instance, the hill outside of Mendons).

Until the siege camp is constructed, only Ballistas and Arrow Carts can be built in it’s radius (obviously for mainly defensive purposes, and to help “clear the wall”).

Once built, it would allow for trebs and catas. Now, the WvW would look like it does in all of Anets cool WvW screenshots, with cats and trebs actually within “siege range” of a wall.

Rams and Golems should remain as they are now. I believe it would allow for more flexibility, though I believe something should be done to tone down the speed of flamerams.

Defensive Siege:

Placing a treb “on the dome” or “on the lions tail” or “above supply hut” just looks messy, for one, and is a clear example of players using the mechanics to their natural advantage (give us the ability to game the system, and we will do it all the time!).

I believe trebs should only be allowed to be placed on the walls and bridges.

As it stands now, if you build a treb in the outer wall of SMC in order to hit something far away, it should be exposed to enemy fire. That’s a good mechanic. If you want a “Defensive Treb” on the inside of your keep, it should be placed in the inner wall curtain.

Most of the rest of the exploited siege spots (tail, dome, etc) would be rendered unnecessary (and so could also be disallowed) because they could not be used offensively (ref: siege camp).

It is also, though, easier to get gear itemized with power. You are, generally, not trading power for precision. You are trading toughness or vitality for precision, you get the same amount of power. The exception being Knights/Emerald, which has toughness as main stat, so you get slightly less power/prec, but again you get both at once.

Let me preface by say that, though I’ve tried S/P before, it wasn’t for me so I didn’t play it long.

It’s a bit off topic for me to say, but the S/P is great for the combo of Infil Striking in to a group, Blinding Powder, stunlock one while others are panic swinging, and shadow return. It’s also good to pull someone to you and try to pistol whip burst. Lots of great stuff all around to stand toe to toe with others and frustrate them.

I can speak as someone who has run across a few in WvW (glad to see less D/D, though the ones I see now, I’m nervous of :p).

It is indeed easy to stunbreak (at least with my S/D, but I typically run with 2 stunbreaks on my utility slots as well, and dodge out of.

It is at least hard to fight them as well, it’s just, they run out of initiative to blinding powder before I run out of initiative to CnD, since I’m not trying to do it while blinded and just saving up my ini :p. We spend a lot of timing looking at each other menacingly through his BP while we both have melee weapons, heh.

In those fights, I wish I was a D/P offhand, so I could duck out of their BP and wait to time a headshot before swapping S/D again and Steal/Mug/CnD/Blinding and then Dazing them.

If I ever wait it out and Mug/CnD/Daze to the Face, they they dodge away and pop a stealth and dissappear from my life :p

I started my S/D with a lot of Power/Tough/Vit gear. It was very sturdy.

In that build, i had to rely a lot more on Fury (had it on Steal and when they were below 50% health and from runes). I did well, but fights were slow if the furys were on cooldown, and even still, I wanted more damage!

So I added quickness to the build, which helped. I had a lot of might in the build as well, to add even more power. I kept noticing that fury was great! Every time I landed a blow with that much power and it crit, wow! What would happen if I added some “crit damage” into the mix?

So I replaced my gear with Valk (I still have one Power/Tough/Vit piece… I’m thinking of adding one more back, not sure yet). I still had P/T/V jewelry. But now my hits were even harder. I had the same power (from Valk) as I did, and same HP, but a little less toughness. I could live with that for hitting harder. Then I noticed, GC thieves are hitting me HARD. I have a lot of HP but they are critting the crap out of me. How do I survive against them long enough to stun/daze/blind lock them as an S/D?

Then I swapped my P/T/V trinkets with Pow/Prec/Toughness from Emerald , and slotted them with ruby jewels. Now I hit hard harder than ever, with quickness, 17k health, and 1500 toughness. I don’t have as much HP (but still a fair amount from my Valk gear, and 30 in acrobatics). But that 3-4k more HP wasn’t doing me any good against conditions (I remove them easily enough) and I needed more toughness against GC bursts… so now it feels just right.

Maybe you like the more bunker/long fight/control aspect of S/D so all that 20k health and 2500 toughness is for you. Some want to push S/D into GC territory and rely more on stealth, good for them! I want to do a bit of both, but rely more on stun breaks and shadowsteps (which of course you can do in P/V/T as well, but you’ll be doing less damage). It all depends.

Black Frog.9274:

Dual pistols have an often overlooked version of AoE. If you use Unload, it will hit your target, unless someone is standing in front of the target, in which case it will hit that person. If you use it on a target and then run in circles around it (or any variation on that theme, basically moving around), 99% of the time you’ll be scoring hits on everything surrounding them. I often intentionally switch away from my first target if it comes closer to me than the other targets and keep moving. Unless I need to take it down, of course.

Also, the Bounce is dangerous. I used it for a few days after they buffed it. Talk about aggravating. Nothing worse than bouncing when you don’t want it to and then constantly aggro’ing monsters near your true target.

You hit the pro’s and con’s of choosing the bounce right on the nose.

Also, I run SB as my off-set, I just love infil arrow and cluster bomb too much, so the bounce is redundant for me (but if someone liked an aoe ranged theif playstyle, ap P/P-SB build could be really fun, esp with on swap abilities), and withdraw/roll for initiative combo, that could be interesting

Edit: also, i couldn’t resist. here’s what I think a P/P-SB AOE weapon swap build would look like.

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/thief#10|10|2632|2786|8743|2640|4989|0|0|0|0|20|1195|2386|0|0|0|0|0|30|1165|1168|1163|20|782|1722|0|19|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

Burjis.3087:

Everywhere stealth is useful, the thief shows as overpowered. Everywhere stealth is useless, the thief sucks in that mode. That’s why I say stealth is the thief’s problem. If the thief for example had more evades and party support and less stealths, it would have been good enough for tournaments as well.

I wont disagree with you that stealth is something the devs need to pay attention to. I was not in the beta, but I recall someone saying that at one time the thief didn’t even have the reveal de-buff. No mechanic should be ignored, though none should be the sole focus. They added marque abilities to each class, and rounding their edges too much reduces the uniqueness of that class.

I also agree with folks who have a problem with culling and the thief only really being revealed for 2s. I think that 1s makes all the difference. I have played this game on two different computers (I made a computer for a friend of mine by using my old parts, and at his house, with that computer and a low end dsl connection I have more trouble fighting the theif and do notice a culling issue.

FYI (mainly to Anet) the placeholder model culling fix has improved gameplay/culling on his PC, I’ve experienced it firsthand! Meanwhile, my PC with 40Mbps, i7, 32gigs ram, ssd, 6900series OCd— The culling patch has made distance culling far worse for me (I get more surprise pwned by inviso aoe).

As it stands, when I play my Thief I have no issue (on my PC) Basalisk/CnD/Steal/Mug/Blind/Daze comboing an enemy stealthspammer into oblivion, nor do I have an issue with GC on my Guardian. That 3s debuff is enough for me to tabtarget (though I’m forced to mouse-target when not in 1v1, which i sometimes miss) and just obliterate them.

So I guess my main thing is, i think stealth is balanced right (with the exception that they need to turn off being able to stealth off structures, and MAYBE tweak the combo that gives you ini on stealth, CnD should come with opportunity cost).

I think stealth is a core mechanic that should not be changed/reduced in efficiency from it’s current state.

I will disagree with your assessment about sPvP. The thief still excels, look at Lowell. Stealth is still forgiving, but less so. Now all players know to watch for their auto-attack animation to move to step2 so they know they landed a hit. Now it’s to blind/stun/knock/root the thief without delay.

Now it’s the case that only GOOD thief’s excel, so the amount of them run is reduced. This is because all of the GOOD players of other classes have learned to counter. Now Eles and Rangers and Guardians are the OP in top play, but their counter will be found eventually, this is the cycle in all esports.

I am leery with any argument that says to reduce stealth’s effectiveness or our access to stealth. I am against any argument that stealth openers (backstab, tactical strike, sneak attack) should be reduced in effectiveness.

I am supportive of any argument that says stealth should come with opportunity costs.

Burjis.3087:

stealth requires much less skill, attention and luck to kill someone than the person trying to defend against it.

This is true. A thief on day 1 of hitting 80 can decimate a lot of people (mainly up leveled, or those not used to fighting them, or those without stun breaks, or those who are glassy).

It’s easy to be good as a thief, and it will take more skill for his opponent to beat him because being in stealth is very forgiving.

When I first started running with a guild, the chat was full of people decrying the thief as OP. Now those same people are insulting the thief for being “cheesy” but also demean them for being very easy to kill.

What that means to me is
1) they are kind of jerks, i hate seeing chat that people playing thief suck. We are all playing the same game, some of us rolled a thief. that does not make us bad people.
2) they are scarred by their early experiences
3) they learned how to counter thieves

Also, play paid tourneys in sPvP… notice all the thieves on the newb groups.. then notice the smaller amount in the great groups.

It is not an insult to say that it will take a learning curve to figure it out (when you suggest this to people, they usually say "DONT TELL ME TO L2P RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE). And for some classes, if you want to beat a thief, you’re going to have to slot for different utility skills/weapon sets than you’d like. It’s called countering. You can’t be better than everyone.

A GC d/d thief is going to get laughed off the battleground by a bunker Guardian or Ele, for example. Is that thief justified to come onto the forums and yell that those classes are OP? I think not. I think, instead, if they want to beat those classes they need to counter them. For example, run a S/D dazelock thief and have a 3 minute fight :p

Just for gearing sake, I’d say that Physical Damage gearing (not just GC) are a lot more flexible for what builds/traits you can take than condition, which pretty much locks you in to 10 or 20 deadly arts and 20 or 30 shadow arts.

Moral of the story for all of this is, too much of one extreme or the other isn’t so great. You may gib newbs, and you may fool yourself in to thinking you’re awesome, but most folks will figure out youre a one trick pony and either facepwn you, or simply leave you alone.

If you go hunting for duels, either will work.

To add to this, the 79 crafted exotic duelist carrion set is on the TP all the time, and most pieces are like 70 silver, with minor stat differences to their 80 counterpart

Personally I wouldnt not take Ricochet. I tried it when they buffed it, but I still feel it is outclassed by the other traits in that slot.

In fact, if you go P/P I think you can spend your points in better areas than Trickery line. P/D still benefits from the steal (since it’s like a “seeker” to the target, which guarantees a CnD hit to open sneak attack). For P/P I would probably load up on deception skills (shadowstep, shadow refuge, blinding powder— though probably replacing blinding powder with roll for initiative).

Also, for the most part P/P is a physical damage build (relying more on unload than sneak attack+bleeds), while P/D is more of a condition build (spend a lot of time in stealth watching your bleeds tick/positioning before the next sneak attack)

Also just my suggestions on builds to try:

This is a P/P build about evasion and not getting rooted/stunned. Hard to Catch is a tough skill to get used to, but with pistols it’s not as bad. I’d take mostly power/precision gear… go glass cannon or not depending on your style.
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/thief#10|10|2642|8743|134|2786|4485|0|0|0|0|30|1195|1193|1728|10|2383|0|0|30|1165|1168|2354|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

This is a very potent Bleed+Venom build. You will have no crit chance, but hit hard and bleed hard. In PvE (or with thieves guild in pvp, kinda OP but long cooldown) swap the 30 SA skill heal for the venom share. All Carrion or Rabid gear.
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/thief#10|3|2642|2788|6680|3997|11435|20|1142|1714|0|0|0|0|0|30|750|2387|751|20|1165|1692|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/45902-lowells-ultimate-spvp-thief-guide-wip/

This is pretty good to learn basics.

If you like P/D, a good build is the venom build, which would be 20 in deadly arts and atleast 20 in Shadow Arts (for the venom heal), or 30 in SA (for the Venom Share).

Many will tell you “don’t bother” with venom builds because of the 25 stack bleed limit, and that others can “do it better”. I personally love P/D and the venom build.

If you’d rather forgo venoms and just concentrate on bleeds, use Caltrops.

As you have discovered, Sneak attack is great. Practice using CnD as you have, you may want to choose between Shadow Refuge OR Blinding Powder. If you went 30 in SA, Shadow Ref is a no brainer (for the regen from stealth). I think Shadow Ref is going to be your best friend since you love pistols, since it will combo for a lifesteal as well.

Just watch youtube videos of others with pistol builds and try out what fits you best. At this points I’ve tried all weapon sets and have a set of exotic power/crit gear and condition gear.

You must find what you like through discovery, it’s part of the fun and ensures you always evolve and aren’t just good at the “flavor of the month” build.

I back-peddle some in GW2 because, while it is slower movement speed, you are punished quite a bit for exposing your back/sides in this game. it is not always possible to run “at”/“through” someone, for instance, when they have friends behind them.

I back pedal with the SB, and throw in backwards dodges. I only do this for a short period of time of course, then I’ll usually steal towards them when swapping to melee, where I’ll spend a lot of time doing the good old fashioned “run through them” instead of backwards.

Is that the “Skull Crack”? It’s range is 130 so well out of SB range, only thing to worry about in SB range is the Bull Charge which is 900.

What you start to have trouble kiting is hammer, who’s 600 range is too close for comfort.

Edit: also I’d say with D/D against a war is to spec into Mug, and kite till you’re ready to CnD/Steal combo into a backstab and heartseeker. Still need to kite as long as possible, hammer shout warriors for instance will soak all that up and then just turn around and bonk you.

Kick and Bulls Charge are utility skills. Bulls is on a 40sec timer so do make sure to save endurance for dodge when kiting, if out of dodges, use the shortbow 3 skill. Kick is 20sec timer but it and all others with Mace/Shield are melee rance stuns/knocks as far as i know.

What other weapon set do you use other than SB?

You should kite warriors with ranged weapons. Only go in to melee to finish them.

Opening against a warrior in ranged (even shortbow) he will burn a lot of stuff just trying to get close to you. If he swaps to rifle/bow, you’ve got him till his weapon cooldown so now switch back to your melee.

Also, forcing warrior to go into ranged weapon lets you take advantage of your dagger storm, or use the twirling ability that you get from using steal on a warrior.

I’m running S/D right now, and at first had a lot of problems with warriors (I was P/D condition, they are ridiculously easy with that combo). Then I figured out to swap to SB and kite them. The fight lasts a long time, but so be it.

If you have mug, a nice combo is to open with SB, fire choking gas, follow with a few cluster bombs, then fire one last cluster bomb right where you think he will be (dont detonate it) and as it hits, do a Mug+CnD and whatever you follow that with depending on your weapon set. That will certainly throw them off guard.

Also, I like to apply chill to warriors via poison to slow their ability recharges, and I keep them dazed with my current weapon set.. you just have to be patient when you commit to faceVSface a warrior.

thank you for the update, sorry it didn’t pan out

Saving my last guesting spot today for a sure thing but we’re rooting for you! Tell that group to lay down healing fields! Looking forward to your update

ET bugged and TC contested, any NA out there with Bal open?

It really is quite terrible. It has been since wvw reset. I thought for sure they would have fixed it by this morning.

Also wondering, thanks!

I enjoy 0/30/10/30/0

CS: Fury, Quickness, Executioner
SA: Blind on Stealth
Ac: Power of Inertia, Quick Recovery, Hard to Catch

Utilities: Hide in Shadows, Shadowstep, Haste, and any signet or stealth

Quickness sigil and +5% crit

S/D is about control and avoidance, but I do have some knights/valk gear mixed in (all with ruby jewels) to make me a bit more durable.

Svanir Runes

I never liked hard to catch, but I HAVE always liked the 25 minor of +10% damage when endurance is not full.

Now that I’m S/D though, I love Hard to Catch, since I don’t get confused/disoriented, I just press 2 and I’m right back in the battle.

Also, you may ask yourself why I’m taking haste, when I already stack quickness from traits/sigil. Haste pairs well with the 25 skill from acro, as well as with dagger storm. Yes, during that time I have no endurance, but I usually open with this:

*Infiltrators Strike (but i dont hit the enemy, i use it to gap close and lay down the return field)
*Steal+CnD (applies area blind from SA, useful since I’m usually against more than 1 player)
*Tactical Strike (to the face to re-up the blind usually, I have too much else going on to worry about positioning and they have already swung at me once so another blind is great, if you are fast enough though, a dodge to the back is great for 2 might from food+power of inertia, since you’ll “Waste” that endurance when you pop haste anyway)
*Haste
*Autoattack
*Shadow Return

So the haste does clear my endurance, but that’s okay since they are blinded and I use “2” shadow return to leave the danger. I will usually follow this by dodging back in to combat, or using Infil Signet+CnD again. I run with Truffle and Meat stew so my endurance fills quickly.

You got the skills to pay the bills! I saw from your youtube comments that you use the nib from a thinkpad as your mouse? Wow that must be difficult, so extra kudos.

There are some YouTube famous thieves, and there was an article on guildwars2junkies I thought, but i can’t find it now. it could have been on another site. I think it was called “key and dagger” but all I can find on that now is a defunct blog.

The thief article writer I remember hadn’t written anything since wintersday ended, iirc. Personally, my own learning curve had begun to outpace his though, so his articles stopped being very interesting.

I don’t know if any of these folks are really working with Anet tho. I guess they just pay attention to the meta (im sure someone on an Anet team watches the youtube vids if they rise in popularity).

You’re going to find a lot of fans of WvW in the WvW thread, so it’s a good place to ask the question.

The point is that it’s fun! “How can you have fun? I don’t!” is what you say, so let’s have a discussion how you like to have fun? We can help see if you have a fit with WvW.

I do admit to having more fun at 80 than at 60 (the first time I went in). I also have more fun at 80 with my exotics and perfectly tweaked build to my play-style than I did on day-one as an 80 in rares. So to that end, WvW is a good “end-game” for those that don’t like dungeons.

Maybe it’s just not for you. By the same token, I’ve never been into a Fractal.

I do wish their was some progression (like vanity items, titles, etc).

It’s also a great source of karma. I make about 10k a night on top of daily completion.

If you like upgrading camps, a good idea is to also guard them and flip the NPC’s (like Moles, Ogres, Frogs).

I love to solo flip camps, but will not attempt it if there is someone guarding it, or if it’s guarded by NPC’s.

But to your point, guarding camps is not good for material rewards, in fact it’s a gold-sink. If you dont like that, certainly don’t become a commander— they spend several gold a day, on top of that 100g commander tag.

If you want to make money, go to Orr or Dungeons. If you want to make money in WvW, go flip enemy camps, kill guards, and kill yaks. Or run with the zerg.

If it’s boring for you to “flip the same stuff all night” then again you might just be in the wrong place. I love it. Eventually I get a group of 5 or so chasing me around their territory. I’ll go and contest their WP, then I’ll throw swords up on a camp, but run to the camp on the other side of the map and throw them off.

If they get too persistent, I go to the other opponent and do the same, then I flip “frogs” and run with the frogs back to the original teams camp and attack it with my personal army. Great fun!

And as a last word, WvW makes you better at your class. If i’m farming explorables or other PvE, it feels like slow motion compared to taking on 3-5 humans at once.

If you are going to go into the middle of a zerg and caltrops/ldb, consider using the slot skill Shadow Step, do your combo, and then shadow return if/when you are focused and/or stunned.

Until you are 80 in exotics I would not recommend skating the backlines of zergs, with one exception (this is of course my personal opinion).

P/D condition build.

It is extremely easy to stealth off of CnD as has been stated above, and P mainhand allows you to keep distance. The condition damage will mitigate their armor/protections and allow you to be doing damage even while stealthed.

You will still not be any good against a guardian or ele or necro due to their condi removals, but pick other up leveled targets and you should do fine.

Also, condition build can give you nice “exotics” fast, the Carrion Duelist outfit is 79 exotic, and goes for a steal on the TP, only two pieces are above a gold (1.5g is highest), the rest are slightly more expensive than 80 rares. The 79 exotic is only slightly worse than the 80.

1. Take 15 points in acrobatics, also eat orrian truffle and meat stew (or whatever it’s called, gives might on dodge and more endurance regen)
2. Dodge more, blind, stealth, etc. If it’s all too much for you, take pistol offhand and use the 5 skill
3. If you’re going down quickly, try neither, go knights or soldiers or valk, mix in ruby jewels if going for physical damage, or go carrion for condi damage

It does not effect initiative, only movement and slot skills/steal/heal/elite,

As others have said, thats a P/D, probably with him condition damage. It’s a great counter to warrior (bleeds/poison ignore armor). I’d say equip some “givers” stuff or anything else you can do to drop condition damage.

Also, blind/daze the crap out of him to stop him from getting his stealth off from the dagger offhand (he has to be in melee range to do it, tho he will likely steal/cnd to jump into melee and dodge back out).

Make sure to swing even if you can’t see him. I agree rifle is a good counter, but keep in mind he’s also ranged, and will have probably 2 to 3 stealths OTHER than his dagger offhand stealth, so you will have to wait it out and he will likely run away if the odds turn in your favor.

I agree with Taril that S/P is a good choice for PvE, along with SB, since you’ll want to “bunch up and burn down” a lot of stuff at once.

That’s not to say d/d (what you seem to have) isn’t good as well, even in the AOE department with LDB, it’s just the swords auto attack is a small aoe so it’s free.

Other than Sword main hand, we are of course primarily single target damage.

I run my thief in PVE along with a friend who is a glass cannon ele. I feel competitive (not even in GC gear) but he certainly does more (I rez him a lot when he gets in over his head, too).

If you want to tune your d/d playstyle, I’d suggest you try to “seek” to mobs more, using things like steal, heartseeker, & infiltrators signet.

To easily land CnD in PvE (and pvp) learn to start your CnD, but then steal/infil signet before the animation finishes. Throw in Mug for extra burst.

If you want to facepwn (not backstab) then CnD/Steal/Mug/Autoattack/Heartseeker is a very popular single target kill combo. Pair this with quickness (from haste or other sources) and you will find you are suddenly much better than your friend at single target burst.

Also, usually in PvE against single targets you don’t even need to position yourself for backstab, their AI will do it for you. Like you complained about, the NPC returns to it’s spot when you stealth. Game that system by drawing agro, let him run to you, do the Steal/CnD combo, wait a sec for him to turn around, and nail him with backstab.

Also, in PvE (not recommended in PVP due to reflections + too predictable/dodgeable) go ahead and try P/P crit build. Stack quickness & fury from Crit Strikes line, put quickness on weapon, and put haste as a slot skill. It’s boring as all hell (all you do is stealth, sneak attack, unload, unload, unload…. stealth, sneak attack, unload) but you will be a beast in single target ranged damage, even if you slip in to a coma.

Yes very niche,

The only time I’ve used it is:
1. While escaping through a zerg
2. If you’re escaping, your camera is already in a certain direction, and you see two options at a 45 degree angle, either Infil Arrow away from the folks focusing you, and into another crowd, or next to another ground. In that case, I prefer to escape into the crowd, cause they will likely pursue/focus anyway, and I’d rather they be blind.
3. If you already have the bow out as you close, so you might as well use it to gap close instead of steal.

For general PvE you really can’t go wrong with any build.

In dungeons, as a general rule (speed runs being the only exception I can think of), the average populace would prefer you not bring a “Glass Cannon”, so your “tankier” build would be appreciated. I will say, however, that some dungeon mechanics don’t pair well with melee, but the build can easily use ranged as well. (or just learn when to weapon swap)

I personally prefer Pistol/Dagger with Shortbow offhand for PvP, and P/P with Shortbow for PvE Dungeons. Messing with P/D outside of a condition damage build tho and you can end up gimping yourself a bit (but I find it fun and have a similar “good at everything” mentality as TNoD)

I agree TNoD. The trade off in that scenario is as you mention, little precision on gear equaling little crit.

However, in the build you cite, you are putting 30 in to critical strikes, which does give you a nice boost to critical. You mentioned being a bursty tanky backstab thief, so you’re taking Hidden Killer for 100% critical on first attack. That’s a smart mix which bolsters some of the drawbacks your gear might have introduced.

Few could out last you (the venom heals/shadow refuge), and few could out burst you (GC Mug/CnD/Haste/Heart Seeker build). I would agree your build is better than either extreme.

Speaking of the gear (Valk/Beryl); If someone liked this play style, but wanted to move away from dagger (since Hidden Killer is really reliant on backstab), they could keep the same gear, but add fury to the mix and take Furious Retaliation from crit strikes (I) and then take Executioner (XI) over hidden killer (XII), along with Thrill of the Crime (I) in Trickery (for added Fury). This could be taken even further with more fury from superior runes of Rage (or the sleeper hit, Altruism, which pairs NICELY with Hide in Shadows for on-demand burst) and now you are strong in a lot of categories.

I am an absolute build addict, it’s always the most interesting part of a game to me.

It is great fun to mix traits/gear to the best effect to your play-style. I think the thief offers the most of that flexibility in this game. I think this draws a lot of us to the profession.

And so to that end, it’s correct that we shouldn’t be “pigeon-holed” in to one extreme or the other, but it is always nice to start by understanding to what extreme you can go (tanky, bursty), so that you can know the fundamentals in order to strike the right balance for you personally.

I feel that downed state is fine.

1v1 it’s not an issue
1v2 it’s just a way to make the 2nd person stop and bend over
1v3 it’s hard to down all 3

I am a trained warrior. I am confident I can best one , I am sure I can stand up to two, and I have my doubts against three or more.

Hello pwned, welcome to lvl 80 thief-dom.

What is it you’d like to accomplish on your thief?

Do you want to be:

Very Tanky? (in that case, d/d is good, but d/p or s/p are better, imo)
Very Bursty? (if so, you need to get good at stealthing and damage avoidance, you’ll be squishy)

Very Stealthy?
Not Very Stealthy?

High Physical Damage?
High Condition Damage?

Generally you have to choose, though you can certainly mix, and be “worse” in all categories and a jack of all trades.

2 Centaur Runes and 2 Krait runes are super cheap. That paired with Rare Veggie Pizza is a enough bleed duration to matter (and helps with getting 25 stacks of bleed without caltrops)

Agreed that it needs to be compared to higher condi damage. It’s a good tip for the OP to try out both options (I was just addressing their bleed duration Q)

Personally, I compared the two. As have you (I assume). You like one I like the other.

With full carrion gear, plus might on dodge, plus might from venoms, you have plenty of condi damage.

When comparing stacking still more condi damage vs throwing bleed duration, i felt bleed duration helped me more at that point. To each their own.

Same as above poster, if I don’t have Sig of Shadows I trait 15 into Acrobatics for the swiftness on evade and extra endurance. Pair this with the shortbow and orrian truffle stew and you’ve got 2 might per dodge, near perma swiftness, and shortbow to fill the gaps. It makes you just as fast (faster) but agreed it’s clunky, and takes more work.

A few tips for the aspiring P/D thief:

Condition Build: 20/0/30/20/0
Physical Build: 10/30/0/10/20 (last 30 are up to you really, I like to go steal heavy, lots of Fury, lots of might on dodge, then either quickness build, or signet build— both of which are in crit strikes tree)

I’ll concentrate on Con build, since its the easiest to get in to and very powerful:

Tip 1: If you are short on cash, buy 79 exotic Duelist Carrion set. The stats are like 1 point less than 80 exotic, and you can pick these up for 70s-1.5g each.

Tip 2: Bleed duration

Runes— take your pick, cheapest are Centaur/Krait. Mix and match

Superior Rune of the Afflicted (rank 2 – increases duration 5/10/15%)
Superior Rune of the Centaur (rank 2 – increases duration)
Superior Rune of the Krait (rank 2 – increases duration)
Superior Rune of the Mad King (rank 4 – increases duration)

Sigils—

Sigil of Superior Agony (increases duration)

Food—

Rare Veggie Pizza

Tip 3: Unload

Take Hide In Shadows over Signet of Malice. You want to duck in to stealth often to get bleeds from unload

Tip 4: Cloak and Dagger + Steal

Start your cloak and dagger, before the animation finishes, use steal. You will teleport to them and cnd.

Tip 5: Survival

Take the heal on venom skill from Shadow Arts
Also take the Blind on stealth skill from SA, OR, put 15 points into acrobatics for more dodges. You will spend a lot of time going back in to range to do your Cloak and Dagger, you need them to miss their swing at you, do this with the blind or the dodge.

Final pro tip: If you have the skill slots for it, think about using Infiltrators Signet for another “cheap” steal which you can combo with CnD.

I use the harpoon gun.

Skill 5 is another shadowstep.

Also, load out with signets.
Signet of Agility gives precision, whic helps with the Harpoon, and cures conditions, and restores stamina (making you fast)

I kill thieves as my Mesmer, I kill thieves as my Necromancer, I kill thieves as my Thief.

It’s not the professions, it’s knowing how to use them.

If you haven’t tried to daze a thief or stun them, try it, it’s grand. There is also nothing more satisfying than surviving a GC’s initial burst and then seeing their CnD whiff as you blind them and watch them melt under your barrage.

The squeaky wheel get’s the grease. This means nerfs are early and often for professions which people get beat by often.

Certainly, depending on your play style, learning to play AS a thief can have either a low learning curve, or a high one. Same goes for learning to play AGAINST a thief.

I think it would be great if we thieves could compile a list of strategies to counter us. It would be even better if any of us running streams would be brave enough to point out good characters who beat us, and HOW.

Once that thread is compiled (from replies posted in this thread), we can link the info any time we see someone else calling for nerfs.

At the very least, it may steer these conversations towards being constructive.

To kill a thief:

Against all thieves- AOE, Stun, Daze, or Immobilize

Against X/D thieves- Blind, Daze

Against Class Cannon- Get toughness (seriously), Be ready with stun break/escapes, then see above.

Order of engagement against a thief with Cloak&Dagger, Blinding Powder, and Shadow Refuge

Glass Cannon opener
1. Basalisk Venom
2. CnD
2. Steal
(he will then attempt to dodge/turn & backstab OR he will pop quickness and autoattack/heart seeker)

Your counter to GC opener
1. If you are stunned, don’t wait for it to expire while you look around. Pop your stun break and gain distance
2. If you still see nothing, wait a second (he’s closing on you), DODGE
3. Thief attacks, you BLIND or DAZE them, try to burst them down
4. If thief survives, they either (a) run, (b) blinding powder
5. While AOEing, count to 2, 3, or 4 (depends on your thief, you will see a pattern), DODGE
6. Blind/Daze/Immobilize again

IF this is a GC, it’s dead or in shadow refuge and running away, if this is more survivable, congrats, you’re now in a duel, game the timers like every other class. May the best man win.