Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

I was playing a dodge thief for quite a while and didn’t invest any points into stealth. However, with the recent changes I was fiddling with different builds in game in the mists, when I noticed

Shadow’s Embrace
Removes a condition while in stealth
Interval: 10 seconds

10 seconds?! When did that happen? With the last update? Or was it there for quite a while now?

Yeah, I’d definitely not going back to stealth build…

Crawford.4135:

If you rely that much on BV (sad), then this now forces you to choose “Residual Venom”, the way it was really intended in the first place.

Every time I see a Thief with BV on their buffbarI instantly Immobilize them to put them into panic mode to force them to use it, only to teleport away from them. I may still be stunned for that short moment, but I forced them to burn it.

BV is nice, but it’s SO relied on it isn’t even funny.

When I used it, I used it for:

• Stopping an enemy player from running away

That by far is its best use. Thieves that have, for months, relied on it for “OMG QUICK KILL! HEHEHEHEHE” are finally being told: that’s a horrible way to use the Elite Utility. It’s not meant to give bad thieves a free kill, it’s meant to be utilized wisely.

It’s annoying to see how low you think of the type of thieves you have described, and that you assume you would use your BV wisely… You use your elite skill to trap opponents running away?… Very wise. I couldn’t have thought of a better application for this skill…

Anyhow.
It was basilisk venom’s specialty to be unbreakable. Now it is not anymore. And basically, it is a skill that you can apply every 35 seconds (when traited) to render the enemy inactive for the same period of time (or maybe even shorter) as you needed to apply the venom onto your weapon in the first place.

BV is not really effective to stun foes telegraphing heals or other long animated moves, because first you need to apply BV and then hit the target. By the time you have applied BV, the move you wanted to interrupt is most likely already finished casting.

For hindering people from running away, thieves had dancing dagger or infiltrator’s strike or steal or other things… In fact, there are so many more effective ways of hindering people from running away than BV, that BV was never used for that.

I think BV has become very inefficient. If traited with residual venoms it gets more potent, I agree. But I would like to see the casting time of BV reduced.

Hello guys,

Just wanted to let the community know that when Ricochet triggers on vital shot, it can immobilise others as well. I experienced it today during game play.

Bleed is also propagated thanks to ricochet, however venoms are not. Which is sad…

Olba.5376:

Dagins.5163:

I would move it to adept, and give 50% crit increase instead of 100%. Mind that warriors have almost the same trait in adept line (+50% crit against stunned targets), which not only affects one of their weapon and its #1 ability, but is also much easier to access in combat. Many classes have free daze/stun/knockdown to contribute this trait (including other warriors!), as opposed to stealth.

That’s a pretty kitten bad comparison.

First off, Warriors have two stun Bursts. Then there’s Shield 4 skill. That means there’s a total of five weapon sets that have access to a stun.

Second off, Unsuspecting Foe is currently one of the reasons why Warriors are able to run builds like Mace/Shield + GS or Mace/Shield + Hammer and get decent damage out of it. And if you check out the Warrior forum, there’s plenty of complaints about that.

And even besides that, stealth is much more common than stun on a warrior. Why not just give Thieves a baseline +50% crit chance instead? Same thing, pretty much.

And wait… did you just sneak in a suggestion where a build with x/30/x/x/x would be able to pick both Executioner and a +50% crit chance in stealth? Because kitten , that’s OP. It doesn’t take that much to get base 50% crit chance, which means the end result would be the equivalent of being able to choose both Hidden Killer and Executioner.

I agree.

I think Olba is a bit biased towards making thief an unchallanged class. Or he didn’t think it through.

If you guys wouldn’t always divert from the topic, it would be much appreciated.

This thread is to discuss OPs proposal on how to fix/enhance stealth and specifically his idea.

If you want to discuss something else, please do it in another thread.

It’s really annoying that stealth heavy thieves can’t cap points efficiently and therefore are unviable in sPvP. But as you say, allowing a 100% stealthed player to cap a point would be very unfair.

Reducing the stealth degree to less than 100% is arguable. I don’t think that players would have a problem detecting a transparent target sneaking close around them. This would be a major nerf to the back stab mechanic. Increasing the movement speed by 50% might be a solution, but I think rather not.

It is not the right place to bring in my own suggestion, but I will do so nevertheless:
I think stealth associated traits that give benefits to the thief should be nerfed, whereas stealth non-associated traits that can increase thief survivability and damage output should be buffed.

Yes, you are mistaken. First, stealth based P/D wouldn’t be able to spam it more than such a build is doing normally anyway. Secondly, as mentioned before, Pistol is a condition weapon and scales poorly with power. It is not strong in direct damage and therefore making sneak attack crit wouldn’t make it horribly imbalanced.

Hahahaha! Good time, good time! I really had to laugh at some points in particular

Burnfall.9573:

Before I begin, this thread isn’t about “Complaining” or “Trolling”, it is about Thief Class Behaving akittens Worst; resulting in inducing Seveer Tyranny and Oppression among the other classes and its Devoted Players.

OMG, good start! I am already laughing at the inner conflict of this sentence xD

Burnfall.9573:

Unfortunately, there is no denying that this class Have Not been Diciplined for any of their Actions, instead, they are Rewarded for their Malicious and Sadistic Crimes.

loooooooooooooooool, I am laughing tears!!

Burnfall.9573:

1. Thief Class is Guilty of Intionally Inflicting Irony, Tyranny and Unfair Play Mechanics to the Masses of your Devoted Hardcore and your Casual Players.

Please stop, I am getting all cramped up, rofl rofl!

Burnfall.9573:

3. As we all know, Thief is the only class who Posssesses the most Exceeding Skills, Traits lines, Stengths, Powers, Mobilities, Speed, Stealth-Perma-Stealth, Invulnerability, Escapability, Reversing Time and Immunity to conditions in all Class Combined.

I… lol…. can’t!!!!…. rofl…. go on anymore!!!! Too… choke hilareous!

Burnfall.9573:

4. Not only Thief Class is Guilty of causing Irony and Unfair Play Mechanics but they are Guilty of making Guild Wars 2, -Un-Enjoyable, Stressful, Unsafe and causing no Desire to Pariticipate in the Wonderfulness that Guild Wars 2 World have to offer.

stressful?! xD unsafe?! xD You’re killing me bro!!! hahahahahaha

Burnfall.9573:

-Many have Entirely Quit Guild Wars 2 due to this class of Robbing thier Pride, Joy, Great Work/Effort and Valuable/Precious/Devoted Time and thire Energy into Guild Wars 2 World due to Theif Injustice Practises.

I realise I am ending up quoting almost everything, because just everything is so hilareous and crappy, hahaha xD robbing their pride! Great! xD How do you come up with things like that?! xD Robbing their Joy and effort and so on xD because of theif injustice practises, hahahahahaha xD

Burnfall.9573:

As the Parent of the Classes, If Any, what Steps are you taking to make Guild Wars 2 World Fun, Equally Enjoyable Competitve and Safe? (instead of Instantly being Killed by 1-5 stabs) ?

Instantly being killed by 1-5 back stabs? If it is 5 back stabs, I wouldn’t call it “instantly” lol xD

Burnfall.9573:

If any, if you do consider in Saving us, what are our Assurance; that this Unjustice Unfair Madness Will Never Happen Again? (for the the duration of Guild Wars 2 World)

Save you?! xD Nobody can save you! You are beyong saving buddy, hahahahaha xD

Burnfall.9573:

7. Lastly, I Hope you choose the side of Justice, Peace and Fairness For all….for The Sake of Guild Wars 2 World.

I have a dream! of a world! a free world! a just world! a safe world! xD

Good time! Made my day! xD

you get revealed… and NO, you do not reenter stealth because of hidden thief. Why are you even asking in the forum?

a) it is obvious
b) you can EASILY try it out yourself

I agree that playing thief necessitates various approaches depending on enemy profession and build. Admittedly, learning thief skilles is not as complicated as learning all the skills and combinations engineers or elementalists can offer, but on the same level as all the other professions. However, the thief requires the player to be very good in observing and apprehending the situation and react accordingly with good timing.

As you say, misplacing any skill puts you in a disadvantage, whereas on other classes, this doesn’t seem to be the case much. And I think thief is the only class, where movement, placement and distance to your opponent play such a big role.

In this way, thief is really exciting. What I really enjoy are encounters with classes that switch between melee weapons and ranged weapons during the fight. And depending on my opponent’s weapon type, I change strategy. I can’t say that I do this with my guardian or my engineer.

These are only preliminary results

I post this to encourage more poeple to contribute and participate in the survey. From the collected information, I will prepare diagrams depicting:

• Popularity of Trait Distribution (for WvW, PvP, PvE and in general)
• Popularity of Weapon sets (for WvW, PvP, PvE and in general)
• Popularity of Thief engagement (WvW, PvP or PvE)
• and many more (depending on the number of entries)

THE MORE PEOPLE PARTICIPATE IN THIS, THE MORE ACCURATE THE FINAL RESULT WILL BE

As a teaser, I attach a few diagrams to this post and update them regularly.
Note: I have only gathered around 150 data points, therefore it is not at all representive.

Eventually, I will open a new thread, publishing these results, so we can discuss

For one, WvW thieves that capitilise on stealth often go 30 into shadow arts and use shadow’s rejuvenation and Shadow’s embrace. Thus, they will have higher toughness, better healing and condi removal. Also, many people use assassins signet to increase their backstab damage by 15%. Finally, there are really good steath players out there, who can even prevail in 3vs1 situations against more than average players. For that, you need practice.

I agree with Carrion being a better option than Rabid. As runes, many people use a mixture of runes to maximise bleeding duration. I prefer adventurer runes for the extra endurance refill that my build relies on and condition damage instead of duration.

Note: really annoying that there is no power, vit, condi only ascended gear out there…

Hello,

I currently play as a condi applying P/D thief, mostly relying on evasions, rather than stealth. I used to play a slightly uncanonical D/P thief in the past.

I am very good in 1vs1 to 1vs2 situations (unless faced with nemesis builds) and very viable. I haven’t played in tPvP before and would love to experience it.

If there is interest in me joining your team, please pm me on forum or send me a mail in game.

Cheers!

infantrydiv.1620:

Vulnerability does nothing to condition damage. Using body shot in a condition build would be a total waste of initiative. Total.

Are you absolutely sure about this? I might run some tests… But actually, it would make sense to increase condition damage on vulnurable targets.

Who uses Panic Strike?! It is a grandmaster tier trait, and I think it is utterly useless! I say it needs to be replaced or polished or whatever, something needs to be done.

What do you say?

I have a completely different approach. I run a 20/0/0/20/30 build. Deadly arts helps to increase the offensive utility of steal (I also have sleight of hands in trickery). In addition it put weakness on the target and yes, I am playing with spider venom and scale venom.

Also I am geared for max condition damage, and not for max condition duration. I dont aim to only stack bleeding but to put bleeding, poison and torment on my opponent. Poison is very good for keeping opponent from effectively healing. And most of people have 1 or 2 abilities to cleanse conditions. I don’t want to stack 25 bleeds, so they just go ahead and cleanse it. When I have three different conditions on them, they tick away so quickly, and even if they cleanse a condition, the others still nag at him.

Another tip is to use 2 body shots after applying all the conditions. This will increase the damage on the opponent by additional 20%.

I mostly dodge, leaving caltrops for bleeding, and when the opponent comes close, I rather use the dual ability to shadowstep away and inflict torment on my opponent, rather than stealthing, since this build is a non-stealth one.

1) P/D, P/D
2) 20/0/0/20/30
3) WvW, PvP

Hello everybody,

This is supposed to be a survey. Please do not write any comments that might turn into discussions.

In this survey, please tell us:

1) your current weapon set (Format: D/D, P/D, S/D …)
2) your trait distribution (Format: 0/30/30710/0 …)
3) your preferred engagement (e.g. PvP, WvW, PvE, can be more than one)

In the same numeric order as above

At the end, I want to pool the results to reveal the most popular thief trends.

Note: If you are curious about a build a fellow thief runs, feel free to pm them. Please refrain from commenting on other builds in this poll.

Monoman.2068:

Thieves are simply cheesy down to their very core thanks to Anet’s horrible design decisions. I happened to run into two thieves who would take turns using basilisk venom and headshot while the other one dealt damage until I died, classy. Being stun locked to oblivion by 2-3 hammer warriors makes for a far more interesting and comical end since they have to somehow catch me first.

This is the problem. It’s like Anet sat down and decided they wanted to make the most frustrating class on the face of the planet on purpose and it didn’t have to be this way. Stealth doesn’t have to be frustrating, hell in a lot of games I would take a fight with the stealth class any day over a fight with the typical quick or long range classes. I absolutely hate my regen ranger because of her brainless copy pasta build, but I still have her on stand by for those days when you swear you can hear the thieves giggling like school girls when someone strays from the zerg.

When players stop calling thieves OP or cheap, and realize they’re just extremely cheesy, you will be a lot happier losing to one/a few.

1. If you run into a 1vs2 confrontation with two well organised thieves, of course it will be very difficult for you to prevail. This is no basis for your general statement.

2. basilik venom recharges every 35 sec, if traited that way. Two thieves could stun you once every 15 sec for 2 sec. Dazing shot only dazes for 1 sec. You can still evade incoming attacks. And even if you never hit the dodge button, they would never be able to perma-daze you, even if they were insanely skilled. Your description is exagerrated. Surely, your frustration about this smashing loss is still nagging at you.

As the titel suggest, I think that activation time + the animation of Cloak and Dagger just takes too long. I appreciate that more practice would help. But the inefficiency and the potential waste of 6 initiative on this skill might be the reason why D/P is so much more preferred over P/D or D/D. S/D is a completely different issue, due to the immobilise on infiltrator’s strike.

Cloak and Dagger takes a moment to even start the animation. The animation then takes another 0.5 seconds.

I wouldn’t mind the 0.5 seconds, but I would really like to see CaD animation trigger as soon as I activate the skill.

This is wierd. Shadowshot is supposed to teleport you to your target unless he evades the attack. If it doesn’t work as you write it here, it is clearly bugged. Why don’t you do some more testing? If your conclusion remains the same, raise this issue to the admins.

I was having the same question. Is there a 7% chance to gain 1 initiative for each pistol shot during sneak attack (5 in total)?

Hello everybody!

I wanted to open this thread to amuse ourselves with stories of how we are called to be noobs, or cheap, or OP!

Let me begin with one of my experiences:

I was playing with a P/D setup, which relies on conditions (venoms), basilisk venom for stuns, steal dazes and lots of dodges. I beat a warrior in a duel. As he lied on the floor, drowned in his own blood, the corpse had the nerves to say “cheap stupid thieves, always perma-blind… no skills at all”

I couldn’t help but laugh

Another time I was playing a canonical D/P setup against a guardian. The fight was very easy, since the guardian never stepped out of my blinding fields! I finished him off without receiving much damage. Afterwars, he whispered that I have no skills. Hilarious

I am running a P/D thief at the moment, and very successfully. the set-up is 20/0/0/20/30. In acrobatics I use pain response to cleanse damaging conditions and in addition I use Shadow step to cleanse 3 conditions. Other than that I avoid condition damage as I would avoid direct damage: By dodging out of the way.

I would agree with Delta Blues that having condition cleanse on the shadow step away, rather than shadow step back would be very helpful.

Frankly, I have a hard time against very strong condition builds like some necromancers.

It all depends on which build you are running on your thief. Every build has a counter build, and there is always a counter to a counter.

If your build focuses on dealing high damage, then spirit ranger and engineer are indeed high malices, because they are a counter strategy to your current strategy. If so, just avoid them.

To counter spirit ranger and engineer, run a ranged condition build. Stay out of the engineers turret field or dodge into the field, so they never hit you.

If you decide to run a backstab based damagin build, you should know your limitations and the counter builds that your are prone to lose against. You can then formulate your strategy and become a better player.

I have switched from a D/P backstabbing acrobatic thief to a P/D stealing condition thief. The counter strategy to my current build is condi rinse. Almost all classes are able to have such a setup. When I realise that my opponent is heavily build to counter my build (which I notice very soon), I flee. And by doing that, I can be more useful to than struggeling in a futile fight.

Seriously… Mesmers are well able to deal with condi build thieves. I tested this with a friend of mine.

In our first duel I (playing a condi thief) clearly had the upper hand. Then my friend just replaced one of his utility skills for null field and it was the otherway around.

If any Mesmer wants to beat condi builds, they need to incorporate condi removal skills or traits into their setup. This is a no-brainer.

Uhm… Is this a joke? I mean… It’s very obvious…

Use any two:
null field
arcane thievery
shattered conditions

If you do not have any condition cleanse abilities, do not cry about losing to condition build…

Here is my thief. The gear consists of the new gem store medium armor equipment for head, chest, legs and boots, and human tier 3 equipment for gloves and shoulder

As the titel suggests, I am looking for a PvP and WvW heavy guild on Devona’s Rest. If there are any, please let me know.

You can use this thread or send me a pm.

Cheers!

This one fancies to play as an unrivaled pirate!

Wishful thinking to the fullest. Why don’t you put some more adventagous effects in there to raise you even higher above all that scum, so you might squash them with your pirate boots? yarrrr! :P

I’m using a P/D build, that relies on dodge, venom and steal (you can find it here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Post-Your-Build-Thread/page/3#post2338090)

With this build, warriors in general are seldom a problem. The casting of warriors’ stuns are telegraphed noticably before the attack comes in, so it is no problem to dodge, and this build in particular has lots of dodges (I can dodge 6 times in a row without running out of endurance, use evade for dodge and then dodge 2 more times).

My strategy against stunning warriors is to dodge a lot, kite them and put condis on them. With a 20sec CD on steal, I can break stuns, stun them in return, damage and gain life. Very versatile indeed.

Tip against warrior: When I steal against warriors, I use the whirling axe immediately. Since they are dazed, I get quite a few hits on them.

This thread should be MUCH BETTTER MAINTAINED. Really! It looses all its purpose because all of the irrelevant and inappropriate posts within it and it becomes utterly USELESS to come here check builds.

Either Mark Katzbach or anyone else from Anet should go through the posts and move irrelevant or inappropriate posts, so this thread can serve the community as it is supposed to do.

There are only 4 pages for god’s sake!

• You could message the owners of the outdated build posts to update their posts, or it would be deleted
• you could delete irrelevant posts, that have nothing to do with builds (such as this one)
• you could introduce a general format to build posts, to which people can stick. This would make it much easier to navigate through

Cheers

Steal and Dodge heavy P/D condition build

This build is quite a lot of fun to play and trolls the kitten out of enemies

It heavily relies on Steal and dodge, and you can do it plentifully!
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqY6YlYmCNHdy0E+5Eh3jvOWzqpgm2sTxVlPA-TsAgyEap0yplRLpWWtGBsCY/x8DA

The idea is to max condition damage and usefulness of steal. When you steal, you apply poison, weakness, damage, self heal, gain 3 initiative, stunbreak and depending on your trait selection, you might rip boons or get fury, might and swiftness. And it is only on a 20 sec CD!

• Due to points in Trickery, the condition damage is huge
• With Rune of the Adventurer and Sigil of superior Energy, you can dodge a lot and gain Might, which boost both your survivablity and condition damage
• The Spider Venom and Scale Venom add a lot of condition damage and hamper enemy mobility and enemy heal.

Strategy

• Open with venoms, Cloak and Dagger and Steal, dodge for Caltrops and Unload
  Note: I have tested only this combo, and on a friendly PvP target, that doesn’t move or do anything, when this ticks down completely, it almost kills the target
• stack vulnerability with Body shot to increase the effect of conditions
• Dodge around your foe and use Cloak and Dagger whenever possible
• Troll with condition damage and dodges

Problems

• classes that redirect conditions at you (necromancer) or rapidly cleanse or convert conditions (guardian) can be a problem. The way to deal with them is to apply venoms, attack once, wait until they cleanse and then use the other charges of the venoms to reapply all the conditions.

Edit: Alternatively for less dodging, less survivability but more damage, you can take 10 points from Acrobatics and put them into Deadly Arts and select Residual Venom. In that case, Basilisk venom would be a good elite.

Edit: Actually, basilisk venom does great in this build. I have tried it and it is a lot of fun.

Funny story that happened to me in PvP

I fought against a warrior with two handed sword and long bow. He was so silly as to stand in my Black Powder. I just hit him with full rotation of auto attack until I popped HS, got invisible, back stabbed and repeated. When he dropped to 40%, I had still 12 initiative! I didn’t want to waste any time on this one, so I just hit him with 3 HS and he was dead.

His last words were: “stupid thieves, always spam HS, no skill in that”

now THAT was hilareous

Rezzet.3614:

how is thief underwhelming in pvp if all they need to do is spam #2 with daggers

rezzet obviously has no clue. Spamming #2 with daggers will drain your initiative very fast and do only 50-60% damage to an opponent, who forgets to dodge. Afterwards, the thief is done for.

Also he has no clue why thieves are squishier than other classes. Thieves have access to a few stun breaks, but they don’t have invulnurability skills or blocking skills, or damage reduction skills. All they have is stealth, and they can still be hit easily while in stealth.

Obviously, Rezzet was not able to apprehend to counter stealth, most likely because he is lacking skills as a player and is now blaming the mechanics, instead of himself. Many people, who blame thieves and invisibility are the same as Rezzet. Don’t bother.

And if Anet should be lacking so much intelligence as to grant them their feeble wishes, there is nothing we can do about it except quitting to play thief. Anet will see the immense drop in thief players and revert the changes, just as they did before.

Alternative High damage D/P build

This is a D/P build, very easy for PvE, since mobs are too dumb to step out of black powder, and quite effective on PvP:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.3|8.1g.h14.a.1g.h1g|8.1g.h14.a.1g.h1g|1p.7e.1p.7e.1p.7e.1p.7e.1p.7e.1p.7e|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.cg.67|0.u36b.0.p69.f3|0.0|57.5f.5c.5b.0|e

The idea is to max damage while retaining useful traits. As such, I invested 0/30/0/25/15.

With First Strikes (10% above 6 ini), Fluid Strikes (10% when endurance is not full), Scholar runes (10% when full health) and Executioner (20% when enemy below 50%), added up effects can reach +50% damage! This is kittening huge!

Preparedness is very beneficial for this build:

• it allows to keep ini above 6 and benefit from First Strikes
• it allows to spam Heart Seeker 4-5 times, when enemy hits 20-40% health and to finish off really everything.

Strategy:

• When encountering enemy, time your dodge so you can avoid the initial attack of the enemy and negate their combo. Gt +10% damage from Fluid Strikes and release caltrops
• Use Black Powder on top of enemy and hit with dagger for full rotation
• Use Heart seeker to go invisible and dodge immediately behind the enemy. This will confuse the enemy, cripple them and make it easier for you to attack from behind.
• At this point I swap weapons, so my next attack is 100% critical due to sigil of intelligence
• Backstab as soon as possible, since there are no benefits in this build to stay in stealth

Counters:

• When facing a condition heavy build, make good use of Shadow step to rinse and Black Powder to avoid hits
• when stunned, first trigger steal for extra initiative and gap closure, then Shadow step and if everything is used up Infiltrator’s Signet
• when enemy is really really tanky (Ranger, Guardian) or very tricky (Mesmer), try to overwhelm them with Thieves Guild. If it doesn’t look any better, don’t be too proud to run away.

With this, I am able to be very successful in sPvP without dying during a match.

Have fun!

Doomdesire.9365:

I would love to see a rotation with it

1 – Shoot your foe. Applies 1 stack of bleed
2- Shoot your foe again with a poisoned bullet. Applies poison for 3s, cripple for 1s(base condition duration)
3- Shoot your foe three times. Applies bleed for each shot that hits

I think the pistol MH should stay a condition weapon, as another core design of thief uses bleeds/cripples/poison. Maybe just keep the auto attack the same and speed it up or add a 30% chance to poison for 5s on each auto attack shot.

I think a cripple on a ranged weapon primary attack is too powerful. A rotation is a good idea though and three shots at a time stacking all the bleeds doesn’t sound too bad.

I would say, and agree with you, that increasing the fire rate to that of short bow would already be a great help. Or adding another effect like poison. Burn doesn’t makes sense. Weakness would do, as well. Or just increase the damage/power scaling of each shot.

Hello

I would like to compile all primary skills for the different weapon sets on the thief and start a discussion.

Sword:

• Scales very good with power (factor 0.8 on first two strikes and 1.3 on the third)
• decently fast hitting
• inflics cripple, which is… nah… ok I guess

Dagger:

• Scales good with power (factor 0.85 for all strikes)
• Fast hitting
• applies poison on the last strike, which also affects healing of the target

Short Bow:

• has low damage and doesn’t scale well with power (factor 0.55)
• adds bleed and hits multiple targets
• constant damage output
• decently fast autoattack

Pistol:

• has the lowest damage of them all and scales the worst with power (factor 0.4)
• adds bleed
• constant damage outpt
• the slowest autoattack (half as fast as shortbow)

Based on this I would argue Pistol MH is too weak and needs a boost, so more thieves would consider picking this weapon up.

I am looking forward to hearing your opinion.

randomfightfan.4091:

the +damage traits don’t affect your conditions. Imo, lose most of the deadly arts and put it into shadow arts since you will be using a lot of stealth with cnd. If you’re not then you’re nerfing yourself hard. You will be needing surprise shot.

Thanks,

Benefits of Deadly Arts:

• additional damage due to power and condition duration
• additional functionality on steal
• option to weaken opponents
• +10% direct damage on opponents with conditions (are you sure conditions are not affected by this?)

Benefits of Shadow Arts:

• Removal of conditions
• Better defense
• Better healing
• More healing options
• Initiative regain after CaD

You would need to take 5 points from Trickery or Acrobatics though, which would mean less endurance or less initiative from withdraw

When using Spider Venom, I fully agree that Quick Venoms becomes a good option. I might implement this insight later.

As I said before, I wanted to do something different and not go into the Shadow Arts trait line. But those who feel it is necessary can think of taking everything from the Trickery trait line and putting them into the Shadow Arts trait line.

Finally, in this build there is no need for Caltrops as a utility skill and I don’t see the need for additional movement speed with Signet of Shadows, as we will constantly have Swiftness from dodging.

Thanks for your feed back.

Thank you EoNxBoNx (funny name o_O). I will update this build when I get more and more feedback. I already put in some insights that I gained from Janairo’s comment. If you try this ingame, please feel free to come back and post about your experience.

Kajiri.8215:

This made thieves weaker, so it is a nerf by definition, regardless of it being a bug fix or not. Since when are these terms mutually exclusive?

I need to agree with Kajiri. Initially, I thought it’s a bug fix only. But yes, it is a bug fix and a nerf, technically speaking.

In my opinion, this bug fix was necessary. Also, I’m not bothered by this nerf. I think it is still very decent to get out of situations.

Nickthemoonwolf.1485:

wish.1027:

You should just get a total makeover kit and make your human a girl.

Real thieves know its all about the underboob.

That guild chat.

lololol

People are confusing Last Refuge with Shadow Refuge. That’s why there are comments like “Only downside to that would be… Thief can do multiple backstabs with no revealed….”

Last Refuge is the minor trait in Shadow arts after investing 5points, that makes you go invisible at 25% health.

I myself am not really sure about this. Stealth based thieves already have good ways of disengaging fights, and there are toooooooons of whine about this. I wouldn’t want to change this skill, so that there is even more whine… Also, for me, this skill saved my life like 60% of the time. Quite OK I think for a 5 point trait.

Classic! Congratulations on your absolutely biased and selfish way of thinking.

So you are telling us that you used your bunch of skills to smack him around, bring him down to 5% health and then you complain that he used his to get out of that horrid situation? What did you expect? Killing him without any resistence?

What if you actually had won the fight without even losing health? You would have laughed at the thief, who can’t even land a hit on you before you bombed him down and bathed in the glory of your undefeatable class. And unless your class outshines others, you whine…

Also, a turret engineer is not really specced on 1vs1, many classes can chose to not spec 1vs1. But thieves don’t really have any other viable option than focusing on 1vs1. So in a situation you encounter a 1vs1 specialised class with your non-1vs1 specialised class, you still expect to win without even getting a scratch? Get a hold on yourself!

tac.2167:

I really don’t understand this whole complaint. I get that getting killed instantly by a D/D BV+CnD+Mug+BS combo back in the day was unfair (though I still die just as quickly to burst warriors and mesmers so…), but even if I’m fighting a boon heavy build and stealing from them, the fight lasts a long time. This means that the other player has myriad chances to come back. I’ve found a couple of things: 1) if the other player is better than me, I will lose, 2) if I make mistakes, even when fighting someone worse than me, I will lose. Boon stealing (FS/LS) is not ever a win button.

This.

I can’t agree more.

Thank you very much for your input. I will respond to each of your feed back:

- Actually, in the build that I proposed there is only one skill that gives us initiative, and that would be Hastened Replenishment on the trickery skill tree. I suggested that there are additional options, if people want it.

- Yes, this build is about going in and out of stealth and dealing damage from a safe distance. So you say I should reinvest points into Shadow Arts. It would give me a whole bunch of good defensive options on the cost of offense. Where shall I take the skill points from in your opinion? Deadly Arts? Because I think 15 points Acrobatics is needed to ensure mobility. And I wanted to focus on trickery with this one, instead of posting another run of the mill 25/0/30/15/0 build…

- My stealth duration is short, as you say, but it doesn’t matter. I am doing a ranged attack anyway. I don’t have health regen, true. But I do have initiative regen. I have constant swiftness due to acrobatics, so my movement speed is good enough. And might stacks: I could either put vurnerability on my target or use might on dodge trait.

- What would you suggest instead of energy sigils? A good suggestion might change my view. I could change it to Superior Sigil of Inteligence. CaD, weapon swap and sneak attack would be a nice burst combo then.

- You are right, I could capitalise more on Lotus Poison. I could change one of my utility skills (Shadow Refuge or Scorpion wire) to Spider Venom. What do you think?

I’m looking forward to your response!

Actually, the topic is supposed to be a joke. I have come across a whine thread against thieves again today, which made me think that if someone ever came up with a great great build, he probably wouldn’t share it. No need to increase the risks for a nerf

Anyway…

I wanted to make a pistol dagger build and share it with you guys. If you have any insights, sugestions or criticisms I would be happy to receive them.

Strategy
This build is based on evading, CaD and stacking bleeds with the primary attack and caltrops. Also keeping a high pool of initiative will increase damage output and make us flexible in various situations.

Against Melee Targets:

• Keep distance. Put in some Body Shot here and there to build up vulnerability.
• Use Cloak and Dagger when the target has closed in
• move away with an evasion. Preferably use a dodge roll, but withdraw and roll for initiative are also strong options that give back initiative at the same time.
• use sneak attack from a distance and repeat

Against Ranged Targets:

• shoot while closing the gap with dodge rolls or steal. Put in some Body Shot here and there to build up vulnerability
• use Cloak and Dagger when in range
• use sneak attack and repeat

Tips

• when facing a target with minions/pets/illusions/turrets, you can always use them to CaD
• you can always use surrounding objects or secondary close targets to CaD
• avoid getting hit with heavy attacks and avoid conditions, as this build is not so great in dealing with conditions
• if things get rough, use Shadow Strike to open a gap
• use Dancing Dagger to hinder fleeing targets, who successfully avoided your caltrops

Build
Deadly Arts 25 points
I put 25 points into Deadly Arts to increase damage. Both power and condition duration are very nice assets. Also, +10% damage on condition, which our target always will have is also nice.

• Mug: In this build steal will be quite important, and not used to open a fight. Therefore, the nerfed version of Mug fits in.

• Potent Poison: To be honest I didn’t know what else to use here. I could have gone with improvisation, but it didn’t seem to be very reliable.

Acrobatics 15 points
As we are going to dodge a lot, 15 points in Acrobatics goes without saying.

• Power of Inertia: With so many dodges, gaining might at the same time is neat. This trait can be exchanged for Assassin’s Retreat, however, if people want to dodge some more.

Trickery 30 points
Trickery gives us condition damage and reduces CD of steal. Both are very beneficial. This trait line will serve to complement skills. Also, it will be our main source of gaining initiative and boost our damage further by up to 12% (due to Lead Attacks).

• Uncatchable: Lay caltrops on dodge, cripple enemies and make hitting with Cloak and Dagger easier, add additional bleed stacks. Sounds pretty good to me.

• Ricochet: Increase damage when fighting against more than one target. Can be interchanged with Initial Strike, if there is need for more initiative. Alternatively, bountiful Theft or Thrill of crime can be added to amass functionality on steal.

• Hastened Replenishment: This is our source of gaining initiative, and since we use Withdraw very often anyway, it is a good skill to have.

Utilities

• Withdraw
• Shadow Refuge: to GTFO
• Scorpion Wire: I like this skill to troll people Also, it kind of makes sense with this build
• Roll for Initiative: Stun breaker, initiative gain and useful for our strategy
• Shadow Step: Stun breaker and the only way on this build to remove conditions
• Spider Venom: Capitalise on the trait Lotus poison in Deadly Arts skill tree and make your targets weak while poisoning them at the same time.

For Elite I use Thieves Guild to confuse people, but this one is completely optional.

Gear
All Carrion: increase power, vitality and condition damage.
Runes
Adventurer: Increase power, condition damage and endurance on dodge
Sigils
In PvP I use two times P/D and place Superior Sigil of Energy on my pistols or daggers so I can dodge more. The other sigil is optional. In PvE and dungeons, I use P/D and Shortbow with Superior Sigil of Energy on each. In WvWvW I use either my PvP settings if I do roaming or my PvE settings if I do Zerking.

I would really like to hear your feed back. Thanks!

I agree that asking for nerfs becomes ridiculous… LS is REALLY easy to dodge or just go out of the way of. And thieves are very VERY easy to control with stuns, blows or dazes.
And regarding the initiative system and spamming LS: I mean, honestly…! After this genius of a thief, that spams LS has stolen 6 boons, he is left with no initiative at all! He becomes defenseless and his offensive skills suffer a lot as well.
I would always prefer a pool of initiative over a bunch of boons. 1 LS and stealing 2 boons would do the job for me, unless my opponent has protection on him…

People always organise their builds to counter certain scenarios, but when THEIR BUILD gets countered by another one (especially by that of a thief)… oooooh, then it’s on! Accept the fact that you cant win every 1vs1 that you seek out!