Guild Wars 2

There are several viable builds for Thief at the moment.

• S/D – Several different variants.
• D/D – I think there’s a couple good builds going around for these.
• D/P – Several different again. Condi spec, Venomshares, Power builds etc.
• P/P – Wouldn’t say there’s any competetive builds for this, but there’s couple fun builds going around for Unload spam.

girien.1209:

HI, year 2012 says “pls return my HS complain THX!”

If only that hadn’t already been said…..

NinjaEd.3946:

I’d say nerf ally vision before nerfing HS. I get where you’re coming from, since I see thieves doing this all the time and often dying. Doesn’t mean nerf the skill, its just bad players making bad decisions.

Yes, and to encourage bad players to get better and spread into different builds. Maybe the best course of action is for Anet to push them in the right direction by altering their beloved HS spam.

It really can’t be as terrible as some people are making it out to be, otherwise no one would bother using it.

Why do so many people go out of their way to purposely act like idiots on here?

It’s pretty disappointing.

Oh.. I’ve been rolling Thief Venom share build for the past couple weeks now and I was coming onto this thread to suggest it. Turns out your build is very similar to mine though.

Here it the build I run anyway

Pretty good in group fights too.
Venom shares
Fury, Might & Swiftness (10s) from Steal
Fury, Might & Swiftness (10s) from Rune proc

Surprisingly high Power considering it’s Condition based build.
Nice high health pool
Only 1.2k Toughness, but with a stealth build you don’t really need to worry about that.

Skelk Venom + Shadow Refuge + Sneak Attack (While Dark field is still down) = major healing.

I’m not quite sure what you call these abilities, but they CAN do incredibly high damage in some circumstances. Highly depending on environment.

Abilities such as Necromancer’s Flesh Golem Charge. If you are against a wall (or some small rocks sometimes) you can be rooted to the spot as well as the Golem, and thus the whole charge ticks constant damage on you for the duration rather than 1-2 single hits.

Other abilities are Elementalist’s Fiery Greatsword Elite #4 Fiery Rush. If you use it on an untargetted NPC against a wall, all the damage is on 1 location and ticks for a lot of damage.

Take a look at this for example. It has the same effect.

Might Stacking is fine, Strength runes are not.

vincecontix.1264:

Might stacking is fine its strength runes that need toning down.

Oh, I think I posted milliseconds from you.

Jasher.6580:

JonathanSharp.7094:

-snip-

Categorize them in tabs with six in each:

Damage
Condition Damage Done
Physical Damage Done
Reflect Damage Done
Stomps
Overall Damage Done

Objective
Captures Prevented
Constructs Destroyed
Creatures Killed
Decaps Prevented
Points Captured
Points Neutralized

Personal
Damage Received
Deaths
Disrupted
Dodges
Healing Received
Interrupts

Support
Damage Blocked
Damage Dodged
Damage Evaded
Damage Reflected
Healing Done
Resurrections
-
In SW:TOR, you have the option to see: All, Allies and Enemies in tabs (that would be nice). I also like the idea of an MVP vote option like in SW:TOR. You can’t vote for yourself, you have to vote for someone else on your team… the player then gets a bonus for the MVP placement.

I was going to mention SWTOR myself.
I really like the layout of the board and what it shows. However.. it can be quite frustrating when you get a team full of people who ONLY play the game with one objective in mind… to throw conditions around aimlessly to top the damage board.

SaintSnow.6593:

MakubeC.3026:

Mug is +2k hp and 800dmg. How’s that OP?
And the trickster traits are mostly boon ripping.
Steal could use a whole lot of changes.

It’s 2k+ hp
800dmg (no crits anymore at least)
Dazes
Poisons
Boon steals (stab primary)
Grants might fury and swiftness to yourself and others oh and vigor.
All while stealing an ability to counter your opponent and is a instant blink to combo with.
This is all in one single skill that with the trickery trait line is on low cooldown and sleight of hand lowers it more too.
This all happens when you take the typical 5,7 and 12 traits in trickery as well as going 2 points in deadly arts for both serpents touch and mug.

I think steal is fine, a bit powerful but manageable. I never said “OP” bud, but it definitely doesn’t need any buffs..

You need to trait for all that though. Plus, I wouldn’t exactly call stolen bundles “counter” to class.

Whirling Axe doesn’t exactly counter a Warrior since they can Endure Pain, or simply move away.
Healing Seed doesn’t counter a Ranger either. Don’t even need to explain that one.
Throw Gunk I suppose can give Chaos Armour, but again.. still wouldn’t call it a “counter”

Mark of Death;
Any target you steal from is hexed by Mark of Death. Target takes +10% damage from all sources for 10 seconds. You deal 10% less damage to all other opponents. This effect does not stack. (max 5 players)

If I’m honest, I literally just came up with that. Seems like it could work.

Thieves don’t need anything but Berserker or Dire.

I main a Thief, so this is not your typical “A Thief beat me, please nerf!” thread.

Please increase the initiative cost for Heartseaker. It infuriates me when I see my fellow Thieves mashing the hell out of their Heartseaker keybind.
No wonder these forums are littered with “Thieves are OP!” threads.
Heartseaker not only hits hard, it costs next to nothing to use AND lets you stick to your opponent like glue.

I can’t see this being changed in the foreseeable future because it’s been like this for so long, but I beg of you guys… stop mashing your heartseaker keybind (or clicking?). It’s extremely cheese and makes Thieves look like a terrible class.

That is all.

What??………….

I’ll be straight with you.

Mesmers are the worst class to get to 80. It’s actually borderline unplayable in my opinion. They used to be extremely difficult to get to 80 because of their main damage coming from Phantasms, and they don’t get buffed properly until you’re a higher level. Even more so now that you actually have to unlock traits/buy them.
You’ll probably have torn all your hair out by 80.

Now..

Once you hit that 80 spot, you’ll love it. Mesmers are phenomenal at 80 and have arguably the best utilities in-game.
Group stealth, group cleanse, group portal, group quickness, reflects and heals.
Not only that, but they are capable of excellent damage and great survivability also.

If you have the patience I would definitely stick with it as they are extremely rewarding at 80.

On the upside.. with the new Megaservers being implemented the lower population zones are normally always packed with people, if you just ask in chat I’m sure someone is bound to join you!

EDIT:

It depends a lot on your point of view, but I didn’t notice the a leveling issue when I started because Mesmer was my first GW2 character

This is true. I may have over-exaggerated how difficult they are to level, because my first character was a Warrior, which is by far the easiest class to level and play in-game.

I played another build very similar to this in SPvP for a long time, it’s really easy to play and surprisingly tanky considering you have very little toughness. The only issue is, I foundthat when I’m up against good players they eventually learn that you can easily become close to useless if they just kite your Phantasms by climbing objects for example.

Sons.5493:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Next-Weapon-Set-Rifle/first#post2516746

Stop coming with new skills, this will be the best and only skillset Anet will implement.

Way to shoot someone down.

Just because that is YOUR opinion, doesn’t mean it’s correct.
There’s no harm in suggesting other things, that’s why the option is there.

Swap to bow and kite. Condi Engi tend to rely on Grenades or Bombs to condition burst you. If you stay at range and kite them they should be relatively easy to kill. Disabling Shot is pretty horrible at the moment, but if you use that wisely to cripple while kiting it helps a lot.

You receive the following;

Experience Scroll – Gives you instant level 20.
Mini Queen Jennah – Does what it says on the tin, it’s a mini.
Birthday Booster – 24 hour buff that increases Magic Find, Karma, WvW experience, basic experience & Gold gain by 100%.

Yeah, on certain armours Midnight Ice appears a lot darker. I know for example that Abyss on Phoenix armour looks somewhat grey-ish, but Midnight Ice is pitch black.

I suppose I should’ve started off by saying I’m partially colour blind, but Midnight Ice is definitely a lot darker on some armours.

Hi folks, so I’ve been eyeing up the Aetherized Shortbow for quite some time now, it looks just like a composite bow, and I love them.

Apart from the price, I’m concerned about there being an “aura” or “trail” on it.

Does anyone happen to have one of these and can describe it to me, if not have some sort of video? (or even if you know of one).

I’m not a huge fan of auras and trails and that’s currently the only thing putting me off purchasing it.

Can anyone shed some light on this please?

Thanks,

Jeknar.6184:

We don’t care about legendaries… We want to have a decent WvW experience. They can remove all loot from WvW for all I care, if they find a way to make matchups more competitive and fun…

Ok, you can mail me all your loot and I’ll be sure to pass the message on.

Hi folks,
I’m looking for a good EU server that can pull numbers but still has room for roamers.

Any advice?

I don’t get it..

skullmount.1758:

k. But what traits though? I have probably at least 1000 tickets I want to use, and want the fastest way(s) to kill him. Thanks.
(I’m also assuming you guys are only using full zerker gear)

Something like this

Any build is easy to kill Hamli with 5 gambits if you go full DPS. You just need to avoid his hammer smash attach, whether that be a dodge/evade/invulnerable.

I don’t get what’s wrong with this trait..

I’ve never found myself complaining about it popping. Infact, I’m happy when it does, because more often than not I am trying to find something to stealth off of.

Jake.1430:

Well, dead flesh is dead flesh no matter where it’s from.
I can understand turrets because they are put together by the player(kinda?)
I’m not too certain of minion making lore wise, but I do not believe that they were actually living things at one point.
That’s my opinion on it, someone better lore wise might give a better explanation to why Lore wise it doesn’t make sence, or they may say I’m wrong and completely agree with you, best of luck

That’s like saying a Whale carcass looks like a Mouse Carcass
Would be nice to have them race specific, but if I’m being honest.. I can’t see it happening.

I think I can remember suggesting a long time ago that maybe we could buy minion skins from gem store, can’t remember if I got round to suggesting it or just thought of it >_>

Jeez, digging up 1 year old threads XD

I have two Guardians, one just happens to be a Norn and the other a Human. I took everything off, removed all traits and equipped basic white GS. Both characters had the same stats and tooltip. After several Whirling Wraths I concluded that they do the same damage. There were times my Norn had more damage, and times my Human had more damage, but nothing groundbreaking.

I agree Guardians need some mobility, but I doubt it’s going to happen.

It’s all well posting a build like that, but you mentioned you were new. Do you have full ascended + all infusions? or able to get them anytime soon?

If not, you might want to look at something you’re able to get and work from there.

Personally I would drop a lot of toughness and put it in power.
I would also get rid of Torch and get Focus instead.
I would also get rid of Inner Fire, because it’s really situational, and only getting 3 sec fury from it is pretty lame.

I’d go for something along the lines of this

Staff + GS is in a good spot at the moment, I haven’t had any real issues.

This works a charm for me.

I don’t play on Gunnar’s Hold, but I can imagine how frustrating this must be. It’s beyond me how Anet can willingly let 1 person ruin the experience for so many. Sure Anet don’t get any money through monthly subscription fees, but it’s safe to assume that they make plenty through gem store. You would think it would be simple enough to employ people to check reports, especially when you say there’s most likely several been made against him.

Crovax.7854:

Rome.3192:

Guardian:
1. Binding Blade – Hard to dodge for me, but I usually get lucky with random dodges on this one. If not, I dodge when they are about to pull and it fails quite often. Get ready to stun break.

That’s a bit of an understatement, considering the pull can’t be dodged oO

That is true, but if you dodge right before they pull, you don’t get pulled the full distance. Often you’ll just get knocked down on the spot.

Has to be S/D.

/15char

I noticed the name colour change myself earlier. Pretty happy.

Ah, thread has been moved. Not sure how I missed this section, but there’s plenty of threads already here.

Would be nice to see an Arenanet response..

There are tons of items that have chat codes but aren’t obtainable. You can find a lot of them here

Some of them are pretty fun to annoy people with.

I’ve been playing Gw2 since release and never had any issues until today. I figured it was affecting everyone, but since I cannot see anyone complaining about it, I’ll just post. (Apologies if I’ve suddenly become blind and cannot find them).

I just got home from work and tried to get on Guildwars2. It took me more than 5 attempts to get online, I just put it down to my xbox updating one of my games. Though, when I finally got in-game I disconnected several times after that. I thought I’d throw it out there and ask in map chat if anyone else was experiencing this and more than 5 people responded saying they are experiencing the same issues.

I’m not sure what’s causing it, nor can I see any pattern, though it’s happening very frequently with absolutely no warning.

I’m not sure how megaservers work, but i’m on Ring of Fire server.

Others experience issues

Obviously I’d prefer it not to happen, but I understand every game encounters problems. Would be nice to hear that Anet have acknowledged it and working on a fix though.

Attached error message;

If you have other level 80’s (which I presume you do).

You can farm CoF path 1 on a level 80 then swap to your alt just before boss dies. You’ll still get the end chest and it’s usually between 50% and 100% of a level every time.
Doing it this way means you get tokens in the process to gear it, or salve armour etc.

Aza.2105:

Zach.3264:

I wish it would work, but that trait really isn’t worth taking in my opinion. The Chill duration is so low compared to the cooldown.

Even with good Condition duration and Grenth runes, it’s still really low.
In my opinion, there are better options.

Nah, with condition duration, condition duration food, rune of ice and rune of chilling. Glacial Heart lasts close to 9 seconds. With sigil of ice, rune of ice and hydromancy guardian can make a nice troll chilling build.

That’s true, but there’s still quite a long cooldown after you use your chill rotation (ha?)
It’s definitely not something I’d be prepared to use. I’d much rather use those rune, food, sigil etc slots for better use.

Dee Jay.2460:

Runes of Strength are good…..but not THAT good for Thieves.

Thieves can’t stack Might like Warriors or Eles. Sure, we have a few sources of Might and won’t have a problem maintaining a few stacks at all times….but we don’t roll in 15+ stacks all the time like some other classes.

So I would say that, while certainly a good choice, maybe even the best for hardcore players, other Rune sets can be equally viable. Hoelbrak Runes, Runes of the Pack and Runes of the Mesmer are all reasonable choices for a fraction of the price.

I also thing that there is a fair chance they might be nerfed a little. They do seem excessively good and popular. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a nerf to Might duration.

Actually using Strength Runes you can be sitting with a lot of Might stacks throughout a fight.

Using this viable build.

Signets of Power x5 stacks
Stealth x2 Stacks (multiple)
Dodge x1 Stacks (multiple)
Superior Sigil of Strength x1 stacks (multiple)
Superior Rune of Strength x1 stacks

x2 stacks from stealthing last for 23~ seconds. That’s more than enough time to build more through standard rotations.

Guardian for sure.
They have more access to boons, heals and better DPS.

I wish it would work, but that trait really isn’t worth taking in my opinion. The Chill duration is so low compared to the cooldown.

Even with good Condition duration and Grenth runes, it’s still really low.
In my opinion, there are better options.

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

looks fairly solid, although I would swap out smite condition for purging flames, its an aoe cleanse and a much better option then smite in a zerg, and contemplation for wall of reflect/hallowed ground/whatever else at the time depending on what you need.

Swapping purity or retributive amour out for strength in numbers would be beneficial.

I suppose you could swap out purity sigils for renewal sigils for some more healing if you wanted to.

You could probably change runes but exuberance are fairly solid. have you looked at melandru/hoelbrak? that would help with the condi’s

You’re right, swapping out the meditation does seem like a better idea.
The sigils i’m a bit skeptical about. I really like purity for the condition cleanse, however.. if I had faith in my zerg AoE condition cleansing then I guess renewals would be good.
As for the runes, I considered Melandru, but Exuberance give such large stat gains I’d struggle to give them up.

I currently have 8 level 80’s, and I have been playing since release.

I recently added my newest addition to my characters, a new Guardian. I crafted to 47 today before deciding to go do some PvE. To my amazement EVERY trait was locked.
Do I really need to complete content to unlock basic traits?

Why on earth do you get access to the first tier of traits early on, if their unlock requirements are aimed at later in the game.

I mean.. to unlock “inner Fire” a basic 2 point trait you must 100% Lornar’s Pass. That takes roughly an hour in good gear and around 40 combat.

I understand you can purchase these traits.. but even the basic ones are 2 skill points and 10 silver each. That is rather expensive for those new to the game.

I really hope I’ve misunderstood this whole new trait system. Because, if I’ve understood it correctly then I’m extremely disappointed by these changes.
I completely understand you want people to delve into PvE more, but going from a system where all traits are unlocked automatically (provided you buy the books for higher levels) to having to grind countless hours for basic traits is beyond reason…

Why, oh why?

Hi folks.

Although I have an 80 Guardian, i’ve grown tired of being a Norn. I have 8 80’s at the moment, and 7 of them are Human. I’m considering making another Guardian this time a Human.

Anyway.. I was just faffing around with the build creator there, and I’ve made a build that looks incredibly solid for zerg running.

Here is the build

The only real problem I can see for the build is that it doesn’t have the best of condition removal.

Protection against conditions;

• -40% condition food
• Smite condition
• Contemplation of Purity
• Condition removal every 10 sec (Trait)
• Condition removal every ~10 sec (60% chance on hit)

Anyone suggest any improvements?

There’s no denying there are better options, however.. it doesn’t mean it’s “bad” for you to like it.

Personally I love the mace aswell. The animations are nice and the symbol is great.

Although I D/D in WvW, I’d definitely use S/D for PvE.

Black Powder is pretty amazing in PvE because of how basic PvE mobs are. They’ll stay in your blind spam field and be unable to hit you. Also, sword hits multiple targets whereas dagger is only single target.

If you tell us your level I can throw a quick build together for you.
Play what you enjoy though.

LuXx.9354:

Nope.

Venom => Assassin’s signet => Stealth (with trait life stealing) => CnD => Backstab.

Don’t want to lose this combo in PvP, but a new elite can be good. Thieves guild, just lol, good in pve, and that’s all. Dagger storm is the only stability of thief (don’t talk me about the new trait xD), but have a too much long cooldown. And Basilic Venom… 45 sec of cool down for a 1/2 sec of stun ? Warriors can be spam stun in aoe every 10 secs with hammer.

Basilic venom can be an utility skill, but assassin’s signet can’t be an elite ^^’.

Why are you comparing Warrior Hammer to Thief Elite?

Classes are intended to be different. Each can do something better than another. Implying your class is bad because another does better isn’t exactly a fair argument.