Guild Wars 2

Asrat.2645:

So. You would use leeching venoms for health? Is that…viable? I mena…i did that in pvp pre hot for a while, but after that…You heal for about 400-500 if im not mistaken. That is about as much as I reg with a single crit on a single enemy with invigorating precision.

He simply said he had life steal, not that it is a primary source of healing, or is better than IP or SoM. However, considering it is 1950 healing on each Spider Venom use and 650 on Basilisk, I’d say it easily counts as a source of sustain. Not to mention your whole team benefits from it.

Casual.9260:

Only problem is accidentally Death Blossoming off the ledges lol

If you are near a cliff, just AA for the poison. You should be running Dagger Training and Potent Poison, so the AA DPS will be close enough to DB.

Asrat.2645:

Life steal? Did I miss something.

…

What the hell, i dont know but i would be really interested in what that ‘lifesteal’ is supposed to be.

Leeching Venoms

This is how it works:

• Base movement speed is 300
• In combat movement speed is 200
• Movement speed is capped at 400

This means that, out of combat, anything past 33% is useless, since you hit the cap of 400 (300*1.33). In combat, 50% extra will give you 200*1.5=300 movement speed, while the signet gives 250 and swiftness gives 266. This is why superspeed is so good, because it allows you to hit the 400 cap even in combat (or mitigate slowing effects like cripple and chill).

If people can join your level 20+ group in LFG, that means they are at least fractal level 20. By that point, they should easily have enough experience to be useful in your daily group.

I’ve never run into an AP req for fractals, and 90% of them have been very smooth. The ones that aren’t smooth are usually 67 and 77 runs with people who have over 10k AP and fractal level 100. There really is no good reason to enforce such a restriction.

Traitlines:

• DA has a 10% mod plus 20% below 50, which averages out to 20% total. Mug is another DPS souce (and heal), as is Revealed Training if running D/D.

• DD has a 10% mod on dodge, 7% melee range mod, and 10% mod on staff. 17% if running D/D, 27% if staff.

• Trick has a maximum 15% mod and lower Steal cooldown, which means more Mug.

• CS has a 17% crit mod, A 5% (10 over 50), and a ~15% depending on precision. We need to apply the crit damage to flat mods for a comparison (assuming 250% with CS, 215% without).

• Acro and SA have no mods.

DA: 2.5*20% or 2.15*20% = 50% or 43%
DD: 2.5*27% or 2.15*27% = 67.5% or 58%
Trick: 2.5*15% or 2.15*15% = 37.5% or 32%

Final effective mods:

250% + 117.5% = 367.5% DA DD CS

215% + 133% = 348% DA DD Trick

It seems DA DD CS is the way to go. As for the gear, zerk is objectively the best DPS. If you feel like you need some health from marauder or valk etc., that’s fine. The extra stats on Marauder are nice, but it is weaker if you only look at DPS. Another build to consider for PvE is viper/sinister venomshare if you want a change of pace.

Edited to correct CS information. I don’t remember the mods being that high.

Has anyone besides me suggested new functionality? I’m all for cool glider skins, but does nobody else want glider skills, barrel rolls, diving, or other new mechanics?

I won a 2v5 once. Not even joking. I still wouldn’t go so far as “best there ever was.” My teammate and I played well, the opponent didn’t.

MadRabbit.3179:

Phink.9153:

I might be missing the importance to venomshare though, what does it bring to the table other than a minor 8 sec CD on spider venom?

In the Vale Guardian fight when you are paired with two condi engineers, you are giving them additional condi application on their skills which scales to their gear.

Outside of buffing other condis, venomshare with basilisk will destroy a break bar, since you are buffing all the other group members with a strong CC on hit.

Shared venoms scale with the stats of the Thief, and they count as your stacks of conditions (so it’s your DPS, not the people you share with). It doesn’t matter if you share with a Viper Engi or Zerk Daredevil, you get the same results.

Phink.9153:

I’m not actually that convinced on SA being useful, even in group content if you aren’t running multiple venoms. Really all you pick up is 20% recharge, and a little life siphon. In instanced content, going CS will be a higher DPS increase (I guess I haven’t crunched the numbers) than going venomshare. Unlike the current venomshare build, which alternates between Death Blossom and Lotus..this is an adapted build focusing on poison uptime and dagger autos for DPS.

I might be missing the importance to venomshare though, what does it bring to the table other than a minor 8 sec CD on spider venom?

30 stacks of poison. That’s what it brings to the table. Without VS, Spider Venom deals 6 stacks for 12s if you have 100% poison duration. If you share with 4 other people, you get a 400% increase to the damage of your venoms, in addition to an instant break bar smasher with Basilisk. Shared Spider Venom is the single highest condi DPS source in any possible Thief build. It is an absolute necessity unless you are in a situation where you can’t share.

Thanks for the input. So here are a few ideas for Dancing Dagger, which everyone seems to agree needs some love.

• Keep it as is, but reduce initiative cost to 2

• Flip skill: teleport to target

• Flip skill: pull target

• Flip skill: teleport target to you (less wonky than pull, and less annoying for target)

• Flip skill: long range leap to target

• Flip skill: immobilize target

People seem reluctant to give Vault more range. It is certainly very strong, but more range will not make other staff skills less used, since none of them are competing as a gap closer for the set. It also won’t make you hit harder, and will be largely unnoticed by opponents. The low range just feels very awkward at times, especially when it snaps your landing point back slightly for no reason. People complained about the range back in beta, but I guess they just got used to it.

Edit: Also, a 5% nerf to AA and Vault damage are probably warranted, and we would still have top tier PvE DPS, if you want a trade off for more range.

I’d gladly take a small DPS hit for more range on Vault. But just because it does a lot of damage, that doesn’t mean it should have poor range. There’s a good reason D/P is still preferred over Staff. It’s harder to stick to your target, and Vault is extremely telegraphed.

Gun Flame Has insane damage, and is a long range attack, but it is not complained about that much because of how telegraphed it is. 800 range Vault isn’t going to break anything.

TL;DR
D/D and Staff need better gap closing ability. Slightly increase the range of Vault, and add something (up for discussion) to Dancing Dagger.

Side Note: CnD should probably also get blind, but that’s a different topic.

Longer Version
Hello everyone. I want to talk a bit about melee gap closers. S/X and D/P both have respectable options for closing the gap to either engage or chase an opponent. Shadow Shot is a fantastic chasing tool, and does good damage as well. Sword is a little bit awkward, but Infiltrators Strike/Return has the benefit of being usable outside of it’s max range, as well as immobilizing and cleansing conditions. Now that the good options are out of the way, let’s talk about the others…

D/D
This set has one, very poor gap closer. Heartseeker has half the range of Shadow Shot, and you only really want to use it when your target is <25%. HS has it’s place, though, so I recommend adding some effect to Dancing Dagger to assist with gap closing. Any ideas? You could add a flip teleport, but I think we could come up with something more unique.

Staff
Staff is a good weapon, but the range on Vault leaves something to be desired. I’d up it to 800 range (maybe 900 if nobody complains).

What kind of PvE? If it’s solo map exploring, then the build is ok ish. If it’s any kind of group content (raids, fractals, dungeons, meta events), CS needs to go in favor of venomshare in SA.

Instead, why not make CnD blind baseline, replace Concealed Defeat with the falling damage mod along with the Deception cooldown reduction, and replace Cloaked in Shadow with a new GM.

Every glider skin clips with my character’s head. It’d be nice to have the glider moved back slightly.

Sesshi.2610:

Mortifer.2946:

GW2 was always a game for casuals. If he didn’t realize it after 3 years and 6 months, it is his problem. Millions of people bought this game because it is different from grindfests like Lineage, or never-ending gear treadmill like WoW with toxicity level 10 000.

I wish him good luck in that Korean grindfest.

Ty, I wish you guys good luck aswell in this western AFK because there is nothing to do fest ^^

Please don’t claim that not having a carrot is the same as having nothing to do. Sure you may have maxed your mastery level, played all of the content, have all of the best gear, and feel there’s nothing to work towards. But there are absolutely still things to do. The question is whether you find them enjoyable enough to do without a carrot (xp, collection, legendary, etc) in front of you.

Infinite grind ensures you always have something to work for, but it doesn’t ensure that the way to work for it will be fun. Ideally, you should be able to have both goals and fun. Many people have not exhausted their goals in GW2, and they also have fun working for them. Come tell me BDO is still fun and there’s still plenty to do after spending 10k hours in it.

Sesshi.2610:

Shaogin.2679:

Sesshi.2610:

Shaogin.2679:

That was quite possibly the most boring thing I’ve ever watched. I get that it might have been somewhat difficult despite the evade spam you have access to and they guy being insanely slow, but why? You must have been really bored.

I get that you are probably terrible at the game and have no clue about soloing, but why comment on a video you didnt’t like, you must be really boring. typical gw2 casual ^^

Whoah there, way to escalate things over nothing. Didn’t realize people were so sensitive. Was simply stating that you must have been really bored to do such a thing. If you can’t handle comments without insulting people, don’t post on the forums man.

You clearly said that ‘it was the most boring thing u ever watched’
It has nothing to do with being sensitive, i replied in equal respect

He said something you did was boring to watch (understandable for a 20m long boss kill). You said he (as a person) was boring, terrible at the game, had no clue about soloing, and was a “typical casual.” I wouldn’t call that “equal respect.”

Zenith.7301:

He’s not talking about time. He’s talking about efficiency.

Sesshi.2610:

In Black Desert for example lvling is actually takes time, same with getting endgame gear, and ranking up skills etc so Its clearly just a problem with gw2 and other MMOs that cater to ppl that play like 2-3 hrs a week..

He is saying he did everything efficiently in GW, and, in contrast with BDO, that it doesn’t take long enough.

Clearly you have more time than most other people. Since there is nothing left for you to accomplish, I understand your opinion. However, many of us have a family and a life and can’t afford as much time to this game. We shouldn’t be punished with insane amounts of grinding to level up, get the best gear, etc. I am more concerned about having content that is fun than goals that take decades for the average person to accomplish.

There are a lot of great skin ideas, so I’ll stick to functionality.

New Glider Mechanics

Glider Skills

• Bomb – Toss a bomb that deals damage and provides an additional effect based on your class
• Accelerant – Gain a burst of speed for a brief period (tied to Lean mastey)
• Propellant – Propel your glider upwards (tied to Updraft mastery)
• The two remaining skills would be filled contextually, such as Exalted bombs in the Tarir meta

Glider Movement
A keybind would be held to enable the following

• Barrel Rolls
• Diving and Pulling up

It’s not just worth it, the dodge effects and damage boosts in DD make it almost a necessity in any serious PvE build.

Bound and Havoc are fantastic for power builds, Lotus Training is a unique condi DPS boost, and Dash is great for getting around. Not to mention the great utilities like Fist Flurry and Impairing Daggers. Why would you not run DD?

Edit: What kind of build are you going for?

Challenge accepted. I’ll see if I can get on tonight to try it.

“It’s all Condi-Wan’s fault! He’s holding me back!” – Anakin Crywalker

“Poweeeeeer!!!! Unnnlimmmmitttted Pooooooooweeeeeeerrr!!!!!!” – Old Man

Thanks for the explanation! Could we get a “Don’t Snap” check box that disables collision checks entirely? It should be the least expensive option, and give those of us who want it complete control over camera zoom.

Dahkeus.8243:

thunderfall.8095:

Dahkeus.8243:

I find the use of those terms distasteful. It hardly ruins my life, so please, keep your preachy life counseling to yourself. I’m not sure what makes you think that you’re some model of how to think and feel, but I have zero interest in your advice regardless.

I swear, something like this was pretty much inevitable. So many people trying so hard to tell other people how to live their lives…

And yet YOU try to tell us we can’t say ebola. Who’s the one telling who to not say something here?

Umm, you may want to read what I actually said. I never said what someone should or shouldn’t do. I said that I thought it was tasteless, but I never said said you can’t say that word.

You didn’t say not to say that word, but you did say not to share his “preachy life counseling.” He was offering his perspective, not telling you how to live your life. You responded in a very aggressive way that many would find far more offensive than using the word ebola or cancer. When someone offers thoughtful, well-meaning advice, you certainly don’t have to take it, but shoving it back in their face is not usually appreciated.

The auto is ok if it can bounce, 2 is far too slow, 3 is unreliable and akward, 4 deals sub par condi damage, 5 is great. So yeah, it’s pretty lacking.

Here’s the TL;DR version:

D/P is a good set.
Other sets are not as good.
Bound helps multiple sets, including D/P.
Nerf Bound so that everything is worse.

…Profit?

Well there’s mender for power or sage for hybrid, but with less healing power. And yeah, there are many sources of regen, so LV is probably a better bet. If they reduced the cd on venoms to 30s, I’d really be interested in Skelk Venom/LV support.

Either run condi, or drop potent poison for a different GM. Also, you kind of need Shadows Embrace for condi removal. If you go condi, try P/D so you can control your position better. You may also want DD over Trick.

It’s rough running without a stun break, but possible if you know what you’re doing.

thunderfall.8095:

reikken.4961:

doesn’t weakness do exactly nothing to bosses?
(except very slowly drain the break bar for the few seconds it’s available)

I did not know that. Also, congrats on posting about what this thread was meant for!

I believe weakness works on bosses, but it’s half as effective. Some may be immune to it, I’m not sure. Either way, raid groups won’t be looking for a weakness spammer. They want DPS.

Weakness is great vs other players though, so you can try it out in WvW. If you do want max weakness uptime, sword auto applies it, and staff 2 does as well (so no need for weakness runes or sigils). Also, Weakening Strikes gives 10% extra damage reduction vs people with weakness.

For that matter, many people refer to things as “cancer” or “cancerous.” Pretty sure many more are affected by (and die from) cancer, yet we think nothing of it.

thunderfall.8095:

The build is meant for max weakness uptime. Sorry I didn’t mention that. It has 7.5 secs of weakness for every 10 played

Completely unnecessary. Other people will also apply weakness, and besides, you could hit 70% condi duration with Viper, which improves both your condi damage and weakness uptime. Why in the world would you try and build for weakness uptime in PvE with 9 other people on your team who can also apply it?

Edit: Also, bosses with unshakable get 50% reduction to weakness duration.

Again, not saying it’s ok, but I don’t think it’s fair to gang up on the OP for “giving” the build that name, when he wasn’t the person it actually originated from.

Several other users have referred to condi spam Thief buids as “Ebola.” I agree it’s poor taste, but OP is probably just repeating a term they think the community is accustomed to. No need to criticize so harshly.

As for the build:

• DA, SA, and DD are all mandatory. You need Potent Poison, Venomous Aura, and Lotus Training for max DPS.
• Spider and Skale Venom are mandatory, and Needle Trap or Impairing Daggers are ideal third utilities. Skelk is junk.
• Viper trinkets are overkill and slightly reduce your DPS as compared to Sinister (keep Viper for everything else). Edit: Noticed you are running Carrion/Giver (thought it was Viper). Change to Sinister trinkets, Viper amulet and everything else.
• Malice and Bursting sigils are far better than what you have (poison is 40% overcapped, a huge waste, and +weakness is useless).
• Zerk, Thorn, or Trapper/Nightmare runes are far far better than RS.

OP, you are using extremely flawed logic. There are several reasons this is a terrible idea.

1. D/P is overused because it is a very well designed set. Every skill is useful and versatile. We don’t need D/P nerfed, we need more sets like it.
2. Bound provides S/P and P/P with more versatility and build options, which is exactly what we need.
3. Nobody would run Bound in PvP if it wasn’t a leap. You pigeon-hole Thief even more into one cookie cutter build with no good alternatives.

To be fair, rock paper scissors is perfectly balanced…

Dahkeus.8243:

kuritsutian.2987:

Personally I like this squishy thief meta :P …problem is hitting them tho … and keeping them in the battle… it’s like “whack a thief”

Well…it is at least easy to spot who rerolled from the previous FotM (bunker mes) to the new one (Thief) when you see thieves that think they can actually tank a hit or stick around in big team fights.

Truth. Thief is as squishy as ever, and I feel like many who swapped because they feel like the AA buff made them god tier are in for a surprise.

I’ll just leave this here. For the record, I don’t mind if Rev gets a slight boost, staff AA a slight nerf, and a small amount of the dagger AA damage moved to CnD. Overall though, it’s really not as bad as (some) people seem to be saying.

Edit: parentheses to avoid kittens.

1. Use Vault or CnD+BS on an appropriate timer (5 and 6s to maintain initiative), Steal and utils, then AA.

Edit: also, dodge ~ every 4s for Bound or Lotus bonus, and use DB for a condi build ~ 4s.

2. DD is superior due to Havoc Master and Bound

3. Power build, take Impact Strike and Fist Flurry for break bars. Condi build, share Basilisk, and use either Needle Trap plus trap on heal, or Impairing Daggers depending on your build.

Straegen.2938:

Zodryn.4216:

A wild Sneak Gyro appears! At least they addressed the cooldown, but you’re still talking 40s of stealth.

34s I think and that assumes nobody blows it up which is relatively easy. Prior to the patch it took 5s or so to kill the gyro, they had another 4s and then redeployed 10s or so later. Now there is 30s or so till they can redeploy.

Lasts 30s and pulses 4s stealth every 3s. So it’s either 40s total or 36 if you don’t get stealth on activation (I’ll have to check to be sure). Like I said, the cooldown change helps, but the counterplay for SR leaves the users revealed with a 60s cooldown. That’s pretty harsh. I think the gyro is in a mostly ok place, but SR needs a lower cooldown.

Cobrakon.3108:

It doesn’t make any sense when you think of it as a skill by itself. But when you consider how much stealth it gives you then you come to realize why getting knocked out has a penalty. It is one of those trade off skills. If your worried about getting hit out , instead of leaving throw some well placed dodges in there or go to the safest edge and only bail if you absolutely have to.

A wild Sneak Gyro appears! At least they addressed the cooldown, but you’re still talking 40s of stealth. SA is a good skill with healthy counterplay, but it really feels like the cooldown is too long.

Edit: SR not SA

I’m not saying I’m against it, but they specifically wanted one trait per weapon, so this likely won’t happen.

AsurasRCute.4136:

Zodryn.4216:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Zodryn.4216:

Also might do a Viper Zerk rune test if anyone is interested.

That would be interesting although it’s obvious that Dagger will win this.

Most definitely. I’ll probably also throw in pistol for that test.

That’ll be really interesting – cheers! If it’s not too much work, I’d be really grateful if you could include pistol in your top post’s numbers as well, using the same method. I won’t make any big point out of it, but it’d be interesting to see what we’re dealing with here.

Viper numbers are posted. I’ll add pistol DPS to the other tests when I can, but based on the viper test, I wouldn’t expect much.

Because sword gets damage and Steal cooldown reduction in Acro with Swindler’s Equilibrium, just like pistol gets Ankle Shots, and staff gets Staff Master. One trait per weapon. (except short bow <. <)

Edit: Also, Sw/X provides no other conditions. No builds would really benefit from this. Maaaaybe if you trait pressure striking, but it’s still not a great option.

The only things I really want are bug fixes and some cooldowns reduced (like Haste and RfI).

Thief

• Staff autos are a bit too strong
• Sword autos need a small boost
• Consider moving some dagger auto damage to CnD and Backstab
• Impairing Daggers don’t finish combos as they should
• Several utility cooldowns are too high

Revenant

• Sword autos were slightly overnerfed

Other

• I’d love an update on replayable Season 1 content

• Gliding in central Tyria is fantastic!

• Most of the changes in this update were really cool and exciting; keep up the good work!

Staff is better for power DPS. Dagger is still very good if you feel like running it. Dagger is superior if you run hybrid instead of power.

The limited play time I’ve had since patch has been spent testing AA DPS in the mists…they feel much more responsive though! So glad they shaved the aftercasts.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Zodryn.4216:

Also might do a Viper Zerk rune test if anyone is interested.

That would be interesting although it’s obvious that Dagger will win this.

Most definitely. I’ll probably also throw in pistol for that test.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

I believe that is pure AA chains for each weapon set

If that is the case then he’s not using all damage boost traits he claimed to have used since Bound grants an extra 10% dmg boost as well as Mug’s added DPS.

For the sake of his test, he’s actually picked all PASSIVE damage boost traits and not all damage boost traits.

You are correct. Only passive boosts, and only AA. Bound boosts damage, but also cuts into AA time since you have to dodge, and mug does not boost AA damage. As I noted in the OP, I didn’t even include the numbers using Impossible Odds, even though it boosts auto damage. I wanted numbers for consistent DPS if all you do is press 1.

I plan to do a Zerk Scholar test as well, but I didn’t have the time this morning. Edit: Also might do a Viper Zerk rune test if anyone is interested.