Guild Wars 2

In sPvP most of your stats come from your amulet/jewel. Runes on your armor (plus their natural defense stat) are the only stats you gain from your actual armor.

Balance is actually fairly decent, regardless of what most people say. As soon as the bugs get fixed, balance would be even better.
But yes, the game should be balanced around tPvP where people actually know what the heck they’re doing.

I actually really like this idea. Maybe if one team is outnumbered, instead of neutralizing the point and capping it the point is just neutralized and no one gains any points? Just a suggestion. I also think that (in general) the more people are on a point the faster it should cap.
to the OP:
You did a much better job writing in English then most people on this forum. +1

Trust me, a melee thief will definitely feel the pain of a 66% movement decrease.
Should it affect Initiative recharge? Eh, I don’t know.

What?? So I can drop the cruddy Mesmer runes for runes of divinity and still have the same daze time with just 1 sigil of paralazation? Cool.

Wow, do some people think that skill is not >than just about anything and everything?
Do we even play the same game?
If I lost it’s because I didn’t play well enough, and my opponent made less mistakes then me.

You do not deal low damage with S/D. C&D into steal is equivalent to a PW in terms of raw damage, plus you Have access to a powerful daze. Auto attack frequently crits for over 3k and DD is just deadly to 2 people. It provides meaningful control and pressure damage. It is certainly viable in tPvP. ( Shadow Refuge FTW!)

@Ara
RainyThief has a couple of really good sword/dagger videos. One with 10 in SA and the other with 30 in SA. Both are about 45 minutes and are extremely informative.
@ whoever asked about 10 points in shadow arts is worth it. It absolutely is. Grab Infusion of Shadow and C&D suddenly begins much more initiative efficient than before. You also gain 2 initiative from Hide in Shadows and any other stealth skill.

Thieves have a low skill floor, which means they are easy to do well with against run of the mill players. Also, the stealthy/sneaky archetypes are always popular.

@Mogar (reply isn’t working again)
So what you’re saying is that, I, who have done homework on all the classes, who knows what the most effective build, gear combination, weapon setup, and skill execution, should have a “fair” chance to win/lose to some random person that just slapped together a random build with some random traits and gear selection? NO THANK YOU.
I think the game should try to be balanced at all levels, but when it comes down to it the game MUST be balanced around high level play. Don’t cater to the lowest common denomanitor. I have invested more time and management into this game than some random scrub who just strolls into PvP one day, so why should he be just as succesful as me? You should REWARD the people that work the hardest, not give out handouts to people that don’t try.
/rant

Devs balance around PvP (generally) and release content for PvE much more often than for PvP. Take a look at the newest update. What did PvPers get? Not much, aside from a few balance changes. Not even the promised paid tourneys were released! Don’t talk about being “the red haired stepchild” just because Assassins Signet was changed to cause less frontloaded damage. PvP often takes the back seat to keep the large crowd of PvErs happy.

Last time I checked (in the beta), initiative actually regenerated at a rate of .75 initiative every 1 second. In other words, every 4 seconds that goes by you gain 3 initiative. The official website is incorrect in that fact (we also start with 12 base initiative, not 10). Please correct me if I’m wrong anyone or my info is outdated.

I’m pretty sure other players view you as being in stealth.

CnD-Steal is just like using abilities that are not on the GCD in other MMOs. What’s the difference here? Okay, he closed the distance and is in stealth. Maybe you should CREATE some distance? The worst possible thing you can do is stand still or backpedal.

This sounds more like an exploit than anything, unless its the rendering issue. If he was “perma-stealthed” then there was no way he was downing people left and right unless he hacked. I’m calling cheats on this one.

uncop.5073:

If you’re a beginner, play a simple, defensive build. With a complicated, offensive build (say; ele, engineer) you will just be dying a lot. With a simple, offensive build (berserker warrior or thief) you may get a lot of kills and feel awesome, but you’ll either kill or die so fast you won’t learn what the game is about and will instead end up posting whine treads about imbalances.

Playing a basic soldier’s amulet guardian or staff+sword mesmer you see in slow motion how battles work. What each build might want to do to you and how you can prevent it. Take all the tools (stun breaker, condition removal, stun/immobilize/knockback) and try them out on everything. Firstly you will never (well, rarely) feel like you had no way to survive. The game will feel more fair. Secondly you’ll have to learn to make the best out of your respectable but flawed damage engine.

This knowledge will help you play that glass cannon. Glass cannons play faster, can’t make as many mistakes, are extremely reliant on the same defensive utility guardians/mesmers have in abudance, and need to know how to make their enemy stay there and eat damage when he’s decent enough to react to your most obvious combo.

^
Playing a glass cannon is the equivalent of playing a FPS. You make one mistake and you’re dead.

phaeris.7604:

Yes, this is spvp talk, ergo the name of the forum. He and I weren’t wrong at all.

Even if you were correct (and you’re not), and thieves ran with 10k hps, Auto attack would still have to swing at 3.3k+ a swing. Which is completely impossible no matter how you spec.

I think he meant 2-3 auto attack chains. If your ranged that would be 6-9 attacks.

Patience in the Shadow Arts tree should say you gain 1 extra initiative per second, not 1 initiative per second.

Rickshaw is pulling your leg. aka, trolling. Max glory per match is something like 350, so the fact that he “beat” the OP by 400 should have been a clear sign.

After reading the first paragraph, I thought the OP might be Merciless (no offense Merciless, but constant complaints get old after awhile).

Your second post was almost as funny as the first. 9.5/10.

I love fighting people that stand still… Such easy pickings.

Outplaying them works if they dont get the drop on you. Keeping up Infiltrators Strike to be able to instantly create distance and break stun ( this will save your life).
Going 30 into Shadow Arts is a good soft counter that rewards you for stealthing. Playing S/D is generally the anti-Thief build in general.

Typical Scenario against noob Backstabber:
He uses Steal-CnD-Backstab, but misses BS because I used Shadow Return from IS. I use CnD-Steal-Tactical Strike for a 3 second daze, and then pound his squishy face into the ground with the Sword autoattack.

C&D is commonly joked about having to be in kissing range to land, and it’s been that way for quite some time. Maybe the fact that you took a break from Thief made you forget how close you had to be to land C&D?

When you go into stealth and it looks like it didn’t work, look at your 1 skill to see if it changed to the stealth skill. Other people see that we have gone into stealth, but it doesn’t show up on our screen (kinda like the opposite of the rendering issue).

I would love to see this feature as well. Simple solution: if you log out in the Mists, your PvP armor should show up in the character select. You log out in PvE, you see your PvE armor.

I have no idea, but I would assume it’s very high. I think the max you can get from each match is 350 Glory, not counting all the extra 5 glory for “top player” stuff.

Anvil Rock is U.S. I might have to take you up on that offer OP…

I can’t link it to you right now, but Lowell has put together an amazing guide at the GW2Guru forums. It’s under the Thief PvP section. It’s really good.

Daecollo.9578:

Wow, I like how you named alot of our utility skills, you realize if we USED all those condition removals we could no longer kill you with back stab..right?

You need assassin’s signet so backstab does damage.
You need Signet of Shadows so when you go into stealth you arn’t moving like your snared. (STEALTH SLOWS YOU.)
You need atleast Shadowstep to get away if you miss, which you do, ALOT.

Theres no way to have that AND condition removal, its impossible.

You’re right. If a Thief was bursting with backstab he won’t have condition removal or really any other utilities besides maybe a signet or a stun break.
However, S/D has pretty decent burst (C&D→Steal→Pommel Strike is easily 6-7k damage, plus a 2 second daze) as well as having options to choose condtion removal, stun breaks, and stuff like Signet of Shadows. Try it out sometime. Its quite fun.

The same sigil on main hand and offhand is a waster for things with an ICD. ie, sigil of fire procs and goes on cooldown. Then, the other sigil can proc during the first ones ICD. They wont hit at the same time or even close together. I would use a sigil of air and sigil of fire instead of 2x sigil of fire.

I am recently playing a S/D Thief in tPvP. People have no idea what on earth I’m doing when I fight them because the spec is not used very much. Anyone care to guess what that means? I don’t rely on Backstab or Heartseeker or Pistol Whip to win the day.

… You sure do like high Initiative costs.

It’s not my “oh crap” button. I use it for the stealth skills that are only available in stealth and general confusion/positioning. Shadowstep is my “oh crap” button. That, and other stun breakers/ distance creators.

@Lan
Consider it a hybrid of S/P and D/D, because thats basically what it is.
The Autoattack of the Sword hits EXTREMELY hard. 1 chain can do 6-6.5k damage fairly easily. Heck, everything except Infiltrator’s Strike hits pretty dang hard. It lacks burst, but has very good, steady, DPS.
10 points in SA will solve the high cost of C&D.
Don’t forget, IS is also a 1200 range stunbreaker. I concur with the faster attack of dagger, but the Sword chain applies a cripple for easier control.

S/D is for people that want a high damage build without the instagib components of our other weapon sets. Its fun, challenging, and downright deadly when played right.

Well, at least they (hopefully) won’t nerf backstab and will do the right thing (Assassin’s Signet).

Ianervan.3415:

This is not L2P issue.

Thief needs 1,5sec to kill someone in full berserker gear. From distance. From stealth.
All other professions need 10+ seconds to kill someone in full berserker gear. Guardians and Warriors can hit hard, but they still need to travel the distance.

And do you think thief will die in 1,5sec to full toughness full vita profession? Do you think thief will die AT ALL to full vita full toughness class? It won’t. It can run away.

Do you think a full berserker thief will die in 1,5sec to full berserker non-thief profession? No, it won’t. Nowhere close that time.

What if my profession instakilled everyone in a radius of 600? I know, you would type L2P. “Oh, just keep distance, you know, you can outrun him, or teleport away, or cripple him.” No. It would be silly. It would not be a L2P issue. I would be a BUG issue. Therefore I’m reporting it as a bug.

I assume you mean 1.5 seconds, not 1,5 seconds.
You also say it is not a L2P issue when it cleary is. Apparently, Thieves can now kill people in 1.5 seconds while in stealth at range! Woohoo!
You got hit by a Backstab, but you get hit from range. What?
Also, WvW is a horrible measuring devive for class balance. Gear is a VERY large factor there. Good luck getting those kind of numbers in sPvP.
Final rating:
2/10. Bad troll is bad.

So I was going to post this long-winded post, but my Internet decided it was time to stop working when I had finished writing.

Anyway: there are 2 main ways to play S/D. With lots of stealth and 30 points in Shadow Arts, or just basic C&D and 10 points in Shadow Arts. 20 points in Trickery allows for boon strippage via Bountiful Theft, and makes fighting Guardians and Eles easy. Thats basically what I was going to say.

Backstab, almost definitely. Then Unicorn. Then, anything.

Attention all good Thieves!
Please roll a S/D spec and continue to own people.
Record it and put it on the forums. Please. Just to show people (and other Thieves) that BS/PW/HS spam is not the only viable spec.

Yeah you can stack that 10s of stealth, but if you Backstab you just wasted 10s of stealth! Congrats. Or you can, you know, use C&D, Blinding Powder, or any other stealth skill. Shadow Refuge is working as intended.

ChillyChinaman.6057:

You hear the term glass cannon being used a lot, but what exactly does it mean?
Is there a range of numbers for attack/armor/health that qualifies one for being a glass cannon?

As an example, I play as a GS ranger with 3352 attack, 2030 armor, and 20372 health.
Am I a glass cannon? I also run a trap build with stats around 2600/2300/2200. Is the a glass cannon build?

And then in contrast, what exactly is a tanky/bunker build?

A glass cannon build is something that does lots of burst damage (the “cannon” part) and is very fragile (the “glass” part). A bunker build is a build that has high health/toughness, able to hold points well due to immunities and crowd control (commonly called CC), and often provides good support to teammates.

I don’t know very much about rangers, but you have a very high attack with decent health. Most glass cannon builds drop someone in less than 5 seconds. Thats the point of a glass cannon. If your ranger can do that, then yeah, he’s probably a glass cannon.

+1. Good post man.

A Necro with wells and boon stripping. Or a ranged class that stacks conditions.
No boons=free kill.

But it will force all the PvPers to PvE in order to get gold to buy gems. I don’t want to PvE. I want to PvP.

@ Everyone:
Thanks for the feedback!

@Ilshenar
I’m mostly concerned about PvP. Thanks for the rifle spec though!

Flame and Legionaire are some awesome skins, at least for PvP.

Animosity.5231:

I know about the stealth bug, but the problems is the ability to do 20k damage in around 2 seconds by activating C&D, hitting Steal before it finishes to ensure you land it, then Backstabbing. If everything crits and you get a Sigil proc, it can easily do 20k damage. Shouldn’t be like that. This kind of stuff promotes 1-dimensional builds with Thieves and prevents them from ever getting buffed in other areas.

I would like to see other kinds of builds as well (like a S/D one), but to pull of that 20k damage is more than just C&D and Steal. It involves a Signet and at least one venom (sometimes 2) all popped within 1-2 seconds,plus manuvering to the back of the target.

R E F L H E X.8413:

Zunhar.4079:

@ REFLHEX
WvW is not a very good standard to measure things by due to most not having good gear and not being lvl 80. But yes, having an invulnerable skill is EXTREMELY beneficial when fighting any class with burst skills

I used wvw for my example because i tend to stay away from spvp. However, what I said will go for both formats, you invulnerability that initial bust and put them in a bit of trouble, but the cloak and dagger is repeatable twice I think in a short period of time but it will lack the steal.

And yes I’m pretty sure these numbers can be done in spvp this looks like it was on forest of nifhel.

They can be done in sPvP but require much more setup and work. Depending on how the Thief traits (read, lots of initaitve regain) he can pull of 3 CnD in a row, but is then worthless for several seconds.

Burrid.4739:

They will be dominated by thief/mesmer, so no, I don’t want it.

So bring a bunker. Or a condi class with AoE.

I would like to see 1v1 dueling and 3v3 matchups. Other game matches like Team Deathmatch, CTF, and King of the Hill would all be really cool. I’m content to wait for now with the promise of paid tournies and custom arenas (sweet!), but many people aren’t, and will go backs to games that have a ranking system, etc (LoL, DotA, etc.)

@ REFLHEX
WvW is not a very good standard to measure things by due to most not having good gear and not being lvl 80. But yes, having an invulnerable skill is EXTREMELY beneficial when fighting any class with burst skills

@OP
That Backstab crit was really high. Unusually high. This is what happens when you have lots of health but no toughness (not saying that an 18k hit is acceptable).

@Animosity
Stealth in GW2 (as of now) is currently bugged/glitched. When any profession (not just Thieves) come out of stealth, they are not visible to you for another 2-3 seconds. That needs to be fixed ASAP. I know that you’re like woah, i just died in like 2 seconds, but that’s how fast that Thief dies if he gets nailed. I think fixing bugged traits for all the professions and the rendering of stealth working would do wonders for people fighting against Thieves. But yeah, their damage is a little over the top with the Backstab spec (this is coming from a Thief).