Guild Wars 2

If you wanna choose between strength and ogre, go for ogre. You have horrible might stacking options on d/p.

Overall pack is the meta. Perma fury and swiftness are really nice.

Another rune that is pushing into the meta is vampirism for panic strike builds. It’s not only about the mist form. The additional heal is really helful and makes your heal around 25% better.

CnD has a damage multiplicator of 1.5 in pve and 1.0 in pvp. HS has 1.0 (if the enemy is over 50% hp) in both so bp + hs deals the same amount of damage. If the enemy is under 50% bp + hs deals more damage than cnd.

The next problem is the 4 second revealed in pvp. D/D relys far more on stealth than d/p does. You can fight 1vs1’s without stealthing after your initial burst if the other class is not condi heavy.

You can also move unseen over the map, without using your refuge.

And the mentioned group utility.

yolo swaggins.2570:

You miss burnfall. lol

DarkSyze is by far the more entertaining troll. He is the only one I know, who has a friendly attitude while trolling.

It’ a really nice video. I like the idea and how you are able to pull that off.

Regarding the discussion I really don’t understand what’s the problem is. Dire/perplexity and condi thief in general is a spec to carry bad players.
But this isn’t a problem a all, because it’s not worth the trade off.
The spec has no place in pvp, pve and zerg fights. You can troll other bad ppl with it and that’s it. It’s really good to solo a keep, so what?

So I quote myself, because I did the math in may before the strength and strength rune nerf:

apocom.3172:

I did the calculation for my guild (6 points in trickery, critdmg: 190%, power 2233)

1. Phase (Fury after steal):
Pack runes:
Effektive power(crit chance basis 30%/35%/40%/45%):
3358/3459/3559/3660

strength runes:
Effektive power(crit chance basis 30%/35%/40%/45%):
3464/3572/3680/3787

2. Phase
pack runes (Fury still active):
Effektive power (crit chance basis 30%/35%/40%/45%):
3358/3459/3559/3660

strenght runes:
Effektive power(crit chance basis 30%/35%/40%/45%):
3034/3141/3249/3356

This is just a basic calculation. With strength runes you have a little bit more might (i think only 2-4 stacks without power of inertia). But sigil of fire and sigil of air will trigger more often/faster with pack runes.

I am testing this quite a while, and without power of inertia and signet of agility I recommend pack runes.

And imo nothing changed. Without power of inertia I wouldn’t touch strenght anymore. Pack is super versatile. I use them in over 95% of the time.

I brought this up, because even if I’m on sb, PS can trigger and this often can help another thief to bring down the target.

Raw numbers CS is clearly better, but the utility from DA can be really nice. ATM we mix it in our focusparty (2 DA & 2 CS + 1 Mesmer)

Oh, the Furious Maintance Oil looks nice, I will give it a try. I was thinking about using https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Toxic_Sharpening_Stone and maybe changing a weapon to giver for PS.

Vornollo.5182:

I only use D/P during guild raids (otherwise S/D) and I also use 2/6/0/0/6.
It’s quite amazing with the right setup.

I find conditions to hardly be an issue in raid setups, but for solo/small scale roaming you might prefer going 0/6/2/0/6 for the condition clearing outside of shadowstep.

There is a lot of discussion in our focusparty which build is better (DA or CS). I agree with you, you don’t need the condi remove during a guildraid, and I was also a big CS fan. But espacially for GvG’s DA brings you good utility. If you work with another thief, he goes bp, I switch to sb, blast the field. 10 sec cooldown on weapson swap. Target gets called, first shot immobilizes the target, he steals (daze) backstab, next shot immobilizes again. An ele with mistform on cd is dead. Or you steal→backstab→hit→immobilize. If the rage sigil kicks in, its so much damage.

And I am less on sb with DA. Not entirely sure why.

Lately I’m running PS most of the time, and imo its one of the best builds even for wvw.

2/0/6/0/6 is too defensive for me and I just can’t run without trickery anymore.

2/6/0/0/6 is also nice, but alot other solo roamers are using dire gear with perplexity (god thanks this doesn’t exist in pvp) or celestial.

It’s not a learning issue, the trait is just bad.

Just assume you are some kind of perfect player, that you have every information at every point in time. That you know everything about the current situation.
But you will never know if the next hit is a crit and can you bring under the health threshold or not. You cannot know if air/fire will proc or not.

So you are in a situation, where it is impossible to decide if you should use for example CnD or not.

And that is bad design for a trait that you are forced to use, if you don’t run s/x and want to have some condi remove in the cele meta.

It’s like last refuge. Move along, here is nothing to see.

I like the change. Some spots are not valid anymore, but there are new spots now. And I don’t waste initiative anymore if a port fails. IMO the best change ever.

If you can dodge their PBS you can use infil sigil for the engage. If they play with GS you can stay on s/d, if they play s/d it depends. Most rangers just spam the skills, so you can also stay save on s/d (nearly every single ranger i have met, is using the dodge in succession)

Why are you engaging with CnD? 6 initiative for a 1.5 dmg multiplicator is high.

Are you playing acro or sa s/d? With acro s/d you don’t run out of dodges against a ranger.
Save your steal for rapid fire. Dodge their knockback. Profit.
Most LB ranger just suck, I would say it’s the easiest fight for a thief, but I’ve met one very good in a 1vs1 arena.

I have only read the first page and was disappointed. Expected more qq.

If you guys wanna know what a hardcounter is, play a d/p thief against a mediguard.

The reason why people play other classes is obvious.

Thief is so op, its like playing with cheats. You just cannot loose against anything, and good players can pull a 1 vs 15 (youtube has the vids).

The problem is, that playing thief is so easy, that people are getting bored (tossing a coin is more complex), so they play different classes.

And there is a gentlemans agreement. If everyone would play a thief, the game would be boring, so people play other classes to save esport.

shatter
<15 chars>

I don’t get these discussions.

SA (beyond 2 points) is useless in:

- pvp
- pve
- wvw zerg focusparty

It’s good for trolling people in 1vs1. Oh look, there is no 1vs1 game mode.

A thief can disengage, so what?

In wvw you have all the 1vs1 heros with dire gear and perplexity runes. There are so many cheesy builds but its not a problem, because it’s not a kitten 1vs1 game mode.

RashanDale.3609:

apocom.3172:

But there is already a sniper spec in the game (LB ranger) so it would be a little bit redundant.

But thats not a sniper, thats a machine gun spec. ^^

I love the idea of rifle thieves, but a 1200 range burst weapon combined with stealth and thiefs insane mobility just sounds so broken. They really have to be careful with its skills

I disagree. LB is high range single target burst. Beside the animation, the gameplay is like a sniper rifle.

On the other point I agree. I think it will be broken.

I think some people like the idea of beeing a sniper.

But there is already a sniper spec in the game (LB ranger) so it would be a little bit redundant.

On the other side, with our high mobility and great access to stealth, I cannot see how this would be good balanced. A rifle would be either op or just meh like p/p imo.

There is a reason why we have no valid distance weaponset.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

I guess I am the only one who doesn’t want rifle for thieves

Definitely not. I rly hope we only get new melee options. For everyone else there is the ranger.

I am more of an WvW focused player, so I changed the build a little more defensive.

5/6/0/3/0 for lvl 50 frac. Everything zerker. The additional dodges are so good.

The author has a clear idea of what he is talking about. Because:

“As an individual who plays both a Mesmer and a Thief, I’m well aware of each classes limitations”

“it’s the combination of readily available stealth and evasion”
Is he talking about the infamous 20066 d/p or the s/d thieves abusing CnD?

“when using Sword/Dagger. The latter build still relies heavily on Mug”
God thanks, i was thinking about the Air/Fire combi. Does he know that Mug cannot crit for ages?

“burst damage against anything other than a Celestial or Cleric is too high especially when both classes are playing together”

Yeah, because 2 full glass cannon zerker builds shouldn’t deal so much damage.

" the fact the Mesmer had no opportunity to ever target me (I stealthed after my first Backstab)"

Because 4 seconds of revealed are not enough to target a thief. It’s a fact. It’s physically impossible to hit a single button in a 4 second interval.

“I only used 5 skills and critically hit 4”

I hope he is not waiting for Mug to crit.

“Having almost 8 seconds of stealth on a Thief”

What 8 seconds? I have no idea of a skill combination that grants 8 second of stealth.

" If there’s ever going to be build variety outside of the extremes of pure damage or pure defence, there has to be some sort of balance pass across Critical Hit Chance, Critical Hit Damage, Evasion and Stealth. Without this, I suspect Guild Wars 2’s PvP will always be one of extremes."

Is he not talking about the cele Meta? Which extreme is this Meta?

And a lot more…..

He played S/D first, switched for a few rounds to D/P and is playing most rounds know with S/D sometimes switching back.

I think it depends on the player skill. If both players are mediocre i would place my money on the d/d ele, because it is more mistake tolerant.

But for really good players d/p should have the upper hand.

On the other hand, i’m watching Narcarsis right know, he is duelling a d/d ele and its 4:1 for the ele atm.

Yeah, use the meta build for dungeons.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Thief_-_D/D_S/P_Shortbow

I don’t know why swiftness is so important for you. The best thing a thief can do is bringing damage to the table (or stealth to skip parts).

I use Bowl of Seaweed Salad most. If you have problems with conditions you can also use Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup, but it is just better that you learn how to dodge.

Made my day. I had to double check the date of the op, just to make sure nobody necrod.

Ok, you have problems to find a thief that is not running 6 points into acro and trickery? The same thieves with 16k backstabs and condi cleanse in stealth?

Yeah Anet plz. This is so op. I seriously don’t understand why the thief class is the only class that gets every patch huge buffs.

The Assassin’s Equilibrium buff alone. It last now 50% longer. That’s making thieves 50% stronger. Anet keep calm and take a look at the poor warrior.

Hi, I’ve running this build for a few hours now and it is suprisingly good and fun. I don’t know, but I think it doesn’t look that good on paper.

And I agree with mango and Carpboy. Swapping RFI for IS was one of the first things I’ve done. Feels smoother for me.

I don’t play a mesmer, but shatter mesmer clearly needs a huge nerf. I will briefly explain why.

- skill cap way too high. Really great mesmer can outplay people. Buff phantasm instead, so you lower the skill floor to a.i. niveau. Like turret engi.

- Mesmer has counters like thieves and condi pressure. Thats not good. Make something with celestial instead.

- Due to the low sustain mesmer fights are really fast. But for viewers who are old and slow its to fast to see what they are doing. Make it more like the fight between two d/d cele eles. Such fights have a great length of around 10 minutes and lots of particle effects to make it more intense.

- More condi spam. The scepter change was great, but not enough to bring it into the meta.

Just my 2 cents.

I always enjoy good thief gameplay vids. Even it’s not new.

Keep up the good work.

What I really like in this forum section, is that normally nobody comments such a video, so the thread just disappears silently.

Geiir.7603:

First of all: Dagger/Pistol is perfectly fine as it is. The problem are Shadow Arts, and one trait particularly; Infusion of Shadows. It is the only trait that makes this set work, because it makes it possible to chain 4 Heartseekers in one field. Literally no other build use that trait.

Nope, did not work anymore. You have to trait in Trickery for that.

3 storage panes with armor, a half storage pane with weapons, and another one with trinkets.

I like to test a lot and try to find the builds that suits me best.

Ok, just some suggestions to make the thief less op, based on things written in this topic.

The damage of the thief is too high, even with zerker amulett.
soltution: Reduce the melee damage to 90% maybe. The thief, a melee glass cannon, should not deal too much damage.
To compensate for that, we could improve the range of the shortbow to 1200, with traits to 1500. Because the thief is the only profession with no 1200 range option.
Additonally the thief needs some more AOE. Because single target damage should be bad, the thief needs something like combustive shot, meteor shower or something like that. Maybe more CC.

Dodges are to OP, so they had to be nerfed. SoA has to go. 2 free dodges, come on. Replace it with Endure Pain. Also replace Feline Grace with Defy Pain.

And you cannot interrupt withdraw. Thats really op. Replace it with Healing Signet, and increase the activation time to 2 seconds, just to make sure you can interrupt it.

And Flanking Strike is an evade and deals damage? How op. Replace it with a non damage evade like burning speed or whirlwind attack.

Ok, whats next? Stealth op in PvP on a S/D thief? Ok, here i’m lost.

Rune of the pack is better, if you don’t stack might with power of inertia. You have perma speed and fury with trickery. But you don’t need this, if you trait in acro too.

coverdale.8903:

Although this may seem stupeed pweeze teach shortbow to

just logged in to ask for the same

messiah.1908:

with some trait/utilities variation in zerg v zerg the condi thief can do the same as power one

No, an organized zerg has too much coni remove. With a casterkiller group you can kill targets within a split second. Show me how you do this with a condi group.

I am a little bit curious why you defend this spec so much. If this brings you the most fun, have fun. It is a game, and this is the most important part. But if you want that others consider you as a great player, this is maybe the wrong spec.

Every class has some easy builds, so this is the one for thieves. And it’s called cheese for some reasons:

-useless in pve
-useless in pvp
-useless in zerg vs zerg (thief has only one job, casterkiller)

So for roaming and some 1vs1 it is op. I have beaten better players than me with this spec. On the other hand, i think everyone can just outrun a p/d thief, so there no reason for fighting such a spec. It’s like a pu condi mesmer, if you leave them alone, they cannot achieve much.

Cast CnD when you see the flanking strike animation. It should hit immediatly after you got hit by flanking strike. Both have 1/2 sec cast/animation time. Worked fine for me so far, but I fought only bad s/d thieves with d/d.

Best way to learn is going into the arena and play against different professions and builds.
If you have problems with some, you can ask the other player how exactly something works and you can play the exact same situation again and again.

Zach.3264:

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.

You realise that this threads tend people to spam hs? Because some people cannot find their dodge key and so they think that hs is op.

Srsly, I think I can beat a hs spammer with a warrior, guardian, engi, thief without even moving.

I think that the hs spam op, thieves are skilless noobs mentality is now a component of the genetic code of the playerbase.

No matter if you play sword or pistol mainhand, if you beat your opponent you are a skillless hs spamming noob. It’s a pavlov reflex.

I just wanna say thank you for this guide. Normally I play only thief, but this great guide has helped me to get an idea of the mysteries of a shatter mesmer.

Keep up the good work.

You can go without SR if you play 1vs1 in pvp, but in spvp SR is your best group supporting utility. SR can turn the tide.

In WvW Ranger, because they are a free kill.
In PvP Thieves, because most of them are just bad.

I did the calculation for my guild (6 points in trickery, critdmg: 190%, power 2233)

1. Phase (Fury after steal):
Pack runes:
Effektive power(crit chance basis 30%/35%/40%/45%):
3358/3459/3559/3660

strength runes:
Effektive power(crit chance basis 30%/35%/40%/45%):
3464/3572/3680/3787

2. Phase
pack runes (Fury still active):
Effektive power (crit chance basis 30%/35%/40%/45%):
3358/3459/3559/3660

strenght runes:
Effektive power(crit chance basis 30%/35%/40%/45%):
3034/3141/3249/3356

This is just a basic calculation. With strength runes you have a little bit more might (i think only 2-4 stacks without power of inertia). But sigil of fire and sigil of air will trigger more often/faster with pack runes.

I am testing this quite a while, and without power of inertia and signet of agility I recommend pack runes.

For me S/D is simply the most fun to play build.
D/D becomes hollow after a while, because it is nearly everything about landing your CnD.
D/P feels just too slow. #5-#2 combo takes a whole second until you are stealthed. Best set for trolling people.
P/D is strong now, but has imo a boring gameplay.
P/P yeah, of course
S/P while it is strong I hate the rooting effect of #3.

2/0/0/6/6 S/D is not only powerful, it is such a fast and amazing gameplay. After the sword #2 nerf, and the vigor nerfs it feels a little bit like in the old days

The positioning with p/d is easier.

Regarding your video, I am really surprised. I was looking for some p/d action, because some of my guild members are playing p/d and I only know your condi vids.
But your d/d gameplay was really good and entertaining. Thanks for uploading such great fights, even if you could not achieve something in some fights. You have some great movement that doesn’t shine when you play p/d.
One of the best vids I have seen in a while.

I think Sizer is the best thief too. I really like watching him playing.

Even Caed is running this build now. I never thought he will put his d/p aside.

EDIT: He changed back to d/p in the 2nd round vs APEX.

Coloxeus.3480:

apocom.3172:

OC the winner of the EU tournament of the legends are gaining attention. Same for their specs.

And after a few days of the final the first qq threads about this spec started, a lot of ppl (including me) are trying this spec at the moment, and the first vids about ppl running this spec occur.

So forgive me if I think that the specs popularity is drastically increased, because Sizer runs this spec last weekend.

i want to see any videos?

Your video.

Sry. I know your vids, i am watching them since i play gw2. After the tourney I discussed the build with some ppl and I think it is pushing into the meta right now. So after I saw your video, uploaded after a few days of the tournament, I thought you just copied Sizers build and made a video around it. I dont know if Sizer was the first person running this build, but he made it famous.