Guild Wars 2

dkayl.6509:

make a video fighting good chronos or the other new elites… you can get 1 shot by the warrior.. chronos perma block.. xD

I’d rather make the vid you suggested only after HoT release, cuz things can shake up and down during this betas. But I’ll definately do so after expansion hits.

Mintyfreshsmell.1568:

Im seriously going to play this game again just because of this video. I love the thief and I do think they are a bit UP atm, but your video gave me hope again. WOuld you make a tips are tricks guide. Just watching your vid I’ve gathered a few tricks but I’d like to see more if i missed any.

I was planning to make T&T guide from this vid, but seems like my next video will be guide for thieves:)

ResJudicator.7916:

Wasn’t aware that autobalance notifications appeared in ranked PvP… (at 1:30)

Well, yeah, there are 2 moments from HJ plays, First on 1:28 and second on 16:13.
And while first get there occasionally, I noticed it only after rendering, the second one get there cause of fancy 1v2.

You have good attention
The rest of it is ranked Q.

messiah.1908:

you sure its ranked? as at the start the icon of “team too big” came up so its hot join 5v3 match and not ranked….

but nice fight nevertheless

Well, yeah, there are 2 moments from HJ plays, First on 1:28 and second on 16:13.
And while first get there occasionally, I noticed it only after rendering, the second one get there cause of fancy 1v2.

The rest of it is ranked Q.

Hello guys, I’m Faeleth, and I’m glad to present my new video, representing my D/P gameplay.

https://youtu.be/5amF0g6--x4
This video shows top-tier EU matchmaking matches.

Video has 4 chapters:
1. Thief encounters: 0:13-6:44
2. +1 Section 6:45-14:54
3. Carrying stuff: 14:55-20:35
4. 1vs1 part: 20:37-till end.
Hope you enjoy!

During vid i’m using two builds:

Classic DA/SA/Tr with rage sigil/scholar rune (http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-g3RV;1Vw-_07-R-Fd0;9;4IKM;0158247237;4IBm3U;1G;5a0C)

CS/SA/Tr (http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-g3RV;1Vw-_07-R-Fd0;9;4JKM;0246247137;4IBm3U;1G;5a0E)

Both builds are viable in top-tier matches, have their own playstyle.
Any questions or feedback will be appreciated, Except the fact I’m not that good at montage

Heya, my shadow folks, I’m glad to present my new video, representing my D/P gameplay.

https://youtu.be/5amF0g6--x4
This video present top-tier EU matchmaking matches.

Video has 4 chapters:
1. Thief encounters: 0:13-6:44
2. +1 Section 6:45-14:54
3. Carrying stuff: 14:55-20:35
4. 1vs1 part: 20:37-till end.
Hope you enjoy!

During vid i’m using two builds:
Classic DA/SA/Tr with rage sigil/scholar rune (http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-g3RV;1Vw-_07-R-Fd0;9;4IKM;0158247237;4IBm3U;1G;5a0C)
CS/SA/Tr (http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-g3RV;1Vw-_07-R-Fd0;9;4JKM;0246247137;4IBm3U;1G;5a0E)

Both builds are viable in top-tier matches, have their own playstyle.

Any questions or feedback will be appreciated, Except the fact I’m not that good at montage

Unlock me. Can’t join any Q

Didn’t read topic, but as I said about a half a year ago: “steal has to be trated to become at least useful class mechanic”
Look, now you have to put at least 4 traits into steal for it to become superior thief ability, but without traiting it is a shadowstep+1 ability on a 35 sec cd being close to useless.

In my opinion, at least mug and thrill of the crime should be Baseline, not sleight of hand, because it bring whole new level to steal,
Probably, we can merge bountiful and SoH, because these traits combine and synergize very well. Actually if you take SoH there is no reason to not take Bountiful.

In perfect world it would be all 4 traits: mug, bouuntiful, thirll of the crime, SoH merged in one trait to open thief some viable build diversity, because now you either go 4 steal traits with full trickery lane bound to particular ones + mug, or you can’t play the game succesfully and meta is not the reason.

As a simple fix to slick shoes would be the same they made to FGS and other burning paths:
Just make oil slicks not stack on top of each one – bam, problem fixed.

Jelzouki.4128:

No I’m just trying to prove that stronghold has the potential to turn into courtyard if you’re against competent players. But if that’s how you want to take it then ya I’m the best player NA.

It can’t turn into courtyard as long as any player doesn’t want to be farmed. Because there are plenty of objectives on a map.
If you’re farmed at one point, get to treb, get supplies, go offensive. It will force splits. And as long as you are 5v5 any member of your team can do this.

So, in general, how on earth stronghold with a target of finishing lord can turn into deathmatch Courtyard?
Not taking into consideration the situation when players are just bad.

So, you faced well-known good players in a premade, while in your words you were playing solo, and manage to win by using map mechanics?
This is so wrong dude!..
You should’ve lost because you can’t win against good guys farming your head.

Or wait, did you just boast?

Starlightmagus.8654:

That said, it’s not an IDEAL SPvP build, but it can be quite viable in the right hands.

Conditions on thief are quite lackluster. Whats the point of playing conditions in sPvP beside hotjoin?
The fact is, you retain mobility, losing burst, and prolonging your fight, while losing point to anyone because of stealth… And actually you won’t kill your assaulter, keep it pressured – yes, but killing alone will take too much time.
In teamfight you’d make your target use condi cleanses, hm, which classes have very few of them? thief? mesmer? You know, when your damage starts to tick heavily, enemy thief already took a sip at your ele, or killed mesmer, or both lol. Basically, you’re just taking a spot of engi or condi ranger, that trolling stuff while other guys doing job with one minus – you have to stealth because out of it you deal no pressure beside CDs.
So, my question again. Whats the point of condi thief?
We may talk about viability, but for playing thief for like (since beta weekends?) I haven’t met a proper condithief-dude that would show pretty sexy action. And when i’m talking haven’t met I mean none of them were doing well-enough for me to say: “wow, condi can do kitten”.
Current tournament meta and any given past, except for first tournament where it was “VENOMSHAREKITTEN!”, had no condi thief in it and none of teams had it. If you don’t trust me, trust the facts.
You should be just love being different, may be condi thief is a good way for it. But teams and other players usually blame the ones who different, isn’t_it?

This was fixed today. YAY!

Dude,
Thief is awesome class and very close to being OP.
The fact is (music ppl will understand) you need 10k hours of learning to master it.
Not hotjoin crunching, not Qing as random, but 10k of hours learning thief’s mechanics, skill timings etc.

When playing any build with 30 in trickery (daze on steal) your key ability is… steal!
But most of thieves forget that during fight they should be mainly on SB, switching to d/p for bursts and melee cleave. (65% SB – 35% d/p)
Example (I’m playing executioneer 26006):
-When should I burst ele? Once ele popped protection or protection+stability, you can steal it and go face-to-face with him, his melting under autoattacks, drop some random blinds with #3 and #5 at d/p, try not to stick to point, because that way you’ll die very fast. Your key is draining him with SB, forcing to rotate attunements, while you just pew-pew from distance. You outmove ele quite easily with #5 on SB. Ofc we are talking about that d/d guy. Because other eles die pretty easily to bursts and backstabs.
-When should I burst engie? Bursting engie is a no good idea for you, but still, there are different match-ups and kitten happens, so, FIRST OF ALL, check automated response+protection injection (#3-4 with SB, #3-4 with d/p) if protection popped – steal it and go face-to-face. Engis are quite tricky and bound to their heal. When you jump on him, he’d often dodge away and pop heal. So you know what to do, you have that 1/2 second cast to interrupt (try to spam #4 few times while waiting for his heal). Out of heal in rotation for few secs, engi gonna use #4 shield on tool kit, and try to survive, thats where you should try to control his heal again. In other words, there are no reliable method to take engi off, but, you can time your steal+dazes to make him confused. Keep distance with SB and try not to eat a lot of condis, otherwise you have to use shadowstep for cleanse.
Warriors are pretty easy when they don’t have berserker stance, when they do, just kite it and pick him out later. Main damage combo that you land to warrior is a smoke-field+whirling axe. So basically, you steal in any given moment, when you want, then rolling around for 15-16 seconds avoiding stuff and landing pressure (try not to waste a lot of ini this time), then start to whirl (your steal is already off cd, you can steal him again while whirling). Don’t feel warriors are giving problem.
Mesmers?? Ok , face-to-face him and outstealth his stealth. you have it on demand and stolen ability make it for you.
Rangers – power rangers are one-trick-pony, they live primarily cuz of signet, so #3 with d/p over him. Wait for signet pop – stealth – pick him off. Condi rangers are easy due to stolen item, that cleanse you and give water field, that you required to blast.
Guardian – kite the burst, guardian have shelter and elite meditation. These abilities give him chance to make few mistakes against thief and not to die. Try not face-to-face the hammer, and deal damage in portions, that way he can’t stay on par with mobility. Once he used teleport, he’s out of one stunbreak – so you can hit steal twice to land 4 sec daze on him, or daze him with mace head crack+inf signet. That way he’ll eat some damages and start to panic.

Common advices:
Most of the advice i could give to a thief is to learn movement patterns of different classes to avoid wasting steal into blocks/invuln’s and so on.
Master your SB usage, tp spots, cluster bombing.
Be comfortable with losing point to anyone else. Dying is much worse then running away.
Do not jump on clusterkitten, aoe will melt you.
Pick targets in right order – basically, the ones who are dangerous the most for you should die first (thief/ranger/mesmer).
Usually I do not fight 1v1, but when I do, i’m playing until I miss the steal, or until I win, or until I have to disengage. Dying is for nubs.
Use withdraw as a heal.

Thief is awesome and only thief decides when he should enter or leave fight, thats how you dictate your rules to everyone you’re fighting.

Cryers shouldn’t play.
Stealth ends up in Revealed if you deal damage.
If you haven’t dealt damage to invulnerable/dodging/blocking/whatsoever target why should stealth fade out? And, if it will, should be Revealed put on thief?
If you answer yes for second question pls die as fast as possible.

Try D/D 50036 with combined training, vigor on heal and steal traits.
Runes are pack, sigil fire/air.
Pretty solid build, that can deal good burst and have good sustain on top of dodges.
You have lack of CC but good mobility, and nice condi duration+condi dmg (spamming #4 into Throw Gunk is taking turret/parrot engis down so fast)

It would look like a “counter-play” if had no aftercast, but currently it is like 1.5 seconds so barely working as intended

i posted it in BUG section and i think topic need some attention, also made a topic in “thief” section.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Throw-Gunk-and-Blinding-tuft-1-sec-cast/first#post4936738

Edited the title, to clarify that issue is blocking progress.

Throw Gunk and Blinding tuft 1 sec cast + 1 sec aftercast

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Throw-Gunk-and-Blinding-tuft-1-sec-cast

Topic describes is all.
After patch it works like this.
/discuss?

These abilities have 1 sec cast after Patch 31.01.2015. More of this, they have 1 sec aftercast.
Both used to be 1/2 cast (or even less for tuft), and close to no aftercast.
No patchnotes mention also.
Clearly a bug. Thanks.

Personally, don’t mind Qing for gametypes being a problem as long as i choose what gametypes i’m Qing for. It is easily implemented in PvP window and can proc 2 different Qs —→ when 1 pop immediately leave second --→ desired matches.

On the other hand there should be 2 types of LBrds: one for conquest, one for stronghold + Guild LDRbrds, and this doesn’t sound as a good idea.
But leaderboards based on point can still be viable because of amount of win points/lost points…

hihey.1075:

Not many engis take protection injection anymore though. Most common spec is 60044 with backpack regenerator.

This means they’re vulnerable to burst after heal, when their turret can’t knockback you, SB him and burst after heal and elixir B proc.

One advice for you fella thieves to daze shot him with #4 to proc a protection on CC (trait in vita line) then proceed to steal protection and give max damage at this window since engi very vulnerable without protection. And if you steal without protection it will proc after boon stealing eating good chunk of your damage in no cost.
Good luck!

I wish we could attract dev’s attention here…

Fully agree, at least we can have a jumping puzzle in mists, waiting for Q to pop more then 3 minutes is worse then just frustrating.
Gives us hotjoins back, with this leaderboards system being tied to your gamehours, it is utterly stupid to just wait all this time without a chance to have fun.

Chill mates, that was engi with rifle in video,
Thief will get smth with condi removal on his weap skill, and i can’t imagine it’d be something based on rifle.

You guys are crazy, D/P is loading kitten atm with cleave.
S/D has unending evade,
S/P is still fine /w panic strike or quickness build (sigil of rage+X in CS)
I can kill a lot of stuff with PP/DP
Don’t like conditions though…
Just trolling

Nah. once steal is fixed D/P is fine

We are still looking for red post.

Haha, you guys live in the world of SB.
Just take P/P with D/P, or even D/D and you got a whole new gameplay to explore.

You can succesfully play S/P with panic strike+improvisation, also common 26006 with S/P and sigil of rage also kick balls.
But steal needs to be fixed ASAP

Can we see any REDPOST on this topic? It is problem of class mechanic that makes thief gameplay unenjoyable.

Can we see any REDPOST on this topic?

09/09/2014 the day when steal is far away.

Attracting devs attention to this thread, also posted it to the support devs.

SAME FOR PISTOLWHIP

U ALSO MISS STEAL comboing with flanking strikes. GJ ON FEATURE PACK.

U miss steal every time you do heartseeker+steal
KITTEN IT!

They made steal even worse! WTF ARENA???

Hello fellas. I’d like to post few words about trickery line itself and a steal mechanic on it own.
I’d like to see some of current steal traits implemented into steal mechanic.

First of all, I want to say that IMO steal itself is little to useless ability without trait investing. Just curious, how it became thief mechanic: 35 sec cd, shadowstep 900 range + crap item (which theoretically should help you to kill opposite class), but suddenly, when you investing 4 out of 7 major traits into it, steal becomes a candy. Stab stomp/res interruption+heal+buffs+ripped boons. It is just fine, but what not is that you don’t have any other solid choice in trickery line.
Take any other class mechanic and on its own it is much better than steal.
And when you pick thrill of the crime, bountiful thief and sleight of hand it is almost guaranteed that you’ll pick mug.
I’d like to see some of current steal traits implemented into mechanic.

First of all thrill of the crime
and probably mug since it is a must have trait in every direct damage build.
This can make steal’s value quite high on its own and traits also can be reworked. I just want to say that I’d like to take long reach, or even flanking strikes, but thrill of the crime is a must and it is disgusting.
As for DA traitline IMO all other adept traits beside mug are luckluster.

This brings me to other important points – Useless Traits.

#1. Corrosive traps, sundering strikes, and potent poison. Except strikes everything just useless, and strikes is pure PvE trait, but still instead of 6 useful traits in adept choice, thief gets 2+downed trait. One of traits is particular for venomsharing build, and other is just for everything else.
Improvisation in its current state is fine, but should be at merged with some other trait since 10% damage is not working 99.9% of time.
Dagger training and combined training are both kind of a joke. 5% damage for dagger or for dual skills. It should be at least 10% for each dagger for D/D to have a spot in builds. Because damage is only thing that I consider worth thinking when choosing between D/P and D/D.
#2. Concealed defeat – thief already have downed trait, have no idea why this trait in CS line. And IMO it is pretty much lackluster to everything else.
Ankle shots should give some value for Pistol users. 3 sec cripple every 10 seconds are close to a joke trait even for adept line and it is a master trait.
Invigorating precision – lol, wtf is that. It require’s like 20% of your crits becomes hp, 5-7 is a pure sadism to pick.
#3. The only bad trait for SA line is powershots – 5% damage on SB and harpoon for master trait? Well, this line have other great choices to pick, but still, what the hell???
#4. Assassin’s retreat+*master trapper*. While traps itself require overhaul, assassin’s retreat is awful choice for any build. Actually the only use for it is to pick while you running to kill critters and have permaswiftness, but thief has other ways to do so.
Hard to catch is a trait that require some accurate thinking so i’ll won’t touch it here but
Fleet of foot is so much undervalued being in one line with pain response and quick recovery and even hard to catch brings more value than FoF.
Assassin’s reward needs at least buff to make some worthy amount of healing for GM trait, and Assassin’s equilibrium is just lol. No straight use for it.
#5. Trickery line is full of great choices, but still Thrill of the crime>everything in adept line, Bountiful for non pistol MH builds outweights everything in master line. And all 3 GM traits have its use.

If I don’t get Devs attention, at least I can discuss it with you, guys, so feel free to correct me or add smth. Cheers.
Faeleth

It also refills endurance to 5 nearby allies

So all the glorious community is here

Personally I feel that S/D is fine on its own, but the 20066 spec is utterly stupid because of damage it produce. Whats the point taking damage lines, when taking like 30-50% more survivability costs you only 10-15% damage? I believe it can be fixed by adjusting 25 minor trait in acro, as of now it is 10% while endurance is not full. Like you know, easily controllable 10% damage increase, while other lanes require some other types of situations (conditions, ini, or even be in stealth to stack might).
So the suggestion is make felince grace major trait and, and change 25 minor trait into something like “Power of inertia” trait, to make it worth same 10% damage overall but to reduce control aspect of this increase.
I think this can fix 20066, because if thief is going to burst he should use all his evades to make considerable amount of damage and leave his back vulnerable.
As for me, i’m not playing 20066, using “improvisation” and so glad with it, but S/D is fine on its own, IMO.
Faeleth

Yeah. I pretty much agree tht only thing you can offer to d/d ele is s/d with trickery build 2/6/0/0/6. Otherwise it comes to ele’s mistakes.

Don’t get me wrong, Mate, since it is hotjoin we can’t judge effectiveness of a build correctly. I mean I can go almost any build spec/weaponset on thief into HJ and be effective in my role.
Back to the topic i want to say that 2/0/0/6/6 s/d is a way less “roamer” than classic 2/6/0/0/6, damage is lacking, burst is quite low Try classic trickery build wi s/d with runes of strenght and sigil of strenght – stealing might from engis and warriors is your bread and butter. LS can crit up to 7k on some squishies. Yes, you’re less tanky but you are not supposed to stay on a point fighting warriors and engis, i mean you’re thief huh! Subtlety and planning is your way to play. At least for me. I’m not judging you just giving my 2 cents.
Anyway, 2/0/0/6/6 is a kind of “balanced” build, good for deffing (trolling) a point while you have evades, good for boon stripping, good for staying alive on its own, but the damages unreliable (crit chance even with permanent fury quite average ~50%, don’t forget about 30% crt damage you losing without CS line) so you won’t get that tanky warrior and condi classes will still laugh at your evades with weakness (cut both damage and evades).
In other words I don’t see this build being roamer. But what else purpose thief can fulfil? I want to hear your opinion:)

Also, on healing skill it grants only 3 sec of protection and 5 of retaliation instead of 10 secs in tooltip (while in PvE part it is 10 for both)

But still i find it quite useful at least as a condi cleanse, but I concern it quite a stupid thing for cleansing 4 like condis (not only damaging, but weakness, vuln and so on) into 7-9 seconds of regeneration – May be tooltip need clarification then -_-

Also, on healing skill it grants only 3 sec of protection and 5 of retaliation instead of 10 secs in tooltip (while in PvE part it is 10 for both)

After patch lyssa runes converts up to 5 conditions into 9 sec of regen
While tooltip says: convert up to 5 conditions into boons

/Discuss
#omgnerf

tooltip on 6 effect:
Using elite skill convert up to 5 conditions into boons.

Well after nerf I guess it has less use but actually:

Using elite converting up to 5 conditions into 9 sec of regen. And thats all.

I have a suggestion, dunno whether someone came up with it earlier or not, but:

Gem-store item that gives you an ability to store Mystic Forge recipes and craft them via “craft all”
Sounds great is not it?