6k Dmg is fine for a berserker, who attack another berserker.
As a single target melee skill, this skill have to be a little stronger, than the area attacks from the other classes. E.g. Ele can do 4k dmg/s with Lava Font on up to 5 targets or 5x over 16k with Churning Earth or warriors with 3x over 12k in 3s with HB.
how is it fine to be able to spam 6k damage skill which has gap closer in it? no warrior skill hits even close to that on fair grounds. Semi traited eviscerate will do 6-7k on low armor, but it has huge cast time and obvious leap animtaion + you need full adrenaline for that and 7s cd. with 100b you STAND STILL, means you need setup for that (or you are hitting 1/6 of damage max) to land – immobilize (can be cleansed) or stun ( stun breakers). with HS you just spam away. 2 ( enemy dodged that?) 2 ( again dodge?) – 2 2 2 2 dead now.
The warrior has healing signet.
Heartseeker is outperformed by autoattack chain unless target is very low on health. Losing 1 autoattack to a blind, block, evade is nothing plus you get poison and higher proc rates. Heartseeker is also worse than steal, infil signet, shadow shot, and inf strike as a gap closer.
Go test on the training dummies in the mists; you will run out of initiative and still kill them the same speed or slower with heartseeker vs autoattack, and they can’t even fight back
30 Shadow Arts and 30 Critical Strikes are a must have.
The only optional part is if you like Mug or prefer having 10 points in Acrobatics. That’s a matter of personal taste. Some like Mug, personally however I don’t.
The only trait that you might want to switch around when alternating between the weapon-sets is Cloaked in Shadows. It’s extremely useful for D/D but somewhat redundant when running D/P. That’s something you might want to switch with Infusion of Shadows or Shadow Protector at times.
Otherwise both builds use both Shadows Embrace and Shadow Rejuvenation.
Would you run Hidden Killer or Executioner? H.K seems better for D/D while Ex. for D/P.
HK vs exec is based on what gear you decide to run. If you want to be glass and melt targets with 1 stab + auto attacking then use exec. If you want to be resilient but have to land 2-3 stabs then go with HK.
30 shadow arts is not a necessity. I run 30 trickery because its better in zergs and also wrecks most WvW punks—eg. shadow art thieves, stability abusers, cantrip eles, and anybody who thinks they are safely out of range
I still find d/d better in WvW even though I use d/p almost exclusively in spvp. There is such lag in WvW that you can drop a player out of nowhere regardless of which set you use and d/d lets you do it on demand instead with a setup.
Somebody has severely underestimated the damage a single churning earth can do….
Churning earth is very situational to use, and should never be used against a thief who can easily dodge/blind/interrupt you after getting 3s of free dps.
Heartseeker is very situational to use, and should never be used against anyone who can easily defend themselves in anyway after getting guaranteed shots against a thief who isn’t dodging or blinding.
Seriously, churning earth can easily hit for 15k PER target once you count the bleeds… Just pointing out how absurd the comparison is
Edit: here’s a hint—auto attack chain does more DPS than heartseeker
Somebody has severely underestimated the damage a single churning earth can do….
Because thief really has no attacks that deal both types of damage… you are either doing a weak power based attack or a weak condi based attack if you go hybrid.
Classes like warrior/engineer have traits that give them additional bleeds/burns etc when they crit giving them true hybrid attacks and a stat (precision) that boosts both types of damage.
In dungeons conditions are not viable at all because a mob can only have 25 stacks of bleed… anything else from teammates is wasted
Edit(again): p/d is interesting because it seems hybrid but you end up getting more damage overall by skewing one way or the other… it’s not like the bleed/torment completely disappear if you go power or vice versa.
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My head hurts trying to figure this out so tell me what it’s for first (pvp pve?). Basic suggestions are to drop improvisation for executioner in 30 crit strikes and don’t bother too much with condition damage (thief cannot be hybrid)—just take +10% pistol damage and p/d hits very hard, the dual skill especially.
Inf signet seems very out of place as does skale venom.. You need defensive options like shadow step or refuge in there
Edit: I think you are aiming for the ability to “condi burst” out of stealth with the pistol. This is generally a bad idea with the build you have because you do not benefit in any way from being in stealth—you have no shadow arts—and everybody is going to have enough cleanse for anything less than a dedicated condi thief that can reapply bleeds extremely often over a very extended fight.
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Also CC wrecks thieves especially with teammates around. Sumo ring will either wreck them or blow their cooldown. Scepter 3 is another great setup esp. since you don’t have to be facing them.
If your team is good and you lock them down + call target them… They shouldn’t be much of a problem.
I meant whether he wanted builds for spvp or WvW since he didn’t say, sry. I didn’t want to clutter up the post with 4-5 builds unnecessarily. Roughly the spvp meta is either 10/30/0/0/30 d/p shortbow or x/30/x/30/x sword/dagger. WvW meta is much broader but mainly includes hidden killer and/or 30 shadow arts (with almost any weapons viable) which is much different than spvp
nope, you still max out at regular speed+33%. The trait says 50% so that it would still hit max while in combat but unfortunately that’s bugged right now so you just get combat speed+33%.
It was patched shortly after implementation
D/d works much better in WvW than in spvp cause of the added latency. Also D/p can be quite cumbersome at times as it telegraphs everything it does making it super vulnerable to interrupts and CC.
The highest boost of all your boosts is taken, but movement speed increase is capped at 33% anyway.
Except the thief trait that lets you move +50% in stealth
More info on whether this is spvp or WvW would help. Also give him meta builds not brews… He can adjust as he learns
I mean its an interesting choice that it doesn’t make you invulnerable….
DOnt listen to anyone about rune sets, they are ALL getting rebalanced in the next feature build
Just use traveler runes. No matter how you slice it you are going to lose a bit of DPS. It doesn’t really matter where it comes from and trav runes give vitality—they are practically custom designed for guards
Nobody wants guardian to have more sustain, that’s the real problem. Trait just needs trashed for something entirely different… maybe something to help create the elusive guardian condi build
Getting chilled should recharge water attunement it only makes sense
Fun Facts:
The “10% reduction” refers to the total loss in DPS that comes from the switch to ferocity in fully geared ascended berserker players. Damage is not in anyway being changed for builds in any other way. Crits still deal a baseline of 1.5x damage; the only losses will be seen as you stack crit damage higher and higher.
Hardly anybody runs full zerker in WvW so hardly anybody will see a full 10% drop in their damage output. Further, even AT a 10% drop, it will hardly make a difference to most encounters (Oh no I only backstabbed him for 70% of his hp instead of 80%!). The only exception I can think of is for full glass staff ele zergers.
In structured pvp, ferocity will be added to amulets to keep crit damage about the same as it is currently (except the slight loss from traits, I assume).
I would disagree that the passive is not useful… on my bunker guard it is usually after cracking VoR for cleanse that my HP really starts to drop uncontrollably—guard has a lot of evasion with vigor and energy sigils so it adds up quite a bit.
I’m still secretly hoping that they find a way to make battle presence viable so I can see healing signet + regen + VoResolve + soothing mist in action
just want to pop in and say #5 got nerfed when they kittenly fixed most of the major teleport shortcuts in the spvp maps
turn around. stop treating backstab as a “they win if it lands” proposition. it is more like they certainly lose if it misses and are in bad shape if it facestabs.
so no, you cannot avoid every single backstab aimed at you.
correct.
only minor exceptions are that many movement skills benefit from increased movement speed
Strangely, I agree with op.
Heal/cleanse spam punching bag =\= bunker, but it is a new game type—escort mission
Gw2 takes skill insofar as good reflexes and decision making are ‘skill’, except for maybe fire grab, that kitten is hard to land. Also maybe burning speed too requires some basic ability to aim and manage proper spacing. But 99% of skills are just about pushing the button at the right time.
Best DPS is warrior or in some cases ele (who also stacks fury to boot) so obviously these two lose more absolute damage than thief.
WvW is just lol.
Human cultural tier 3 is definitely the best by a large margin IMO (asassin set from post above). Slap some heirloom dye on it and be good to go.
Of course eles never ‘lose’ in WvW; they are always turtling around their gates with mist form -_-;
Simplest? Probably 0/10/30/0/30. Deep strike and spiked armor with 5 signets.
Has insane passive precision, passive retal, passive healing, and great auto condi cleanse with cleansing ire.
……..if you want to learn warrior however I recommend making a glass cannon instead, much easier to tell if you are playing correctly or not
with your gear you could try d/d d/p. Perma stealth isn’t all its cracked up to be, I run 10/30/0/0/30 (long reach funsies) and I don’t think I’ve ever been caught up to anyway (outside of doing something immensely kittened like not unlocking target).
D/d is great in wvw because there is so much lag that it doesn’t matter if there is some delay after you steal to hit the backstab, and the combo can come out of nowhere whereas blackpowder is a giant signal to everybody around. Not to mention chaining CnD (just doing nothing while stealthed and CnD’ing again when you pop out) lets you survive just as easily as black powder with much less work.
Anyway.. (important points in bold)
Heartseeker: You need traveler runes or signet of shadows (or swiftness?) to use this for mobility. It’s real secret is that it lets you move the same speed whether you are in combat or not making you INCREDIBLY hard to outrun. Great for zerg vs zerg (teleport in, drop target, heartseeker out… shadowstep if some nerd manages to snag you). edit: Turn off auto target and Get GOOD at dropping targets by pressing esc or you will die.. a LOT
Black powder: Don’t go overboard with chaining heartseekers into it. Often all you want to do is heartseeker and hit steal/infiltrators before you land (stealth is granted when you land so it wont break), letting you snag a VERY quick followup backstab. As for chaining… you just heartseeker out of it, then heartseeker back into it and back out of it again. If you are against a wall you can just heartseeker into it over and over and get 4.
Shortbow: I understand that this is a mainstay in spvp, but you won’t find it very useful for roaming in wvw. It is strong against other thieves because surprise shot > cluster bomb will destroy them fairly quickly. For mobility, since you have +movespeed then heartseeker is faster anyway. Afaik you can still glitch into stonemist with teleport so I guess thats a thing to have fun with.
Utilities: Shadowstep never leaves your bar… basically ever. It is an escape first and condi cleanse in emergencies. Other considerations are infiltrator and assassin signet; you will find infiltrator very useful as you start to become a better thief and 180 power is just a flat +6% damage. Blinding powder is overkill, but scorpion wire and shadow refuge can be swapped out depending on what you are doing (refuge for roaming, wire for zergs/siege).
Initiative: You… shouldn’t really be running out unless you are spamming heartseekers for stealth or something (again d/d will be able to chain stealth indefinitely more or less).
Mobility: If you want to move fast… it’s gotta be teleports. Roaming I will often have 4500 range of teleports (sword 2, inf. signet, long reach steal, shadowstep), plus heartseeker to spam if I end up in combat. The only challenge is that you need to find a target for sword/signet/steal to use on.
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p/d power is such an interesting spec cause shadow strike hits HARD and shuts down melee even harder lol
The only cantrip that currently warrants being taken because it is inherently good is lightning flash (which is still terrible compared to blink, let alone shadowstep). Armor of earth, mist form, and cleansing fire are all weak abilities that I wouldn’t slot on any other profession. What are you accomplishing while armor of earth or mist form is active? If they are not being used to get stomps or to bunker(silly with their cooldowns), they are just delaying your inevitable death because ele has no sustain to take advantage of armor and mist form is little more than a countdown to execution.
Frost bow is great, the arcanes are great minus power; the only reason cantrips ever get slotted over them is for the trait synergy and the fact that eles are so easy to kill they are encouraged to stack maxdefense.
I mean some ppl play d/d as arcane but yea you are right; although I think you are mistaken if you think cantrips are powerful because their cooldowns are very long. still going from 0 viable builds to 1 viable build is an improvement, even if it is triple cantrip bunker ele.
got so many glory boosters that i could literally have them active permanently; they are WORTHLESS. why should we get anything for something that has no value?
More like autoMAD response
C’mon anet don’t feed the trolls. Just encouraging these kinds of sensationalist posts to get responses
Three of thieves signets need reworked:
Infiltrators signet— one of the main offenders providing thief a little too much teleport. The initiative regen is completely negligible and never becomes part of the decision process for its use.
Signet of agility—one of the main offenders in pushing thieves constant dodges over the top. It’s passive is slightly more desirable but because the active is so niche there is also very little decision making involved.
Assassins signet—the active and passive are so similar that it is never correct to activate unless you are in WvW and have power stacked so far through the roof that +180 is almost nothing to you.
The first two signets are used almost exclusively in an abusive manner to give two specs (p/d and s/d) more of what they already have, teleports and evasion. They are almost never used to cover up the weaknesses of other builds as I believe was intended.
My goal with this thread is to have community members brainstorm new signet ideas that they think would be useful/flavorful for both meta and non meta thieves. I also want to suggest a relatively easy to implement fix for the thief dominance in contrast to the rather involved posts we have been seeing as of late.
Two ideas to start us off
Infiltrator signet—reduce condition duration by 20%. Breaks stun and stuns your target when activated.
Signet of Agility—Increases precision. Cures cripple/chill/immobilize/torment on you and allies
Normal d/p crits for 4k easy by spamming shadow shots. Backstab is just icing vs mesmers for when they go invis/invuln, they have no hope when you are stuck to them like glue.
The commonly used teleports for a d/p thief are steal (21s cd, used for opener, daze) and signet (24s cd) both instant. Nearly every thief is going to run shadowstep which can also be used offensively if you work up an advantage and are sure the fight will end before return expires. Then there is shadow shot which is unfortunately not instant cast but at least blinds and follows with a large hit (or backstab if you are invis) and can be used any time you have LoS.
S/d usually has 35s cd steal but still has signet, shadowstep, and weapon teleport, plus flanking strike is a better homing attack than heartseeker. You generally use swiftness and dodges/evades to stay close and need to hit teleport only for large gaps like blink or if you are hit by knock back. I have destroyed many mesmers when I snap back instantly from being knocked away it is quite satisfying
edit: fixed kitten
(edited by ens.9854)
Infiltrator arrow is a mess. It has never worked properly and only gotten more unreliable/less useful from anets sad attempts at ‘fixing’ teleport shortcuts/exploits. But it lets you sneak into stonemist in WvW so at least it’s fun for something
Stealth should break on damage.
There’s just very little risk when playing a thief.
When i’m roaming I feel 100x safer on a thief than my ele or engi.
Lets be honest here, it’s not stealth, it’s invisibility of certain durations and just way too easy to come by considering how potent it is.
It baffles me how this suggestion keeps on popping up non stop. Literally every class can aoe themselves several times a second. This would make every backstab build instantly useless EXCEPT against glass cannons that they already one shot and already take by surprise.
There is no logic but that of somebody who hates losing to thief. The idea is to make them WORSE against glass cannons, not force them to run pistol condi or evade spam against everybody else.
Your head is stuck in today’s meta deceiver. Those of us who have played since beta remember when the games were full of power builds and things were very fun. Now that thief has been figured out, even if you form a 4 man huddle around your ele, he is going to die. A glass ele can be enough on his own to turn the tables against the condi tanks in a team fight but nobody is allowed to play them because thief. Whether thief is strong 1v1 isn’t really the issue (their tourney builds are plenty beatable 1on1).
This is not a “who is the best roamer” thread; it’s a thread about thief being one of the key players in forcing a stale meta upon us.
Edit: to fix it OP suggests we need a way to make glass v glass fights last longer without making us useless vs tanks. So you either nerf the stickiness of thieves (tons of teleports/homing/evades) or you alter the functionality of their ‘burst’ skills to spread the damage out.
/endsynopsis
(edited by ens.9854)
and i got to say when they introduce ferocity i think it will hurt the thief the most because it is not like they r dropping armor or upping hp
In spvp future ferocity will = current crit damage
In WvW it will hurt some of the popular specs though (hidden killer); it might be warranted anyway, I don’t know
Mauge we have been playing this game way too long to still be using the learn to play defense; it has turned into nothing but an insult at this point. Also remember we are talking about how they drive away glass cannon specs
As a thief myself I can say that video was extremely unrealistic for how thieves fight in spvp, they don’t repeatedly stealth and fish for backstabs. All a thief has to do vs GC mesmer is spam his target seeking attacks and dodge obvious attacks. Retreat and blink are both futile (heartseeker, shadow shot, steal, infil. signet); blurred frenzy will often get you hit right when it ends, and thief only needs to stealth to make you waste cooldowns or counter your stealth.
It is an absurdly difficult fight for the mesmer and saying every mesmer I’ve fought needs to L2P is just insulting to the entire community (cause I’m not that good)
Edit: Although there is something for teamwork; focusing the thief instantly is a good counter, or defending your teammates with CC… This is partly why s/d evade sprang up—it is very inefficient to try and focus evade thief when 4/5 attacks are going to miss. Either way I don’t think this is a good argument since it goes both ways (thief is the BEST at taking advantage of his teammates’ CC skills)
(edited by ens.9854)
No acrobatic. Video fail.
quaggan approve
Team wide instant 2500 pt heal triple condi cleanse regen… x2
Some guardian abilities are just through the roof on power level compared to any other profession.
Too bad almost nobody enjoys playing it
Guardian signet of wrath. It grants condition damage. ’Nuff said.