Guild Wars 2

um nope?
Deaths charge?
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Death's_Charge
It means if you are injured you can close the gap and refresh.
ergo you are at 8k already and a ranger comes at you, you steal and now your at 2k and have closed the range distance. It’s not counter-intuitive, only if they want you to only ever enter combat at full health. This helps you keep up your 5 pt minor trait in Critical strikes and even scholar runes if you are using the,/
Like John said specifically in that sotg “instead of starting with Steal, you can use it later” gives it multi-purpose.

ens.9854:

ensoriki.5789:

Arcane thievery existed since launch. Yet engis are alive are they not?

Don’t arcane thievery/bountiful theft (thief trait) only take a single stack for like.. 5 seconds?

Does this mean they will be changed to steal stacks/duration with the next update?

No they remove the entire stack and the mesmer gains the entire stack.

To the other poster mug won’t be removing boons it’ll be S/D. Mesmers not running it and existing are two different things. Thief boon removal on steal has also existed since beta but post-haste nerf the damage loss for taking it is rather severe…engis are still alive. If the boon removal mattered so much mesmers would run arcane thievery as a response to the meta. Even taking boon removal engis have been difficult due to needing to reposition yourself generally or getting nuked in elixer s. Which is a pretty significant change which will likely have significant effect on the engine itself.
Mesmera not taking it and it existing are two different things. As well mug will not be removing the boon. It’ll be flanking strike on S/D.

Also why would engis need to be “compensated” as a result of them trying to bring up underpowered utilities as if they took something from the engine wtf.

Arcane thievery existed since launch. Yet engis are alive are they not?

Humorless.1573:

ensoriki.5789:

Fade.7658:

No mention of an increase of animation speed, nor a damage decrease. It looks like Larcenous strike pops up after the animation of Flanking strike and costs 1 init to use.

A chain skill?
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

R.I.P my build.
I knew they’d pull something to mess it up.

1. Please don’t use “fuark” to try and sound cool for something this kitten you’re not 10 years old
2. You have no clue how the kitten it’s going to work, why don’t you wait before making kittenumptions?

1. Cry me a river
2. As a chain skill it divides the skill at present you can cancel FS with itself . Within ini, the only other chain skill? Does not cancel itself. Actually I don’t recall any chain skill in the game from launch to now that cancels itself. Inability to cancel does have implications on survivability for the set itself as well from it’s current form as providing a secondary step for an augmentation to its current boon removal feature.

After catching up.
Everything they’re doing pretty much sounds pretty dang good.
Glad I should be able to warp on Spirit watch without problems.
RTL nerf sounds too much but w/e they’ll probably tweak it. Glad they fixed the range.

Cool warrior stuff.

Fade.7658:

No mention of an increase of animation speed, nor a damage decrease. It looks like Larcenous strike pops up after the animation of Flanking strike and costs 1 init to use.

A chain skill?
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

R.I.P my build.
I knew they’d pull something to mess it up.

kostbabis.8791:

ensoriki.5789:

Though I missed thief heard jack squat on Ele focus, though maybe that is part of the small updates. Fire attunement is terribad with focus.

they are actually nerfing focus by making air 4 not blocking treb shots :P

I was expecting that i would hear nerfs for ele and buffs for other classes which pretty much was the case except perhaps of the thief which im not sure..but about build diversity on ele its pretty much bunker now..or s/d arcanes burst with a hope that some time conjures will get reworked.
Ah and the lightning version of glyph of storms that hits 0.10 targets per cast(no joking) will last longer..

There is your conjure buff lol.

R.I.P Focus.

Not sure if my S/D thief survives the change. Was hard enough to justify it :o.
Edit: Several boons?
Wot?
Believe it when I see it.

Second edit: A chain skill!? Stop nerfing me Anet. Better be as amazing as Inf strike. While you neglect PW.
Still anticipating the patch but cautious :o.

Awared on thief. Though jack squat on Ele focus, though maybe that is part of the small updates. Fire attunement is terribad with focus.

Inb4 ranger spirit meta to combat banner IWAY warriors.

Fade.7658:

The evade will stay in.

edit: The boon stealing portion will be named Larcenous Strike, and will steal the whole stack of whatever boon is stolen, so if you steal might from a warrior, you will get all of it.

They are also improving the animation and tracking of Flanking Strike so it performs better.

They are also considering in a later patch to add a trait that will share stolen boons with team mates, and if steal is used with no target, it will shadowstep you forward, but they didn’t make any diehard promises on either.

Nothing about the dmg or animation speed?
Assuming dmg nerf.

but do I still evade with flanking strike.

Heard Ranger pets getting sturdier with same leash range and still heat-seeking.
Q_Q.
Missed thief Q_Q cued in on thieves getting some kind of Arcane thievery?

Julius.1094:

ensoriki.5789:

mmm maybe but focus don’t need no cleansing wave. That set already anti-burst as it comes. Just lacking heavily in offensive presence.

It does, otherwise even bunker eles will continue to run off hand dagger.

it does for what?
Let em bunker in /D.
Taking focus atm leaves you with terrible damage output, no matter what you do and with Obsidian flesh you’ll get your pointed neutted regardless like a thief.
Thing needs better offensive presence or its CC upped.
Till then its stuck in limbo.
Not like the world needs more bunkers either sorz.

does the new one glow or something?

cl? a cooldown?
Stealth attacks have a Cl of 4s if they land.
Being shot repeatedly? Not really even an inherit issue. Whens the last time someone cried about Surprise shot?
Exactly.

Hammer smash is cool but as an alternative to the war you could just Venom Share :o.

mmm maybe but focus don’t need no cleansing wave. That set already anti-burst as it comes. Just lacking heavily in offensive presence.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

You do realize. That I easily, and unrelentingly dominate Thieves?

Say word.

JakobGW.5730:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The only reason someone will spec for Trickery is when they like spamming their weapon skills, rather than tactically using each one. If you are using your weapon skills tactically, the base initiative of 12 points is more than enough, which no need to spec for Trickery. The bulk of the S/D dmg is really coming from Sword #1’s third strike, which means the rest of the weapon skills in the set are for utility. Some might find this boring but that’s what tactics is all about.

It’s funny you posted this. Your reason is the exact opposite why I spec Trickery. I don’t spam skills. Watch my video for just 2 minutes. You’ll see that most of my kills are after simply using a mere 6 initiative (mostly from C&D). That’s the strength of the line: not using initiative.

Also, please see the thread about skill coefficents and damage multipliers. I will link it if you can’t find it. There you will see that FS actually does MORE damage than the autoattack chain. I don’t know about you, but if I have to spend only 4 initiative for an unblockable boon strip, one second evade, and 9k damage, I’ll spend the 4 initiative. That, to me, doesn’t sound like merely a “utility.”

EDIT: Here, I’m going to post it anyways, just to make things easier for you. =)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Skill-Coefficients-for-all-the-Thief-weapons/first#post467096

I run trickery sets and DA sets. The problem with taking trickery is that you have 300 stats going completely to waste until you switch to a shortbow. If you’re running a Sword in one hand and dagger as your swap? Your whole build outside of say a 10s immobilize from kleptomaniac or so, has 300 stats sitting around unused.
Tactics wise for sure there is plenty in taking Trickery, you’re pretty much taking trickery for utility, not damage to begin with, especially consider 300 condition damage sitting doing nothing, so to say it’s not “tactical” is off in the context hes using.

Drawing Guy.3701:

S/D #3 made more reliable?

While Flanking strike could be improved, it’s a fairly solid skill on it’s own, and atm part of my bread and butter. The thing with FS is getting any individual hit to connect is childs play. Getting both isn’t that hard but the problem with getting both is for when using it with its most simplest combo, 2-3, because inf strike and FS are not in sync. Which could help in itself by just adding .25s on inf strikes immobilize and/or just making the 2nd hit something like 10% faster. These can be remedied currently pretty well by a) burning out their defenses before hand (and we do apply weakness with our auto to help with that), or using a devourers/dancing dagger, ice drake/basilisk/scorpion wire, shadowstepping and Panic strike but obv you’d want it more reliable outside of utils traits. ./passionate_rant

Though they’ll probably do something redonkulus towards it a) fears of it being better than backstab? or b) some other unorthadox remedy.

For conjures to work the skills need lower cooldown times.
Presumably because each skill use takes down your conjure resource, conjure weapons are similar to a thief’s initiative…in a way.
However because the CD’s are so high the conjure resource goes completely wasted because even if you do choose to slot a conjure skill after blowing through your 4 and 5 you’ll probably drop the weapon so you can actually have some usable skills.
This isn’t the same for FGS because the cooldowns on it’s skills are 15s at best, they are low and so using up the resource can be worthwhile. It’s the only conjure the Conjurer trait makes sense for unless you are in love with auto-attacking.
Even if the conjures CD themselves were raised to something like 90s like Banners, if the skills they gave were low CD and relatively powerful they’d be worth investing in for similar reason that FGS is (other than Tornado flopping).

Not withstanding that Deep freeze takes 40s to cast and then 40s for the projectile to hit someone, of which it will probably miss.

Lol just wait for this patch.
Brb mug nerf.
brb more dagger buffs
bet they nerf pistol
prob nerf shortbow
hell prob nerf Sword.
Prob nerf venom share.
Wait on 30th to scratch my bingo card. But I think everyone but the thief will be seeing good things.

Don’t get too attached.

Atherakhia.4086:

Mug would probably be the first place they’ll look to put the boonhate stuff in. Say steal takes all the target’s boons and you keep 2 random ones. Mug makes it so for each boon you didn’t keep, you will do +X% damage on your next strike and your next strike will put a debuff on the target so they can’t gain any new boons for 4 seconds.

Lol that already exists.
It’s called Bountiful Theft.
Actually what you are proposing is stronger than Bountiful theft which is a 20 pt trickery trait…

Nope.

Weak/unpolished secondary objectives empowers circle-sitting almost if not more than the builds them self.

Ferocity could be stronger.
Underwater needs a finisher for Capricorn, Temple, Forest & WvW.
Lord is not certainly not developed enough.
Forest buffs could be stronger and the area around the bosses made more defensible
I can poke Trebuchet pretty much undisturbed warping to it specifically with inf strike + shadow return repeatedly till dead with limited risk and typically requiring 2 people in order to pressure out. Engi’s do it even better with their range. It is too close up. Repair kit insta-spawn trivializes the thing. Otherwise pretty solid.
We’re already told Spirit watch is getting a couple changes to how the Orb is handled if 1-mans stop holding it so well then I don’t see why it cannot be worth more if it is now possible for real back-n-forth with it with the reduction in RTl and removal of invuln, excusing Ranger.

The way conjures work is fine, it’s the skills.
Firey great sword is pretty cool but the rest of them are very hit and miss because the skills are shoddy and have redonculus recharge times which don’t even make sense for the trait.

Circle ticks lack impact. Seeing a pt every second cus you have a circle is meh, srs.
Seeing a guardian sitting on graveyard by himself waiting for everyone else to funnel in is completely uninteresting. Or on Raven, or on Gate, or whatever he’s sitting on. Even worse if they decide to just ignore him and go far and close play. Which means you have a character whose role is to sit on a circle and deter single-player initiation when you want to encourage initiation, where seemingly other modes do not.

Wot…
Imo part of what hurts the mode is the whole slow tick, sitting on a point is great because every second you sit on it, you gain which means for others every moment you aren’t you’re losing. Maybe if the intervals to gain pts where longer than one second, you’d create a greater discouragement of actually just sitting there, and emphasizing moving your kitten inbetween each tick as well as giving slower professions actual time to get inbetween points. But whatever. I get the idea of “defend your node” but it seems completely redonculus by the slow tick nature of it. You have limited time to go and defend as a result of how fast the game neutralizes. This weakens the idea of pressure, because you don’t have time to do it, you need people to die quickly or get off pts quickly to prevent the slow tick. Which emphasizes extreme offense and defense because an attrition battle is a definite poor choice when the slow tick is rewarding them for every second that node is blue even if they’re actually losing the fight. Skills like banners and Spirits get marginalized because they generally don’t produce the immediate effects you want (among other issues). You rather something like an Illusion of life that does its effect “now” and loudly.

This might be different on say a map like Foefire if the Lord was worth a lot more or even insta-win and dps and things like water field healing the lord were more important.

Lulz maybe the top of the top shake their head, but I think slow ticking is really boring to watch in its current state. Sure being in the background it’s fine as a forefront principle deemed the most important of the mode? No thanks jeff and It’s probably what kills the variety of the game even more.

tl;dr; Conquest would be fine probably if conquest was actually less of itself and more of its secondaries. I swore they agreed on it too, but there has been no changes.

Quite a few changes are happening on the 30th including balance.
Should be great except for one thing.

Ask them if the decision to split more will result in more frequent patches.
Ask them why they want to nerf me.
Ask them why it seems they don’t know what they want thief weapon sets to do and so they leave skills in disrepute and look to axe them even further if they aren’t D/ and most specifically D/P. Ask how many more gems I have to throw at their store before I see the trap thief meta?

Ask why they defend conquest with "in other modes people wait for their elites to initiate and nodes keep people moving "when bunkers are specifically about not moving and deterring opponents from initiating at all due to time constraints of the format unless they know an ally is on the way to speed up this process.

Ask why they haven’t pushed up Foe fires secondary to help reduce the above and deligitamize bunkering.
Ask why I can’t warp properly on a third of the bridges on spirit watch. Ask when the map in general is getting debugged and revised.

Ask em why they haven’t deleted ricochet and potent poison.
Ask em why power shots is mediocre.

Ask them when Spirits getting buffed.
Ask em when is the conjure Ice bow meta?
Ask them how cheesed I’m going to be this update for thief and if I should reroll Ranger.

Ask them if we can get an estimated time on seeing our internal CDs this year or next?
Ask why them why it seems they care so much about nerfing S/ thieves harder than smiters boon any time they see it getting some use.

Tell em they should nerf sword thief pistol thief focus ele staff ele conjure ele axe/axe shout ranger with pig/warthog, spirits, kick. stomp, axe off hand warrior, axe necro, elixer fun, flamethrower kit, mine, battering ram and slick shoes.
Tldr tell em I miss Izzy’s dart boarding at this point.

hackks.3687:

So I’m curious. This HGH-condi build has only been popular for a month or so and only after a number of Engi buids were annihilated by the Kit Refinement over-nerf (and make no mistake it was an over-nerf), even though the build option has been available for months. Obviously, the last patch took a lot of builds off the table (something that stands as ‘at odds’ with previous ANet statements of wanting to create more build variety) across a handful of classes.

Something that hasn’t changed though is the prevalence of Bunker Guards, D/D Ele’s, Shatter Mesmers, as well as the return of one-shot Thieves (granted they don’t really have a choice if they want to bring anything tangible to a group). These builds have been around and at the forefront of the meta for months(!!!) now. Yet, anytime we have one build that comes along and gives them a run for their money, making them actually think about what they’re doing rather than just letting muscle memory carry them from target to target, match to match, and the first thought from the community is…. ‘nerf it’?

So what I’m curious about is this: Are we so complacent and settled on dealing with what we largely consider to be the staples of PvP viability (i.e. the aforementioned builds/classes) that whenever something infringes or impinges on their viability or success rate we have to call for it to be nerfed?

And if it is nerfed after only a single month of being popular from players griping on the forums without understanding it, and while also in the grip of a sizable meta shift, isn’t that a very distinct statement from ANet as to what classes/builds they would prefer everyone play competitively? – edit: and to take it one step further, wouldn’t that also be entirely at odds with their statements towards build variety and viability?

Preach brother hackks. I think Anet wants Engi’s to be good at point defense, but I think Hgh in a way still fits in that.

^ I don’t think their real sentiment is that the thief is OP in reality but they probably noticed the lenience the set gives and think it shouldn’t happen under it’s own power.
Though unless they a) remove the leap from HS or change the skill
or b) change BP or switch the field to a dark field.
it’s not going to happen. Hell they’ll probably buff 3-5 and throw boon removal on backstab.

As well D/P doesn’t have any evades it relies on the single hit blinds and its stealth.

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/flame-and-frost-retribution-preview
^ Pve/pvp splits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zCUvIrH2BlU
^ Mug nerf/ mobility enhancement/ condi changes.
Our hints at what is to come.

Though the sword stuff was my wishlist :P.

There are certain instances where a pressure mechanic would be more desirable such as certain times when you push the Lord or go for buff at Temple. As well as by itself as a fixed % of health changing, helping to solidify the game against power creeps, and hold bunkers in better control.

Though if you think of a bunker less world which was probably the original vision, then yes DW doesn’t make sense because the TTK is fairly high outside of that.
The main problem with even attempting pressure (which I guess also holds back certain skills like Warrior banners) is that the circle mechanic already puts a time restraint on your actions so more immediate results are needed if not for effectivity but so that you don’t let 10s worth of pts slide up.
Somewhat unfortunate.

That time again.
The time to see anything you hold dear ripped apart.
Time to see your builds poof in thin air.
Time to shake your head at questionable decisions.

For April 30th is upon us.
Apparently large pve/pvp split incoming.
Mug supposedly is to be nerfed, and enhanced mobility is apparently coming our way.
Will we see the two above this patch? Maybe, maybe not, we might see reveal knocked up to 5s, you never know.

Whip out the wishlists.
inf strike +.25s on immobilize and flanking strike to remove a boon on 2nd hit and 2nd hit to come out 15% faster for me :o. Along with a 3 ini Dancing dagger and 5% vulnerability on Cloak and dagger.
Throw Combo critical chance to 10% and delete Ricochet and I’ll start feeling some fuzzies.
Hope for trap updates. Hope for Scorpion wire to Stop.Obstructing.On.Thin.Air.
Hope our weapon sets feel more solid on their own before traits and utils.
Inb4 jaw-dropping nerfs.

Serious. This condition was great for spiking, pressure and working against that Monk, Ele, ritualist or infuse derv (wot?) red barring.
The % based nature of it meant no one got a break. 20% health locked down until removed.
They should’ve thrown this back up on Thieves and Warrior. The whole Backstab ~ Mug ~ Cnd situation they were feeling grimy about could’ve been solved with Deep wound.

Maybe they decided that Deep wound was too cool for PvE or something so they wanted to keep it out of all formats so PvE wasn’t upset that they didn’t have the manliest condition in the game.

I suppose maybe in this “no healer” design they felt such a condition was too strong because there was no one dedicated to condition removal? Considering how much condi cleanse against an individual condition there is on generally every profession and there ability to even isolate conditions (Skills that removes only cripple, chill and immobilize for instance) I don’t think lack of a monk/ritualist would mandate the loss of Deep wound. Since after all with rune of the soldier, Shout rangers with brown bears can remove conditions for the whole party.

Why did they decide to exclude this condition, I don’t remember it an pre-release interview.
inb4wutisdeepwound.

JonathanSharp.7094:

ensoriki.5789:

But warriors can’t spam Flanking strike.

My Warrior can.

Does it have Death’s Charge too? Why’s your warrior sound like a Shattering Assault assassin?

But warriors can’t spam Flanking strike.

No items. Fox Only. Final Destination?

From what I get hot joins are getting tweaked so you can pick sides. So you can do team vs team. You can own the server to get additional options on that such as password protecting map choosing and the like.
So I think there’s improvements to HJ even outside CA?

Balance is relative to the builds. I don’t think focus ele is bad in the general scope but I’d take a /d ele over it because it outshines.
However were probably going to start getting power creep as a result of antinerf strategies.

Volrath.1473:

lupercaleb.6041:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boon#Skills_that_remove_boons

Thief has ONLY Flanking strike, which is a high cost ability that requires a sword in main hand and missed most of the time due to its “random direction movement”

very very VERY few thieves run around with sword and the ones that do can’t remove boons most of the time due to the init cost of the ability and high miss chance, even if it lands it removes 1 miserable boon -_-’

You forgot bountiful theft. However yeah.

An individual hit of FS isn’t really that hard to land (but if you want both you can expect complications), however your right its just 1 boon. It’s pretty common for Might to be covered by another boon, which means if FS is all you have (ignoring Bountiful) you’re going to need 2-3 casts.
Even if for some unknown reason a thief was running Nullification sigil needing 2 hits of FS is still quite likely and that is again hoping an engi doesn’t just cover the boon before then.
Even if you strip it, the engi doesn’t actually hit for nothing even without might at least if you’re a thief, given the opportunity cost of using our skills vs swapping kits. Even in a team fight, it’s not hard for you to be pressured out due to thief nature, by the engi themself let alone stray-aoe and need to do a shadow return for cleanse/retreat. At which point if an engi actually knew how the sword plays, they’d simply create distance to force you to either over-extend your Inf strike, or significantly consider a bow swap.

Boon removal isn’t the key.
Pre-haste I saw HGH I could just smash them down with S/x quite non-nonchalantly.
The immediate answer is of course to roll D/P and just spike regardless /buildwars. Unless someones burst speccing with Flanking strike or co-ordinating something in the short window Tactical strike supplies (which you could do just as easily and for cheaper with Headshot) boon removal is relatively pointless from a thief against Engi.

/reinforcingyourstatement.

^ Lol @ Arheundal telling Hiba Engi’s will be complained about in a couple months on the 1st page.
Must be a prophet.

We need another Off-hand.

If the CA/spectator + balance changes are enough than possibly CA/5v5 hot-join will reach a state where you can solo-play comfortably (ideally).

so…
1. Another mode / builds
2. See your ICD’s +Templates
3. Keg brawl in the mists/ Higher health pool for golems.

Looks like 3 steps forward.

Cantha.
Only thing cool about that desert was Tihark Orchard in Vabbi.

Apolo.5942:

ensoriki.5789:

Hmm? All melee weapons but maces and the necromancers dagger have built in leaps/charges/teleports. Obviously there are things that impede the practicality of it, but the Necromancer with a dagger would still have a teleport from Death Shroud.

What makes HS HS is not the gap closer, its the lack of CD genius.

That goes without saying, but obvious a lack of CD isn’t a reality for the CD professions.
Lowest leap is what Mighty Blow?
Just saying it should be more like HS, really only puts gap closing in the context since generally one would think you’re not talking about throwing 0-4s leaps on professions.

Apolo.5942:

Actually i dont consider the thief to be neither hard nor overpower, they compensate squishines with high burst damage and invisibility, they are not that hard to play either. Something like HS is what every melee class in this game should have (with its damage adjusted to compensate for the class tankiness).

Hmm? All melee weapons but maces and the necromancers dagger have built in leaps/charges/teleports. Obviously there are things that impede the practicality of it, but the Necromancer with a dagger would still have a teleport from Death Shroud.

Gw1 was more about prot/mitigation then healing. Red barring was generally a poorer choice and Deep Wound (RIP) helped to deter it.
GW2 I’d say is built better but the focus is meh. Protection is really strong compared to say gw1 protective spirit given how most damage is delivered. The difference translate into multi hits vs single hits. If it was gw1 Pistol whip 100b and the like would be good for going through certain defenses that would otherwise defend against say Back stabs or eviscerates hard.

I believe they didn’t think 5v5 translated well with gvg.

15% damage nerf
Quickness nerfed by half.