Guild Wars 2

Well we know from the reaper livestream that the blood magic trait transfusion will revive downed allies within the aoe of life transfer and the reaper equivalent.

So as far as vampire themed support goes we will at least get that, and with siphoning working in death shroud, and depending on how good blood aura ends up blood magic might end up as a good 3rd trait pick after spite/soul reaping.

Can thees two skill get buffed to cure cripple chill and immobilize on use. Reason behind such change would be because necro is not allowed to have good stability, so it only seem fair that our stun breaks and peel skills should be powerful.

Think of thief stun breakers they all put you out of harms way and enable you to not get cc locked instantly after use. Now i know necro play style is day and night to thief but still would be nice to have some skills that i can use and know for sure that i will not die immediately after, because i am still stuck in some stray imob or because i am chilled and can’t move away from incoming damage.

With the upcoming specialization changes the pvp amulet system is going to be very restrictive as far as stats go. Now we can mix amulet stats with stats from trait lines and runes to get balanced builds, but being limited to just the rune and a amulet is bad.

Bringing back jewels will mend this issue by allowing us to still keep some stat mixing post patch.

Try to use spectral grasp, use doom or reaper’s mark first in case they have shared anguish traited and then s grasp. While in melee you need to dodge point blank shot and if they try to rapid fire or auto attack you try to go through them and strafe around them to get it to cancel.

If they whip out the sword, cc and melt face. I find that dagger offhand, regardless if you are condi or power, is really good vs rangers. It has a decent length weakness and the dagger condi transfer is good for when they use binding roots if they happen to evade putrid mark.

ProtoGunner.4953:

People run and dodge around you while you channel. Usually hits next to nothing.

Not true at all, you only need to face your target while the casting the skill (about 0.5 sec) but while you actually channel it you do not need to face them, hell you can even run away and still life siphon from a target up to 600 range behind you, basically los is a non issue. Also if you are channeling and your target is blocking or goes invulnerable you still get healed per pulls.

The main reason this skill is not all that good is its absurd cast and channel time, which combined are around 4 sec i think. If casting + channeling were shortened to say ~2.75 sec then it would be a amazing skill.

We know that when the trait rework drops we will sped skill points to unlock specializations and skills. When you spend points to progress through a specialization line you unlock traits, fill up a circle and the art that is in said circle gets progressively coloured in.

But there are some classes that have a really bare bones art for the trait lines like mesmer who has a bunch of pink lines that look almost the same on all 5 trait lines , or thief with deadly arts, acrobatics and critical strikes also looking similar and uninspiring.

So the question is will we get a rework on some of the art for the specialization lines that are visually lacking now, given how the art will have more of a (cosmetic) role in unlocking skills and traits?

dancingmonkey.4902:

Bad? Necro is one of the strongest and wanted WvW professions, they are solid in PvE, and middling in PvP. If you are going to declare them as “bad”, the least you could do is explain that.

Necromancers are bad, if they weren’t the whole necromancer subforum wouldn’t be constantly posting suggestions on how to change and improve the class.

In pve they are undeniably the worst profession for anything that requires 5 people to do. In pvp they require constant babysitting to not get locked down and murdered because they have no actual defense. In wvw for roaming every other profession is better and the only real place they have is in a zerg backline.

So do you think a profession that is decent in half of game mode is not bad?

Altho keep in mind the elite spec will certainly make them better in pve by giving them great sword and probably shouts, thing is you still have a horrible foundation that doesn’t really function.

I think engineers are going to get minions as their elite spec skill set. Reason form that is in the hot announcement trailer we saw what thematically looks like a engineer chasing down a bunch of modrem dogs with a hammer and he had small flying robots with him.

Since turrets can’t move i think what we saw are turret like minions, or maybe they just get a trait that makes turrets mobile.

I like how this looks, the only bad thing i got from the stream are the ridiculous visual effects that clutter the screen. The biggest offender is the ray of judgment trap (forgot the actual name, the one that pulses vulnerability in a beam), it just seams unnecessary.

Imagine 3 dragonhunters (i want it renamed to zerghunter for reasons) laying down 3 roj traps and then a bunch of people trigger them all at once.

4k burning and 2k bleeds, when arenanet said guardians are getting condition builds they fricking meant it. Good thing resistance is a thing, also rename the spec to ‘zerghunter’ because i can see a group of thees guys melting zergs with 25 bleed and burn stacks and cc’s with traps and the longbow arena skill 5.

Is there a reason not to pick the elite spec over a existing one? I mean it strait up buffs virtues, giving you a leap among other things and you do not lose the passive effects.

This is like the chronomancer, why would you not pick this? You can always ignore traps and the bow, take dragonhunter valor and something else and play a meditation guardian only now with more mobility a persistent block and a pulsing burn, all with the current passive effects of virtues.

That name tho.

Making conditions able to crit is a horrible idea, they already ignore armor and you can get stupid high condition duration with food. Besides they are making changes so to that you can stack over 25.

Ferocity and precision are not a issue, it is all other stats and the ai in pve. Why would you need any vitality or toughness when the mobs are so stupid you can just los them to death or when you can just dodge their 1 slow hard hitting attack?
They need to improve the ai and make mobs less telegraphed to encourage players picking defensive stats.
(the ai is abysmal – when you los a ranged mob it runs to you to get backs his los but then stays in melee range, never even trying to make some distance…)

In pvp/wvw they need to strait up buff healing power to make it of any use. Toughness and vitality are fine as is, it’s just that active defense alone can keep you alive if you play smart even if you are full berserker.

Strill.2591:

Yes it’s supposed to be better.

No they never said that elite specs are going to be strictly better, if it were so then once hot drop you would never see any of the core classes in any game mode again (since by choosing the elite spcec your mesmer is no longer called a mesmer, it is now a chronomancer).
What they are suppose to do is give each class a different play style, this way the core classes (non elite specialized) still have a purpose for the way they play. The way this looks now (again all this worrying may be for no reason) is the elite spec is just a no brainer.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

It’s called an ‘elite’ specialization, obviously it should be better than the base spec.

But but but they said all specializations (trait lines) are suppose to be onpar, the mesmer one just looks like a pure powerup.
The thing that really bugs me (and this may not be true) is that i thought by picking a elite spec you get a new weapon, and utility, healing and elite skills and a different/augmented profession mechanic, but also lose a weapon, the bottom trait line (since that buffs your current profession mechanic which is changing) and a skill set. That way you sacrifice something in order to get a different play style for the profession.

The way the chronomancer looks like (and again this could be completely false) is you just get more power with no drawback. It would be more interesting if a mesmer that chooses the chronomancy line loses for example mind wreck, the torch and glamours, but gets a shield the new shatter skill and the new mesmer wells.

This is just the vibe i got from the blog post, but it looks like there is no reason not to pick the chronomancer specialization. It gives you a powerful new shatter and a new weapon, but the thing is you don’t really give up anything for it except 1 other trait line, but given how strong chronomancy looks like who cares.

It is probably to soon to judge but if every class gets uber strong elite specializations then no one will run the base ones, because there is no reason not to take the ones that up give you super strong new abilities. This is not the idea that was set up earlier this year, where it was said that players would have reason to stick to the core professions (specializations).

Ehh maybe i am just paranoid or stupid for thinking every class will just run the elite spec in every build after hot.

As long as p/p is split between condi and power with no evade or stealth on the weapon set, and with unload as the only skill that deals decent power damage, the set will always be subpar to everything no matter what traits you take for it. Except maybe zerging but why would you want to zerg as a thief?

Maybe they will change some pistol skills with the specialization patch seeing how d/d will gravitate to the condi/hybrid role with potent poison and the poison stacking change.

Nephrite.6954:

lol good luck getting stuck in an animation while necro’s place wells on you XD

Pistol whip has a 2.25 sec evade during the sword flurry, it works just like blurred frenzy, but for some reason after 3 years the tooltip still fails to mention this.

On top of that you can always cancel the animation if you really need to move, or you can use steal, infiltrator signet, and shadow step to teleport on top of your target if he moves without interrupting the pw, or to port on your target just as the stun is about to land (same thing as landing cloak & dagger from distance)

Not knowing any of this makes me think you never even tried to play a s/p build.

Keep in mind that poison is getting changed to a stacking condition and that dagger training is going to make all dagger attacks have a chance to apply poison, on top of that the +5% damage it gives now is going to be baseline.

d/d condy or hybrid builds are going to be a thing after the specialization changes (that are going live before hot). But i agree that the evade time is a tad to short so maybe bump it up from 1/4 to 1/2 sec. However death blosom may not need any buffs depending on how powerful the other changes end up, remember the reason d/d is not a good condy/hybrid set now is because it can only stack bleeds, which is changing.

I know the numbers are subject to change but this traits needs to strait up give more crit chance than it’s competitor side strikes, because it only affects 1 skill where as the other affects everything.
Or maybe merge it with the current combined training so then we would have:

Dual skills have 10% increased critical chance

or maybe

Dual skills have 5% increased critical chance and deal 5% more damage

I agree it should work like invigorating precision or assassin’s reward where you get sustain through active play/offence.

Perhaps change it to something like gain ~280 health every second and 1 initiative every 3 sec while you have reveal on. (the hp per sec would be lower in spvp because you have a longer reveal but you would get the same amount of hp overall).
This would mean that you could not cheese out fights by dropping poison and then camp in stealth for 8 sec to regain most of your life back, but instead would reward thieves rapidly going in and out of stealth (which is what shadow arts is akin to now with traits like hidden assassin building might and cloaked in shadows covering you).

What about making necros able to use utility and elite skills while in death shroud.
Right now it suck that to, for example, use necrotic traversal to relieve pressure you have to exit ds. I know it’s not the same but imagine if engineers could’t use their utility skills when having a kit out, it would make playing them clunky which is the feeling i get from necro.

Also many of our weapon skills could do with a shorter cast time/channeling time(spinal shivers a major culprit) but with more noticeable animations, for example it is hard to tell which mark the necro is casting on you or if he is about to use blood is power or golem charge.

How about renaming the well trait to focused rituals, removing the life siphon but making all wells recharge 20% faster, last 2 sec longer (or have a larger radius or both), and give you and 4 other allies standing in one a flat 20% damage reduction buff that can stack with protection just like resilience of shadows does (the 20% dmg buff can work the same way Hallowed Ground gives a buff to boon duration).

Also maybe change unholy sanctuary to one of my earlier suggestions:

What if instead of it giving us a copy of regeneration while in death shroud, it gives us health per second depending on the percentage of our missing hp.
Lets say it gives us a static 100 hp + 20 hp for every 10% hp we are missing, so if you enter ds when you are at say 45% hp you get 200 hp/sec, and after you get healed to 51% you now instead get 180 hp/sec, 61% 160 hp/sec, or 280 hp/sec if you are below 90% hp.
The 100 hp would not scale with healing power but the 20 that you get per missing 10% would, but very poorly.

Also maybe make chilling darkness or the new bitter chill increase all our chill duration by some amount say 10% or 20% or so.

Another good change i think would be making death shiver apply 1 vulnerability stack that lasts 6 sec to nearby foes ever second while in ds, and then every 4th second a 2 sec blind. Reason for this is making the trait more reliable (due to the small radious players often move away when the tick is about to happen) and adding some defense and synergy with other traits.

I can’t chose between thees two traits and it is driving me crazy.

Vp gives you more time in death shroud meaning more life blasts and more damage to be soaked up by life force, since you lose less of it through just being in deaths shroud meaning you have more of it for taking hits.

On the other hand soul marks (especially with staff mastery) lets you quickly and rapidly build up life force, so you get to have more of it faster after some one beats all of it from you. So again faster lf generation – more life blasts and more damage absorption.

Vp seems better if in a duel or in a 1 vs 1 or if someone can keep people away from you, but on the other hand if against more than 1 person or if against a burst build quickly generating life force seems better so soul marks?

For blood stone dust and empyreal shards you can get thees two items

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Star_of_Gratitude

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mawdrey_II

Thief is quite capable of 1 vs 1- ing almost all classes in wvw, assuming you don’t get zergd over.
It is more of a know how to play your build, it’s strength’s & weakness and know your opponent’s build deal. Also ignore all of the ‘shadow arts is for nawbs pistol is cheez’ talk and do not be ashamed to run away from a loosing fight.

Just make (or copy) a good build that fits your play style and practice with it. The neat thing about thief is that all traitlines are useful in one build or the other so you are not really hard pressed in to going to a single one to make a effective build, unlike ele with arcane/water, warrior with 3 in discipline ect.

This is one of the builds i like to run in solo wvw, it is sort of generic but hey who cares
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZEQNAoYVl0Mp0pVOx6J8PNhPBtdAedD4OEV4DdVDA-TFTBABkfEAoZ/BcUD4hTAAaKBvSpXXKDuRVFQOEAooPIHVKA4BAQGgqxA-w

Lily.1935:

can you link the post? because I haven’t heard anything like that.

I made a mistake (and re edited my post) it is not a red post, it was said in the last point of interest stream
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfYvmHyqumA

I am not sure at what point in the video it is said, but just take my word for it, they said the revenant has the new boons/conditions and that they are going to be available to other professions via specialization. Or watch the whole vid to get the time stamp.

BUT they may give some access to some base professions after the initial release the same way torment was given to warriors some time after it was implemented.

Maybe on Reaper’s Touch
-Send out a scythe that bounces between foes and allies. Causes vulnerability on foes and regeneration and resistance on allies.-
1 sec resistance per hit if it lands on a allied target, so you can bounce it between yourself and 1 teammate to stack 3 sec resistance on him and 2 sec on yourself.

Currently there is little incentive to use this skill on allies as bouncing it between foes is much better, so this would give it some diversity.

EDIT: i remember that in the last poi they said the new boons/conditions will be available to specializations only, not the base professions (outside of revenant)

Elegant, sharp-looking, stylish, I like this one the most http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dreadwing

leman.7682:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Revenant-kills-existing-professions/

Inviting you to write there as well to hopefully get Anet response.

I agree, having been a sworn necro since the release, I feel… cheated.

What’s the point, we have been begging for a rebalance for necromancer, so that blood magic would not be totally useless, so that the class has more synergy withing it’s traits, for the past 2 something years.
What makes you believe they are gona listen now?

What i am willing to bet my arm on is that the following happens: necromancers get a specialization that gives them the great sword and thus better access to cleave and changes how they use life force, every necomancer player chooses to role as the specialized version of the class and use the gs in every build as the specialization. The base class gets extinct.

Yea, from what i saw the revenant seems able to do the condition absorption/transfer playstyle and his skills do not look like they take 2 decades to caste. On top of that it looks like the class will have mobility similar to mesmer or a guardian as in lots of blinks but no skills like warrior’s rush, so mobility is looking better than necro.

Unless they make big changes to the necromancer i think i am swaping it for revenant, and i mean changes like the gw1 dervish skill and adrenaline redesign.
Revenant even has that dark or evil look to it, in malyx form at least so even thematically it can replace the necro.

I have an idea, that will no doubt be ignored by the devs and fade in to oblivion, on how to make this trait more impactful.

What if instead of it giving us a copy of regeneration while in death shroud, it gives us health per second depending on the percentage of our missing hp.

Lets say it gives us a static 100 hp + 20 hp for every 10% hp we are missing, so if you enter ds when you are at say 45% hp you get 200 hp/sec, and after you get healed to 51% you now instead get 180 hp/sec, 61% 160 hp/sec, or 280 hp/sec if you are below 90% hp.

The 100 hp would not scale with healing power but the 20 that you get per missing 10% would, but very poorly, like the rest of necromancer’s healing power scaling.
And also instead of that clunky you get put in to death shroud when you take a lethal blow only to die 2 sec later deal, we get protection on entering death shroud say 3 sec (4 because of the 30% boon duration).

I tinkerd with the build a bit and made this.
It has 1 more source of protection and twice as much ghost armor and more ways to generate l.force also moar ferocity.
It has a bit less toughness and a lot less health but the 20% l.force pool increase somewhat makes up for the hp. The loss of dagger speed buff is made up by perma swiftness, the only down side is waaaay less chills and no spectral attunement.
Spectral mastery also affects last gasp but the editor seems to ignore that for some reason, and also last gasp can stun break if you are stunned when it triggers.

I like how it looks, it has good stat distribution but lack ferocity in my opinion.
The main issue with a build like this is necromancers can’t quickly pump out lots of boons to cover up the important stuff (protection, stability, fury) so fighting thieves (who are swarming wvw), mesmers and other necromancers can backfire really bad on you. Imagine giving a thief 20 sec protection, or getting it repeatedly turned to vulnerability.

I would suggest swapping forgeman for runes of the earth, they give more protection duration, the 3rd effect gives a much shorter protection but is on half as long a cooldown so it is not that big of a loss, but more importantly it will give you magnetic aura that reflects projectiles which is very handy since pew pew rangers are also plaguing wvw and necros are weak to long range pew pew.

In my experience sustain for necromancers comes from quickly filling up your life force in combat and lots of snares in form of cripple chill and other disables which are a lot less effective in wvw due to stupid foods making them null and void vs some builds.
This is a huge issue if you also happen to be fighting a competent opponent who will not hit you when you got ghost armor up, which is what seems to be the major life force generator for your build, since you are using off hand dagger which has no l.force generation and are not using soul marks and don’t have gluttony or reaper’s precision.

Even still i like what you made here i will probably get the gear to try it, but will tinker with the stats a bit to get more ferocity probably gona swap something for a few cavalier pieces and some zerker for assassin to make up for the lost precision.

edit: also also spectral wall will not give you protection if you walk through it when you already have protection on you

Almost all skills on dagger and focus have waaay too long of a cast time, i mean the reason no one ever uses dagger 2 is it has a 3.5 sec channeling time! Dagger 3 is not horrible in it’s cast but it has a long cd. Long cd and long cast time on a melee weapon that is suppose to be aggressive and in your face just makes no sense, especially on a class that is the least mobile one.
Same for focus 5, there is no reason for it to have 1.25 cast time especially because it is the 1 necro skill that has a more noticeable animation.

Thees skills need to get the locust swarm treatment and get their cast/channeling times reduced and idc about hard to see animations and tells, if them having shorter cast times means the necromancer gets a red arrow above his head and turns purple while casting so be it.

Can this change happen plz!

The way signets work and and because necromancers are encouraged, by lots of traits, to stay in death shroud (you end up in death shroud for ~50% of combat time depending on the build), signets are rarely used other than sos, and even then it is used only for it’s active effect.
This is really annoying because all signets-sov have good passive and active effects, and fit in lots of builds but because you lose them for half of the fight they are a lot less attractive.

1: there are two optimal ways to set up a burst if you are starting a fight or +1ing.
first is you get in steal range of your victim (800 to 900 distance), cast black powder and heartseeker through it. While you are flying through the air use steal to instantly teleport to your target and land the heartseeker, which you then follow up with a backstab and auto attacks.

Second burst option is similar except you use seal while casting black powder to drop it on top of your target and then heartseeker in melee range. This is better if he sees you coming.
You can also use infiltrator’s signet to teleport if steal is on cd.

2: Do you have swiftness? it is really hard to land a good back backstab if you do not and your target has.
Also turn off the ‘auto attack assist’ option in the game menu, it is suppose to help you land auto attacks by making enemies body block you (to stop you passing through them) but in actuality it just hinders you while attacking someone that is moving, but more importantly for backstabing it allows you to get to a characters flank more easily
if he is facing you (just go through him and do a 180 turn).

If you are at a distance and have stealth, but not enough to make it to the target in time you can use shadow shot (if on d/p) to teleport to him (the shot does no damage, just blinds so it will not break stealth) and cancel the stab but spamming skill 1 (backstab) to get a backstab instead of the shadow stab (or if you do not want to backstab immediately after teleporting with #3 ,you can use the sheath weapon button to cancel any attack to better position yourself).

3: Unless you know that you can murder your target by spending most of your initiative, never drop below 6. Reason for that is you need at least 6 to start entering stealth or try to run away. (cloak & dagger, and infiltrator’s arrow, or black powder with you staying in it for 2 or so sec to be able to h.seeker and also to make use of first strike if you go 6 in critical strikes).
You can drop lower than 6 (to about 3) with comfort if you go deep in to trickery or are using BOTH quick recovery (in acrobatics) and infiltrator’s signet (for it’s passive unless you need to stun break or catch a fleeing enemy) with at least 3 in critical strikes (for the minor trait opportunist), as thees setup allow for fast initiative regeneration (the trickery one requires cd management of steal, basically never use it if you are at full initiative).

4: Use it if there is too muck aoe or cleave to stay in melee range, and to reposition yourself. Swapping to it after you burst once is really bad unless you are fighting a engineer or get a heavy counterattack.
Since s.bow is a utility weapon i usually out a sigil of generosity on it to better combat conditions and a sigil of energy/bloodlust depending on the enemy team.
Swap to s.bow at the very start of a fight (you have it out before you enter combat) or very soon after if you need to poison someone in order to win aka some warrior builds or every celestial elementalist.

5: air/fire on d/p (or any dps weapon set for thief) are the go to for burst damage, but you can swap out fire for force if you want more consistent dps (you sacrifice a bit of burst but it is worth it depending on the enemy team), or in some cases fire for generosity or nullification.
For short bow, other than what i mentioned above, you can use hydromancy, leaching, perception, fire (for some burst on s.bow), or if they have more than 1 engineer on the team or are heavy on condi spam in general purity+generosity is really strong.

Coronit.9432:

And D/D has together with P/P the worst moblitity of all weapon sets.

That is so wrong. D/D has mobility that rivals that of the shortbow and in turn the mobility of d/p, let me brake it down:
heartseeker costs 3 ini and has a range of 450 units.
Infiltrator’s arrow costs 6 ini and has a range of 900 units.
So 2 heartseekers take you as far as 1 i.arrow, BUT they are also affected by swiftness so that 450 range becomes 600. And so 2 heartseekers can move you 1200 units for the same cost as 1 i.arrow.
Now the movement on h.seeker goes both ways and if you have cripple or chill it becomes much worst that i.arrow.
Also keep in mind that you have to angle the camera the correct way so that you don’t stop half way through the leap(don’t pan in down like you do when you stack stealth with black powder).
Ofcourse the disadvantage h.seeker has, in comparison to infiltrator’s strike/ arrow, is that it is not a instant teleport (this is a non issue with d/p since you have shadow shot), but it makes up for it because you can use it whenever you like to close distance or create it (since it has not mechanic like infiltrator’s return and is 3 initiative, thus more affordable for chasing/escaping).

On a side note p/d has next to no chasing power seeing how shadow strike is restricted to making distance, not closing it and no land speed (in my eyes it is the second worst set for mobility after p/p).

Well written op, now we can hope the qq-ers actually reed it, and not just constantly cry about teefs and request nerfs…
one can only hope.

I am not happy with it
Like everyone says the entire blood magic trait line is not working with death shroud which is beyond stupid, and might i add necromancer’s sustain is suppose to be syphoning hp (which is boosted by b.magic) and none of it works.
Also why do i lose my signet’s passive effect’s when i enter ds? Also also why can’t i see my heal/utility/elite skill cooldwon while in ds?

Also also also me thinks that there should be less traits that force you to stay in death shroud, and more traits that have something to do with how much life force you have (like soul Strength of Undeath or the warrior’s Berserker’s Power/Heightened Focus)

GrandmaFunk.3052:

You are offered a new option, if you don’t like it then that’s that. the same would be true of anything else they add in.

The thing is, what if i like a profession the way it plays now? Since the specialization is going to change the class mechanic i may not want to specialize on some profession, which would be a issue if they do not add anything to the base professions.

It may make playing feel like i do not have any use of the xpac ( from a build making, min-maxing pov, especially in spvp/wvw) because choosing not to specialize, for the reason of liking the class mechanic/play style of a profession the way it is now more, means that trait and skill (utility) wise i get no new build options from the expansion.

They said that specializations are sort of gw2’s secondary professions, so to me it is illogical that the ‘primary’ profession is going to get neglected.
Keep in mind that they have not announced everything yet so my concern may be null and void.

We know that the xpac will give us an option to specialize our profession and get a new weapon and some new utility, healing, and elite skills and traits, but in turn lose some of the base skills/traits (maybe even some of the currently available weapons) and change the class mechanic and the overall way the profession plays in some way.

But will we get some new traits/skills for the base professions, or will we be stuck with the exact same builds if we don’t chose to specialize when the xpac drops?

This is very true, most ppl just make nerf requests for thief out of rage/frustration (more so from the wvw side i think), without thinking how the profession works.

Another rally BIG qq generator is thief’s mobility that allows for easy escapes or kills fleeing enemies (again wvw more than anything). Shadow step in combination with infiltrator’s signet, infiltrator’s strike, and steal can instantly get you ooc in the right circumstances.

Anyhow this is a great post, but expect incoming qq from ppl claiming teef is op cos you can spam 2222 or something.

Here is a build i use in wvw that will probably suit your play style:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZEQNAoYVl0Mp0pVOx7J8PNhPBtdAedD4OEV4Dd1DA-TFTBABkfEAoZ/BcUD4hTAAaKBvSpXXKDuRVFQOEAooPIHVKA4BAAA-w

It focuses on backstabs and stacking might with the traits hidden assassin and signets of power to ramp up damage. On top of that it is not a super glass build and has decent defensive stats.

However the rune set costs about 100 gold, so if that is too much here is a alternative:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZEQNAoYVl0Mp0pFOx6J8PNhOBt9tDQB4OFf4EdVEA-T1SBABkfEAe4EAgmSwrUa1lykbUDAkDBAR7Pgi+gcU9BgHAAA-w

This focuses on steady damage, rather on relaying on burst from backstabs (it does much less dmg because you can’t stack as much might). It also has slightly more hp.
You should swap basilisk venom for dagger storm (or shadow refuge for smoke screen, or blinding powder) if you are running in to lots of longbow rangers, also thees work with d/p (swap cloaked in shadows/hidden thief for infusion of shadows and you are all set and if you want you can swap out vigorous recovery for fleet shadow and in that case taking hide in shadows as your heal might be better ).

Also the first build is much better with d/d since stealth with dagger offhand is cheaper on initiative to get and faster, and thus you can get in stealth more often and get more might, and is the build to go for if you want to see consistent higher numbers on backstab.

Also also none of thees are considered ‘meta’ at the moment (most meta builds go 6 in trickery for sleight of hand) but don’t let that discourage you from playing them, me thinks better to play what you like than what is slightly better.

I am putting on a tinfoil hat and throwing my speculations on the thief specializations, cos HYPE!!!11

Specialization 1: saboteur
-new weapons:
staff/spear-a weapon with melee skills and skills with a range up to 600 focused around debilitating and staggering your enemies with conditions (cripple, weakness, vulnerability, poison, blind) and blocking/counterattacking (like the underwater skill nine-tail strike).

mace (mainhand)-it would be faster than the other classes mace skills, focused on doing steady damage which ramps up if you fulfill certain requirements (like dagger backstab doing 2xdmg if flank) e.g. you do more dmg vs targets with 5 or more stack of vulnerability, or a skill from mace could apply double the duration of it’s condition if you strike a blind target (cripple for 3 sec, 6 if you hit a blind target).

-Choosing to become a saboteur replaces your steal with 2 ‘sabotage’ skills that have a short cd, but share it, and are short range (something like 450).

the first ‘sabotage skill’ would hinder your foes ability to wield his weapons, causing him to have a 50% chance to fail his attacks and reduce his condition duration by 20% for a short duration (say 5 sec or so).

The second ‘sabotage skill’ would put your foe out of balance for a few sec (again say 5 sec), causing him to get knocked down (2 sec) the next time he tries to dodge, is struck
while blocking or while using a movement skill (rush, heartseeker, hornet’s sting ect..).

-You would get traits that complement putting (non damaging) conditions on foes as well as traits that scale your damage (like the trait Lead Attacks thieves have now) if certain requirements are met (lets say you get +10% dmg and +5% crit chance if your target is moving slower than normal).

-Your steal traits would be replaced with traits that enhance your new ‘sabotage’ skills, and you would get access to more utility skills like the trick skills and venoms (that don’t suck)

Specialization 2: assassin (or hassassin to sound less mainstream)
-new weapons:
Rifle: a range single target way of dealing heavy direct damage as well as a tool for interrupting/immobilizing targets (basically a power version of pistol with a 1000 range).

Sword (offhand): a hybrid weapon with very quick attacks that cause blindness, bleeding, and cripple (slashing your opponents eyes and joints).Damage from offhand sword skills, and it’d dual skill, could scale based on how many stacks of bleeding your target has: you do a 0.5% bonus damage per stack up to 12.5% if someone has 25 stacks.

-Choosing to become an assassin replaces your steal with a new shadowstep skill called ’assassin’s promise’ (for nostalgia purposes) that is the same range as steal but has a much longer cd (lets say 90 sec), and instead of giving you a ‘stolen skill’ marks the target giving you swiftness and fury, the duration of the mark and the 2 boons you get is longer if the target has more hp(works like heartseeker: if the target is over 75% hp the mark and boons lasts 10 sec, 75%-50% mark & boons are 6 sec 50%-25% mark & boons are 4, 25%-0% mark is 4 sec and you get no boons)
If you down and kill the target before the mark expires you get your initiative and endurance refilled, you get healed for a % of your target’s max hp (something small like 10%) and assassin’s promise instantly recharges.

-Choosing to evolve to a assassin would grant you access to traits that encourage going in and out of stealth repeatedly (not camping in stealth with s.refuge but rather hoping in stealth for no longer than 2 sec), and traits that encourage rapid use of different weapon skills, say you get a bonus to power or attack speed if you do not use the same skill twice in a row (including the auto attack chain, if you view the whole chain as 1 skill).

-Your steal traits would be replaced with traits that enhance your promise, by making it apply vulnerability, chill, etc. and you would get more utilities like deceptions and traps (again, that don’t suck).

Tinfoil hat off.

Acro is better than trickery unless you go 6 deep.

Also consider this setup: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAsY4Yl0MpyplOx7J8PNRPRsdwwDvjZ99D-TlSBABWq+zZKBf4gAclyquUqAyDAAP9DLcCA4Z/BAOCAkCIixAA-w

A version of your build with more toughness and a lot more dmg as a result of heavy might stacking (keep in mind that shadow refuge will get you 10 stacks of might if you stay in it from start to finish).

Or my personal favorite d/d build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZEQNAoYVl0Mp0pVOx8J8PNhPBtdAedD4OEX4Dd1DA-TFTBABkfIAsUlCa2f4hTAAlqqgmSwrU61lygKVDAkjAAe6DA4BAQKgIGDA-w

A slightly squishier version of the above, but more sustainable and with more dmg, range option but no boon removal.

But you should really pick based on preference rather than on what might be slightly better or worst.

Black Frog.9274:

At one of the champs, I watched my damage scale up in very large numbers, until the last hit of the 4th or 5th Unload hit for 31k!

I am ether miss reading this or you are monstrously confused on how channeling skills work.
The 31k crit at the end of your 5th unload was NOT the damage of a single bullet hit, but the sum of the damage all 5 unloads did; it appeared as a crit because the very last bullet was a crit and thus the whole sum of the damage is displayed as a crit.

If you have any doubts go to the spvp lobby and unload a bunch on a test golem and check your combat log, the damage of individual bullets is the same (give or take cos of the dmg range on pistol).

So in your case:
you did 31k TOTAL with 5 unloads, each unload hits 8 times so that’s 6.2k dmg per unload, or 775 dmg per bullet, average of course some hits were crits other were not but that’s the gist of it.

Recently there was a post about how ppl confuse the sum of the dmg of channeling skills (hundred blades, pistol whip, flamethrower auto attack, rapid fire, ect..) as doing absurd damage because, apparently, they think that the displayed damage that is ramping up is the damage per hit rather than the dmg the channeled skill has done in total.

I would love to play as a ritualist in gw2, as it was my second favorite profession from the first game. But there are more then a few identity issues now: the weapon spells are a part of the elementalist, the ashes and spirits are a part of the engineer and mesmer to a degree (kits, turrets and illusions).
It would probably be better if the class were completely different from gw1 so that it doesn’t just fill the role of others
(thematically it can stay the same with the connection to the afterlife and whatnot).

They could also pull the assassin to thief move if there is any problems lore vise and rename the class to something like channeler or invoker to give it a reason for appearing outside of Cantha.

Also is anyone aware that Razah, the kitten ritualist (who could even shift his primary profesion) from gw: nightfall, is probably still alive in the current timeline of gw2?

Any other weapon set is better for +1ing fights, and every other set will get you to fights faster. p/p is a underperforming disjointed weapon set that is bad at bursting, sustained damage and mobility and survivability, there is no real reason to use it other than if you really like the dual pistol look.

Thief bursts are generally easy to land and you can burst frequently (d/d with cloak & dagger backstab, d/p with black powder heartseeker in to backstab, s/p with pistolwhip ect..) and it is all better that p/p.

You can wear 2 of the same ring if one of them is infused (just one not both)

take a look at infusing and shizl, might be simpler than contacting support and you can tell everyone that that was your plan when you got 2 of the same ascended items

for your case it would be:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ring_of_Red_Death_

Not sure about the ashes, can’t find anything about infusing trinkets so maby ask around ingame if anyone infused theirs ( i know back items can also be infused).

Warcry.1596:

Invig Precision, my favorite trait, is receiving a nice buff

Yes, i love that stupid trait, though i still think the way to make it on par with the other two is to make it give you a passive bonus to precision in addition to the on crit heal.

Still can’t complain about this buff it is stronk, the trait will probably be useful in dungeons where executioner is not too noticeable like cleaving weak mobs that die fast anyway or the first two subject alpha encounters where he escapes at ~40% hp.
In situations like those having the heals to keep up your scholar rune might be better than executioner, maybe, possibly.

UPDATE WITH NO THIEF NERFS, CANTHA CONFIRMED!!!!11

Yes people have experimented with other builds, but that does not mean that there are no setups that have become (more) viable over time with updates.

Also apparently you have not experimented with builds much since you confuse Hastened Replenishment with Quick Pockets

Also the trait you say is trash was in a meta build some 17 months ago in spvp where you would use two s/d sets with sigils of energy and weapon swap every 10 sec to the same weapons to gain 3 ini and 50% endurance (this was jumper’s build and this was back when Larcenous Strike stole 2 boons)