Guild Wars 2

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This was a good build 2 months ago, but after taking a break from the game i log in to see some nerfs so i figured i’l just post here to get some opinions.

This was’t a meta wvw thief build but it had good results, being resistant to conditions and having blinds lots of evades and ages on demand.. sort of.
I don’t know how well will it hold out now when from what i can tell more ppl are running tanky codition specs.

So opinions, what would you change and why.

also the new map is sick for roaming when everyone is not zerging all over the place, which is to say almost never.

New meta? maybe for some but s/p was my main set for wvw since forever.
Although maybe for tpvp, i wouldn’t know since i don’t s/tpvp much.

the build if anyone is curious

No stealth but ridiculous amounts of evades and ages and blinds on demand.
Power is a tad low (this is a non issue if you have guard leach) but it is made up by the hp and armor.
The sigil of hydromancy is for the same reason the guy above me described.

Increase the health you get per initiative spent (maybe to 75 or so), since if you go 30 in acrobatics you most likely won’t go for shadow arts and so you don’t get extra healing from healing power (since thiefs don’t generally take gear with healing power).

Secondly make it heal the thief for a set amount (say 2k hp or so) when his initiative reaches 0, and give this effect a 30-60 sec internal cooldown.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this trait cos most people agree it is so not worth the 30 points.

Also sorry if there are other suggestions like this, in which case i just wasted 10 seconds of your time.

Now the traits:

A huge problem with traits is that there are a lot of traits that require other traits to be of any use (getting flashbacks from the signet talk). The most obvious ones are all of the marksmanship minor traits. So opening strike, alpha training, and precise strike grant you a grand total of 10 stack of vulnerability for 6 sec on 1 target and make 1 of your and your pet’s attacks crit.
Ok here is the problem with that: rangers are not thiefs or warriors, our dps is supposed to be sustained via not 1 or 2 hard hitting attacks, but a lot of small to medium damage attacks (Rapid Fire, Barrage, Hunter’s Call, Path of Scars, Whirling Defense ,ect) so precise strike is a gigantic waste. Since we cannot put out any massive hits within the 6 sec (maul is the only exception), the other 2 minor traits are also wasted.
But this bugges me the most, thees 3 traits don,t do anything for you since after you hit someone (like a wet noodle) the traits are not gona provide you with anything until you go ooc or, again take a trait to make your traits useful at all times (Remorseless, which happens to share a spot with signets of the beast master and in wvw or t/spvp forces you to take a longbow seeing how there is not muck you can kill fast to refresh the other traits, or take a 20 point master trait in wilderness survival that will refresh the 3 minors if you get cc’d….)
There are a lot of traits that are bad unles you take other traits to make them not bad, but not good ether.
And lastly the placement of some traits is questionable:
trap traits in a critical damage line? a trait that makes great sword have shorter cooldowns in a condition damage line?

Some weak spots regarding the ranger:

-No conditon removal, i mean almost none that won’t kill your pet and, and in term some of your dps and utility (when the pet feels like doing stuff).
Also almost all of it is passive and the only trait that offers any actual condition removal is, again a 30 point grandmaster in wilderness survival (Evasive Purity will hardly ever save you since the only dangerous condition it removes is poison and it can do that at the cost of endurance and once every 10 sec).

Strange weapon skills:

-Main hand axe, what is it suppose to do, auto attack is weak and is a power based skill,
skill #2 is applies bleeding and skill #3 applies a chill and gives your pet a buff.
the axe trait gives you 10% more crit dmg with a main hand axe so what we have is a weapon that attacks very slowly and is nether a power weapon nor a conditon damage weapon.

-Sword chain skill: this is arguable but it kills you more often that not, and while some swear by the sword chain on it’s ability to disengage i find my self mostly not using it since it is very clunky to manage.
But i think no one can argue that, in a game about keeping mobile and being evasive, a skill (the main damage skill of a weapon, which you use more than the other skills, or at least are suppose to) that locks you in a animation for a long time (since it is the skill you spam, you know it being your auto attack and all) might have some issues.

There are more things wrong with the ranger, but after previewing this thing i think no one will actually read up to this point let alone read what ever else i write, so in conclusion rangers…need buffs actual buffs. Just cos we have 1 build (spirit) that works in one part of the game (tpvp which is what like 20% of the total game?) and it works only because you and your opponent are forced to stand on a 2×2 square dose not mean rangers are supposed to be next to worthless in the remaining 80% of the game (wvw especally; when was the last time you alone as a ranger managed to beat a warrior, or a thief, or a well anything that is not another ranger?).
I remember someone saying that all of the classes are suppose to be equal in what they can do, well ranger sucks at everything apart from bunkering in tpvp with 1 spec, and nothing more.

I mean really, rangers are so underpowered it is not funny. We have lackluster utility skill that only become good if traited (signets, spirits) and we have pets as a class mechanic which are about 30% of our dmg. Rangers have less base dmg on weapons that other classes since our pets are suppose to make up the difference, but they can hardly ever hit anything and the f2 skills sometimes refuse to work when you need it cos of the pet AI.
Want to fear a thief out of his shadow refuge? Well to bad your pet need 5 seconds to get in the mood.

I know there are a million posts about this, but i feel like putting my opinion out here.

Lets start with utility skills:

-Signets or rather their active effect are useless unless traited to effect you, which would be fine if the trait was not a 30 point grandmaster.

-Shouts are mostly useless since they are to do with pets and seeing how they do everything apart from what you need them to do, taking this skill type is somewhat a waste of a slot (search and rescue is ok in some situations, but the rest are just a gamble as you have no idea if when you use say sic ’em the pet will actually manage to land some hits in, esspecaly on a moving target).

-Survival is the only skill type that is overall not bad, i really have nothing negative to say about them.They are good on their own require no traits to be effective but instead are buffed by them.

-Spirits are almost all bad apart from 2 scenarios: frost spirit in dungeons and all of them in one spec for holding a point in t/spvp. In tpvp they are a mess tho, the name of the owner over them clutters the screen and when you decide to use the active skills of spirits the screen is filled whit a lot of particle effects making spirit builds a nightmare to fight against, but for the wrong reason, not because they are super strong but because you cannot see much of anything. And also to be effective you need to trait for them so that is 30 points in nature magic. This means in wvw and s/tpvp you ether go 30 to make them actually useful and sacrifice all you utility slots, or you don’t take any of them. Is anyone else seeing a problem here or is it just me?

-Traps are ok and work fine with no traits but the part where they fails are the traits. The traits that enhance them are in skirmishing, a line nothing to do with conditions and the traps (apart from frost trap) are condition damage skills, so what gives here?

I really think thees 2 minor traits need a bit of a buff.
Can we have Vengeful Images refresh itself as it run out just like phantasmal Fury dose? This would be useful to builds that rely on keeping phantasms alive. Now this trait runs out after 6 sec and if you are set on not shattering your phantasm you do not even notice the trait that gives them retaliation.
Wastrel’s Punishment…this is a grandmaster minor that, in my opinion, gives to little to be worthy of 25 points. I mean it has synergy with the rest of the domination traitline since you rely on daze to stack vulnerability and in doing that make your oponent inactive…for 1 sec, 2 at best. There are only 2 exception that i can think of that can lock them down more than that, but can we at least have it set to give 10% (or even 15% since honestly how many hits can you get in before the stun / daze wears off, and not to mention the bonus damage only applies to your attacks but not to your phantasms).
Or Maybe make it give us fury or might for 4 or so seconds when hitting a inactive foe.
Any thoughts?

So i noticed that when i have empowered illusions trait on, the offhand sword skill illusionary riposte doesn’t get the damage boost.
The way this skill works is that, when you block it makes a clone (not a phantasm) which hits for a lot of dmg on its first strike and after that it behaves like a normal clone (low dmg).
Now i am not 100% shure if this is just a tooltip bug or an actual skill-trait bug.

So i decided to make a mesmer since i like the class and i have the scroll that lets you get a character to lvl 20 instantly, but this being my 4th character that i want to level to 80 it is so boring.
Leveling in pve (doing map completion until i get to 80) is such a drag since i already saw every map, heart and prety much everything. Leveling in wvw is inconsistent and i might spend 2h with no progress, and leveling via crafting costs to much and after i do it i would still need to grind for gear cos i spend everything.
So i need edvice, is there any other way?

Easiest way to counter one is with black powder. Hammer attacks are so slow that if he is stupid enough not to move he can’t hit you, simple as that (unless he has -100% codi duration with berserker stance and runes/food).
So ether carry a d/p or a s/p with you.
d/p has the advantage of poison on auto attacking so you can kill him faster as it will cut his healing .
s/p is more defensive seeing how you can evade with pistol whip and you have weakness on the final hit of the sword chain (stand in black powder and just auto attack him he will be blinded most time and when he is not he is weakened.
This works assuming he is without backup.

I like the idea as this would make steal more than just a offensive shadow step that you use to get to a victim and forget about the ability that you got.
Another way they could make steal have more impact is make a trait that alters what the stolen skills do (much like a guardian can trait his virtues to give boons on activation). So a mesmer stolen skill could also cure all conditions from you or the elementalist ice shard could become a single target projectile that in addition to chill also applies x stacks of vulnerability or something like that, just making the skills more usefull

Ravoku.1852:

He didn’t said they wanted to remove teleport stomp from the game, now it force thieves to use a break stun skill with cooldown to do it.

Except you never could do a tp stomp with just infiltrators strike/infiltrators return, you always had to ether use steal, shadow step (the utility), or infiltrator’s signet.
So to sum it up they are nerfing inistrike/return cos you can use a utility skill to secure a stomp like any other class.

The way anet makes ‘balance’ changes is they look at spvp (or tpvp), then they look at the forums, see what people are crying about, then nerf something to make the thing that people are crying about les efective (shave it by 50%) and in the process, nerf all other specs to helll and back and back to hell.

bladie.5084:

Do we still have thieves who are still willing to play s/p after patch?

Well most likely since i don’t like any other sets apart from d/d and i am way to used to headshot to swap to s/d, which has ,in my opinion less utility (no blinds no interrupts unless you count c&d in to tactical strike which takes some time and is not a reliable interrupt , it only has got a boon steal going for it)

Interesting, honestly the ini regen from pw will not change that much in pvp.
The problem occurs in pve where you can cleave 3 mobs at once, with usually a crit chance of 100%.
Now with that you could always get 2 ini back per pw (if not 3 if the stunt crits and gets you 1 ini, there is just enough time for opportunist to go off cd when the second instance of sword damage hits and another one at the very end of the sword flurry – i might be wrong but i think you can get 3 from one pw).
And 1 ini every second of auto attacking (if hitting 3 mobs, seeing how the sword auto attacks have a cast time of 1/2sec and oppertunist has a 30% chance to trigger so that’s 90% chance on hitting 3 targets).

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Well i was talking about competitive builds, d/d will still be bad even after the 33% ini gain imho
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Well mabye a double short bow power build or something.You have a evade on 3 and cluster bomb can do ok damage if you don’t detonate it, mabye , possibly….yea at least you would have a cool looking poison field

ok s/p is worthless after this pach reasons being:

The obvious: opportunist nerf which will hurt pve most of all seing how there you could hit up to 3 mobs at once with a crit chance no lower that 70% (if not 100%) so you would get about 3 ini per pw, not anymore.

The not so obvious is that the pw ,after the pach, will have a after cast time of 0.25sec but the stun lasts for 0.50sec meaning you get only one sword hit in before the stun ends (you get 3 instances of damage – the pw hits 9 times, one of which is the pistol stun ,but the sword flurry actually has 4 swings each dealing 2 instances of dmg so that one hit form the stun + 4 swings that each deal damage twice = 9 instances of dmg total – you can test this on the practise dummies in la), but befeore the octobre 15 nerf you had a cast time of 0.50sec and the stun lasted for 1.00sec so you had 0.50 sec to land 2 sword hits while they were stund ( 5 instances of dmg, 4 from sword 1 from stun). Now like i said you will only get one swordhit in (3 instance of dmg , 2 from sword one from the stun) cos you have 0.25sec of stun time when the flurry starts and before you had 0.50sec.

Another nerf to the set will be the infiltrators return 1/4 sec cast time (thath, like vincecontix said i doubt will actualy be 1/4 sec). This is a key element in s/p play style
(and s/d for that matter) and now if you don’t have cat like reflexes and a god like internet connection with next to no lagg ( lol wvw) good luck dodging incoming
earth shakers and bull’s charges not to mention you can;t use it while chaneling or while doing another action (such as withdrawing or dodging or while in a pw root)

Last but not least is the nerf to vigor. Do i need to explain this on?
Well i do ,since there is a slim chance a dev will read this and i am certain that whoever is balancing the thief is clueless. I get that thief dodge too much , but we are the second squishiest class in the game and after you nerf perma stealt (only thing done right in the upcoming pach) evasion is the only viable defence left , and this was always the only defence s/p had (a play style where you jump and stick on your opponent and try to outlast him by evading damage while interupting key skills of his own) and you nerfd it to the ground shaved it by 50%.

Just don’t bother with the set, the only thing you will be able to do post pach is spam black powder and auto attack while camping in it while occasionally headshoting a heal skill , this is coming from someone who used it more than any other weapon combination and i am putting it down after pach unles they recal the changes to at least the shadow return and opportunist (and make the godkitten pw stun last 1 sec flat!!!)

ramorambo.6701:

So.. what build do you think will be viable after this patch?

well a d/d 0/30/30/10/0 build or a some sort of p/d condi build, but seeing how they will nerf aka fix runes of perplexity the p/d will lose a lot of its confusion stacking potential…so mostly just d/d left

So in the October 15th patch you made it so that the stun duration doesn’t round up to a whole number, which is fine (this was a indirect nerf to warrior stun-locking) but that made it so that the pistol whip stun wears off before the first hit of the sword flurry hits meaning this skill is useless.
So the why on earth was this not fixed in this pach?? this is a key skill in the s/p set and is impossible to land (or rather to make it do any damage as the enemy an simply dodge all of the sword attacks).
You cannot convince me this skill is working as intended and this seems like a simple fix, but nooooo you focus on changing shadow refuge tooltip instead, rather than fixing a real problem you made half a month ago.