Guild Wars 2

Excalibur.9748:

Viking Jorun.5413:

frans.8092:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Very few thieves have rigs that they can record at decent settings on, otherwise I’m positive there would be at least one more thief doing this.

Decent settings is rather vague. I can record 1080 at low – medium settings (native 1080 resolution, high lod about 30fps), on a simple i3 rig. I will not be trying 1080 in a zerg vs zerg but then, neither is Yishis.

I’ve tried livestreaming on my rig at 540p, and while the framerate never drops below 40 the video is still choppy. Maybe recording onto disk is different? I’ve only got native 720.

My rig goes as follows:

• NVidia 630 GT 1.0 GB
• Intel Core i7 3rd Gen 3632qm 2.6GHz
• 12.0GB RAM

Can play at 60fps with no issues on medium-high settings when not livestreaming, drops to 30-45 when livestreaming on medium-low settings.

Try streaming with OBS openbroadcaster software. If the video is choppy while your frame rate is fine, then your upload speed may be too low.

Upload shouldn’t be an issue when recording.
I tried OBS yesterday and once we had Quicksync up recording seemed to have little impact on framerate. I think Quicksync allows OBS to use the otherwise unused graphics processors in your CPU to help encoding. And Lightworks seems to be able to import it
But I still need to test with 1080.

Or Superior Rune of Infiltration with a 10% buff when the enemy is below 50%?

That is not a problem with the profession but with the system as a whole – trying to play with real-time action mechanics on an architecture that is inherently laggy.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Very few thieves have rigs that they can record at decent settings on, otherwise I’m positive there would be at least one more thief doing this.

Decent settings is rather vague. I can record 1080 at low – medium settings (native 1080 resolution, high lod about 30fps), on a simple i3 rig. I will not be trying 1080 in a zerg vs zerg but then, neither is Yishis.

Banning accounts over this is not going to happen but they might put a debuff (like the one near the spawn point) on players behaving like this, or maybe a general debuff that prevents players from deploying more then x siege equipment per hour/day.
A lighter ‘penalty’ is lighter to apply and carries less risk of undesirable consequences for Anet

Cloaked in Shadow maybe? Might make that attack miss, enough at least to make a difference in how you experience it.

protagonize.9705:

… Some of them do all these different effects that I really don’t understand.

It will come with experience, browsing the gw wiki and the forum.

Our other MAJOR problem is questing. We are trying to do quests together but our personal stories pull us apart and are dragging us all over the map. This seems silly, but how do we level up together?

I would suggest following one story for a while, then the other. Also, pick the same path, Vigil, Order or Priory by the time you get near level 30 – that way the quests beyond level 30-40 will be the same. But maybe you’ll like experiencing the other stories.

Our inventories are full of crafting items and what not and various other things, but we have no clue what to do with the stuff.

Use the cog icon in the upper right part of the inventory window to mave crafting items (collectable they are called) into a special bank area that stores these materials. You can then access or use these materials from a bank, or use them for crafting at a crafting workbench.

We can’t figure out where to sell our junk or buy armor upgrades, bag upgrades, etc… We are lost…

Merchants, scattered around. Also the hearts-npc’s with the purple dot in their heart will not only sell their karma-things, but usually buy any goods you want to sell. In general, every npc that sells something will also buy all the stuff from you.

Armor can be bought in you home-instance, or your home town. Some hearts-npc are karma vendors with gear they seel for karma. I’s mainly stick to gear you find, as is usual in RPG’s.

I chose a Necromancer and she chose an Elementalist so maybe those are not noob-proof classes or maybe Sylvari is a difficult starting race?

Necromancer is are very, very survivable class to play. Experiment with every weapon you find and unlock all it’s weapon skills whenever you find a new weapon.

EarthSage.7284:

new to the game- what gives you a better chance to survive toughness or Vitality? trying to figure which would be better to focus on. Thinking Toughness but would like to hear others thoughts

It depends on how long you intend to stay in fights and how much you heal during the fights. By increasing Toughness you also increase the effective health-pool (take more hits with the same amount of health) and the effectiveness of any healing you receive (an amount of healing offsets more hits).

Health helps in surviving high bursts and against over-healing (receiving more healing then fits into your helthpool).

Well, seeing as it’s a major switching it with Last Refuge would be an improvement.

NinjaEd.3946:

frans.8092:

NinjaEd.3946:

P/d which is slow, and short lasting. Also not much of a variety of conditions making condition removals not only prioritize, but easily pick off your main dps. Good condition builds don’t rely on 1 or 2 DoT’s, and sadly thief has no choice.

You could run sigils of doom (as p/d+d/d or dual p/d), for poison, and the 15 point minor in Deadly Arts for weakness. You have vulnerability and immobilize on #2, torment on the #3, criple on #4 and vulnerability on #5. Who’s saying there are few conditions for a P/D? And that is without even adding venoms.

P/D is a very durable and reliable condition build for Wvw. It’s a bit too safe and slow for general PvE though, but caltrops is very effective against npc and the build will let you solo many champs.

Venoms are not as reliable, because blind/evade/invulnerable/block negates it and consumes a charge, and its a rather long cd for just conditions. Caltrops are great, but unless your fighting someone with tunnel vision they aren’t going to dance with you in a puddle of metal, the red circle is rather obvious. Immobilize is 1 second, hardly breaching 2 seconds if you wana go insane with condition duration, 15 into DA for p/d means the only source of poison you get is stealing, and that’s not frequent for p/d. Vulnerability lasts a few seconds, and the torment is short lasting as well even with good condition duration gear. I’ve messed with p/d and I’m not main condi thief, so it could be my order was wrong but I wasn’t exactly overwhelming people. Even with dodging in their face, #3, steal, #3, #4 through combo fields (100% finisher) and constant use of caltrops both on dodge and utility + stealth skill I wasn’t melting things even with 1200 condition damage and my aa bleed lasting almost 6 seconds. It’s just too slow imo, the aa needs to be sped up and the stealth attack needs to last much longer.

P/D isn’t going to kill fast, though it’s not always slow. NPC’s will melt with caltrops (and a bit of condition damage/duration boost), at least the melee will dance around in it. You can usually switch out utilities when out-of-combat, so you’re not stuck with it.

Sigil of Doom with some condition duration plus the DA adept trait will net you plenty of poison uptime, it’s used to reduce healing and with the 15 DA minor you apply weakness with poison, which hampers their endurance regen. You will not melt many players easily but it offers a lot of durability and that gives you time to adapt to the situation, which is nice when you’re learning.

The biggest issues I see with condition thief is
…

I am not going to deny those. Just saying you got more conditions then bleed you can apply (on P/D) though most are tactical more then damage.

Danikat.8537:

frans.8092:

Well, that would be nice but the level 80 stones can only be bought with gems and thus they provide some extra revenue for Anet, which I don’t think they would want to loose.

You can also get them from map completion and black lion chests, but not often.

Haven’t seen them for some while – might be that I have most of the map completed, except for a few area’s and a couple of obnoxious poi’s/hearts/vista’s …

Mireles Lore.5942:

So what your saying is yes, because ascended armor is not easy to get… by your definition makes it a gear treadmill.

No, because it is a better best-in-slot then the previous best-in-slot. The previous best-in-slot was obtainable with regular play while the new best-in-slot require grind. And frankly, I find my daytime job more fun then MMO-grind.

Sorry not all of us feel that way, if they had said they planned to add more tier

They never said they planned for the current tier best-in-slot and I doubt they’d be announcing the next tier (or many would be waiting).

Ascended armor is not restrictive to content.

It will be, eventually. They’ll add new content (they already have added new content) balanced for the current best-in-slot.

The game needs some type of progression to be rewarded for playing or it wouldn’t even be a game.

You are contradicting your earlier statement about there not being a gear-treadmill by saying there must be progression for it to be a game.

On a side note, completing interesting challenges is enough for me, I find it a silly notion that there must be (gear) progression to make it a game.

Well, that would be nice but the level 80 stones can only be bought with gems and thus they provide some extra revenue for Anet, which I don’t think they would want to loose.

Just work together, help others, join in on what they are doing, or let them join in what yo are doing. The game-world is full of situations and small or large events that offer opportunities to work together and chat / emote / role-play if so desired.

You can always go back to Wow.
Show a video of this ‘deep’ Wow play that gives an idea what it is you mean by ‘deep’.

Dee Jay.2460:

Aren’t these video all the same? Chain Cloak and Dagger until enemy makes a mistake or has blow their CDs.

Go has very few moves, but is very complex and deep. Adding moves doesn’t make a game deeper.

NinjaEd.3946:

P/d which is slow, and short lasting. Also not much of a variety of conditions making condition removals not only prioritize, but easily pick off your main dps. Good condition builds don’t rely on 1 or 2 DoT’s, and sadly thief has no choice.

You could run sigils of doom (as p/d+d/d or dual p/d), for poison, and the 15 point minor in Deadly Arts for weakness. You have vulnerability and immobilize on #2, torment on the #3, criple on #4 and vulnerability on #5. Who’s saying there are few conditions for a P/D? And that is without even adding venoms.

P/D is a very durable and reliable condition build for Wvw. It’s a bit too safe and slow for general PvE though, but caltrops is very effective against npc and the build will let you solo many champs.

No. Not a good idea.
I’d much rather equip the signet then be forced to dive (extra) into any trait tree, even Acrobatics. There already are other ims traits, in Acrobatics, like Expeditious Dodger and Fleet Shadow.

mikal.9502:

So in WVW and get attacked. Hit tab to target…..does it target the guy attacking me? Nope it targets the deadly white rabbit sitting on the side of the road.

You changed something, normally ambient creatures are not tab targeted.
Use “target nearest”, if not already mapped, do it now. Also, call you own target, even when solo, that way you can get back to them with a single key. Get these right for yourself on your keyboard, they are vital.

Remove doors altogether, they’re only being bashed down anyway.

Interceptor.2653:

Time to dial back the quote blocks here:

It got rather rather unwieldy, I agree.

frans.8092:

[…] blow all venoms and get 6 stacks for 20 seconds, while might on dodge can have 4-5 stacks up at all time. […] No burst then, I figured part of the venom burst was getting all these leeches in short time frame. […] Without eh burst option the Leech really isn’t a good heal. […] P/D kills slowly and will not build up swiftness easily. […] P/D is in stealth a lot, it also removes an extra condition on the 3rd second in stealth […] Improving Vital Shot is a lost cause. […] What build […] You give up 15 points Acro or Trickses for one extra strike on 3 venoms. […

You want to run runes like this when you are relying on Might stacks in a condition build, because this keeps the stacks cooking for a lot longer. Skelk double-dips on the #6 skill due to being both a heal and a venom (and it’s a strong burst heal with follow-ups). It’s relatively straightforward to maintain significant Might during battles. It also works quite nicely in the Venomshare setup, because boon duration depends on the source of the boon, not the target, so you’re giving out some fairly decent Might stacks to people.

Skelk Venom is more then bad for a solo thief. Now I do want to see a video of you playing a solo P/D with a venomshare build, because I really don’t see Skelk Venom working.

I am very surprised that you thought Leeching was hit-based; it’s not the kind of error someone who has tried it would make

You are saying it triggers when activating the skill? It is that bad?

Adding ~1200-2000 damage to Sneak Attack with one venom application (that still retains its original effect) would be pretty ridiculous.

No, it wouldn’t, it would be useful. Going halleluja over a trait that gives all of <400 HP when activating a skill is ridiculous, especially when you could choose traits like Shadow Protector

Assassin’s Reward Retreat only cares about kills, not speed. With a 5 second ICD, it’s better not to shred things too quickly anyway. Dumb mobs don’t have condition duration reduction, bleed clearing, and they don’t know how to deal with Torment.

Mobs? I wasn’t talking about PvE, you can take your average D/D build and run P/D on it and kill champs. And no worries, you’ll not kill players that fast with P/D. Not usually anyway.

But as I said, it’s not a linchpin to the build: Thrill is fine for tactical IMS, and SoS + 10 CS deserves a nod for having instant Might stacks and a very useful (stomp-assisting) Blind on it. Last time: AR is nice, but totally unnecessary if you don’t like the mechanics.

10 CS for Might on SoS stomping is an absurd waste of 10 traitpoint. You can’t be serious about this.

P/D is in stealth a lot… sometimes. You need stealth to set up Sneak Attack, but otherwise being stealthed is time when you’re not attacking. That’s useful when you either need to heal or you need to buy time for your conditions to do their work …

You could pick Shadow Protector for SA heal, I preferred that on S/D as I was in stealth a lot less.

but as long as you have venoms off cooldown on a build like this you can keep putting out pressure by creating space with Shadow Strike and applying LV with Vital Shot. People (rightly) poop on Vital Shot for being a bad skill, but LV makes it usable by adding ~400 damage a shot and healing you, while costing you nothing for initiative.

Now I am confused, you just told me it doesn’t apply per hit?

It does have a venom pre-req, but that’s easier to make happen than Sneak Attack’s pre-req of stealth (which depends on being able to land CnD a lot of the time). tl;dr, Vital Shot is a lot harder to ignore when it’s doing double the damage and sticking conditions on you at 900 range.

Ehm, the venoms are still on very long cooldown. You’re gonna want C&D to land with P/D, or it’s not the set to use.

I gave you the template. If you don’t like it, nobody’s gonna make you play it,

We’re replying to a topic, I thought, “play it or not” is not really an argument.

but don’t give me baloney about 15 points in DA “only being” an extra hit on 3 venoms, as if the Power/Condi duration and Venom recharge/Exposed weakness traits didn’t exist.

They aren’t useful enough for a solo P/D, it’s almost as bad as your suggestion on using 10 points on CS to get might when SoS stomping, now that one really was ‘baloney’ ….

The cast time for Infiltrator’s Return is more the 1/2 second rather then the 1/4 second it should be.

tAzz.8497:

http://www.youtube.com/user/IamMugi?feature=watch …

Learn to play the thief like Mugi and you’ll down 19 out of 20 thieves without breaking a sweat.

Interceptor.2653:

You dodge, frequently, might comes with it, when so traited.

No option to quickly stack might with PoI. Flexibility with venoms is the advantage, here. You can keep one simmering, you can run two, you can wombo-combo them, whatever the situation calls for. Noble is especially excellent for making this work.

Great, blow all venoms and get 6 stacks for 20 seconds, while might on dodge can have 4-5 stacks up at all time. You’re trying to prove that Venomous Strength will give our solo P/D more might then Power of Ineria, it’s not going to happen.

No burst then, I figured part of the venom burst was getting all these leeches in short time frame.

Leeches are limited to one per strike. You don’t burst leeching.

P/D – sneak attack, having a leech burst looked like it was an interesting feat, but I guess not. Without eh burst option the Leech really isn’t a good heal.

Assassins reward is a Grandmaster trait these days, but you probably mean Assassin’s Retreat. I don’t think swiftness on kill is a hot thing when running an attrition build.

You might change your mind when you see it stacked up to 3+ minutes. It’s very good when you are roaming around, getting your sigil primed. In any case, it’s literally one of three possible options for movespeed. Pick your favorite, because it doesn’t matter if you want the kill-stacking speed, Signet speed, or burst Steal speed.

P/D kills slowly and will not build up swiftness easily. The problem with the trait is you get the swiftness when you don’t need it anymore. Anyway, it’s in Acro, and as such doesn’t support the +15 DA

The extra strike amounts to a 400 HP heal (steal actually) per venom, every 36 seonds. A single second in stealth with Shadows Rejuvenation selected yields almost as much.

SR is good, news at 11. Builds are about choices. You are only healing when you are stealthed and not attacking. This isn’t always ideal.

P/D is in stealth a lot, it also removes an extra condition on the 3rd second in stealth

To sum it up, you can get 1 extra stack of Torment and, say 4 extra triggers on Leeching but you lose 15 trait points that could have given 30% endurance boost plus 4 stacks of might (or 10 seconds of vigor during those 36 seconds). I do not find that a convincing reward for the 15 trait points.

This song isn’t about you; RV aids Basilisk, and gets more stacks/Leeching into play, end of story. Anything that makes Vital Shot good ought to be put on a pedestal in the Smithsonian.

That’s a silly argument where you had none. You still only get one torment stack and somewhat longer duration on other conditions. Improving Vital Shot is a lost cause.

It won’t stack beyond +100% (mhh, or do they calculate plus and minus duration before capping tp 100%??) and I rather use the traits better. I can get +% duration more easily then the functionality of the traits.

See above. Going full 30 DA gives you +15% condition duration that you don’t have to get anywhere else, not to mention 150 Power while we’re on the subject.

We are going in it-is-isn’t circles here, you seem to care little for the effect of traits, so be it.

That is possible, only actual play-testing will tell you that.

This might blow your mind, but I’m not just theorycrafting, I have experience with this build.

30/x/30/x/x Venomshare on a solo roaming P/D? What build

But if you are willing to take that loss for the sake of supporting venom-share group play, then by all means, I think there’s certainly a playable P/D build possible with 30/x/30/x/x. All depends on where your priority is.

I don’t see why anyone needs your permission to run a 30/x/30/x/x venom build. There’s nothing fatally flawed about it; it’s just another build like any other, that gives up one thing to get something else.

You give up 15 points Acro or Trickses for one extra strike on 3 venoms.

In your opinion. As you said, Grenth forbid that someone pay 3.5s to change their traits for solo roaming. That’s like, two waypoints.

For 3.5 silvers you switch from any build to any other build (povided yo have the gear), the point of this exercise was examining a trait distribution suitable for a solo P/D and Venomshare.

Interceptor.2653:

Might on dodge is more limited by the nature of your endurance bar; might on venom application has more freedom for manipulation.

You dodge, frequently, might comes with it, when so traited.

A 36s recharge is no issue, since you can keep one or more venoms primed, as they last 30s.

The 2 stacks of might from activating them last 20 second, averaged over time that is slightly more then 1 stack per slotted venom. Might on dodge is one stack for 15 second, but with 15 Acro you can dodge about 10 times in 36 seconds, which would be 4-5 stacks, averaged over time.

There are five potential spots for venoms, and you don’t need to use all of them (nor should you). Spacing out venoms for Leeching is probably a good idea just on general principle, since you are strike-limited.

No burst then, I figured part of the venom burst was getting all these leeches in short time frame.

And if you slot all venoms you have no IMS – unless you take runes which in turn takes condition damage output down), no caltrops or shadow refuge.

This is nonsense. You have 10 points left over for whatever you want, which can include Assassin’s Reward or Thrill. SoS is sufficient for covering distance in general, and can be swapped out prior to engagements (or not: it’s a source of Might/Blind if you run 10 CS).

Assassins reward is a Grandmaster trait these days, but you probably mean Assassin’s Retreat. I don’t think swiftness on kill is a hot thing when running an attrition build. SoS is still my favorite.

You can also sacrifice Shadow’s Rejuvenation. No rule that says GMs slots have to be used for GM traits. That extra strike applies to all venoms, and also comes with extra healing from the life leech, which helps sustain.

The extra strike amounts to a 400 HP heal (steal actually) per venom, every 36 seonds. A single second in stealth with Shadows Rejuvenation selected yields almost as much

Residual Venoms grants an extra hit all on venoms, including Skelk and Basilisk. Skale Venom has an intensity-stacking condition (Torment) that benefits from RV as well. I don’t know what you are talking about, here. Basilisk doesn’t even stack, but the second hit is nonetheless valuable for dealing with Aegis and evades.

You just said that you wouldn’t slot your bar full of venoms, so the extra strike is most likely on 2-3 venoms (max 3 when slotting). Torment is the only venom applied condition that stacks in intensity and not duration,

To sum it up, you can get 1 extra stack of Torment and, say 4 extra triggers on Leeching but you lose 15 trait points that could have given 30% endurance boost plus 4 stacks of might (or 10 seconds of vigor during those 36 seconds). I do not find that a convincing reward for the 15 trait points.

Fight someone eating soup and rocking Melandru’s, and then tell me that condition duration doesn’t matter.

It won’t stack beyond +100% (mhh, or do they calculate plus and minus duration before capping tp 100%??) and I rather use the traits better. I can get +% duration more easily then the functionality of the traits.

I’m not sure you’d necessarily notice the difference, or care about it even if you did. The Dire or hybrid-Dire version of this build is incredibly survivable just from base stats.

That is possible, only actual play-testing will tell you that. You don’t survive on tougness and hp alone though, you need healing, you probably need condition cleansing and you’ll likely need evades. How much you need or don’t really need is to be tested.

It’s fine if your personal preference is to run something else, but that’s an entirely different kettle of fish than whether or not 30 DA is a good idea.

Putting the extra 15 points in DA is not obviously a good idea for a solo P/D, they do not pay back their cost. If they did you’d see a lot more P/D builds posted with a full 30 Deadly Arts. The solo P/D is better served with 15/0/30/x/x distribution – which should still allow a venom-share spec. But if you are willing to take that loss for the sake of supporting venom-share group play, then by all means, I think there’s certainly a playable P/D build possible with 30/x/30/x/x. All depends on where your priority is.

Interceptor.2653:

I don’t agree. DA has no trait waste, either in terms of slottable skills (Venomous Strength, Quick Venoms, Residual Venom) or the Power/Condition duration that it raises. Don’t sleep on the Might stacks: P/D is double-dipping here, because you use both sides of it. Even that silly Vital Shot peashooter becomes a credible DPS generator when your Leeching Venoms are hitting for 380+ damage per shot.

Venoms are on a 45 (36 traited) second cooldown, the might stacks they yield with Venomous Strength don’t match up against the might on dodge, or the loss of utility slots. And if you slot all venoms you have no IMS – unless you take runes which in turn takes condition damage output down), no caltrops or shadow refuge.

Leeching Venoms is in Shadow Arts, the 15 + 15 points in Deadly Arts do not contribute more then an extra strike and a 20% shorter cooldown on slotted venoms. The extra strike (@400 damage) is all you are getting for it, provided it lands and you want to sacrifice Cloaked in Shadow or Shadows Embrace for it.

Residual Venoms grants one extra strike on duration stacking conditions, which doesn’t help that much. Similarly, with all the cleansing going round the 15% extra condition duration is not what I’d spend trait point on that could give me more endurance, vigor, even fury and swiftness. I rather have solid traits with condition duration from runes or food.

All these traits are balanced for venom sharing, without allies to use them on they are weak.

That’s not to say that Trickery/Acro aren’t good as well, but builds are about choices. 30 DA is perfectly fine. This is the spec I’d recommend to anyone who wants to venomshare, but also wants to use venoms solo.

Starting with 30/x/30/x/x yields, imo, a weaker P/D then 0/x/30/x/x – it probably bursts a little better but looses on survivability.

Depths.4051:

Frans……. I’m not even gonna bother dude lol

There’s the first stone.
Dude.

and yes, we know it’s a mechanic used because thieves are lacking,

Change it and you have to change everything (including their original ideas about it). And for something of little consequence, because PvP is about it’s objectives and not PKing.

Interceptor.2653:

frans.8092:

Venomshare goes 30 into Deadly Arts, I believe, while P/D and D/D condition needs some Acrobatics and or Trickery (and some more solo utility then venoms provide). I’ve thought about trying venom-share on a P/D build (15/0/30/15/10 I used) but the venomshare lacks some of it’s DA traits then. If you can propose a useful venomshare – P/D trait distribution I’ll be happy to look at it.

There’s nothing wrong with a 30/x/30/x/x P/D build. Your damage is coming from condition damage (bleeds, torment) and power (regular attacks, Leeching Venoms). You have plenty of Might available. It’s not bursty, but it has a lot of pressure, healing, stealth, and attrition built in. Dire and Carrion both work.

The last 10 points can go wherever. Trickery has Thrill/Reach, Acrobatics has Might/Vigor, and even CS has an argument since you can take extra Pistol damage or leverage a bit of the Precision that ascended trinkets force onto condition builds.

There are 15 points in DA that would be better spend in Trickery and/or Acrobatics, that is the problem. Nothing in DA beyond Lotus Poison is particularly useful for P/D. Venoms are weak without a group to share them with, all the pressure, healing stealth and attrition comes from and is supported by other sources then Deadly Arts.

I am sure it’ll work mostly, P/D works mostly even on a Power/Crit build.

Depths.4051:

I said you were trolling because you threw the first stone for no real reason, you were the first to insinuate anything.

I didn’t throw the first stone here, that was you.

it’s a game mechanic that is exclusively abused by thieves, gl making ooc so easy with any other class aside from warrior.

It’s not abuse, the abilty to withdraw from a fight is part of ANet’s archetype for the thief, read the book. It’s also why they have low base health, very few weaponsets and virtually no access to protective boons. While it may be annoying, it’s a design choice.

Depths.4051:

frans.8092:

Depths.4051:

frans.8092:

Depths.4051:

I’m not even gonna bother dude lol

That’s your problem, right there, you ain’t gonna bother. You’d play a lot better if you bothered more and didn’t expect your wins to be handed to you on platter, silver preferably. dude.

why you attacking me when you have no kittening clue who I am or how I play… stop trolling bro. I said I wouldn’t bother cause your comment wasn’t even really worth responding to.

I don’t care who you are or what you think you are entitled to. You post your arguments, but when you get counter arguments you just go “I can’t be bothered with you”. Do you believe you are entitled to get respect? No, you get what you give, if you are disrespectful to me, I will treat you likewise.

What you stated was totally off the point completely, so far off that it was obvious you had no idea what the issue was. I ignored your comment, because you either didn’t read, or you’re just trolling. I didn’t insinuate anything about you, like you tried to do.

Boy, you were, and are lacking in manners. You started on about “not bothering” and have been throwing “trolling” at me in every post since. That’s hardly insinuating, it’s straight forward insulting.

Would you like me to analyze what your comment was? “That there should be no problem because when a thief disengages combat, because you also heal….”

Thank you for rephrasing, I said when the theif goes out-of-combat, so do you, and when his ooc hp-regeneration kicks in, so does yours.

well woopdy kittening do, I could be near full health and he could be at 20% and that’d be swell having my 2k hp, and him coming back a minute later to burst again.

Oh gosh, that is so unfair and that makes you sad?

It’s a game mechanic that works the same for everyone. Sometimes you get the benefit, sometimes someone else.

Figerion.6159:

4. I’m really lost with Traits. I don’t understand what they acctualy do. And which are really useful?

They usually give some extra, like boons, or boost something, or work like automatic skills. There is for instance a trait that grants the boon Vigor whenever you use a healing skill. There is a trait that will make you first attack from stealth always a critical hit (critical hits greatly increase damage). another trait will increase poison duration and another applies weakness to your foe whenever you poison them. There are many more and ideally they improve or work together with your gear, runes, sigils and utility skills.

List of thief traits

Depths.4051:

frans.8092:

Depths.4051:

I’m not even gonna bother dude lol

That’s your problem, right there, you ain’t gonna bother. You’d play a lot better if you bothered more and didn’t expect your wins to be handed to you on platter, silver preferably. dude.

why you attacking me when you have no kittening clue who I am or how I play… stop trolling bro. I said I wouldn’t bother cause your comment wasn’t even really worth responding to.

I don’t care who you are or what you think you are entitled to. You post your arguments, but when you get counter arguments you just go “I can’t be bothered with you”. Do you believe you are entitled to get respect? No, you get what you give, if you are disrespectful to me, I will treat you likewise.

Caffynated.5713:

frans.8092:

You can get ascended gear in Wvw.

You can strike it rich by finding a winning lottery ticket in the gutter. I wouldn’t hold out hope for it though.

I think we’re talking about different gear, Laurel merchants sell trinkets.

Depths.4051:

… im saying a small “arena” this implies that you have a nice bit of space, not enough to ooc, but a nice amount which you can’t run out of. …

If they run away and go out-of-combat and heal up, so do you.

Zelulose.8695:

I’m calling for a dps buff and CD so thiefs can still kill but they cant spam.

Spam? He interrupted your heal, hows that spam? You fought, you made a mistake, you lost the fight. It’s sad that you react like you do.

And fyi, if a zerker mesmer is being tanked for 10 minutes somethings wrong.

You failed to burst him down, that is your failure. A condition build like P/D works slowly and must be build to last long, otherwise it would not be viable at all. Take away it’s tankiness and the thief dies before he can hurt anyone.

I tested many builds and I was left with a choice. (Die or grab a bunker and stale mate.)

No builds exist that have no counters, you choose your build and met your counter, it’s that simple. Maybe a tweaking your build, or changing tactics, can give you a better chance but instead you are asking is that ANet makes it so no build can resist yours.

Even worse. it was the same routine over and over. Blind-terrror-bleed-stealth-bleed (repat) with no CD.

There is a cooldown, revealed prevents stealth after Sneak Attack and the cost of C&D effectivily puts the cycle on a 5-6 second cooldown.
There’s (a) 3 seconds of revealed and (b) it requires C&D to successfully land. Not preventing his C&D to land is your problem. And yes, this is l2p as some players can make it very hard to get a C&D to land on them.

When hp reaches 50% stealth till 90% + Id rather lose to a thief after 20 secs or less than have to realize I can’t kill him within 10 minutes and give up.

That is part of the game. I’ve fought guardians – and mesmers- that I couldn’t hurt, though some of them couldn’t hurt me either.

Believe me I have plenty of complaints for mesmer/necro/ranger because they all use pets to do their work while the actual character is only worried about staying alive for the most part. This thief is just another thing that needs to be addressed in addition.

How is the sorry state of ranger pets a reason to nerf Thieves? That is a rather awkward reasoning from you. I’ve seen some pretty strong uses of Mesmer clones though.

Zelulose.8695:

Honestly, I faced a P/D thief on my pu zerker mesmer. The duel lasted hours and I realized I don’t deal enough damage to kill this thief. After a long drawn out duel he interrupted my healing skill by swapping to d/p and killed me. I don’t wan’t to hear about thief sustain. I want more damage and less thief sustain. Shadow of refuge(ing) or stealthing to full hp is getting out of hand.

He adapted to you, found a weakness and beat you on skill. Now you call for class nerfs. Typical.

Interceptor.2653:

frans.8092:

His point was probably that this venom-share build is rather unusable without a group. Not many people are going to want to retrain traits regularly, or enjoy logging off because there’s no group to play with.

You don’t need to retrain your traits. Venomshare is basically a condition build at its core (either D/D or P/D or both), and you just need to swap the GM trait from Venomous Aura to Shadow’s Rejuvenation (or to a Master trait, if necessary). The other venom-based traits (extra hit, leeching, reduced cooldowns) are perfectly usable solo.

EDIT: it’s also worth noting that you can keep using Venomshare solo if you use Ambush and/or Thieves Guild. Although that’s a bit of a gimmicky build, so generally I’d just expect people to swap traits.

Cooldown makes them pointless.

Venomshare goes 30 into Deadly Arts, I believe, while P/D and D/D condition needs some Acrobatics and or Trickery (and some more solo utility then venoms provide). I’ve thought about trying venom-share on a P/D build (15/0/30/15/10 I used) but the venomshare lacks some of it’s DA traits then. If you can propose a useful venomshare – P/D trait distribution I’ll be happy to look at it.

Ulalume.2470:

I’m a bit hessitent to use steal, but i will have to learn using it frequently since it benefits greatly from this build.

Steal is great, you’ll learn, and it’s a good shadowstep to get close to them for a C&D. And some stolen skills are in fact quite nice.

I think i will also miss having “feline grace”. It feels good to have it… especially as a Charr
I kinda had 5 points left after having a good think about it and decided to put it into trickery for lead attacks.

Not a lot of physical damage to really make use of it though. But not much alternatives either :/

Interceptor.2653:

1) one guy challenges me to a 1v1 to prove that a group-combat spec is not viable, and

His point was probably that this venom-share build is rather unusable without a group. Not many people are going to want to retrain traits regularly, or enjoy logging off because there’s no group to play with.

Ascended trinkets make a far greater difference statwise then the armor. Mats can be bought on the TP, and gear will become available there as well, for a price, or you can ask a guildmember to craft it (assuming it doesn’t bind on crafting or on acquire).

I will not be surprised when they add acended gear to the Wvw armor and weapon smiths. Or other means / awards with which to obtain them, but given the relative difficulty in crafting them I don’t expect them to be cheap.

Wvw is an extension on PvE, that too was a design choice

You can get ascended gear in Wvw.

Cynz.9437:

overall i think thief condi removal is actually decent, the problem is just the game is all about spamming aoe/condi on point atm (in pvp at least) so no condi clean in the world would help there… if anything they should remove toughness/condi gear and nerf bunker/condi builds… you shouldn’t be able to go bunker and still do silly dmg (via condi)

Facing two different kinds of threats, condition and physical damage forces people to make compromises to be able to survive, or they specialize and are limited in which fights they can engage in.

Remove condition damage from the game and people would be able to focus their efforts on countering physical damage alone. Additionally remove toughness and only builds with counters like aegis and protection will remain.

Having both threats actually gives both a fighting chance. When you remove one you nerf the other.

Ulalume.2470:

I recently became a huge fan of the pistol/dagger combo and invested into full dire gear/weapons with dire trinkets comming next.
The only thing i’m missing is a build that goes with it.

Not sure about what utility you seek, but the basic P/D is 30 in Shadow Arts with Rejuvenation, Embrace and Cloaked. The rest is to be filled in as you like.
Lot’s of poison to add to the bleeds is nice, for damage as well as the healing reduction, I used Sigils of Doom (and dual P/D when engaging), +condition duration and +bleed duration where possible / needed, the Deadly Arts trait that extends poison duration and the 15 point DA minor to apply weakness on poision – which reduces their damage and endurance regen, and adds another condition to cover the bleeds. The rest is for acrobatics and/or trickses. No dodgetrops because it has little effect against players, betrays your position (sound and red circle) and may drop you into combat when travelling.

Shadow Refuge (off course), Withdraw, the 25% IMS signet and caltrops (for npc’s players tend to not stay in it) or blinding powder.

Pistol offhand, either S/P or D/P, Black Powder (Pistol #5) will own almost anything (except dredge as they have seen the light and all that). Sword mainhand for cleave. Caltrops with high condition damage will get most mobs to near death. Shadow Refuge -learn to use it, then the run signet, heal and elite of choice. Shortbow as secondary, even if just to learn it’s use since for many thieves this one is perma-locked to one weapon set.

But not otherwise? Mystic forge is way too much trouble and expense. How does that all work and where do I find the ? This is new to me I don’t feel like finding out too late that I’ve dumped months of laurels into the wrong trinkets.

SoulSin.5682:

Oh, you also can’t use Might Infusion on all Slots. You can’t have two of the same ring equiped (wich means that or you use different Rings/earrings, or you use a “Offensive Slot Version” and a “Defensive Slot Version” of the same Stat Ring)

What are you saying, you cannot have two identical ascended rings, or two identical earrings?

LoneWolfie.1852:

Next time the new mechanic should be “Diseased”. Each time 20 players from the same server dies in a keep/tower, they will get a new mechanic where they receive a Diseased stack….

Yes, far too many people are defending towers and keeps, this needs to be reduced.

Aaroneous.6190:

… then suddenly say “You know what? I dont want to die right now, in fact I dont have to at all because I say so, because I am thief”…

It’s the archetype that the designers choose for the thief, it’s as simple as that, a thief can get away, it’s what they excel at. Read the two books, I think Ghosts of Ascalon has a thief as protagonist.

Noooo, I so disliked GW1 assassin, endless 1-2-3 dagger chains, blech.

Hamfast.8719:

And that is precisely why I hate it. I want to learn! I want to actually understand what the heck I’m doing.

Pick up jewelry as craft.

Refine raw metals into refined bars or ingots.
With these you craft components, like chains. bands and settings for jewels.
With these and jewels you create trinkets, preferably by discovery first as that gives more crafting-xp, then by mass production.

These guides are useful as they give you a clear indication of how much materials you need and when.