Guild Wars 2

Auesis.7301:

My two main looks – first is WvW + multi-purpose PvE. Second is hardcore PvE.

That mask on the first one, which one is it and where can I get one?

rVn.2076:

….I KNOW WHY… It’s because in this “perfect” guild wars most important in pve is DPS and warrior have the best dps, a lot of toughness and vitality but other classes NO!…

It creeped in after the release of Factions for Guildwars I – the first campaign really had people playing together, ad hoc and everyone could join. Even in PvP – I had fun there, and we all did that, when I entered GvG with a level 19, non-ascended ranger, not knowing anything about PvP.
But Dungeons came, with high rewards and factions which changed bonus missions from exploration and extra challenges to an ordinary time limit. And the masses changed their course from playing together for fun and discovering what the developers had in store for us, to playing to achieve ‘goals’ effectively.

That was the end of Guildwars.

(dramatic silence and fade to black)

should not be the cause of damaged armor. Please fix this bug.

naphack.9346:

guys, in all your talk about less initiative this, less initiative that, you forgot that you actually have to hit something for opportunist to work and even then need to have a high(as in berserker gear high) crit chance for the new trait to be worse than the old one.

You either run high crit (as in mostly berserker with a few pieces other gear) or none at all, so your ‘even then’ extends to everyone using crit. The difference in initiative between high crit (with the ini trait) to none is very, very noticeable with skills like Unload and Clusterbomb. These skills are somewhat balanced in initiative cost and damage for the current, high crit opportunist situation and reducing the initiative gain on opportunist will make them less effective and possibly, in the case of unload, Less Able to Make Effective (LAME)

Qaelyn.7612:

Went into WvW with my guild today and was in a small raiding group (awesome.. just what I wanted to do!) And I realized.. I need my shortbow! The teleport alone is essential. So that sort of did away with the PD+DD or PD+DP decision, at least for this role.

D/D #2 works quite nice for movement, but yeah, shortbow is useful for #5 and #2 on fields.

I got into a couple of 1v1 fights which went.. poorly. LOL It really is going to take a while, eh? Of course in this role dying frequently is par for the course… but still, I just sort of panic when I realize I am actually fighting.

That panic will go away with experience and thief is known for it’s ability to disengage when needed.

Power as main stat on all, add Toughness and Vitality on all armor and backpices, or at least the larger armor pieces (chest, leggings and boots). Berserker for all trinkets (ad jewels). Berserker weapons.
30 in Critical Strikes, the rest in Shadow Arts and Acrobatics. Or No Shadow Arts but Deadly arts for Mug combined with Trickery for some Steal support.
Yields decent power, critical hits and some survivability from the soldiers pieces. Hits hard enough with shortbow (you’ll like it), dagger, sword and even dual pistols.

Doxie.4037:

… a “commander trap” that flags everyone on the map as a commander for 30 seconds…

+1
+1
+1

xmtrcv.5236:

Fade.7658:

In my mind’s eye, it is. The longer my cover conditions last, the better.

This is why I always thought that Condition Duration > Bleed Duration, at least from a personal standpoint. Why cut potential Torment damage in half by going strictly Bleed Duration? Why cut applied Blinds shorter than need be?

Glad to see others think that way too.

Because if you were to hypothetically double torment damage from 500 to 1k but reduce bleed damage from 6k to 5k you’ve lost 500 hp damage. It’s not a simple case of counting conditions.
Just pulling some numbers from thin air for illustration. you’d have to do some real numbers. I’d like to have +50-75% condition duration (without food) but +Bleed duration is a lot easier to stack.

Anyway, thread shows Poison and +condition duration is quite viable, and gives some pointers on how, and I really do prefer not to be tied into the single trick pony of bleed stacking.

Grebcol.5984:

Hello
On my Server many Guilds say that Warriors/Guards/Necros are the only Classes who is viable in Zergfights? Is this so?
Why are then the others not Viable?

All classes can contribute. Besides, there’s no way for them to stop you entering WvW or joining a Zergfight.

Zero Day.2594:

… fair fight… …

One class, one build, for everyone, that makes a fair fight. But this is not that kind of game, it’s an RPG so there will be differences between player-characters, builds and classes and there will be both bad match-ups and imbalances . It’s what people want with this kind of game, or they would (should) be playing other games.

Qaelyn.7612:

… My problem is figuring out what to actually do when I “step in”, and not taking so much damage that I “step out” and then am left wondering wht to do next.

Cloak and Dagger, then move behind them and stun them
Just start whacking them, you’ll learn what works and what not, and when to get out again.

Big part of thief is knowing when to get out. They got that aspect of the archetype correct.

I find in most fights that I’m almost immediately on the defensive, running around trying to keep from dying. Yet it seems a thief on the defensive is pretty much toast anyway.

Indeed, he is. An opponent on the run is like an adrenaline rush, for them as much as for you. Either really get out (shadow step, blinding powder shadow refuge) or pretend you’re the one who’s winning and they’d better get more defensive

Just log off, don’t re-roll, log off and play another game. If that doesn’t get the message delivered to them, nothing will and there’s no future for the Thief in GW2 anyway.

In P/D damage is coming from bleeding, the poison supports by reducing healing effectivity. You can easily get +75% bleed duration without food – and with food you’ll easily get the max 100%. Is the 12.5% loss in bleeding damage (from 200% to 175% duration) compensated for by the extra utility offered by longer conditions in general.

insaneseagull.7063:

phaeris.7604:

Actually you couldn’t beat him if you let him go ooc.

If you beat him he’d be dead and not ooc.

The match was a stalemate. .

Yeah,that’s weird,he’s OOC’ing because he is starting to kill me.

No, he said they went ooc because the match was a draw, not because they were killing you.

AikijinX.6258:

The 3 stacks of confusion gets applied quite frequently, and reliably. These stacks are just icing on the cake for the build.

But you’d sacrifice 30% bleed duration for these 4 runes and bleed is large portion of the damage for D/P. For 5 seconds of a 3-stack confusion.

You gain poison with the minor trait in deadly arts Serpents touch and When you go into the 1st tier of deadly arts you can choose the 1st tier trait of deadly arts called Potent poison which Adds 33% poison duration

But steal has a 35 second cooldown, and hence, application of poison and when you go into Deadly Arts you don’t much points left to reduce that cooldown. I like the Sigil of Doom suggestion though, combined with steal you could get a decent poison uptime.

I checked lotus poison last night. The weakness doesn’t stack with each charge out of 5 from spider venom. And the ICD is too long. I do not use sigil of doom.

The wiki does mention weakness doesn’t stack (duration) more then 5 times. But you pass up 5 × 4 seconds weakness when stacking poison from Spider Venom?

Booray.1560:

My problem with P/D is that in order to get the stealth shot damage you have to let the mob close so you can hit #5 and gain stealth. You are shooting and crippling and then you want the thing to catch you so you can do your big damage. It’s counter-intuitive,

Many bosses, veterans and champions summon minions, you C&D from them, and Sneak Attack the big guy from a safer distanc. Trash-mobs, anything less then veterans is not noteworthy enough to take into account for building. Unless you want to focus on eliminating trash mobs in large quantities, in which case Shortbow with a power-crit setup shines. You can still use S/D, S/P, D/D and even P/D as alternate set.

Carob.6789:

frans.8092:

And how are you going to apply poison in a P/D setup?

sigil of doom for ex.

Ok. Quite a lot of trouble for 8 seconds of poison every 10 seconds. Wouldn’t Lotus Poison go nicely with it, weakness is quite good, especially when you intend to get hit to trigger those runes.

Testing? Experimenting with his build, or even the class?
Changing skills and traits?

AikijinX.6258:

frans.8092:

Isn’t anyone mixing Runes of Afflicted, Centaur and Krait for the +45% bleed duration?

If you expect bleed to be your only substance in a condi build. Then condi really isn’t for you my friend. (No disrespect intended).

Thiefsmer v2
x4 perplexity x2 rata sum
Dire gear
Dire trinkets
10/0/30/10/20
Potent poison( for deadly arts 10)
Shadow’s embrace/Hidden thief/Shadow’s rejuvenation
Descent of shadows
Caltrops or Instinctual response/ Bountiful theft

How’s confusion going to be triggered? 3 stacks lasting 5 seconds triggered on a 20% chance on getting hit seems like a small addition. If that is your only substance in a condition build then condi really isn’t for you my friend (etc…)
And how are you going to apply poison in a P/D setup?

Isn’t anyone mixing Runes of Afflicted, Centaur and Krait for the +45% bleed duration?

Travlane.5948:

quite. why lose the offensive dmg on up to 6 people when you are only saving minute amounts of dmg? seriously. answer that. its ok if u prefer the minute amount of dmg saving vs dealing ALOT more outgoing…. i prefer doign more dmg bc im content with the amount of toughness i already ahve for that build.

In one-to-many situations extra toughness counts for every opponent hitting you, while the use of power remains single target. At some amount of foes the extra damage reduction wins from the damage sacrificed.

Maybe DB is around so a second weaponset is somewhat useful to condition builds.

Travlane.5948:

right. but dire runes? u mean gear i think right? dire issuch a hit to your power. its basically cutting direct dmg in half or more. …

Sneak Attack is doing most of the damage with bleeds. Power will fuel C&D’s direct damage (which incidentally is used almost as often as Sneak Attack) so you’ll have to weigh that against the extra toughness.

Still, P/D works with Power-Crit in PvE – at least for playing around with the playstyle – so maybe a Power/Condi build works in PvE. Would at least give a decent Cluster Bomb.

messiah.1908:

this trait gives you 69-79 healing per initiative spent which can reach

If you manage to go to 1 init regain (and spend) per second on average, that heals for about 69 per second, right?

Awe.8049:

… or have things changed lately? …

Thief hasn’t become stronger. Shadow Trap has seen it’s moment of g;ory before it got nerfed back to another, yet just as obscure state it had, S/D has seen a buff but has been nerfed and is about to be nerfed to a state worse then before it’s buff. And to promote skilful play they’re about to reduce active initiative gain from various traits and skills and temporarily increase passive initiative regeneration so that it can be reduced to below the current level in a later patch.

This pattern is familiar from Guildwars 1.

Sanduskel.1850:

Don’t listen to the vocal minority. …

No nee to waste all those bits, the OP seems wise enough to know not to listen to the vocal singularity.

Very nice editing, nice intros, good use of the music, there’s rhythm in it and the speed changes support it. Well done.

Volrath.1473:

actually it was 1 init per second in beta and if I’m not mistaking at launch as well, it was nerfed to 0,75 later.

One can track the changes in the history of the wiki page

Sanduskel.1850:

Brett.4305:

A few days ago, I removed any weaps and traits that are set to be
“balanced.” A few hours ago, I double checked my traits and can
guarantee that I won’t be dancing to their fife.
Players gravitate to certain builds on certain classes when everything else sucks.
ANET, in their wisdom, breaks the things that work to stop popular usage.
Then everyone will find something else that doesn’t suck AS BAD.
Then those builds get nerfed …

there are still great builds. need to learn them.

I think you missed the core idea of his post.

Afaik shadow stepping always ended on various bumps in the terrain, or landed you below the world, or something.

Sanduskel.1850:

They wrote the code and they receive player feedback. I am sorry, but i trust them far more than I do inherently biased players.

Excuse us if we trust the statements of a player who shares the results of his math exercises more then one who makes arguments based on broad, self-sourced but otherwise unverified statements.

Kittens, beat me to it
I support Shadowdancer.
Then we can ask for HIPS.
Oh, wait, ehm, concealment, or epic dodge

Power first.
Precision is a choice amongst the other attributes.

Unless you go condition damage, then precision isn’t a good choice at all.

Phantom.8130:

an attack would count as movement, so it would give the revealed debuff, like it currently already does.

So you can’t move at all? Then what’s your mobile stealth?
Why keep backstab if you’ll never be stealthed to land it anyway – seeing as you move when stabbing and thus are never stealthed when you hit. Not to mention that you’ll never be able to get into position to hit anyone when not being able to move.

Terrible ideas. Sorry, waste of everyone’s time.

the stealth weapon skills would work similar to how they do now. a short term stealth used for positioning. which would still be magical in nature.

You just said stealth ends when moving, so how exactly would one use stealth for positioning?

You have 2 different kinds of Stealth? One, lets call it Stationary Stealth, that ends when moving, but has an otherwise indefinite duration and a Mobile Stealth that , I would assume, has a fixed, limited duration but does not end on movement. Revealed is only applied when moving under Stationary Stealth, or when moving when Mobile Stealth ends, but not, as it is not stated, when hitting and damaging targets, once in Mobile Stealth one could backstab, backstab, backstab, cloack and dagger, backstab, …repeat?

sorrow.2364:

frans.8092:

You, obviously. They are positioning tools, not condition removals. You don’t Shadow Return away from your target in the middle of an attack chain and break it to remove a condition, you use Shadow Return to reposition yourself. Cleansing a condition is a side effect, no matter how useful that is is, it is generally not the reason to use it. Putting Shadow Step and Shadow Return on cooldown to cleanse conditions is wasting a tactical tool for it’s side effect. If you don’t realize the importance of their primary use, positioning, you don’t understand much of the Thief.

I didn’t know I was talking to a Thief pro. Funny thing is that you are complaining about thieves being weak in dungeons and, in the same topic, you are claiming to know the thief well. Those two things can’t stand together.

I never complained, I was discussing the relative merits of various forms of damage mitigation available, with others, when you barged in and derailed the thread. So far you’ve not posted anything relevant to the original topic post or it’s immediate reactions, you have only been arguing and only with me.

If you need to cleanse your conditions, you should use your Shadow Return as condition cleanse.

The only time I use it to cleanse conditions is to speed up getting out of combat after a fight, until then it is used exclusively for positioning and the side-effect is very welcome. If you regularly find yourself in need of condition cleansing you should bring a utility for it, or, if possible trait it in something you use, but not a weaponset.

If you need to reposition yourself, you should use IS/SS as mobility skill. Condition removal isn’t a “side effect”.

You don’t trigger them to remove a condition, you use them to blink around the battlefield at the appropriate time, condition cleansing is a useful side-effect. And because it’s usually used frequently conditions don’t tend to become problematic.

frans.8092:

Now, who’s talking ridiculous. You know little of thief, but you know even less about me. Don’t even try to make statements about what I want.

Man, each post you made in this topic yells “I want protection on Thief”.

Find one post where I say that.

You can’t say in every post that the fact thieves can’t attack while mitigating damage

I didn’t say that, I said you can’t attack while dodging, which was said in response to a line of reasoning that claimed thief has good defence through, amongst others, their endurance regeneration.

No, I didn’t, I said the recharge was too long to supplement Black Powder to overcome it’s weakness in fighting mixed mobs.

So what?
I really don’t know what you want.

If you had actually followed the thread you would have understood. I’ve even tried to brief you on it, but you seem to prefer to ignore that and repeat your mantras.

infantrydiv.1620:

If the Guardian was level 80 and you are level 47 he will out DPS you generally.

This.

As GW1 player I can never resist visiting the raptor nest when I am in Bloodtide Coast, it takes about 10 seconds to round them up and 7 to cluster-bomb them into the past.

ensoriki.5789:

frans.8092:

Rafahil.2857:

The real problem is whether the devs are actually aware of the shadowstep problem or not, because this has been an issue since release and they never said anything about it.

They are aware, they just don’t care about it.

More like they probably can’t find a solution that is worth the time to implement.

I feel that ‘they don’t care’ is an accurate abbreviation of your statement

If it’s an actual teleport then it goes through gates in Spvp and tpvp. Meaning you could follow people into their base which they would probably want to avoid.

The target got somehow tagged to allow the mechanism that shadowsteps you to him to keep track of said target. That tagging could be removed when he goes through one of those brightly coloured doors – which is the only one that matters for this case.

That part looks easier to implement then shadowstep pathing.

Ah, ok. Then you only need infusion, the stealth I build up in trying lasted long enough to regain the lost initiative.

Doomdesire.9365:

I actually think thieves have more condition cleanse than they need.

When traited it’s 2 everytime you use CND/BP HS so long as you wait the stealth duration

You have to trait quite considerably, first to get the trait and then some to increase stealth duration, or add another C&D to get the round of stealth you need tactically.

sorrow.2364:

frans.8092:

Your posts are the only thing ridiculous in this thread. While the condition removal on shadow return is a nice side-effect, no thief would use up the combos for condition removal. So no, they aren’t condition removals.

So, because you don’t use them as condition removals, they aren’t condition removals.
Who is ridiculous here?

You, obviously. They are positioning tools, not condition removals. You don’t Shadow Return away from your target in the middle of an attack chain and break it to remove a condition, you use Shadow Return to reposition yourself. Cleansing a condition is a side effect, no matter how useful that is is, it is generally not the reason to use it. Putting Shadow Step and Shadow Return on cooldown to cleanse conditions is wasting a tactical tool for it’s side effect. If you don’t realize the importance of their primary use, positioning, you don’t understand much of the Thief.

You want to facetank, even if you didn’t mentioned it. It is obvious.

Now, who’s talking ridiculous. You know little of thief, but you know even less about me. Don’t even try to make statements about what I want.

frans.8092:

It’s good for what it’s supposed to do, which isn’t supplementing Black Powder.

You said the recharge is too long. It isn’t. It is an amazing support skill in dungeon.

No, I didn’t, I said the recharge was too long to supplement Black Powder to overcome it’s weakness in fighting mixed mobs.

gesho.9468:

i’m practicing backstab thief and stealth. i’ve seen some thieves maintaining perm in-combat (spvp) stealth no probs. i’ve tried everything but still not quite there.

best i managed so far is combo in d/p:
blackPowder(p5)+
heartSeeker(d2)+
goBackInLingeringBlackPowderField+
heartSeeker(d2)

…and recycle. this gives what, 8 sec I believe?

Black Powder
Heartseeker
AboutFace (180 turn)
Heartseeker
Heartseeker

All you need is the Init on stealth trait and +1 sec stealth trait to be able to maintain stealth indefinitely.

sorrow.2364:

frans.8092:

Nope, it isn’t, you’re confused, Shadow Return removes a condition. Shadow Step is not a condition Remover, if you say that, you don’t understand it.

Are you really doing this? Seriously, this is getting ridiculous.

Your posts are the only thing ridiculous in this thread. While the condition removal on shadow return is a nice side-effect, no thief would use up the combos for condition removal. So no, they aren’t condition removals.

frans.8092:

They have defensive skills that mitigate damage without requiring them to stop attacking for the duration of the defence. Neither dodging nor stealth offer that, with both you have to stop attacking and for the duration of the defence.

Give me an example, please.

Examples of damage mitigation that doesn’t require you to stop attacking, you mean like Protective Shield, Protector’s Strike, Valorous Defense, Shield of Judgment, Prismatic Understanding, Symbol of Protection or Protective Spirit? Just to name a few,

frans.8092:

It’s a guardian skill, why do you mention it here?

Because it is quite similiar to Smoke Screen?[/quote] So?

What is your perfect recharge for Smoke Screen to be considered worthy?
20s? 15s? 10s? On initiative?

It’s good for what it’s supposed to do, which isn’t supplementing Black Powder.

Rafahil.2857:

The real problem is whether the devs are actually aware of the shadowstep problem or not, because this has been an issue since release and they never said anything about it.

They are aware, they just don’t care about it.

sorrow.2364:

frans.8092:

You need them to run rampant before you bring condition removal?

Shadowstep IS a condition removal. Infiltrator’s strike too.

Nope, it isn’t, you’re confused, Shadow Return removes a condition. Shadow Step is not a condition Remover, if you say that, you don’t understand it.

frans.8092:

They also need to stop attacking while the effects of their defensive skills do their work?

Do their defensive skills lasts less than 1 seconds? Do their defensive skills grant 100% direct damage immunity? Do can use their defensive skills as often as a thief dodge/evades?

They have defensive skills that mitigate damage without requiring them to stop attacking for the duration of the defence. Neither dodging nor stealth offer that, with both you have to stop attacking and for the duration of the defence.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wall_of_Reflection

It’s a guardian skill, why do you mention it here?

sorrow.2364:

Still, I fail to understand what you’re talking about. You seems convinced that Warriors attack people in permanent endure pain.

I never said anything remotely like that, my claim is that you can’t do damage while dodging. A simple truth that you apparently have to contest with fallacies.

Yeah, because we all know how conditions are rampant in PvE.

You need them to run rampant before you bring condition removal?

frans.8092:

You need a mathematical and statistical analysis to understand how you don’t do damage while dodging??? Or do you need to calculate how much time you spend dodging and attacking before figuring out that 24/7 Vigor is enough and using 24/7 Vigor + Feline Grace will keep you from attacking for a substantial, possibly the largest part.

Oh god.

God’s got nothing to do with it

Other professions need to stop attacking too when casting their defensive skills. So what?

They also need to stop attacking while the effects of their defensive skills do their work?

Do you really think that in dungeon you have to dodge that much? Geez…

Ah, so you don’t need 24/7 damage mitigation? Then cooldowns aren’t a problem ….

frans.8092:

Regen always does it’s job, as does Opportunist – at least while hitting. So the net payback from PW is less then 1 initiative.

But, once you are able to spend your initiative again, you have, in fact, just 3 ini less compared to when you’ve started to cast PW.

You could use it for something else.

frans.8092:

Lol, here’s facetanking again, you are not following the thread. The point being made is that dodging – and stealth – as damage mitigation compromises the thief’s ability to bring damage output, and thus, value to a group.

I’ve already answered to you. If you want to evade while attacking, there is Pistol Whip for you.

frans.8092:

The cooldown is really too long for that.

Wall of Reflection is on 40s cooldown, Smoke Screen is on 30, 26 if traited with an adept trait (if I’m not wrong).
Do you want such a strong skill on 5s cooldown?

Last time I checked Wall of Reflection was an Engineer skill and Master of Deception is in Shadow Arts, not a trait you’d pick on a /P. Unless you like waiting, 30 seconds between trash mobs is quite long.

Lightworks
Sony Vegas

BrunoBRS.5178:

well i was going by personal experience (stealthing would always cleanse the bleeds, even if i had burns, poison, torment, etc),

Bleed is applied much more frequently so it would it has a better chance of being the last condition applied.

sorrow.2364:

frans.8092:

You always sacrifice something, either damage from a reduced Critical Strikes, or reduced survivability from not loosing Shadow Arts and thus loosing things like condition removal. If you go further into Trickery for the Grandmaster trait for daze on steal you’ll sacrifice both Critical Strikes and Shadow Arts, since 30 in Trickery and 15-20 in Acrobatics leaves you with only 20-25 points to choose from for the rest and if you want fury to mean anything, this means they all go into Critical Strikes.

Those are simple tradeoffs. If you were able to have them all, Thief would be completely broken.
You can try 0/30/0/10/30, 0/30/0/15/25, 0/25/0/15/30 or 0/30/10/0/30. Just pick the one you like with the proper tradeoffs.

And there we are, not only are we loosing damage when traiting for this much endurance, we also loose damage using it for dodging since we’re not doing damage while dodging. We’ve come round to the point I’ve been making, thief depends more on damage mitigation that requires him to stop attacking then any other class, lowering their damage output while damage output, should be, given the lack of support, their job in group excursions.

Also, in PvE, Shadowstep is more than enough as condition cleansing.

On a 50 second cooldown, you can’t be serious.

They also get Vigor while attacking, rather then during a withdraw. Besides, when you are using more endurance regen then Vigor grants you’re not attacking but spending most of your time dodging.

This is based on which complex mathematical and statistical analysis?

You need a mathematical and statistical analysis to understand how you don’t do damage while dodging??? Or do you need to calculate how much time you spend dodging and attacking before figuring out that 24/7 Vigor is enough and using 24/7 Vigor + Feline Grace will keep you from attacking for a substantial, possibly the largest part.

Expensive on initiative, effectively on a 5-7 second cooldown, and it roots you, which is rather awkward with a mobile style. Remember we’re talking dungeons and thus fighting bosses up close.

It isn’t expensive on initiative.
With Opportunist, you have good chances to get 1 initiative back. 1 initiative, also, regenerates during the channel. This skill, in reality, just costs 3 initative.

Regen always does it’s job, as does Opportunist – at least while hitting. So the net payback from PW is less then 1 initiative.

Again, you’re not attacking while dodging.

Then make a big norn and go guardian. Did you really expected to facetank all the damage as a Thief?

Lol, here’s facetanking again, you are not following the thread. The point being made is that dodging – and stealth – as damage mitigation compromises the thief’s ability to bring damage output, and thus, value to a group.

Doesn’t work against mixed melee-ranged groups

Read previous post.

The cooldown is really too long for that.

sorrow.2364:

Nope, you are dedicating three traitpoints steal boons, reduce the recharge of steal, daze your target on steal, grant your team 50% fury uptime and, of course, have 100% vigor uptime.
Also, you have quite a lot of goodies coming from spending point into the trickery traitline.

You always sacrifice something, either damage from a reduced Critical Strikes, or reduced survivability from not loosing Shadow Arts and thus loosing things like condition removal. If you go further into Trickery for the Grandmaster trait for daze on steal you’ll sacrifice both Critical Strikes and Shadow Arts, since 30 in Trickery and 15-20 in Acrobatics leaves you with only 20-25 points to choose from for the rest and if you want fury to mean anything, this means they all go into Critical Strikes.

frans.8092:

Guardian has a 5 point trait that gives vigor on critical hits, makes it not only easier to maintain it then spamming heal when you don’t need it. And it gives you Vigor while attacking, rather then when withdrawing away from the action.

Still, Guardians get way less from their vigor since they don’t have Feline Grace.

They also get Vigor while attacking, rather then during a withdraw. Besides, when you are using more endurance regen then Vigor grants you’re not attacking but spending most of your time dodging.

frans.8092:

The discussion isn’t about endurance, the point I brought up was that damage mitigation from dodging and stealth prevent you from dealing damage, while damage mitigation from boons, like protection, allows one to keep attacking longer.
Why are you avoiding that?

Oh, wait….

Have you ever heard about Pistol Whip?

Expensive on initiative, effectively on a 5-7 second cooldown, and it roots you, which is rather awkward with a mobile style. Remember we’re talking dungeons and thus fighting bosses up close.

Now you’re evading more, I didn’t mention face-tanking at all, I mentioned damage mitigation that, unlike dodging and stealth, does it’s job without interfering with your offence.

Dodging is a 100% damage mitigation. Evading is a 100% damage mitigation too.

Again, you’re not attacking while dodging.

Pistol Whip your target to death if you want to deal damage while taking no damage at all.

not enough initiative for that.

Or, if you aren’t against a boss, use Black Powder every 5s, press 1 and get a coffee.

Doesn’t work against mixed melee-ranged groups

sorrow.2364:

frans.8092:

Does what? Return 30% of the endurance, which is less then the +50%. And yes, feline grace stacks with Vigor, but we have little access to Vigor. I don’t think our access to endurance buffing is bad, but its nothing better then what can be achieved on other classes.

You can easily keep up vigor all the time with a proper build. 0/30/15/0/25 with

Withdraw and Steal each have their use, getting Vigor from them is a side effect, not their purpose and would you be using for the sole purpose of maintaining Vigor, you’d not be using them to their full potential. Not to mention you’re now dedicating three traits and have your trait-points to maintain Vigor.

Withdraw as heal do the job just fine.

Has been on my bar ever since dagger got glued in as my offhand.

Other classes can’t do better.

Guardian has a 5 point trait that gives vigor on critical hits, makes it not only easier to maintain it then spamming heal when you don’t need it. And it gives you Vigor while attacking, rather then when withdrawing away from the action.

The discussion isn’t about endurance, the point I brought up was that damage mitigation from dodging and stealth prevent you from dealing damage, while damage mitigation from boons, like protection, allows one to keep attacking longer.

Why are you avoiding that?

Oh, wait….

frans.8092:

Through the context you are now claiming that Endure Pain is the only damage mitigation that doesn’t require you to stop fighting. Is that truly what you want to post here?

Well, tell me another skill which allows you to facetank any damage carelessly.

Now you’re evading more, I didn’t mention face-tanking at all, I mentioned damage mitigation that, unlike dodging and stealth, does it’s job without interfering with your offence.

Not sure Shadow Stepping will get you far with all the walls you typically find in a keep.