Guild Wars 2

https://www.twitch.tv/narcarsis/v/74003271

This game is on Caed’s recorded stream around the 29:50 minute mark.

Trying to look like The Predator alien (teeth and dreadlock hair), but I still need shoulder mounted laser cannon as well as fishnet chest armor.

Scrapper here currently partnered with a glass cannon daredevil staff roaming partner. We do extremely well. We’ve had multiple 2v4 and some 2v5+ wins (not the best enemies ofc, but oh well).

Scrapper’s innate tankiness + good damage and utility mixed with the massive vault AOE damage means I can tank/slick shoes CC them while he just stomps on them. Water fields also works nice with his leaps to give him some extra sustain in fights.
His staff aoe blind also ensures I take less damage in clumped fights.

We are a bit vulnerable to condis, but we tend to nuke down enemy condi users first.

High stealth uptime for both of us also makes for nasty ambushes or quick retreats if things get messy.

1-5 = weapon skills
Shift+1-5 = toolbelt skills
Z, X, C = Utils
V = Elite
F = Heal
Q = Extra bind for Toolbelt skill1 to blast healing turret up quick xD
T = Take target
Shift+T = Give target
Alt = look behind
WSAD = Movement and strafing
`Tilde = weapon swap
Mouse Thumb button= Dodge

I do decent damage vs. scrappers… when I manage to land an attack on them. They are just so obnoxious to fight.

Just when you think you have them nailed, they hide behind gearshield for 3 secs, or they shrink to mini mode and afterwards they pop no cast time stealth copter. At this stage as a thief you gotta GTFO immediately or get burst down from stealth by their hammer skills.

So with the correct utils and traits they can have almost 9s god-mode (gear shield + elixer S util + elixir S 25% life trait) + instant stealth after godmode ends.

It’s so infuriating watching a whole group chasing after a tiny shrunken engineer for 6 seconds.

Classes should have weaknesses to exploit – like for instance Reaper is very strong but pretty slow so you can work around that. It just seems that scrappers have all the pro’s without any con’s.

If your opponent’s movement sucks and you can land multiple vaults, go for it. Why would you otherwise not? I’ve hit enemies with 3-4 vaults in a row, because they move like 3-legged turtles. They shouldn’t complain about it, it’s highly telegraphed out of stealth.

If I determine my enemy is dodging/interrupting my vaults, I will adjust my gameplay though.

Good job buddy! Had a good laugh watching this! We should create a 5 man Kodan team next time!

MakubeC.3026:

Does anybody use Eagle’s? I find them useful, can’t figure out why nobody likes them…

I can’t speak on others’ behalf, but I for one don’t use them because they don’t add any power. And since abilities like Pulmonory Impact cannot crit runes of the Eagle doesn’t benefit it.

Yeah I have dropped daredevil runes as well in favor of Pack runes again. With 75% crit chance under Fury buff the extra crit on dodge seems a bit of a waste.

SB 2 needs to a.) move faster, b.) get it’s 1200 range back as it was years ago and c.) leave a fire field (instead of inflicting bleeding) if you choose not to detonate it mid-air. That would be cool.

The fire field could add some cool options for the thief and allies. Blasting for might, leaping for fire aura, and for thieves using condi – get a much needed burn option.

Scratch that fire field: Bad idea! It’s already a blast finisher xD

None taken.

So let’s end this non-story thread and let us agree. Balance is kitten atm. Condi spam, stealth spam, reveal spam, 1-2 shot builds. None of it promotes healthy gameplay, this in turn is promoting unhealthy levels of toxicity within the community.

That’s good to know – where do I get all my roaming enemies to sign this agreement?
I constantly run into condi roamers in wvw, they probably didn’t get the memo – or maybe they just don’t care and use the tools that good ANet gave them without worrying about silent agreements or being honorable- to our squishy thieves’ detriment.

Anything to win right?

For the record.: I use a reckless staff zerker build without any stealth. I haven’t jumped on the condi wagon and never will.

No I am not new to PVP.

Who decided condis are a no-go? Is there some sort of GW2 Court of Righteousness or is it something in our minds that tell us that people who play condi builds are scrubs that should gtfo and l2p?

Of course I have reasons for disliking condi builds – I like to see big, red numbers when I fight. But what is the point you are trying to make Jana?

My commenting was on the fact that these thieves behave like base animals towards me for beating them, despite them not adjusting their game strategies (i.e. avoid fighting the ‘KITTEN CHEESE CONDI SCRUB L2PNOOB ’ and go cap another point after they figured out I’m running Condi) when facing me on a build they know would give them trouble.

Edit: Spelling

Having D/D and staff might be melee overkill. I don’t have the exact PVE numbers, but staff single target DPS is probably on par and in some cases better than D/D assuming you are taking +10% dmg on staff trait. You would only be keeping staff to AOE via Vault?

By all means drop bow and keep staff and just spec for Dash dodge to keep high mobility.
And realize you might die more often because you don’t have a true ranged option

Azukas.1426:

you need to understand any verbal backlash you get for doing such a thing is deserved in most cases.

I don’t need to understand it. How does anyone deserve to get flamed and cursed at if they are using something that is valid within the terms and rules of the game.?

There are certain builds out there I don’t like to fight against, but that doesn’t give me the right to be a downright awful kitten towards the other player for using it.

@babazhook – True, true. Though, OP mentions that he prefers to +1 and roam. OP also doesn’t mention which traited dodge he uses. Assuming dash, you can get away without SB, assuming bound, you are gonna be way too slow without SB to move between points.

I think for staff play daredevil runes are more beneficial. If you can manage landing a guaranteed crit vault or another big hit after every dodge will net you more damage in the long run than +10% scholar bonus would have provided.

I don’t think replacing SB in pvp is a good option, especially if you are +1’ing. It just adds too much mobility. I personally don’t like using dash for mobility between points, because it means I don’t have any dodges left when I reach the fight I’m trying to get to.

@Draxynnic.3719
Exactly. Knowing your class weakness wins you half the fight or allows you to avoid fights which do not favour you. As thieves we can pick and choose who we fight. As a power thief, if I run up to a condi reaper, or a p/p engineer or a Mallyx rev I know I’m gonna be in for a tough time.

These other thieves continuously ran onto points to fight me, knowing full well I am condi evade spam cheeser – then berating ME when THEY die over and over?

It’s a level of childishness and toxicity I’ve never encountered before. Maybe it’s because of the bad rep condi builds have. If I was on my staff power build and Steal + Staff2 + Staff5 exploded them – they would have accepted it and not say a word.

Disclaimer: I dislike playing condi builds and have played power builds since GW2 launched.

Since the influx of thieves again in PVP after the AA buffs I thought I’d try to make a build designed to counter the other team’s thief.

So on my lunchbreak I was messing around and initially created a condi burst DrD build and jumped into two hotjoin games to test. It was full of thieves/Daredevils – perfect testing ground.

Oh my, this was the saltiest experience I’ve ever had in this game. I went toe to toe eight times with enemy thieves and obliterated them, once 2v1 on point. In turn they started verbal abusing me to no end for running cheese. I kinda expected that.

I ended up spectating most of them and to no surprise almost none of them had meaningful condi clears. Not as utilities and not as traits.

Seeing as most of my condi burst comes from utils (spider venom & impairing daggers) I only have one stunbreak/escape (ShadowStep) on a big CD. It’s an easy build to lock down.

How can players complain about other player’s builds if they do not adapt their own builds accordingly? Surely you must expect someone on the other team to have a condi setup.

I’ve played with D/P and Dash since June2015, but moved over to bound. I come from the 66200 full zerker Scholar runes burst dagger/dagger days and I am reliving this again using d/p with bound and Scholar runes.

The +10% dmg from Scholar + 10% from Bound buff + Bound-Mug-Backstab burst combos give me satisfaction.

Personal taste, but I think bound is more fun, reminds me of doing cannonball dives in a swimming pool. Sometimes the swimming pool is a DH trap, but oh well.

Lyger.5429:

Dahkeus.8243:

Hmm..I don’t see the removal of the Black Powder aftercast that they mentioned in the live stream. =/

Aww great why does Anet hate thief having decent stealth….

For me the aftercast of blackpowder feels faster. Pressing 5 and immediately 2 feels faster than before. Maybe it’s just my mind playing tricks on me.

Dare I say, because ArenaNet has troubles balancing stealth to not seem OP to inexperienced players, they rather hand it out to everyone to even the playing field.

“Oh poor Mr. Ranger, you were thief food for 3 years.. Shh, don’t worry – here, you get stealth on Longbow and you get a new pet that creates a smoke field for you to stealth in. Also here is a reveal skill for you. ’

“Oh poor mesmers, you were eaten alive by thieves for 3 years.. Shh, don’t worry – here is a trait that doubles your stealth time and gives you all the best boons in the game’.

And don’t even make preparedness baseline, just remove preparedness from the game and make every thief skill that uses initiative cost 1 less initiative.

I agree with you. Not only does engineer arguably have the best stealth at the moment (factor in Toss Elixer S, sneak gyro and smoke bomb blasting), they also have the best anti-stealth with a reveal trait as well as Gyro Toolbelt AOE reveal – and this is what kittenes me off. I’d be content with thief’s stealth as it is, if we ALSO had decent reveal to counter other stealth users, but as it stands we don’t.

You should either be good at stealthing OR good at revealing, not both.

I’m currently running a d/p build focusing on interrupt damage (in WVW). It is devastating when you can pull off at least 2 interrupts during a fight, which isn’t very hard if you play smart and patient. I’m running Withdraw,Shadowstep, Agility Signet, Blinding powder,Basi Venom and Dash dodge. Orrian Steak Fritte and Furious Maintenance Oil.

I prefer loading my Basi Venom mid fight while in stealth, I feel like opening with Basi Venom pre-fight misses the opportunity for extra interrupts sometimes.

I play full zerker, and trying Defender runes at the moment. That Aegis on withdraw every 14 sec and 4k+ heal on block every 30sec allows me some more sustain. I might try Sigil of Draining in the future for even more self heal.

I used to be a die-hard d/d backstab power burst thief. Landing those bursts, it felt good. Or missing the burst, then you had to outplay your opponent with your limited set – it was difficult, but once accomplished, it felt good. It was fun, clean and effective. Proper assassin kitten.

Now I am a cowardly, try-hard d/d deathblossom spammer condi dodger. Seems more viable now, alas that is what my d/d thief has been relegated to.

I feel dirty. Like I poisoned their drinks while they weren’t watching. But it works better that way, less risk.

Gandrogh.1530:

Thieves damages are fine, 20k backstabs or 20k HS hurt a lot. It’s the class who get the higher damage in a meta group. And as a thief, i prefere a up like 1hp and 1000% damage modifier. Take a necro if you want higher hp pool

Massive troll. Only way you can secure 20k backstabs is by pigeonholing your build so hard that you have to use all your utilities (signets or traps) to get might stacks. Then the planets have to align for you to land your backstab on a squishy target under 50% life. Gimmick builds without any utility or survivability.

http://www.deathbulge.com/comics/304

@Kocoff. Yeah necro being slow is annoying, compared to the mobility I am used to as a thief. But I enjoy being able to stay in the fight and do truckloads of damage, contest points and survive without having to rely on my superior mobilty to try and hide.

I find using Mini Henry (Wurm) for juke porting (especially in Khylo roof, ToTSS bridges) in PVP mildly entertains me as I also miss that aspect of thief.

I have been maining thief for 3 years, mostly WVW and sPVP. I decided to spend some time on other classes before the expansion hits, most notably my full zerker power necro.

I was shocked. I am absolutely decimating thieves in wvw and pvp. Granted they might not have been the world’s best thieves, but I only have 25 hours on necro and sometimes still fumble combos and keystrokes. I’ve only lost to one thief in a fair 1v1 and that was a condi dire perplexity thief and I didnt have Plague Signet equipped.
Sure, sometimes in a group fight a d/d burst jumps me for 15k backstab, that happens.

It makes me sad, they all rely on stealth to try and survive/burst, but it only helps them flee and reset. As soon as they show themselves they get wrecked by 6k 1200 range auto attacks, while their backstabs just chunk out my Shroud a bit. I truly felt sad when I managed to down 2 thieves at once inside their Refuge using only Shroud 4&5. Didn’t even have to target any of them.

I’m feeling more useful on a class I have 25 hours on than on my 3000 hour main.
Disgusting.

So how do you feel when fighting other thieves whilst playing your alts?

laquito.5269:

Shelved my thief ever since this garbage patch and went for s/f fresh air, a build that feels closest to what thief once was like. Can’t be kitten d playing SA bullkitten, a spec that solely gets carried by tons of passive procs, just like any other meta spec. Jesus christ this game has gone full cancer, thanks ANet.

I feel ya man, the problem I have with this is that I spent thousands of gold and hours on my thief – multiple sets of ascended gear, legendaries, etc. I just cannot justify doing this for another toon – so I have decided to stick it out on thief for better or worse.

Still sucks though.

Revealed training is good for PVE, it is however out-shined by Panic Strike in PVP/WvW.

I think two changes would make it a more suitable option for PVP/WvW whilst retaining it’s functionality in PVE.

a.) Rework the +200 power bonus to rather give 7 stacks of Might (210 Power).This does two things. It synergizes better with certain runes like Runes of Strength and boon duration foods, etc. Also adds some counter play (susceptible to boon stealing/corrupting).

Might stacking is something thieves have been missing since the removal of the might on stealth minor trait in the old SA line. I feel this change I propose would make it less passive, since you only gain might on exiting stealth instead of sitting in stealth.

b.) Also give either Resistance boon or Protection boon ( I know Protection has been suggested a few times before). Giving ourselves some counter to all the reveal skills/traits other classes are getting.

Your thoughts?

Fun! Cheer up man. We don’t have much to be thankful for at the moment. I also main thief, 95% of my hours on my thief since headstart, other 5% on 2 other classes. But every time I hop onto one of them I go back to my thief within the hour, because I get bored.

It’s about fun as you mentioned! I still have good success roaming in WVW and I still feel pretty strong in 1v1, barring a few builds that are seriously troublesome to fight against.

Can’t comment on DD though, haven’t played it.

The problem is, I like using Sigil of fire to detect other stealthed classes. Like auto attacking and proccing fire burst on a thief inside his shadow refuge.

Can Sigil of Air procs also be seen when proc’d against a stealthed character? I’ve personally never noticed it, only the AOE fire sigil burst.

I’d like to add how much SB shines with this build as well. I tested it a bit last night and had no problems killing a few enemies with SB alone. The on demand stealth, CC and superspeed afforded by the traps really suits SB. Having 3-4 surprise shots to immob enemies in a fight and then lob clusters and choking gas on them while immob adds a ton of pressure, especially great for securing kills if running in a party. I ran it with +40% condition duration food and the immobs and cripples were just insane.

I tried running power trapper months before the big June patch and found it lackluster. But now you piqued my interest and I tried it again last night. The two new DA trapper traits really made this build much better. I run ShadowStep and 2 other traps.

I really wish ANet would implement internal cooldown timers on the UI though, so we can see when the next trap on heal would be available. The difference in Withdraw cooldown and Trapper’s Respite cooldown makes it difficult to predict.

Then I’d love a bit more power/prec/fero based stats on the runes itself, at this time it’s heavily weighted towards condi builds. (Please don’t flame me condi thieves!)

Thanks for posting this!

Well listen here, I’d prefer a new ranged weapon myself, but what I am more concerned about than the new weapon choice, is the actual elite spec mechanics and trait line. They better be fun, powerful and worthwile and add some new flavour to the class.

Thief elite spec should be able to dual wield rifles I say, with Grandmaster trait being *Attach any dagger from your inventory as a bayonet to a rifle.Your rifle auto attacks when in 240 range now also inflict Lotus Strike to enemies’. *

That would be fun.

Thief already has lots of ‘binary’ stuff (+20% dmg when this, +10% damage when that, +1% damage per initiative, +7% crit chance when flanking, +10% crit damage from that). Which is fine given the current class design, but it is kinda boring. I say we need more fun stuff, less number stuff.

Hi Midi, yeah i forgot to say my build. I run D/P normally with CS, but sometimes switch to SA if I think I might face a condi heavy comp. For CS the extra condi clear on Withdraw might be more beneficial.

Ofc the thing I forgot to mention is Trickster becomes very strong with the Flanking Strikes trait, since the CD of 36s is bugged. Haste almost twice a minute becomes very strong with Trickster trait ofc.

Hi. I see it’s becoming popular to trait for Trickster despite only using Withdraw as the only Trick skill. I myself do it from time to time, but I’m left wondering if the 1 condition clear and 4 seconds reduced cooldown of Withdraw is really worth losing all the benefits that Bountiful Theft would bring.

Granted you know what you are getting with Tricker + Withdraw and sometimes the boonsteal on Bountiful Theft can be situational (target might not have boons to steal, or you miss your steal due to a dodge, etc.) On the other hand, stealing that Aegis and interrupting the bunker guardian ressing mid fight might swing the outcome of the match.

Discuss! Share your thoughts.

Nice idea, but too much poison up in there. Throw in some torment or bleeding.

When using shadow shot at the correct time on an enemy using a teleport, shadow shot will follow them to their teleport location. This is ofcourse almost impossible to time correctly, but it still happens in heated fights. I’ve killed lots of other thieves like this (by accident mostly xD)

Fighting other DP thieves: (You will run into a lot of them)
D/P is known for it’s predictability. Most thieves will 5+2 before engaging, you can quick interrupt them with 4 or SoH, before they HS through Blackpowder, negating their stealth and wasting tons of their initiative. Or they will just open with shadow shot, which is easily dodgeable if you know it’s coming from range.

Thus, counter your own predictability by sometimes throwing in a Blackpowder + Steal/Teleport into the mix to land a Blackpowder under the enemy feet, and following up by a Heartseeker + Backstab while on top of them. Very useful on stationary targets casting a skill with long cast time (like a ranger using barrage) since they will have to move out of your blackpowder or risk being blinded for a long time.

Or you can be a punk like I am and go and stand in the enemy D/P thief’s BlackPowder and start auto attack spamming in it, if he tries to spam heartseeker to gain stealth duration he will a.) reveal himself by hitting me, b.) eat my 4k auto attacks.

I’ve got a bug happening to me sometimes, but I’m not sure if it’s specific to thief. I’ll mention it here anyway.

Sometimes in WVW in certain camps the auto attack from shortbow will get obsctructed and not hit the intended target, despite not having any obstacles between me and the target (I have full line of sight).

I didn’t say this in my post, but you do realize that the number I quoted was when doing a backstab that was under influence of the +20% damage Executioner trait. I can’t speak for the other d/d users here though.

Jana.6831:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

If you go DA/CS/Trix, backstabs are pretty insane10k -15k+ on average and no, I am not talking about stabbing upscaled naked ele running around wvw. With buffs from allies it’s even more, I hit tower lord for 24k lol. The dmg is there, just spec for it.

Do you do 17k damage on heavies in wvw ?
With one hit that is.
(I’m playing this game too =))

Why the disbelief? I have personally backstabbed heavy armor zerkers for over 15k. I’m sure with seaweed salad, more signet might stacks, etc. that I could go even higher.

Sandrox.9524:

backstabs hits like a truck xD

Yeah they do, had fun last night with you guys on my d/p signet build.

And update your sig. man!

This is how I fight them (shatter mesmers). Fight on your own terms, you dictate the fight. You have superior mobility. I will stay at range poking with SB to do some bounce damage and hopefully kill a clone or two waiting for the mesmer to throw that bouncy pink sword. When I successfully dodge that and they hopefully waste a shatter (hopefully mindwrack), I will steal into melee and start stabbing knowing that most of their burst has been negated and I’m relatively safe for a while (as long as they haven’t generated more clones for a next shatter).

A decent mesmer will catch on quickly and try to go into melee with you probably by blinking or using sword 3. GTFO with shadowstep/withdraw/RollForIni or whatever.

If a mesmer stealths first, GTFO. He will summon clones while invisible and blink onto you and rip you apart with a 4 x mind wrack.

TL;DR
a.) Go in for the kill when they don’t have clones up.
b.)If they initiate or they have clones up, GTFO and kite with SB, then do step a.)

Edit: I only now read oEnvy’s post. He is right about mirror blade. Some mesmers are so programmed to mindwrack after mirror blade they will waste the shatter if you dodge mirror blade. Then you have a free access pass to jump into melee and wreck them.

OP must have fought a thief running the 6/6/6/6/6 build everyone complains about.

Some thieves have low life cause they know they will regen it all every few seconds and cant be killed no matter what. I hardly see thiefs get killed inpvp anymore.

A thief running 6SA for healing in Conquest PVP and staying in stealth to recover life is doing your team a favour. Stop complaining about it and go cap the point.

Edit:Oh wait, my bad. I realised from post history that Peow actually mains thief. We are all feeding the troll.

Your assumptions make sense, and if it turns out to be true it will be a very good boost to d/d builds especially. ANet might put a cap or an internal cooldown on it though. Can’t imagine them allowing blinding one target indefinitely.

don’t forget every thief build beats d/d thief also

Everybody claims this, and indeed it is true assuming both thieves are of equal skill.
Some d/p thieves pose a major problem, other are so clueless as to allow a d/d thief to full burst them from open view.

I’m playing 66200 zerker, so one C&D + Steal + Backstab burst easily does 15-20k damage. If they manage to survive or mitigate this, then I can do it again using infiltrator signet.
Alternatively, 26600 offers so much reset power via healing in stealth and extra toughness that most other enemy thieves can’t 100-0 you, so if you happen to get jumped you can just reset the fight (although I won’t promote 6SA cheesiness).

The biggest challenges for me to solo kill in wvw are perplexi engis and good mediguards.

TL:DR
Regardless what people say, d/d is still very effective in wvw, moreso in small roaming groups where you have friendly fodder to tank and bait enemy dodges and defense utilities for you. You can then truly shine as an assassin, weaving from one downed body to the next.