Guild Wars 2

SnowHawk.3615:

Hello! So I have always been interested in PvP/WvW fights but mostly PvP.
I usually main a mesmer in PvP and a warrior, but I’m really perplexed about a thief- at least in PvP, I am getting that Thief isn’t necessarily noob friendly in PvP- but most classes can be like that I guess.. at least for me.

Check out Sizer’s Twitch channel, he is probably the best PvP thief around, you can surely learn something from him.
I actually asked another thief in game for some tips because I wasn’t sure on what to use for a beginner and got negative feedback- and anyone else would just say Dagger Pistol heartseeker spam. That doesn’t help me learn the class in a competitive element, I do prefer Dagger Dagger as my main hand weapons, and either shortbow for secondary or sword pistol – which is what i mostly use in PvE and dungeons, (D/D S/P) Unless it’s TA which I switch to shortbow for the blossoms.
I have looked up builds but most I find are out of date, or do not share equipment etc. But in all they look fun- but I don’t know what play style would suit me- because I don’t want to be the best thief but I do want to be a good and effective thief.

Any help?! <33

Avoid Dagger Dagger if you want to be a “good and effective” thief.
There are 3 viable PvP builds for thief.
D/P+Shortbow: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVl0MpypdPx0J8PNBNBt9wbQE8OMfpMaFAA-TJBFwACODAl2foaZAAPCAA

Sw/D+Shortbow:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsaVl0MpypdPx0J8PNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdHl+eEA-TJBFwACODAl2foaZAAPCAA

Sw/P+Shortbow:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsaVl0MpypdPx0J8PNBNBt9wbQE8OMfpMaFAA-TJBFwACODAl2foaZAAPCAA

Thief is not “noob friendly” because you not only need to be good at fighting, but also at evaluating the battle and the whole match. Warrior, for example, only requires to be good at battle (and it’s way more forgiving at that), because he is a sitting duck and you can do well just camping a point, staying alive and spamming AoEs.
A thief, on the other hand, needs to pick weakened or glass targets, kill them fast, then help with rezzing/stomping/interrupting/debuffing, and finally needs to know where he is needed most, where the enemy is located, when to disengage and all this stuff.

messiah.1908:

gg and finally original video from thief

i know you and you are not average player

as you and the community see, out dodge and out stealth pretty much determine the outcome of any fight. pls show video against d/d ele and warrior and guardian too

and why you never use the #3 skill and why the hell there are #3 at all in one hand weapon as no one use them at all in any situation

the condi engi should had you imo

(also moved to deso so pm we can roam)

There are some specs that I can’t do anything against if I’m only 1 handed, because I lack the damage to fully take them down.
Any decent D/D celestial Ele is kind of impossible to be beaten by a 1handed thief spec. However, if they wear Zerker amulet, I can surely try. Unfortunately, no one uses D/D with zerker specs in 1v1 servers (same can be said for Warriors, since everyone likes to run Soldier Amulet Hambow). However, I’ll definitely try beating them next time I see one.

The reason I never use my #3 ability (assuming you’re talking about the Sword and Dagger one) is because… it’s useless! The Sword #3 uses 5 Initiative, deals 20% more damage than a regular autoattack, but has a long aftercast. I find it better to just chain my auto, as managing to land the third attack of the chain is really good (because of Weakness and Cripple). Plus, the Trickery 5 minor trait gives me a damage bonus based on my Initiative: using #3 skill consumes 5 Initiative, which means 5% less damage from other damage sources.
As for the Dagger one, it roots me for the whole animation and does pitiful damage. Again, better to just chain autos, both in terms of Damage and utility (Poison+Endurance regen).
Pistol #3 actually is a decent source of damage.
ANet should definitely buff #3 single handed skills, at least for people like me

haha, awesome, AGAIN.

But Deso? Really? Did you miss the queue and the 24/7 superblobs?

Thank you, your donation is kindly appreciated. Moving to Deso cost me a lot, and I even had to buy a Commander Tag for guild reasons, so I’m really broke now
As for the server, I’m not happy with that too. I loved my old server (Gunnars Hold), and 100+ people Queues at midnight for EB are surely morale breaking.
However, the only reason I moved to Deso was to follow my guild there. Apparently Gold League has become the place to be if you want to fight high rated, GvG oriented guilds :/
But my second account is still on GH. When I finally pile up 80 Tomes of Knowledge, I will definitely make a fully geared character there

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF9fKnmhYiY&index=1&list=UU4geCdHVnYcqw-n1rR_De_w

DISCLAIMER: I consider myself to be an average player. The Thief class is really strong, and a wise use of your skills and dodges can usually ensure a win even if you are handicapped.

So, after the “sucess” – considering that I’m pretty much a no one in terms of popularity, I consider it a success – of my first video, in which I showed you only need a single Dagger (be it Main Hand or Off Hand only) to beat people, I decided to make a second one.

In the first “episode”, some people argued that I got carried by Shadow Rejuvenation and Hidden Killer to beat my enemies. That was very true: those traits are indeed powerful, and can easily carry you in 1v1 situations against certain builds. But let’s not talk about these traits, as much as been said already and this is not the place to discuss this. You can find the link to the “first episode” here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Video-New-meta-no-OffHand-for-poor-people/first#post3885340

This time, I won’t show that garbage. The video you’re about to see contains the following:
-1v1 vs a Shatter Mesmer, using only a Sword;
-1v1 vs a DP thief, using only a Sword;
-1v1 vs a Shatter Mesmer, using only a Pistol;
-1v1 vs a PD condi Thief, using only a Dagger (Shortbow);
-1v1 vs a condi Engi, using only a Sword(Shortbow, to destroy Supply Crate);
-1v1 vs a PU condi Mesmer, using only a Sword;
-1v1 vs a DP thief, using only a Pistol (+Shortbow).

The build I used was the same for every fight, and it’s the following:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQJAcVl0Mp7pVOx0J8PNBNB5dY+SZ0LA9Gl+C-TFTDABsoJ4gjAAjqFkwjA4JlXWqCxLqqAlSEQ0BsgSQe2fAATQBAQAc0GtRzO35Ov5NTGgqJA-w
Utilities were swapped depending on which weapon I used (I often slotted in Blinding Powder or Shadow Trap). For the PvP version of it, I use Zerker Amulet. Food was used rarely because it’s darn expensive for me, but I slotted it anyway.

If you have any tips/suggestions/requests to give me, feel free to do so. I’ll gladly appreciate any advice, both on my gameplay and on the video. Also, if you’d like to see a fight using only a certain weapon against a certain build, please do tell me! I am always struggling as to which clips to insert in a video.

Below you will find a FAQ, in which I answer those questions that I was asked the last time I did this (either in public or through PM).

FAQ:

Q: Hey you’re great, can you give me some tips?
A: I’m not great, but I could surely help you if you need it. Feel free to PM me in game.

Q: The players you faced were awful! They never landed a single burst on you, what noobs!
A: It’s always easy to say that when you spectate. I know how to fight any build and I know what to look out for. Some players surely made some “Decision Making” mistakes, but in some situations they simply got outplayed.

Q: You only post your wins. How many times have you been beaten by those guys?
A: To be fair, I’ve fought all the WvW opponents featured in the video many times, with pretty much every weapon. Out of all these times, my win rate against every single one of them is close to 80%. The only fights you can argue about a “lucky win” are the sPvP ones. The one against the DP thief especially, as he is a great player (he regularly beats Sizer in those arenas). The night I recorded that fight, we fought 4 times. I won twice (one as Pistol only, the other as zerk P/D) and lost twice (one as Pistol only, another as Sword only).

Q: What’s with that Asura?
A: That is a character of my alt account. I usually play with that in PvP because I’m amassing Tomes of Knowledge there.

Q: What’s your PvP rank?
A: My PvP rank is 45. I don’t play PvP much and I’m terrible at it. I may know how to handle a fight, but when I have to look at the big picture (map awareness and all that stuff) I’m a complete noob.

Q: What happened to your Norn thief? I’m sick of that underboobs!
A: My Norn thief is still there, but sadly I don’t use her anymore. When ANet released the new hairstyles, I had to make a Human one who looks like Kasumi (from Dead or Alive).

Q: What server are you on?
A: I moved to Desolation a few weeks ago.

Q: Can you 1vX with those builds?
A: Actually I never tried. I can for sure say that I could not win a 1vX against any combination of the players featured in the video. The outcome of a 1vX hugely depends not on how good you are, but rather on how bad your opponents are. Sometimes I could kill myself IRL for the things that some players do. Also, I barely roam anymore, so it is unlikely that I will be going to post 1vX fights with only one weapon.

Q: I loved the video, will you post more?
A: Depending on how well this will do, I may decide to make another one. I do have some footage already, but I try not to make my videos too long, while trying to show as many fights as possible.

Stop talking about Black Powder becoming a Dark Field. It simply won’t happen.

A Warrior not using HS in the team, 4 engis in the enemy team.
I think that’s enough to make a lot of people quit.

Leave them be. They are not unkillable, it’s just that it’s not worth it.
There is NO WAY that you are going to keep the point yours while fighting a Turret Engi. Best case scenario, it will take you a good 30s (if not more, especially if they have Supply Crate).
Kiting and all the LoS crap are good, but the engi will cap AND decap the point while you are fighting his clusterkitten.
Of course you can spec full SA condi braindead and kill them. I can make lots of build that KILL turret engi, but I can see no builds that can kill the turret engi before he even decaps the point you are trying to defend.

So, the best thing you can do is leave the point and go elsewhere.

Pistol main hand (with no offhand) is great for 1v1.

Those saying that D/P has an edge over S/D are mostly sore losers who use S/D and, having lost to a D/P, tell themselves that “D/P is stronger than S/D”.

In a 1v1 situation, S/D=D/P. It’s totally 50/50. D/P has some advantages (blinds, stealth) but S/D has many others (lots of evades, condition cleansing).
More specifically:
-S/D can cleanse the poison applied by the D/P (either through Steal, Shortbow or Dagger)→Withdraw has always a 100% heal effectiveness. Whereas, for D/P, Withdraw loses 33% of that because the only cleanse available to a D/P is through Shadowstep.

-S/D has lots of evades. It’s REALLY difficult to properly land a Steal on a S/D user if he is any good. Whereas, landing a Steal on a D/P user is fairly easy, because they don’t have build in evades and have lots of vulnerable frames. Also, interrupting a BP→HS, which is quite easy, totally screws the D/P. The same reasoning can be applied for Basilisk Venom (hard to land on a S/D).

-In a shortbow battle, S/D has an insane advantage due to all the evades they have.

Of course I’m talking about Trickery D/P. I leave people who 1v1 with Shadow Arts to their playground.

If they both have a dueling-like spec, I’ll let them finish (unless I see other enemies approaching, in which case I probably jump in and lend my aid).
If one of them is a zerger, I’ll just jump in relentlessly and kill/scare away the other guy.

Gokil.2543:

hihey.1075:

I think the idea is fine, but the problem is that it looks like you are making a build just to counter S/D thieves.
The “fun” thing is that even if S/D thief is a counter to D/D ele, in the Conquest game a D/D Ele will “always” win against the thief. S/D is great at kiting and peeling, but it takes a while to take down some bunker builds and is not a 1v1 spec for conquest.

Not to mention that if the thief realizes that the Ele is running tempest defense, he should just change his approach to the fight, by either picking another target first in a teamfight, open with a ranged Basilisk Venom (instead than Mug) to let the Ele proc Tempest Defense, or just wait for the Ele to be CC-ed by another player and attack him afterwards.
A good thief will realize quickly what specs an enemy is running, and a D/D ele without 6 points in water is REALLY weak to focus fire, especially if he runs Ice Bow.

Honestly I don’t see this spec becoming meta at all. You COULD gain the upper hand against “bad” thieves, and you could even surprise good thieves the first time they face you. But you would lose so much in terms of self-defense that the tradeoff is not worth it, making this one a “situational” spec rather than a “staple”, meta spec. Not to mention that you would be covering a niche role in your team comp, and random players will never understand this: in order for a build to become “meta”, it needs to be either really easy to play or extremely effective at it. Standard D/D Celestial Ele is both effective AND easy to play. Your build is somewhat effective, but absolutely not “easy” to play.

If you want to counter thieves, you’d better go full zerk fresh air S/F (or S/D) with Arcane Shield and pop your burst on the thief when he closes in.

I’m not sure what you mean by the first part. S/D is in no way, shape or form a guaranteed win for a standard D/D elementalist. You severely overestimate how tanky an elementalist is if his armor of earth gets stolen right away. S/D definitely has a solid 50-70% chance of winning the duel given no interrupts, and it doesnt take all that long since S/D can quite effectively deny an ele’s heals if he’s paying attention by pressuring while the ele’s in water. Moreover, the kill potential of an ele on a good S/D thief is very low, whereas the thief has a decent chance. Finally, S/D’s specialty is 2v1ing you with whatever teammate he has, since his damage and mobility are so high. Having a S/D thief 2v1 you is catastrophic without exception on the current build since you melt very very fast once they get through your armor of earth. 20066 thief is the strongest 1v1 thief spec vs ele bar none. Maybe P/D power but even that is meh.

I understand your opinion in the rest of your post, and respect it. IMO the sacrifice is not that huge, and the potential payoff when hitting a couple icebows is massive, but your points are very valid.

As for full zerk S/F, I’d play it if it were viable believe me I really enjoy it in 1v1 servers but I feel like it’s not made for conquest.
We should duel again sometime btw. I really enjoyed duelling your thief in the OS! IGN is Elemelentalist.

You misunderstood the first part. The “win” was with reference to the fact that the Conquest game revolves on capping AND holding points. A standard Celestial D/D ele can HOLD a point pretty easily against a S/D thief (never use Armor of Earth against S/D thief in a 1v1, unless you need it for an additional cleanse).

Even if the thief is really good, the Ele should have no problems holding him off for AT LEAST 30 seconds. And 1v1ing for more than 20s is a complete waste of time for a roamer class. You either kill your opponent fast, or you should better leave it and go elsewhere helping your team.
Also, you’ve said it yourself: in a 2v1 with a S/D thief the standard D/D celestial Ele is screwed. So HOW is your “new” build better at it? To me it only looks SLIGHTLY better at killing S/D thieves and for situational group utility thanks to Ice Bow (which any Ele can use…). In teamfights it’s worse.

I would be glad if you could prove me wrong with some videos against good opponents though, as I consider both D/D Celestial Eles AND S/D 20066 Thieves a cancer to the current metagame.

Necro is good too. Try this one: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7djc0UebvNG3wfbCchCyBIAi+Dmg8lytYMA-TZRFwAMuAAAOIAK3fIaZAFPBAA

If you are against an Engi, just fear him off. If you are against a Warrior, corrupt the stability and fear him off (kite or go away if he has zerker stance). Guardian, fear him off or corrupt the stability (really easy).

Only class you will have problems against is a thief with Scorpion Wire or another Necro.

But you can build yourself even cheesier, like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7djc0UebvNG3wfbighSyW4DiuBCgzlykIKA-TZRFwAMuAAAOIAK3fIaZAFPBAA
You lose team utility and damage, but you gain an almost guaranteed kill thanks to Reaper’s Protection

If there was a “ban/pick” system in GW2, we could totally see matches without Thieves.

I think the idea is fine, but the problem is that it looks like you are making a build just to counter S/D thieves.
The “fun” thing is that even if S/D thief is a counter to D/D ele, in the Conquest game a D/D Ele will “always” win against the thief. S/D is great at kiting and peeling, but it takes a while to take down some bunker builds and is not a 1v1 spec for conquest.

Not to mention that if the thief realizes that the Ele is running tempest defense, he should just change his approach to the fight, by either picking another target first in a teamfight, open with a ranged Basilisk Venom (instead than Mug) to let the Ele proc Tempest Defense, or just wait for the Ele to be CC-ed by another player and attack him afterwards.
A good thief will realize quickly what specs an enemy is running, and a D/D ele without 6 points in water is REALLY weak to focus fire, especially if he runs Ice Bow.

Honestly I don’t see this spec becoming meta at all. You COULD gain the upper hand against “bad” thieves, and you could even surprise good thieves the first time they face you. But you would lose so much in terms of self-defense that the tradeoff is not worth it, making this one a “situational” spec rather than a “staple”, meta spec. Not to mention that you would be covering a niche role in your team comp, and random players will never understand this: in order for a build to become “meta”, it needs to be either really easy to play or extremely effective at it. Standard D/D Celestial Ele is both effective AND easy to play. Your build is somewhat effective, but absolutely not “easy” to play.

If you want to counter thieves, you’d better go full zerk fresh air S/F (or S/D) with Arcane Shield and pop your burst on the thief when he closes in.

MrSimpleMan.6194:

Zord.6130:

messiah.1908:

if you wanna destroy s/d thief just interrupt his rotations (its pretty much like d/d ele)
cripple, chill, immobilize… and he runs away. but good s/d is hard to counter

New SD builds don’t have rotations. Thieves in general don’t rely on rotations. The initiative mechanic makes rotations totally useless for a thief.

Could you give an example link to that SD build you’re talking about please? And what type of armor they are going if thats possible. thanks

I believe he is referring to this kind of build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0MpypdPx0J8PNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdHlj0XA-TFSDgAJPCQJYvyvX1fY3fAUfAg5PpjAwxJAgUADMBA-w

I geared it for WvW; for sPvP purposes, just replace armor with a Zerker amulet and you’re good to go.

MrSimpleMan.6194:

hihey.1075:

Buy a full zerker armor+trinket set. Maybe add some Toughness/Vitality here and there (with some Valkyrie/Soldier/Cavalier pieces) to suit your need. Then buy a Dagger, a Sword, a Shortbow and a Pistol. Strength or Pack runes.

There, you have 3 perfectly interchangeable weaponsets (D/P, S/P, S/D, all with Shortbow as secondary) which can work pretty well in WvW roaming, and are decent training wheels for sPvP. They are also very good for PvE.

Just forget about P/D. Good/experienced players will either get away from you (because they don’t want to fight a spec such as P/D) or kill you (because they use some specs that can beat P/D and you are bad).

You don’t recommend d/d as a good way to play in WvW / PvP?

It depends, but generally speaking, no.

D/D is totally NOT viable in sPvP due to many reasons (not enough self defense, if you miss your burst you are totally useless). However, it is “borderline” viable in WvW, meaning that if you are GOOD you can do some nice stuff with it. On the other hand, the gap between a D/D build and any other viable roaming build is really big. Sure, it’s a nice build to finish off stragglers or to kill unexperienced people with useless builds – but almost any build that “works” is good at the latter.

There are some thieves who still use D/D in WvW, and in order to be effective you have to build extremely glassy. As far as I know, there are not “good” thieves using DD in sPvP.
I’m not a fan of him because I see a lot of mistakes in these videos, but I suggest you check out this channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Vavume/videos
The things he does are quite funny to watch: those numbers are HUGE!

Still, it’s up to personal preference. I’d suggest using D/P over D/D in any way.

Brother Omnio.6452:

hihey.1075:

Thief (DP) is a close second, but staying alive among all the mess of a fight is really hard and you can’t 1v1 no one unless you are WAY better than them. Definitely a class for more experienced players.

Oh yeah, this is so freaking hard thieves can own any class at 1 v 1 in pvp and they can easily do 1 v x in WvW. You bet this is a class for experienced players XD

You ninja lovers are so freaking pathetic : you can be proud to have killed the GW1 assassin, which was a good class, nothing to compare with this faceroll kills streak for noobs that the thief of GW2 is.

I’m asking myself if I ever seen a bad thief, which means any thief player is just a pro, considering the bulls you’ve wrote ^^

You clearly don’t know how PvP works in this game.
And when I mentioned DP, I was CLEARLY referring to the trickery build. Not the shadow arts variant. This is the sPvP forums. If you’re a WvW-er, go that way →

Buy a full zerker armor+trinket set. Maybe add some Toughness/Vitality here and there (with some Valkyrie/Soldier/Cavalier pieces) to suit your need. Then buy a Dagger, a Sword, a Shortbow and a Pistol. Strength or Pack runes.

There, you have 3 perfectly interchangeable weaponsets (D/P, S/P, S/D, all with Shortbow as secondary) which can work pretty well in WvW roaming, and are decent training wheels for sPvP. They are also very good for PvE.

Just forget about P/D. Good/experienced players will either get away from you (because they don’t want to fight a spec such as P/D) or kill you (because they use some specs that can beat P/D and you are bad).

After having played all classes, I’d say Necro is one of the funniest but when you get focused you are going to shed tears. Corrupting Stability and fearing people is REALLY fun.

Thief (DP) is a close second, but staying alive among all the mess of a fight is really hard and you can’t 1v1 no one unless you are WAY better than them. Definitely a class for more experienced players.

Warrior (x/Longbow) is the third, simply because you can turn off your brain and still deal insane damage and be tanky as hell. Still, it takes quite a few skillshots to be able to kill good players with a Warrior, so that’s why I prefer it to most classes.

DD Eles, Mesmers, Engis and Guardians are all quite tedious to be honest. Either that, or totally unviable or too much AI centered to be considered fun.

I usually roll GS+Sw/Sh with my warrior.
But only in Spirit Watch

If only each player could determine which Boons to prioritise when using a Boon steal/removal/corruption skill…

It MAY have been already discussed, but I wanted confirmation from other people as some guys in Gunnars Hold were as surprised as me when I noticed this.
Also, I read (again) all Patch notes since the April 15th patch, and this was not mentioned anywhere. If there has already been a discussion about this matter, consider void this thread, which I will delete soon afterwards.

Anyway, simply put, all WvW GOLD rewards have been halved. Whenever we kill a Dolyak, we take a Sentry, a Camp, a Tower or a Keep, all the gold rewards have been reduced by 50%.

Old rewards can be found here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World_versus_World#Rewards

Proof of the reduced rewards can be found in these screenshots I’ve just taken after completing some objectives:
http://imgur.com/coer1lX.jpg (dolly kill reward)
http://imgur.com/0zJHnoy.jpg (keep cap reward)
http://imgur.com/WtmuNqD.jpg (tower cap reward)
http://i.imgur.com/FoNwwS3.jpg (sentry cap reward)
http://i.imgur.com/zUF3MJr.jpg (camp capture reward)

I still haven’t capped SM, nor defended any objective to get a “Defend an objective” reward, but I suppose it’s fair to assume that even these kinds of rewards have been nerfed.

The question is: why? WvW people have already suffered a lot in terms of earning gold. Compared to dungeons, Champ Trains, TP flipping, mat farming and so on, the gold that WvW players were able to get by doing what they like most was really low. Even if we managed to cap a lot of stuff, the rewards were really insignificant – sometimes I even spent more on food buffs than what I got back by capping stuff (if I was really unlucky).

…and now all the rewards are halved?

Yep, that’s what “Rotate” means. Being able to “rotate” properly means being able to take the right decisions as to WHEN and WHERE to move during a match.
For istance, if you go close at start and you see an enemy coming, if you are able to kill him you could go mid to help the teamfight instead than staying on close and doing “nothing” there.

I’d say that the ability to “rotate” properly is the only show of “skillful” play in this game, as the amount of hardcounters and braindead specs made the combat part of GW2 completely predictable and easy to play.

I like the Thief forums.

People here are not delusional. Even if they speak the truth by saying that P/D is our best set for 1v1s, they also state that “downsides” of running said spec.

Meanwhile, in the Mesmer forums, everyone says “go PU you won’t regret that”.

I’ve stopped dueling PU mesmers and P/D thieves 3-4 months ago. Hope more and more people would start doing this.

nopoet.2960:

Does anyone still run 2/6/0/0/6?

I do. It’s still lots of fun.

Sorry for necro-ing this thread, but I stumbled upon the video I was talking about in one of my posts in this thread about skills hugely affected by Retaliation in zergs:

Now compare this to BF plz

I remember watching the video. I’ll try to look it up on my watch history, albeit I admit it was quite some time ago…

First and foremost, post your build.

Secondly, if by saying “their HP doesnt even nudge” you mean it literally, it can be because of skills like Protect Me or Signet of Stone (for the Ranger part) or Endure Pain (for the Warrior part): both these skills completely negates all physical damage dealt to the user for a brief amount of time, so no matter what you do, you can’t damage them for 4-8 seconds (depending on the skill). Just wait a bit.

If, on the other hand, you were meaning it less literally and more in a “I dealt damage but they recovered too fast from it” you may have stumbled upon a bunker build (something with high Toughness/Protection). Not everyone is glassy in PvP, so be prepared to fight long fights against most classes.

As for the “they dropped me in 2 hits”, it’s because you were being hit by a high damage attack (either Maul, Eviscerate, 100B, Hammer burst, something like that).
Stay away from them when they have an “invulnerability” skill on(you can tell from the buff below their HP bar) and then proceed to burst them when they are open.

Standard 3 kit (“offensive” bunker):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqelUUpkrlYxPLseNCbBNqxI6NWlO+5GEgkC-TJxHwACOBAT2f4YZAAPAAA

Condi Bunker (less condi pressure but more sustain): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqelUUpkr1XxPLseRCbBNqxEqKK6NWlO+xGEAA-TJBHwARLDYZ/BAnAgBPAAA
Don’t play other specs (decap, turret) as there is already too much filth polluting GW2 PvP….

This is the build I use though, I hate bunkering because I like killing stuff so it’s a bit unbalanced but still fun to play: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqelUUpkr1XxELseNCbBBqJK6NWlO+5DEgkC-TJRJwAN2fAwJAIYZAuPAAA

Energy+Battle is great on DD. Actually I think it’s the best setup for both Defense+Offense.

Other viable options:
_Leeching (very good, a good replacement for Energy, not good for Strength if you need to Mightstack)
_Air (if you have decent crit chance): the damage spike is huge and the 3s CD are really good for bursting
_Doom (I’m not a fan of this, any decent player will cleanse it if it troubles them. Also, the random proc because of Attunement Swapping could waste its “healing disabling” potential, making Leeching/Air better choices in terms of pure DPS)
_Hydromancy: the nerf bat hit this (and it didnt need it IMHO). Still it’s decent for fighting some classes, but again, it can proc when you are away from your target, wasting the effect

Other nice things to consider:
_Fire (good for Staff builds)
_Generosity (even if it is uncontrollable, it’s very good against classes with limited condition application and it helps mitigate some damage against condi heavy users).

Not a fan of Force/Accuracy, as I prefer utility over a small damage increase, even if they mean higher DPS overall.

Because after you take one hit the whole 6th bonus of Scholar Runes is gone for good?

Unless you are talking about PvE, overall Strength>Scholar.

Go mid at start. Your AoEs are much needed there. If no one else is going close you can go there too of course, but your speciality are teamfights.
Don’t use Ether Renewal as heal, the signet is much better. Don’t go D/F, go straight D/D with 0 2 0 6 6 and celestial ammy, Energy and Battle Sigils, Strength Runes

Maugetarr.6823:

Strength: +45% might duration, +7% damage.

vs

Hoelbrak: +30% might duration, -20% condi duration

vs

Pirate: +10% might duration, + burst party might, + bird (which can hit like a truck)

It seems like these are all relatively balanced compared to each other, people just go for the +personal damage part which can be wiped out with a single boon strip rather than the other bonuses which are pretty strong as well. The might nerf strength runes, but they may also consider them fairly balanced.

Even if you strip the might, Eles, Thieves and Warriors can get another stack back in 5s (not counting the 4th bonus from this runeset).

It works more often when you don’t know it.
People trying to Chill you, while they’re giving you Swiftness. Or people trying to Fear you, giving you Stability.
This trait is very annoying when you are fighting an engineer, but when you’re playing it you rarely notice it.

lazycalm.5186:

Those jumps are pretty and all, but you’re not in combat.
In combat, you won’t jump and run that far
Nice tricks though

You need to dodge – jump.
I knew many of these already, especially the ones in the side points, though the only classes which can make good use of them are Staff Eles and Mesmers (which either I don’t play or have stopped playing)

If you land your impale and your Pin Down they will melt even in Lich Form. Just dodge their autos through strafe. I think you can even reflect them with sword #5, and they will hurt him a lot since he has no toughness whatsoever.

Any engi would totally destroy you on point.
Same can be said for every warrior.
Your only threat comes from torch 4 and axe 2. And being cleric, any thief with 30 in trickery could just use the stolen skill and blast it without any problems.
Condi Necros would eat you alive.
Decap engis would fully cap a point if you are a close defender.
No team support (no CC, no boons, limited damage, no ressing potential).
I fail to see a “meta” build that would lose to your build. Even a staff guardian could stall a fight indefinitely against you lol.
Keep playing it if you have fun though.

Reikou.7068:

Amaterasu.6280:

condi engis, properly played warriors, s/d eles, s/p thieves.

A lot of things CAN beat s/d thieves if played properly…fighting s/d is much more about timing / anticipation than anything. If you can play a good s/d, you can probably know how to counter one.

I’d say those are 5-5 matchups at best/worst.

Nothing really hardcounters (2-8 or 1-9 matchups) the AcroTrick S/D thief atm.

This. I think old Dhuumfire necro would get a 7-3 though, as one burn proc would pressure the thief long enough to Condi spike him while he uses Shadow Return to cleanse.
But with the current meta, no builds can secure a kill on a SD thief. Even other thief builds (DP) get countered slightly by SD, as they don’t have any way to cleanse the poison

pdavis.8031:

I was wondering the same thing, and that build uses full ascended armor, weapons and accessories. Just going from ascended to exotic drops condition damage about 300 points, to around 1550ish. Which still isnt bad at all.

This is the equivalent version of the abovementioned build using only Exotics:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNArYGmAXogeBCgoNyMYCocLGDA-TVyCwAOUCC4QAY5JAgT9HFnAADm/SpPQ4+DHV+RIgFrBA-w

I don’t know where you get the 300 points drop in Condition Damage, as the drop is of “only” 142 points.

Most OP thread in thief’s forums history.
You deserve a cookie Arganthium

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNArYGmAXogeBCgoNyMYCocLGDA-TFyCABAcEAs4UAowDAALlfCt/wlq/on+gxUCGAABYmlZZOzADdoDdoDdoNzZOzZOzZWIgFrBA-w

You can also add Guard Leech and the Borderland Bloodlust for an additional +160 Condition damage, bringing it to 2250 condition damage without might.
Of course this is assuming perfect gear.
If you can’t afford Ascended, I believe your overall condition damage would be decreased by 100 points.

Engineers have been completely wiped off the WvW (solo) roaming meta due to the rise in popularity of PU Mesmers and (more recently) PD thieves. Even DD eles can now totally wreck engis without many problems.
Engineers were good when D/x thieves were the majority of WvW roamers. Now that everyone rerolled to cheesy specs there is no point in using engi for roaming.

This is from an EU Silver League viewpoint.

Twisted Fangs, most OP skill in the game.

Why do you need to beat a Condi engi as a thief anyway?
You don’t bring a thief for 1v1 purposes.

Are you in NA or EU?

isolatedchimp.2510:

Loco.4561:

Silverthorn.8576:

it is funny, Dhuumfire has been nerfed because it was too easy, no brain etc and devs want it more skillplay.
Engie has a pre nerf Dhummfire as master trait when Dhuumfire is a grand master one but devs don’t really care about.
Where is balance? My main is a necromancer and I don’t even play it in sPvP, i am not really found of being a ping pong ball for other players, now i play my engi has condi bunker it has lot more sustain than my necromancer, can handle 1vs1 and 1vs2 more easily than my necromancer and brings heals and condi removals for my team.

THIS. It is mind boggling that they made such an issue about Dhuumfire and yet IP get’s completely ignored like it doesn’t exist. aNet devs have NO idea how to balance this game.

Maybe you missed my post just a few post above yours but Dhuumfire on necro is nothing like IP on engineer. IP is single target only while on the necro, using Epidemic, you can spread burning on everyone nearby. This is why Dhuumfire was moved to DS where you can’t access Epidemic readily.

Now can we stop spreading the disinformation that IP on engi is just like Dhuumfire on Necro? It’s just straight out dishonest.

The reason Dhuumfire was nerfed has never been related to Epidemic.
Not to mention that Epidemic is totally counterable.

If you play Sizer’s build, that definitely makes you as good as Sizer.

D:

And while the thief is stealthed for 19 seconds, what are you doing? You could use SR yourself and walk away. Or outrun the thief and get OOC. Or call your friends.

Are you in NA or EU?

So you’re too pro to make changes to your build in order to make it work and come here to the forums to complain.
Sounds reasonable.

In case of a tie, the “overall” server rankings will be taken into account to determine who is taking the higher place.

So FSP is guaranteed to take second place (unless Gunnar’s Hold manages to beat Gandara in the current matchup, or doubles-triples the score of FSP at the end of the week).