Guild Wars 2

emilejuggernaut.1864:

Hello I am looking for a class that requires a fair bit of thought when doing all content I recently rolled revenant and i liked the mobility but i found it kind of stagnant with weapons and builds. I was wondering how versatile is a theif I’m not looking for only x build is meta but overall is there a fair few that can be played around with?
How do they faire in WvW and Pve?
What roles can they fill? And is it generally daredevil or bust? (I kinda like bunkers)

I think two of the DD dodge traits make it daredevil or bust. The extra dodge is nice but I rarely use it up anymore. That’s not to say I won’t need it, I pocket that endurance because the way the classes are now with Elites the action gets compounded the longer it lasts and it’s exponential with even with just a plus-1 fight. The new Elites feel designed for raid bosses and adds, there’s a lot of stuff going on now so that extra dodge is more for us to shake off the pve, it can be more difficult sometimes to counter stupid so it’s pretty much an afterthought insurance dodge.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Straegen.2938:

The S is fine the D is the problem. Read into that what you will.

…. you and Jana with these comments…..

“buffing the /D” is never a bad idea but it seems to be the prevalent concept for the Thief forum lately. Dancing Dagger feels more like a Halloween tonic than a skill although I like the bounce. CnD just feels like it a part of Stealth, I forget it’s own skill sometimes since I just use Black Powder for stealth which I mostly use for traveling.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

The original Flanking Strike was a single skill that cost 4 Initiative that hit twice and stole 1 boon, the only problem it did have was a pathing issue, if the would bring back the original Flanking Strike but with the pathing fix it wouldn’t be OP or UP.

I liked the old version when it went well but that pathing issue made it hard to enjoy using. I had more fun with Ranger sword main hand since it felt more seamless, connective, and with more weight. Like other cross class comparable skills like Scorpion Wire the thief version always feels soggy and leaving me wondering for a split second if anything actually happened.

I find it awkward to use, everything else I’m doing feels like part of the dance and the second phase of it feels like I tripped and tried to catch up. I mostly use FS untargeted to evade away on a pull back.

You can build to ride the zerg and contribute just fine, you’re even likely to be the only one to get away alive if the fight goes bad, but for flat utility for your squad you’re not really adding anything. You’re better floating in, out, and around the action alone or with a couple of others thieves, you’re performances daily progression is how you contribute. Sometimes you’re in and out Stealing crowd control and area damage to herd or spread a squad and sometimes you’re ganking daily farmers on their way to SM.

Rink.6108:

While I see why people want legendary armor just by playing wvw, I don’t think playing wvw is “legendary” enough. There is no difficulty in running with the zerg and just being on a lot. Raids are very difficult, a lot more so than wvw and there is no way for arenanet to make wvw the same high difficulty for everyone.

And why do we need legendary armor? Everyone gets their ascended armor already. Legendary is just for showing off.
Furthermore legendary armor would give people a reason to bandwagon to a server where it is easier to farm it. So it is kind of ironic how people whine about the few bandwagoning we have right now while wanting to create reasons for it to become a big thing.

I would be for new unique skins in wvw though. Maybe something that has increasing chance to drop on high level rankups? At the moment a higher rank in wvw is a bad thing, because you get focused a lot and you cannot hide it. And the people in your zerg don’t see it. There is nothing to balance it out atm.

Raids are as difficult as your schedule and the adults that have to be babysat, they’re special because people say they are so that “first” posts in chat might mean something. Raid mechanics are normally a test in diminishing the stupid every attempt until everyone is simply at the same level of barely passable. Depending on how a legendary reward track could be scaled along with any achievements and check lists, the difficulty in a Legendary WvW collection could be comparable in time and grind work.

If they want to market raid exclusivity then at least open up that second tier of Triumphant armor and throw a backpiece skin on to it, I don’t really care about legendary though it would be nice to change stats on the go, it’s just not a big deal. Whatever we get in the future, just please don’t make all of it bulky and spiky or any of the other obvious high end MMO armor tropes.

Edit: If we ever get a special effects armor set, make the effects occur around actions that happen in WvW, like some cool effect after a chain kill, like a “you’re on fire” kind of thing.

Taobella.6597:

only buff i would like to see is the chain does not break when you cast another skill that deal dmg(beside dodge)

That would make it feel great to use, but I’d probably only then use it to prep some nasty combos to compound other skills. I’d likely go back to a DA build and cook up a nice sequence around Steal or something.

Edit: I’m thinking about locking them down to land a full Fist Flurry, which I already use to pressure anyway but that’s another one I rarely finish, but still has it’s use.

DeceiverX.8361:

You’re rarely going to see me hyped for anything not yet released. Especially not without details on design and implementation. I’ve been on the company-end of MMO’s. Needless to say, in this industry, there’s way too much talk, too much keeping quiet until too late, and too much hype about nothing.

I was “super pumped” for HoT early on. Heck, I pre-purchased the expansion and bought an extra character slot solely for the reaper because I was so impressed by how fun it looked. I think there’s some bias when placing me against it considering how poorly-received many aspects of it were/are across the board by pretty much everyone. I had faith in ANet to fix the problems. They didn’t stick to their guns, and I’m put off. Not sure about you, but I haven’t been impressed by anything they’ve done since the reaper preview/release. I’d like to think I’ve got legitimate reason to have little faith or satisfaction left in a company when being continually disappointed for almost a full year by people doing my dream job

I can understand it from that angle, I loved the game in WvW for a few months after launch, but then it felt like the devs kept listening to loud players too often and now it’s all a jumbled raid progression. When I came back I decided to just play casually and enjoy how ridiculous the game can be sometimes and it’s a bummer because some things I really enjoy, like Daredevil utility animations for example, but I’ll have misgivings about the new class traits in general pushing the game more towards raid progression.

I make lite of these canons, but I’m sure they’ll be a thorn in my kitten at some point down the road.

DeceiverX.8361:

The fact is, this is stupid. Almost everything that changed the game in this patch was stupid and seemingly the byproduct of massive obliviousness.

I’m not disagreeing with you, but you think every thing stupid. I want to be around when you’re actually super pumped about a change.

Zodryn.4216:

Nope sorry. The animation is always 0.75s like any other dodge, and that hasn’t changed. The “landing” part of the animation may occur while you are still in the air, it doesn’t wait until you hit the ground to end. If that happened before, you’d do no damage. Now you will deal damage regardless of whether the animation ends in the air, in water, or on the ground.

Wishful thinking on my part then, I figured if they’re allowing the damage happen in mid air that they changed it to make sense and damage on landing instead of containing it in the duration and going poof where it won’t matter. At least I can jump in the water and drop kick a fish maybe but I don’t see where this balance change will matter. Thanks for putting up with me thinking outloud though and answering the questions.

Balthazzarr.1349:

haaa.. finally something to really troll with… should be fun setting up cannons on high places and so on…. well, if we’re not going to get great changes to WvW at least we can have some fun for a while.. :P

Edit note: less health and less damage than normal cannons in keeps and towers… so they might be a lot like arrow carts… not that great.

If it’s fun, how is it not great? It’s just a piece of equipment on a test run and it’s at the start of Halloween stuff, not a big deal. People in this forum get emotional though and every little thing is a tragedy and will end the game forever.

Zodryn.4216:

The change is that previously you had to physically land on the ground to do damage. Now, if Bounds landing animation ends and you are still in the air (because you bounded off a cliff or down a steep slope), it will still deal damage. The damage is still dealt at the same time in the animation.

I actually get what you’re saying but my imagination isn’t always happy with just the facts and information so bear with me for one more, does that mean I can suicide dodge from a cliff or wall and take out a chunk of a squad? I mean, technically that animation isn’t over until touch down.

Zodryn.4216:

kash.9213:

I wonder if I can dodge key in glide mode and or jump up and tag someone on a ledge above me if they’re within range even if vertically.

You can’t dodge while gliding or falling. Trying to jump bound and hit someone above you won’t really work either for two reasons. First, Bound doesn’t actually displace your hitbox vertically, it just looks like it does. That’s why you can’t bound over even tiny obstacles. Second, even if it did actually move you upwards towards the person above you, you don’t deal damage until the landing part of the animation, at which point that height would be gone.

I don’t glide enough, makes sense.

Even if I’m jumping up to land on the same level, the damage will still wait until I touch ground then, it won’t cleave them on the down side of the jump? I don’t get that change then where does that it come into effect?

Edit: or am I reading it wrong? Wouldn’t be the first time.

I actually use Dancing Daggers a lot and it will be nice to feel a bit more impact on it, might just feel as it used to.

I will also like to use Bound underwater, I lurk in ponds and lakes to scorp wire runners into the water but I wonder if I can dodge key in glide mode and or jump up and tag someone on a ledge above me if they’re within range even if vertically.

Kocoff.7582:

Terissimo, I get stuck more often than not, against druids roots when I use your build. Withdraw isn’t as practical imo. What do you think?

Also, I feel like blinding powder seems a little more practical than bandit’s defense. I am saying because that along with Shadowstep and Improvisation, it can work miracles.

BP and Bandits seem to be a common switch out, I just wish this was a world were it was practical to have both. I probably lean more towards Bandits because both animations are awesome but I also feel like Bandits helps me to power through and stay in the fight or set up a finish where BP feels more like a better prep or for a combo aside from being a reset.

I try to push a few counters first to prep them for Impact Strike but sometimes it’s not worth the effort getting that first one to connect, BV is just better in general but I like IS animation. It’s not bad though really if you’re awake enough to prep for it, it will just feel like it doesn’t land when it needs to because that’s what we notice.

Snowpea.5469:

Caius.8094:

Other than players that use the ANET design, am I the only player that thinks attacking while stealth’d and staying stealth’d is stupid? GW2 is the only MMO where someone can attack from stealth, go back to stealth or stay in it due to kitten poor programing and exploits… do the dev’s even know this.. do they even play anymore?

Perma-stealth is an absolute kitten and should be removed.

In Everquest 2, you could remain in stealth until you attacked. Then there was only one very short-term in-combat stealth available which you might be able to use to get enough distance to get out of combat and stealth if you did it right. Any stealth dropped as soon as you took ANY damage (e.g. DoT), so you couldn’t re-stealth until you had no dots on you.

Also everyone had the exact same movement in combat (no exceptions), so once you committed to a fight it was very difficult to get away, but if you didn’t want to fight, you could generally out-distance people who had attacked you (if you didn’t hit back).

Everquest WvW worked very very well.

It was much more balanced than the absurd GW2 classes which zoom in, take off half your health, vanish before you can even target them AND escape whenever they feel threatened. Broken game and boring!

GW2 stealth is so overpowered it knocked you into last decade.

OriOri.8724:

Svarty.8019:

OriOri.8724:

Why should WvW get its own legendary armor set? Hell why should it even give an alternate way to earn the current legendary armor set?

Yes, WvW deserves its own legendary backpack but thats it imo. Legendary armor is a raid exclusive, and at least for now it needs to remain that way.

Because … Only raiders need to switch their stats.

Legendary armor is kittening expensive. You could craft entire new ascended sets for the 3 or 4 different stats you may need in WvW and not come close to the cost of making a full legendary armor set. I don’t see how legendary armor actually helps you in this regard at all

The spectrum of bloat we have to counter after HoT because raiders need their power creep and they need an kitten nal of passives so they don’t totally choke when they need to make one specific jump leaves us with more trash builds that are more intense. WvW players actually have a need to change stats on the move. How does Legendary armor help someone in a raid instance when they’re likely to only need one set of ascended stats all the way through? One grind is as good as another.

Lexander.4579:

high quality fights right there but doesnt it feel odd playing with such low mobility on thief?

especially when running DA instead of acrobatics you dont even have consistent swiftness while both spvp and wvw are more than just dueling and in both modes thief heavily relies on its mobility

also funny how you still end up having to run d/p all the while already having a melee weapon set and sacrificing a huge chunk of mobility, i guess thief just doesnt work without d/p anymore lol

regardless, that was some high skill staff play

I use p/p on secondary but I rarely find myself using the main hand range, most of us are built for closing the distance and I notice I rarely do much main hand ranged but I do get pistol 4 and 5 as utility. Sometimes I want to put d/p or staff on my secondary but I like the unload animation and it’s all about looking cool but the OP is actually being useful out there. I get near the same terrain mobility from staff 5 when I used that and staff 2 and three are great on the run, in wvw at least you might find you won’t miss shortbow 5 much.

For awhile now there have been too many passive procs on top of deliberate skills happening for you to get into a sparring match blow for blow. I’m not a great player and I’m also a bit lazy so I’ve built to not get into fights with people because then they can fight back. Instead I’ve loaded up on low cool down utility, manage Initiative, and move in deliberate ways that are obvious but switch it up part way to set up for opportunity a few steps ahead. If I can’t jump someone and kill with an opener then by this time I’ve flushed most of their counters so I can actually attack and close it out fast or bug out.

Sometimes I just know I’m getting my kitten kicked or I’m out matched and have to reset or run. Learning how to properly run away without dying (especially against groups or zergs) can help you in wrangling an opponent for when you fight it out. You don’t have to win every fight, just try to not lose.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

well thats odd. very rarely do i see acro and dd in wvw. 90% of the thives i come across consist’s of shadow arts or deadly arts or sometimes CS line. but they always run DD and trickery.

Your eyes might expect to see a certain type of thief and you might not register many who are right there where you don’t think they should be, The air time I keep up with s/d to avoid terrain lockups probably makes me look like an s/d ranger and I’m usually where a heavy should be. A proper roaming or floating thief will have gone into stealth a couple of times for resets or to contain a double team where I’m likely to not stealth at all unless to bug out once the blob shows up.

To what Jeknar mentioned about dodges, I’ve built deep into that for a feedback loop and I can’t have sustainable stealth on top of that. A stealth thief who might actually open up on you hard enough to matter might not even have Daredevil spec, our tier has a healthy amount of core thieves running around.

Play visually for awhile and hunt for targets based on what they look like. I use both left and right mouse to manually pick targets, right mouse feels more natural as it’s the one I use for movement/look at the same time but left mouse is deliberate and wont begin attack right away if you’re staggering things out. You’ll also want to have untarget under your control and learning to click dead space so you can use skills for evades or leaps should help building eye to muscle memory for pointing where you want and don’t use action camera.

I know it’s a pain, I still have old reactions from playing first person shooters for so long before mmo’s, so I’m a spaz with my mouse reticle. Find some large groups in a core world map and just imagine your mouse pointer is your weapon, you’ll make some unnecessary pointer movements but you’ll get used to targeting visually.

babazhook.6805:

Question on that effective power chart.

When looking at the Damage modifier does this include only the permanent modifiers such as Sigil of force which would count as compared to a executioner which would not?

How are things like DD runes and Sigil of intell factored in? I can use these to more or less generate a crit or crits at will so get away with a lower crit rate yet this will not be reflected in “effective power”.

Given a Thief does a lot of hit and run having a Crit rate that is not ALWAYS at 80 percent as example does not mean you have that much less effective power as one is not always attacking.

Those deliberate effects like a DD rune crit need to be maintained and during the time you’re dodging or swapping weapons not doing direct damage with that extra crit right away Evals build is winding up like a ten speed bicycle gear, once it gets going it’s maintained pretty much nonstop by weapon skills alone (Like Diablo 3 Monks Sweeping Wind skill).

I tried pushing DD rune crits before and there were stretches where I just couldn’t dodge or I’d dodge and before I can land the next hit I’m interrupted or have to bug out and reset. I’m sure you’re right that it contributes a good deal more than it would show on a chart but the CS build is probably more reliably measured because it’s reliably executed.

Vornollo.5182:

kash.9213:

I jump/Flanking Strike so that I do the half moon spin up in the air instead of on flat ground so that objects or terrain wont hold me up, but it can send you off a high place if you’re not careful.

Interesting, that’s one trick I can’t really pull of consistently. How do you do this?

It’s not reliable enough even when you get used to the timing but it’s a little easier with my keybinds, I have skill 3 on Left Ctrl so that I can lean my bottom left palm on it because I don’t like lifting my hands and fingers too much and soft press that plus spacebar jump at the same time. It’s sort of the same way you might jump+core spec dodge to clear a small curb or rock which you might do by pressing spacebar+V at the same time. I only use it in tight fights with topography that would hold me still so I don’t melt in a zerg vs zerg or something.

Between combat lag and the way skills can queue up or cancel it can’t be spammed, I wouldn’t bank on it, it’s more of a “what else do I have anyway” thing.

I sometimes jump→dodge→Shadowstep in mid air off of a wall or ledge to land the Shadowstep circle on an opposing ledge or wall to extend the distance and for vertical access Spiderman style. I’ve seen someone do it far better in a video but I forget who it was. You can do Steal and infiltrators Strike similarly so never assume someone got out of your reach.

I jump/Flanking Strike so that I do the half moon spin up in the air instead of on flat ground so that objects or terrain wont hold me up, but it can send you off a high place if you’re not careful.

Eval.2371:

Nope I run the exact same thing. Damage isn’t really lacking even in acro with the setup I run. 10-12k pistol whips in acro are very easily attainable. However, in contrast backstabs when I do run d/p only land for about 8k.

I wouldn’t recommend what I am running for a d/d or a normal s/d build. A P/P or multi hit setup most definitely.

I’m an idiot, my eyes were seeing s/d but you’re talking about s/p and it makes perfect sense. The feedback is still helps though, really appreciate it.

Eval.2371:

I do swap out CS for acro taking bottom, middle, middle for outnumbered fights, and blinding powder in place of infiltrator signet.

As I said above it’s a matter of preference. I personally cannot stand having low precision because I set most of my damage up to happen over a series of attacks, so having high crit % and crit damage just makes sense to me for how I play.

I’ve been using this build for awhile.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAsY6an0MBVmiFmCmOBkmilria+5v+uv7mmuAwbCygPA-TFCFABIp87Klg7fQA4/BAE8+DAcEA0X9H11PsZYAIMGgZkRmyAkvFA-w

When you’re on your acro version, are you still stretching out your attacks for the long game as you do when on CS? I know I could bring up my crit chance and ferocity but in our servers matchup right now I feel like I still have enough stopping power although sometimes someone gets away when I know they shouldn’t. Do you switch up to more power upfront when on acro or do you stay on the same stats?

I would actually use it sometimes, I might have a favorite elite but not an only one. I can’t use it currently because after one use the cool down has to match up with the next fight my group or squad encounters. Either it will not be ready yet or it will have been too long since I had an opportunity to use it that it will be out of site out of mind.

Saku Joe.2857:

It saddened me you you didn’t enjoy the vid at all, but i appreciate the feedback, and like i said, i think i’ll tone down the editing the next time

I think you could just keep most of the actual fighting that people can learn from clean high quality video with maybe an unassuming fade to black n white when you’re transitioning to a new scene or theme and allow the flashy editing like the blinks and cut backs for wtflol moments. The quality and actual visuals look good but they’re over taken by the effects, which are also good, only that they’re blocking the content that I think a prospective S/D user might want to play back a lot.

Bound as your dodge should stretch out pistol/pistol enough, maybe have staff as secondary since it can use Black Powder for Hook Strike and you can corral everything with a full might stack for staff/bound. I’m not sure what’s optimal for non open world pve but maybe a build with Critical Strikes could make short work of most mobs whatever the size.

I use p/p as my secondary mostly in WvW but I’m lazy so I use it whenever I’m cheesing in on pve events as well. If you get frustrated it will likely be due to being mostly a single target set while everyone else are cleaving and splashing everything else around your group. When I know I’m going to be on p/p for more than a few minutes like the choke point pushes in Stone Mist against a lot of targets at once I’ll switch to action camera mode and pan unload a bit but it doesn’t solve that issue.

Saku Joe.2857:

Thank you for the reply! i personally don’t use food sometimes.. since sword damages are crap without sigils, food doesn’t make a huge difference. But i like to take endurance refill food to compensate the weakness effect (theres weakness everywhere nowaday)..

I’m not super serious about food either but I always have one going at least, the provision box is easy to use. In WvW at least S/D can get passable damage, doesn’t hurt to roll that joint tighter with some precision/ferocity or some condition tics at least if you’re not pushing for a stat threshold. I’d just pump out a huge stack of power/ferocity and the usual stones so you can chow down while running and not think about it.

I’m using all of those at the moment but that doesn’t mean I know what I’m talking about so take that into account.

I’m using Sigil of Absorption on an Acro-S/D interrupt build that’s also using Bountiful Theft on top of Flanking Strike. I don’t have a good reason for loading up on that much boon steal but in one of our servers matchups I felt the need to rip a lot of boons, but I tend to build around my servers commanders and squads or groups, fire sigil pays off more and better and I had to load up on the boon steal to feel like I’ve made a dent and probably wouldn’t take Absorption alone.

I stick to EA or weapon/utility condition clear except I’m using Generosity on my staff when I use that build because I take Staff Master to go with Upper Hand which keeps me in the cleave and auto range and I don’t want to dedicate my utility bar to trickster.

I don’t feel I lose much using Exuberance, at least with my builds, but I do feel the extra time in action it buys me. You might want to stick to the meta if you’re roaming with D/P, that set should keep a fight tight and small and it also depends on the game mode, Exuberance might have too well rounded stats that are already sort of damp for the thief in spvp.

The three different dodges are the unique feature and choosing one decides a good deal of your build, role, and how you’re going to play and use the terrain. I have my own gripes with the game and class, anyone will with any game, but those dodges were done well. You can start us off by giving your suggestion of a change that you think should get us on track.

Menyus.4610:

Newbie Thief: Sa is a must long stealth + healthregen -20% deception skill shorter SR

Advanced thief: Sa is foor noobs I survive without sa and i have more damage with DA. You all stealth spammer SA noobs get gud

Master Thief: SA is a must because only reasonable condi cleanse, teamsupport, Shadow rejuvenation also regens initative…

If u think SA is bad u are right, but its still a must because cleanse, SA thieves can get the fights with cancer builds, full dps cant full dps thief dies against boon cancer druid sa thief can survive can win(rather leace him tho)

Seeing all these YT or twitch guys kitten evryone with trickery daredevil Deadly arts ?
They die to condis in seconds they die in 3vs1 in a second.

U can say ah u are a naab get cleanse on evade u loose pulmonary , pulmonary become an important damage with hot.

Talking about PvP/WvW ( i dont do pve but for solo i would take SA there too)

I’ve found it a bit difficult, in our servers matchups anyway, to drop Pulmonary. I’ve gone back to my Acro,Trick, DD build for Pain Response, S/D #2 condition clear isn’t as handy as it used to be since it puts me right back into the soup. I agree, cleanse on evade is nice and it’s consistent but those interrupts, as detrimental as they can be currently, still keep the pressure on and a nice group interrupt can push your squad forward while giving you full health with draining sigil.

Mug feels like it’s in a good place when I use it. When I’m not using CS or Acro there’s pretty much only that one build and I don’t need one more reason to be funneled into that build.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

I hate bound with a passion, dodging/evading are meant to deny income dmg, takeig or dealing 3-4k per dodge and as a leap finisher is 1 of the worst gimmicks in the dd daredevil line next to impact disruption. I prefer dash with all power builds but I think that it is a bit too strong, 450 range super speed dash, it would still be strong at 300 range.

I still haven’t changed my mind on that, at least in a fight aside from a few convenience jumps in WvW, I still would rather stay tighter on what I’m working on at the moment though it’s nice for chasing. That’s a personal preference though, it shouldn’t changed if most thieves like the way it is.

I like bound when I take acro but most of the time I prefer dash. The rest of my build has damage in mind but even just four seconds of some damage reduction and condition clear where I land from dash is one easy choice as a balance for me in WvW at least.

Kageseigi.2150:

Agreed. Personally, I would prefer some other incentive. Perhaps lowering the next skill’s initiative cost if it is a different skill. Or maybe a 5% damage instead.

They could go the old fashioned fighting/hack-n-slash route and give inter-skill combinations… basically skill-chains. It could give the Thief an edge outside of normal auto-attack chains or combination fields and finishers. Just random example on successful hits…

Headshot -> Heartseeker = Additional 1/2 sec Daze

Or have such combinations change the #1 skill similar to how Stealth does…

Headshot -> Heatseeker = #1 skill becomes a 1-sec knockdown

For some reason, I’m thinking of grapples now, haha! Imagine if Withdraw and Roll for Initiative would actually “grapple” an enemy within a range of 100… and the Thief would take that target backwards on the roll, then throw them even further back. Think of an extreme version of this…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ26XGRWqw0

I would definitely spread out more on my sword/dagger if I could chain into some field or combo use maybe, or if I could load up dagger off hand with something to help chew through enemy procs.

There’s better suggestions here but for myself if I’m using D/D or Staff I’d probably take acro/tr/dd for Upper Hand, Staff Master goes with it well. I don’t play much D/P but I’d probably try to stick as close to my normal build as possible with Dash and play like I’m going to win a prize.

Eval.2371:

The problem is some of thief tools are always the best skill to use.

Take shadow shot for example, its a blind, gap close, unblockable, high damage all in one bundle. There is very few instances where shadow shot is not your best use for init. Which leads to senseless spamming with results. I am purely using shadow shot as an example, there are numerous other offenders: such as death blossom, vault, unload, & pistol whip.

I feel its a core issue with thief, that rewards bad gameplay. That change is just an example, I feel there needs to a diminishing return/an increase in cost for successive casts or sheer nerfs to bring some skills inline to make us fair with some of the tools mentioned above. I’d rather the former then the latter.

I’m not saying you’re wrong, you’re likely right in theory, but I think if a thief want’s to spend their initiative spamming one skill then so be it, that’s the signature mechanic of our class, boil that down to cooldown rotations and you’d have to ask yourself what else you’re playing thief for. I’m cool with all the other points you made but that one is unsettling just thinking about what it would do to the way my thief feels. But I suppose if there’s arbitrary mechanics in place to stifle a core mechanic to play like other classes that would give me a chance to polish up on my mouse clicking.

Eval.2371:

• Punish repeated skill use with diminish returns. Each time you use a skill in succession its stats are 75% of the last time.

Most of that sounds good to me but I wouldn’t want to be punished for using what I need to at the moment otherwise why have initiative rather than cooldowns?

saerni.2584:

I find that thief forums are a good source of information. Most players who know how to play a particular build are always willing to share advice on how to play it.

I still look around for other sites but this forum usually has something to learn from other players who know what they’re doing posted every day. I don’t get a lot of playtime so I check these forums daily to keep up with stuff.

saerni.2584:

My biggest advice for new thief players—re-keybind your utilities and steal. Then build up muscle memory using those skills on the keys. So much improvement in how thief plays—as a twitch/fluid/evasive combatant—can be realized that way.

True, and you’ll rebind them quite a bit and it’s handy to use [shift] combos to slim down the number of keys so you can bring the ones you use most closer together in your best layout. It has to be a comfortable layout without a lot of lift off since you’re playing with Initiative and not cycling rotations. I like to gangster lean my lower palm on ctrl for my elite skill for one less finger bounce.

Thieves have Steal and more endurance if traited for it as unique features among others. Our signature mechanics are initiative and dual wield skills. You can build for stealth and disengage or you can build for evasive brawling but your success will come down to how you spend your initiative and how well you conserve and then use initiative and skills in one fluid chain or one explosive action while having the responsibility to adapt instantly for yourself and your group.

We are the initiative and your team should use you as such if you’re capable and aware of that.

All of the triumphant armor is shaped kind of stupid like those shiny, twirly, bulky pieces of trash that show up on the gem store, except for the masks. The medium mask is probably my favorite helm right now and that heroes would be perfect.

Depends on if you’re going for realistic or anime, shiny or battered. I think Charred dye and it’s set would look good with those pieces but it’s not very colorful. The enameled set would have a similar burned or faded look with more color options but they get expensive. You should just preview them in your character tab in the Dye options to see what they look like.

bearshaman.3421:

The difference between exotic and ascended for armor is negligible. The only reason to craft ascended armor (as already stated) is for the infusion slots for agony resistance in fractals. That’s it. If you are going to craft ascended for non-fractals, save the money for weapons. Better return on your investment.

If you are doing fractals, then there is no question at all that you should craft ascended.

I agree that weapons come first, but if you’re going to put any kind of effort into your build and movement every inch of stats is noticeable. I’d just get some various karma exotics and mix it up to come close to the stats distribution I’d want and save everything for the Ascended set.

The lag bites. The desert map is fun. Wait for Camelot Unchained if you only want open field fights with skill bar rotations decided by who popped their opener first. There probably wont be many gimmicks there, just cooldowns, lots and lots of cooldowns.

I use s/d mostly and sometimes switch from p/p secondary to d/p secondary. I’m not the smartest player but I felt like I could burn through initiative pretty quickly and I ended up just using d/p more naturally because it’s better right now. P/p lets me interrupt people taking a chance shot on walls, build up some might, and lets me tag stuff from afar when whoever I’m with starts moving and I don’t feel like it competes with my main set.

It looks pretty close to what most s/d users are going to end up with anyway changing one or two traits and maybe rune sets depending on where they’re at. Stats only go so far in spvp and he’s got the mobility on shortbow, might as well take some utility and try to weaken them down to thief size a little. I’d rather have Bandits but I get the pressure angle and that signet probably lets him land CnD more often.

NuhDah.9812:

Also, for your future sPvP experience you should learn Shadowstep, Shortbow ’port 5 points on the maps, and to learn to use Sb as an overall as a disengaging defensive tool especially if you go D/P.

That’s solid advice for WvW as well, there are spots that can cut travel time down by a lot and some spots that can mean the difference between a target getting away or not, or you getting away or not. Even just using jump + dodge/skill can maneuver terrain at times, like pressing jump and Flanking Strikes at the same time can clear a small step that I would have got hung up on otherwise. EB map especially has a lot of short cuts where Dash and Shadowstep shine.

I know I’m supposed to want longer content but this part felt pretty tight, even the parts where historically you’re walking for a long time chatting with some character have some action peppered throughout. The actual fighting mechanics were fun this time for me, made me think a little but was simple enough to be able to just have fun fighting. There was still the cringy dialog mostly but at least there was more emphasis on Canach and his delivery is usually more mature, with sharper humor, and just more interesting then the rest. That character feels more relatable or at least more real than my own characters part of the script.

I don’t mind a shorter story as long as it has that same slpash to it that comics have, although this one could have been a bit longer, maybe stretch it out a little with some exploration to the tune of the cave system in Tangle Depths.