Guild Wars 2

You’re pretty wrong about GvG being dead, but that aside, I support most of these changes. I think just having a megaserver’d OS would go a long way towards encouraging activity.

That said, I completely disagree with putting it back in EB. Your rebuttal is a straw man because it completely misrepresents the reason people wanted it out of EB in the first place. The reason is because you had to own your EB keep to be able to access OS, and often the outnumbered servers rarely owned their keep (see T3 NA matchup), denying them access to the map altogether.

I think you’re trying too hard to find something to complain about. I use blinding powder, and I think this change is great for the utility. This will help you secure stomps and res allies more effectively. If you want to cancel a skill, you should be using weapon stow in the first place.

Note that this isn’t comparable to last refuge at all because you control when you activate blinding powder. If you’re getting accidentally revealed, that’s entirely your fault for activating the utility at the wrong time.

Actually, your damage will be fine. The dps on 20606 is pretty comparable with the dps on 20066, minus the 10% modifier. And to be honest, a thief using stealth really isn’t that problematic in PvP because you’re not expected to contest/hold points anyway.

There are a few reasons I think PvP’ers tend to forgo shadow arts.

(1) You don’t have perma-swiftness out of combat, meaning you’ll rotate and +1 slower than you would on 20066.
(2) If you’re going to rotate slower, your burst should hit harder, which is where 60206 and 26006 come in.
(3) Shadow arts tends to encourage slow and selfish play where you spend a lot of time in stealth, which is wasted time because you’re either resetting a fight or you’re not helping your team. (Note: this can be circumvented by consciously limiting the amount of time you spend in stealth).

Also of note, there’s a vocal and elitist anti-SA culture that considers the trait line “cheese”. I personally think 20066 (especially 20066 D/P) is just as “cheesy” as 20606, so I don’t think this criticism is valid.

In summary, you won’t rotate as quickly as 20066, nor will you burst as hard as 60206/26006. However, my opinion is that 20606 isn’t as bad as many of the mindless teef drones will have you believe, and excluding the highest level of play, you won’t really be gimping your team unless you spend most of your time sitting in stealth.

If we’re talking 20066 S/D vs. 06044 S/F, my experience has been 50/50. But in my mind, S/D teef should have a slight advantage because of the evades and because shadow refuge pretty much guarantees an opening strike at some point. I think the advantage is greater in a non-duel 1v1 scenario simply because S/D teef has better mobility and can kite behind obstacles or fully reset the fight if need be.

It’s a tough fight because if you stay in melee too long, you risk getting instagibbed by phoenix/arcane blast/lightning strike, but if you stay at range too long, you’re getting outdps’d by their lightning strikes and arc lightnings.

Invigorating precision buff is very nice. I can see it getting some play over executioner in some P/P or S/P builds.

Blinding powder buff is nice for securing stomps, but otherwise doesn’t change much.

Dancing dagger buff is warranted, but probably won’t do much given the underlying projectile issues. The thrown dagger still gets obstructed by nothing and will miss completely if your opponent strafes 2 pixels to the right.

Overall, thieves stand to gain from this simply because might stacking is being slightly nerfed, along with some d/d ele tweaks.

Mohagi.2738:

Sry for the necro

Just testing a new build, its not per se a panic strike build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVlsMp7pdNx0J8PNRMBtdGS+F4aHafgFEAA-TlDEAB2t/ge6Bi7QAIoSwLVrggHAgBnAAmUSIlSomUOooqKapEpNNBAcEAIFg56qA-w

Just pondering if buffing devourer + basilisk isnt a better option than panic strike?
Seems to me that you get more control over your CC? Ofc you loose a utility slot but get a potential 9 sec immob and 3 sec stone duration (in www, abit lower immob in pvp).

This isn’t a bad idea either. Double proc basilisk is great for getting opponents to blow stunbreaks. That said, the reason I really like panic strike is because it only procs when the target is below 50%, so it’ll usually allow you and your team to finish a target. With your set up here, you risk having devourer on cooldown when you need it to finish the target. You do get more flexibility over the immob, but I find I need the signet stunbreak/gap closer to help me maintain pressure.

Mohagi.2738:

Can ofc go trickery instead of crit, but i do like the added dmg of the crit tree.

I feel you give up a lot of sustain if you don’t go for trickery. Sleight of hand + mug is actually a lot of healing over the course of a fight. You also don’t have the standard trickery utilities, which I feel outweigh the damage from crit strikes in a team setting. This, of course, comes down to personal preference.

Woaden.9425:

Anyhow, thats part of the point of course, to have a discussion on these things! My opinion is that, after having tried all the spreads, I like this one.

Fair enough. The build seems more than viable, and if it works for you, then more power to you.

I’ve been meaning to ask, though, in the case of double proc on generosity/purity, which one takes priority?

The build you linked has weapons set to S/D. I realize that that was probably an accident, but in all honesty, this seems to play very much like an S/D build.

Have you considered dropping devourer venom and picking up signet of agility for 60026? You lose feline grace, but you compensate with higher crit chance, on demand double dodge, and better condi management. In addition, it gives you the option of taking improvisation for extra sustain or combined training for an extra 5% damage modifier. And of course panic strike is absolutely deadly when it proc’s.

Even if you choose feline grace over panic strike, I still feel you could do just as well, if not better using 50036, picking up either improvisation or combined training. The 10% damage modifier is just as easy to maintain, you have higher base power, and your immobilizes last longer. It really doesn’t seem like pain response is doing much work for you, since you’re clearing with generosity/purity and sword 2.

Wow, I didn’t expect this thread to get (mini) necro’d.

Nephrite.6954:

I’m just unsure whether to pick signet of shadows or signet of infiltrator. Getting pack runes now for wvw. Oh and do you think that I should go with p/d off set,p/p or short bow? All of it seems to work nice with d/d.

Never signet of shadows. Infiltrator’s signet will help land CnD’s and protect against stunlocks. Your swap weapon will depend on what you intend to do. In PvP, I’d highly recommend SB for the mobility, poison, and cleave. In WvW, it’s really down to personal preference.

Selver.1307:

I can’t live without sleight of hand anymore. 6 trickery is required in all of my builds now. I personally run dd with 30056. Weakness on poison, 10% damage when endurance isn’t full(when’s that?), I take vigor on heal and might on dodge sometimes change it for quick recovery.
Between withdraw steal inf signet and step I’m all over the place. It sustains well enough and the damage is nice as long as you land your cnds and pace yourself.

I like it more than shadow arts, and I used to run x66x0. Shadow arts is a much slower gameplay, I prefer how much more alive trickery builds feel.

Completely agree here. Once you taste trickery, it’s hard to go back. And I’ve also considered a similar acro build, but I find conditions a bit more kitten ing and CnD’s a bit more risky. My personal preference is 20246 so I can take either shadow’s embrace or cloaked in shadow, but losing the damage modifier/weakness does make me sad.

DeceiverX.8361:

It genuinely does upset me that so many builds gain so much more extra damage on the sheer principle that Air/Fire is too good as a sigil set.

Well, I think thieves benefit a lot from fire/air simply because most thieves maintain high crit chance and have fast autoattacks. That said, I don’t think fire/air are much stronger than other sigils used in meta builds. Geomancy/doom, battle/intelligence, etc. are all equally powerful, if not more powerful.

Perplexity runes by themselves aren’t problematic. However, when combined with certain condition specs, they make for an incredibly deadly combo that really doesn’t require much skill to play.

A number of posters here seem to think that people who complain about perplexity are spammers or bad players. Far from it. Perplexity makes apply confusion a trivial matter, and what makes these perplexity specs so punishing is that confusion is applied on top of other damaging conditions that punishes any action, including condition clears and (in some instances) dodges. If your build relies on incremental condition clears (e.g. thief using sword 2), then trying to clear conditions while you have confusion will often kill you before you get rid of the confusion. Similarly, if you trait for certain dodge effects, even dodging can end up killing you.

Even if you stop using skills, you have to worry about the rest of the damaging conditions ticking on you. You might survive, but the time you spend not attacking your opponent is time they can use to wait on cd’s or time they can use to play more aggressively against you.

Is the rune stronger than other options like balth or krait? Debatable, but it’s a moot comparison, since the runes accomplish very different things, and it might be the case that all three of the condition runes are too strong. At the moment, it’s unclear whether the problem is with perplexity runes or with the larger condition meta.

The best way to deal with perplexity roamers is often to just walk away. The game isn’t balanced around 1v1’s, and the set becomes much weaker in larger groups.

It’ll depend on your build, what you’re fighting, and which map you’re playing on. I think refuge is a must, so it’s really a debate about what your other two utilities will be.

If you run no critical strikes and strength runes, then I’d take signet of agility and infiltrator’s signet (unless you need a lot of vertical mobility, in which case I’d take shadowstep over infiltrator’s signet). If you run pack runes, I’d take infiltrator’s signet and shadowstep.

If you’re fighting a condi heavy comp and you don’t have a great condi management, I’d take shadowstep and signet of agility. If you’re fighting a comp with lots of CC’s, I’d take infiltrator’s signet and shadowstep.

No, it really doesn’t need a major buff. Slight (and I mean very slight) buff might help.

Is it worth taking assassin’s reward over vigorous recovery/power of inertia/pain response? That’s debatable, but if your opponents don’t run a ton of condi, then assassin’s reward is a very good trait to take.

Keep in mind that this is additional healing on top of your heal skill, regen, lifesteal, etc. The trait isn’t meant to be used as your primary method of sustaining. Keep in mind also that acro thief already has good sustain, and buffing its sustain further risks pushing acro thief over the top.

I think they should implement a ban vote, in addition to the map selection vote. Perhaps you first vote on the map you want to play on, and then you vote on the map that you don’t want to play on. If something like 7-8 players vote on the same map to ban, then that map is dropped from the roulette.

Still makes the bad maps possible, for the people dumb enough to enjoy them, but offers a better safeguard against that one troll that often ruins everyone else’s fun.

Ah thanks, was hoping they weren’t real.

Link: http://pastebin.com/2bk8bnHx

The fact that they’ve taken so many community suggestions makes me wonder. But the out-of-the-blue nerfs to some skills makes me think it’s authentic.

Hamster.4861:

sephiroth.4217:

Guardians and classes with leaps used to be able to leap into Jerrifers in EB… Videos were made on how to do it and shortly it was fixed….

When the game was released, you could spawn on the east side of an enemy borderland and follow the cliffs right into hills lords room, that was also fixed rather quick…

I’m gonna take an educated guess and say Anet might fix it at some point (When those other exploits were happening we also had active Devs and no Living story) but a lot has changed in 2 years and Anet are a business that follows money so if it’ll ever get fixed is a question in itself.

Ansii m8, this has not been fixed. can still be done

That’s also not Ansii. How2bad

Anomaly.7612:

What exactly is the role of a S/D thief in PvP because I keep hearing the statement of “your job as a thief.”

Move around the map quickly to get easy caps/decaps, +1 fights, and burst down low targets.

Signet of malice doesn’t really need a buff. I believe it has potentially the highest heal per second , which makes it great in PvE, provided you don’t need the extra evade from withdraw. A substantial buff to the heal per hit would make thieves a bit too good in PvE, since you’d be able to proc the scholar effect trivially.

And even if you buffed the heal on malice, it’d still be underused in PvP/WvW. The reason isn’t because it doesn’t heal enough (which it does), but rather because it relies on landing hits. This is fundamentally different from signet of restoration, which only requires using a skill. Blinds, confusion, and/or good kiting would still destroy someone running signet of malice.

Thieves are in a pretty good place in the current meta. Good dps and trash skipping in PvE. Good single target burst and map rotation abilities in PvP. Good for ganking in small-scale and zerg fights in WvW.

That’s not to say thieves are the optimal choice for all (or maybe any) of these things, but thieves have viable, unique, and well-defined roles in all three game-modes.

SB is great for fighting a normal necro because it has more range than their melee set and it outdamages their staff auto’s. The matchup becomes more difficult when the necro pops lich or death shroud.

If he’s in lich, you need to steal to strip his stability, then either keep him blinded or CC’d using the stolen fear. If he’s in death shroud, and you get hit by death shroud 2, immediately steal because he’s almost certainly going to life blast. Death shroud 3 is an instant fear, so I try to save a stunbreak in anticipation.

Use the stolen fear on his lich first, and if that’s on cd, his death shroud second. If you don’t have the stolen fear or your steal, you need to stay in stealth during lich/death shroud. I find it’s a bit easier using X/D because you can chain CnD’s to drop his life force while remaining in stealth, but D/P will suffice with its on demand stealth. Note that D/P 3 blinds will outpace his lifeblasts, so you can also keep him perma-blinded if you have enough initiative.

The idea is to play very defensively when he’s in lich or death shroud. Slowly whittle away at his life force when you can. Once he’s out of death shroud, either range with SB or burst him aggressively, depending on how much health he has.

godmoney.6025:

WVW: I’ve been trying out a panic strike trickery s/d build for a few weeks now, but I personally can’t live without the fluidity that feline grace offers, so I’ve settled on 5/0/0/3/6 with Pack runes to compensate for the precision loss.

To me, it almost seems like a waste to go that deep into DA without taking panic strike, but I can see the appeal of taking feline grace as well. That said, it seems like you’d still be susceptible to a lot of condi builds, since you don’t have shadow’s embrace or pain response.

godmoney.6025:

If possible before I engage a fight I might switch ShadowStep for Signet of Agility, depending on what class I’m gonna fight. Typically I will keep ShadowStep if I know I’ll need extra bulk condi clear/stunbreak (vs. Terror/CondiNecro). If I anticipate I’ll need more dodges/precision with less condi clear I will pick Signet of agility (.e.g. vs another s/d thief).

This is a good idea in WvW, but you can’t swap your utilities in PvP. In the meta S/D build, signet of agility synergizes very well with the acro line, which is why it gets chosen over shadowstep. Without heavy acro investment, however, I think shadowstep is a stronger utility.

Nephrite.6954:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoa6al0MpwplOx7J8PNxORtdA8AHInnwF05OcDA-TpBBABdcEAA4EA0y+DU8AAIvMwGHEAA
Just wanted to share with you a build I’ve recently created. Haven’t put it to use yet cause I think it still contains the potential to be deadlier that’s why it’s here to be influenced by other experienced thieves.

So this has nothing to do with panic strike or S/D, but I’ll give you some feedback anyway since you posted it here.

(1) In a PvP setting you lose a lot by giving up SB. Not only because of the aoe poison and cleave, but also because SB 5 is the fastest way to rotate around the map.
(2) Your power is way too low. I’d recommend zerk amulet/power runes. The 20 sec icd is a bit too long for air, IMO.
(3) With that much crit chance, it’s a complete waste not to go for fire/air sigils.
(4) There’s no reason to take both acro and SA. You give up almost all of your team utility by taking 0 in trickery. I’d recommend at least 4 points there for bountiful theft.

A lot of posts here and a lot of people in general are acting under the misconception that P/P does poor damage or can’t sustain or whatever.

P/P does very good damage and sustains decently well in 1v1’s. In fact, P/P does extremely well against other glass builds, especially against other thieves (save perhaps D/P permastealth or P/D dire).

Where P/P falls behind other sets is in team fights, simply because you have no way of avoiding focus. Once your utilities are blown, nothing in your weapon set will prevent you from getting focused down.

Unload hogging the initiative on P/P is definitely a problem, but it’s not the biggest problem. Even if you cut the initiative cost of unload in half, P/P would still suffer from its inability to avoid focus. Thieves in general rely on evades, ports, and stealth to escape focus in a group fight; P/P offers none of those.

coglin.1867:

mango.9267:

coglin.1867:

I lo e the way every one keeps crying “blobbing” and crying “night capping” as some conjured argument against removing white swords. Yet every other thread before white swords were removed, was complaints about large blobs night capping. All of the sudden, you actually expect people to take those excuses serioisly?

People aren’t complaining that there are suddenly blobs or night caps. People are complaining that removing white swords promotes both of these things and makes them more effective, which is the opposite of what Anet should have done.

No, people are attempting to suggest that these things night capping or blobs are evidence that removing white swords is a problem. I have yet to see anyone provide any evidence that night capping scores are higher then they were before the change. Nor has anyone provided any evidence that blobs are any larger.

Neither are more effective, they are less effective.

You can look at the T3 NA matchup if you want evidence. The largest server is winning by a much larger margin this week than they were last week. We’re talking 50k more points right now than this same time last week, against the same two servers. And no, that’s not from PPK, since our guilds are barely rallying anymore, and roamers can hardly even find each other.

The problem is as I and many others have described. The outnumbered server, especially during offhours, either (A) has to spread itself too thin scouting and therefore be unable to defend their structures against the blob or (B) has to pull everyone together to defend their structures from the blob and therefore lack the scouts to save their other structures. Especially during offhours, the outnumbered server lacks the numbers to do both, while the largest server can. This makes the issue of blobbing and nightcapping even worse. This problem is compounded by the fact that the outnumbered servers don’t have waypoints, while the largest server does, giving the largest server free map scouts on their keeps.

The outnumbered server could just give up on defending altogether to try to ninja some of the largest server’s structures and just backcap their own BL after the nightcap ends. However, that’s basically an EotM playstyle, where you’re just PvDooring, K-training, not-defending, and avoiding enemy players.

Hype.8032:

Great work dude. I’m glad you’re getting this build to work for you. I’ve tried it before but I didn’t end up liking how it felt. It didn’t have the flow that 2/0/0/6/6 has; the acro tree synergizes with s/d so well.

IMO, when you account for everything, 2/0/0/6/6 has more damage, more sustain, and more dps from being able to stay in melee range a higher percent of the time. I’ll try to explain my reasoning:

By using 2/0/0/6/6 you get to keep might on dodge and you still get the 10% dmg buff from acro rather than DA. This puts the two specs on roughly the same footing for damage, except the acro build has more up time on boons as well as having an ability to drop the 2nd stunbreak for the signet of agility. Add in 3k more health (vs a little toughness and negligible healing power) also. All this adds up to having superior damage and survivability. Porting every which-way is really fun but it’s time not spent dpsing your opponent. This is all from a spvp perspective as I don’t play wvw anymore.

I hope this doesn’t come off as rude; you’re definitely a good player and I’d be curious to hear your opinions on this.

Cheers!

Hey, no offense taken, and I agree with almost everything you’ve said. So I think the benefits of going into acro are fluidity in playstyle, ability to stay in melee longer, and generally more sustain.

However, there are a number of tradeoffs.

First, acro S/D takes a while to stack might, so your initial burst is much weaker than it is on 60206 or 26006. This might not be a problem if you’re fighting for an extended period of time on point, but it may hurt if you want to finish an enemy thief or mesmer quickly. In general, 20066 doesn’t have the same finishing potential as 60206 or 26006.

Second, acro S/D doesn’t have the same stunbreak/condi management that 60206 or 26006 do simply because you’d usually take signet of agility over either infiltrator’s signet or shadowstep. You could opt not to take signet of agility, but then you’re below the ideal crit chance for fire/air proc’s, assuming you take strength runes. If you opt for pack over strength, you lose the damage modifier from strength, and it takes even longer to stack might. In general, acro S/D somewhat depends on signet of agility, which means you give up either a stunbreak/gap closer or a stunbreak/condi clear (let’s be honest, the condi clear from signet of agility is pretty bad).

Third, shortbow is a bit more potent on 60206 due to weakness on poison and higher base power. The same can be said about steal, since mug will hit a bit harder, and you’ll apply weakness along with your poison. You don’t lose that much melee dps when you have weakness on your opponent, since 50% glancing blows is a significant boost to both your and your team’s sustain.

Overall, I think 60206 has a much higher initial burst, maybe slightly lower sustained damage (depending on how often you port), and better team utility/finishing potential due to panic strike and long-duration immob on infiltrator’s strike. I think 20066 offers more sustain, plays a lot more fluidly, and rotates faster due to permaswiftness out of combat.

coglin.1867:

I lo e the way every one keeps crying “blobbing” and crying “night capping” as some conjured argument against removing white swords. Yet every other thread before white swords were removed, was complaints about large blobs night capping. All of the sudden, you actually expect people to take those excuses serioisly?

People aren’t complaining that there are suddenly blobs or night caps. People are complaining that removing white swords promotes both of these things and makes them more effective, which is the opposite of what Anet should have done.

Mohagi.2738:

Hello

Im pretty new to thief, been lvl 80 for about 3 weeks and have only done www small scale roaming so far.
Been trying alot of different weapon sets and traits etc, also the build here and found it quite good. Trying out abit of a different setup now and would like your opinion.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0MpwplOxyJ8PNxLhw5vaeuOt2LCMA-TVDEABvpNwu9H0THggKBvUtCCeCAMpkoJlDKqqiWKhQ4EAAwhAILlIkCQsdVA-w

Excuse the gear alot is borrowed from diff toons. I know that im missing out on daze and about 8 sec cd recharge on steal, I just thought that the aoe blind would be more helpfull? Also im running the +40 condi duration 33% chance on lifesteal food and not the 1 shown, but was wondering if going for that high condi duration is overkill?

Have also been trying out this setup for larger fight’s

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0MpwplOxyJ8PNxLB55aSj2LIADoztcYA-TVDEABvpNwu9H0THggKBvUtCCeCAMpkoJlDKqqiWKhQ4EAAwhAILlIkCQsdVA-w

Not to sure about that 1 though

Both of those builds look fine. I’d never run without sleight of hand, but that’s more of a personal preference. I think shadow arts is stronger than acro in WvW, but either will give you enough sustain. I’d consider swapping traveler’s for pack or rage simply because you’ll have near permaswiftness already, so you really don’t get the benefit of the +25% movement speed from traveler’s.

And no, long-lasting immobilize is never overkill. It’s probably the best way to guarantee a finish on an opponent, and the utility it offers your team is amazing.

Mohagi.2738:

Also a quick question, i got 90% condi duration. Ingame it says my Infiltrator’s Strike immob last 2 sec. Is that true or just a tooltip error?

I’ve never run with 90% condi duration, but that sounds right. Mine is a 1.75 sec immob with 70% condi duration. A 2 sec immob that’s semi-spammable is incredibly powerful.

briggah.7910:

ioj does lack scouts and roamers.. In a previous post I stated that even before this white sword thing I solo/duo’ed a few towers from ioj with white swords in play.. I did this during NA time zone. It was about constantly tapping your stuff till you just gave up checking on the white swords and eventually your tower was mine.

Now that I think about it your south towers in your BL no one ever came to check on the swords. Another guildie and I took some fortified towers because no one ever came to see what was popping them white swords..

Blame it on swords if you want but I’m telling you it doesn’t matter..

I’m not sure why you think your singular experience over the course of one week is good evidence for our alleged lack of scouts. Not that that’s not even relevant. A number of players from other servers have posted similar complaints as well.

Again, I reiterate, this change makes upgrading nearly impossible and defending very difficult, especially when you’re outnumbered. And it’s not because we, the players, aren’t scouting enough or aren’t playing wisely.

briggah.7910:

Also why should EU guys have to be the ones to do the boring upgrading? Sounds to me you guys are relying on them to do all your upgrading. Maybe get better scouts and people walking yaks etc etc when EU isn’t in play. If my server didn’t do any upgrading outside of a certain time zone then I guess I too would complain and blame it on the white swords and overlook the fact that we lack scouts and roamers.

I think you completely missed the point of the post. No one was blaming anyone in any time zone. Upgrades usually happen when servers have some down time, which happens to be EU for the T3 matchup. However, now, even during down time, it’s nearly impossible to upgrade.

And no, it’s not because we lack scouts or roamers. It’s because the lack of white swords makes it so that we have to either spread ourselves too thin scouting (and thus end up being unable to defend), or we have to run to a structure to defend it (and end up losing other structures due to having our skeleton crew gather to defend). In the end, upgrading is nearly impossible.

It’s pretty much undeniable that this change greatly benefits attackers and greatly hinders defensive play. In a balanced matchup, this might be okay, although it promotes the worst aspects of WvW. However, in a lopsided matchup, this is a huge benefit to the largest server.

Gudradain.3892:

Now, I didn’t pop that it makes WvW more balanced out no where. I look at the situation and this is what I noticed. Every match up seems more balanced. Every server now have a fighting chance and every players are useful.

I read all the threads/posts and I’m not the only one that think that way. From your own matchup

I doubt you’ve read many posts from my matchup because almost everyone from my matchup thinks this change is a terrible idea. I’ve already listed the reasons why.

Gudradain.3892:

Not only does it makes match up more balanced but it also makes match up more interesting for a LOT of players.

Now, get out of the forum and go try it before crying.

No, it doesn’t make the match more balanced by any stretch of the imagination. And it definitely doesn’t make the matchup interesting for a lot of players because this change promotes the most boring aspects of WvW: tower sitting and PvDoor.

It’s funny that you tell me to get off the forum and try this change because I’m actually in the T3 matchup, and I can tell you this change has widened the gap between first and second, if anything. For IoJ, most of our upgrades come in the EU time slot, when our skeleton crew usually runs around responding to swords. Now that swords are gone, it’s near impossible to get our upgrades up, so our BL is becoming a K-train. From the looks of it, NSP BL is looking to be the same.

I understand why PvDoor havoc groups might like this change, but for actual defenders and fights-oriented players, this change is absolutely terrible.

Before anyone else replies, please don’t post in this thread. The thief forums love to indulge these kinds of QQ posts that contribute absolutely nothing, when we all should just ignore these threads and let them die.

Dinas Dragonbane.2978:

mango.9267:

Here’s the situation for pretty much all servers under T2:

(A) You split up your zerg so you can scout your structures. However, in doing so, you lack the manpower to efficiently recap lost structures or to defend against a zerg hitting the structure you were scouting. Even if you put a tell in map chat, in order to push the zerg off, you’ll have to pull scouts from your other structures, leading to situation (B), described below.

(B) You group your players together so that you can recap lost structures quickly and defend against a few attacks. However, in doing so, you lack scouts for the other structures on your map, which are quickly capped since you have no idea they’re being hit.

Most servers simply don’t have enough players to be able to both scout and defend/recap, especially during offhours. The way you talk about this suggests you’re on one of the privileged servers that have enough players for both, but this is the minority of servers in the game.

The good part is all 3 servers in a matchup have to make these same choices. If the strongest server holds more territory, naturally they’d have to split up their forces MORE in order to hold said territory. If they choose to stay as a zergball, weaker servers can send 2-3 players to easily retake anything while the rest of them hold off the main enemy force.
Any server that tries to hold TOO much will pay the price and might find themselves the victims of trying to grasp too much territory, thus becoming one of the weaker servers of the match.

You also mention superior coverage being stronger…but when has that ever been weak?

No, the larger server usually doesn’t have to make the tradeoff because they have enough players to be able to both scout and zerg. The weaker servers are the ones who have to decide between scouting and zerging, neither of which will be effective against the larger server. Obviously, the larger server can’t hold everything, but they can spare enough people to hold enough structures that they retain very high PPT.

And yes, superior coverage has always been strong, but it’s now even stronger for the reasons I listed. The last thing Anet needed to do was increase the influence of coverage.

There are two groups that might focus you: enemy train and enemy gank.

If the train focuses you, your best bet is to LF or burning retreat behind your train. If the gank focuses you, your best bet is to either call your gank over or to LF right into the middle of your train (assuming your train isn’t eating a bomb). Note that you should probably save armor of earth if the enemy gank is focusing you, since they’ll just strip your stability/protection.

A very useful technique is to kite in a circle around your driver (600-1200 radius, depending on situation). This way, you always have your train on your screen, and you’re always one LF or burning retreat away from them.

Other than that, it’s the same advice you’d give to any other build. Stagger your cantrips, watch your positioning, etc.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

I’ve started playing a similar build with S/P, generally it works well with that set, especially with the amount of potential CC you get from Pistol Whip, steal and the immobilizes!

Yeah, it does synergize well with S/P, but I’m just convinced critical haste + sigil of rage synergize even better. That said, more power to you; I imagine mug —> pistol whip --> panic strike —> pistol whip would finish off a lot of squishier targets.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

I run with a bit more vitality though – just for those pesky conditions.

I think this is understandable on S/P, but I feel S/D and D/P don’t need that much health. You really shouldn’t be getting that much anyway on those sets.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Also NA players seem more dopey than EU players in general from all these montages I’ve seen, we have our share of baddies in WvW, but wow.

Eh, that’s hard to judge. I’ve had friends on both sides of the pond claim the same thing. I think the average WvW player is pretty bad across all servers, so I generally try to only include outnumbered WvW footage, unless I think a 1v1 demonstrates something unique about a build or unless I know the player I’m fighting is good.

Oslaf Beinir.5842:

“ur dog sux”

oh that was a good laugh xD

thank you for sharing

Glad you enjoyed! My guild is starting a super sekrit dog fighting ring, lawl.

coglin.1867:

Gudradain.3892:

Mitch the Fish.1947:

With the white swords gone the smaller guilds in all of Tier 1 now have a chance to show just how useful they can be. Instead of forcing servers to blob up in order to defend then now have to spread out which makes the game much more fair for all size groups to both attack and defend. Personally my guild is a havoc guild and now we have the capability to not only attack waypointed structures but if the scouts are not paying attaention we regularly capture them. Scouts now actually have to pay attaention to all the sneakier places for siege units to be placed instead of just semi-afk and wait for swords to pop then start looking. That being said ArenaNet should definately work out a reward system of some kind for those who ACTIVELY scout and find havoc teams being sneaky.

This. I experienced the same thing and I’m on tier 6-7.

It’s a good change.

I absolutely agree.

The problem as I see it, is that players posting here are simply crying because the game doesn’t tell them where everyone on the enemy team is anymore, instead of having them break into smaller groups and do a little thing commonly known as “searching”.

everyone posted crying about “blobs”, and “zergs”, now everyone is crying about not wanting to pull out of the zerg and actually roam around and “look” for the enemy. Then they want to make snide comments towards Anet.

Danged if you do, danged if you don’t, when it comes to the forums.

You guys are completely misinformed on why people hate this change. First, for fights-oriented players, this change makes finding enemies or drawing enemies to yourself very difficult. Second, for PPT-oriented players, this makes defending near impossible on the outnumbered server. This change greatly benefits the larger server, or servers that have enough people to scout (and not just because they can build waypoints, which is another major flaw).

Here’s the situation for pretty much all servers under T2:

(A) You split up your zerg so you can scout your structures. However, in doing so, you lack the manpower to efficiently recap lost structures or to defend against a zerg hitting the structure you were scouting. Even if you put a tell in map chat, in order to push the zerg off, you’ll have to pull scouts from your other structures, leading to situation (B), described below.

(B) You group your players together so that you can recap lost structures quickly and defend against a few attacks. However, in doing so, you lack scouts for the other structures on your map, which are quickly capped since you have no idea they’re being hit.

Most servers simply don’t have enough players to be able to both scout and defend/recap, especially during offhours. The way you talk about this suggests you’re on one of the privileged servers that have enough players for both, but this is the minority of servers in the game.

TL;DR: No one is complaining because this change makes them split up from a zerg. People are complaining because this change discourages fights, benefits the larger server, and makes defense impossible for most servers in the game.

AlCojester.4316:

Nice vid mate! Love that withdraw transition near the beginning haha Hope to see you in tier 2 again ~Ressuscité (if you can remember me )

Hey, yeah, I’ll probably play T2 more, since the no white swords thing killed roaming in T3. Alternatively, you might see me in T3, since I believe YB is being focused down. Feel free to PM any time.

Woaden.9425:

I think you point out a good synergy with sword/x builds and 6 DA. The immob you get from panic strike is a great way to preserve your infil strike, and let your return either expire, or save it for a juke, saving ini while still doing immob!

I’d say it goes even further because +30% condition duration means landing infiltrator’s strike confirms a flanking strike, which is a huuuuuge advantage. But yes, knowing panic strike will proc also saves you from using return too early.

Woaden.9425:

On the one hand, I think this play style works best with S/P, with the greater potential for DPS since most S/D dps comes from, or fs/ls, or mug+cloak and dagger. This style does less of that, taking less advantage of x/D, in favor of sword 2 using the ini.

In your video, though, you do still manage to use the dagger quite intelligently, especially for condi clear, or for combos with steal/infil sig, when appropriate, followed by a tactical strike. Those are things you miss out on with S/P. You also miss out on c&d, weapon swap, shortbow immob, which this build really likes, for that extra kick of immob!

This build does work for S/P, though I feel S/P benefits a lot from critical haste and sigil of rage, which this build doesn’t have. But you’re right on the money with why I chose S/D over S/P: S/D offers much better condition management due to CnD and shadow’s embrace. Without shadow’s embrace, I’d have to return to clear conditions, which would be a huge loss for my damage/positioning game.

Woaden.9425:

I wonder how it would work if you fit in quick venoms and slotting devourer, maybe to replace infil sig.

Honestly, I’ve considered devourer venom over infiltrator’s signet, and I know a bunch of thieves who do take it. I just really like the extra port that the signet offers, since it’s a great way to cover big attacks or confuse your opponents about your positioning, and it means I don’t have to return as frequently.

I think that if I were running as part of a serious group with bunker guards, I’d opt for venom over signet because it’d help the guardian keep up with my ports a bit easier. The extra immob will also basically confirm an opening CnD or phoenix/LF burst due to venom’s ability to proc from SB auto.

Woaden.9425:

Do you feel immob focused build is less advantageous vs -condi duration builds, like nike warrior?

Well, I wouldn’t slot venom over signet if I see a bunch of hambows on the enemy team, or if I’m dueling a warrior. The signet is crucial not only as a port, but also as a stunbreak in that scenario. However, in general, immobilize is still good against dogged march/melandru warriors because you can still mitigate a lot of their bursts when you time the immobilize properly (whirlwind, earthshaker, bulls charge, etc.), and panic strike will still give your team ample time to finish him off.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0eYCitzA0k

Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYFm4lQ46n3rT/W7FBGA-TVTDwAUVSc4BAk4EA8U52LVbwcIAApHg3+DAMBpQJokjAQM1EirJgUALKMC-w
(gear is exactly the same as my D/D set up)

I’ve been playing PvP with the new D/P meta and wanted to see how it’d translate over to S/D. Surprisingly, there’s a lot of synergy between panic strike and S/D that I feel many thieves gloss over. I’ve come across very few people running these traits on S/D and hope to encourage some people who play S/D better than I do to give them a shot.

Sustain

20606 and 20066 clearly have more sustain, and the latter plays a bit more fluidly due to feline grace. Moreover, in sets with more sustain, you can afford to be more liberal with flanking strike, since you can evade or stealth if you’re low on initiative. 60206, however, relies on abusing infiltrator’s strike/return and shadowstep for sustain, so missing a flanking strike drains the initiative you need for infiltrator’s strike/return. I find most of my initiative goes towards porting in, getting some auto’s, then porting out. On the plus side, all of your attacks hit much harder on 60206 than on 20606, so it’s not really a net damage loss from the less liberal use of flanking strike.

Benefits of deadly arts

The burst is comparable to 26006 S/D, but I feel there are a number of benefits to picking 60206 over 26006. You have the textbook reasons to go into DA — weakness on poison, long-duration immobilize, more power, possibly improvisation, better synergy with team mates, etc.

However, what I feel many players overlook about DA and S/D specifically is that, in light of the flanking strike/larcenous strike changes, being able to confirm a flanking strike is a huge advantage. With 30% condition duration (70% in WvW), infiltrator’s strike is a 1.25 (1.75 in WvW) sec immobilize, which guarantees you’ll land your flanking strike (provided the opponent doesn’t blow a defensive cooldown). This is incredibly helpful because you don’t have to waste your gap closers on your flanking strike and can instead save them for your larcenous strike/cloak and dagger.

Moreover, when panic strike proc’s, you have enough time for a flanking strike, larcenous strike, and two auto’s (or an entire autoattack chain + something else). This will finish all opponents who aren’t bunkers. 26006 gives you executioner when your opponent is below 50%, but you lack the ability to confirm your finishing blows. 60206 gives you slightly less damage when opponents are below 50%, but the opponent is immobilized for 4.25 sec, which will let you finish them off more reliably than 26006 would.

Hope you guys give the build a shot. Comments, questions, suggestions are all welcome.

T2 and T3 NA

Terrible, terrible idea. I play late night and early mornings (for NA players), and I mostly roam. My group gave up within the hour because it’s simply impossible to find other roamers. We ended up spending our time in PvP.

As far as defending goes, it’s pretty much impossible in the T3 matchup. When we’re as outnumbered as we are, there are only two equally kittenty options: (1) split up so you have scouts everywhere, but in doing so, lack the proper numbers to actually defend/recap a structure, or (2) have people gather together to be able to defend/recap structures, but in doing so, lack the scouts to prevent backcapping by the enemy zerg. Our BL is pretty much a K-train as a result.

Playing offensively is also mind-numbingly boring. We never hit a structure unless it’s to draw out a fight, and now there are just no fights. Now, we don’t even bother to hit structures, since we just end up spending our time in PvP.

This change promotes the worst aspects of WvW and discourages fighting enemy players. It’s so bad that my guild, which is primarily composed of roamers, has pretty much given up on WvW since it’s gone into effect.

This just in. Waypoints still contest when tapped. This change GREATLY benefits the server who can build waypoints — in other words, the largest server.

Removing white swords promotes all of the worst aspects of WvW: boring tower sitting and PvDoor. Yes, it gives havoc groups a chance of taking structures, but they’ll likely be PvDooring in doing so. On the other hand, if servers want to prevent enemy havoc groups from PvDooring, they need to have scouts tower sit, which is just as bad, if not worse.

All in all, removing white swords discourages fights, especially for roamers, who rely on white swords to see where enemies are or use white swords to draw enemies to themselves.

D/D ele either soft counters or goes even with pretty much all thief builds. D/P especially has trouble DPSing through the heal/protection spam.

IMO, S/D has the best shot (or maybe some cheesy P/D spec), but even then, it’s an uphill battle.

Thorp.7982:

I like your videos, mainly the entertaining P/P or no weapon ones.

Hey, thanks! I actually have enough footage for weaponless part 2, but I figure there wouldn’t be much demand for it.

Smurf.4736:

Hey Mango, i wanted to know how would Fleet Shadows do for the build.

Well, it’s up to you, but I personally wouldn’t. It’s not just because mug gives significant sustain/damage, but also because you need that 1 point in DA for the poison application. That’s one of the most reliable sources of poison you have, and you absolutely need it to fight bunkers. You should have near permaswiftness from thrill and pack runes, so your movement speed shouldn’t be an issue.

reinforever.8902:

Also, just to point out something I noticed after our duels mango was I was actually able to engage just as often or even more after looking at my traits. You have a 20% cooldown reduction to steal from the Grandmaster in Trickery, however I get 20% recharge rate on signet’s (infiltrators strike) from the VIII trait in Crit. Strikes. This puts the cooldown slightly lower than that of your steals cooldown. and thus allows me to engage just as often as you do.duels by the way!

Well, my signet is 30 sec and steal is 21 sec, putting my total at 51 sec. Your signet is 24 sec, and your steal is 35 sec, putting your total at 59 sec, which is significantly longer in my opinion. But, really, you also just get so much more out of a 21 sec steal. That said, I believe I was dueling with P/P, where I took blinding powder over signet, which means I didn’t engage as often.

Kocoff.7582:

I think thieves are too squishy to leave things to chance. just letting go of this 100% crit chance backstab is too much for me.
.
.
. Mango, what food buff do you use? (kind of hoping i was using the wrong food lol)

I think this is a common misconception about the D/D set. Many people conceptualize the weapon set as one that revolves around backstab, but they shouldn’t. On 20606, the set isn’t just about landing backstabs, but about applying constant pressure with fire/air/autoattacks/heartseekers/steal. CnD and backstab are great sources of damage, but not the main or only sources of damage.

I use omnomberry pie and quality maintenance oil because I’m poor. If I could afford it, I’d run butternut squash and master oil.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

mango.9267:

This will work, but I recommend maintenance oil instead of sharpening stone. You want to aim for over 60% crit chance with fury. You have a lot of health, which is fine, but once you get comfortable playing the build, consider swapping out valk pieces for zerk.

Cool.

Why 60% specifically? I’ve always aimed at 50% myself. Then again I come from a medi-guardian background (my main) where 30% crit is more than enough because Fury will be handed out like candy and 50% crit after Fury on a guardian is more than enough. How is the Fury upkeep of this thief build? 50% of the time during fights give or take?

Well, I say over 60% because single hit crits are very important for mainhand dagger. Backstab and heartseeker are both single hit attacks that deal very good damage when they crit and very meh damage when they don’t.

It’s different for a medi guard or sword mainhand thief because they don’t rely on any single hit to deal massive damage. The damage is normalized over a series of quick attacks, so there’s not as much concern over missing a crit on a single crucial attack.

Fury up-time for me is anywhere between 66% – 75% depending on how often I get hit and on my RNG. It’s already roughly 50% up-time using just thrill of the crime, so pack runes will significantly increase the up-time.

SilverWF.4789:

Tao.5096:

thieves are the squishiest with low HP pool class in game.

Bullsh… If some thieves playing like warriors – straightfoward – so, sure
But if thief playing like thief – this is nearly unkillable beast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmTybvMeAU4

I’m flattered you came to that conclusion from watching my vid, but I assure you I am very killable. There are a ton of classes and builds that do very well against, if not hard counter, thieves — medi guards, d/d ele, most engi builds, etc.

Thieves are in a good place in the competitive environment.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

mango.9267:

Jana.6831:

@mango:
Ok, ty – your shortbow is still listed as soldier as well though.
Good, one backpiece less to bother about – I don’t really like to farm all this stuff as well, it’s ok for weapons but clothes are much more annoying.

Ah, yeah, because I mostly use SB defensively. You’d be surprised how many times the sudden health/armor increase + extra dodge have saved me when I swap. Zerk is also a good choice for SB if you plan on using SB more.

Don’t you find yourself in situations when you are in SB, very low on HP and swapping to your main set would really help but if you’d do that, you’d lower your vitality enough to get yourself downed?

Well, at least it hasn’t happened to me yet, and I hope it remains that way. I almost never swap to D/D when I’m about to die simply because I’m probably busy trying to SB 5 away.

Jana.6831:

@mango:
Ok, ty – your shortbow is still listed as soldier as well though.
Good, one backpiece less to bother about – I don’t really like to farm all this stuff as well, it’s ok for weapons but clothes are much more annoying.

Ah, yeah, because I mostly use SB defensively. You’d be surprised how many times the sudden health/armor increase + extra dodge have saved me when I swap. Zerk is also a good choice for SB if you plan on using SB more.

Jana.6831:

@ mango:
I still have a question to this build, since I’m currently experimenting with my second thief: You have some soldier’s stuff in your gear – is that intended or is it because that was what you had currently equipped for no real reason?

The only soldier’s piece I have is the exotic backpiece, and that’s just because it’s the easiest backpiece to acquire. Ideally, I’d have an ascended zerk backpiece, but I just can’t be bothered to farm. The best stats for thieves, in my opinion, are zerk, assassin, valk, and knight. I don’t think thieves get that much out of soldier.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

This is good stuff. Do you think 2/0/6/0/6 would work with my gear setup? I don’t really feel like changing my gear so.

Here is what my build would look like with 2/0/6/0/6:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVl0Mp8plOx7J8PNBNhwdtVz8O83yaFA-TFCBwAQeAAL3f4sSQsK/AcKASpPgxRAQn6PBAQA4mD9mD9m3sUAlrMC-w

Let me know what you think.

This will work, but I recommend maintenance oil instead of sharpening stone. You want to aim for over 60% crit chance with fury. You have a lot of health, which is fine, but once you get comfortable playing the build, consider swapping out valk pieces for zerk.

If we’re talking ideal 5v5 death match comp, then 2 bunker guards + 2 shatter mesmers + 1 other is very strong. To my knowledge, all of the best 5v5 death match guilds run at least 1 shatter mesmer and 1 bunker guard.

Arantheal.7396:

Additionally we already have dedicated defenders on Server A who still upgrade and siege stuff, even while this karma-blobb is around (and actually scares them off from time to time), so our performance would not be impacted in the slightest.

Therein lies the problem. Most servers don’t have dedicated scouts, especially during offhours, when they simply don’t have players. Your server might benefit, but this change will hurt the outnumbered server in almost all other situations. The larger server has more people to spare, and the sparse defenders from the smaller server can no longer watch the map to respond to attacks.

Tarkan.5609:

hey man i know what youre saying and meaning but my only problem with 20606 is:
it doesnt have the burst i want to have on my thief

Yes, 26600 bursts harder, but it’s also more predictable because it relies a lot on landing that burst. At mid to high level play, I feel this burst-or-nothing mindset is limiting because opponents will know how to mitigate the CnD, mug, backstab combo.

Of course, it’s your prerogative to build for burst, and 26600 will probably be fine if you have someone else doing the boon stripping/poison application/sustained damage. I just want to encourage new players to move away from this very straightforward and (in my opinion) limited conception of D/D thief.