Guild Wars 2

This change affects passive thieves fighting more than 1 person. Running S/D and D/P I just know when I am over extending.

This will affect fights with mesmers alot I think for all thieves. As stealth bought you a few extra moments to locate the mesmer (identifying is easy) since they can use blink, decoy, phase retreat etc to move around alot.

If I ever did chain cloak and dagger it was vs mesmer and its clones that is the only way I can see this change affecting me personally.

I have a 3 sec block on my shield with warrior I definitely can’t get behind this. Its also on a 24 sec cd traited. Get out with this one rofl. Block = wasted cloak and dagger for those bad thieves out there that see me hold my shield up and still try to CnD me rofl(always makes me chuckle inside)

Rofl what I pop balanced stance on my warrior when I go to stomp guaranteed!!! That big guardian bubble everyone else gets knocked back no me

Also off hand pistol black powder stom kitten uperior to stealth stomp imo

MiLkZz.4789:

I don’t find the 3seconds of invuln. worth it. How long is the cooldown?

Against d/d ele’s, just get stabilty and autoattack. As soon as you see that they don’t have stability, chain cc them. Usually does the trick for me.

Yea I have come to this point with endure pain. If it was actually 5 seconds maybe I would run it but that cd is so long. I run balance stance 40 secs isnt long for 8 seconds of stability! I have bull charge and the other utility I switch out.

As I get more comfortable with how a warrior plays vs other classes frenzy will be dropped. I don’t really run it much now actually so I am at a crossroads of signet of stamina or shake it off. The 1 trump of shake it of is that it breaks stun and has less of a cd than signet of stamina. Remove 3 conditions and +33% to endurance regen is also very nice. Really though there aren’t many stuns out there that I worry about except baslisk venom and another bull charge.

Gamgee.8612:

MiLkZz.4789:

Don’t go berserker warrior and you are fine in WvW.

I go full berserker in WvW. Axe/Shield. Works perfectly well. My survivability lies in 3 second block and 5 second endure pain and the movement that comes with Sword/Warhorn and bull’s charge. I have no trouble at all with thieves.

I thought endure pain only lasts 3 seconds unless you take sure-footed?

I have a thief recently switched to warrior to try it out after watching Avlis videos. I love warrior its alot of fun alot of different weapon sets compared to my thief. I have no problems with thieves usually in WvW I do have a harder time against d/d ele’s but it depends on scenario of the fight usually making them run when roaming around isn’t hard though. I am still learning but warrior is alot of fun.

Wonderer.1790:

Every thread its ranger’s complaining. Its quite funny actually, since trap rangers counter thieves hard. I understand that rangers need some different build options, but wanting more and more nerfs to thieves doesn’t change the fact that your class’s diversity is just bad right now (the main problem with most classes). Yes I understand they’re changing thieves, and yes it will good in the long run. I’m just tired of ranger players raging hardcore at thief players. It gives other good ranger players a bad name.

I am wondering about this too reading this last few pages. I think rangers maybe just get mad that a off hand dagger thief can negate their pets pretty easily.

I still see many whines about thieves in scenario’s in 1v3’s etc and I can never take a argument about a thieves damage seriously anymore since I started playing warrior. The damage I do on my warrior is crazy and I can pop it pretty much every 10 secs, compared to my thief and warrior can run full glass and get away with it wayyy more than a thief can. Its built into the traits.

+200 toughness when you are chilled, immobilized, cripple no cooldown(trait) +90 toughness just for having a shield (trait) 80 toughness just equipping dolyak signet, endure pain, stability activated if your hit with any cc effects and the larger health pool. Mobility is less than a thief and I would say tied with a ele(depending on your weapons and traits)

I bet most of this thread is a lot of people all agreeing with each other lol that don’t understand that the impact of this nerf is slight especially to aggressive thieves.

I didn’t even know people still stood around long enough to get chained CnD

Stiv.1820:

We will still have the same stealth as before if you were actually killing somebody. The only real nerf to my play-style is I can no longer go for a steal-stab then choose to back off and do BP^HS^Mug^BS as soon as stealth wears off.

The changes sound like:

No non stacked chain stealth (not going to effect refuge, he clearly said when you exist stealth and used the C&D spam example)
Mug dmg reduction or removal
More mobility
Anti boon mechanics

Mobility is just as powerful as stealth. They want us to be more mobile than Eles and we will still have the same combat stealth as before. If you were fighting to kill someone you won’t even notice the changes and now when we do run, no one will be able to keep up. All the while they want us to be able to slice thru boon tanks like butter. Sounds ok to me.

I think if you are an aggressive thief that knows when to get back off you wont really notice a difference. There will be some adjustments for all thieves it just depended on your playstyle.

I never really zerg surfed. Most of the time I would hop in to kill someone and before anyone could react reveal was over anyway and I could restealth. Im on the same page it sound fine to me honestly.

If I had to choose between the ridiculous suggestion I seen in these forums (damage break stealth rofl) and this I’m ok with this.

People can still be trolled and that is what is important!

teg.1340:

Or you can just throw away your full GC build and pick up some soldiers/knights gear, like every other profession in this game.

Yea I have 5 pieces of soldier armor on my thief. My shoulders are valk. I don’t know if I would recommend going to 6 pieces or adding anymore than what I have honestly. At that point you give up to much damage. I even have pvt dagger since its legendary. It works I have decent numbers but I think I am borderline.

Daecollo.9578:

oZii.2864:

its not that big of a deal, you just have to know when to get out now cant really stay inside 2-3 people etc and CnD.

Just think for a second stop panicking people rofl.

If reveal buff is applied once you come out of stealth you just have to now be a bit more careful when you decide to come out. That doesnt mean you can’t still stack it (see d/p) if you let your stealth wear off then that means you decided to attack or back off a bit. This is hardly game breaking lol.

This hurts off hand dagger builds more than it hurts D/P thieves.

EXITING STEALTH DOESN’T MEAN WE CAN’T STILL STACK IT

Dat caps for the over reactors lol.

D/P thieves don’t really do damage…

Its not like cloak and dagger will stop doing damage during reveal buff.

its not that big of a deal, you just have to know when to get out now cant really stay inside 2-3 people etc and CnD.

Just think for a second stop panicking people rofl.

If reveal buff is applied once you come out of stealth you just have to now be a bit more careful when you decide to come out. That doesnt mean you can’t still stack it (see d/p) if you let your stealth wear off then that means you decided to attack or back off a bit. This is hardly game breaking lol.

This hurts off hand dagger builds more than it hurts D/P thieves.

EXITING STEALTH DOESN’T MEAN WE CAN’T STILL STACK IT

Dat caps for the over reactors lol.

Sifu.6527:

I watched the entire video and paid close attention to the discussion on thief.

It sounds like the Dev, and in particular Karl, really don’t know what a thief really does nor have any real plans to tune them. He sounds like he was beating around the bush just to pass time to move on to the next class.

He said “Infil Strike gives thief massive distance mobility.” I don’t consider 600 range “massive” distance. Maybe he was referring to Shadow Return but how can a Dev that is in charge of class balancing mix the two skills? Nor did he mention that Shadow Return is buggy and is only reliable on a flat/horizontal surface. I’m not too comfortable with him in charge…

From what I got in the panel was that the devs have certain classes they kind of oversee in a sense. Then they come together to talk about how they balance it etc. Test and watch, I think Karl could have talked about everything but host was pressing time. He said any questions just ask and he can answer but they where pressing time.

Daecollo.9578:

Destroying the two classes only builds with one change, great suggestions. Now nobody will have a reason to roll thief and we can all make Guardians/Eles/Mesmers.

And warriors

Just watched the whole thing doesn’t seem that bad really. Hopefully quiets down the QQ’s now.

We can still pick and chose our targets still break combat and added mobility to other weapon sets so sb won’t be as required(don’t feel it is but in tPvP it is as roamer)

I’m cool with this change have to be a bit more careful with trolling but can still troll.

link http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/377719641

30:37 is where they start talking about class balance elementalist is first thief is 7 warrior is last profession. Digging now

See turtle defense that adds +200 toughness when you are crippled chilled stunned or immobilze. There is no cooldown on that its during the duration of those conditions.

Movement skills break immobilize.

These 2 traits right here pretty much make sure you can’t lock a warrior down easy.

I am running Avliss Balanced build I only have 3 pieces of PvT gear and I have more armor than my thief with 5 pieces of pvt gear

0/20/30/0/20 GS/Axe shield.

Your argument about your stun breaks is on your mesmer which has the most stun breaks in the game more than any other class. While a warrior might be easy to kite there is nothing you can do to stop him from running away either.

Like stiv said I do the same as him and chase thieves to kill. Its so easy and predictable because most assume you don’t know how to play. I assume that when I am on my thief and I assume it still against other Thieves when I am on my warrior.

1 of the weaknesses I will say of warriors is the condi removal doesnt match thieves.

Its so easy I can’t even lie to be honest. I know every off hand thief wants to clock and dagger so I will use up my block from shield at the very beginning of the fight so they waste a Clock and dagger and they see me blocking and they still try rofl. This just lets you know how many people don’t know about other classes which is just ignorance and not OP. People will only learn about other classes until they are forced to i.e. dying to it to much or rolling a alt.

My Warrior has only been 80 for 3 days and I havent found a thief yet I thought was a problem.

I chased a D/P thief with sb the other day. Caught up to her NP thats what people don’t seem to get that some of us have been preaching is that in order for a thief to get away they blow ini.

When I saw the D/P thief with sb we engaged a bit and when she felt some of that cold steel of the great sword she got out of dodge. Perfect time to test warrior mobility. The only time I couldnt close was when my swiftness wasnt up. Other than that with abilities i run anyway I caught up to her. I knew after 2 infil arrows she was pretty much out of ini. Bull charge time blow a roll. Wirlwind blow a roll. Swap to axe shield, hyrdomancy sigil activated eat this eviserate. Shadow refuge? —>> Fear me!! Good bye game over. Its so easy really I cant lie. Baslisks venom just gives me +200 toughness ok Ill take that. My hydromancy sigil gives me a 3 sec chill and free 2.5k attack everyy 9 secs.

I don’t know I still think I am not very good with my warrior but thieves are easy to kill for me. Mesmers give me a little bit more trouble now just because of confusion and D/D eles though I watch a warrior with a bow and gs wreck a d/d ele in duel. Just normal roaming I can easily make ele’s RTL away its not really hard.

If a thief runs away from me then it is just a matter of perspective on who won that engagement. To me I won to them they might think they won. There was no judge, or jury for that fight so its just perspective. I know thieves are the best at getting away so it is what it is you just have to accept that unless its a duel then it doesn’t matter does it? If it is a dual then its just for kitten.

I thought Columba played a guardian? Will watch this when I get home

I’m playing my warrior now at level 80 and the damage my warrior does laughs at thief damage seriously.

Playing the 2 classes with highest possible damage. The warrior gets away with glass cannon way more than a thief it has traits so you can do that.

I have 2.6k armor on my warrior, 2.1k power, 56% crit chance, 65% at level 3 adrenaline, and 97% crit damage. With 20.7k hip rofl that blows my thief out the water.

The one thing the thief has over warrior is just the fact that you dictate if the fight is going to happen or not and can disengage easier than any other class.

With that said my warriors mobility is fine with 30 secs of swiftness every 48 seconds so only 18 secs that I don’t have swiftness. I have no mobility issues and I don’t run war horn.

These arguments of dodges etc and that you can see attacks are silly. Of course you can’t see everything a person that is invisible but unless you are running some super dodge build you have no way to dodge everything.

I can 7k-9k eviscerate every 10 secs. 100bs every 8, whirlwind every 12, a bola pretty much will let you hit a full 100bs without frenzy provided they have no stun breakers.

The only high damage skill I have found that is hard to land is 100bs without frenzy. A shield, bash, bull rush, hydro many sigil easily help with that problem.

A person who is thinking is going to make you blow CDs no matter the class I do it on my thief and I do it on my warrior now. So what am I saying ? Thief is fine and I love warrior too!!

Sooo my fellow thieves I got my warrior to level 80 2 days ago. He is kitted in full exotics even has a legendary already since I transmutated it from my mesmer (find boring) to the warrior. Its alot of fun and gives me more perspective.

Thieves no problem its so easy to kill thieves since I know how they play. All the tools are there for a warrior to kill a thief easy. Dat turtle defense +200 toughness trait baslisks me please!! Endure pain NP. Oh your going into refuge ok eat Fear Me!!!! Eat this whirlwind.

Damage? You gotta be kidding me. I can pump out 7k-9k eviserates every 10 secs pretty much. With a point blank bull rush, and a shield bash, and fear of my 100bs landing eviscerate isn’t overly difficult given its short cooldown.

Iove.3902:

Never put bloodlust on any of you main weapons. You can have it on an extra gets the stacks and take it off for something else and keep the stacks.

words to live by!!

beiberhole.1903:

Auk Fears Fox.4958:

Good luck, fight fair, have fun, and remember that every time you insult someone, a kitten starves somewhere.

Also, awesome start BP.

This kitten is full on Ebay badges… I’m the Char warrior literally stomping your zergs especially in that 9 hour hold Goat did on your hills right after reset. Glad your parents taught you how to wipe…GO BP! xD

Sincerely,
Kitty Bear[Goat]

These posts always make me chuckle.

Hey Im the female, norn ranger, with tattoo on the left side of my face, with red hair and a mystic bow with a sigil of fire on it, and I always use the panther pet around Ogre Camp at 9 p.m. GMT+8 rofl.

I know you seen me before right?

Valk trinkets with ruby orbs is good. For armor you could go knights and the valk trinkets would make up some of that lost HP pool. I personally run 5 piece invaders(pvt) shoulders are valks, valk and zerk weapons, all zerk trinkets.

Puts me at 16,995 hp 2.4k armor, I have 2090 power(no bloodlust stacks) 48% chance to crit(55% from the back or side) and 92 crit damage.

Sigil of paralyzation(a must imo) and sigil of fire I have bloodlust to get stacks then switch to fire. Last strike of sword auto can crit for about 3.5k depending on what I am hitting with full stacks. 2.8-3.1k if its a harder target. Cloak and dagger 3.2k-4.5 depends on target also.

I would drop some of that health. 18,285 is really high for a S/D thief and you wont be really doing any damage. I don’t know what your traits are though. Get some more crit damage and crit chance. (ruby orbs 120 power, 4% crit chance give or take, 12 crit damage) or you can get 165 power and 100 precision from rune of the pack. Alot of people roll with scholar and they are the best damage you can get over 90% so thats up to you to decide if you stay that high often. I dont run them personally I was running pack runes now I run ruby orbs. For how you are set up if you really want that much health get runes of the pack for the extra 5% crit chance at least.

Sebrent.3625:

@KitKat:
If you’ve ever used Mesmer’s Scepter’s block, Mesmer’s OH Sword’s block, Warrior’s Mace’s block, or Warrior’s OH Sword’s block then I don’t think you’d say that. These aren’t just skills you press and magic happens. They are best used to counter your opponents big hits. For example, when I block a warrior’s eviscerate with OH Sword (I run this a lot) I mitigate a large chunk of damage, do a large chunk do them, and summon a clone. It’s game changing by timing a 2 second block that goes away after you block one thing. It requires skill to use to its full potential.

More importantly, it is a visible skill.

@Kazuhiro:
Just sounds like learning the timing for flanking strike, though admittedly I’m not very good with Thief sword. Don’t play thief enough and that weapons requires skill.

Death Blossom is not easy mode because it doesn’t really chase the target the way heartseeker does and can’t be spammed nearly as much since it costs almost twice as much initiative. Furthermore, it doesn’t do good damage scaled to great damage as the target gets weaker. Finally, its condition damage can be countered with condition removal, so if you just spam it till you’re out of initiative, your opponent is going to just cleanse and laugh.

You are probably the only person that thinks Death Blossom is some move that requires skill. You just press it when people are close thats all. This game isn’t very hard and MMO’s aren’t like a fighting game or something. Its about how you use those tools. Condition duration is how you reduce the effectiveness of cleansing at 75% duration 3 stacks of bleeds for 15 seconds it doesn’t matter if they cleanse that is why d/d and p/d work so well because unless you have active condition removal you can just apply one condition (bleeds) and kill most people. Only bunker guardians, elementalists, and other thieves with the remove condition trait really are the ones that laugh at bleed thieves even then all you need is caltrops to deal with a d/d ele since they can’t even come inside the circle to attack unless they want alot of stacks of bleeds.

D/D bleed thieves aren’t really that good unless its pve anyway or p/d thieves run it as an offset to P/D. Other than that in a burst build death blossom is like one of the last things anyone spends initiative on if they even use it at all. In condition build the prime time for deathblossom is when someone is down same goes for caltrops and people try to rez.

Your idea of blocking skills on a thief with different weapon sets isn’t a bad idea but thats really some future expansion thing if it would ever even happen. It definitely isn’t happening in this version of GW2.

The difference between 1150 condition damage and 1300 condition isn’t really alot as far as the numbers you will see. The formula is on the wiki to see how much condi damage your bleeds will do.

1150 is 100 damage bleed
1310 is 108 damage bleed
1410 is 113 damage bleed

P/D is all about duration 75% bleed duration is a good number to shoot for. With stacks of might your numbers go up as the fight goes on. Just shoot for around 100 damage bleed and pump whatever else into something else you want.

I think thieves guild would be better I am not sure how it works with lyssa runes though. My guess is on cast as that is how mad king runes work with thieves guild. Your still getting stability from lyssa and the thieves provide good distraction and blinds. Maybe swap out the shortbow for something/offhand dagger.

This is really ini heavy with sb and s/p. Other wise it looks good in a group setting if its solo roam don’t know how well this would work.

I can see this working decent without haste to land pistol whips if your enemy has blow dodges and stun breaks etc. 13k hp is to low for me though I know you have the extra tough from knights but I have 2.4k armor and almost 16,995 hp with my setup. I don’t run S/P though.

Runes eagle, ogre, scholar, pack looks like they would be better. Unless you really want the condition duration for your infiltrator strike from sword 2. Runes of the pack are very good now that they have been fixed. 165 power and 100 precision and 5% chance to get fury might and swiftness for 5 secs when struck. The swiftness will last about 8 secs. It procs very often there is a 10 sec cooldown but if you think about it that you get those boons for at least 5 secs it isnt very long and fury stacks duration anyway. I have had it proc immediately after the swiftness wears off.

Sifu.6527:

danbuter.2314:

I like the pistol/pistol thief from the rp and animations aspect, but it seems that it won’t hold up compared to other builds. Is there a recommended build for p/p?

Are there certain skills that really help it out?
thanks

P/P is awesome in duels.

It beats P/D, S/D, S/P, SB, D/D, etc you name it.

But WvW isn’t about duel and you really need a weapon set that allows you to be flexible. P/P isn’t that.

Really? if your dueling full glass when you blow the load then I can see. I never had a problem with P/P. Its so front loaded that after the initial burst is avoided they are basically naked and ripe for the taking. Just speaking from my experience against P/P thieves I always see them as free kills. Always the same openimg and dump most if not all of their damage. If it fails then Hide in shadows is almost always a certain after that.

Battou.7832:

Probably because we already have access to stealth with black powder and heartseeker. I find Withdraw to me much more useful in WvW for getting me out of bad situations. I also use blinding powder, and with the shadow rejuv and shadow protector traits, this effectively turns blinding powder into an mini instant hide in the shadows. High five for having dang near the same build as mine.

I might give it another test run to see if I like it over HIS, 15 sec is good with the immob and cripple and chill recovery. I run the same utilities, shadowstep, refuge and blinding powder I gave up SoS a while ago fleet shadows really helps giving it up.

As far as the rest of this thread I don’t even know what is going on. I am so are people happy or upset about the match?

I personally like this matchup I could care less if it was tier 1 or tier 4 it’s competitive and thats what matters at the end of the day. I think that is what the majority of the people that play WvW want a balanced competitive matchup. BP taking the lead adds intensity and surprise and suspense. If you really are upset about some adversity because BP took the lead then you could just join a server that you know will always be in first. Its what alot of people in tier 1 do jump to whatever server is number 1 just so they can say they are on the number 1 server.

I am sure there are other servers above us in higher tiers that envy a close competitve matchup where there is no predetermined victor and there is a element of surprise embrace it. This is honesty what WvW is suppose to be about.

Look forward to more close matchups like this.

I notice many D/P thieves use withdraw I still use HIS. With the infusion of shadow trait I don’t see why you would want to take withdraw over HIS.

I run 0/20/30/20/0/0 16,995 hp. I take side strikes and practice tolernace in crit tree. The normal traits in shadow arts, in acro I take fleet shadow and quick recovery. I get about 6-7k backstab crits with 25bloodlust stacks if its a lowbie I get an occasional 9k or 10k but the 10k has only came once.

Why do some of you prefer withdraw over HIS? I feel like if your running infusion of shadow that HIS is a no brainer I have tried withdraw but I feel like HIS is better with D/P.

I did take critical haste as I like that trait but it was more for S/D(other weaponset) than d/p but dropped it since I feel like if I am not hitting someone from the back or side I am doing it wrong so side strikes is much better for me.

There was a build posted here for 30+ fractals using P/P have to search for it though probably a few pages back.

Laika.8795:

The pathing is a circle on a target that is immobilized, standing still.

When your target is moving, you’ll veer off to the right and out of range, no matter how close.

Especially in the context of this discussion, that is a major problem, when you can’t strip stability on a target that is running around like someone mainlining PCP.

The second hit missing, I could care less. If it was garunteed, it would be too powerful. But honestly, the first strike should occur BEFORE you roll like a kitten ape on a tangential direction.

So something like the first strike happens as a semi quick melee attack and then the evasion part with the second strike. I can get behind this actually.

Was the original OP deleted to something. From the first post it looks like a response to someone else?

Svarty.8019:

A laughably optimistic perspective, for sure. I wonder what you might consider a buff – perhaps a little buff to defense in exchange for some stealth nerfs, as mentioned above? I expect and hope we’ll see the thief changed into another type of combatant – something I believe that Arenanet desire also, hence the creation of this thread. Current thief gameplay is a big issue.

His perspective is more spot on than your assertion that they will change nerf stealth at all even citing the live stream where they said people just aren’t use to stealth. This thread is 3 months old the thief hasn’t received anything but buffs since this thread was created.

Many people asked for buffs to pistols though it isn’t what people wanted they still got 10% damage buff for pistols, and a buff to richochet and ankle shots. Shadow shot buffed. Fleet shadow buff. I could keep going.

This thread is for feedback not a nerf thread cause you don’t like how the class plays or that it has stealth.

Sebrent.3625:

oZii.2864:

There was no agreement lol. I don’t know her I stayed cause I wanted to.

Really? That’s not what you said earlier …

Its a 1v1 thats what matters right? I can’t leave the area because of the out of bounds we agreed on before we fought.

oZii.2864:

I did no damage and barely tickled her. Do you even know how D/P plays? I used the skills your suppose to in D/P. I am also a robot with faster reflexes than humans so I could have easily dodge rolled the bull charge at point blank range.

Take a look at Osicat play her Mesmer. She blinks out of that combo much quicker than you did. Blink’s teleport works the same as Shadowstep in how the initial teleport works.

Also, if you look at the video, @10:36 she casts bull’s charge and @10:37 is when it ends and you’re on the ground eating damage. I assume a bug in bull’s charge that you didn’t take advantage of because you had already wasted dodge rolls on auto-attacks. You finally shadowstep away @10:39. Perhaps it was late and you were tired but eating 3 seconds of frenzy’d attacks is only the player’s fault, not any limitation of their class.

We should balance around Osicait Mesmer gameplay in the thief feedback thread. rofl. Please tell us more about Osicait’s mesmer gameplay and her gear so we can build our thieves like that instead of going squishy.

I am all ears.

Yes those 3 seconds of eating frenzied autos made the fight when I still had a heal and I was only at half life. Which proves? Right I don’t know what you were getting at there but ok. What was the point of that part of the post? Nothing thanks for finally paying attention to the video though.

If I didn’t eat those 3 secs of frenzied auto attack I would probably see the light that tanky thief works.

Sebrent.3625:

You dodge rolled twice for avoid auto-attacks and then got Bull Charged + Frenzied + Axe Auto-attacked … perhaps you should save your dodge rolls for non-auto attacks.

It doesn’t prove anything about whether or not a tanky thief works since you weren’t making good use of your active defenses with your stats. If you hadn’t been wearing that, you’d have died to the frenzy burst. If you had successfully avoided that burst then you’d have had an upper-hand in that fight since she had to pop a 40 sec and 60 sec cooldown.

That fight largely boiled down to proving that it was decided by that one instance as the rest of the fight is you trying to recover from that point but being unable to because the Thief ability to easily escape and reset a fight was removed from you by your agreement with the warrior. Had no agreement been made you simply would’ve reset the fight and combat back … likely before bull’s charge and frenzy were off cooldown.

There was no agreement lol. I don’t know her I stayed cause I wanted to. I did no damage and barely tickled her. Do you even know how D/P plays? I used the skills your suppose to in D/P. I am also a robot with faster reflexes than humans so I could have easily dodge rolled the bull charge at point blank range. Thats why I used the stun breaker when I got hit with the bulls charge.

What are you talking about I didn’t make use of my active defenses with my stats? Should I have took the Turtle defense +200 defense trait when under the effects of CC in the defense tree? Or the deny pain when I reach 25% health are those the active defenses your talking about because I used the ones a thief has.

You don’t make sense at all. Black powder, headshot, shadow step, feline grace, stealth all used in that video. It proves that if your rolling thief, tanky is out of the equation(unless you want to troll) because you just can’t mix it up with another class.

It proves that tanky thief doesn’t work, gotta engage don’t know if it works if I just stealth around her. I could do that in other gear. If I was just going to stealth around her and pick my spots I would have ran what I run now. Since I have that tanky stuff like black powder, vigor, dodge rolls, and regen. How do I know how effective I am if I don’t get in there and fight it out with her?

I posted the video to show a tanky thief. If i was to do what you are suggesting then there is not point in rolling tanky thief then I roll with more damage and a bit less survivability.

Which I determined after that day tanky thief isn’t effective. Why I now have full zerker trinkets and backpiece, zerk and valk weapons. So call it what you want to fit the agenda the video was posted to show a tanky thief using your suggestions that it is viable I knew about that video for a while I don’t even know that person I found it actually researching Warrior stuff as I am leveling one. I had everything you suggested except knights armor. This was me not rolling(squishy) it works for trolling but not effective to kill.

So using your suggestion now to tailor fit the argument your saying I should have stayed away stalled, wait for cooldowns do normal thief stuff? Ok so we agree thief is fine as is.

Thanks for playing

Sebrent.3625:

@Maug: I’m not trying to argue that a Thief can place protection, etc. on themselves and block like a madman. I’m saying that they can be tanky through use of something like Knight’s gear, stealth, and evasion (both dodge rolls and weapon skills if applicable). For example, I know several thieves like to take the blind-on-stealth trait to help in this department.

@oZii: If you’re behind and her stuff is not even on cooldown, waiting for your cooldowns doesn’t put you any farther behind. She wasn’t waiting on cooldowns so any time in the fight that you are getting yours back was only in your favor.

Secondly, you shadow stepped back for what reason? Open your eyes and realize shadow stepping into her axe is a bad idea. That’d be like me blinking away on the mesmer only to swap right back next to the warrior when I want to buy some time for cooldowns … doesn’t make much sense.

Third, you’ve often said, duels don’t mean anything, so why are you trying to show yourself failing horribly at a duel to try to prove a point?

Fourth, that axe arc is only in the front 180.

@Sebrent Last one watch the video get glasses or something she was moving toward where I healed shadow stepping back to behind her is where a thief wants to be. She saw the circle disappear she knew I was around. I don’t know why I explained that to a person that has a thief but ok. I posted the duel because that is what you seem to care about in your post how Thieves can do this vs Other classes but other classes can’t do this. Thats why you compare abilities alot, or say things like a thief can reset but X class can’t. It always boils down to a thief ability vs a mesmer or whatever classes ability to compare. So why not speak your language. I still believe duels don’t matter but I did say I find them fun.

One of your posts was: If a thief is losing he can leave if a ranger is losing he dies.

@columba Ahh the people in your guild say its OP’d that must make it so!

Columba.9730:

Fox guarding the henhouse IMHO, I can trot out videos showing myself getting destroyed via bad play too.

Or I can post a video of me on my mesmer outnumbered beating people. I can also post a video of me trolling 5 people and you agree its ridiculous and that this is why thieves need a nerf, then a video of that same day playing against a better player using the same build and dying. Oh wait that happened.

So tell me columba in which video am I overpowered hmmm? Guess it depends on agenda for the day. Guess we should just dismiss the video as bad play. That works

This reminds me of Call of Duty montages people think what happens there in a good montage happens all the time. If someone posts them getting killed then they are a bad player. Video editing is a myth.

I should make a montage of my best basketball highlights and post, you 2 would believe I could be in the NBA.

I wasn’t able to get behind her because she kept moving and swinging. You know warrior axe has a nice arc to its swing right? Notice how I shadow step heal then shadow step back. She obviously knows how a thief plays because she saw the ring disappear.

Like I said I could have stay outside not trying to attack not attacking her does 2 things allows me to stall so my cooldowns come back up and her cooldowns come back up. There for its a draw no victor. She played it right obviously experienced kept attacking. When I shadow refuged she knew I was there she didn’t run or stand there, she still had the number 5 skill available to block damage she didn’t even pop it and she still had endure pain. She was ahead pretty much the whole fight.

So if I stayed away from her what would have changed? Nothing since she still had a get out jail card in shield 5 and endure pain. The big damage came from bull rush frenzy with auto attack, which she used after I dodge roll 2 times to avoid her auto attack melee.

Now that I see you don’t know how to watch a video either I am done here lol. Well not in this thread just replying to you.

You mean the points that you twist to fit your own agenda like me saying that a thief with S/P in knights gear is basically a warrior with crappy damage. Is the same as knight gear does no damage?

Nah I’m good I don’t enjoy talking in circles you do though. Thighs backed me up because he can read.

Its a 1v1 thats what matters right? I can’t leave the area because of the out of bounds we agreed on before we fought. I could have trolled her sure like I did the 4 or 5 people in the other video but actual fight engaged(proving that I was trying) nah man. Gotta try to land those backstabs and do damage. Cause I was tanky build don’t know if it works unless I test it.

I bet if I moved farther away from her the outcome of that video would have been my victory as the damage I was doing was really good. I probably should have switched to S/D that would have really messed her up. Mixing it up with a axe/shield warrior with S/D is definitely the way to go. I would have lost the tanky black powder though.

Gasp you mean to tell me a warrior that knew I take damage in stealth? Im OP I can’t believe it! There is no way that warrior should have known I was going to try to attack her. She should have stood there typing in guild chat or something. I bet if I spammed heartseeker I would have won.

I bet that warrior knows my stealth timer is about 2-3 seconds. I wonder what the odds are she knows how a thief plays. Hmmm

Sebrent.3625:

(1) “Yay”, I can’t wait to see more of you intentionally playing like garbage to try to “prove” a point … but you linked the wrong video

(2) Warrior’s don’t have access to protection, just like Thieves, yet you hold them up as being able to be tanky. I’ve shown that they can get only 7% more mitigation. What is allowing them to be tanky that you can’t do? By your definition, it can’t be Endure Pain (90 sec cooldown btw) which is akin to Mesmer distortion (though inferior!)

(3) Simply having a boon at random times isn’t the same as having near 100% up-time on it.

(4) Having things and not using them correctly proves nothing. Otherwise I could “prove” that Bull’s Charge + Frenzy + Hundred blades “doesn’t do anything scary”.

1) Wasn’t playing like garbage was actually trying to fight that warrior. Notice how my tanky black powder didnt work because she kept swings staying outside of the ring?

3) l2p statement: cause you know theives we don’t have a vigor button, regen button lol I have 20 points in acro I guess I should have gotten 2x water, 2x sanctuary, 2x monk runes for my build huh? rofl

4) guess I should have used knight there for less power that would have been smart.

New build folks if you dont run 2x water, 2x sanctuary, 2x monk you are doing it wrong in your thief builds!! Gotta try to maintain that boon uptime!! thieves all about boon uptime!!

New build tanky thief build. I have 20k hp all soldier gear. I had 20 points in critical strikes. 30points in Shadow arts, 20 points acro. The trinkets where valkeryie with knights jewels!

skip to 10:26 thats me fighting a warrior notice how effective I am. The amount of damage I am doing is insane. Notice the interrupts(tanky), black powder(tanky) stealth(tanky). At 10:47 I have tanky boons like vigor(vigor on heal), regen(was running pain response and shadow protector)

Note to Sebrent: This was the same thing I was running against these guys here it was the same day that NNK warrior switched to Magumma to scout our servers NNK is on Dragonbrand

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ArWxfaeeYu4

Game set match. The difference between 1 skilled warrior and 3-4 not very good players is astonishing. If you notice at the end of the video I was just standing there because I watched her demolishing people from Maguuma 1v1, 1v2’s

Ok Ill go prepare my black powder, dodge roll tank build because not getting hit is the new definition of tanky rofl.

Vigor=Tanky(next time I am being hit with blurred frenzy I’ll simply pop vigor)
Regen=Tanky(gonna go spec that healing power call it the medic thief)
Dodge=Tanky(nothing to be said here avoidance =tanky)
Blind=tanky definitely against fast multi hit attacks (100 blades? No worries just blind field that)

Ok I got it thanks for the tips on builds lol.

That is not tankiness, You aren’t taking damage how are you tanking anything? We only dodge roll more than other classes if we put 15 points into acrobatics or use signet of agility to get all the endurance back after its depleted. It just doesn’t happen because we want to lol.

Evasion tankiness, tank or anything else associated with that word when it comes to MMO. Evasion is Evasion, interrupts are interrupts.

You aren’t tanky because you avoided damage that doesn’t even make sense lol. So a glass cannon carrion necro is tanky because he dodged a attack?

You just make this up as you go along it looks like to fit your needs.

So now avoidance=tanky. Please point me to a tanky build based on dodge rolls, and damage avoidance? Distortion is a skill you have no matter if you built tanky or not but you have to build tanky to begin with for the build to be considered tanky. Not because you have 1 f4 skill and blurred frenzy lol.

Is a glass cannon warrior tanky because he has endure pain? get real

That is how you interpret it I never said knight’s gear doesn’t do damage. Given the weapon set of P/P and S/P and Bow you become a warrior with crappy damage. How did you interpret that as knights gear doesn’t do damage?

How is it a example of straw man when I brought up S/P and knights gear not replying to you? In order to effectively gauge how well a thief can be tanky you have to you know take damage? That is why I said S/P, P/P, and Bow those are the weapon sets that don’t rely on stealth for big damage. Using stealth is not tanking damage that is avoidance. That isn’t straw man at all.

Silver.4798:

I guess this is a good thread to talk about this, I’m not entirely sure how D/P is generally played but I’m trying to “spice things up” taking the general BS thief build and try to apply it to D/P.

Most attractive feature to me of D/P over D/D (even though I’m running the same 0/30/30/10/0 build a D/D thief would use) is a lot more reliable stealth off of BP + HS, 100% stealth guaranteed. CnD requires me to hit things, which often doesn’t happen at the critical juncture that I NEED to stealth, because my luck is awful.

I just had a few hours to test this last night, I’ll do more tonight, but I’m finding quickly that I’m burning through initiative at a rapid rate in comparison to CnD. It got me to thinking that maybe I’ll use the guaranteed stealth as a utility rather than the primary means of damage output.

Which brings my n00b question, wth is the primary damage output of a D/P build?

Backstab is your big damage but auto attack is the meat bread and butter. Some thieves run D/P spamming the stealth just to get backstabs over and over again. Against a decent player it doesn’t work since they are constantly moving/dodging etc.

It also depends on what your fighting. This is how I usually play D/P

Say hammer warrior or guardian then you can afford to mix it up a little with them via black powder since they attack slow with hammer. Blackpowder pulses every second. You put it down and go toe to toe (for a little bit) until they realize its blind field and back off.

Mesmers try to stay away from you so you kind of want to chip them down. With some backstabs and auto attacks, wait for the heal or mass invis headshot, then go for the kill.

D/D ele switch to another weaponset

Ranger you can do work with d/p if they are using bow but its a bit harder and they can easily interrupt your bp/hs combo. I switch to S/D for them same as I do for Ele’s

Warriors with greatsword I switch to S/D after they have burned the 100bs and bullcharge up.

Theives black powder auto attack works lovely against other thieves.

Necro switch to something else I go S/D for them to interrupt deathshroud life steal spam, and well casting. They can interrupt D/P pretty easily if they have a staff.

Engi D/P to open S/D rest of the fight.

Pretty much D/P to open and S/D the rest of the fight. Get in trouble or escape time switch to D/P. Pretty much thieves and guardians are probably the 2 classes where I stay with D/P the majority of the time. If I am trolling then D/P

off hand sword would be good.

A staff hmmm that could be cool actually very acrobatic like.