Guild Wars 2

MrForz.1953:

I want to see some other classes doing the same.

That shouldn’t be hard to do. He is with a D/D ele the whole video. Picks off some underleveleds or people that strayed from what looks like a 6 man zerg(if you call that a zerg). I can’t see why you couldn’t the same kill count on another class in the scenario’s in this video.

Eduardo.4675:

In a build with 50% crit chance, sigil of air is better than sigil of force. Much better. 50% guarantees that it triggers twice every ten secs. In a build with lots of power/crit dmg, as usually are the builds with 50% crit chance, sigil of air gives you easily 1.5k dmg per hit, or 3k every ten secs. For sigil of force to be that powerful, you will need to do 60K dmg every 10 secs, so that a 5% increase will result in added 3k dmg. I dont really think you can do 60K dmg every ten seconds. Even if the target you are hiting as sindrome of down+cerebral palsy. That would mean 6k DPS. A sword autoattack chain (which is the most dmging part of the set, if you discount flanking strike, as most do) takes 2.4 secs to complete, and is nowhere near doing around 14.4K total dmg on a regular basis. So, in light of this very magical evidence, i use paralize sigil + air.

Thanks for the post. Love posts like these much appreciated gives good food for thought. Another question for you is if you had sigil of fire on a 1h weapon what would you put on the other force seems to be the most common choice I see people go with that or accuracy.

Fred Fargone.3127:

The way I see it,
we have conditions, and we have condition removals,
we got buffs, and we got debuffs,
we got stealth, and we got… Apples?
How about some stealth removing mechanism? For example, if you burn a thief, well, a human torch shouldn’t even be able to stealth. If you lodge your sword between his ribs, how can you not tell he is there? If you’re a mesmer… stealth is a type of illusion (right?) so surely a mesmer needs some counter skill for that, they’re the masters of illusion after all!

We got immune and we got Grapes?

We got invulnerable and we got Watermelon.

You can’t apply real world logic about burning and bleeding I am sure you can see why.

Stiv.1820:

I do para/force. I’m not a fan of randomness and also recently decided I didn’t like stacking either, I’m just too lazy and want to be at full power when I first step out to WvW. Also for places like the JP where you can’t pre-stack.

I guess the question for impact is does Daze = Stun? Still, force gives you 5% at all times so I like that. Basically half stack of bloodlust at all times with no effort.

Hmm that is true usually daze counts as stunned in this game. Have to do some digging around on that. Yea force is really good. I am the same with randomness but it does proc pretty often I may give force a go though.

Dico.4815:

Thank you guys for the opinions. I am using S/D and P/P and I am really loving this combination for 1vs1, I know that WvW is not 1vs1 so when I run with my zerg guildies I swap to S/D Shortbow, simple and effective.
I saw that the rune of mesmer gives 33% daze duration and with para sigil my daze will be 4seconds but it worth lose alot of critical dmg for 1second more of daze ( ruby / beryl ) ?

you go one or the other they don’t stack. I prefer the sigil over the runes personally.

stof.9341:

Half the traps are fine. The rest (the knockdown an the root+poison one) only need to be able to affect more than one target per usage.

Say, like the trap doesn’t get removed when it triggers but instead recharges one second later ready to trip or immobilize the next player that comes through them again.

Yea something like residual venom type of trait but mixed in with master trapper. I agree those are the only traps that should affect an extra person.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

But while roaming it’s rly not that “silly” to run without SB. The mobility is compensated with heartseeker and infiltrator’s strike.

Pretty much this. I dont even run SoS anymore. There was a good post here that compared travel with Heartseeker and SB and it was pretty even. If your running SoS you actually hurt your mobility with the SB since your maybe shadowstepping 600 units.

I have 3 different bows for the different builds I run but really I go d/p and S/D. D/P is really good against guardians with hammers and GS because of black powder. Most people stay in the black powder for some reason o.O.

Since I run D/P I don’t run D/D since its pretty much the same except for the cloak and dagger burst but my shadow shot hits for about 2.2k on crit has a 5 sec blind and gap closer yes please.

I love S/D though its really good not much to say about it except its really good.

Also if anyone didn’t know if you put on baslisk venom then flanking strike a target with stability, the stability is ripped first then the venom is applied. Love baslisks those dagger storming thieves lol

If you are p/d condi camp is no problem with caltrops but if you are glassy its a bit more difficult compared. If its fully upgraded I call for back up when I am damage build because even if you do take them down they respawn so you could be there a while. P/D condi still doable.

I usually switch to signet of malice and dagger storm to start. Take out scouts first then guards. Thats why cals are good since you drop them on scouts and work guards over. Then back to scouts but scouts are really the only thing that make the camp semi hard to take with the blind field you can’t see and cripples

On my S/D setup I run paralyzation because I feel its a no brainer to run that in WvW. I was looking at sigil of impact currently I run Para and Fire but was thinking about sigil of impact. Fire is about 9% damage increase but impact as far as I know has no cooldown on it so could be worth it for that extra damage.

What do you guys run on yours and has anyone tested sigil of impact in S/D?

ensoriki.5789:

Back to actual issues.
Acrobatics could use some work

Master Trapper- With all of our traits now functioning, this trait is still rather underwhelming. This could just be the current state of certain traps, and whether they’re made more enticing to trait for.

Assassin’s retreat. Should consider merging this with something or changing the kill clause or the duration of swiftness you get. It’s quite pve centric even considering WvW atm. If this was part of Fleet of Foot, man it might look more appealing.

Assassin’s Reward. It’s a weak trait, that is fairly niche as a result.
Pain Response – Wonky/clunky, whatever the word is.

Hard to Catch – I don’t want to say it’s terrible, but it can be fairly unintuitive. You stay stunned. So if it’s a ranged based attack on you? This does nothing really but give you swiftness while you stay stunned. Shoddy. To be more precise, the trait often does not fulfill what it should do, when it’s off-recharge, which is make you harder to catch, because it does not stunbreak, and because giving Swiftness itself is not a remedy for escape. This is rivaling every other acrobatics trait, and Quick Pockets. The other’s are generally a more consistent effect and relatively stronger the majority of the time.

You should also have attacks able to know whether they were sent out when stealthed or not. This would remedy last Refuge by recognizing that the attack was not made in stealth.

Not that I think anet will read this…just venting.

I think traps could use some love maybe effect 2 targets instead of 1. I played around with them but only 1 I really like is shadow trap

Ruggan.4102:

FOR THE LAST TIME… CULLING IS NOT… REPEAT… IS NOT… A THIEF SKILL OR TRAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THERE IS NO BOUND KEY TO THE THIEF SKILL BAR THAT SAYS CULLING, 2 SECOND COOLDOWN, PERMASTEALTH!

Thats Columba man pay no attention

should probably change title to what class gives you most trouble or something like that.

It all depends on what Im running if its P/D then guardians and really bunker eles can be a problem. D/P thieves sometmes too. Fought some kind of really tanky ranger the other day that did damage too. I was running p/d gotta admit he was really tough.

If Im d/p and s/d then trap rangers can be tough if they know what they are doing, necros if they are in their well and actually kite. confusion mesmer can be tough also sometimes.

Scootabuser.4915:

Kravick.4906:

Do sword/dagger. I do dungeons a lot with this weapon combination. I’m curious to see how it stacks up against dagger/dagger. I’m also curious as to what the DPS of just sword auto attack is vs dagger auto attack.

I think I can do that, but you won’t like what I find :X

I would be interested to see Pistol/Pistol

they added new stat combo but its Power, Precision, Condition damage with precision as the main stat. Kind of weird and not overly helpful as P/D thief.

Is OP just the word for strong or good nowadays? I always thought OP meant broken, imbalanced etc.

Guess its like troll someone that disagrees is a troll it seems now.

Sebrent.3625:

I’m aware of the differences in sPvP and WvW, that’s why I mentioned it though. We don’t have the culling issue (usually) in sPvP, but the Thief still has a ridiculous amount of stealth there.

The Moa is a good example of the other thing I’ve been saying about fighting Thieves versus fighting other classes … seeing attack animations.

You can see a Mesmer casting Moa Morph so you have a chance to dodge roll, etc.

You can see a X class cast Y ability, so you have a chance to dodge roll, etc..

You can not see a Thief cast backstab so you have to guess when to dodge roll, etc.

Thats why you cast Moa right after you pop decoy, the attack animation for moa is different depending on the weapon you are holding gs vs s/p. You also don’t blow a major attack like moa on a person that hasn’t blown dodge rolls. You also cast it after magic bullet 2 sec stun with Moa 1 sec cast time.

Constantine.7812:

i see many ppl crying about how thief is weak. its other way around. this is the only character in pvp who can jump in the middle of 20 ppl laugh and disappear. Anet its time to do something about it. i mean boom boom stealth boom boom stealth AND boom boom stealth is not the way….going stealth every 2 seconds while doing huge dmg thats just wrong. everytime i meet thief i feel like an epic fool cuz im chasing ghost. i have nothing against other classes but fighting vs invisible player is not fun to me at all.
to all future posts from ppl playing thief like `lol you are bad` etc. guys, piece. i wouldnt mind if anet would make it up to you by making some skill(s) stronger, but this epic spamable stealth is just too much and i see these thieves making fools out of 5-10 ppl more and more.

Did you even watch the video at all? He barely used stealth to kill people he just walked to half the people and started attack. Like the ranger just chilling at the camp, the engi waking right infront of the camp. Just walks right up to them lol.

Lebannen.8325:

I will say this, Star Wars has a well balanced stealther class. Sith Assassin/Jedi shadow no matter how you spec them Tank/DPS have everything I mentioned. Its fantastic to play a stealther with the thrill of knowing if you screw up, you die.

What? I played Shadow in Star Wars and Bioware nerfed Shadow into the ground because people cared to much about 1v1’s and 1v3’s in hutball. So they nerfed the healing from rock throw etc. They also didn’t allow any type of hybrid specs and kept nerfing those into the ground for all classes, because they wanted you to pretty much go all the way to the top of the tree’s. Also Sniper was the best assassin type in that game for picking people off not a shadow or assassin.

The sniper class is a better comparison to a thief in guild wars 2 than a shadow or assassin. The sniper was better at single target damage than a shadow. The traits and damage modifier i.e. extra damage if target is x health are similar also.

Sebrent.3625:

… it’d also be nice if this culling garbage was fixed … though even in sPvP Thief has an abundance of stealth. I Jumped on my lowbie thief and went in there and in the first 5 minutes I was tearing people up and topping scorecharts. What would kill me the few times I died? Other thieves … unless I killed them first, of course.

sPvP doesn’t equal WvW most people that make the arguement about thieves in sPvP are rabbit and doing hotjoin. When at the top of the leader boards most teams if they have a thief even roll in their squad he is there to help take out bunkers. Just watch a stream of the top QP players running tournaments. You also can’t reach the critical damage numbers in sPvP that you can in WvW. If you where on your mesmer and your running a confusion build and you take that into sPvP your confusion would be doing 200% less damage. That is why you can’t bring sPvP up into a WvW balance discussion its not the same.

I know you play mesmer look at Moa for example. If you where in a group of 5 mesmers all running Moa and came across a group of 5 any class. You could easily destroy all of them with some half way decent voip coordination. 1 CC’s another morphs burst rinse and repeat on all 5 people game set match. I know Moa isn’t as popular anymore since mass invis provides better group utility but I am sure you see how the example plays out.

Sebrent.3625:

Ozii / Sintacs / Sinnacle (same person) …

Winning is that point when it’s all but 100% certain that player X is going to down player Y.

If a Thief feels like he’s losing the fight, he can stealth and get out of their. High mobility + stealth = easy escape. If the Ranger is losing, he has to get away from a high mobility class. If he has sword and greatsword he has a chance, otherwise that thief is much more maneuverable than him and he’s dead.

I know you like your Thief now more than your Mesmer, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t issues with the Thief class, Sinnacle. I don’t want to see thieves “weaker” as then they’ll suck even more in dungeons (though I think that’s largely due to the abundance of bad thieves). Instead, I want to see Thieves a little more on-par with the other classes as far as their risks to rewards.

… it’d also be nice if this culling garbage was fixed … though even in sPvP Thief has an abundance of stealth. I Jumped on my lowbie thief and went in there and in the first 5 minutes I was tearing people up and topping scorecharts. What would kill me the few times I died? Other thieves … unless I killed them first, of course.

Its not 100% certain that a thief is going to kill a ranger if he wants to. Its about Cooldown management at that point. If the ranger has the right cooldowns up he is going to get away and if the thief doesn’t there is nothing he can do to stop him. The same goes both ways. Also like I have said that there is so many variables that there is no way to change this as people want when that isn’t what WvW is about.

Right now in WvW I have 4% Maximum health increase bonus(17,335 hp vs 16,995 with no bonus), 4% healing effective bonus, and 5% endurance regen bonus. If you are ever trying to balance something or even make a argument for balance between X class vs Y class then your going to assume equal skill of both players. Tell me how in the world do you balance given those advantages which are huge if you have 2 players of equal skill? That is why all these arguments are so moot because WvW has so many variables its impossible.

If it was about deathmatch style gamplay arguments would be valid but it just isn’t about that. I get people don’t like dying etc and people have fun killing. That just isn’t what WvW is about. Nobody knows what gear the other person is wearing, who has ascended who doesn’t. Does the ranger have enough money for food buffs? Did his 100 precision and +10 critical damage(same critical damge as 2 1h valk or zerk weapons) and master maintence oils run out before the fight.

I know for myself master maintenance oils and curry butternut squash is 12% critical chance thats almost as much as 25 stacks on a Sigil of Perception(14% critical chance give or take depending on your amount of precision). What your asking for is balance if WvW was about killing people and when it isn’t. If culling is fixed that means as soon as damage is applied by the thief you will see him immediately.

I know fighting Jenson from SM in duels when we fought magumma it was bad. He run P/D and when he would attack with sneak attack all 5 shots would come out but he still wouldn’t render. Many times I had to attack where I saw the bullets coming from even though I didn’t see him. He said the same for me. If I saw him render as soon as the first shot landed from sneak attack that is so much time I have to attack him instead of eating all 5 sneak attack bullets and 2 vital shots. Thats 7 stacks of bleeds. If he rendered immediately I probably would eat 3 at most if my endurance is up.

Thieves are fine just fix culling.

Sebrent.3625:

I amused that Thieves complain about things like well-played trap Rangers. Yes, one of these can kill a good Thief, but only if the Thief decides to not simply disengage.

See what happens here? If the Thief is winning, the Ranger dies. If the Ranger is winning, the Thief simply escapes. The Thief may even try again and again after resetting the fight each time.

If the Ranger is winning then the thief should die. What is exactly winning anyway. More health? Who use their heal first? Who popped elite first? I’d like to know what your winning gauge is exactly.

A ranger can get away if he doesn’t think he will win the fight, he has fear from pet interrupt traps, the thief is going to be coming from the back. If the ranger stayed in the fight to long to escape then that was on him.

Also with this winning criteria let me throw a wrench in there. What if the fight is happening near water? Rofl. If a thief chases a ranger into water he is going to need the power of Grenth and Balthazaar to win that. So many variables this isn’t arena why can’t people get that.

LoneWolfie.1852:

Basilisk poison + backstab, swap weapon set to S/P pistol whip + haste, if you fail immediately cast shadow refuge to regain init and back off. If anything, a full burst damage tends to break any thief you come across.

On 1v1 I use Shadow refuge/Haste/Shadowstep with a combo of Lyssa Runes (where you lose all conditions and gain all buffs) and finalize it with the above combo. It tends to work wonders on low HP players. Do not use this on 1v2, it tends to get ugly very fast.

On 1vX I use Shadow refuge/Blinding powder/Shadowstep, where the focus is on survival.

I use +100 power, + 70 vitality, along with superior sharpening stone, and I use a D/D build, and my base power with food is 3000 along with 80% + burst damage, approximately 16 K hp (because I have 2 legendaries, incinerator and bolt on each weapon set).

In theory, D/P users can try the same combination above (because I tried it with Lyssa runes), but I find that Scholar runes + 1 divinity rune tend to do more damage (also tried this), but in the end the legendary weapons tend to take off too many critical % points to effectively win in a 1v1 battle.

I came up with multiple builds and traits and conclude that D/D offers the best DPS and survivability. D/P has a high focus on survival and you will never kill certain professions, because they can outheal or damage you enough so you can’t get too close.

If you play really well, you can still probably kill 1v1 players with a haste combo with DP/SP too. I fought with multiple thieves players once with Scholar set with D/P and pretty much KOed almost everyone with the haste combo, even when I’m not good at it. The one who didn’t go down kept on ensuring his HP is 80% and above when he fights.

Not a fan of haste at all it is just so all in unless its critical haste. D/P can interrupt the heal and still stay on target with either shadowstepping, heartseeker, or shadow shot (improved shadow shot is really good now) it doesnt hit as hard as cloak and dagger though. I do agree though that say fighting a engi with the Fed Ex elite down is hard if you don’t have ranged not impossible but it is definitely in the Engi’s favor. Thieves guild helps with that though.

What I need to happen is Yaks to tank points (Maguuma style) so that they don’t move up to tier 3 I enjoy this matchup. That is all.

He didn’t even need stealth to open up on half the people there. People just don’t rotate their camera.

Ralathar.7236:

The scary thing is the current thief problem isn’t even good players for the most part. The class is far and away not being used to it’s potential in WvW and is still seen as OP.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

thieves are easy to handle.
no one should be killed withing the first 5 seconds of a thief encounter.

All you got to do is dodge, dodge, stun, stun, immobilize/daze. and if you are not built that way then good for you since you picked a build that actually does something for your server in WvW.

Thieves that are built for the sole purpose of 1v1s in WvW is pointless. Sure a thief can kill a dolyak fast, but so can any other profession.

The only reason why you see people cry about thieves is because people use thieves to do 1v1 ganks. I’m sure any other profession has the same potential gankability.

For instance this quote. People think way too small scale, too short sighted, and too “ermagerd he kilted me”. One of the truly powerful things a thief can contribute to WvW is that a really small number of thieves can SHUT DOWN supplies in a borderlands.

12 Thieves working on the supply camps/yaks of a map pretty much limits a server down to 1-2 possible supply camps even if they guard them. If they bring enough to guard more than that then the opposing zerg will roll over the now much smaller force.

But people don’t use thieves like that often. Because they are too busy LOLLERing all over the lastest victim they killed in under 5 seconds from stealth and possibly before they rendered. Or they are too buy laying down significant condition damage without breaking stealth at all. Or the more team play ones are too busy rezzing dead people in the middle of enemies while stealthed.

No, the potential of thieves is actually severely underutilized in several ways and they are STILL a problem. I think that says enough.

What you are saying with supply is with any class I can take a scenario and say if I had 12 of X class it could do this better than any other class. If I had 12 eles they could totally make manning defending siege impossible thus rendering it ineffective. Thats basically what you said.

12 of all the same class would destroy alot of things and 12 thieves running together is dangerous for the thieves themselves, why because thats 12 chances to get revealed buff when you dont want to. You could be laying down shadow refuge to stomp someone but at the same time accidently revealing you partner who is actually try to cloak and dagger someone else.

I would steer clear of 12 thief group like the plague.

Oozo.7856:

It would seem that some people have forgotten that thieves have access to ports.

With boats?

15 char

Wonderer.1790:

oZii.2864:

Straght up D/P and S/D for me. I run Shortbow with condition build since the choking gas is lovely.

I also see alot of thieves not running SB lately.

Its hard finding thieves using this weapons setup. I currently am though. I was wondering what you’re specced for in PvP and WvW.

For d/p and s/d? I am not full glass I tried it but not my style I am not a fan of the blow all your load and go back and reset and try again. I am actually in all pvt armor except valk shoulders. valk and zerk weapons except my legendary is PVT and all zerk trinkets. I have about 17k health though with d/p. With s/d I am at 16.7k health.

I run 0/20/30/20/0/0 the usual shadow arts traits condi removal, infusion of shadows, shadow rejuvenation and in acrobatics I run fleet shadow so I don’t run Signet of Shadows, In critical strikes i run practiced tolerance and I am trying side strikes out not to see if I like it better than critical haste, not really a fan of furious retaliation because of the 45 second cooldown.

Utils are the Shadow step, shadow refuge, and blinding powder but I switch blinding out with scorpion wire sometimes. After your daze with tactical strike and auto chain they usually will dodge roll or use some sort of stun break or defensive move or try to heal. Use scorpion wire to interrupt pull them in Cloak and dagger and daze and auto chain again.

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

Rayya.2591:

Shrilly.7184:

Rayya.2591:

vespers.1759:

you mean you don’t think this is balanced?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OYniHrGqE

An thief killing other thieves and low lvls.
Hi , do i miss any point ?
did he even atempted to kill an lvl 80 guardian /elementarist /engenier /warrior /necro /mesmer … with double food buff, like he used ?
would he even had an chance?
How dare you

get off my thrwead unless you are going to see other evidence

I am sorry that not everybody share same point with you.
And please stay on topic, is related to thieves issues.
Stealth is an defence mechanism

Defense mechanism!? Umm… Let’s see, yes, but a good defense only contributes to a good offense. Considering stealth is OP and a GREAT defense, it is easily turned into and used as a GREAT offense. One in which most all other players/classes have little defense against…

The thief is encouraged to flank based on traits or weapon skills. Even the thief rune gives 10% more damage from the side or back.

I’d like to see how someone gets around the side or back of a player not invisible. My backstab hits for like 2.4k from the side on a crit and I have 75 crit damage 2.3k power.

Im in all pvt gear and only 3 zerker trinkets and runes of divinity with like 65 crit damage and iZerker on my mesmer easily clears 4k. Duelist is on average 3k.

DanH.5879:

so, the d/d fans complain that a counter build in d/p is their demise ?

playing d/p until the nerf bat comes (again)…

Meh no nerf coming

Posted 3 months ago on reddit only thing they did was make it so you can’t cap in stealth. Over 200 comments.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/12ruhs/thief_proof_of_concept_permanent_stealth/

Already posted in the WvW forums https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Proof-of-Concept-Perma-Stealth-in-WvW/first#post658310

I highly doubt Anet is going to make a change to stealth.

D/P started to get more popular in WvW a few weeks ago because someone made that Unseen and deathless video. D/P was already being used by high ranked thieves in sPvP. Some people need someone to tell them how to play and then it catches on. Why alot more thieves are using withdraw now because it was in that same unseen and deathless video.

See elementalists are weak threads until someone showed people the d/d bunker specs which where already getting used in sPvP.

After review again I see you posted this in the WvW section also. This actually shows natural gameplay so props for that. Reading the replies to your video in the WvW section of the forums I think you posted it to show the other side of how it is. That is not always the “best clips montage type stuff”

This also shows how you can completely sneak up on alot of people distracted and that just don’t keep situational awareness at all. You barely stealthed in that video except to get away and try to land a few backstabs.

xiv.7136:

oZii.2864:

Columba.9730:

nope. thieves can get 50% run speed.

movement speed has a cap at 33% (swiftness) nothing can go past that. at least read the wiki on the thief so you can be more informed when you complain.

Fleet Shadow
Trait line Acrobatics Tier Adept Type Major

Move 50% faster while in stealth.

This works at the full 50% speed only when out of combat, but as an escape tool it can work wonders. It caps out at 33% in combat, but this might be a bug.

Context

Columba.9730:

Draygo.9473:

Columba.9730:

It’s the combination of the highest dps, best mobility and permastealth that’s wrecking WvWvW.

Thiefs are not the most mobile.

Warriors and Elementalists are both faster. The thief however is far more evasive, because you dont know which direction the thief is running in, its very hard to chase.

nope. thieves can get 50% run speed.

My reply was based on that conversation I know that out of combat it’s 50% but based on the conversation above if someone said elementalists have better mobility than a thief would your counter be fleet shadow? Thats why I said 33% because the 50% increase in speed out of combat doesn’t even come close when comparing to a warrior and elementalists skills used for mobility. Its sure not faster than RTL.

A straight up better comparison of fleet shadow is 33% movenment speed and swiftness. Swiftness>fleet shadow if your running next to another player and you have this trait and another has swiftness and another is running SoS you would barely be able to tell unless you really paid attention. It not like going 33 mph and 50 mph.

Yea I think the OP is asking about thief vs thief Brass is right though against a bunker D/D ele its a stalemate if you arent running s/d or d/d as an alternate weapon set unless 1 of you really want to die.

I will add also that S/P actually works well against d/p thieves since many of the pistol whip attacks will hit even if you get blinded and you have your own access to black powder when you know they are trying to move in for backstab and you have infiltrator strike and headshot to immobilze and stun.

Columba.9730:

nope. thieves can get 50% run speed.

movement speed has a cap at 33% (swiftness) nothing can go past that. at least read the wiki on the thief so you can be more informed when you complain.

Saku Joe.2857:

First of all, remember that your shortbow kite really well D/P set. So that the weapon set you should use to controle the fight. On a top of that going stealth via BP+HS combo is expensive and can not be use forever.
Then if you play a D/D burst build, then there is a small window to burst thoses D/P thieves up:
max range (because the closest you are, the harder it is), you have to avoid the blinding power shot (obviously reaction is better than prediction) – roll dodge it, or SoS it. At this point the D/P thief is gonna use the HS. This is your window to burst him up. You gonna try to land your classic pre-cnd~steal > BS in between the HS activation frames and recovery frames (don’t get too slow, to land your backstab, the thief would be probably stealthed at this moment).
Also if you feel comfortable using the shortbow, you can also stick with it, and go for pre-HS~steal when your target have 50/60% life (considering you have either fury on steal or fury at 50% foe’s life to maximize you crit chance with HS).
I’m not pretending that easy to do (i play D/P as well), just giving my method to deal with.

Yea +1 on this also SoS is good to hit the blind on the black powder also it works when they are in stealth pop SoS when its up and the backstab will miss. If you see they have baslisk up then you definitely want to pop SoS if you are running it.

I think d/p is superior to d/d it is a really good melee kit. All the tools are there when fighting another melee class. Its one of the weapon sets where all of the skills are really good especially since they fixed/buffed shadow shot. You don’t get access to cloak and dagger for the extra damage it provides, you can still bring mug to the battle though if thats what you prefer.

I have been running D/P and S/D for about 2 months or so now. When I fight another thief I would say the best thing to do is what you would do against all other thieves avoid the backstab stay moving. S/D works well against D/P and bow most smart D/P thieves will have auto attack turned off so that they can heartseeker through bp if they want to jump through 2 or 3 times instead of just once.

To maintain as much good uptime on target as you can though and to apply pressure they will most likely heartseeker once and then come for the backstab so its 2 secs of stealth and prepare for a back stab.

D/P really has the upperhand against D/D though because even if a d/d pops shadow refuge d/p can maintain stealth just as long with out having to pop their own refuge if they don’t want to. S/D is good because you have the immobilize to hinder their movement with infiltrator strike and a interrupt.

A tactic my friend does is when the d/p thief pops blackpowder he cluster bombs the blackpowder spot even if he is blinded because even if you are blinded it wears off since its technically more than 1 attack.

As to which one is harder to play mmm guess it depends I feel like d/p is a bit more technical since you don’t get extra burst from cloak and dagger but you want to use headshot at the right time to stop the heal.

More thieves are running d/p lately but its usually the normal 5,2,1 rotation many I fight don’t seem to really use headshot. Headshotting a thief counting on Hide in shadows always brings a smile to my face. Shadow shot also can crit for 2k+

Lightsbane.9012:

coming from someone who’s played every class, i can say the skill thief requires to play is significantly lower than most of the others. the things thief can do that the others can’t can be insufferable at times. i understand that thief is the stealth class, and that it is a burst class, but there is no way to reveal stealth’d enemies nor is there really a way(no matter how much armor you get, i’ve had 3200 armor and still been 50%‘d by a backstab) i’ve tried matching that damage on other classes and i just can’t. if classes like Thief’s role is damage, i recommend clearly defining in the character creation that this is their role. if other classes exceed at support, make them called support classes in their description. as well as difficulty levels in star-rating form at character creation.

I mained mesmer for when the game came out I didn’t make a thief until after the last nerf (dancing dagger damage). I found thief to be alot more difficult than my mesmer.

Mesmer is like don’t get your hands dirty except to blurred frenzy gameplay. I didn’t feel I needed to know other classes abilities on my mesmer, 100b, eviserate etc. When I made my thief and I started dying to stuff I didn’t on my mesmer thats when I began to learn more about other classes etc.

So you have my story and your story showing total opposites. I feel like mesmer is so faceroll its not funny compared to thief. When it comes time to fight I hardly ever really had to think about how I was going to engage the rotation was pretty much the same everytime because it worked. I can’t do that on my thief unless I am running p/d, or full gc blow my load build.

Daeqar.8965:

When it comes to thieves in WvW, they are what is likely the best class at executing a losing strategy. That strategy being lonewolf PvP in a large scale gametype.

If you want to move around the field alone, quickly, and potentially pick off stragglers, I can’t think of anything better than a thief. This does have some niche value in WvW for things like murdering dolyaks at low personnel costs, but if even a disproportionate fraction of a server is running these lonewolf spec thieves, they will get absolutely destroyed in WvW by the server running a tight, unstoppable ball of team specs like hammer warriors, guardians, eles, necros, etc. that support each other and play together. If folks ditch the narcissistic attitudes, they would realize that thieves are actually a very limited value class when it comes to winning WvW. The game is called Guild Wars for a reason.

Pretty much the only opportunity a thief has for a useful role in that winning, tightly-knit teamplay is just for on-demand blast finishers with shortbow. (No permastealth or burst combos here.) Bring two shortbow thieves: role filled. Everyone else re-roll a more useful class or be a scout/dolyak-killer (better yet, let pugs do it) and miss out on all mega-bag drops.

Hit the nail on the head but people will come with a counter argument that nobody cares about the objectives in WvW and everyone is just looking for small team fights/1vX.

We need to balance WvW around 1vX and 5v5’s and solo roamers that is what matters in WvW according to this thread.

Xsorus.2507:

You don’t see a problem with a class attacking a zerg and getting way 99% of the time?

Does he have all his cooldowns up? Or not? What classes are at the front of the zerg? What are the skill level of those players in a zerg? How big is the zerg? Do the other thieves in the zerg have venom share and baslisk and devourer ready? Is there a S/P haste theif? Is there a glass cannon shatter mesmer running sword/pistol in that group? Is the rangers elite up?

So many variables that don’t matter to Xsorus lets talk about balancing around trolling. I am sure every zerg you encounter you run right in there laying caltrops and poison wiping the entire zerg. As evidence by your video.

Delaying people is OP nerf anything that delays people. Nerf traps and wells and fear!!!

Xsorus.2507:

oZii.2864:

Xsorus.2507:

oZii.2864:

Xsorus.2507:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUCvC3ns_iA

Another video of me screwing around (I only killed like 2 or 3 people i think…and another Mesmer who’s video i’m saving for later)

1:56 1 guy dies cause he didn’t have condi removal and he chased you. Then you trolled some people with poison.

3:14 you drop caltrops and poison on people at the gate. A warrior could have jumped off the keep stomped and interrupted them and 100bs 4 or 5 people probably downing them if he was glass and made it back inside. Had it happen to me a ton of times seen it done 100 times.

@5:00 culling you didn’t render to them and some of them didn’t render to you has nothing to do with stealth. Unless you think that group used mass invis cause they knew you where there and wanted to surprise you lol.

Looks like a trolling video to me you fighting some people standing around distracted.

A. Yeap… He died cause he had no condition removal, Not what video is about but go ahead.

B. I’ve never seen that happen, On any characters…Not once.. in the entire time i’ve played World vs World…I’ve seen Warriors run out and fight for a bit before running back in (Ele’s do the same, Hell I do it on my Ranger) That was just put in to show what you can do though as a Condition Thief.

C. I have a message that says Culling Ftw in the video..I think that would suggest I knew it was Culling…grin

Title of the video is why stealth needs to be nerfed volume 2 in your on going biography of trolling.

You never seen a warrior jump down and interrupt people? Bouncing them back then the warrior does 100bs and pops endure pain and goes back inside ever? You should go around keeps more often then you wouldn’t think your poison caltrop trick is so hot.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Death_from_Above

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endure_Pain

Those blow caltrops and poison out of the water when combined with 100bs in a keep defense.

I’ve seen warriors run outside all the time, and do their shenanigans ..hence why I said i seen them do it..I’ve also done it on my ranger and i’ve seen it done on an Elementalist.

I’ve not seen Warriors do the Death from Above talent..Could just be because they don’t run it.

If I had to guess why, I’d say its because they have a lot of talents in that specific trait line that are already really good and probably fit their build a bit better.

Why you should hang around keeps you know those objectives nobody cares about. When its siege time Ill change to tricks recharge faster if I am running p/d so I can harass with caltrops more frequently rest of the time I run bountiful theft. Just saying Xsorus you might not care about objectives but there are people that do even though you find that hard to believe.

Xsorus.2507:

rofl, the population is just bad, so nerf to stealth needed grin

And no it’s not happened yet… know why?

Because if i get trouble I can teleport away..

Or endure pain and get away with greatsword, and warhorn
Rampage as one and greatsword
RTL lightning strike to get away, conjure flaming sword
Decoy, mass invis or prestige to get away, temporal curtain, distortion, veil,

Yup thief is only one in game with mobility and damage mitigation to allow them to escape. Nerf mobility and teleports

Xsorus.2507:

oZii.2864:

Xsorus.2507:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUCvC3ns_iA

Another video of me screwing around (I only killed like 2 or 3 people i think…and another Mesmer who’s video i’m saving for later)

1:56 1 guy dies cause he didn’t have condi removal and he chased you. Then you trolled some people with poison.

3:14 you drop caltrops and poison on people at the gate. A warrior could have jumped off the keep stomped and interrupted them and 100bs 4 or 5 people probably downing them if he was glass and made it back inside. Had it happen to me a ton of times seen it done 100 times.

@5:00 culling you didn’t render to them and some of them didn’t render to you has nothing to do with stealth. Unless you think that group used mass invis cause they knew you where there and wanted to surprise you lol.

Looks like a trolling video to me you fighting some people standing around distracted.

A. Yeap… He died cause he had no condition removal, Not what video is about but go ahead.

B. I’ve never seen that happen, On any characters…Not once.. in the entire time i’ve played World vs World…I’ve seen Warriors run out and fight for a bit before running back in (Ele’s do the same, Hell I do it on my Ranger) That was just put in to show what you can do though as a Condition Thief.

C. I have a message that says Culling Ftw in the video..I think that would suggest I knew it was Culling…grin

Title of the video is why stealth needs to be nerfed volume 2 in your on going biography of trolling.

You never seen a warrior jump down and interrupt people? Bouncing them back then the warrior does 100bs and pops endure pain and goes back inside ever? You should go around keeps more often then you wouldn’t think your poison caltrop trick is so hot.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Death_from_Above

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endure_Pain

Those blow caltrops and poison out of the water when combined with 100bs in a keep defense.

Xsorus.2507:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUCvC3ns_iA

Another video of me screwing around (I only killed like 2 or 3 people i think…and another Mesmer who’s video i’m saving for later)

1:56 1 guy dies cause he didn’t have condi removal and he chased you. Then you trolled some people with poison.

3:14 you drop caltrops and poison on people at the gate. A warrior could have jumped off the keep stomped and interrupted them and 100bs 4 or 5 people probably downing them if he was glass and made it back inside. Had it happen to me a ton of times seen it done 100 times.

@5:00 culling you didn’t render to them and some of them didn’t render to you has nothing to do with stealth. Unless you think that group used mass invis cause they knew you where there and wanted to surprise you lol.

Looks like a trolling video to me you fighting some people standing around distracted. Not many people died in that video so I don’t see a problem. Its P/D make a video of you doing that with D/D and S/D trolling a group that size.

Xsorus.2507:

By the way, if I come across an underleveled player, I don’t attack them if they’re solo.

it presents no challenge.

If there is more then one, or they attack me first, I’ll kill the group, or if they’re solo, I’ll down him and then leave

@3:44 that guy looks solo to me and underleveled, then his underleveled buddy comes to join in AFTER you already staked. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBv96A4jbIE

@4:24
Guy getting his vista underleveled gank mode. Actually there is alot of you in this video walking up to people level 80 and underleveled who are already engaged in a fight. Like the 2 underleveleds fighting the grubs in eternal battleground. I am sure you saw them and said Challenge!

This one here I loved how you used guard to go on top of the keeps to kill people. Yea you totally knew that was working as intended. Didn’t abuse that at all. I wonder in your post history if there is a post that says that needed to be nerfed? See if I can dig something up.

Love the videos man keep them coming!!!

nb4 Xsorus releases another video promoting his youtube page. Can we all just subscribe to him and get it over with.

I am seriously starting to think you really are here to get more views for your youtube. Like people are waiting in line for your next release. Obviously your motives are presenting themselves you make GW2 videos. Then come to WvW section disguising promotion of your videos into a debate.

Pretty plain to see why you roam WvW with all your different classes and don’t care for objectives because you know people wanna see montage type videos not you on some siege.

I have my popcorn ready though

Fiorrello.8126:

Drawing Guy.3701:

Daecollo.9578:

Of course, you pretty much got rid of the rapid attack healing option, but that is ok because we still have backstab. Now we can all be the same!

True until the fix stealth and/or culling. Once people can’t rely on being basically permastealth, or stealth is given a counter, then metas can finally be built around using all of the tools they have instead of just stealth spam. Thieves have so much potential to be a good high-skill class… they just don’t currently need it.

this guy gets it,

thieves have a lot of potential to be something great, something unique.

maybe once stealth abuse is gone and all the children have left the class then we can really start to see it shine.

You people act like if culling is changed it somehow changes the builds. You know most thieves don’t know if they are culling to the person or not. If I am going for a back stab and I connect I don’t know if I rendered to that person. When I fight another thief sometimes they render fast sometime they don’t like if I am fight p/d I sometimes have to swing where I see the bullets coming from. Sometimes I don’t I doubt a P/D thief is going to pick different traits because he renders faster now lol.

Kellhus.8071:

ITT: thieves making excuses why a broken ability is okay when they use it.

ITT: people like to browse the forums for the class they don’t like but never learn anything.

generally no problm with ranger but there is a nasty trap build i seen a good ranger using its all meta anyway.

Right now ranger mostly are still running around with SB/LB a good ranger has a sword on them. More thieves seem to be moving toward S/D as an alt set instead of all thieves running SB.

Usually a class might be considered weak until someone makes a build public that the lemmings can copy and paste. See elementalist bunker. It was around in sPvP before it hit WvW.

Drawing Guy.3701:

Of course this conversation turned to stealth – the OP went that his build that was crutching against the unlimited food heal spam is now ‘broken’ because his rapid sword attack move is no longer a win button, and now the only option left is the stealth spamming backstab build. I argue that the thief has many tools and could be a great advanced class, but the stealth with broken culling makes it where no other build could compare. If that were fixed, we would have a half dozen good builds on thief. Stealth spam builds will always stay – but you stealthing won’t stop me from hitting you. Well timed blinds/evades/CC would. Thieves have that in spades, but never needed it as they have easy exploits – who cares if I can hit you when I never know where to hit you ever? The food was lost (all classes used this). I’m hoping they’ll now lose the other.

I love how everyone says you don’t need stealth as a thief for a viable build but these people don’t post said viable build. Nobody is forcing you to take hide in shadows.

If you say its possible draw something up in the mist test it out hit wvw and comeback showing us this build where you die alot.

I love the idea behind pistol/pistol but I am not going to run haste, and signet of agility on my bar sorry. After you blow your load with pistol/pistol your a sitting duck at 900 range

You would have to find target spam unload and haste, pop signet of agility, roll for initatiative out of there(all your utilities spent mind you) then hop they don’t retaliate. You could use another unload spam and blow the rest of your initative after you roll either way you would still be frail. S/P and P/P don’t need stealth for damage everyone knows that. In order to deal that damage you have to be at least 900 units away. Once you deal your damage in a burst you have no initiative left. So you would need roll for ini. giving you back 6 which would be 1 Infil trator arrow to get out or die.

All this has become is prophecy seeking. All patch notes since release I haven’t seen one change to stealth these threads pop up all the time and still no change.

You just have 2 camps those that think it needs a nerf and those that say its fine. Those that want a nerf are the ones hoping that it happens. The ones that say its fine are the ones that understand why it hasn’t changed are stating the reasons why Anet hasn’t changed anything. As patch after patch has shown the developers have no problem with how the thief plays when it comes to stealth mechanics. So enjoy the circle jerk.

Make sure you keep this bumped cause it might get buried tomorrow by the matchup threads. I see someone rezzed this from page 2 already.

Columba.9730:

So now 1v1 fights are excluded because in your mind, WvWvW is only about Zerg vs Zerg? Ok, lol

Yes they are excluded the fact that you don’t understand that doesn’t surprise me at all.
If you really think WvW should be balanced around 1v1 matchups then there is no hope for you lol.

Explain to me how you balance WvW around a 1v1 fight? Does that even make sense? There is no rules to govern there is no ring outs, there are boundaries etc.

You can run into a fight on bridge but there is nothing to stop that person from turning around and running away. Heck if you see someone you want to kill why cant he just break combat and wp back to spawn rofl.