Guild Wars 2

I didn’t specify that this is more from a wvw perspective.

Is why I was saying caltrops on dodge isn’t something I wouldn’t take over thrill of the crime or bountiful theft.

bettadenu.5483:

Initiative and our skills need rework, in current state it’s press to win. Every skill is just click and profit, there is no thought in it.

When we first learned about the Thief and the iniative system we all shouted: strategy! Iniative management! Use skills wisely!

This all faded once we learned how to heart seeker and how to CnD or DB spam. It’s the lack of build up-> follow up that makes classes that use systems like this unique and exciting.

I was going to put down the suggestion to have something along the lines of the GW1 Assassin combo’s again but haven’t been able to work it out.

I really want to build up to things and then unleash the force, but now it’s 2-2-2 or 5-1 5-1 5-1 or 3-3-3.

I hope that a dev leaves a response because it’s been so long, and Thieves have serious issues across the board, both strong and weak!

Lets see I also have a mesmer sword/pistol my optimal rotation is decoy, 4, 5, 3,3, 2, f1. Switch weapons to great sword stall until my burst rotation is up again rinse repeat. Meh thats not hard I am pretty sure its like that for every class.

You said learned to heartseeker, db spam, cnd its the same as any class or skill. You use what gives you the best bang for your buck.

Is a optimal burst opening Cloak and Dagger, Mug, Dancing dagger? lol What about Mug, Cloak and Dagger, shadow strike?

On my mesmer when I run the last skill I pop is mind stab cause its weaker than the rest.

Ele is the only class with a semi complicated rotation and that can just be learned with a little bit of practice for you optimal burst. Honestly is there any rotation in this game that is hard to pull off?

awge.3852:

I think the main issue regarding the so called ‘perma stealth exploit’ is due to the fact that a thief can reset a fight at will to gain the upper hand. Naturally people who do not how to deal with this will nag, however when the thief chooses to reset a fight there are two things that happen. First, they stay out of combat long enough to actually be out of combat, both for himself and his opponent. This is somewhat fair, it lets the other player recover and the chances for battling the thief are reset to some degree (of course it can be really situational and the other player can have a huge dissadvatage).

The fight is reset! Why did the other guy stay there again? The fight resets the bad player see’s thieves guild and stands there instead of leaving the area or backing up while the house is still active on shadow refuge. That is plenty of time to get distance in non combat situation that by time the thief gets to the person his stealth is about to wear off or has.

If people would just put some kind of distance then the thief is more forced to blow cd’s and initiative to get a kill to chase. That is playing in your hands not the thiefs. Standing by the shadow refuge plays into the theifs hands.

Rezzet.3614:

yeah what does the engi do when the thief goes stealth nothing wait for his boons to enter cooldown and even if not what would he do the pure boon build requires having all Utilities with elixirs wich leave engineer with no defensive skills other than Elixir S unlike thiefs Engi bleed from pistol only lasts for 1-2 ticks whereas you get just useyour shortbows or the stealth pistol skill wich unloads an instant 5 bleed stack. having lots of might cant be compared to thief stealth nor Initiative the ability of using skills without cooldown alone is slightly overpowering on its own .

I don’t know much about engi’s but I fought a few engi’s that were pretty good and it didnt matter that I stealthed on him I could kill the guy.

Like others said you have to chose to take certain traits you can’t have them all and executioner is a big one if you really want to damage someone. I don’t like being full glass so I only have 15 in Critical, stats look like 2k power, 40% crit chance, 77 crit damage 2.5k armor. 30 in SA and 25 in acro.

A good engi fights around his traps does he not? This guy was using caltrops, his elite and his gunk. Had a shield for block had some ability he threw a disc that stunned me (not gears).

Now Its possible I could have killed that guy if I put 30 points into critical strikes. He was dodging when I go into stealth always moving stay near his elite. If I went to grab executioner I won’t have quick recovery, no feline grace. Its all a trade off blind on stealth is good, remove condi good, regen in stealth is good. so is infusion of shadow, shadow protector etc. I can’t have all of them, some thieves dont take the condi removal and like the blind, some like condi removal.

The problem is not thieves its peoples bloodlust honestly I can count at least 5 times yesterday I distracted a group of people who were zerg surfing. Its so easy to do we can be really annoying but if you ignore us it will make life much easier for you seriously.

xiv.7136:

The problem is not the instagib. That’s just glass cannon, and lots of specs can glass cannon.

The problem is the stealth, it gives too much survivability, and too many outs for bad players who make mistakes.

Most glass cannons blow their load and then are in trouble because they are vulnerable and lack survivability.

Thieves go stealth, eles RTL away and mesmers evade/clone out. These 3 classes have too easy access to escapes, and this is the problem.

There are more classes than that with outs. Warhorn GS warriors?

Wait don’t you play a asuran guardian who posted the video getting hit by a thief with all your cooldowns down then complaining you got killed after you went to gank a underleveled in the middle of a zerg?

xiv.7136:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_rXq2LYg0

November 2012 video showing single crit cuts against sub-80s while hiding in a zerg

Try doing this with kill shot:

http://youtu.be/jHOpACoX4ic

Solo vs zerg, uninterrupted footage, kills 30+ by chaining backstabs and stealthed stomps without getting killed once – again, ALL of it while utterly surrounded by hostile players.

Thieves who compare kill shot builds with backstab builds have no clue how to play a thief properly.

The difference in actual gameplay viability and killing ability in any situation is night and day.[/quote]

I didn’t see a zerg in that video his other video he is messing around in a zerg. This isn’t anything new though I remember when the game came out people would daggerstorm into a zerg that was trying to take a keep. They are in the zerg they are outnumbered.

You can’t compare 2 abilities across to professions its apples and oranges and people will always have a counter. The counter to your above is warriors that run in 100bs someone and get out taking little to no damage. I can’t do that on a thief and a warrior could possibily kill 4 people.

I don’t know much about warriors but I am willing to bet they love 1 downed person because they know people will come to help.

The problem with these arguements against thieves and damage is everyone tailors the arguments to fit them.

Its always

1v1 fight scenario

1v2 fight scenarior etc

then you bring up killshot and everyone says its easy to dodge yea against someone telegraphing it just like any other skill like that. Churning earth is easy to dodge but people still get hit by it cause a good player waits for you to burn your dodges and escapes because they understand the class they are fighting then they attempt killshot or churning earth.

Lets see when is the best time to to use my strongest attack? Hmmmm before they use their endurance up or after? Decisions Decisions!!

Most good warriors will pepper you with volley then wait for when they think you will stealth by heal or refuge cast killshot since its channeled it will follow.

I don’t understand why the op is asking for video of a thief losing in fights. If the people making arguments against thieves don’t believe that any thief dies then they have bigger issues like common sense.

Mubarizun.6435:

It boggles my mind how many people have left WvW. How can there be this many players but servers still have a hard time covering both EB and borderlands?

It seems to me that the lack of rewards from WvW are really taking its toll :/

I hope A-net devotes more time into WvW to catch up with it’s sPvP love because right now players like me seem unwanted.

what tier are you talking about? I know on the weekends in my tier its usually full all the borderlands obviously people or more people work during the week so you see less people. I doubt you will see queues all threw the week

Wreckdum.8367:

EB gear spammers in YB borderlands. /golfclap. Stunned for 10 seconds straight. GG

Yea I know right I read about the gears but didnt see them till I got perma stunned by a ele from CD.

awesome video!!!

Fiorrello.8126:

is there some kind of all thieves group that recently transferred to emery bay or something?

i keep on running into massive numbers of thieves. at one point we where holding a supply camp against something like 12 thieves. when pushing to the overlook it seemed to me like you guys only had thieves to defend. trebing overlook. something like a 5:1 ratio of thieves to necros came to push us off.

It doesn’t have to be transfers its not like everyone is forced to only play 1 character in this game. Its been out for a while so there are probably alot of alts also. I know I have 2 characters at 80 and another at 47 all of them aren’t thieves.

WongLee.5472:

TO Ebay’s Grind House Guild. You got some good thieves much props.
FROM Yaksbend’s Blackwater Vanguard Thief
http://www.twitch.tv/wongleeonline/c/1944400

We thank you very much for props <3

Edit that was me lol there just watched it. Was good duel lovely use of the line of sight with the trees messed me up.

I wasnt sure the first fight what was going on since the other guy from my side jumped in. Good duels though

If we take a look back now after playing for so long are there any traits you guys feel seemed good but after playing the build/class trying it out for a while you feel the trait isn’t as good anymore.

Some that come to my mind are Pain Response, Vigor on Heal, Caltrops on dodge

Pain response- Sounds good on paper but then its on 45 sec cooldown and if you don’t have any bleeding or burning or poison its wasted. Also dps is so swift and damage comes so fast that I feel like out of stealth regen isnt very good for our class.

Vigor on heal- I think is good if you don’t have 15 points in acro but why not just take the extra 5 points to get feline grace?

Caltrops on dodge- Meh I think the best type of traits are ones that are always useful like might on dodge>caltrops on dodge. If your fighting range caltrops do nothing for you. I think cals need to be on the ground longer they could get rid of the bleed just keep a decent length cripple and I would take it. Right now I think its a waste definitely not better than thrill of the crime.

LOCO.1785:

This whole thread has become people trying to reason with Columba.

Guys you’re arguing with a brick wall…

The guy is on a crusade, he can’t handle thieves in game, so he’s trying to ruin them out of game.

Its ok that columba keeps arguing it discredits him each time he responds as people have explained to him over and over. I am willing to bet he has the most posts in this thread.

XII.9401:

Here is a simple summary:

It is just mind boggling that this broken class has gone so long unattended. Not even WoW or SWTOR was this slow at fixing a class. Let us hope this is fixed before people leave for other games with a sour taste in their mouth for Anet balance issues.

This thread is 55 pages long and has been running for months. I am not sure how much more feed back is needed..

Umm the problem with the Rogue class in swtor wasnt the stealth I mean it was there but it was the hybrid self heal tank/dps build. Yup Good Ol bioware they are definitely the pinnacle of MMO success rofl. They nerfed shadows basically killing the class.

You know why it was nerfed to the ground because lets see Hutball, The spaceship map(forgot the name) Yup no dueling that I see. The forums filled with whining about a spec that can’t be beat 1v1 so they nerfed. Thank my lucky stars Anet doesnt listen to people that about 1v1 balance when there isn’t any dueling in this game that matters for anything.

teg.1340:

brunohstein.9038:

teg.1340:

Spamming heartseeker is useless in 1vs1. But its far from useless in larger WvW battles to finish enemies. Just pick a target at 50% health and spam heartseeker until he dies. Its easy and efficient.

Its the only spamable gap closer in the entire game. 6 x heartseeker = 2700 range. thats almost double the range of eles RTL. Its the reason you cannot kite away from thiefs.

Again: Heartseeker is ok for 1vs1 but its entirely broken for larger WvW battles.

So, if it is not useless only in one specific situation, let’s nerf it so it is useless in all of them?

No. Just bring Heartseekers gap closer on par to all the other gap closers in the game. It could be easily fixed by putting a 8s cooldown only to the leap effect of heartseeker. This would prevent abusing heartseeker just to close gaps. Make this a WvW only change. Problem fixed.

Thieves in these forums are claiming for month that only noobs spam heartseeker like that. If this is true, the proposed change could hardly be called a nerf.

Hmm 8 sec cooldown on heartseeker so what your saying is it would force theives to commit to using it. So we get 1 heartseeker every 8 secs rofl ok.. Or maybe you suggestion is we get say 3 heartseekers every 8 secs as soon as you stop pressing 2 it goes on cooldown? Yea you didnt think this suggestion through at all obvious.

Or maybe your suggestion is like you said the gap closer portion rofl. Sooo now we have to run up to the person and then heartseeker yea thats totally makin heartseeker useless or everyone is gonna have to be forced to run devourer venom for immobilize just to land it.

Heartseeker is easy to dodge

Columba.9730:

lastly, it’s been proven that culling is server side not client side, so your personal attacks don’t really make sense.

Thanks for taking that bait then why are you all up in the thief forums complaining all the time when you should be ummmm.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Culling-Poll-1327-votes-23-Better-64-Worse/first

You know threads about culling? If you understand how and why culling happens we can’t do anything about it and the thief forums isn’t the place to to debate on culling.

Your here to argue how our class works etc with weak arguments at that. Columba always talking in circles.

Next week you will be complaining about damage or something new.

Lets see OP makes thread about thief taking a tower solo welcome to like 3 months ago.

CnD on keep walls welcome to 3 months ago.

Now the thread is about thieves mechanics and dps vs x class rofl

Columba.9730:

Karolis.4261:

Columba.9730:

Well, this post and the videos posted are evidence that permastealth happens. someone even posted a video with how to permastealth in the title. So I respecfully disagree.

Disagree with what lol ? I said there is no such thing as perma stealth while doing damage, hello revealed mechanics and im right. All other is culling.

Yet we experience getting damaged by thieves while never seeing them. plenty of vidoes show thieves killing enemies while never being seen. So again, I respectfully disagree.

Oh columba you see what you want to see! Culling and Stealth are 2 different things is what he is saying. When you attack from stealth you are revealed if I don’t render on Columba’s screen because he is using a Mac from 1996 then I don’t know it I don’t think I am still in stealth and I sure don’t have access to stealth skills like backstab because your Mac didn’t render me on screen fast enough.

frans.8092:

SuperHaze.4210:

… If stealth can let them reset the battle, then stealth should allow enough time for other classes to reset as well, …

What is reset to you? If the thief drops out of combat (like being able to use map travel) then so would his opponents, or they should. If it’s just not attacking to recharge then normally their opponents should see their skills come off cooldown. It’s not like the thief has Time Stop.

Thief animations also make it hard for them to be targeted

Using mouse targetting is your own choice. You’re standing still or using keyboard turning while trying to mouse-target the thief hopping around?

Now I understand while peeps jump all the time, it’s not to dodge attacks but to dodge the mousepointers …

We are the One!!! The glitch in the Matrix

After messing around all day with fleet shadows I think the intent of the trait is so that it is bearable to not have SoS equipped.

I been messing around with d/p and s/d all day today (I usually play P/D with SoS)

And I found fleet shadows to be really good with d/p the extra movement in stealth allows you to close and escape if need be. Escaping via heartseeker since it is affected by speed you can get out of a jam really really effectively.

Ensign.2189:

oZii.2864:

I wonder why the Superior Sigil of Rage is not one of the most expensive sigils anymore on the TP?

It’s a fairly common sigil to find in exotic weapons, up there with sigils of intelligence and air in frequency. It’s also a sigil that excels at burst, while most players are more focused on long run DPS.

I mean, if you are going entirely by price then you’d conclude that the Sigil of Strength is one of the strongest in the game, and not a niche sigil for a handful of Engineers and Elementalists.

No not really people are just smarter now thats all. Sigil of strength is good as long as you have a decent amount of boon duration also there is a good warrior build that hit reddit a while ago about 2 runes hoelbrak, 2 runes Fire, 2 runes strength each set +20% might duration. That is why that sigil is expensive.

demamd

ensoriki.5789:

Wow all this hype for Signet of Shadows?
I used to swear by it’s importance Beta-November. I eventually looked at Lowell’s build I believe saw no SoS went “wtf” tried it anyways, and became unhooked. I highly doubt SoS will see any real play on my bar again unless it were buffed or traits involving it were.

Signet of agility is a better skill.
I mean if you had to pull out skills out of your bar to fit in Haste, or Signet of Agility, or whatever, what’s going first? Probably SoS because it’s generally the least useful and is just addicting. It’s not like we’re a “slow” profession even without it.

No context at all!! Nobody is hyped about Signet of Shadows (hyperbole) we are talking about sPvP and WvW! SoS is good for movement nobody is saying OMGBBQ you have to take it. The guy above me said SR is more important than SoS.

Congrats you read Lowell’s guide and don’t run SoS had to read a guide to test a utility? Ok I guess.

I hate when people jump in a thread like "hey I am smarter than you I been not using SoS!!! " <<— Thats basically what you said sounds silly doesn’t it

The thread is about the most popular utilities and those are the most popular utilities.

Lowells venom Share build in WvW you know how often you see thieves NOT running venoms its pretty often. See how things change through personal testing!

I wonder why the Superior Sigil of Rage is not one of the most expensive sigils anymore on the TP? Testing

Alot of early guides recommended that crappy sigil.

/thread

Because you have one track mind!!! What you are trying to argue now (since you like to talk in circles) is that if it has no affect then its ok to nerf it. Thats stupid argument lol.

Perma stealth is something you can do but it isn’t broken build the thief just pops around and trolls you can just leave the thief dude. Just walk away whats so hard to understand most thieves will chase for the kill anyway and he will burn his ini doing it giving you the advantage.

Lofat and others are saying that a perma stealth build is something you can do!! Its not optimal its more troll imo. You arent hitting anyone doing it or killing anyone staying perma stealth. So why would you want to nerf something that can’t kill you? Just to nerf it rofl!!

The thief might as well stand there visible and wave its the same thing you just can’t see him. Should we nerf wave too? It can’t kill anybody with it

I think d/p as far as WvW goes is kind of along the lines of P/D if you see a D/p thief just leave the fight.

I dueled a D/P thief last night and it is more annoying than anything. I pop thieves guild he would stay in stealth until they were gone annoying. So if all you have to do is pop thieves guild to get rid of one just go do something else. Then just leave the area if they want to chase you down they are gonna have to come out of stealth and or blow alot of initiative.

I did find though that P/P will wreck shop on a D/P thief I was just messing around since I am P/D condi but when I swapped to P/P just to see how it works against it, I noticed it really throws them off and when they go in stealth you wait about 1-2 secs and pop your very own black powder shot and it totally jacks up their opening from stealth definitely the backstab misses rofl. Then when they try to stealth headshot. If your running a p/p build with high damage rolls this over. Caltrops on your position to help secure the kill.

Ensign.2189:

Thing is, I don’t think other utilities are weaker than those three skills.

What’s going on, instead, is that the Thief has some very clear holes in its skill set. It doesn’t have a good source of swiftness; it needs a good escape if it’s not going to be a sketchy all-in character; and like everyone else you need a stun breaker. Unfortunately, your options to fill those holes are fairly limited, and they consume all of the space on your bar for utility. So it isn’t like Caltrops or Devourer Venom are bad skills, it’s simply a problem that taking one of those means you’re giving up the ability to move fast, the ability to escape, or the ability to break a stun – all of which are a big deal.

As silly as it might sound, changing Signet of Shadows to “Passive: 25% increased movement speed; Active: breaks stun and grants 3 seconds of stealth” would open up bars immensely. Sure, you’d still often run Shadow Refuge and Shadow Step because they are good skills, but it wouldn’t be nearly as fatal to slot in something different.

I wouldn’t mind breaks stun and the movement speed then I MIGHT not run SoS. As it is now I run SR, SS, and SoS. I swap to cals when I know I am in a fight but lately I havent been running SoS as much. Since caltrops cripple and I run SB also I can usually get away.

DanH.5879:

why are you guys feeding the trolls here ? seriously ?
should i also complain that thief is weak at pve ?

We have been battling it out with columba for a while we know the routine its entertaining though poking holes in his arguments. Nobody wants to go to the wvw section to talk about thieves thats what the thief section is for. Talk about server transfers and consumables like gears and aoe caps in the wvw section.

Columba.9730:

Lofat.2406:

Just look at his post history Rylark, pages of posts against thieves. He won’t be happy till thieves are nerfed beyond play, or eliminated from the game.

NO, I’ve stated quite clearly that I want to see stealth cool down timers increased to make up for culling bug abuses.

Which doesn’t make sense at all. CLOAK AND DAGGER DOESNT HAVE A COOLDOWN!!!!

Heartseeker doesnt have a cooldown, neither does blackpowder. Your suggestion doesnt make sense because those are the ways most thieves go in stealth.

Do you really wait around when you see a thief pop shadow refuge with the big house on it? If so thats your fault.

So if we take your suggestion and extend the cooldown on stealth then you want to have longer cooldowns on Shadow refuge, Hide in shadows, and Blinding powder!

Shadow refuge is borderline on the elite status along with shadow step almost 1 minute cooldowns for both of them. You want something like 1 minute 30 secs rofl.

We must give props for at least posting in a relevant thread unlike some (wont say any names Mr Hater) that make new threads go wayyyy off topic just to express their hate for the thief.

Taril +1 very nice. I run SB in my P/D build cause I loves the poison!!! Still those are really good facts to know. I figured the one about moving and IA some of the others I didn’t really realize.

Keep in mind that carrionish version of those amulets and rings are on their way. They stated they plan to add more stat combos similar to what is already available.

I play p/d and personally will hold out on the amulet and 1 ring. I will purchase one of the tough vit condi damage rings though or accessory. Don’t want to completely lose all power rofl.

The jump in condition damge will probably be minimal if you add up all the amulets and rings and accessories for all the pieces.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AguEzkdPhmNhdFFaMkg2MUxOSU9RS3ZLX2FpbHNmSGc#gid=0

Take a look at that (not my creation) you will see you need some pretty good jumps in condi to really have a major damage increase to bleeds.

My guess is ascended > exotic by about 6-7 points on your bleeds. Would you really want to dump that much power for 6-7 points on your bleeds?

Lokheit.7943:

This have always been working that way. Each hit counts as one application (it would be too much on AoE attacks otherwise).

In fact a Cluster Bomb before would waste multiple charges even when hitting just once. I have to test it, but I think last patch fix made it waste applications only on true hit.

Yea its only on true hit now any combat avoidance by the enemy uses a charge i.e. dodge with actual miss message.

On cluster bomb it is only 2 charges even if using spider venom unless it is counting hitting the wall as a charge or something but I can only get 2 spider venom procs with cluster with out detonation of course.

It not longer is wasted on infiltrator arrows or caltrops(utility) but caltrops do not proc a venom.

Also a cool thing you could do (before the last patch) was geomancy sigil with devourer and lock up 4 targets and it would only count as 1 strike same with all the other venoms except baslisk. Hydromancy did the same as geomancy too was good for devourer caltrops on a little group of 4.

Cause your sylvari is a door!

Archer.1658:

Zerg zerg more zerg, zerg zerg zerg. Thieves that are perma stealth, rifle warriors who stand behind zergs, culling issues, what more do you want in this crap kitten tier.

you should edit this really. this implies that you prefer rifle warriors to be in the front of a zerg? o.O wouldn’t those be bad rifle warriors then? I don’t see cluster bomb thieves in the front of zergs thts baaaaad. Unless you enjoy fighting people that do bad things like that then more power to you.

Everything else you stated happens in every tier either your Server is the Zerger or the Zerged. The zerged will call you the Zerger. All depends on your population in relation to your opponents.

You have to get a feel of roaming solo you can do it as a mesmer my main use to be mesmer you just have to run a different loadout. When I roamed solo it was sword/torch but I found later Staff to be much more superior in helping to get away than Great sword also you can go with something like x/torch and x/focus which are the best to get away.. You also need to maybe trait manipulation skills range increase to get farther away on blink.

It is totally possible to solo roam on a mesmer you just need to get a feel for when to go in and when to get out. You don’t have to but I know solo roaming mesmer that like to go 6 piece rune of centaur for the extra swiftness.

Just look up shattercat on youtube and you will see plenty of videos of a mesmer soloing in wvw he/she does it alot.

Im pretty sure i would rather fight 3 thieves than 20 people and if they are coordinated a portal comes then another comes with another mesmer.

Also I will add that stealth will drop aggro and allow the npc’s to regen health. So 3 thieves have to keep a decent rate of aggro up kill the guards and keep lord in order to take that tower. If they shadow refuge and stay in it to long then keep lord will just regen health and the npc’s.

they nerfed mesmers to only allow 20 people through a portal and they increased the cool down. 20 people can still take a tower through a mesmer portal and 20 people is not a small amount of people.

Anyways just stand inside the smoke screen if that is what they are doing it will mess up their heartseeker when they try to go invis. Also just because they can do it doesn’t mean thieves do it. Its not like a mass of thieves are running around trying to ninja a tower when they can be out ganking. The ninja a tower is usually left up to mesmers.

Also this is old news(3 months ago) that thieves can stay invis inside enemy towers for a long time. Its not really any different than ninja a keep or tower and letting no more than 4 people kill the guards and nobody attacking the door, so you don’t get orange swords. Its gonna take that theif or 3 thieves a long time to kill the keep lord if they don’t die and you will have white swords on the keep just like you do when a group tries to ninja a tower but don’t create orange swords.

I am just being stickler for details but a backstab build can never be like P/D because P/d allows you to do things like stack 10 bleeds on someone sit in shadow refuge for 7-8 seconds while they are still dying then attack. Every time you go in stealth whatever your chosen target is they are still taking damage even though you are not attacking.

With that being said your build looks pretty good your missing the feline grace which is another important part of P/D. I do like everything else though I would probably drop 5 trait from critical strikes to pick up feline grace for the times you are exposed you have more mitigation from dodge rolls. This looks like it would fit sword/dagger very very well though.

Joel.6587:

Woaden.9425:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/45902-lowells-ultimate-spvp-thief-guide-wip/

This is pretty good to learn basics.

If you like P/D, a good build is the venom build, which would be 20 in deadly arts and atleast 20 in Shadow Arts (for the venom heal), or 30 in SA (for the Venom Share).

Many will tell you “don’t bother” with venom builds because of the 25 stack bleed limit, and that others can “do it better”. I personally love P/D and the venom build.

If you’d rather forgo venoms and just concentrate on bleeds, use Caltrops.

As you have discovered, Sneak attack is great. Practice using CnD as you have, you may want to choose between Shadow Refuge OR Blinding Powder. If you went 30 in SA, Shadow Ref is a no brainer (for the regen from stealth). I think Shadow Ref is going to be your best friend since you love pistols, since it will combo for a lifesteal as well.

Just watch youtube videos of others with pistol builds and try out what fits you best. At this points I’ve tried all weapon sets and have a set of exotic power/crit gear and condition gear.

You must find what you like through discovery, it’s part of the fun and ensures you always evolve and aren’t just good at the “flavor of the month” build.

Thanks! Btw is Ricochet not worth it?

Not really I havent tried it with pistol pistol though but I have with p/d it procs decent but in my opinion the other traits are just way better. Why take a trait that is useless if you are fighting someone 1 on 1 or 1v2 and they have good spacing. I rather have any of the other traits over ricochet

Ungood.3054:

The point here, is that Ehmry Bay, should have moved up with the Influx, but notice it didn’t while Maguuma did, moving from T4 to T3, on week 3 which means there is a massive flaw in the system which kept Ehmry Bay at Tier 5, destroying the Tier when it should have moved up to Tier 4, by week 4.

That is a clear indication that the “math” is faulty.

In my system, when Ehmry Bay spiked, it would have moved up on week 4, after Kaineng moved through (which put Ehmry Bay at 2nd place in Tier 5)

No matter how you want to play this out, the Glicko system is simply not working, because it is being applied to something it was never designed to handle.

My idea would put the correct world close together, some weeks they would lose, some weeks they would win, but in short order, they would all be pretty balanced.

But more then that, each world is only accountable for it’s win or loss this week, it does not carry the burden of last week, month, year, nor does it have some point system making it so that even if it wins, it can’t pull away, Like:

Ehmry bay, stuck in Tier 5, even tho they have been stomping it.
Darkhaven has been owning Tier 7, yet has not moved.
Stormbluff Isle fell from t2 to T4 in one move and still kept losing, but is not being allowed to drop further.

That proof positive that the system is in fact falling.

In my system, Northern Shiverpeeks which has been coming in last for 3 weeks straight would have moved to T7, letting Darkhaven moved to T6, where is most likely belongs without these dragging on lop sided stagnant match ups.

In fact, in a total of 8 Tiers, only 2 of them have shown close numbers all month long, and that is Tier 6, and Tier 1.

With Tier 6 having the exact same loser ALL month Long.

Anyone who would rather that kind of stagnation as opposed to testing their skill and mettle against new and varying opponents every week I think has lost the spirit of what a War game should be about.

Now I respect the PvP’s who are used to the Glicko system, (or anyone that played Chess in Tournaments) that have learned painfully and hard that going out of your tier always ends poorly, but, that is because Glicko is designed to work for an individual, and it works well in that arena. No doubt.

But in WvWvW , a server can’t be treated like an Individual, it’s an ad-hock team like pick up b-ball. and Glicko is simply not designed to for that. Winner Wins, Loser, Losses is.

Huh? I posted those threads showing that maguuma did in fact get a ton of people. There is no way you even looked at it. Ehmry bay fell to tier 7 because we lost people we have worked out way up to tier 5 where we are currently next week we go to tier 4 that took 3 weeks.

Mags got a ton of people they moved up to tier 3 I believe in 2 weeks. That is why I posted it. 3 weeks isn’t long for us to move up considering we went from a tier 4 server all the way down to tier 7 and have raised back up to tier 4 again. We only spent 1 week in tier 7.

Those links have to do with maguuma not ehmry bay. I posted those showing that indeed maguuma did get more people and moved up to tier 3 but upon thier visit they couldn’t handle FA but they have been competitive with DB up until this match.

this thread should be titled welcome to yesterday for anyone with a pulse. d/p perma stealth is so old like 4 months old.

Kerithlan.1659:

katz.8376:

Kerithlan.1659:

This is an interesting analysis of what I’ve posted because I’m not posting speculation, whereas you are.

Ungood posted numbers anyone can find quite easily on the millenium matchup site.

where does your ‘evidence’ come from? can you point to it and say “here it is… this server has this many people, that server has that many, and they used to have so many more/less.” where is your proof? if it’s nowhere but stored in your head, its not proof.

http://xkcd.com/558/
http://blog.thinknewfound.com/statistics-without-context-are-just-numbers/
http://www.badscience.net/2011/01/putting-a-number-in-its-context/

Furthermore all of the transfers that took place were discussed at length in each tier’s respective match-up topics. I’m not going to dig them up because — frankly — you can do it yourself. I understand that you want the burden of proof to be on me, but I already know how important statistical context is and don’t want to be roped into lecturing people regarding things that have nothing to do with the topic.

Pretty much this every server knows if they got a good amount of transfers. Ehmry bay and Maguuma are pratically married so we always follow each others matchups.

Maguuma’s register on our own Server forums and post all the time.

You can’t see this unless you register but we had guilds leave our server and go to mags or db and they where large oceanic guilds

http://www.ehmry.com/topic/1963-so-it-seems-that-mag-has-become-a-zerg-server/

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Leaving-Maguuma/first

This is the thread that started it all for Maguuma to get a massive population influx they didn’t want new people someone posted don’t come and it backfired and they got new people.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Need-a-home-Don-t-choose-Maguuma/first

Thats on page 19 of wvw forums if you go there thats around the time when all the servers started to lose people or gain people so you can find most of the threads there for other servers.

Kodiack.2783:

… the kissy kissy lovefest going on in the T2 thread is getting hard to watch. Get a room and make the merger happen, you know you both wannna.

-K

Your signature says your on Anvil Rock why do you care how the t2 matchup thread is going?

Medar.4039:

Nice cheating behind Redvale Refuge. Way to use a glitch and cheat you wuss.

Way to read the rules of the forums this isn’t were you post exploits inb4 close.

Ungood.3054:

Catisa.6507:

you essentially have a match up of 1 t6, 1 t7 and 1 t8 … that’s a disaster of a match up.

No. That is not “Essentially” what you have, that is exactly what you will have and it Sounds like fun, lets make it happen.

You will have:
The Worst of T6
The Holds their Own of T7
The Best of T8

Going Against Each other, and that is exactly what we really should have been doing all along, enough with the over braining what should be simple and direct.

We beat you this week, we move up.
You lost this week, you move down.
You held your own, you stay here.

If we see you again in 2 weeks great, if not, oh well. Welcome to direct conflict where we don’t try to maths victorious into defeats, or losses into wins.

Nuff said!

Yea your not biased at all. I know you guys in T8 are tired of SF I read the Anet doesn’t care thread but your idea is terrible.

So my upcoming match would look like

Ehmry bay vs Borliss pass vs SBI

Currently SBI is the worst of tier 3 higher than us but they lost a ton of people so they are falling. They might make it to T8 so you guys have someone new to fight same with IOJ.

That would be boring thanks to the math SBI will take our spot in tier 5 and we move to tier 4 next week. We would roll SBI and Borliss Pass it would be the same as the last 3 weeks in which we have rolled DR and IOJ except the servers would be called SBI and BP.

Catisa.6507:

Okay so with no math you end up with things like:

T8: SF moves up and HoD moves down, do you really thing HoD won’t kitten slap the other two the same as SF has been doing?

T6: NSP drops and DH moves up, Do you somehow think NSP is going to beat GoM and HoD by less then DH has been doing? No in all likelihood, NSP will make T7 even more lopsided then it was. Compound this with a T8 moving to T7 and you essentially have a match up of 1 t6, 1 t7 and 1 t8 … that’s a disaster of a match up.

The problem isn’t the ranking system, its population/coverage differences. Anet really should have had separate WvW servers and strictly maintained population balances between then, then maybe we wouldn’t have big differences between tiers and some tiers with a good match but one that’s stale and old (personally I am sick of both enemy servers I have been playing again but I know any change and the match up will only be worse, so you end up with a choice, new faces or better match up).

Pretty much this I don’t know why the people of T8 seem to think just playing another server would make it fun and add variety. It will add variety thats for sure and the people of T8 would maybe have fun fighting someone different for 3 days then it would suck.

Any server that experienced kainengs rise to T2 I doubt would call it fun. Thats a different server right that all the tiers between 3-7 never faced I doubt any one really found that fun even if it was only for 1 week.

It sounds like it would be fun until you face it after reset weekend it sucks. The difference between a T2 server and T3 is night and day ask people of Fort Aspenwood how their recent visit to T2 was. My server was in Tier 4 for a while before we dropped and Crystal Desert for whatever reason dropped down to Tier 4 not a fun week at all.

Tighten up the rating a bit more but otherwise I think it is better than the proposed system from the OP.

WvW is more interesting if the matchup is competitive. I agree they should throw 1 or 2 more maps in the rotation to add spice. They don’t have to be bigger or anything just add more stuff to them. Like eternal is well designed in my opinion there is enough random stuff going on to keep it interesting.

I find the borderlands kind of boring but I just like killing people so I can deal with it but I find eternal alot more fun to play in than the borderlands.

The only perma stealth build is d/p people just throw around this d/p term. Its not perma stealth if you have to connect with the enemy to stay in stealth. Dagger/Pistol you can stealth without a cloak and dagger.