Guild Wars 2

It really depends on the situation and thats alot of factors. Most glass cannon builds are meant to get in do some burst pop some form of damage reduction or mitigation and get out heal up come back in repeat. Its kind of like asking whats better glass cannon or tank.

Like someone said condi builds are usually more attrition based it also depends on class too. If you have good interrupts you can interrupt heal and cleanse if it has a cast time making condition damage just as effective as burst. I honestly thin there is no clear winner really have both if you can.

I play condition style and the only time I have a problem say 1v1 killing something is bunker guardian and bunker ele. The bunker ele is more doable than the guardian. Condition take more of a hit if there is some passive condi removals traited on the enemy. If its bunker guardian Ill see how the first moments of the fight go but usually its not worth it to stick around because backup will be coming soon either for you or him.

Scootabuser.4915:

no

it wouldn’t be the thief forum if half the front page was p/d videos

^^ yea it would all be p/d videos rofl

yea what lofat said I would put 30 in shadow arts. drop the last 10 from trick and put those into shadow arts.

answer to 2 is no you don’t if your bleeds do say 110 per tick if you add a fractal back piece for condition damage your bleeds will do 111 “maybe”

that stat difference is really small.

answer to 3 is your personal opinion really. I log into play wvw I did fractals when they came out havent done them in about a month but during that time i really wasnt playing wvw either. but its all on you really.

mmm thanks Cempa I know the normal p/d builds as I play p/d most of the time in wvw. I was just looking for feedback on anything different if you ran rabid as opposed to the normal carrion on setup.

I actually have a friend that is running full carrion and he has 11k hp so yea definitely not running rabid with p/d ever. He has no points in acro but even if he did put 20 points in acro no thanks lol.

OdinBudd.5298:

ChonieRanchito.1270:

My plan is to get 2 of each rune for the +15% bleed duration on each set. I know sigils do not stack but I was not sure if runes do or do not.

I feel silly asking this, but do the sigils that give a 10% boost to condition duration stack? So 2 sigils would equal 20% condition duration?

EDIT: Also, is there a 100% cap on condition duration, meaning anything above 100% is a waste?

Thanks for any help here, wiki is a little less than helpful!

yes you can use condition duration if you like I am using 2x mad king runes with my 2x krait and 2 afflicted which gives my 40% total duration to my bleeds just from runes. The 2 piece bonus from mad king is 10% condition duration.

You can get over 100% bleed duration you would need 2x krait 2x afflicted 2x centuar 45% food 40%, 2 sigils of agony 20% that puts you at 105% bleed duration.

I don’t thin anyone has tried it that I know of. You would need 20 points in DA with the above set up to see if you can get another tick from your bleeds putting you at 9 secs per bleed from pistol. I don’t think anyone has tried it because you are pretty much all in on bleeds. 75% duration I think is good allows for bit more flexibility imo. Then you can swap out agony sigils for something else like geo or corruption or battle which would give 3 stacks of might on weapon swap which is 105 condition damage and 105 power

have to make another post because I guess its on another page.

I read that your not saying that a thief shouldn’t have access to stealth and that your saying that it should be balanced.

Basically what I am saying is that if you say for instance took away cnd thieves would pretty much never be played at all.

You would have to change the entire class it wouldn’t be attractive to anyone and those that did play it would be pretty gimped. You would have to increase the base HP pool of the thief and change skills around an entire rework.

Next time your in wvw and say you run into a group of 5-10 players and your with a group of 5-10 players just watch what the thief does.

He will sit back find a target attack it try to get a kill and go back behind the front lines. He isn’t in the mix swing away etc if he is he is probably going to die or he has shadow step up to get out and then what its on a 60 sec cd. and he is back behind the front lines.

Yes a thief can engage in combat and disengage at will thats what superior mobility will do for you. If you removed stealth or whatever is your aim is. What would the results be for thief? Nobody would probably play it would be 1 cause they would die all the time pve and wvw.

Imagine if the thief had no stealth at all. How would the thief kill/engage people? Thief has no access to invul/complete mitigation really stealth is the defense. People spec into the shadow arts tree for the traits (see how they revolve around stealth) nobody specs there for the toughness because you can’t get enough toughness to make you really tanky. Then your still pretty much a single target.

Go grab a thief put on all invaders p/v/t gear and try to go kill something with any of the weapon sets and try to do so by not going into stealth. That is what it would be like if thief didn’t have stealth and you would be saying how am I suppose to kill someone.

Also you talk about mobility if thieves didnt have stealth you would pretty much force everyone to run shortbow so they can get away in wvw. SoS doesn’t just allow you to walk away from people..

pdboddy.4162:

If you really think the person was abusing the game, you should report them, instead of posting here and speculating.

Reading is fundamental.

Babayum.9204:

But maybe hes doing it legitly i dont know, thats why im asking ^^

The bold letters are from the OP its like the 3rd post down

Yea the only way S/P is gonna work in WvW if your not speccing some max damage/haste is if you put devourer venom on it. Nobody stands there and eats it all.

I think s/d is best for a build were your not really doing damage. I consider p/d to be durable also.

Its really hard to put tanky/buner in the same sentence with thief. A bunker/tank can go jump into 5 enemies head on to soak up some damage draw fire and team can come behind to help. Thief is just kind of distracting.

thanks guys for the responses thanks lokheit for the math breakdown too. I was wondering I know the optimal is 200% cd but I didn’t think about that when I was just going over the idea in my head

Most p/d thieves know the traditional setups and builds and you tweak how you like its pretty flexible imo.

The one thing I havent done is run it with rabid gear (referring to WvW). Just theory crafting in my head I can see it has the potential with the right rune, trait, gear setup to possibly put the burst on top of the condi damage if you can get a decent crit chance a bit of crit damage and still maintain at least 75% duration on bleeds.

Just wondering if anyone has tried it in full rabid (precision,toughness, condition damage) gear and what feedback they have.

I tried direct damage no focus on condi damage with p/d and its lacking imo. If a good crit/condi damage setup is possible it might be another good alternative. I think if you wanted a bit more direct damage rampager would be better than going beserker. None of this is tested just based of how p/d work and I think you would definitely want to still have decent condi damage if your going for a bit more burst.

Also it could open the door to take something like sundering strikes to get the vulnerability on crit with your pistols which would add another condition to p/d.

Galsia.4102:

Assuming you’re running the build Lofat suggested, having the following will put your bleed duration up to 100% and your poison duration to 60%:

2x Superior Rune of the Afflicted: 15% Bleed Duation, 28 Cond. Dmg
2x Superior Rune of the Krait: 15% Bleed Duration, 28 Cond. Dmg
20 points in Deadly Arts: 20% Condition Duration
Rare Veggie Pizza: 40% Cond. Duration, 70 Cond. Dmg
Superior Sigil of Agony: 10% Bleed Duration

That leaves your last two armor runes/OH Dagger sigil to fill.

Seeing as you’ve got 20 points invested into DA, you should be running Spider Venom as one of your utilities. In order to get the most out of it, using a Superior Sigil of Venom (10% Poison Duration) and 2x Runes of the Orrian (28 Cond. Dmg, 15% Poison Duration) will bump its base 6 second duration up to 11 (11.1 exactly; 85% increase) seconds. If you were to use the Mad King Rune (10% Cond. Duartion, 25 Power; 80% increase) as previously suggested, your Spider Venom would only get up to 10 (10.8; rounded downed to 10.75) seconds; a huge waste for coming so close to the full value.

If you want to max out your potential, I’d get an additional dagger with a Superior Sigil of Corruption for an extra 250 Cond. Dmg.

This is good post and good info. I feel like trying to push your poison duration up with a rune is kind of a waist. If you proc all 5 shots on the venom you would hit about a minute of poisoned which is good but also max. With the cd reduction on venoms then I would definitely run spider as by the time it wears off if the enemy doesn’t have condi removal up it will be off cd again.

I actually myself have given up vigor on heal for might on dodge which will help make up points you don’t have in trickery for condi damage and I run quick recovery lately as I run sb as my alternate. I think vigor on heal though is good for the 20 pt da (wild bill setup). Since you don’t have bountiful theft.

Thats normal for p/d facing the right comp of 5 players how did he pick you guys off unless you had people seperate from the group. Its hard to pull off 1v5 if there is a decent burst thief their or d/d ele, hammer guardian, necro, you can troll but getting actual stomps is hard to pull off if they are all level 80

A off hand pistol thief watching for your heal will also ruin your day.

Mmmm possibly could help out s/p and d/p and p/p if the field does damage stack it with black powder to help the thief out a bit more when you have to go toe to toe in melee range.

It only happens in the beginning of the video but it is kind of suspect though. In all my hours playing I have never seen anyone do that unless they are using sword main hand or shadow step. Even laggy situation etc there isnt anyone around and the op doesn’t have skill lag at all. I don’t know I mean since it only happened at the beginning and you did get a chance to burst him down and it didn’t happen when you landed good burst on him kind of makes me think he isn’t hacking.

for pistol weapons basilisk is weird. Sometimes a vital shot will make it work sometimes not. I have found that body shot if you connect the hit will always proc basilisk

Yea agree with above as players are getting better more people are learning how to counter thieves in game. I use refuge and a necro or warrior or mesmer is knocking me out of it now. Now that people are starting to learn to play against thieves the glaring weaknesses in the class are becoming more pronounced.

I get random party invites from gc thieves from the enemy side asking me about p/d since gc is getting countered even harder these days.

Really? like seriously?

This is like posting how to get 25 stacks of might indefinitely.

What you do is equip a short bow and put at least 25 points in Shadow arts put 20 points in acrobatics for the boon duration.

Then get the omnom pies for 40% boon duration. Then you go in shadow refuge build up stacks of might. Then have your friend cast ring of fire and cluster bomb blast field the ring each giving you 3 stacks per blast. Make sure you have power of inertia and roll around alot. Hide in shadows too and blinding powder.

Thats it rinse and repeat. o.O

If the people in the tower didnt see the big cloud of smoke from smoke screen then I doubt they would have seen the thieves if they just stood there.

Servers aren’t dying because there are servers with no WvW pop. Maybe those servers PvE more than WvW.

Kasama.8941:

Here’s a Thief playing without stealth. I think he’s doing pretty well, and the fights actually looks fair and fun. Also notice how he actually have to use all his skills to be effective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F9E54gxN6Y

Seriously? The first 3 minutes of the video in all but 1 engagement he pops thieves guild everytime.

I think headshot is fine it is pretty powerful as it is now. Denying a heal is not really hard at all and if you interrupt it then it goes on a almost 3 sec cd thats pretty strong when someone is about to die.

Vulnerability isn’t a bad condition there is a thread on guru that explains that 1 stack of vulnerability is about 1.5% increase in damage not the 1% like the tooltip says. The problem is maintaining stacks with body shot so you can take advantage of it. Maybe increase the vulnerability to about 7 seconds usually if you body shot then try to dump unload on them they have dropped a few stacks anyway by time the cast is done or they dodged half of it.

Kasama.8941:

This is what was said about stealth for the Thief, when it was first revealed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWm8dTrEyWM

(watch from 2:50 to 3:21)

Interview (http://kotaku.com/5780900/the-guild-wars-2-thief-is-a-rogue-like-none-other):
“Stealth in Guild Wars 2 runs on a timer, which would allow you a few precious seconds of Initiative recharge before the enemy uncovers you again.

The wise Thief player will know when to retreat and recharge."

“Players are used to going toe-to-toe with monsters, and the Thief is built around hopping in-and-out of combat. If you don’t know when to back off, you’re going to die.”

Thats from 2011 March thats a long time ago obviously design changed since then because your really only getting recharge if you trait with stealth. Then if they did do it like this it wouldn’t change the damage it would make everyone play it straight glass. If I have a limited window to get in and do damage or I am forced to retreat because of how my class is designed then I am going max damage. That is probably why that was changed.

Here’s the description of stealth from wiki:
“Stealth — Thieves have access to multiple skills which, for a short duration, make them invisible to enemy players and avoid aggro of hostile NPCs. While stealthed the thief is not targettable, but can still be damaged by attacks which hit them, and attacking from stealth will break the deception.”

Sounds like thats working as stated

And from the 14th december update notes:
“Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.”

Masters of mobility, and stealth sounds like its working to me don’t see any contradiction to it all. Highest single target dps? Yup. Mobility to flank? Yup there are even traits that give you more damage if you trait even the thief runes give you more damage if you flank.

Seriously though this should go in the feedback thread

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/The-thief-and-its-gameplay-Your-feedback/page/42#post1239162

your not saying anything that isn’t posted there

Red Falcon.8257:

You got it wrong, I use stealth only to use stealth skills not as a fundament of my playstyle.

You will find by experience that advanced players do not fall for stealth-cheesing, but you will need to rely on evasiveness and mobility to beat them (which is the real strength of the Thief, but again you’ll also realize this when playing against better opponents).

To recap, I don’t mind some changes to stealth in PvP if we get more evasiveness/mobility in return. It’d just be a buff for me.[/quote]

I see you want to be on some pedestal as you feel you are different but that still doesn’t make sense that you only use stealth for steath skills. Who doesn’t do that?

Im asking seriously now. Yea I get the evasiveness and the mobility part that is pretty obvious to thieves especially if you go 15 into acro at all. Saying you only use stealth for stealth skills if you said I don’t use stealth skills when I am in stealth and use the other skills that would be different. Like you go in stealth and use cluster bomb or go in stealth and use flanking strike but everyone that plays thief uses stealth skills when they are in stealth if your not using them then your kind of gimping yourself.

Maybe you don’t use hide in shadow, blinding powder, or shadow refuge?

Shoogli.6185:

Lofat, I enjoyed your video very much. At last not one of those zillions “I activate all my 1mn cds then go backstab an unsuspecting victim” thief pvp video.
Also i liked that you showed the whole setup of skills and traits and gear at the end.

Something i’m not sure I saw there, is the amount of +critical dmg you have in the setup you use in the video. I’m really curious about it.

Also one question please : I see you get a sigil of paralyzation on the sword, but it only adds like a small % duration over an already small duration (it’s used for the immobilize part of the infiltrator strike since not on a pistol then not to add a little to the headshot ? Sorry this is something I have a hard time to determine when looking at sigils and how they affect this or that skill).

Oh wait, another question (ha ha…) : you have the chill sigil on both pistols ? Don’t they share some kind of similar overlapping cd, so to speak, or is it to make sure it applies more (if it does work that way, that is…), or does it not share cd and thus does it add to duration ?

Thanks a lot !

:)

From my testing adding paralyzation to sword makes the daze about 3 secs the tool tip doesn’t reflect but it is 3 secs. Rune of mesmer doesn’t add to the duration if you have the paralyzation if you have the sigil on weapon so you can go one or the other. (if I am wrong here please correct) This only applies to WvW though I think you can only get 2sec daze in sPvP now.

Daze on pistol is more to interrupt say a important skill like heal if you interrupt the heal they can’t use it for almost 3 secs(not exactly 3 secs but close) I added a paralyzation sigil to p/p and I didn’t notice a difference in headshots daze duration at all.

The 2 chill sigils he has would have a 51% chance to proc chill on crit as opposed to 30% they would still have the internal cd of 10 secs after a successful proc.

Red Falcon.8257:

I for one don’t use stealth a lot, I mainly use it for stealth skills; .

See this wasn’t a good way to start at all. Who doesn’t use stealth for stealth skills?

D/D = Backstab
P/P= Sneak attack (no ini cost) followed by Unload
S/D = Daze
D/P= Backstab
SB= Surprise shot (immobilize)
S/P = daze
p/d = sneak attack

Who doesn’t use the stealth skills as a thief they are like the best skills pretty much.

Topher.1684:

I would swap the distance modifier on powder and body shot, and add some distance modifier on the 3rd auto attack. Point of these would be to make the changes viable for P/P (ranged weapon that prefers to stay near max range) and P/D (meleeish weapon that needs to get close to something in order to work).

You clearly have more imagination then I do, so this is a very basic idea:

Vital Shot – Damage: 134
Bleeding: 4 s (170 damage)

Poison Shot – Damage: 134
Poison: 4 s (170 damage)

Vital Repeater –
Damage at 1-400 distance: Damage: 150
Cripple: 4 s
Damage at 401-900 distance: Damage: (x3) 254
(3 stacks) Bleeding: 4 s (510 damage)

The close range could also benefit P/P if they wanted that extra condition.

Maybe also switch Head Shot and BP damage range modifier. With my previous changes this would make:
-Body Shot do more damage under 400
-Head Shot do more damage over 400
-BP…?

I can hop on the poison shot. Though it would make Spider Venom totally useless. Maybe have to replace spider venom with some kind of burn attack maybe.

Twystyd.8453:

Jinks.2057:

To the TL 100blades+haste War and all the other Kain players in your BL @ Redbriar today…..

You should be ashamed of yourselves….down right ashamed

You must be from that all thief / mesmer cheese. I’ll say this, at least the kid from Grindhouse wasn’t terrible. We see worse.

That would probably be me as I do roam alot was fun. That mesmer you guys had was really on his support with the rez and time warp.

CrassBippy.4619:

Ugh grind house? You mean the group of 4 that do nothing but abuse thief stealth? Mad skilllz

This is like saying Mesmers abuse clones, Rangers abuse arrows, engi’s abuse grenades, ele’s abuse water, fire, earth, and air. They are missing Heart so they Can’t call Captain planet though

Whats the consensus on uncatchable at this point. I am still on the fence about it. I haven’t been running it lately and instead run thrill of the crime. I feel like its a decent trait but not necessary.

I have been favoring spider venom lately instead of caltrops but I change around my last util slot alot been trying smoke screen lately see how I like it.

Also most video’s posted people always say they where bad players but while they where not very good players its still outnumbered with arrow carts raining down so gotta give some credit for that.

I don’t see alot of videos posted of any spec where its a 1v5 or 1v4 and there is a GC thief in the enemy force. If you don’t take the thief out you can’t really 1vX and thief if at least decent can stall you out until the other guys get you down or force you to abandon.

All in all though I enjoy P/D alot because of the survivability. I like to look at it as our version of D/D tankish ele. Though we have jack for aoe really I use the sb also but more for the poison then the cluster bleeds.

I would suggest if you look at superior sigil of geomancy its a pbaoe 7 second base 3 stack bleed. I have 75% bleed duration and my geomancy bleeds last for 13 seconds it also does damage I have had it hit for almost 1k before and I have like jack for power really.

Just have to be careful when swapping weapons as it will break stealth if you hit something. Not to hard to do and is excellent when you swap to bow then lay a poison field down.

Yes down state is lame if you can take on more than 1 person but I kind of see the point of it. If there was no down state then I think you would have a whole lot more complaints then now.

On the subject of runes I would go with the 2 centaurs over the mad kings, mad kings 10% duration isnt going to do jack for you poison tbh. I tested it you would need the 33% trait in DA and a 4th afflicted rune to get some good extension on your poison. Also centaur runes are way cheaper than mad kings.

With 10 points in DA, a 4th afflicted rune, and the food the best I got out of serpents touch was a 18 sec poison on steal up from a 10 sec base. Since choking gas is a pulsing field anyway I dont really think its worth it to actually go for poison duration.

Arkael.7140:

Cool thank you for the quick replies. My build is currently 25 DA 30 Acro and 15 Trickery. Full Carrion gear. Trying to get the most condition damage I can for my poison/bleed build. I’m around 1750 ATM.

my guess runes of the undead? Thats really only way I can see you getting that much condi damage.

Wait did he delete his post? I didnt start this topic.

No none of the +% traits affect condition damage it only affects direct damage. You can get more damage if you put 25 in trick if thats what your going for? 1% per initiative with 15 initiative 15% more damge. I dont know what your running but DA is condition duration. +% traits never affect condi damage on any class.

Might and food buffs are it for condi damage.

Come on I play a P/D thief and I have 21k hP and I don’t lose 22k in 2s never, never and I usually go after thieves when I play most of the time anyway.

At best I lose health fast if they proc haste or pop haste then dodge after basl cause its heartseeker time heal up. Fight reset in your favor most of the time.

Slamz.5376:

Bear in mind that Commander is per-character, not per account. I know of some commanders that are still around but they are playing alts and aren’t spending another 100g for another book.

Personally, I’m glad to see the win-chasers move to other servers. Those are the people who will whine the loudest when their new server doesn’t win every week. What we get left with are long-term community players.

Much respect Slamz as you are a long time Ehmry commander. I have to disagree with the win chaser attitude because we asked other guilds to come to Ehmry only to have certain people attempt to call them out on how they do business.

yea the chill is so good most ele’s I talk to said they hate being chilled especially for that long. the daze is good too a bit harder to land because guardians good access to blinds so if I do miss that its usually cause guardian blinded or blocked it.

Columba.9730:

oZii.2864:

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/17/gw2-dev-livestream-jan-17-transcript/

*Do you find any profession to be out of balance like Ele bunker, roamer, thief one shot combo, mesmer portal?

A. Ele bunker is really strong, on our watchlist
Mesmer portal is giving us problems –giving that tool onto other classes

Ele bunker is really strong, on our watchlist
Mesmer portal is giving us problems –giving that tool onto other classes

There can we close this now? Stealth is not going away devs have no problem with stealth.

So after this entire full page of threads and QQ whats on the watch list? Bunker Ele thank you Anet Devs!! Watch list doesnt mean they will do anything to Bunker Ele.

Doesn’t prove anything. Even if they came out and said the its balanced, we still have a right to provide input.

Of course that is what the forums are for but what it does is hopefully slow down the prophet threads and posts that contain “I know a nerf is coming” “There has to be nerf cause this thread exists” “look at my stacked vitality build with no toughness why I die quick? Gotta be a nerf coming”

Provide all day long but the watch list comment is relevant to this entire thread and its provided input.

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/17/gw2-dev-livestream-jan-17-transcript/

Q: Do you find any profession to be out of balance like Ele bunker, roamer, thief one shot combo, mesmer portal?

A: Ele bunker is really strong, on our watchlist
Mesmer portal is giving us problems –giving that tool onto other classes

Even the question has exaggerated one shot cause that doesnt happen but whats on the watch list? Ele bunker I don’t see thief anywhere so all the prophet threads about knowing that a nerf is coming hopefull slowdown as I know people will still make them. This should get some bumps to keep it front page maybe people will stop writing same thing over and over again.

Even if bunker ele is on the watch list doesn’t mean they will change it.

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/17/gw2-dev-livestream-jan-17-transcript/

*Do you find any profession to be out of balance like Ele bunker, roamer, thief one shot combo, mesmer portal?

A. Ele bunker is really strong, on our watchlist
Mesmer portal is giving us problems –giving that tool onto other classes

Ele bunker is really strong, on our watchlist
Mesmer portal is giving us problems –giving that tool onto other classes

There can we close this now? Stealth is not going away devs have no problem with stealth.

So after this entire full page of threads and QQ whats on the watch list? Bunker Ele thank you Anet Devs!! Watch list doesnt mean they will do anything to Bunker Ele.

jan.9745:

The only problem is the C&D , make the C&D effective only if they stab at the back of the enemy. That thing can make the thief balance., thief said L2P so let us teach them too on how to stab on the back. Thats there profession stabing on the back., i think this is not a big deal to them.,

Ill take this as you obviously have no clue what constitutes a side and back attack in GW2. You should go to the mist on a thief and see what it is you will be suprised. You will also be more wiser in future posts.

Dee Jay.2460:

There are two elements that make Pistol/Dagger Thieves significantly stronger in WvW than they actually are.

1. Culling
2. Food – The Food alone can add up to 40% Condition Duration. That makes a HUGE difference to the DPS they deal.

The food just allows you to get to 100% duration without having to go points in DA and more flexibility in the build. It allows for an effective 0/0/30/20/20 build.

100% duration is just 8 sec bleed 75% duration is 7 sec easy to achieve 7 secs without food.

Just fix culling and call it a day. Half of these suggestion are so way off its funny. Seriously you think they will just get rid of stealth and leave the class alone?

If you took away stealth nobody in their right mind would seriously touch the class. Im suppose to vital shot you to death? D/D auto attack in plan sight? Oh thats fun yea. Oh snap you can actually see I just popped a venom you better leave making my venom useles.

Its the damage and the damage is accessed for the most part from stealth a thief gets in kills someone and gets out. Lets say you take the fabulous suggestion of extending the reveal buff? Whats that do for that single target that the thief picked out? Nothing at all he is still dead if the thief is on the ball. The thief doesnt go CnD-Mug CnD. Its backstab and extending the reveal buff would do nothing to change the damage done by those attacks nor would it make it harder for the thief to get away. It just makes it harder to stomp. Then you just have the same thieves going in to down people and leaving not caring about the stomp at all. There are still plenty of tools for a thief to get away even with a longer reveal buff.

Is changing the reveal buff going to change the executioner trait? Any of the 25 point skills in the trait line? No is it going to change the haste utility? No. All the people complaining will die just as fast especially if they where to extend the reveal buff most the GC thieves complained about would probably start to carry haste all the time dropping Signet of shadows for Signet of agility and still have shadow step on the bar and still get away.

Extending the reveal buff hurts really only the P/D spec maybe a bit to S/D.

Yea p/d is fun and you can troll I run it mostly in WvW. Bunker Type guardians, eles, p/d thieves, bunker type rangers. Take forever to kill if you kill them which is usually only because that person decided to stay to fight. Most are stalemates or a bit close.

This is what happens in the majority of my encounters in WvW. People see a thief assume glass cannon as they burn all their burst at the very beginning, mesmers, warriors, other thieves etc. They get a few bleeds on them. Then they are standing in caltrops. They wipe bleeds or just heal keep fighting blow burst again then they either die from staying to long or they leave.

There are still a alot of people running around with no condi removal but its about half I would say thieves honestly are the class I see the most with no condi removal shadow step is used more as a let me stall and reset baslisk venom and come back.

I don’t usually have a problem with s/d thieves most are same combo, pop haste, oh snap he just SS away and my shadow return is way back there. I have fought 1 s/d thief though that did give it to me from yaks bend he was pretty good.

Bahhhh lol you gotta be kidding me with these topics who thinks this up.

I can go and equip a offhand dagger right and then stack a bunch of vitality and do the same thing. Or I could you know put on d/d and a ton of vit and death blossom. Or I could equip a ?/D and spam cnd.

I have 4% crit damage whats this super decent damage your talkiing about? At most get 1k out of a sneak attack and that doesnt happen often its all about the bleeds. I have tried tons of combinations with P/D and I’m telling you a condi p/d > dps p/d. P/D just doesn’t allow for good dps because the auto attack is crappy. So I don’t know where this good damage your talking about. 1k isn’t jack unless your running a glass then its still not that great damage.

Its the bleeds playa.

Also I have to add this perceived notion that everyone is running this build must only be representative on your server. There are a few that run P/D on my server but pretty much everyone runs D/D for the most part. I know thieves that have asked my build tried P/D and still go back to D/D.

What is going on in here? Where is this quote about dragons? I just read the blog post about it and don’t see dragons in WvW coming. Is this one of those lets freak out and panic ascended gear things that we have very little information on and will continue to speculate?

Glitter.7634:

To the EB thief outside Quentin Lake Sentry – I was really looking forward to getting my kitten handed to me in a duel. Of course a YB thief had to spoil the fun as I popped my food buffs 2 sec too late and proceed to down me. Then three of my heroic server mates showed up to join in the festivities… Good show putting down the YB defiler and I look forward to meeting you again in single combat and learning from the experience!

Was it a thief with Incinerator and phantasm pistol [GH] tag if so that was me I am usually hanging around there. I think the guardian had a thing for me so he kepts coming in guy from [Fun] Guild. I think you are pistol/dagger also if I remember the IA tag and little asuran.

Looks like it would have decent damage since you did go 25 into DA. Poison is very good for the heal debuff and if the enemy doesnt have condi removal then they are screwed for sure. You will pretty much always have th 10% damage increase since poison will always be applied I can see what your intentions are. A better setup imo would be runes of afflicted 4 piece is 15% poison duration then throw on 2 piece whatever that will free up the 33% trait you have that combined with food which you probably will be using is more than enough duration time. With that setup your at 80% duration on poison alone which is still overkill.

he has blinding powder on util bar 12 min mark. I dont understand this I only watch part of the video but I like or don’t like it or I have a suggestion lol. No offense but at least watch the whole thing or skip to different engagements.

interesting and different build?

Rayya.2591:

fact is, that i am borred of 40 minutes 1 vs 1 thief vs thief,

OptimistPrime.9283:

Exactly. This topic is useless

Bold explains why Primes post is relevant here. Borred also OP is referring to WvW and 1v1’s in the same sentence —--> Thats why gw2 isnt balanced for dueling.

This is why these topics don’t get taken seriously you should never use WvW and 1v1’s together it doesn’t even make sense let alone 1v1 all together because there is no mode that is focused on that(hopefully never)

If there was a dueling mode it would be so much worse. Why can’t I use my racial elite in sPvP? Don’t need a answer cause it makes sense why I can’t. Who cares that you went behind a windmill and challenged a guy to a duel? Are duels interesting yes, have I done them? Yes many times do I know that WvW or the game isn’t balanced around something that isn’t in the game? Totally.

Nemo.6295:

If you really think that they won’t do something about the outrage stealth causes, despite the fact that they already nerfed stuff just based on dumb crying (PW and Unload damage which got buffed again), considering the stealth issue complaining has a solid base.

And while there may not be anything wrong with stealth, which I totally agree with, there’s something very wrong with the damage you can deal from it with certain skills (BS wich can literally take 40-50% health) and the overuse of stealth that PD relies on PLUS the culling issue, how can they NOT do something about it. You got common sense right? Some of you at least. Use it.

Like i said if you go back everyone thought december 14th thieves would be nerfed. People had a problem with stealth then blah blah. The issue is culling and I doubt they will do anything. They are just going to fix culling which apparently they are pretty close to or might have fixed it.

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/video-game-shows/guild-wars-video/guildcast-guild-wars-show/guildcast-ep57-not-quite-guild-wars-2-expansion/ should have been the last guildcast.

The problem people have is the damage the stealth is just annoying but I highly doubt they will do anything because you know, like you said people are complainng since launch then which was august 28 if you don’t count the early access. Then on December the 14th the day the thief was to be nerfed this was released.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/first#post999247

Thief
Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.

Those patch notes and that class balance philosophy sould tell your common sense that they aren’t probably going to change stealth or nerf it. The main problem people have with thief is the damage. Why did they just do a balance fix on the mesmer in the last patch but they didn’t touch the thief again? Your not using common sense your just going with the flow the bandwagon. People are annoyed by stealth but is the damage that people don’t like the most. At best I only see a mug reduction in damage.

Also your common sense should go look at thieves traits as a whole and say hmm you know what thieves are meant to do alot of single target damage. People just are annoyed they engage in a fight but its not on their terms and a thief can break combat easier than some other classes. People complained and expected a nerf to Elementalist in that same patch. Slight nerf to blast finisher but what did they release? Runes of altruism which really helps the ele if they go bunker.

The thing about venoms at least spider anyway is that the cd isn’t bad its 45 seconds and if you can nail all 5 strikes thats about 38 seconds just with the food. I run poison sometimes as it makes it alot easier to drop 1 person if you are 1vX. I sometimes run caltrops but to really get effectiveness out of them you need a immobilize. I think cals go best with a d/d condi build. I like to have a bit more control so I am finding spider venom is a bit better. Most people still stand in the caltrops but what if they don’t its wasted especially in a 1v1 I dont feel like cals are super great. The damage is good but its like i drop them on a thiefs shadow refuge and thats about it as far as the one place you can drop them and know its gonna work. In zerg when its chaos they work good to.

Also sigil of geomancy is so good and so cheap I wasn’t running because I had agony to get to 100% duration but dropping down to 7 ticks instead of 8 allowed me try it out and I really like the sigil alot.

I think 75% duration and the points into trick are better spent aswell. I wouldn’t go any lower than 75% duration.