Guild Wars 2

It’s possible his autocorrect had a field day! The post made me chuckle. Go back and edit it, dude.

That said I do believe the initiative system leads to extremely compelling decision dichotomies both in the micro level of combat as you decide what to spend resources on and when, and macro for build crafting to find your preferred methods for how and when you will replenish resources. I feel like I did build crafting in sc2, that’s your macro game.

With my hammer warrior I don’t feel that. I’m just unloading everything I have to put it on cool down. I don’t feel a lot of depth other than timing counters/mitigation skills. With shouts build that layer almost doesn’t even exist.

If you can mitigate that damage with stealth and sustains self healing, pair with shadowstep util to remove some conditions, and being able to make them chase you and since they can’t finish you off it’s not worth it to stay on you, you can soft counter condition damage. We just don’t seem to have a hard counter

Oh it’s very good, but the potential is only reached with healing stat increase. I like enough that signet of malice heals are 140. I get a little less than that with 490 +heal

Alright Wolfe here’s the challenge you will face:

The thing that’s hardest to counter specifically is a resilient build. Being hard to kill/catch is what I mean. Your other piece of the “best build” needs to be some damage that isn’t worthless, so figuring out what to give up in your playstyle to unleash damage boosts that synergize with how you like to play is the puzzle to solve.

You should check out taugrim’s post on the complexity of gw2 spvp for further insight.

I have success with high healing, toughness, signet of malice, assassin’s reward builds. Still trying different adjustments since I still feel weak to condition damage and I want to get some increased damage output as well to hit the ideal, super resilient, non burst but deadly anyway build

Yes.

yes

it was a difficult sell but i found dropping the speed signet gave me a super useful tool for either travel or resistance to being burned/bled severely and additional escape from these brutal roots i am getting from engineer and rangers.

Signet of malice, Roll for initiative, caltrops, shadowstep – dagger storm

Using SBow, and vitality runes, +heal and toughness, condition damage in amulet. I’m near impossible to catch without 3-4 getting angry and not giving up, so they can root me down after I run out of tricks.

Signet use is good but I find I can’t make it synergize in condition damage setups very well. You really can do well balancing power, precision, and vitality/+heal there. I like similar build when doing signet use and mostly capitalize on pistol whip for the extra avoidance. Maybe I just haven’t found the right mix but Sbow is doing awesome and has a lot of bang for the buck in my improved malice heals. I feel sturdier than ever.

In the off weapon set I’m keeping dagger and pistol, so I can use heartseeker as a sprint if I want, and so I can also blind, headshot, and do heartseeker through the blind field to gain more stealth.

Haven’t read entire thread but a good ways in.

I researched professions fairly thoroughly while the game was in final stress tests phase. Thief was most compelling as the most evasive, yet tricky ability set for the innovative combat on the move system that intrigued me deeply.

I think the original post has some legitimate points. However I am using a tough build that capitalizes on my evasive toolset and deals great bleed damage. And I think there are plenty of trait setups that put the thief at maximum strengths of their trickery and high speed maneuvers. I love it. Couldn’t main any other profession.

no we’re talking about zerging the points, which is trying to take it by throwing the whole team or most of it at the one spot. successful zerg is overcoming the amount of forces they have, and often the only way to overcome a turtling unit at an objective.

often both teams will keep trying to keep it up so they wont lose to the zerg so its just zerg against zerg at that point. you kind of get blown up unless you’re playing very trickily with a shortbow in those battles

In my present build I have it, plus +20% boon time on Acrobatics.

I seem to be getting 33 seconds of vigor on steal which is incredible. 3 more seconds is 20% of 15. 3 + 30 = 33. Unless I missed something else that is giving me more benefit here or there was a change that didn’t make it to tooltip.

Any clarification? Should the trait be that powerful?

F1, ` to 5 – standard
q – Heal
WER /T- Slots/Elite

Y- call target
6 obtain target
a / D strafe L/R
S- Dodge Shift-s about face

this idea occurred to me halfway into the stress tests after looking at taugrim’s setups and thinking it was a bit too much of a change over my old system of handling 12-16 abilities (1-6, q-y, f1-f8)

Thief is the king of mobility in this combat on the run system we have in GW2. What other prof can build for acrobatics? That’s what ultimately has hooked me both in the concept/research prelaunch & stress testing phase as well as now post-launch as a full main. Every build I come up with hinges on sprinting and a large amount of dodge and evasion.

Signet of malice over dagger storm is essentially a healing elite. Bonus to shadow refuge builds. Just keep the signet off cool down till the end/need to run away

I can’t seem to give up the speed on signet of shadows. I kind of feel like I would like my utility choices better if I had all 3 slots to work with. Therefore I am trying to make a dagger, pistol, shortbow build that is resilient, fast, and can use heartseeker for bursts of speed/escape but primarily uses shortbow for damage

I think pistol whip is a defining thief maneuver. It’s just fun to use. I like it in balanced power, precision, healing and vitality resilience/survival build

30 Trickery and 25 deadly arts, 15 acro, to improve poison and have caltrops skill with 24 recharge and dodge caltrops. Condition damage build

Hey my idea was to add more abilities that unlock as options for some of the slots. what if we could get different variants for example for just the dual skill or a few of the slots. My point is more customization without making it the same system as the other 4 slots with one big skill pool would be really cool.

Sticky immediately please! Amazing options for this prof in tough group scenarios

You might want stealth on steal in this build, hidden thief I believe. Awesome buff for that extra confusion and importantly giving you more freedom to strike well with pistol whip. Here’s my stealth/mitigation setup I’ve been playing with. Sigil of energy in both of my sets and heart seeker as a sprint spam when needed http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fYAQRAoY8alcmaPHcy5E+5ExmCfKUuHF1oItTBX1KA;TwAA2Cmouxcj4G7Nubk3s+Ygx+jJGA

Big fan of the thrill of the crime and bountiful theft combo. You’ve probably got the stealthiest supportive thief build going here, and I can see you also go for a lot of backstab . I like stealthing on steal and am using it in both my Special heal tactics builds right now

Oh also caltrops and 5 points in acrobatics will serve you very nicely. Sword and pistol is may other favorite. If you get signet of malice to heal while striking with it you can melee all day, almost since skill 3 pistol whip is evasion, short stun, and with the malice heals also mitigation

Withdraw is amazing. Though you can immobilize after stealthing with the sb I got withdraw and roll for initiative for maximum survival while killing everything with the sb, love the weapon for solo/world content

Pistol is considered low in utility but shortbow is very powerful for condition damage, I’ve used it almost exclusively in my pve leveling since i could evade and chip awaand recently begun sticking to it in spvp with trickery setups and I can absolutely for example take down the svanir boss mob by myself in spvp as a gauge of its viability (deal a lot of damage while avoiding a lot)

Either a full venom share, or personally I like deception skills and master of deception (for 48/24 sec Improved recharge) with Shadow refuge, blinding powder, scorp wire or smoke screen, Lot of choices really for 3rd based on situations.

Shadow protector to give regen boon when stealthing allies, Infusion of shadow to gain 2 initiative anytime you enter stealth. Trickery for thrill of the crime & bountiful theft at least. I like hastened replenishment for 4 more initiative on heal. This synergizes for condition damage.

shortbow is my favorite choice when it comes to pve and overall support. you can deal great bleed damage by cluster bombing with proper detonation, poison combos, and have sword/dagger off if you need to swap for stealth, dagger 4 can also be handy. Dual pistol is another possibility since pistol off has good utility but I think sword pistol is the best overall set thanks to infiltrator strike. For cloak and dagger though it may be worth keeping a dagger offhand which is why the following has sword dagger secondary set

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#Mckc0mz0mFnRomFnRo9MxaxzcVcVkq

I thought wvw was a little different since you were using the world/pve gear options in there. STRUCTURED is where you have a completely separate game with only x, y, z gear config options so it’s like a component of your build, and no one can specifically win by way of acquiring more gear in order to faceroll everyone else who might have just started. Since that’s the hugest flaw with enjoying the pvp in nearly any other game, I’ve been hooked on this since i first used it to test professions in the stress tests. I am gaining some pve levels but am spending the majority of my time buildcrafting and playing random matches in structured.

Yeahi think you can either build with signet use or get hidden thief and the 2 initiative regain on stealth in the shadow line. Both great styles for trickery, condition damage setups

Acrobatics was my first enthusiasm followed by trickery. So I first got withdraw and roll for initiative. Had to have signet of shadows, can’t give it up in any build for the 3rd slot, which does make me a little sad. Another very nice tool for me is the signet with the shadow step to target and passive initiative regen. I can roll for initiative and step right back for more attacks, or use it to break lockdowns

Otherwise liking scorpion wire, caltrops, shadow refuge. I’m up to level 30 but can barely tear myself away from the pvp

The skill

Of running away.

I like acrobatics, and the endurance refill signet, sigil of energy, bountiful theft for vigor

I dont want to see the range go down, if anything make it consistent with sword 2 and give a 0.5 to 1 second cast time. Adjust the cost so the base is 1 more, and it refunds some initiative above certain health levels (since it is less potent) but casts faster. This way the resource and timing costs have more consequence while used to execute

If it had infiltrators strike functionality we would use it. The 1 & 2 don’t do enough for a lot of situations meaning p/p would be the off set preferably and I prefer d/d so I can get stealth and more evade or shortbow in pve instead along with my sword pistol main set

Honestly i’m very torn between all the options. I like the burst style & the durability and hard to catch trait options. Lately I am seeing how a condition damage & acrobatics-trickery style could work. This is more super options than I have had with one character in any game in a while. I am very happy to be a thief

Well I just got a large gear sword on my norn thief. Is it as large as a great sword, no. But it is a big broad and jagged looking blade that breaks out of the toothpicky sad look mentioned above and looks super. same with the gear dagger it is more of a shortsword with a huge bayonet at the top of the blade.

There’s a GREAT build that has haste, at least 20 into trickery to get trickster. The version I have tried and tweaked has 20-30 in critical strikes as well to get the two signet traits and executioner. I like signet of shadows to give me speed, and the precision/endurance refill one.

The other thing that build uses is signet of malice, since you get 100-140 heal depending on your +heal stat, PER STRIKE as in per enemy and each hit landed.

Now to make the most of that you really end up being fragile when you slot high precision and critical damage instead of vitality and healing, but because you’re both evading and getting those heals on every landed blow, you’re sort of doing a mitigation and avoidance dance and when playing well with all the tricks for positioning and movement that we have as thieves, you will be very effective and putting down bursts of pain that cannot be denied (well except for that rare Permanent Retaliation guardian you may come across who basically does nothing and you die in 2 seconds). I am often seeing 7k or 8k damage with each pistol whip when scoring critical. You can put down 2 and a half with haste if you press it as you’re laying down the first blow, and you can also get lucky and get a sigil of rage quickness or use the quickness that comes with the mesmer steal all boons. That’s burst. If you can wield it craftily then you can create immense havoc and avoid being ripped to shreds too many times before you’ve already made your mark on the enemies unlucky enough to meet your sword.

I believe there is a guide on one of the fan forums for this called Oshef’s roaming burst build where I originally saw the idea.

Taugrim captain hammer. Broken on the OP side of the scale