Guild Wars 2

Kocoff.7582:

yeah well… I have been trying to log in for the last 5 hours so… it’s gonna take a while lol.

IN THE MEANTIME I noticed this terrible terrible skill while checking your build:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Trap

It could be useful and even compete with Signet of Infiltration but 45 seconds CD? What were they thinking? Who is using this? Why?
If they added some condition cleansing or something but wow this is bad.

I think it’s a cool skill in theory. A shadow step to target, and if they don’t pop the trap it’s an escape (with a horribly long cast time). The cooldown is just way too long for me to actually want to take it, if they reduced the cooldown or added some extra effect like condi cleanse as you suggested, it would improve the usefulness of the skill and make it more viable.

AikijinX.6258:

Well done my man. Keep it up, hope to see more. I deem you trap master, and will refer Thieves to your video, if any avid adventurous Thief wants to go outside the norm, and experience Trap Life #TrapGod

I am honored to be #yungtraplord GucciXkiller. For real though it’s cool to have so much positive feedback <3 and I appreciate the support. Send anyone who’s curious my way

azmodey.4576:

Hi,

I have used trapper runes with :
-condition : great survivability but can be long to kill.
-hybrid : more damage but far less tough

Also, in my opinion it is now the best way to be stealthed.

I never tried with full front damage, it seems great.

Lud

I never even thought of trying to do a hybrid build, sounds like it could be fun. But I’m enjoying the full power build definitely.

Faux.1937:

Add reveal and Not wanting stealth are 2 different things, I personally think they will add the runes mostly b.c Dragonhunter uses Traps and they Dont have huch to make a trap build better.

But we will see.

If they add them to pvp, this definitely would be my build of choice just cause the mobility and cc the traps provide.

Kocoff.7582:

I will definitely try this out. Hoping Trapper runes is not expensive…. probably is.

I’m excited to hear what your personal experience with them is.

Oslaf Beinir.5842:

I gotta give this a try with s/p

I hope lag wars is gonna be less laggy while I get me some gold for the set of armor

There’s another guy in one of my old guilds who uses it with s/p and he just spams pistol whip. Apparently it outdps’ d/p

Serious Thought.5394:

@Reinforever- I was thinking of making a video as well, which recording device do you use?
Also nice =D I tried this in spvp, but condi pu mesmers were brutal. I’m using full signet might over trap might.

I ended up using the built in windows 10 screen capture stuff, worked out decent. Someone else pointed it out, but these runes aren’t in pvp

Faux.1937:

I personally have 3 sets of Med Ascended Armor, I was thinking of Making one into a WvW set, I too also was going ot wait for the Thief Elite spec, it could completely change the thief.

Will have to wait and see. but back in the day I ran Valk BS build it was so fun.

I implore you to give the backstab trapper a try before hot comes out! Lots of fun.

It’s all a matter of timing my friend. First off for eles specifically you need to time the stolen ability ice shard. This is a good way to shut down a d/d ele that applies a bunch of boons as it chills them and increases their cooldowns. This gives you a good opportunity to hit them with your full burst. Apart from that, just spamming stealth and dodges until you can either hit them with your burst just as their boons drop or boon steal just as they get through applying their boons. I’ve stolen an eles 15 stacks of might plenty of times so I could hit them with a big backstab.

Sagat.3285:

Nice gameplay I question Ambush though Shadow Trap is better in my opinion it just has a higher CD but the trade-offs are good,interesting to not see Trickery and the traditional Steal set up in use. Despite my hate on why the spec is working it’s kind of disappointing that trapper thieves are extremely rare in WvW.

I take ambush over shadow trap for a couple of reasons. 1. Lower cd (like you said) means more stealth and if I took shadow trap I couldn’t permastealth as easy. 2. The cc and extra dmg from the npc thief actually helps a lot. Including the black powder he puts down for me occasionally.

I took no trickery because I just couldn’t make it work without da, sa, and cs. They all fill the roles I need and trickery doesn’t provide a whole lot for this build. I don’t need extra ini because the traps free up the 5,2 combo init drain. I don’t need steal as often cause d/p 3 is very prominent for me. totc is meh because I already have super speed and fury is kind of meh cause 100% crit in stealth.

Edit: another reason I take cs over trickery is because the dmg multipliers help me have higher burst

Faux.1937:

Did you try it with Some Valk armor? The added HP might be worth it in WvW.

I know hitting those autos is alot, but would the survival vs the 10% extra crit chance be worth it to you?

I’m in the process of saving some gold up to get some valk and Mats for more trapper runes. I do take the 100% crit from stealth so it could work. I’m just worried that I might miss out on a bit of dps from the lower crit chance and I don’t really feel like I’m having that much trouble surviving. For the outnumbered roaming the valk might be necessary. I’ll get back to you with results once I got the money for it

Kocoff.7582:

I always appreciate Thief skill videos cause we are facing dire moments. So I thank you for you putting it some diversity into the Thief’s Forum.
the build sounds promising. I like how one the thief’s wielding a P/P is also using Black Smoke, so we can also use it as a combo.

I wouldn’t say it’s original, but it’s lot less uncommon than normal D/P, and since people are expecting a complete Trap build it also plays in your favor. I think.

With all those incoming incoming anti-stealth build, this Trapper build won’t hold long
Well done. The music in the beginning is fire.

Many thanks for the response, it was a lot of fun theory crafting this. I’ll admit I am negative about the class at times, but coming up with this was a lot of fun and gave me a gleam of hope! As far as the anti stealth builds go…. I can only cross my fingers.

Well as per request by a few, I made a small montage of the build I just came up with. It’s a d/p power build that used runes of the trapper with all traps as my utility skills. It’s a lot of fun and gives a kitten load of cc. I left the build link in the description of the video. If you would like for me to go more into detail on the build or have any questions, feel free to ask away.

Video Link

AikijinX.6258:

Yeah, well all power to you. You are 1 in a million. A thief that can successfully run a trapper spec. I would be interested in seeing a montage video, but thank you.

As per request! All footage filmed within the few hours of me originally posting on this thread. Gonna do a more roaming outnumbered style video next with gameplay that ranges a little more than just a few hours. Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/XFgreZQ4pPo

Maugetarr.6823:

PTV? No editing software. This was the raw video. The recording pauses when you alt-tab (for reddit or forums) while you wait. Music was what I was listening to.

Pierce the veil was playing in your video, that’s ptv haha. And I was asking for a recommendation for vid editing software, but decided to use adobe premier as I have it already.

Maugetarr.6823:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maugetarr.6823:

reinforever.8902:

AikijinX.6258:

Yeah, well all power to you. You are 1 in a million. A thief that can successfully run a trapper spec. I would be interested in seeing a montage video, but thank you.

You’re righto on that, everyone I’ve tried to convince that the build is good says it sucks. But good idea, I think I will make a short montage vid!

Edit: Suggest me some decent free recording software. Does the built in windows 10 stuff actually work?

Nvidia shadowplay. Windows 10 isn’t bad as Zero Day suggested, but I haven’t tried the capture software because shadowplay already does such a great job for me.

This thread appeared in the PvP forums asking the same thing recently

Was just about to recommend Shadowplay if he has an nVidia GPU. That software is absolutely amazing and it really upsets me I run a card on older architecture currently that isn’t supported, but the weaker card in the same series does.

Yeah, I love it too. I’m running on a 770 and it has no noticeable effect on framerate. I uploaded a raw video in that to show the video capture quality.

I see you with that PTV, anyways…. what editing software?

Jana.6831:

You tried to convince me and I said “Aha” so, please, I didn’t say it sucks or anything.

Overwolf is decent and free. No idea about win 10

Ok I forgot about Jana, she didn’t say it sucks. I tried overwolf tho, dropped the fps a little too much. Razer cortex cuts my fps in half. kitten .

Edit: windows 10 screen capture works beautifully. No fps drop and the captured videos are crisp and clear.

Sagat.3285:

It’s WvW even YOLO venom thieves or ballerina Death Blossom shine. It has trade-off which is fine but no build in the game relies on a kitten rune those runes are the only reason I went “Oh thief has traps” then I realize it was just a lazy fix and a real one would never come.

I can’t deny that I love the style it resembles C9’s hybrid scout which I used to main but the way they made it happen sickens me. They even bothered removing direct damage from our traps which is nice but we still have to rely on this kitten rune.

Honestly, I don’t mind needing to rely on the rune to make it work, I consider that a tradeoff for one of the many pros the build offers. My other rune choices are slim already, as far as the utility they provide. I will say I wish they had a power version of the runes though, since condi dmg does nothing for me. If they did make it a trait though they would probably remove superspeed which is one of the reasons I really like the build.

FYI I was serious about wanting good free screeen capture software so I can make a short montage.

Sagat.3285:

I used to run traps I started hating it because I had to rely on a rune if played properly it can compare to d/p since CiS is no longer mandatory but you could just just run traditional d/p and be more effective. The stealth on trap should have been a trait this shows how sorry they actually and how bad they are supported by their own ckass. Even if the runes come to PvP I doubt I would go back to traps.

True it relies on a rune, but many other builds have to rely on something. I agree to disagree about traditional d/p being better though, because personally I’m having way more luck with the trap build.
Things I lose : a stun break (this is the worst one)
SR (obsolete for me personally)
Infil signet(again, obsolete for this build)

Things I gain:
Permastealth if I do the rotation right (and can be done at any time while actually in combat) yes I mean true permastealth as in I never leave stealth unless I stop doing anything.
Superspeed for backstabs and escapes and gap closing
free initiative to spam d/p 3 to stick to target.
Lots of cc from traps, knockdown, cripple, immobilize, pull from the thief npc, plus one trap applies some poison to help with those pesky healers.

Like I said, for me personally the trapper build outweighs traditional d/p and it just synergizes well for my playstyle.

Edit: If they did make stealth on trap a trait for DA (since the rest of the trap traits are there) i’d jump with joy. But I think it’s too late for that now since we have the rune already and we’re one of 3 classes with traps at all.

Edit 2: Something I forgot to add was that traps also give 5 stacks of might for 10 s each when they’re activated, and also apply 5 stacks of vuln which overall increases the dps. Maybe not as important, but definitely awesome.

AikijinX.6258:

Yeah, well all power to you. You are 1 in a million. A thief that can successfully run a trapper spec. I would be interested in seeing a montage video, but thank you.

You’re righto on that, everyone I’ve tried to convince that the build is good says it sucks. But good idea, I think I will make a short montage vid!

Edit: Suggest me some decent free recording software. Does the built in windows 10 stuff actually work?

AikijinX.6258:

It says “Thieves have an affinity for setting traps, and using venoms” yet both are very weak, and the builds that we are forced to play have been nerfed.

Hey speak for yourself, I’m using a trapper backstab build and it kittenin rocks. But I agree with everything else you’ve stated.

This is my thief currently. I have some pretty standard colors for thief but I feel like i have a really unique armor setup. I have a more platey thief look, kind of like the nightblade guy from the preview to ESO (that inspired this look). I don’t have a coat or a cloak thing that most medium armors have. Also went with a more less used hood setup.

DeceiverX.8361:

I think I typo’d and meant to state it’s truly compounded when playing builds like signets.

I mean this in that damage modifiers scale multiplicatively, so the more you stack, the more potent each one also becomes. Example being that if you deal 100 damage, and you have a 50% damage modifier and a 20% one, you’ll end up dealing 100 * 1.5 * 1.2 = 180 damage instead of 100 * (1 + .50 +.20) = 170 damage. The more modifiers, the more the damage compounds. Since DA and CS offer more damage modifiers, combining both yields much higher damage than having just one and comparing them between each other.

Yes, thank you for the info. I was hoping that was the case. I too have been running a very similar build to yours, instead I’m using strength runes and a few more pieces of zerk. Performs okay, I’d like to get a detailed guide from your maybe in game. Are you okay with me contacting you in game?

DeceiverX.8361:

DA/CS/Trickery offers substantially more damage than CS/SA/Trickery, and substantially more reliable damage than DA/SA/Trickery. This is truly compounded when not playing with builds such as signets, however.

What do you mean it’s truly compounded, please expand?

Team thief hammer

Kocoff.7582:

I need to ask, what do you consider, WvW wise a satisfactory crit chance and power?

I feel like full zerk jewelry with full valk armor set is an ideal stat. According do a build editor, it could leave me at 15k HP, 2.5k power with 40% crit chance without food.

What do you think?

I think that is a very viable baseline for stats. What runes are you planning on running also?

Kocoff.7582:

reinforever.8902:

(I was sitting on about 23k hp with guard stacks) but on the other hand all of my non stealth skills were critting a lot less than I would have liked.
[…]
I think a baseline HP number you should try to go for is 17.5k at least

I have exactly 14.2k HP for WvW so I am definitely under the bar, and I don’t think my damage is all that.

stof.9341:

Let’s be honest here. The effort needed to craft a new ascended armor set is huge. I’d go 100% zerk and any survivability/tweaks would be done with jewelry, starting with rings.

And what jewelry would you suggest? Cause I would like some decent HP.. Would anything tankier than Valk be pushing it?

thanks for the feedback guys. I hope i get more people to share their experience.

If you’re going to go full zerk armors and try to make up for it in your jewelry pieces, I think going zerk/valk which gives you power main stat, precision, vitality, and ferocity would be a decent choice. Giving up power or ferocity to get vitality or toughness just isn’t the way you’d want to go in my opinion, because that starts cutting into dmg too much. And if you were to go this route, if you made all your armor as berserker (including all your berserker jewelry) except your chest piece as valk, it would be the exact same stat wise as going full zerk in your armor and then going zerkervalk for all of your jewelry.

stof.9341:

Let’s be honest here. The effort needed to craft a new ascended armor set is huge. I’d go 100% zerk and any survivability/tweaks would be done with jewelry, starting with rings.

You can change stats of ascended armor pieces in the mystic forge. It’s not that cheap, but you can still do it if you absolutely needed to. The problem with replacing the jewelry to make up for the lost vitality stats is that you just won’t get the same numbers because they don’t have pure valk jewelry.

Edit: An ascended valk chest piece would give the same vitality stats as going full beserker/valk in your trinkets. It would make more sense to me to just craft the chest piece as valk to save his badges, laurels, guild comms, etc.

Depends on if you play pve or wvw more, and if you take hidden killer or not. With hidden killer you obviously have more room to take vitality stats because it makes up for the lost precision. I just made a build that was all valkyrie or valkyrie/beserker with hidden killer and was roaming with it for a while. People were surprised when they tried to kill me and couldn’t blow me up like normal (I was sitting on about 23k hp with guard stacks) but on the other hand all of my non stealth skills were critting a lot less than I would have liked.

I think a baseline HP number you should try to go for is 17.5k at least and then the rest into zerker offensive. This is still pretty squishy so you have to play as smart as possible still, but I’m sure you’re used to that by now.

All in all you should craft it piece by piece, start out with making zerker pieces and test the set up out in your preferred game type. If you feel too squishy, make the next piece valk, if you feel like you don’t do enough dmg, make the next piece zerk.

This depresses me to no end….. at least mesmer don’t have a shadowstep! oh wait….

Karolis.4261:

I dont get why you ppl keep posting same builds over and over again. Gues what ? Wheel is already invented. You all are reinventing same old x/30/30/x/x build over and over again just now with less diversity. Shadowarts and crit strikes with hidden killer while focusing in power, crit damage and extra vitality in expense of precision.

Whoa, sorry didn’t mean to step all over your toes. Some people frequent the forums still in search for different variations of builds hoping something would pop up that works for them (myself included), so I figured I would give it a shot and post something. But it’s not the same build as everything else out there at the same time. I also pretty clearly stated that I was trying to go for a viable counterpart build to the one I had before patch and this is what I came up with. But thanks for the free bump I guess.

Jana.6831:

The build looks solid – I’d say the best you can make right now for a non one shot D/D thief. Don’t know too much about the runes though as I haven’t tried them myself.

Keep the trickery line as you have it as the only trick you use is withdraw. I use Flanking Strikes, Trickster and Sleight of Hand on most of my thieves² as haste is nice and also counts as a trick but your build sacrifices critical chance for vitality and trill of the crime might help you with that. For some reason I found that 111 seems to be the best way to kill opponents lately which is kind of sad, but oh well.

²But I also use Daggerstorm on all of them and Roll for Initative in zerg fights, so I have a lot of tricks.

Thanks for the response jana! I figured as much for the boon rip part, I gave it a shot last night during reset and it had it’s pro’s and cons but I think i’m going to stay with boon rip for massive might stacking classes. Try those runes out for sure though, to me it’s much more worth it to get the extra vitality and save a utility slot for something besides 25% move speed.

Jay.7546:

I’m in FA, we spent months rolling YB even with their never ending supply of siege, open field Balis and ACs, and tower/portal/guard hugging. All sound YB tactics. FA should have at least earned one week in T1 back then. YB now has the numbers and should face JQ or TC. I know, I see their blob as I sit here on the veranda at spawn. They are just outside en masse helping us out. They are making it easy for us to find them so we don’t have to run too far. Very considerate. Anyone who comes into WvW now from SOS or FA is stone cold hardcore. Who wants to deal with having every tower with half a dozen scouts who hug portals and guards and won’t fight only to have called out for the 40 YBers to come roll the 6 of us on a cata or ram. I’ve tried to roam and there are hardly any roamers now. I’ve been stomped by a dozen who then show me some beautiful dance moves and display how well they can toss siege on me in case my corpse was getting cold. Upgrades lol I map watch, I know back capping and then leaving is all that I can do, Ktraining at its best. Would like to see more done in front of spawn like make the other teams stats go half or a quarter effectiveness and remove their ability to toss siege or make the legendaries have a much greater range.

I roam on YB, usually solo or with 1 or 2 people! Come find me!

There’s a lot of similarity between our posts now that I’m reading through yours and it was on accident, just wanted to point it out first haha. But this is the link to my build I have https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/D-D-Outnumbered-WvW-Roaming-Build/first#post5358089 Similar to yours in some aspect, but a lot more focused around vitality.

One thing I forgot to ask for a little bit of insight on is the second tier in trickery. There is another trait I could go for that reduces recharge on tricks and cures condi on tricks. This is good for withdraw, as it lowers the cooldown and clears a condi on use (on top of the immobilize, cripple, and chill clear). Do you guys think this would be decent to take over the boon rip? I feel like it’s situational. In a party the boon rip would probably be more beneficial as it shares with the party, but for solo roaming I feel like the extra condi clear and heal cdr is useful.

Being a die hard fan of the classic D/D, I refuse to adapt to this D/P playstyle. I’ve been working on a build since I returned to the game after the major changes to all classes. I’m not saying this is the end all be all D/D build to revitalize the spec in terms of viability, but this works for me personally and I find I can still hit hard as hell and play almost like I used to be able to.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVl0MhSnYlTw8Jw/EH+E0OAvuB8Q0hP4bySiCA-TFCFABrpP4Q1fA4BAIwpAIJlf8pEEn9HW4IAEAAB4mtZbezAH9oH9oH9odzbezbezbWKAB1ZB-w

So for starters it’s got 21.4k hp without wvw buffs so you can afford to take some hits, considering the insane burst meta going on right now we just can’t afford to be walking around full zerker anymore, so I’ve replaced everything with valkyrie or zerker/valk. We sit at 24% crit chance which is pretty low, but we take hidden killer to bring our crits up to 100% out of stealth. This works with D/D because of our main source of dmg being backstabs.

I take runes of speed for the extra vitality and for the 25% movespeed bonus. As a D/D you need to be able to move to get your cnd’s and I prefer a constant 25% at least. On the other hand we do take Totc so if you prefer pack runes they are still viable with this build, just not my personal preference.

236% crit dmg is pretty standard, we have ferocity in everything we can get it (besides runes) but I think this is a decent amount to keep us going.

2522 power, not as high as some other builds but again, it will get us by.

On to the traits, I take crit strikes, trickery, and shadow arts because this is the best possible combination for and outnumbered build. I don’t take DA because I can’t bring myself to part ways with any of these lines and I don’t feel my damage is lacking too much without executioner.

I take the signet recharge trait so I can’ do more CnD Inf signet combos, I also take the Steal recharge trait for this reason as well (plus daze as a bonus).

I take the regen on stealth instead of stealth on steal because it would break the CnD/steal combo which would hurt dps, plus it gives me a little extra sustain.

Here’s the big one, I take shadow rejuve over blind on stealth (oooooof). The reason being, I find being able to regen is much more important then blinding one of the attacks. Once you get good at dodging upon entering stealth you can learn to mitigate the dmg that blind once did for you, plus we get a nifty minor trait that reduces the dmg we receive in stealth. If you find you just can’t live without blind on stealth you can swap it and replace the food with mango pie to try to make up for the lost regen.

The rest of the traits are no brainers but in case someone was wonderingTotc for buffs, boon rips for counterplay, condi cleanse in stealth because we will die without it, and extra ferocity based on precision for the extra ferocity we can squeeze out.

On to utility skills,
I take blinding powder instead of shadow refuge because I want instant stealth that I can’t be knocked out of. I’ve found the shadow refuge gets me killed more often than not, but you can swap this if you find you can’t live without SR.

I take withdraw because instant heal and evade, more health regained over time, and because I feel like I already have enough stealth. If you prefer hide in shadows cause you’re a stealth fiend go for it.

Infiltrators strike is very important as we get 5 stacks of might on it’s pop, and we can use it to combo cnd from afar.

And the elite you swap out as you see fit, Basi for quick burst, so on and so forth.

If I didn’t clarify anything enough please ask your questions, and if you have suggestions please submit them!

Tongku.5326:

What friends ?

90% of " i wanna play with my friend" QQ here are YB trolls (or other overstacker trolls) that can’t overstack even more then they already have. A lot of them are actually alt accounts, they log onto their other accounts so it doesnt show they’re from YB and post this BS.

In fact, I know at least 2 people on multiple accounts, that log in here and make the “i’m a stranded friend” posts personally, and I know them IRL, they are acquaintences, not friends. You understand the difference ? Someone I might game with outside of work, but thats about it. Its funny how many of you are actually falling for this sort of crap.

There are realistically like 10 people in all of WvWvW in this whole game that are actual true friends with someone and want to play WvWvW with them. And sorry, I don’t count ex guild mates, forum friends, or FB friends as friends. Only real friends count as friends.

The remaining legitimate 10% or so is unfortunately an extremely low number, and frankly speaking, its better they leave the game or not come back to it at all then affect what remains on anything below T2 in a negative way.

In addition, if they are true, real actual friends, then they will transfer down, rather then the other way around, because they are actual friends.

I’m talking about real life actual friends that I have known for years. They don’t want to have to sink another $35 into the game (each) to be able to play with our other friend (real life). That’s a ridiculous system and makes none of us actually want to play the game. I am an actual member of the YB community and I genuinely care about the server. I understand it’s overstacked which is why I don’t mind transferring down, but it should be free (temporarily) if they actually cared about population imbalance.

Belenwyn.8674:

But we need controlled free server transfers. Otherwise we would create new massively stacked servers. We would need quotas for each server and players of a full server can only transfer to a certain server.

Maybe we need a feature that offers WvW guilds the possibility to apply for a free transfer of all members to another server.

If I’m not mistaken they lowered the amount of people it takes to list a server as full, so the stacking wouldn’t happen really because as soon as a server would hit full no one would be able to transfer there either. Basically Stacking won’t really be a thing because it only take so many people to list servers as full. The Guild application idea is decent but I think it would be too hard to implement. A-net probably doesn’t want to filter through guild xfer applications, and I don’t want them to do it either if they actually do plan on going through with the other changes listed in this post.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

The biggest is population imbalance. The current team structure has led to a number of issues such as low population in some worlds while overpopulation on a few worlds gives them queues on many nights of the week.

We’ve seen a concentration of talent as hardcore players from most worlds have migrated upwards through the tiers looking for new experiences and greater challenge. Because this talent tends to be concentrated at the top, MMR has correctly kept the most dedicated teams locked in near perpetual stand off against the same opponents week after week.

My two cents on the whole server capping, pop imbalance thing. Yes I agree it’s a problem. No you’re not going about it correctly. So you just locked people out of the more competitive tiers in hopes that people will transfer down to the lower tiers and give more of a spread to competitive wvw, this is a good idea in theory but what about new players that want to play with their friends? That is my personal situation currently, I have a friend who would like to play with me and a few of our other friends, the problem is we are all on Yaks Bend so it will be impossible for him to play with us on wvw any time soon (if ever). Now the only option available to us is to all transfer down to a lower tier server, which I wouldn’t be too opposed to if it wasn’t going to cost us $35 per person. If you really want people to spread to multiple servers open up free server transfers. You’ll have multiple people going down to the lower servers to play with their friends (or for a fresh environment). This doesn’t have to be a permanent change, only long enough for people to spread out across the servers and allow guilds to find new homes on the lower servers. Right now it honestly just looks to me like a cash grab on your guys’ part because you just want more people to pay for gems to transfer, but in reality this just makes my friend group not want to play because we can’t play with our friend unless we spend $140 total. Which sounds better, 5 people buying heart of thorns or 5 people spending $35 for the gems to transfer.

TL;DR
Make server transfers free to the non full servers to get people off the full servers.

IGN: Rëiin
Playstyle: WvW Roaming
Server: Yaks Bend
Experience with thief: Main since I got the game a year after launch, I’ve taken a few hiatus’ from the game and always come back feeling strong. Except this last time where I feel like I’ve been gutted and left for the dogs. I’m a d/d die hard and don’t care for any of the other weapon sets (besides the occasional p/p). I need help coming up with a decent d/d build.

Can you make a d/d variant pls?

Tyr.6097:

No matter how bad thiefs are, i will continue playing. Tried different classes (warrior, ranger, necro, guardian) but nothing is satisfying enough.

You obviously didn’t try mesmer >.>

I used to play a d/d yishis build and I loved it because I could actually fight one or two people at once. d/p is just too slow paced for me. I find it extremely ineffective compared to mesmer. I don’t mind mesmers having a similar role to thief, but when they start doing it better that’s where I draw the line. If anything the two classes should be on par with eachother, but every single time I load up my thief I just go right back to mesmer because it handles literally every situation better. That said I’m gonna go try and do some roaming on thief to see if I still feel this way.

Well there wasn’t a drop at all so my friend couldn’t transfer in. I understand the necessity of trying to equalize the population on the lower tiers but I think locking friends out from the servers of other friends is kind of a kitten way to deal with the problem. The way I see it, I think with this change we should have reduced cost or free transfers to the lower tier servers. I have no issues with changing servers but it’s the fact that it will cost me and my guild money to do it just for one of our friends to play with us.

Liston.9708:

No way of knowing how full YB really is. Some relief could come if we were “slightly above” full. Several gvg guilds left so it is possible YB goes back to very high from full – we just don’t know how quickly server status reacts to movement yet and how much over the full threshold we were.

Thank you much for the replies everyone, I am hoping crosses fingers that with the leaving of a few guilds that the server status gets updated every wvw reset. This would make sense because the people that “transfer off” technically don’t actually transfer until the reset comes around. So i’m hoping that just maybe during reset it might drop down. Also hoping for an error in the algorithm or something because honestly transferring off is just not an option (funding issue). Guild is not in growing phase, we have our dedicated members and some recently transferred to YB so their gold is wiped clean.

I have a buddy who just decided to try and get back into gw2 but he wanted to play with me. We plan to mainly do wvw together, the problem is you guys Just made your recent changes to the server population readings. I’m on Yak’s bend and he’s on Eredon Terace (that’s where we used to play together). Since the last time I played with him I have transferred up to Yak’s Bend with my guild and close friends so Transfering all the people back is not really an option. He greatly wants to get back into the game but is not interested unless he can play with me and our other good friends. What are some of our options? Any suggestions on possible ways to transfer him in?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

reinforever.8902:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I personally have a 3rd reason, I hate shortbows.

With that said, the sacrifice of DPS is justified because obviously you have no other choice. Some Thief might defend shortbow but that’s not even a valid choice for me.

I actually was going to ask this question on this post. I’ve been thinking about running p/p as my offhand instead of sb for my wvw roaming build. Reason being is that when I swap to sb for whatever reason when I need the ranged dmg, I do so little compared to when I’m on my d/d. The only trait I would change is quickness on crit to more dmg with pistols. it’s a 26600 d/d build so it just might work? What are the thoughts? To me sb is more of a melee weapon than a ranged weapon because 2 spam.

The problem I have with shortbow is the projectile speed. The time it takes to travel before hitting the target is the same regardless of the range difference. Just for clarification, the arrow takes 1s to hit my target at 900 range — acceptable, but when it take 1s to hit my target at point blank range — we have a problem.

Other than that, P/P gives a lot more options for controlling your target with Body Shot, Head Shot, and Black Powder where shortbow doesn’t really have.

However, shortbow has more access to damage skills with Cluster Bomb and Poison Gas and with better initiative management compare to P/P.

Before ArenaNet nerfed shortbow’s range, it is my go to weapon for a long range target and my P/P for mid-range target. Since now that shortbow has the same range as pistol, there’s no good reason for me to use it — in PvE.

As for WvW, there is no fixed weapon choice because you really have to bring everything from dagger, to pistol, to sword, to traps, etc. to get the job done. Also “roaming” is a broad task. You could be roaming to kill other roamers or take points. Or you could be roaming to scout the enemy forces. Or whatever. So the best choice of weapon is really depends on how you play your Thief and what is important to you.

Mobile Thieves choose shortbow while control Thieves uses P/P.

To me roaming is everything you listed combined into one, not just one of them. So I do my fair share of all that (especially killing). I was having a discussion about it with someone and they brought up a lot of fair points for sb in a roaming wvw situations compared to p/p. A few of the things mentioned
*sb has easy blast finishers which are amazing essential for group roaming/havoc, compared to p/p’s chance at projectile finishers only.
*sb has a kitten ton of AOE. This is important for fighting shatter mesmers, or stealth abusers and has many other applications, whereas again p/p only has single target dmg (assuming I keep my 26600 build instead of traiting into trickery).
*sb allows for some very strong shadowstep map exploitation.
the damage form [unload] is just so insane for ranged pressure that it’s very hard for me to decide between the two.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I personally have a 3rd reason, I hate shortbows.

With that said, the sacrifice of DPS is justified because obviously you have no other choice. Some Thief might defend shortbow but that’s not even a valid choice for me.

I actually was going to ask this question on this post. I’ve been thinking about running p/p as my offhand instead of sb for my wvw roaming build. Reason being is that when I swap to sb for whatever reason when I need the ranged dmg, I do so little compared to when I’m on my d/d. The only trait I would change is quickness on crit to more dmg with pistols. it’s a 26600 d/d build so it just might work? What are the thoughts? To me sb is more of a melee weapon than a ranged weapon because 2 spam.

Do you know if any of the influence boosters work in wvw? like the +10% influence in pvp for 24 hrs (wvw is a type of pvp) or the +10% influence from events for 24 hrs. I’ve been trying to test it myself but I haven’t been about to come to a conclusive answer yet.

If I see them not whipping out the GS and staying in LB I will try to CnD chain off on him hoping he misses 2 right after i stealth or something of the sort and to burn him down.

i play a d/d and d/p build currently so I don’t have as many evades as you would so my approach is different. If I can I go for the daze on pistol 4 but if not I either blow both dodges or use my withdraw halfway through to heal back the dmg i took and evade the rest. After that I just unleash my yolo dps cannons and fire upon the poor kitten.

AkaXan.1096:

I think it should be added aswell that you’re using withdraw, but seemingly are unable to perform a forward withdraw. This is a great gapcloser+heal and could’ve made the fight at 4:00 less sloppy. There you withdrew away, used whirling axe and at the very last moment when you finally got in range used steal. Doing a froward withdraw+whirling axe+steal would’ve been your best option.
If you’re not sure how to perform it, use free camera, left-click once, then hit the about face key and withdraw. To avoid camera-weirdness, hold left+very slight drag+right click during the animation to avoid walking back. A simple right-click at the very end of the animation works aswell. There are also other ways to do it (the only reason i’m not using this is bcs i’m not bothered to key-bind free camera).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm8f2XyUjZM

I have tried a ton of times to get the forward roll to work for me but every single time it goes at a 90 degree angle instead of forwards. I actually tried to manually turn the camera around to do a forward roll but didn’t turn the camera quite enough for that portion. I’ve actually swapped from withdraw to hide in shadows as well for the new build I’ve been running.

mango.9267:

There are a number of things you could work on. A few off the top of my head:

1) Use your stolen abilities. In most of the clips, you either never use them or you hold onto them far too long. As a result, you’re stealing less and gap closing less frequently. In a few instances, using the stolen ability would have been the best option. At 2:47, using the whirling axe would have saved you from going down to that rapid fire. At 8:17, you could have dropped the healing spring and blasted with your SB to save your engi from going down. At 12:24, heartseekering through the healing spring would have allowed you to save your heal.

2) Don’t use refuge to secure stomps. The only time I’d consider using refuge to stomp is if there’s a zerg near the downed, and I need to stealth immediately. Otherwise, just CnD and stomp. Refuge is better for reviving team mates, running away, or healing up.

3) A ton of missed CnD’s that could have been avoided by panning your camera down. Helps with gauging the proper distance between you and your target. Keep in mind you can still turn your camera mid CnD if your opponent moves out of the hitbox cone.

Thanks a ton for the tips and pointers. I noticed the stolen abilities thing when I started watching my own footage. Just something I need to learn to micromanage I suppose. As far as the SR goes I agree, I sometimes feel like I blow too many utilities and that is definitely one of the main reasons. I think what goes through my head in the moment is that I want to stealth immediately and still have enough stealth to look around/pick my next target but there are a few better ways I could go about doing that. For the camera pan thing, you mean make it more top down? I feel like I lose too much field of vision but perhaps I could only do it when I go for cnd. Thanks again for the tips mango

I posted a few days ago with my first roaming video, well here’s another one! Let me know what you think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vIu_B43OWs

Nephrite.6954:

Still have room for improvement dude. Keep it up! That mesmer though lol

Of course, always room to improve and yeah that mes really didnt want to die :/