Guild Wars 2

great event.
and by great I mean a total waste of time.

given a random Dungeon boss that does not AoE and you don’t need to reflect projectiles, what Phantasm would be the better DPS?

given a random Dungeon boss that does AoE(TA first boss), what do you do?

fun:
stealth & skip trash
stack behind rock
aoe

Grenthblood.1358:

Venom-share thief + Ice Drake Venom & Devourer Venom = Insta-gib on any breaker bar. Use x/P and you have interrupts as well. Tack on condition damage with Skale Venom on D/D with Poison application trait, and you’ve got a thief that can destroy breaker bar, slow healing, get off 20 stacks of torment, with 20 stacks of vuln every time Skale Venom’s CD is up, AND be able to stealth your group.

Not sure about you, but that sounds like a winner to me. Toss in Basilisk Venom as your elite and you can even swap out Devourer Venom for Spider Venom for additional healing denial, and damage. Grab Leeching Venoms for self-healing and Might stacking while you’re at it.

Oh… and did I mention that you’ll simultaneously be a healer? Throw up Skelk Venom, and all of a sudden your allies are getting healed with their next few attacks. Shared venoms grow with the YOUR stats, not the stats of the people they get shared to, so throw in some Healing Power on your gear, and suddenly your allies all stack on you whenever they start getting low during the fight.

Thief is everything BUT a zero. We are all raiding HEROES!!! Throw your hands in the air like you just don’t care, because even if all of the above mentioned in my post weren’t true, thief is still all kinds of fun to play.

EDIT: Had a thought after posting. Since venoms only share up to 5 targets, that’s all the more reason to bring along 2 THIEVES!!! MUAHAHAHAHA. Coming soon. ALL THIEF RAIDING GROUPS!

This ‘would’ work in PvP if your team ‘would’ stay near when you when you venom share and IF you would not be melted pretty fast. Which you probably will.

In PvE, as I see it now, I would not spec as condi. We don’t know how many ‘structures’ there will be and how many fights will involve break bars.

Theory crafting is fun, and I really do hope condi thief will be USEFUL, but I would not set my hopes too high after the disappointment (for me DD = bullkitten) that was the last beta with weekend.

P/P worked in the past for a bit: it was mediocre in PvE and decent in WvW zergs, both cases because of Ricochet.

I doubt it will Ever work/be used again.

I hope that the day will come when ice bow will not be stupidly op.
But it’s been 3 years already and my hope is almost gone.

Elfiest.4031:

please don’t try to completely overhaul chronomancer just because you don’t like playing it… It is the nature of the chronomancer to have reduced cooldowns and to make you use your shatter skills and other abilities more often.

I don’t want to do that, and I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to
I’m just the average joe looking for a profession that suits him (in game, cause IRL I found it).

I usually play a Thief (PvE) and I like the gameplay because is fluent, simple and smooth…
I leveled up a Mesmer to 80, clothed him in zerk and tried a few dungeons.
I use the Metabattle build and suggestions, and it feels ok.

I personally dislike the shatter mechanic, and I am currently trying to find a suitable profession that offers a bit more support for the party (buffs, reflects, condi cleanse) and that feels right for me (for example engi / ele seam to spammy, too many buttons, always agitated etc).

When chronomancer will land I will be able to ‘test’ more of it, for now I am just reading / watching

I see no point in using staff over S/P.

assassin.7895:

I think thief is in terms of DPS worse than warrior, engineer, ele, necro, and possibly revenant. Additionally mesmer, guardian has much better support.

really?

Zypher.7609:

Dungeons are no more, gone forever.

that’s a mean thing to say
maybe they will leave them in the game but HoT will bring no new dungeons

sounds good, thx for the input!

Diovid.9506:

Do note that the changes to fractals makes them shorter and easier to do.

Oh I did not know that, thank you.

will I handicap myself in terms of gear if I skip fractals?

I do not enjoy Fractals. I know there are not many who feel the way I do.
I also dislike the whole ‘all stack behind this rock’ so called tactic.

I usually don’t have 1+ hour of uninterrupted play time available.

I enjoy the current dungeons and world bosses, because they are easy / short and I can do them with the many interruptions real life has… blessed me with.

What will HoT bring for the minority of players such as myself? (I know about Raids)

keep the best for last!
>:)

Two short general observations:

Skills & dodges lack fluidity.
I see no reason to use staff for the current content.

could anyone make a short description about the difference in gameplay ?
without the subjective ‘this I like, that I don’t like’

I enjoy the Thief in PvE, but PvP is a place that I know almost nothing about.

What resources / guides are out there?

I have read yesterday about using /D #5, then Steal, then #1 etc. I want to learn/practice this king of stuff, and also what to engage, when and how to escape.

I plan to ‘solo unranqued’.

Thank you.

Are the [GUIDE] Lyssa’s Grimoire: The Mesmer Handbook and [Guide] How To Mesmer in Dungeons still relevant?

I want to read a bit about what the Mesmer role is (in PvE).

I’m a casual player with limited time / day.
I never stepped into fractals because I think that finding a group that will care about a new guy is hard and that the completion takes a long time.

For me this is bad news.

For me it will be between my mesmer and my thief.
If daredevil will not suit my play style then the support mesmer will receive my full attention.

Good day Mr. McLain,

I would like to know if HoT will offer a Viable / Competitive PvE ‘condition damage setup’ for us.

Thank you.

I was running Crucible of Eternity yesterday with the goal of assembling a set of Dire gear. After I completed the 3 paths with a pug group, I asked the warrior a few questions regarding PvE condition viability. He has ascended gear / legendary wep and he was pretty good (playing and helping with hints / suggestions).
He said that the only decent Condi option for Pve would be a Condi Engineer, and only for Long fights (fractals I guess?).
He was convinced that Condi Thief is not a wise choice for PvE since it lacks sustained damage.

Now you should also know that I’m not a very knowledgeable gw2 player and I’m learning new things daily.

So.

Conditions for pve… can they rival the zerk dmg output? What about group support and survability / mobility?

IMO Pistol Whip is a really good defensive skill, and a condi build will not have that.

sounds good, thank you guys

1). What game mode should I play? I noticed a ‘solo queue’ mode that has 1-2 minutes waiting time, so I chose ‘Play now’ or ‘join now’. The result was I lost 10/10, in most of them we were ‘farmed’ at the exit of the safe point by the other team. It was always hopeless and only part of if was me, since I’m new.

2). One time when we were close to winning a guy in the other team left and a message to switch appeared. My goal is points / rank xp / TREASURE! Should I switch or not?

3). Often even if I always click ‘random team’ at the start of the game, I was matched against the previous enemy team. A few times I quit at the end of the game and re-joined, but still got farmed. How does this work?

maybe a mix of Shaman and Dire?
I saw that Shamans is available from Caudecus’s Manor.

Lux Dominatoris.3941:

Even if it literary was the Christian Cross. And the outfit was themed for this religion. So what? What’s your problem. Dude, just get out of here.

Don’t provoke them, remember how tolerant and peaceful non-Christians are towards everyone else.

Justine.6351:

If you run a venom thief in a group just run dire.

Hello Justine,
I got here following your reply to my thread, so thank you for the information.

One more question:

Is the Dire only available from the Crucible of Eternity dungeon?
I checked the Temples and they do not seam to sell that for Karma…
What are my options?

Clover.

and what Lux Dominatoris said.

Thief with pistols: not gonna happen IMO. They removed Ricochet from the game, and now Pistol is used mainly for condi pvp builds (Pistol/Dagger).

Engineer: much too many keys for me, too much clicking. It’s not for me, but give it a try.

Ranger is a good choice, there a lot of Ranger players but the good ones are rare (IMO).

To check all the skills go to the mists and try all the weapons on golems.
To get a clearer picture of the state of the class check the class forums.

Have fun!

I still hope HoT will bring a new dungeons that I can casually run…

Once I get more dungeon badges – and gold for sigils / runes – I will give it a try.

As a casual player with not much skill – I saw pvp wvw footage and some guys are really really good – I want to help my team as best I can (conditions and leech sounds good when fighting dungeon bosses).

I will lose the ‘evade’ of S/P so I will need to be better with the dodges.

I will not be able to damage the ‘objects’ or ‘constructs’ so well (AC for example) but I hope that won’t be much of an issue, we will see.

Koalifications.9801:

Venoms that you share to the other 4 people are applied using YOUR stats (condi dmg and duration).

cool, thank you

by PvE I mean Dungeons.
Say I’m in a 5man party and the other 4 are zerk wars.
Would the poisons I share do crap damage because the party members are not specced for condi?
Should I stick to zerk?

I really do.
Hope.

Enokitake.1742:

Will need to play it live to make final decision on this (…since Anet’s apparently finalized our class not having the option of a decent 1200 range weapon, or even the optional 1,050 range we previously had…)

Elite is kitten kittening nice though.

…also where are the traits?

they keep the best for last: a new and improved Ricochet, and all that jazz

Zephyra.4709:

People really will complain about anything.

yeah, like bugs that were reported 2+ years ago and such trivialities, hey?

will this be a PvE DPS spec?
PvP devensive spec?
something else?

druid would work with a Staff, but that’s already taken so…

Morfedel.4165:

Tyr.6097:

Thanks A-Net. One well paying customer lost.

I just love people who decide to leave for just one stupid thing.

the problem is that it’s more than just ONE stupid thing that AN is feeding us.
IMO.

AN needs more staff… not the f thiefs!

welcome back!
I recently(1 week) came back also, after almost 2 years.
I played a necro at launch.
Now I am having a great time with the Thief.
I only have time for a bit of PvE each day, but it’s a decent pass time and I can do it with interruptions.
You should check the Thief forums and Metabattle.com: here you will find links to youtube videos.
It helped me understand the profession better.
I do not follow the guides completly, I have my own setup and I feel good playing it.
Don’t be afraid to experiment.
Reding older patch notes it’s not important: see how it is now and live the present.

done, I hope someone with the power and will to change things will see it.
if not, thank you for putting the time to do it.

what about the vampiric aura and that vampiric heal thingy that the necro has?
maybe they will be needed in HoT?

i saw that berserker preview and it had 28k hp :[

Kageseigi.2150:

If the Thief were given the power or the survivability

think about the storm of outrage that would come from that…

stof.9341:

Well what about : http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/v/12075076?t=31m02s

if the initial burst will not kill me that Insane Burn will roast me pretty fast.
:(

For pug dungeons & solo roaming:

Both full zerk, Dagger/x
How is the damage output? Is Necro anywhere close to Thief?

For party Utility I’m guessing Thief is much better because of Blast finishers and Stealth?
What else should I take into consideration?

I have seen ‘meta zerk – no necro’ LFG descriptions, what are the reasons? Lack of party support/bad dps?

got it, thank you