Guild Wars 2

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Prysin.8542:

Thief (thief got one, but once they use it, they are too easy to kill).

Two, actually. Withdraw and Roll For Initiative both remove cripple, chill, and immobilize as well as proved evade frames. One is even on a short cooldown (shortest of all healing skills).

That said, Lightning Reflexes is one of those skills that just feels like it should break immobilize as well. Some of the other stunbreakers feel the same way. I would suggest that teleport/shadowstep stunbreakers not remove immobilize, though, since that movement ignores the condition.

Signet of Malice is actually the shortest of all healing skills with signit use! 12second cooldown.

Prysin.8542:

thief has ice drake venom that applies 3x 1 second (base), 4x if traited.
This venom can again be shared with 4 other players through venomous aura allowing for a total of 5×4×1 – total is 20 seconds chill if all focus same target.

well if five people are focusing down one player, the chill just sort of adds insult to injury really.. otherwise it’s 4secs of chill on a 36:45 second cooldown, and i think that is pretty approachable

i dislike when players tell me thieves “abuse” stealth… we are only granted so much… how can we abuse it? Are they saying that by utilizing our classes core defensive and offensive ability that we are abusing it? I’m pretty sure for the past 2 months mesmers have been “abusing” stealth more than thieves. if a thief goes stealth you know you have between 4-5 seconds before he is going to break it. most good thieves know to hold onto it for as long as they can. even if you’re fighting a dp thief you know he is going to have to put down blind fields to hold that stealth, so you can watch for those to understand relative distance to prepare yourself. And SR is obviously the wild card. A thief with 12 seconds of stealth! He is mostly likely not using that to set up a BS. He’s probably recouping, running, or ressing a dead ally. So take advantage of your 12 seconds!! dont just sit there in combat! Either break combat yourself, or try and remain in combat! If you’re still in combat ( keep that poison off you) then chances are he is too.

my assasssin in gw1 could perma hold critical defense, WotA, critical eye, and way of perfection… all the while dishing out tons of damage from unsuspecting strike, fox fangs, and critical strikes. 75% chance to block, +32 health a crit, +4 energy a crit…. gw1 was a beautiful world

patricide.1062:

ryan.6217:

to patricide, many sorries

yeah i was trying to get back to you and tell you that you’re fine! i often times come off as biased towards thieves, but in reality i just know more about them then the other professions, so i like exerting my opinion about them more. youre right though, d/p is rather cheesy. i just never like to call something cheesy based off the weps some one uses, more on how they use them

No worries, and that’s a fair point. I often immediately think “CHEEEEESE!” when I encounter a P/S condi Engi without checking for perplexity yet. I just assume they are all cheese perplexity so I’m not taken off guard.

I all admit to having a noobplexity engi alt. When I get frustrated with all of the cheese running around I grab my own cheese. It’s fun, but I feel bad when I do it.

That’s funny, because i almost never assume some one is using cheese. i almost feel like its not worth all the hate, so then i AM caught off guard when a fellow p/d thief hits me with perplexity! I try my best to use p/d without it being cheese. so i dont use HiS, or perplexity, or shadow refuge! Moderation is key, and to be honest, i feel like my build flows better having stripped such over used tactics from it!

to patricide, many sorries

yeah i was trying to get back to you and tell you that you’re fine! i often times come off as biased towards thieves, but in reality i just know more about them then the other professions, so i like exerting my opinion about them more. youre right though, d/p is rather cheesy. i just never like to call something cheesy based off the weps some one uses, more on how they use them

personally i think cheese is an issue with weapon skills. it’s not really fair to assume some one is using cheese tactics just because you noticed an active signet, or a specific weapon set.. we arent given much choice when it comes to weapons, and we are given 0 choice as to what skills come with the weapons. SO when a p/d perplexity thief hit you with a scorpion wire, then uses thieves guild, then hides in stealth and caltrops you, he might be a little cheesy, but if a thief is just utilizing fair weapon tactics and class abilities, he isnt cheese. ( not trying to rag on you, but p/d gets a lot of crap, its also my main, so i feel more comfortable supporting it, or calling it out).

tl;dr cheese is abuse of high value items that have yet to receive any form of true balancing, such as perplexity runes, and using said high valued items to the nth degree.

patricide.1062:

I think a cheese build could be described as a build that allows you to beat someone with far superior skill with consistency.

Example: warrior cheese vs. a skilled D/D Ele. If the warrior is even barely competent it is usually a tough fight for the Ele. The Ele has to play a near perfect game in order to top the massive regen, armor, DPS, and mobility the warrior has.

Example: P/D thief. Not winning? Go perma stealth and regen ALL you health back or, just stand in your blind field and spam 1. P/D thieves can beat nearly anything in the game with barely any effort. Put that cheese in the hands of an above average player and it’s very difficuly to counter.

please be more specific about what p/d build is cheese. i, use p/d, but for some reason i cant stand in a blind aoe field, am i missing the 6 dagger offhand skill?! i think you are confusin p/d with backstab d/p thieves… pretty much any thief you run into is going to regen a lot of health in stealth… you literally said nothing that pertains to p/d thief

AikijinX.6258:

ryan.6217:

Wow super impressed with the layout of this build… once im done getting my ascended dire I’ma have to try this out. looks too fun

Thanks my man!, This is a solid build, Invested alot of time into theory crafting it to perform how I want it to perform. I hope you took a look at the different pictures. One with Ascended Celestial and the other Exotic Knights. Thanks for the feedback ^^

I did indeed look at both!! with your celestial gear you ahve only 17 less armor than my dire/apoth gear set up. healing is obviously a bit lower, but with the life siphon form the venoms this only costs you about 50hp a hit, this is course made up by the increase in raw damage your build has. PLUS you ahve a good 4000 health on my build. impressive how this build ( with the food and guard stacks ) completely out does a focused condi bunker build.

AikijinX.6258:

ryan.6217:

Wow super impressed with the layout of this build… once im done getting my ascended dire I’ma have to try this out. looks too fun

Thanks my man!, This is a solid build, Invested alot of time into theory crafting it to perform how I want it to perform. I hope you took a look at the different pictures. One with Ascended Celestial and the other Exotic Knights. Thanks for the feedback ^^

I did indeed look at both!! with your celestial gear you ahve only 17 less armor than my dire/apoth gear set up. healing is obviously a bit lower, but with the life siphon form the venoms this only costs you about 50hp a hit, this is course made up by the increase in raw damage your build has. PLUS you ahve a good 4000 health on my build. impressive how this build ( with the food and guard stacks ) completely out does a focused condi bunker build.

Wow super impressed with the layout of this build… once im done getting my ascended dire I’ma have to try this out. looks too fun

…sure take my bleed auto attack away and give me chill…. what ever you want dude

Can confirm. Perplexity op, not p/d. p/d is our main offensive condi set, so you get a lot of people saying that is is op, when in reality its something else. perplexity essentially just hands an already good condition weapon set another, rather strong, condition.

What i ended up doing was just using stealth, and not caring who complains about it. I play the game. I play thief. Stealth is in the game… use it.

WA not OP. It just does a lot of damage like it is intended. Anyone notice that tooth stab on a condi thief does 12k worth damage? If you dont have condi clears you’re sol. WA is also extremely predictable… warriors, if you are fighting a thief who is glassy, he will probably steal from you. guess what he gets from that. whirling axe.

Get the pirate flintlock!!!!

CureForLiving.5360:

NinjaChris.9340:

Weren’t the old destroyers named by the dwarfs ? I believe they just like being dramatic^^ Seriously, “Destroyer of Life”? Who talks like that?

Apparently a race of people willing to destroy all individuality and sacrifice the future of their people in order to be better at hitting lava monster.

no in gw1 each destroyer had a different skill bar. So the names were related to what ever build they were using. This helped teams focus their targets and decide killing order. In guild wars 2 destroyers have creature skills. Far from the builds used In gw1. Having names based off the creature they are modeled after helps players recognize their attack scheme instead. Destroyer harpie, “oh its going to dodge a lot” destroyer troll, " melee hitter"…. In guild wars 1 there were large groups of enemies, sometimes names were your best chance at calling out a target before combat. You see something named Destroyer of Earth, you know its skill set will be based around an earth eles.

I see no problems with warriors being the over all best class. A lot of gamers are casual, and therefore play a class that’s easy to be good at. Not to mention the skill gap. Yes warriors can be very powerful, but no, most of the time they are scrubs. Also As a thief i like running into a challenging melee class opponent… I find highly skilled or “OP” to be the most fun to fight agianst

As a thief I’m fine with low hp, i just know i have to save my dodges. Personally i wouldnt mind if eles got moved into a higher health tier. they deserve it.

There’s no way those are real elites unless before march 18 thieves trapped get remade completely. And that warrior elite?

VladR.9827:

Dee Jay.2460:

Conditions melting targets faster than any D/D Berserker build ever could.

Just shows you how broken Conditions are.

it is the leeching venoms trait – life siphon dmg – not the conditions themselves

Been playing this build for a long time (even before the link below) (wvw only): solo, small group and guild raid

It realy shines when within small roaming party and decent group up to 20/25 ppl

It is realy nice fun to trigger venoms on solo target thou ;d

I use perplexity runes to apply another condition (confusion) on target. Can apply up to 6-7 conditions within 1-2s

and the one who should get more tribute is the one who tried to show community this build is fun to play:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/The-Panicond-build-P-D/first#post3266925

and btw:
dire condition engi has smaller impact dmg due to no siphon dmg, but a lot more sustain condition dmg on target

I like how you explained your build to this guy. All he did was throw a stock insult at conditions and you explained how the traits are actually what makes this build effective. No raging even! I also play a venom thief with leeching venoms! With full apoth trinkets i heal for a good amount using them! And the added life siphon with the conditions is great for spiking targets! Full venom bar is great for roaming with a team. +1 Bro!

DeWolfe.2174:

I’ve been complaining about thieves since launch and it falls on deaf ears. Unless we get new dev’s, Thieves will continue to be the kitten /troll dishonorable profession of the game. Even if people wish to proclaim it’s all skill, then the class simply has a greater ceiling than the other professions which makes them imbalanced. Either way, it’s not stealth as much as it’s damage output. Thieves scale way too high in WvW compared to their sPvP variant.

Thieves being “dishonorable”. Weird how that makes sense. And nobody said downed stomping in stealth takes skill. stay on topic buddy. People are complaining about not being able to counter it, not complaining about thief in general. Aside from that Stealth stomping is our way of invuln stomping. Or stability stomping. The difference is stealth stomping is the easiest to counter.

This is a very stingy request, and I hope I don’t look too whiney, but I purchased the guild wars 2 collector’s edition with early access. Initially I received all the included in-game bonuses, such as miniature Rytlock Brimstone, and the glory points. I recently noticed my Miniature Rytlock Brimestone was no longer in my collections box, and i was wondering if I could get him back? I know this sounds selfish, and I’m sure I was responsible for his loss, but GW2 is a big part of my life, and Rylock Brimestone is honestly my idol in life. I look to his statue on my computer desk and my plush Charrlie ( who i also consider rytlock) whenever I need an extra opinion! It surmise I’d love to know if it would be possible to replace this account item? If not, I’ll live.

In game character name is Master Rayn.

kitten i missed this thread and P/D dire/apoth is my jam!!!!

As an extremely self respected member of the thief community let me tell you that dire gear with apoth trinkets is what you need. i run that with tormy runes and warriors are like a cake walk. plus the build is mega under the radar, and you only get respect when you kill people with it. no hate. ever. period.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

I love seeing other people give gunslinger builds a try. It’s a very fast, reflexive combat style

Taking a (back)stab int he dark here, but did you play sPvP in the betas? I did, and honestly I’d laugh if i saw a thief not using S/P P/P!

PS. titling that build PeePee because the forum monitor changed the thread title XD

Well Jakob and I just hacked out a nice p/p build a couple threads down

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqa8alYm6O3bS6E/5Ey2DgqC5J/DklODc6lA-j0CB4LBk8Dk+AmCBiKAIHVQN5RZsMsIasKkYaXDpWFDCA-w

^ Thaat is a lot more about damage, and a lot less about surviving… The build you have set up looks like its mostly about get in and then gtfo!! Lots of stealth, and speed at that. Still a lot of dmg with your unload. If you’re roaming yeah definitely. Doesn’t look like you’ll find any problems helping your teamates res, and you’ll be supplying them with some nice ranged pressure!

haha i went in and made pretty much the same changes to see how it’d turn out!

Well thank you sir! Your feedback has been stellar. I like that the changes are mostly armor driven, you aren’t trying to change the basic concept. I have some spare cavalier kitten lying around! Pop that on no problem, and i like the idea for Valkyrie on the weapons! running 25/30/0/15/0 will be easily changed to 25/30/0/0/15 with your armor and rune suggestions! I think i’d like to see what’s happening withe rune balance patch coming up…. but if they keep their crit chance and the 25% speed boost I think I’ll add em. Thanks a bunch for your responses Jacob and Viking!

Aveneo.2068:

This game would have been better off if the Thief class had never existed. Stealth in and of itself is inherently broken in most MMOs and giving one class access to a dynamic initiative system while keeping all others on a static cooldown system was a recipe for disaster.

Thief has to rely so much on stealth to get anything done as an old man has to rely on his cane. And personally I find the Thief class very unfun both playing one as well as playing against one as there is little to no counterplay involved.

This genuinely hurt my feelings. I hope you’re happy with yourself. I guess all your problems would be gone if i JUST DIDN’T EXIST DAD!!!… i mean cough Aveneo

JakobGW.5730:

My personal opinion:

Weaknesses:
1. No stealth. Admirable, but pointless.
2. Lack of initiative. 12 initiative for a P/P, even with RfI, is not enough in my opinion.
3. No toughness. Nasty thieves will C&D/Steal + BS, killing you in one second.
4. No escapes except SS, which is easily overcome by most HS thieves, blinking mesmers, leaping guardians, leaping rangers, porting elementilists, etc., etc.

Finally, a lot of folks may disagree with me here, but your precision to power ratio is really, really off. You don’t need that much precision. You’ll get more damage for initiative spent if you weaken your critical chance significantly and increase your power dramatically. You can do this with power food, buffs from guards, and different runes, mixing that with a tad different armor.

My two cents.

Hey man your 2 cents is what I’m looking for. I laughed at “no stealth. admirable, but pointless” Theres always room for a good SR. Anyway by mixing gear you think i should throw in some Valkyrie? The goal wasnt to make my crit chance super high, but i needed executioner there. Essentially the problems you listed would mean to make this build perfect. You want me to go 15 into trickery, and at least 10 into shadow arts to give me more toughness, that or soldiers gear. and all of those things would reduce damage, which understood is already pretty high. I’m hoping that with these changes i could retain enough damage for the survivability to be worth it… which brings in the whoe active defense over passive defense argument.

Hoping my response doesn’t look like I’m dismissing your suggestions! They were well made and appreciated sir

Viking Jorun.5413:

ryan.6217:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Pro Tip: You only need two pistols, one on your primary set in one hand and another in your secondary set on the opposite hand. Example below.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJA6alYm6OHcS6E/5Ey2DgqC5JdG40L1fgrA-jkBBkfA0HwJPFRjtwpIasKkYaXER1A-w

I take your pro tip and suggest my own. Pro tip 4 sigils are better than 2. But yes, i know you only need 2, thanks mate! The offhand set have swapping sigils!

Heh, I deleted two of your pistols before I saw that you had different sigils on both sets. It’ll save you money at the very easy until you can get a full set of 4 ascended pistols at the very least.

Seems Fair. I mean.. why spend any money until them pittles are ascended. Jeez I need to start getting my crafting up.. I’m so lazy I keep banking on the idea that one day ill just be able to buy ascended weps and gear lol.

Fortus.6175:

Let me get this straight; you want to nerf the only thing eles do in any PvP enviroment?!

Whats next, reducing their health pool to minimun, give them light armor, nerf their healing in every patch and make all their skills have 40+ secs CD with highly telegraphed and long casting animations?!

Eles are getting a bit of a buff on this next patch

Sir Vincent III.1286:

lol, seems that OP is bored too.

Well, I was bored and been running PvP just for the dailies using this build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqa6alYmiNXey5E+5Ex2DgmTeqzgmvs/AXB-TwAA1CoIsRZjzGjNSbs2MEZJymgJBA

May not be the best, but it sure is fun to use.

LOL I have the same trait set up! I too started running P/P! Insane dmg

+1(0) because I don’t feel like an idiot for my build set up anymore. I ran this set up in beta, cept i had S/P offhand to mega win with pistol whip

Wow I totally lost who i was. I’ve spent the last 5 months on this game trying avoid all stealth skills and cheap tactics. This thread reminded me why i started playing thief in the first place, Because i like to win! I guess i shouldn’t whether or not other players think i’m cheap. Winning is winning lol. Here’s to Shadow Refuge!

Viking Jorun.5413:

Pro Tip: You only need two pistols, one on your primary set in one hand and another in your secondary set on the opposite hand. Example below.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJA6alYm6OHcS6E/5Ey2DgqC5JdG40L1fgrA-jkBBkfA0HwJPFRjtwpIasKkYaXER1A-w

I take your pro tip and suggest my own. Pro tip 4 sigils are better than 2. But yes, i know you only need 2, thanks mate! The offhand set have swapping sigils!

kitten it, Right? Thieves are in a pretty good place right now. Realized that they can use almost all of their weapon sets and still be called OP! So I hung up my Condi Bunker gear and I’ve been running straight P/P. 25/30/0/15/0. Is what i tried on. Essentially once an opponent is below 50% health i have a total of a 45-50% increase in damage. It’s been pretty fun running around unloading on people in small group fights, but the build is really lacking in some aspects.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqa6alYm6OHcS6E/5Ey2DgqC5JdG40L1fgrA-jECBkfA0HwUIgUBQJPFRjtwpIasKkYaXER1A-w

Anybody else running P/P have any trait or gear suggestions? (no perplexity, please)

Viking Jorun.5413:

ryan.6217:

Viking Jorun.5413:

…how is S/P cheese? I’ve been running it for months, and it was far underpowered. All of a sudden with one minor buff and a major nerf, it’s apparently cheese. Gotta love this community.

You’re right ^^ i played S/P in beta! I’m glad it’s gaining it reputation back as of late, because for a while there it went unplayable. I think for a moment al i could picture were warriors 100 blading hopelessly in front of a thief with s/p… but otherwise its in about the same boat as S/D

S/D hasn’t even been cheese since the IR nerf when LS was also increased in cost, making it so that you had to far more carefully use FS+LS. I suppose people translate Meta = Cheese, which isn’t entirely correct, not to mention the fact that there’s a difference between Meta and Viable Again, the second of which boat S/P is in. D/P trickery still remains the only top-tier meta build, with S/D on steady second. The only true cheese build out there is D/P permastealth with Shadow’s Rejuvination. Trickery D/P gives that up and frequently has to break combat to not die with it’s lack of sustained healing, meaning that it takes skill to be successful with trickery D/P, same goes for S/D and S/P.

TL;DR – Cheese means it takes little to no skill to play, like warrior. Thief takes a significant amount of skill to make itself viable in any format, and therefore only has one truly “cheese” build.

I agree with all of your points, accept that thief only has one cheese build. As an avid user of the condi bunker thief I do strongly believe that it is cheese. I hardly even have to strife. Honestly i can just stand still and auto until somebody reaches me and then i hit 3. Now against mesmers and necros some movement is required. and thought too, but that’s because they are difficult classes.

Viking Jorun.5413:

…how is S/P cheese? I’ve been running it for months, and it was far underpowered. All of a sudden with one minor buff and a major nerf, it’s apparently cheese. Gotta love this community.

You’re right ^^ i played S/P in beta! I’m glad it’s gaining it reputation back as of late, because for a while there it went unplayable. I think for a moment al i could picture were warriors 100 blading hopelessly in front of a thief with s/p… but otherwise its in about the same boat as S/D

style.6173:

ryan.6217:

Spyder.9713:

d/d and s/d are 2 of my favorites… I tell my buddies d/p is for noob thieves that cant land cloak and dagger lol!

That is how i generally feel. Personally I think S/D is one of the most boss things a thief can throw at some one. When you can kill some one and all they have to complain about is evades (Which every class has), you know you beat them fair and square.

D/D is also great! I’m glad it’s making a come back! I know it never fully died, but the reason I turned my thief into P/D in the first place was because of the D/P movement. I was fed up with the flack about stealth, and furthermore watching it get so heavily abused i figured conditions would be safe!

Go P/P in an upper level tourney and be successful. That will be a boss.

S/D, S/P, and D/P are the three meta builds right now. Can’t say someone is a boss using those.

Wow i forgot P/P even existed. D/P and S/P are cheese, never said they were boss. I know this. S/D evade is respectable and when playing versus a respectable opponent S/D is pretty BOSS. Meta or not i give credit where credit is due. I think D/D builds and S/D builds deserve credit. High Risk, high rewards. Now when was the last time I saw P/P? oh yeah. perplexity meta.

I’m confused? Are people MORE mad at zerker thieves or condi thieves? If i start playing giver’s thief will people not be mad at me? or will they be MORE mad at that in the end?

Jesus it’s an evade build… I remember when this game first came out. My buddies and i roaming in WvW. We always came across this ranger, god his name has escaped me… I want to say it was Loyal less… any way i don’t think i ran by this bad @$$ one time and didn’t see him in a 1v3. All evades. Did we call it OP? hell no. A player that can utilize his evades isn’t OP. They are attentive. Trait max into Acrobatics and receive more evades… That just sounds right to me

Spyder.9713:

d/d and s/d are 2 of my favorites… I tell my buddies d/p is for noob thieves that cant land cloak and dagger lol!

That is how i generally feel. Personally I think S/D is one of the most boss things a thief can throw at some one. When you can kill some one and all they have to complain about is evades (Which every class has), you know you beat them fair and square.

D/D is also great! I’m glad it’s making a come back! I know it never fully died, but the reason I turned my thief into P/D in the first place was because of the D/P movement. I was fed up with the flack about stealth, and furthermore watching it get so heavily abused i figured conditions would be safe!

What builds do you think really show off a thief player’s ability. Not looking for builds that ALWAYS guarantee results (I.E. My dire/apoth venom thief( and i say MY to take responsibility of my cheese) ), looking for builds that only reward players that are truly well focused and well played!

PS. not a build posting thread, but a build discussion thread!

SSoooo what i like about this thread is that it was forged by a thief, and then all of us thieves came here and dogged on thieves. We covered bunker condi thief, shortbow evade thief, D/P thief, and S/x Thief… what that means is that D/D backstab thief is the only build we have that is cheese. Careful gang, whats cheese to us is OP to everyone else. I’ma go make a post about top most difficult to perfect thieve builds. see yu guys there!

Interceptor.2653:

P/D Apothecary’s, probably. Hard as hell for anyone to kill.

Can confirm. Running Dire Armor with apothecary trinkets. Dying optional. (Running venoms, not stealth. Runes of torment.)

… Also when i made this build I didn’t honestly know meta was about to be condition damage. Rest assured I cry myself to sleep every night knowing my beautiful baby is cheese as hell now.

just getting this out here, A necro is still going to bust your face in with conditions and bunker your kitten with toughness even if you take away dire. they problem isnt dire, its people not utilizing condi clears. they are a second healing skill in this meta

Interceptor.2653:

Leeching Venoms is a valid point, especially for venom Thieves that are specced to share. Spider has more hits (AKA chances to proc LV) than any of the other options.

Thank you interceptor! That is more the point i was trying to get across, understood thieves have plenty of access to applying poison! with shortbow, and steal, I still use spider venom for a nice little burst heal. Also most people will be able to cleanse 13s of poison before it can effect them too much.. understood it doesnt do too much dmg, it does add quite a bit when torment and bleeding are already ticking away!

i run dire gear with apoth trinkets. yeah it makes you tanky, thats the point. counter it with hard zerk build.