Guild Wars 2

Just thought I would add in some personal experience fighting a power Mesmer a while back.

The full burst was literally insane. But once he was on cooldown the difficulty for me was that he had just enough stealth to stay alive before his next burst.

I’d say that the difference between a good power Mesmer and a great power Mesmer is how they handle the burst not working out.

One of those rare fights where I let them live after I downed them.

Sword is slow so it may benefit from quickness more so than other weapons.

The main thing with S/P is to know exactly how much of a window you have before you need to retreat. In both S/P and S/D you also need to have a plan to get back into stealth to set up another round of attacks.

It may have been possible to burst using S/X in the past but there is more get out of jail free cards. You usually can’t over rely on one shotting people these days.

That said, you do want to build enough damage to make hit and run effective. What build are you using?

It plays fine?

Depends on your personal preference and what game modes you want to play as there are many variable builds that can be effective now. Both HoT and non-HoT builds are viable.

D/D (condi), P/D (condi), D/P (power), staff (power HoT only), sword/p (hybrid) are some of your options.

Think of the beasts as bonuses for the roamers to grab if they are convenient. A beast isn’t mandatory (all the beast are roughly 150 points if you kill all of them shortly after spawning) but can turn the tide if you can grab them.

The last hit mechanic means both sides have a 50/50 shot if they are contesting the same beast regardless of when they showed up. That is more fair than just counting overall damage or giving it a downed state. It’s 25 points not the 150 lord is worth.

Beasts are one of the better map mechanics imo. You can even help the beast kill a player and then kill the beast to help avoid the chance the points will go to the other team. You can also use beasts to lure people off point, decap, and still have a solid chance at taking beast as well.

I get 6-7 bleed, 6 poison, 5 confusion, and 6 torment plus various other conditions on my build with SA, Trickery, DrD.

Not a one shot unless they don’t run condition clears. Without clears someone can die in under 5 seconds. With clears is another story but that applies to builds with even higher burst. (My build is a multi sustain build for skirmishing).

As I said it depends. You may be able to quickly down them and hurt them significantly. Just giving up the node is not always ideal.

Usually is other thief or Mesmer where sticking around is viable. Taking Mesmer out can help reduce the other teams group mobility and also cuts down the Moa spikes.

That said, I just test the waters, if it isn’t working there is no need to stick around.

Not sure about that Sly…

I run p/d which does stealth, including before engage. But I’m not sure what is being discussed because “appears next to me” and “suddenly there are a lot of conditions on me” leaves out some crucial information.

For example, is there a projectile? Are they using dagger? Is there an animation? Is there a field (like poison)?

Not sure about “everyone” but if you describe what they do (weapons, moves, etc) I might be able to help.

Thief should test the waters depending on the situation. Some people you can 1v1 and do some serious damage to their team’s viability.

Take a 1-3-1 split. You 1v1 while your team is 4v3 on mid. If your team takes the momentum and wins mid they can back you up (don’t over-extend yourself). If they win mid with 3v4 then you have bigger problems for your team in any case. I’d do this if the person you are 1v1ing is more easily pressured by you (not a guardian with multiple resets built in).

Or you can let them take the point while you back up your mid, 5v3. Full team mid, then you can let your team rotate a person home while you decap far and then back to mid for the +1. Both options work depending on the flow of the game. Very map dependent as well.

Or limit ranked play to minimum MMR number.

Equalize the rewards between the two and then force everyone over a certain MMR to only use the higher ranked queue (not the same number as the lower ranked players need to queue in the higher MMR arenas).

For example, the minimum MMR to queue in upper rank is 1250. Then make everyone over 1400 have to queue in the higher ranked arenas. People 1250-1399 can queue in either. People below 1250 have to queue in the lower ranks. People 1400+ have to queue in the higher MMR arenas only.

Absolutely, and I would note that dropping SA might present the smallest decrease in survivability (cooldowns wouldn’t be reduced and somewhat less stealth access and lack of boon stripping) for a substantial increase in damage.

I’m sure it would help with killing DH and Druid and hurt killing Rev and Warrior (with resistance boon strip is much needed). Overall a tradeoff that may be worth making.

I prefer SA though because stealth is how I like to play. Coming in and out of stealth, moving behind my targets to keep them guessing where I am, vanishing and escaping in another direction, kiting them away from my real objective and stealth teleporting to them and then back to the objective while they run in vain to stop me. That is what draws me to play the class in the first place.

So I played around with it. I’d probably drop a venom from my build to compensate for the decrease in survivability (signet probably).

The damage spike is insane but I’m still preferring DrD for the flexibility it brings.

Anyone who has good reaction time and understanding of the thief class can do well against thief.

Anyone who under estimates thief will be destroyed, however.

Best thief counter is another thief who is used to playing as fast as the other thief.

You can dodge before to interrupt auto attack consistently.

You can also sheath your weapons then steal.

Lol. Thief uses inherent class mechanic and you think them using it is unfair.

Next time warrior uses a stance I’ll be sure to tell him/her it’s unfair.

Think of it this way. Pretend you can heal for 5k.

A target sitting passively would take 20k damage from several attacks. An experienced player (as the target) can mitigate this damage to 5k. Your heal can fully sustain that player. Then he takes another 20k spike and mitigates it to 5k, your heals are on cooldown but he is now around 75%. He downs an enemy player and you win the fight.

A less experienced player tries and mitigates only 5k, taking 15k damage. Your healing gives him back 5k and leaves him at under 50% hp. He takes another 15k while trying to run away and gets downed. You can’t save him and they turn full focus on you.

The difference is that even though you healed him a lot there are some people you can’t save.

You missed the point Nusku.

My point was that the consequence of increasing the total cleanse available is that Anet needs to make conditions burst even harder to deal damage to their targets. Damage over time is more consistently non-burst oriented when there is no cleanse mechanic which cuts off future damage.

Say I do 10k worth of condition damage. But it happens over 10 seconds. Say they expect that cleanse should reduce that number to 5k of damage actually taken. Now they add a cleanse and expect that players will cleanse so it does 2.5k damage instead. So they add in potential for 20k damage and expect the new cleanse will handle all but 5k of the damage. So a new player without taking full cleanse is now taking 20k damage, 2k/second and going wow condi is OP.

What I’m saying is what he wants is to remove cleanse and make the condition damage 5k in the above example. He then takes 500/second but can’t cleanse away any of the damage. It won’t spike him down because there is no sustain power creep to worry about. But he might not like it because then he will lose hp and have less control over whether he ends up bleeding to death or not.

You can’t collect them again for that character. The mastery points are once per account.

Verdant brink is a good start. Might need one more HoT zone to finish it out but only a few more.

Baba I’d love to duel sometime just to see your fighting style

HoT maps have hero points worth 10 at a time. Newer accounts may have trouble, however without gliding and also being unfamiliar with the gameplay.

I’d advise heading into Verdamt Brink, building up your masteries (get gliding first) and then looking to get the various hero points.

Also if you are interested I’m available to help in game (more on weekends) especially with learning the thief class.

Pvp is always good for practice without spending money.

I have both an NA and EU account so I’m able to show you how P/D plays at least. I’m much less familiar with D/D although that is pretty common.

For thief the primary condition options are D/D and P/D. There is also shortbow which can provide some condition damage in certain contexts and AoE interrupts as well.

Are you in pvp and WvW or just WvW? Also, are you running a basic account or Heart of Thorns?

I can provide some mentoring on the class if you want it. Shoot me a mail in game if so.

Warriors have a lot of possible cleanse built into “stuff they do.”

You can cleanse on burst. You can cleanse on swap (both trait and sigils). You can use resistance.

I’d also add in there are sigils that remove conditions on hit if you want to use a build (for some reason) that lacks access to resistance or cleansing ire.

But I also see you have some mistaken ideas so I’ll correct you on a few additional points. Endure Pain negates incoming power damage. It does nothing to conditions. The stance you want pulses resistance which negates conditions currently on you (but does not cleanse them). Block blocks incoming attacks and does nothing against attacks that have already hit you. The same applies to dodge (you can dodge after an attack hits you but not expect to stop bleeding because you moved).

I used P/D in sPvP in both ranked seasons exclusively. I was ranked gold in both seasons and reached top 10% in season 6. I could have gone higher but my initial placement required more grinding to get up in the rankings, and I don’t have the time to grind that much.

Even with lag (going from NA to EU) playing vs new warriors is like cutting through butter with a hot knife. Or should I say a HoT knife :-p

Fair enough, adding poison to Body Shot doesn’t make it op though because you can get a lot more conditions off Shadow Strike or Sneak Attack for less initiative than you will spend on Body Shot. Poison on immobilize is a bonus rather than an abusable mechanic for unreasonable levels of poison.

It provides a good consistent cover condition though with heal reduction so that is nice.

I’d argue that if you try to play the “role for thief” (which is based on the assumption you are running D/P) then you are always going to find that other sets won’t measure up.

It’s like saying about D/D – “but I can’t headshot to get pulmonary impact strikes!” Different sets play differently and perform related but different roles.

I disagree about “kit identity” whatever that means. P/D is a kiting set designed for single target ranged damage. It is good at supporting team kills and focuses on ranged stealth gameplay. Hardly lacking an identity in my mind.

And sure, the weapon won’t work in a WvW Zerg but neither will D/P let you run in the front lines either. Shortbow remains our tag support weapon if we aren’t picking off single players on the edges of the fight.

I run a variant using SA/Trick/DrD.

I have higher condition cleanse and better stealth access. This lets me avoid a lot of condition transfers from necromancers.

As to guardian was that a DH? You find that between blocks and cleanse on block (yay HoT) DH can require more careful attacks. Use Choking Gas because it is unblockable. Load venoms and avoid attacking too much. Be sure to use the stolen ability at the right time to shut down some of his healing.

Shortbow and caltrops trait can really hurt a DH with unblockables.

Body Shot also isn’t something to spam (use more than once in a row) in most 1v1s. You are better off using it in groups to help your allies land their bursts. It might be less satisfying than doing the damage yourself but it can be highly effective,

Not sure it is the most competitive so much as the one that people have played the most.

Staff was/is a strong contender. D/D (condi) is good. D/D (power) is decent but needs to be played differently from D/P. P/P (power) can be strong in the right settings. P/D is strong as well.

Most competitive can have more to do with what the best players are using rather than what is objectively the best. Top players are too invested in their builds to change to unfamiliar playstyles just because the balance slightly shifted after all.

GW2 specifically is designed to avoid the trinity as much as possible. That said, there are classes which heal, tank, or DPS better than others but most classes do have some access to DPS and sustain (or evade-mobility).

Conditions have to do a lot of damage in short time frames because people kept asking for more and more cleanse. The more cleanse the more conditions need to kill between cleanses to stay viable.

If your goal is that conditions should no longer be viable then that will never happen. You’re not going to change a nearly five year old mmo’s core design.

If your goal is to increase cleanse it won’t solve your issue. What you want is for no cleanse and a rebalancing of conditions around this. Then conditions won’t have to burst to deal damage.

But be careful what you ask for. Inevitable death is no more pleasant than being bursted down between cleanses. And you would lower the skill floor for condi users by a lot. Right now I need to know a lot about my opponent’s cleanse to time my attacks. Get rid of cleanse/rebalance and…welcome to the true condition meta.

I’d also point out that in gameplay the ability to teleport stealth to a target can allow you to sneak around a lot more effectively.

Necro was capping enemy home on Forest while I stole their beast. Necro ran towards me while I stayed out of sight and I stole to one of his minions. IA to node and decapped before he realized I was there.

I might drop DrD for DA if only to see if the offensive gain is stronger than the defensive loss. I used to run DA/Trick/SA back before HoT and only adopted Acro over DA as preparation for the release of HoT.

I’ll be losing perma-swiftness as well so the mobility will take a hit. It may require refocusing my runes around poison as well to try and boost the spike damage.

Yeah, I’m seriously considering dropping DrD in favor of DA…although losing that mobility is hard given everything. SA offers a lot and so does Trickery (between the two I’d actually drop Trickery first).

Trait: if standing still and no enemy is within 600 range enter stealth. Continues to apply stealth until you move or enemy comes within 600 units. Goes on cooldown after you move or are revealed for 30 seconds.

Still going to get Predator for the support sniping.

Especially if Deadeye is like the elite version of SA like DrD was elite acro.

In team fights with two or three allies an immobilize lockdown on a focus target is gold.

Especially if they are a thief who is out of dodges or not using escapists absolution.

He probably means Body Shot which is also available to P/P and can lock down a necro and make them easy targets for a team.

It’s not perma immobilize but can easily get up to 8-10 seconds. It’s also something that can be cleansed but reapplied quickly so hard for necro to avoid.

People used to say body Shot was useless but being stuck in place is really bad for most pvp group fights. One of the very situational skills a main hand pistol brings.

So all I need to do is set an EU home server and I’ll be playing in Europe?

What I’ve seen about region setting seems to indicate the system was planned but never implemented.

Body Shot is highly effective because you can lock down some people at a critical moment.

In pvp Deadshot amulet makes it a 2 second duration.

Quick general question, what is the process for creating a European account. The gw2 site seems to imply I will be locked into NA if I purchase through them but also says I can choose an EU world.

Oh the French, singing in French always and forever at the Eurovision…

I’m east coast so it wouldn’t be severe (I hope). I also have good connection speed.

Is there a latency difference between the language servers? Or are they all roughly the same?

As per the thread title, looking for recommendations from others who have multiple continent accounts.

Do you find the lag issue an obstacle to playing thief? What would be best server wise for English speaking?

All thieves should get the vial of salt by default upon winning a pvp match.

:-p

No, as far as I know. They should show last known position until they are visible again.

If you think that the leaderboard is meaningless I’d hope you actually had fought some of the people on it first before telling everyone your opinion.

I’ve fought some very strong players in the top 250 (technically top 125). You’re mistaken if you think their skill isn’t that high.

The unblockable aspect of shortbow can overwhelm a DH because they rely heavily on block. Whitle them down and watch them slowly but surely use up their heals and resets. Then finish them off.

The aoe area of choking gas is fairly forgiving and with the initial impact can transfer venoms as well. DH condi clear based on block is ineffective against choking gas so this will do a lot to keep pressure up. The potential for daze against DH is pretty strong given how it can eat through stability pretty quickly.

For example if you burn out their blocks and stability you can land Mace stolen skill for full effect. That alone can be a huge advantage.

Hide in Shadows with SA cooldown reduction to 24 seconds.

Fought the rank 116 engineer from last pvp season (NA) this weekend. Power rifle engi with perma 25 stacks of might. Also had good quickness uptime. He was going 3v1 and killing everyone in a few hits.

Just thought I’d add engineer to the list of potential ranged damage counters to thief.

Hybrid Warrior with rifle and Mace/shield?

Bonus points if you /say trololollol while spinning.