Guild Wars 2

I think that’s quite an entertaining video but the build lacks the burst to finish off tougher classes quickly enough. Not having enough burst can get you killed too, it’s a delicate balance.

This video was before revealed was reverted to 3 seconds and there was a greater need for defensive traits at the time.

I also don’t like that he doesn’t have shadow step. For me, that is the only skill which is absolutely mandatory in this build.

I actually use a 0/30/30/10/0 build for D/P. I really don’t think the extra 2 initiative per 10 second is necessary and certainly not worth dropping hidden killer for unless you’re full glass cannon and have a huge crit chance anyway.

For leveling you should take full zerk gear. You shouldnt struggle for survivability in pve with black powder stealth and dodges. Once you reach 80, mix of zerker, soldier and valk is most balanced. Wish made an excellent thread called something like “Building a better D/D thief” where he attempts to optimise the stats you get from gear.

One final tip for D/P: you can turn the camera to face your feet when heartseekering over black powder. You won’t jump so far, making 3 heartseekers per black powder easier.

Welcome to the Dark Side.

S/D trumps S/P for WvW/PvP imho. S/P is quite immobile and doesn’t have reliable stealth either.

If you want a more fighter-like play style try S/D. You can jump in and out of combat with infiltrator strike and evade attacks/strip boons with flanking/larcenous strikes. Then you still have cloak and dagger for stealth when you want it but you use it much less than than D/D.

Try D/P for a change of play style.

D/P is stronger in WvW. You combo black powder with heartseeker to grant stealth and you can chain multiple heartseekers across the field to stack stealth and achieve “perma stealth”. This is more survivable than D/D (lots of blinds) but slightly less burst.

If you’re going to play D/P you need to learn to play without auto targetting so you can heartseeker in the direction of your choosing (not always towards the nearest enemy)

We aren’t talking about d/d and while the build is common synergising it with s/d is slightly less so. It gives you more options and makes you even harder to catch. We don’t need the qq

Shhh dont let the secret out!

This is exactly what I do. It’s a handy option to have against boon or condition heavy classes and cloak and dagger is better for escapes than black powder combo.

Plus heart seeker spam is as fast as inflitrators arrow anyway.

The only thing I miss about the short bow is the ability to pressure guardians from range.

Too many e-sport bellkittens in sPvP forums. This map is fun and unique.

Troll.4237:

So what if we get a 4 second burning every ten seconds? The trait to get the burning isn’t even in the condition trait line. So it’s either I go super squishy and give up my toughness and receive 4seconds of burning every 10 seconds ( god kitten that a lot of burning!) or I can stick with the conditions I have and keep my toughness.

If you trait for stats you are a terribad player. Just saying…

Iavra.8510:

I know illusions need to be target focussed so it will only cast of you have a target

Just make it like Deceptive Evasion: Can only be used while in combat and targets the nearest available enemy.

That will most likely mess with my opening though :/

Read the next bit. It would still be cast if there is a nearby available target if you have auto attack turned on but no target selected.

Grounded targeted warden. Hands down. I know illusions need to be target focussed so it will only cast of you have a target (or autotarget is able to select one for you) and will run towards that target for it’s second d burst but its initial position is chosen by you. Finally it could be effectively employed defensively or combo’d with curtain for condition cleanse, making it and interesting and unique phantasm.

After that probably take vuln off staff like everyone has said. I’d like poison but I’d settle for chill or torment.

Mere Image.8376:

It’s not just us. They are ruining this game for a lot of people by nerfing professions mindlessly. I understand the need to “balance.” But in a year from now…what will the classes look like. They are making them less unique every patch. I just don’t understand how something that began with so much promise has declined so rapidly to state of utter idiocy.

Agree with all of this. They just keep making random “balancing” changes like this without thinking them through.

I can understand the internal icd as without that it affects different classes differently (but why it’s not on retaliation yet I don’t know). But to balance it the duration should be longer or cool down shorter. More importantly though, dropping the protection on cast is a straight-up unwarranted nerf to a previously well balanced weapon.

Still no WvW fixes or new spvp game modes. This game is dying at the hands of it’s utterly incompetent dev team.

The GS changes make it pretty decent for zerging actually. Target a player at the back of the zerg and you’ll usually hit a few along the way too. Add sigil of fire and zerker and it’s good damage. However, it’s quite clunky (targetting wvw is a nightmare) so it would have been nice to learn that glamour was doing decent damage (especially with the blind changes)

Another unecessary kick in the teeth today tho. Patience with anet wearing very thin…

Thanks for the response.

Terrahero.9358:

While in Stealth a Rogue moves slower, unless specced for stealth speed. A Thief runs just as fast as everyone else, if specced for stealth speed he’ll be faster then anything.

A Rogue takes damage, even from a DoT, and his stealth will be broken. A Thief doesnt not exit Stealth when taking damage. Even getting downed doesnt cause a Thief to lose Stealth.

Re-stealthing for a Rogue meant leaving combat or blowing lengthy cooldowns. Restealthing for a Thief comes on abilities with no cooldown and a cost low enough to resealth everytime Revealed fades. Abilities with a cooldown are still much lower by comparison.

A Rogue has limited gapclosers, either they need to be specced for or they come with a lenghty cooldown, or both. A Thief has a multitude of gapclosers on low cooldown or no cooldown at all.

Looks like a Rogue in “the most popular MMO ever” has quite a few drawbacks a Thief does not have. So are you really sure you want to go and compare to “the most popular mMO evar”? Because that just shows how silly Stealth in GW2 is.

Different game different classes. You wanna give thief a rogues stealth you need to give it evasion kitten-tonnes of stuns, etc etc.

Point is, perma stealth isn’t a broken mechanic it’s very common and a lot of people really enjoy playing ambush classes. I’m one of them although I don’t main a thief due to it being useless for group combat.

If they take perma stealth away it needs to be accompanied by enormour buffs to a number of other thief builds or the class will become unplayable.

Given the dev team for this game is the worst of any game I’ve ever played I’m sure we can expect them to make the wrong decision, whatever that turns out to be.

Wow I think this might just be the nail in my mesmer’s coffin. Do they even realise how big a nerf this is?!!!

Anets dev team clearly don’t have any idea how to balance this game. They are addicted to making ad hoc unnecessary class changes which damage players’ enjoyment. The opposite of what they’re supposed to be doing.

Most popular and successful mmo of all time has had perma stealth since release and has kept it across 4 expansions.

I think we can end these discussions now.

Bump because I can’t afford the rabid set to test this yet. Thank you

Teevell.1684:

Maybe instead of taking rewards away from killing people, they should add them for capturing points and achieving other WvW objectives. So you get x number of badges if you help capture a camp or defend one. Maybe like 1 badge if you kill a guard, 2 if you help defend him—that might make more incentive for people to actually try and hold points, give the roamers a better chance to acquire badges and loot as they go about flipping camps (and might give them more of a challenge because they’ll be people defending the camps then, too). The biggest problem I would see with that is server imbalance, though at least a group can still get badges and loot for capturing, even if they loose the point a few minutes later.

Because then anet would feel like people were getting too many badges. There needs to be a compromise.

I’d envisage something like:

2 badges per cow

4 for a camp

12 for a tower

25 for a keep

40 for garrison

0 for kills.

And WvW exp scaled the same way.

It would probably end up being the same rate as the current system except everyone would be rewarded equally.

The only problem would be people going round and tagging events and claiming easy rewards so they’d need some rules around that

Quick question for those who still play it post-nerf: what’s it like now? Is it putting out strong damage? Or does it feel like a lower-hp wells necro with much less damage on the staff?

The aoe blinds and boon removal are strong for zerg play but I wanted to know if the damage is strong enough to warrant me getting farming a rabid set or whether I’d be better off damaging with GS/shatters?

Aberrant.6749:

60WXP per kill + loot bag chance is a lot if you’re doing ZvZ… but if you’re roaming and killing resuppliers/yak’s that’s going to be your main source of WXP & loot (also an important job). Nerfing the kill rewards would make that thankless job now less rewarding.

But that’s just it. Smaller events like killing cows and flipping camps would also yield good badges and exp, not the kills. The rewards will be linked to successfully achieving things that assist your team and earn points rather than for aoe tagging.

It’s really easy to implement too.

All the naff loot can still drop from kills if needs be but badges and wvw exp should be from events (or at least implement party tagging).

My point is that the rewards you mentioned are not evenly distributed. The people who chose to perform (vital) support roles are not rewarded as well as the people who just aoe. That’s a lazy system

Let’s make the comparison to the biggest mmo, wow, almost all the PvP rewards from wow are team based (win/loss bonuses) where as an individual kill nets you very little. This is so people people can do what they think will contribute most to overall victory and be well rewarded for it.

Personally I’d take badges and wvw exp away from kills and make it more about event rewards.

Currently your ability to get loot (and more importantly for some, badges) is determined by the amount of damage you do to as many people as possible.

This is wrong.

I personally would love to play my mesmer in a support/auxiliary role (focusing on clever tactics with portals/veils and using null field to rip off stability from the enemies) but I am punished for doing so as this style of play gets fewer tags than a GS shatter or mass-confusion build.

What’s more, in the aforementioned support role I am contributing infinitely more to the group than the damage builds. I’m sure there are other classes too which feel like they would be more effective playing in a way which wasn’t optimal for tagging and loot.

My suggestion is simple: tags by anyone in your party within 2000 range of you count as a tag for you. So if you have a party with a mix of DPS and support the loot is balanced across all of them and play can be more tactical and less focused on trying to tag everything you can.

This might even help a bit with people forming one massive laggy blob as moving slightly awayfrom tthe group to do something useful like destroying some siege or blocking a reinforcement route isn’t going to cost players loot.

I do rate shelter and should have mentioned that. However, renewed focus comes at the cost of tome of courage which is our absolute best skill for group support.

I have good survivability with my guardian but that is specced and geared full bunker. A warrior can achieve the same or better survivability (for long enough for a zerg clash to be concluded) while doing twice the damage! (Better damage in equal gear and can get away with having less pvt)

I’ve always been a big fan of the guardian (AH shout build especially) for being on the front line in WvW but since picking up a warrior I’m starting to wonder whether the melee train of a zerg would be more effective with less guardians and more warriors?

Their higher health pool, endure pain, GS whirl and (time based) shield block seem much better suited to zerging than the guardian’s consistent healing (which seems more suited to bunkering a point in sPvP). One of our main defense mechanisms (aegis) does very little to save you in large groups.

Do you feel like the guardian could do with a few more “oh kitten” buttons for large group situations?

I’d reduce the supply cost of rams/catapults and/or increase their effectiveness (especially against wood). A small team of 15 could take an undefended keep/tower quicker than a zerg could run across the map to defend it.

If you don’t upgrade or defend towers, you lose them.

Hi there,

I have no broadband so I’ve attempted to tether my phone and laptop and use the phone as a wifi hotspot. It is very slow.

Is using a USB connection going to be faster than using it as a wifi hotspot?

I have all graphics options on minimum but still have a ping well over 500 (probably much much higher in WvW) is there anything else I can do at all reduce the games demands on my internet speed?

Does anyone have any other tips or suggestions which might help me to improve the playability?

Many thanks,

Shadowraith

Terrible idea. Would give guardians a passive immunity to a thief’s opener.

Bored of thief qq. They are not the best 1v1 class (nor is that an important element of this TEAM game).

They stomp scrubs. Get over it.

That’s extremely helpful, thank you both of you.

That would be fantastic thank you. I want to get as close to those stat distributions on that thread as I can with the resources I have. I’ve got about 16g and 500 WvW badges to work with so my first instinct would be zerker armor with beryl orbs and cab/valk trinkets but haven’t seen anyone using that which makes me think its not ideal.

Thanks for your replies. I took a look at that threads and it makes some interesting reading.

I mentioned in my first post that I don’t have very much gold to play with (I only have 1-2 hours a day to play and I try to spend it all in WvW) so a lot of the builds mentioned are out ofreach for me.

Even a full valk set can be eexpensive (20g+) and divinity runes are definitely out of the question. Using one of those calculators I found that full Zerk (with one or two valk trinkets) and Beryl orbs provides a similar stat distribution. Is that in any way sub-optimal though?

As for my build, I follow yishis’ videos (he’s the reason I made a thief) and usually play something fairly similar.

Thanks

Auesis.7301:

Warrior is hands down the best class for 1v1 encounters in WvW.

Not sure I agree with this statement…

Hello my sneaky friends!

I’m trying to optimise the gear for my D/D D/P roaming thief and due to lack of resources (gold, I have plenty of badges of honor) I want to try and get it right first time.

What I’ve observed is that many excellent thieves opt for for a number of Valk pieces for survivability even in slots where you could have Cavalier. It’s generally acknowledged that for most classes toughness is superior to vitality for survivability so I found this rather confusing. Is it because the regeneration while in stealth is a function of your total health pool and as such vitality is a better option for stealth-based thieves?

My other question is: how many ‘balanced’ items like Cab/Valk are optimal and at what point does it become preferable to use the remaining item slots for Zerker to increase CnD, HS, auto attack crit chance?

Thankyou in advance.

Bloodgruve.6038:

mP,

AH can be done well with everything from Soldiers to Zerker, just depends on your play style. Also, Hammer is great with AH, the Protection boon it drops give a ton of survivability. There is a sticky on this forum with AH Hammer, give it a read.

I’d suggest doing something like this to start and move to more offensive gear as you get comfortable.

I can see where you’re coming from with this build but I think it could do with some tweaking. I wouldn’t even consider any zerk items/gems with crit damage in them for ZvZ. You already have the 30% crit damage from traits so if you want to to add a bit of dps to a PVT setup I’d just swap some vitality for precision. You are right to take toughness on everything, you literally can’t have too much toughness in ZvZ (as per the memo cliché, “dead players do no DPS”)

As for the skills/traits, wall of reflection is nice to have but purging flames is a waste. I think you need to make a decision between a shout based build (get the most out of AH) or a consecration build (sanctuary and wall of reflection for group utility). ALL guardian ZvZ builds should contain Stand your ground.

While the point some people have made about precision granting you healing through Vigourous Precision isn’t wrong, I wouldn’t get too excited about it. We’re talking about at best a few hundred health per 3 swings of the hammer or the per staff cleave. It’s a nice extra bit of steady healing but is no substitute for Vitality when you’re suddenly under immense pressure.

Regarding healing power, don’t underestimate it. It increases your heal on roll 1 for 1 so adding a few pieces of clerics gear and a sigil of life to your staff will do your survivability (and supportive capabilities) some good. Having said that, don’t overdo it. A few pieces is enough.

I personally like my guardian to play a full support build with consecrations and full defensive gear. I do just enough damage to tag the zerg with my staff but I the utility I provide my group is invaluable. If you wish to play a more offensive ‘Shock Trooper’ type role, I would recommend a AH shout build with a PVT/Knights mix. Take a GS or hammer for offense and a staff with life sigil for defense. I think warriors are better for this though (perma fury and larger health pool)

OP: I thats helpful or at least gives you some things to think about.

PS. Deathpanel must be trolling. If not he/she is a real arrogant kitten and should be ignored anyway

Hi Osicat,

I’ve been following your guides for a while now and they’ve been extremely helpful so thank you. I’ve been using something similar to your mist build for roaming/havoc squad play but with centaur runes (just for convenience really). Given I have perma swiftness from my runes, would I benefit more from the damage of the pistol or sword than then utility of the focus?

I’d like to have the superior phantasm from sword or pistol but the pull from focus is my only counter to shadow refuge (and thieves are everywhere these days!)

Thanks!

I’ve tried all of them, the osicat builds are excellent and that one will get a few tags in a 10v10 but won’t get even half as many as a guardian, thief, necro,… against 30-60 players simply due to a lack of any reliable wide-radius aoe. Shatters and I berserker hit a handful of people at bestand half the time dis before doing anything.

I’m playing something similar to that one atm but I want to do better.

Part of it is probably having the right tagging strategy so if you have any tips on that they’d equally be appreciated.

Hi there. Let me start off by saying, I love the mesmsr class but I think it’s quite fair to say that we are the worst class for scoring tags and loot in big ZvZ clashes. We have some great utility for these fights but sometimes I just want some loot and have no effective, wide-raduis aoe to use.

I tried a reflection heavy build which was OK for getting a few tags when youre on the defensive but it was no good at the end of a battle which is when you want to tag everyone up for loot. Glamour got nerfed to kitten and I don’t have the gear for it anyway.

If I wanted to create a build purely for survivability and aoe tagging in ZvZ what should I go for? I feel like GS should probably be a part of it for tagging downed enemies, as should feedback (and possibly hounds of b elite?).

Has anyone found a really effective aoe tagging build?

Many thanks!