Guild Wars 2

knyy.6427:

Rush – Ride the lightning
Both are on 20s CD and have the same range. Rtl is not affected by cripple/chill, you can use it in midair and the damage it does is instantly and not like rush after a 1s animation.
Because of the animation you’ll be surprised if you do damage with Rush (mostly in PvP).

Sure, RTL is better, but we are different class and such, remember?

vigor/swiftness
Elementalists, Guardians and Mesmer have the trait to get vigor on critical hit and so they have perma vigor. What do we get? Kitten “Furious Speed” with 10% chance on critical hit to get swiftness! Wow, first vigor > swiftness in combat and we only get a 10% while all other similar traits get 100%?? Come on… “Vigorous Focus” is not an option because it is connected to stances. (CD on stances are little bit too high, especially “Endure Pain”). And we are talking about Adept-tier-traits – all of them are.

Warrior with perma vigor might be pretty OP. We also have some movement traits in discipline you didn’t mention. We also have signet of rage that gives long duration swiftness, warhorn for when out of combat. It’s not like warrior is kitten on swiftness.

brawn
All other professions get 1% out of 1 point for their profession traitline. We get 0.1%. I see warrior is the only one which improves the damage and others reduce “just” the CD but then give us something else. Its just plainly useless.

Not sure what you are complaining about here. It makes you mad because this class is different from the rest? Make a guardian then IMO.

hammer toss
The second down skill. Its just so bad. Single target CC while most other professions have multi target ones.

Really? Warriors have the best #3 to make up for it IMO

underwater downed skills
Well, no ranged attack available, just melee…

Seriously, sure there may be a point, but who cares about underwater? It’s bad.

leap range – HS/Evisc
You all know Heartseeker. It does very good dmg (to enemys low on HP) and is an incredible gap closer and not effected by cripple/chill. And we have Eviscerate…Its our *burst*skill with a 10s CD and the need to have full adrenalin to do some good damage (only if it crits). Thieves can spam Heartseeker.

I find warrior has great leap mobility from skills. Heartseeker is affected by cripple/chill. Any kind of movement speed debuff gives less distance traveled.

Maybe you can add some other skills/traits. Thank you.

Valk is pretty good P/V/Crit damage

Thanks. I didn’t get a chance to try any of these out last night because I had to do all my daily’s. Got some crappy non-infused ring.

I like some of these suggestions. I’ll definitely be trying em out when I get a chance.

Should just go ahead and nerf the stealth stomp.

Who cares about thieves anymore anyways?

Retsuko.2035:

It was a level 1 fractal and you killed him when he was down at 20% or even less i bet :P
And i pity the groups you go with at 20+ without AR. But then again, ressing gives your group experience.

Either way, shaman isn’t very difficult until lvl 18. At that level and higher, the moment the wurms spawn and the boss puts up the shield, that’s when it can get tough. While you try to hit it 30 times, you’re basically forced (depending on your group) to lower your defenses. I’ve seen people in 20+ pug’s who couldn’t handle it. They either die, or dodge away and don’t hit the shield on shaman, letting it heal back up.

I don’t die except vs. the maw because I know how to dodge all the agony attacks from the bosses. I play very well and therefor I do not die. I can’t dodge maw agony, so yes, I die on inc there, but as long as 1 person has some AR, it’s not a problem to res.

It was a level 28 fractal. You are right, the boss spawns adds at the same time it puts up shield. (Pretty sure even level 1 frac it does this)

Ignore the adds, and go for the boss/shield. I usually use GS#3 to get close and hit it because the adds have a small immobilize attack. Then position properly for the HB. Usually it’s dead(the shield) after the HB combo because I drop my bow adrenaline skill and aoe might on it right before I do the GS#3.

The adds, even on level 28, are easy to kill.

I honestly don’t understand why people say AR is so important. As long as you don’t suck at this game you will never get hit by agony except for Maw.

I’ve fought the tree and mossman on 20+ fractals and not got hit by agony while all these noobs with 20+AR are getting owned because all they do is stand still and auto-attack it.

It’s about how you play more than it is your agony resist, imo.

Regardless, the best solution to provide adequate defenses with burst offense for thief after patch will be D/P imo…

Fought a guardian today, no way I was going to kill that guy without using CND→CND a few times to regen HP.

Post patch, I think the only thing that would have saved me would have been blinding powder.

Which means I may quit thief all together. I really hate D/P choice. I want to run D/D and stealth with CND. Thief won’t be fun anymore for me. I’ll continue to play my warrior and possibly finish off my ele.

I appreciate all your reponses and I haven’t had the time to read all of it and go through all of the suggest specs provided. At work atm and busy :p

What I can repsond to is, yes I am using divinity atm.

I have sword #2, GS #5 and #3, shield #4 all for mobility… Combined with swiftness from signet of rage and you can get some good distance with the combo of these skills.

People get owned by 100b all the time. You just need to immo them or stun them first. I really like using HB for my main dps skill. I didn’t play from beta so HB is still fun for me :p

I chose dolyak signet because I felt like I needed to be more bunkerish. I don’t even really use the active. With dolyak signet I feel like most people tickle me… I was running bolas before, but then I discovered I could use sword adrenaline skill to apply root (which is more reliable than bolas). Bolas missing a lot for me, sword never does.

Conditions are definitely my worst enemy. Necros/Mesmers mainly. Thieves are insta gib once their stun break is down. Even if they are condition.

bhagwad.4281:

Grimwolf.7163:

And then Backstab becomes the single worst ability in the entire game. Yay for balance, right?

Why worst ability? Huge damage comes with the opportunity cost of getting unstealthed. Surely you’re not suggesting there should be no opportunity cost whatsoever?

This change will promote skilled play instead of button spamming don’t you think?

I didn’t know 5-6k was “huge” damage… Which is about what I backstab on average for. Sometimes higher or sometimes less.

With the changes going into effect there is a cost…

If you block our backstabd or evade it, chances are we won’t hit you again before the 4s is up, if you are smart. Costing us to be revealed for 3s.

HB hits it. I’ve killed it solo with GS and HB, the bubble that is, not the boss.

I use bow+GS. I usually aoe with the bow and then drop the area might, swap to GS and HB down the bubble and then finish off the adds. I just auto-attack with bow and run around.

Personal level 21, highest completed 28… 0 AR

Current spvp build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAR8ejkO1wxOGPMRCA0jquKLThiuHoSfYOA;TQAg0WWMsYXA

I don’t know much about warriors really except from my play experience. I use my warrior for pve only doing fractals. So I don’t really wvw on him yet.

I’ll prob be playing warrior more often with the thief nerf and I wanted to come up with a better build that I could try in spvp and maybe bring to wvw. I prefer mobility over dps, which is why I went with GS+Sword/Shield.

I like to roam and take points or hold points but I like to be able to kill things quickly. I am a big fan of the bulls/hb.

I do really well with this current build because I root them with the sword adrenaline skill and then use HB during the root.

I guess I am looking for a more balanced warrior, not a complete glass or bunker…

Any suggestions would be great. I am pretty sure my build is not the best or most optimal for the play style I am going for.

Adaneshade.2409:

Point still stands, anyone clueless enough to make that argument shouldn’t even be posting in thief forums.

Congrats on winning the spelling bee though :-P

It’s not an arguement, it’s a fact. This nerf seriously affects the survivability of this class.

So far the best suggestion is to respec to D/P and use blinding powder for the loss of survivability.

ensoriki.5789, I am not concerned about what you can and cannot do to avoid a freaking bulls charge. Stop talking to me about it. It’s a moot point.

We all know how to avoid them.

My point is that thieves are now missing their #1 tool to avoid getting bursted by any class. That is chain stealth.

You cannot argue me on this because it is a fact.

Adaneshade.2409:

You are aware that you don’t get Flanking Strike UNLESS you have dagger offhand right? Mr. GENIOUS?

That statement just goes to prove my case about how little you actually understand thieves.

Sure, I am wrong. It’s a dual skill. Flanking strike still has no daze, you were refering to tactical strike and said flanking strike.

It’s spelt Genius btw. I never called myself that.

Adaneshade.2409:

I’ve never run out of init, and I’ve fought for 10 minutes in a single duel before. Simply don’t use that much for infiltrator’s strike, init regens faster than ya use it.

I would hope in a duel you don’t run out of init.

because we all care about duels here…

Adaneshade.2409:

See, that’s where you are wrong. I run dagger offset not for dancing dagger, but for flanking strike. My only use for stealth is the occasional daze. Meaning I already have revealed debuff EVERY TIME I stealth nothing changes.

You are an idiot, no offense. I mean this in a factual way.

Flanking Strike is a sword skill, #3.

Tactical Strike (the daze from stealth) is also a sword skill.

That’s like saying “I run dagger offhand for the backstab not the cnd!”

Really? You are running dagger offhand for CND so that you can use a stealth skill after wards. Which is how I play also. I run dagger offhand so that I can either backstab or daze people from stealth.

The nerf does not affect that. The nerf affects thieves aren’t able to land a style in stealth, which happens plenty of times, for whatever reason and then they need to stealth again quickly to avoid big damage (since thats the only way other than dodging to avoid damage for us).

Thief in spvp is going to get hit hard imo.

ensoriki.5789:

Makes zero sense. If you get hit with bulls CND won’t save you. If you CND chain him he could whirling axe your face. What your saying is literally just making up for bad play. If your out of stun breaks instead of chaining CND kittening run. Switch to sword and inf strike. You now have a stun break. Is this not sensible? If you cannot weapon swap deselect the warrior and HS away creating distance allowing you to pull yourself together. Simple.

You didn’t read what I wrote. If your stun break is down and you are trying to “avoid” the bulls charge, it will be significantly harder now because you can’t stealth as often. You will be vulnerable longer and nothing will save you from bulls when you stun breaks are down. Previously, you could CND off someone (not even the warrior) and run away. Now, you won’t be able to CND for 3s and you will die.

That’s all I am trying to say. Obviously you don’t get it.

There are plenty of counters to every ability, even stealth. With this change in effect the thief loses a huge portion of his survivability because he is exposed.

Sure you can keep the infi strike alive for a bit, when you run out of init, then what?

Warrior has plenty of other abilities too besides bulls and hb.

Everyone who plays a thief knows that with this change in effect that thieves will be much more vulnerable in spvp.

Adaneshade.2409:

You are making the assumption that you’re fighting a DAGGER THIEF. Sword is what the more experienced thieves play, due to the things we’ve been trying to list for you guys.

I am actually talking about X/D thieves because this change affects players who use stealth as frequently as possible. Any thief with a dagger in offhand is pretty much a stealth thief. We don’t go dagger offhand for dancing dagger, it’s for CND.

I actually run D/D + S/D in wvw and P/D in spvp.

In wvw I start out most fights with S/D and Inf strike because I expect to get CC’d on inc and I don’t want to waste shadowstep.

Advanced players don’t use any certain weapon set. I know great players who run D/D and some who run D/P.

People will always play what they like the most. By assuming that most advanced players use any certain weapon set is making a mistake.

Infiltrators strike is not the answer to visible more often. Blinding powder going D/P is more of a real solution if you are wanting to offer a weaponset solution.

Adaneshade.2409:

Not referring to the utility skill, Sword’s #2 does the EXACT SAME THING and is never on CD.

The skill to port back to starting position is called [Shadow Return], just like it is for [Shadow Step]’s secondary.

Use infiltrator’s strike on inc > warrior attempts burst > return > infiltrator’s again > repeat next time he attempts burst. If warrior is smart enough to wait out the timer on return, evade through then infiltrator’s back. It’s possible to have that on 100% uptime.

I think you are forgetting the fact that you have to use the shadowstep first before you can use a shadowreturn.

When fighting a sword/X thief as a warrior or any competent class is not going to try to cc you while return is up.

Inf signet? I don’t see many thieves with 2 stun break utilities. Usually one or the other.

All I am saying is that without the extra stealth, in spvp, they will become easy kills.

We can get into the mechanics of how a fight would normally go but all that does is obstruct the truth of the nerf, which is less stealth.

Less stealth makes the thief more vulnerable.

ensoriki.5789:

It’s called distracting shot and shadow return.
If you have Sleight of Hand then Steal.
What you’re saying makes no sense…Previously you could stealth quickly to prevent being eaten up. Stealth when? After being hit by Bulls? Wot?
You don’t need stun breaks. Just cripple them and at worst just play the field with Inf strike.
Generally warriors run Leg specialist if they’re serious about that HB burst so they don’t have to rely on Bulls charge to kill you. Otherwise you don’t have much to worry about.

You can also evade the rush with Flanking strike… screw it over with Black Powder, dodge over him with Death Blossom…
Since you do S/D + D/D. Just play Inf strike.

If you have no stun break up and you just blew shadowstep to avoid death and a warrior comes up to you and you know you are going to BS/HB you can chain a cnd or two to get away and either run or distract.

After change, warrior will have 3s to flatten you and he really only needs 1-2.

Adaneshade.2409:

If you are playing your thief correctly, in a fight vs a GS warrior, Shadow Return is NEVER on CD. If you’re still running a glassy dagger build, then death is deserved.

You obviously don’t play a warrior because I make thieves blow shadowstep on inc.

I run sword/shield + gs with 5s weapon swap timer.

I simply get in close, use my sword adrenaline skill to root them, swap to GS and use HB without frenzy/bc. Either they shadowstep away or die to HB. Root lasts 4.5s and HB takes 3.5 to cast, so it’s long enough to hit the entire combo.

This will make 90% of thieves drop shadowstep to get out of it. Then I just wait for HB CD and and bull charge them to death next time the pop out of stealth.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

err…if a warrior bull charge, steal from his teammate to get out of range…yes you can activate steal while KD’d. Besides, what’s your teammate doing allowing a thief engage first? sigh

Please, use examples from smart thieves, not from bad ones, because it only further reinforcae the fact that this change will weed out the baddies.

And the same thing can be said about thieves who use Cnd->CnD, learn to adapt to it like you have suggested for bull charge/frenzy/hb.

There is nothing a thief can do about bull charge/frenzy/hb when all of his utilities are on CD. He dies. Previously, he could try to stealth quickly before getting eaten up, but now warriors and other classes will have 3s to apply CC and kitten the thief.

Warriors who frenzy/bull charge/hb on inc vs. thief obviously don’t know what they are doing or don’t play a thief.

In sPVP, thieves will be much easier to kill without the extra stealth. I think the biggest hit to thief will be in sPVP arenas.

EDIT: When I first started playing I died to HB/Bull charge a ton of times before I figured out what stun breaks were and that I could use steal while knocked down. Yes, I died over and over and instead of coming to these boards asking for nerf to warriors I learned how to play.

Sifu.6527:

Just three simple questions.

Which mode do you play more; WvW or s/tPvP? Do you play S/P in WvW? Do you solo, play ikittenmain, or follow the commander?

Thanks

I thought I cleared this up in the original post by saying “I play like Yashis”.

I solo.
I play wvw.

I roam and take supply camps solo or cut off players attempting to get to objectives. I play like a lone assassin.

I also do spvp but my spvp build is currently P/D condition spec.

Maugetarr.6823:

Switch to D/P. More unified, more mobile, more utility, and you can sit in the smoke field for the full duration of revealed.

Yea I was talking with some people in another forum and this seemed to be the best answer.

I really hate pistol offhand. I think it looks stupid and I am not a find of blinding powder.

I think this is going to be the best option though.

Just saying, this change is a huge playstyle nerf for the balanced thief. Possibly killing the build all together…

I think the “balanced” thief will be a thing of the past and from now on you are either playing condition or glass.

This change hurts build diversity and lessens the value of all “stealth” traits. I didn’t see any buffs from ANet to our class in compensation for the huge nerf.

I honestly think that the “balanced” thief will be a thing of the past now because of this change.

What about sPvP thieves? For real, with the nerf in spvp thieves will be free points. The second they come out of stealth and I know their stun break is down they are eating HB+frenzy+bull charge. As it is now, thieves are pretty easy to beat in spvp. After change I think thieves won’t have a place in spvp.

EDIT: I’m not trying discuss the change itself but rather what people are thinking about changing to adapt to it. I think the change is kitten and shouldn’t an issues. I would have told all the QQers “L2P”, but ANet listened to you. You have already won. I am trying to learn to live with it.

Is there going to be such a thing? I play like Yashis. I like to 1v5 or more. D/D + S/D atm.

I am running valk armor, divinity runes, berserker everything else.

I just got ascended back piece and rings/ammy for thief as well. Only missing earrings and now my class gets nerfed.

I feel like that since our class is losing at least 20% the amount of time in stealth due the nerf that there won’t be a spot for the “balanced” thief anymore.

We will have to go completely glass or condition. After nerf thief won’t be able to stay in a fight even with all defensive traits because we will be forced to be visible way more often. There won’t be such a thing as using CND to gain positioning.

I think we will be forced to kill something quickly and run like hell, which sounds more like a glass cannon to me than a balanced thief.

Forget thief in spvp, if they can’t stealth as much they will eat my HB combo much easier from my warrior. This change practically nullifies the thief in spvp imo.

How else are people preparing to deal with the nerf? I think I will have to completely change the way I play the game as a thief. Thank you ANet, just what I wanted.

EDIT: I was playing my thief this weekend and I was solo as usual. Some ranger I killed invites me to group and the first thing he says is “I can’t wait for your playstyle to get nerfed.”

Funny thing is, I never “abused” cnd against him, not once. I killed him flat out with regular revealed and using stealth attack every time.

Our class is getting nerfed because of kittens like this guy, really?

Cool idea. I have a feeling thief is going to need love after this massive nerf.

This might make me quit the class. Thief will lose a lot of staying power in a fight with this kind of change. Shadow arts be reduced in value because thief will have to stealth less. I don’t see ANet ever buffing this class while nerfing it. Leveling elementalist now. Warrior is pretty awesome too.

Sebrent.3625:

I like how the advice for Rangers is “be a trap build”. That’s great. It’s what I do, but being pigeonholed is pretty cruddy.

My advice would to be reroll another class until ANet fixes rangers.

Rangers suck. They always have. Doesn’t really matter what class you are on. They are bad and get killed by everything.

If anything, ranger needs some improvement from ANet.

Every other class in this game is balanced with maybe exception of bunker ele and that is a borderline issue to me.

I am sorry to say, thief is meant to be a stealth class. ANet designed it so that the thief would blink in and out of stealth during combat. Just like ANet mean for warriors to bull charge/frenzy/HB people down in seconds, etc…

If ANet nerfs stealth (which is the main complain about this profession but also the main defining characteristic) they will need to rework almost the entire class. Traits and other things depend on stealth. Without ready access to stealth the thief “as-is” would become a kitten in wvw and spvp.

Let’s just say they nerf stealth to 6s. Those 3 extra seconds kill the class as is and it would need to be redone.

Engineers are fairly easy because you can use their turrets to CND off of. Just make sure you get CC’d near the turrets.

I honestly don’t have a problem with thieves on my warrior in spvp.

I haven’t really done much wvw but my main is a thief and since I have played one so much I know exactly what to expect and when to go for the frenzy/bull charge/hb combo.

Killed a few theives that tried to stealth away because I followed them in stealth spamming auto-attack, etc. Blocked a few crucial CNDs with shield skill, etc.

You just need to know how to counter thieves. Just like you need to know how to fight a mesmer.

Kaon.7192:

I’d prefer just a simple change to the steal mechanic.

F1 for steal.
F2 to use stolen item.

I mean the buttons are there. Why exactly they decided to not use them in the first place is beyond me.

I second this motion.

I rolled a warrior for pve and it’s way better than the thief.

Sure you can get to high level fractals but you have to deal with the stigma of being a low armor/dps class that most don’t want in group.

Unless you have a regular group to play with, it’s hard as a thief to get fractals completed. I tried and no one would group me.

I spam Warrior LFG and get invite in like 30s.

Silver.4798:

I mean I run a d/d PvE condition damage as it is, going p/d doesn’t really change much (although maybe I will try equipping that as my off weapon set rather than SB, see how that feels). I was looking for a way to do a burst damage thief instead.

I know what you are saying, but I think for pve condition is thieves strong point. P/D I think is easier to apply bleeds with and keep them up.

Silver.4798:

Regarding fractal teams, that is really discouraging I haven’t really been doing much fractals (literally just did level 1) but I was hoping to go do them soon. I heard people complain about it before but I didn’t think it was that big a deal =<.

Tell me about. Everyone hates thieves. I had to level a whole other toon that I hate and think is boring to play because thieves suck at pve and no one likes them.

Silver.4798:

If they can give thieves a more reliable AoE and mob control it would fix so much problems we have in PvE… seriously thieves are such a fun class, I resent the fact that im being “strongly encouraged” to play a specific class because they are apparently better designed.

How do you think I felt after getting my thief to 80 and wanting to get the new upgraded ascended gear? I have no desire to play my warrior except maybe spvp some and fractals.

Silver.4798:

I refuse to alt my guardian/warrior, or a mesmer!!!! (even though I kind of already did make a warrior/guardian and they are both lvl 30+, but that was just so I could see what the hype was all about!)

Solution: Elementalist! Another class with bad design issues but high fun factor! And the tier 3 human female cultural armor looks sexy, so ha!

Ele’s are pretty awesome. I have a level 32 ele. Fun class, but thief is more fun.

ANet didn’t make fractals for thieves. Any class is more useful than a thief.

Molch.2078:

Buffed Warrior gets outdps’ed from buffed Thief (25 Might/Fury). The problem is, Thief needs two Warriors and a Mesmer to get those buffs. And the Thief is harder to play (12k HP, 1900 Armor)

Did you know that HB’s damage sums up? its not the last hit that deals 30k but the whole 3.5 Second HB.

I’ve never seen a thief with 25 stacks of might. I imagine that would hurt, let’s be realistic though.

I did not know that about HB. All I see is huge damage numbers keep popping up and 30k ish is the highest I’ve seen it on the last hit.

Like I said, if you are going to give it a try. I would go something like my spvp build.

Lots of condition damage and healing in stealth using P/D + SB.

Yea same. Well, I am doing fractals on my warrior. The only reason I made my warrior was so that people would group me for fractals. I plan on giving all benefits/rewards to my thief.

The thief is way more fun to play, I agree. However, that doesn’t mean they are better. Thieves are way better at spvp and wvw than they are are pve. I enjoy thief way more than I do warrior, but the point of pve is to kill mobs. Warrior is way better at that, so why try as a thief?

Quit your thief and make a warrior. Thieves suck at PVE. I have a thief and a warrior. I will never pve on the thief unless I have to now. Warrior hitting bosses for 30k on just last hit of HB.

If you are going for PVE only I would probably do P/D condition build. Thieves DPS sucks.

I really like P/D condition thief in spvp.

S/D kitten warriors. Add in blind on stealth and I have killed warriors flawlessly.

I run para sigil on sword.

Thief is not as OP as a warrior is hitting fractal bosses for 30k on final hit alone of HB.

Nothing thief can do to compare to warrior in pve!

I’ve added some people to friends list but no one is on atm. I finished my warrior so now I have a warrior in full exotics to farm with instead of thief.

My warrior >>>>>>>> my thief in pve. Both in exotics.

I play my thief very well in pve too, but warrior is just naturally stronger against monsters.

However, when comparing the “fun factor” thief >>>> warrior. Warrior is pretty dull play style.

DD + SD is win IMO for wvw.

I’m not a fan of the X/P weapon sets. I can’t really say why, other than the fact I don’t feel like a thief without a dagger in my offhand.

I’ve never had a problem with D/P thieves but then again I run DD and SD. I usually swap between the both during any given fight depending on if I need CC or damage…

Thanks for the ideas. I am going to try going with a shout build. Seems like you guys and some other have suggested many of the shouts. I am running Of the Soldier runes so I think those will compliment it.

What skills and traits should I pick up for fractals?

Running a set of Knights armor berserker jewlery.

Just hit 80 and have GS + Rifle + Longbow.

Don’t really care about wvw on this guy just made him to farm fractals for my thief since no one will ever group a thief.

“Save up 40 Luarels + 50 E. "

What do I spend the 40 Laurels on and what is “E.” ?

Would it be easier to get groups on my warrior? I have 76 warrior and I can buy exotics for him right away when he hits 80.

EDIT: Appreciate the constructive responses. I have tried gw2lfg and never got a group from it yet.

I got turned down again for this dungeon and the guy was nice enough to tell me AR was the reason.

What’s this AR people speak of? Arcane Resistance? How do I get my AR outside of fractals with laurels?