Guild Wars 2

Well, it’s a way harder spike to set up than a lot of the other ones, and the damage isn’t as high as most of them. I don’t see the problem tbh

Xillllix.3485:

This videos date from before all the elementalists nerfs. And they are selected clips against upscales from a build that has 12k hp. It’s no reference.

Roll a staff ele, become a pro with it and do some 1 vs 1 vs some pro thief. You’ll have a less than 1% chance of winning and a 33% chance of getting away.

Anet completely messed up the balance of the staff ele in 1 vs 1 because all the spells are freaking slow to cast. BTW we cant switch to daggers when we see a thief, we have no weapon swap.

Really? I had no idea that’s been nerfed, could you point me in the direction of some of those patch notes?

It can’t be completely gone as I’ve been doing something similar in sPvP without too much of a problem, but I’d love to see the details.

As a side note, look at some of those backstab complaints and tell me those aren’t selected clips. We’re talking about burst potential more than anything else here – it doens’t matter how many failed attempts there are, it’s the one successful one people complain about in the forums. And yes, to get that kind of numbers thieves run with 12k health as well. Should we iqnore them too?

As for staff, from what I’ve understood that’s not really the optimal 1v1 weapon to begin with. My rifle warrior isn’t much good in 1v1s either, but if I have someone face tank them while I charge my killshots it’s a whole new story, and I imagine it’s the same for staff eles.

Yes. Berserker builds are too strong, so everyone is playing tanky ones. Oh wait..

Xillllix.3485:

From my perspective there are 2 facets to this problem:
1- The ele skills are too long to cast, and it is near impossible to fight a thief because in the time it takes to cast our strongest skill (that do less damage than a backstab) the thief will have done 20k dmg.

The ele class needs buff to survive in 1 vs 1, but the trait lines are half broken, so there is little hope there.

2- Berserker thief are slightly overpowered, not because of the damage they do, but because of the speed at which they do it. Their stealth mechanic is ok in my opinion (I levelled a thief to 80 just to understand why they were always killing me).

Also just one backstab is fine as it is, the problem is dealing with a backstab every 5 seconds. The thief backstab should require more initiative if it succeeded the previous time.

Wait, didn’t I just link a video of an elementalist bursting down people at the same rate as thieves do?

Burning speed + arcane blast + arcane wave takes 3/4 seconds, while CnD + backstab takes 1/2 + 1/4 seconds (not including aftercast delays), in other words the exact same time it takes elementalists to pull off their combo. So, how is it thief burst that’s too fast?

As for dealing with backstabs every 5 seconds, that’s sustained damage more than anything else, which I do agree is probably a little too strong, keeping in mind the amount of survivability that comes with it. But if it’s fast burst you’re worried about, the fight should be over by that 5 second mark anyway

EDIT: Elementalist burst is about landing several simultaneous smaller hits more than anything else, but have you ever tried Churning earth?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFLZeMQFaAQ
The part you might find interesting is at 1:35

~6k isn’t even that high from a glass cannon though. My warrior is consistently critting 10ks on guardians, for instance.

With most sources of stealth lasting ~3-4 seconds depending on traits, giving backstab a 5 second cd would still force you out of stealth with no backstabs landed. Wouldn’t be that much of a difference.

Otaur.9268:

The ele burst is also on a longer cooldown than 4 seconds. Period. And the only reason thieves burst is on a cooldown is because of 4 second revealed. If you want to change it so a thief is revealed when he is blocked/evaded then I wouldn’t mind the damage. However, when you can stay invisible spamming an attack until blocks are gone or endurance is empty, that is bull kitten. If someone attacks you from stealth and you block or evade, then you know they are there, they should be revealed. Either add a cooldown to spammable attacks with high damage or reveal them if they fail.

You didn’t read my posts, did you? :/

The kind of burst you see in my videos is on a 45 second cooldown. That’s higher than the ele burst shown in the video I linked. In order to do my instant kill burst I pop literally everything for those 20 might stacks, stun and +15% damage.

What you are talking about is a sustain build, which has been my point all along: the damage isn’t the issue. No-one cares about the damage burst builds can do, they hate the high damage high survivability stealth builds. In which case pointing fingers at the amount of damage backstabs can do is just stupid and has little to do with the real issue.

Rather than posting screenshots of 20k backstabs, you should be complaining about the amount of survivability thieves get while still doing good damage.

As for blocking interrupting stealth, it’s probably just fair so I’m fine with that.

Kyon.9735:

Sorry it’s my bad, I just realized the reason you posted it to show that eles can do the same damage a thief does.

Yup, it’s there to show that a) elementalists are just as capable of bursting as thieves are and b) since everyone and their mothers can do burst like that, the damage can’t be the real reason people are complaining about thieves.

Now I’m ready to admit that stealth regen build damage is a bit high for the amount of survivability they have, but pointing at an all out glass cannon and saying thieves deal too much damage is just silly.

I mean, I’m one shotting people on my warrior, and that’s on 10 second cooldown, 1500 range and it pierces :P

As for surviving as an elementalist glass cannon, it’s doable, though it does take a while to get used to. Mine is still sub 80 so all I can do is sPvP, but I’m not dying noticeably more than I’m on my 3 or 4 signet thief.

Well, revealing thief on missed backstabs would probably be fair. I don’t think thieves are particularly OP, but you shouldn’t be spamming those things to begin with. Thieves are supposed to be punished for bad play, so why not?

Blocking not causing revealed honestly is a little bit silly. The only reason it doesn’t is the fact they coded stealth to be interrupted when dealing damage and it never was important enough to be fixed.

Why do I see mesmers complaining about evaded backstabs not interrupting stealth? Stand in your clones and the stab will hit them, revealing the thief!

Loco.4561:

Are you kidding me? a GC Ele or GC Mesmer cannot deal the same level of burst as a GC thief.

That’s a thief burst in aoe. Anything else I can help you with?

Shinobi.3240:

I forgot to say that direct dmg gets shifted aswell … away from AA to cool down based skills.
—snip—
Btw: Nice videos you got there^^

Oh, that makes a lot more sense.

I don’t like the idea of spamming skills on cooldown being always the optimal strategy though. I see what you’re trying to do by moving damage away from auto attacks, but the reason they exist in the first place is to do that damage.

In a lot of games if you want to do the highest amount of damage possible, you must midlessly repeat the same skill rotations over and over again regardless of the situation. In gw2 however, the idea is that your skill 1 is your bread and butter damage dealing ability, while the rest of the skills are more situational things like CC. It’s there to steer us away from spamming all our skills.

Personally I think we’re better off with the current system, but if we were to make cooldowns more powerful, why would we need an auto attack in the first place? Couldn’t we just as well replace it with an additional cooldown skill?

And glad you like then :P

Removing damaging conditions from auto attacks would make them completely useless to condition builds. How could that possibly be a good idea?

People tend to combine two different builds together. I can do some ~15-25k burst on a 45 second cooldown, but my build can’t spam stealth. If I catch you by surprise, you’re dead, but if you dodge when you see me prepare my burst it’s my turn to take a dirt nap.

It’s not just theives either. I’m actually oneshotting people on my warrior, and that’s 1500 range, pierces and has 10s cooldown :P
Here’s a quick backstab video, just because I like spamming my videos everywhere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5STvYuVeCQ

If only I had more ascended thingyes…

Bloodlust stacks alone should take my damage up to ~18k though, so it wouldn’t take THAT much to get to those numbers. Can’t have someone go critting higher than me :P

Note that the build might not be optimal for anything team fights. From what I’ve understood, most burst builds go 25 in Deadly arts and stay well away from signets. Still, there’s plenty of damage to be had, so if you need more, get more!

As for what you should be doing, I better let someone else handle that part. Sensible builds are boring :P

So, you’re not killing fast enough? You’re come to the right place my friend..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9d4Og8KbEM

Viking Jorun.5413:

I have no issues with killing people, securing stomps, or dying constantly.

Might want to rephrase that :P

Bazzoong.7145:

“cough”

I was refering to the combination of blind and stealth, not stealth alone. It can be pretty tricky landing anything on a good d/p, though I do admit there are some d/d sustain builds as well. I just find them a lot easier to deal with simply because CnD is pretty easy to dodge.

Also, to go totally off topic: I don’t actually have a gaming mouse or macros. Muscle memory ftw

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Yski, can’t you upload a video of you’re 4 signet backstabs unedited? Showing how often you have to run for your life or die before you get those clean kills? People here really think that a youtube video is 100% accurate and those players in there never die cause it doesn’t show them dying.

I could, but it’s mostly just me running around in hopes of actually finding someone.

…

Deal. ~2 hour raw roaming clip coming right up :P

The funny part is, I don’t think people really have any problems with the damage thieves can put out – in fact, most professions can do something similar when built for it. It’s the fact they feel they can’t do anything about it that’s getting on people’s nerves, and that’s because of the survivability.

It’s not the ridiculously easy to counter burst you’re complaining about, it’s the combination of damage and sustain some of the stealth builds out there have
* cough * d/p * cough *

I probably should’ve mentioned I did actually let him revive himself that time, so all he lost was his ~10 blood lust stacks :P

I did 1 shot him for a kill later, but that’s another story entirely.

Oh, my bad. Missed the condition build part despite reading the whole post like twice. I shouldn’t post when tired

ens.9854:

A certain pretty good thief runs 4 signet s/d in tpvp matches in order to gank other thiefs and ultra squishies. Obviously high depends on what opponents you are facing so have another character to swap to :P

Who? That sounds interesting

Ichishi.9613:

For the most exquisite feeling you can also try d/p shadowshot spam under quickness. It has a bonus of being unblockable and unreflectable

I think that’s something worth testing as well. So many builds, so little time

Nope, d/p is the superior weapon set. The only thing d/d does better (and not by much either) is burst damage, but for everything else d/p is simply better.

Lucky for me I like burst. For some reason I’ve never liked d/p :P

EDIT: In case you didn’t know, using heartseeker in black powder gives you stealth.

They better not touch my instant kill builds

Shush, we don’t want anet patching it :P
(Ctrl + P while targetting them should do the trick)

Yes, it was dirty, but think of it as a friendly prank – the chat was golden and there were no hard feelings afterwards

I just felt there are never too many posts about positive things on the forums, and I’m definitely tipping my imaginary hat to some of the roamers out there.

Need I say more? :P

Here’s a story:

You’re sneaking up on a thief as a instakill killshot warrior. You ready your rifle, pop your adrenaline sources – and the thief is suddenly behind you. Being designed to shoot people in the back, your death soon ensues.

Out of a moments quirk you invite the thief to your party for some random chat. While talking you sneak up on the poor bugger again. You then proceed to shoot through his (now “allied”) stealth while he’s typing. Poetry.

The chat afterwards was just beautiful. Who said anything about fair play anyway? :P

Moral of the story: the faceless enemies can be awesome too. I hope the few ways to actually talk to them stay – and no need to feel sorry for the thief either, as he did manage to get me back later.

Asahi.1487:

Yo!
Thanks for the inspiration, I tweaked the build of tPvP, been doing good with it so far!

Glad to be a source of inspiration

Doing tPvP with a build like this can be a bit tricky as the victims are more likely to know what they’re doing and your damage will be lower than in WvW, but if you can pull it off you might at least catch them off guard.

I’ve only played a handfull of games with a similar build in tPvP, but here’s what I’d do:
- Swap heal for Hide in Shadows. Signet of Malice is probably too risky.
- Swap one of the signets for a stunbreaker. I’d presonally trade Signet of Agility for Shadowstep, as you need the damage from Assassin’s Signet and the instant blind from Signet of Shadows is too useful for quick finishing.
- I’d also seriously consider taking Hidden Killer for the guaranteed backstab crit. Which do you need more, more damage or more reliable burst?

That’s about all I can think of right now. Play safe and keep your distance; only go within dagger range when you know you can get the kill. Good luck!

Well, depends on what level you’re planning to play. For random hot joins anything works, but serious PvP is another matter entirely.

Pollypo.2879:

10k larcenous with full zerker, traits and bloodlust set up.

..Which is 2/3 of my backstab or 1/2 of my rifle shot. In other words, a lot smaller.

Then again, it’s spammable, so there’s definitely some potential there. We’ll see how it works when I have time to give it a try.

Ugruk.4069:

Dagger 5 and stomp?

Stomping is pretty boring, so I usually cut it away. I do often Dagger 5 and stomp though, unless I deem it faster to dps them down. Alternatively I might stomp and dodge the interrupt.

There’s actually a 4th option as well. If I really must end the fight as quickly as possible (2:37, for instance), I save the Signet of Shadows when bursting. When the target goes down I immediately stomp while keeping an eye on their animations.The moment I see their interrupt animation start I pop the signet, and with the interrupt already started there’s no way they can get rid of it before the skill lands.

That way you don’t have to wait for revealed to end while still getting a guaranteed stomp on anyone other than thief, mesmer or ele.

For thieves a teleport of any kind (in my build steal, which is usually on cooldown) should do the trick, and if you can bait the mesmer to stealth right when you start the finishing move it’ll still finish them off, so long as they appear close enough. As such I tend to start and interrupt the finishing move several times against mesmers who just resign to their fate and sit there :P

Not much you can do about elementalists though, unless you have someone cc them during your stomp or something.

^This. There is a reason no-one else is running it :P

ens.9854:

Hehe, tried this with other weapon sets at all? I hear larc strike=>slice can hit pretty hard, faster than cnd backstab.

S/D is more of a pressure weapon than anything else. It does decent damage, but the sheer burst isn’t as high as that of D/D (or I’ve been lying to myself for years).

Big numbers are fun, but then again a 4 signet S/D sounds so stupid I just might give it a try at some point. If something awesome happens, I’ll post it

Karolis.4261:

Such videos is what brings us nerfs ! But then again videos of stealth in use, evades in use and kitten faces in general allso brings us nerfs

Well, we’re taking warriors with us. My rifle build actually hits HARDER (on a single hit, anyway) and it has a practically non existant cooldown and 1500 range :P

Cynz.9437:

i did find that vid funny althrough i still wanna see those infamous 18k backstabs =.=

Of the top of my head, I think my personal record on lvl 80s so far is ~16.5k-ish. However, that’s without blood lust stacks and wearing mostly exotics.

I did a bit of math, and it turns out that 16.5k should go up to 17.7k with blood lust alone

Challenge accepted!
(Expect something within a couple of months, hopefully.)

That ranger at 5:20 though
* Suddenly takes some 21k damage *
“Huh, that’s refreshing!”

Travlane.5948:

upscale upscale upscale

ty for the smiles!

Hey, those upscales are scary. They CHARGE at me

Cynz.9437:

omg can you be more glassy D8

No, unless you take some of your gear off. It’s full zerker <3

Hi, here’s another video! A bit lower numbers this time, but I hope you enjoy

http://youtu.be/X5STvYuVeCQ

Premise one: Intelligence is inversely related to cuteness.
Premise two: I’m uglier than you.

Conclusion: I’m smarter than you, which we already knew. The theory works!

I’m maximizing it primarily for single target, but I’ll take the pierce if it doesn’t lower my damage by much. I’ve had too many mesmer clones or ranger pets block my instakills :P

Inspiring Banners could be interesting, but it takes a while to find a new target after shooting the old one anyway, and it doesn’t actually make my kill shot deal any more damage than it currently does. I’m debating whether I should swap the pierce for an additional damage trait somewhere, but I don’t think swapping it for cooldowns is worth it.

I’m a lazy stacker, so double bloodlusts are a must. I could buy an additional off hand for sigil of intelligence, but with the high fury uptime I find my crit chance decent anyway, so not really worth it for now. I might do that at some point though, if I find myself sitting on some extra gold.

Thanks for the ideas

Well, let’s go with this then and see if I can make a compilation out of it

Hi, as some of you might know, I like big numbers. A lot. Unfortunately I’m not as familiar with warrior as I’m with some of the other professions, so I figured out I should probably ask the experts. I’ll cheap out on the gear and probably throw in some conveniences like adrenaline regeneration before I actually use the build, but for now my question is simple: usability aside, how would I achieve the highest possible Killshot crits?

Before we start, let’s exclude one trait. I did use Desperate Power back when it triggered at 50% health, but trying to stay below 25% health as a glass cannon is a bit extreme even for me :P

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAU8encOk8YUQaPwEZAx8oHOiiQ9wO2w4IVoMA-j0xAYLBZCSkpCAJvioxWcLiGruGT5SEVLFQELjA-w
Basically, 30/0/0/10/30 all zerker. Am I on the right track?

Well, if you feel like doing some zerg fights, try going 30 in Shadow Arts and diving into the enemy zerg. Don’t stick to your allies, you’ll just get aoe’d to death.

So long as you have something to CnD on you can pretty much do whatever you want, such as wipe out half the enemy siege all by yourself
Not my best video, but you’ll get the idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umWpDwCu4Ts

Then again, bursting usually is more fun. Protip: real men use 4 signet builds :P

Obviously I am. Just look at my high muscle memory skill burst builds! :P

Oh come on, I managed to 1 hit (fine, one multi-hit-skill) a guardian once on my golem suit. Proudest moment of my entire WvW career :P

(the intro)

Rennoko.5731:

Music from SAB sounds like to me.

Yup, world 2.

Good video, btw it is possible to select combat log during your next vid?

Think of it like this: the chat can guide me towards potential new victims, while the combat log kindly informs me of my kills. As a result, I tend to keep my chat open.

I’ll try turning on the combat log occasionally from now on, though I doubt I’ll remember that most of the time, considering I’m constantly missing kills due to not turning on the recording program :P

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Do you have any recent gameplay, seeing that one is from before the changes to condition UI were introduced…

I apologize for the old footage. I don’t really have all that much free time, so it often takes me a while to gather enough footage and then a few more weeks before I actually edit it together. Those were all the clips I had at the moment, but perhaps I’ll devote a weekend to getting some more at some point.

Rennoko.5731:

cheezy.

Agreed, but who doesn’t like seeing their wells suddenly deal like twice their normal damage?

tattoohead.3217:

I actually loved the music what artist?

Look at the end credits, or alternatively arenanet official sound cloud. It’s genuine gw2 music

Perhaps I made the wrong music pick this time, then. I don’t really listen to anything myself, so I go loot the Anet sound cloud page whenever I need some gw2 music.

I really should pay more attention to the forums. Sorry I’m late!

First of all, Burnfall: my warrior hits harder in sPvP. Nuff said

Secondly, the build I’m using should be capable of those numbers, and I know I could go higher with better gear and blood lust stacks. If only killing people paid more and gaining stacks was as easy as in sPvP..

Long story short, a full zerker build with lots of ascended stuff and blood lust stacks, or a build similar to mine should do the trick.

The story here is that I had an amazing intro, so I decided to just take whatever clips I had and made a quick video

Step 1: Get chased by idiots.
Step 2: Use spectral walk and run towards a cliff.
Step 3: Recall right before or soon after falling.
Step 4: Staff 5 those smart enough to stop before the edge. Collect the loot bags.

Works every time

My general rule of thumb is that if you’re having trouble surviving, you’re not doing enough damage. Dead don’t hit back^^

Maybe that’s just me though..