Overworld.9613

Thief has a very low health pool compared to other classes. Only the Elementalist has a lower base health. If you want to not get hurt, not being hit or killing an enemy before they get to start attacking is your best bet. Most thief weapon combos have some dodge, reposition or evade in the weapon skills, abusing them will help you stay alive. Each playstyle in each class has a different approach to using their heal skills, for theif most of our heal skills encourage getting right back into the fight and putting on pressure or allowing you to re-position for a spike of damage. Their if the best class at speed-running getting into the downed state so don't take it hard. I've been playing thief since launch and the best way I syated alive was trying to pre-win a fight and learn how to time a dodge for my region's ping.

Trying to dodge out of my own Mind Shock effect hasn't killed me yet, but as a theif I am very good at going downed state; so I assume it'll be the cause one of these days.

Pressure Striking (Major trait- Trickery) - Current text: Cause 2 stacks of torment, limit once per 3 seconds. Text implies trait doesn't trigger more than once per 3 seconds. Trait is only limited like this on foes with a defiance bar. Needs tooltext improvement Second Opinion (Major Trait- Spector) - Current text: Condition Dmg -> healing pwr; ++ healing pwr, ++ healing pwr with scepter. Compared to the other Adept traits for Spector this offers functionally nothing. Needs rework. rest of top row is selfish and damage related traits. Seal Area (Utility Skill - Preparation) Current text: create area that blocks projectiles and prevents foes from entering or leaving. I've never seen it do that. Try placing this skill in a bottleneck in WvW and watch everyone walk through it. For a 3 second arm time 8 seconds of area denial is too low (it can stay low in pvp). Detonate Clusterbomb (Weapon Skill Shortbow 2) Current text: Mash skill 2 for free extra damage if your ping is low enough. Skill never triggers at higher ping or closer target locations. Can I just hold the skill to get it to do it instead? Shroud skills aren't listed in the Build Window, the only place to read the tool text is in battle or the wiki. Dark Field Projectile finishers deal more damage via life steal than the Leaching Venoms and scale off power when you're much more likely to have low power when using venom builds. Leaching venom's needs a bit of a buff. Life Siphon healing on leaching venoms only uses my healing power when affecting me, other players use their own healing power. It should take the higher value of the two instead to make it a more viable choice in more cases and not useless to zerk gear. Venom's in general: Why does a multi hit attack use multiple stacks of venom? Why does One rebounding arrow or dagger take up to 3 stacks for a single attack? I'm fine with channeled attacks using up a charge for each pulse, but not stuff that cleaves or richochets. Siphon and Mark don't need a targeting solution like Steal and Swipe. Let them work like normal projectiles. I can probably find more, but aside from wanting to let us use swords wrong in the offhand I think that's good enough for now. (Off-hand sword for core thief FTW)

Would you believe I've got a history in software QA and development. With the focus on modal skills with this expac I'm suspicious that the ally targeting version of the scepter skills are actually secretly modal change where if you're in ally targeting mode the skill is secretly a different skill so results might get a bit muddled.

Take note: These are just feature and functionality checks. Dps and healing numbers are inconsequential in this investigation since we're still so far from actual release.

A lot of the discussion of the Spector have relied on assuming how various mechanics will function. Specifically the Endless Night beam and the Wells. So below is a list of tests we need to do so we aren't talking out of our arses when trying to check how viable Spector is in an empirical sense. Ideally we'll need these tests done with players on low and high ping as there's some features that just don't work on High ping and will make the profession very unreliable in practice if a commander starts asking for a player to jump on Spector to fill a role. We'll consider the threshold to be 200 ping as an arbitrary threshold, but if you do manage to do some testing try to keep an eye on the average ping for all players involved in the test. Tests for stacking situations: 1. Can you target an allied character out of combat with siphon?gnkv 2. Do players standing inside or right behind a Spector get affected by Endless Night if not the target. 3. Does the Spector snap to face their targeted support ally if they teleport or leap while endless night is channelled (equivalent to target getting launched)? 4. Does the spector snap to face their target support ally if the ally was behind them at the start of the cast? 5. How wide is the beam for pierce effects? 6. Does the beam end at the allied target, if it does, how generous is the game for allied players standing on the far side of the targeted player? Tests for solo situations: 7. With no other allied characters nearby how much self sustain can the spector do without attacking? 8. Many of the spectors sustain scale by hitting multiple targets, what kind of sustain can it produce in a 1v1 fight? Generic situations: 9. Well teleports seem to have no animations for the teleport. Can dodges or her instant skills interrupt the utility wells or the elite well? 10. Both Scepter/pistol 3 alt and Shroud 4 are called endless night, are they identical skills? 11. Mind Shock (shroud 5) grants stability per units hit, is it a flat increase per target hit and does it have an upper limit? 12. Twilight Combo (Scepter/Dagger 3) fires 2 projectiles, a slow and then a fast that pushes the slow forward. Does it act differently if the slow projectile hits a target before the fast one is fired? 13. Well of bounty pulses boons targets don't currently have, logic implies the boons it gives out last longer than a single pulse interval, can we force a specific boon to be reapplied rather than lots of Might? Also does it follow the same logic as boon stripping on which boons it will apply first? 14. Do shroud skills use initiative or count as using it for the purposes of Assassin's Reward? 15. Does going into shroud count as a weapon swap? 16. Does larcenous torment trigger from allies affected by Skale Venom that inflict torment on hit? And does it generate shadowforce if the thief doesn't enter combat? 17. How does Improvisation interact with shroud? Allied targeting scenarios: 18. While targeting an ally do any scepter or shroud skills get blocked by an enemy and consume the projectile? And vice versa? 19. Does using scepter skills while targeting an ally put you in combat? Do they put you in combat if used on ambient fauna? 20. Does siphon trigger Mug's heal on steal effect? 21. Does thrill of the crime center on the Thief or their allied target when using Siphon? 22. Does Burst of Agility trigger when using weapon skills on allied units? 23. Does signet of Nullification (or similar on hit) weapon signets trigger on using weapon skills on allied units? 24. Does Endless Night target a location x units above targeted character's feet or center of character model? Such that Asura or Norn characters cause the pierce effect to miss allies between player and target. Similarly will a character jumping be unaffected by the beam? Let me know any more tests to add to the list and the results once the beta goes live. I'm down in Australia, so I'll only be able to check the behaviours for high ping scenarios.

On top of Shadow Savoir, Spector also has a AoE heal on shadowstep trait. People frame by framing the showcase found these details.

Added this strategy to the discussion page for the achievement in the wiki. Hopefully more people can find these details to aid in completing the achievement.

If we assume development space is limited, then we can expect some action to give stacks of a unique buff and an F# key to spend them all and turn it into X seconds of shroud. Similar to the Necro getting stacks of their hp- buff. Also that's give some conveyance on how ready an enemy spectre is to go into shadowshroud, as the stacks would be in their target UI info. Which reads a lot better than instantaneous and unknowable amount of time an enemy player would spend in stealth.

If the thief loses access to stealth, then what does shadow's refuge give to other players if I'm a Spector? Can I put other players in shadow shroud and now we're all being the support role for 8 seconds?

I am terrible at staying alive on my Thief, but Rangers, Revenants (I am very bad at dodging the tracking sword teleport move they have) and other Thieves (that stealth approach is powerful) are pretty much the only thing that kills me when roaming. No one else can keep up if I decide to flee because the victor is clear pretty early on and I still have a lot (like a lot a lot) of movement options to escape the fight. Has OP tried not walking into unfavourable machups? Or roaming as a duo? Or having a build that uses evade instead of stealth as the "defensive" mechanic? As much as I like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, I am also an advocate of hard counters being in class based games. Does OP also know there's a WvW trap that causes revealed? And that everyone can use it. But people kinda just don't cause it's easier to just get killed by a stealthed blob and call in the cavalry once dead.

I just want the sceptre (or if it turns out to be a different weapon) to be equippable in the off hand as well as the main. The class has 3 main hand and 2 off hand weapons and 2 two-handed weapons (2 that can't be used together so you're only able to access either staff or rifle). For a class that's described in game as being very versatile, seem odd we only learned to use pointy sticks and guns/small bows. The only classes with less weapons than Thief is Engineer (who has their own set of weapon kits unique to them) and elementalist (who have the 4 attunements, and on core weapons they can act like different weapons more than expac weapons). Kinda makes Thief seem like a punk who's pretending they can do it all. Thief is supposed to be the class who uses weapons wrong for great effect. Their ultimate skill in using a gun is to have it backfire and make a cloud of smoke.

The new Elite Spec needs to have a name also starting with D so we have an even harder time differentiating between Daredevil, Deadeye and kitten Normal Thief Build.

I'm better at recognizing shapes than lengths of a line, so I like the new change. I'm generally not looking to know what the exact amount of initiative I have but if I'm over a threshold so I can pull off a combo.

I found a cheese strategy that let me get this achievement solo Cheese and Salt on the Wound LW-S4-E6 Achievement strategy - Living World - Guild Wars 2 Forums Dying to the first barrage of crystals at the start of the fight lets you break the same weak point on Kralk's face over and over. Best I got was 3 deaths (and 4 breaks) before I had to do the rest of the fight normally.

I cant stop seeing this teaser as someone who just slipped on a banana peel.

It's probably a visibility thing. When playing as thief I need to keep an eye on every part of the map and my surroundings and have a good idea where all enemy players are when not shown on the mini-map because I have the ability to get somewhere in need quick enough to help. Other builds that just run for the mid-fight don't need to know anything other than who dares approach them. So if they see anything go wrong (like the other team capture a point) they'll see that as a misplay on my part cause I could have done something about it, they couldn't cause [insert arbitrary reasons here]. And since the midfight can often be very chaotic they won't notice obvious misplays from people next to them. +1 support also requires working out another player's intention and supporting that, being the 1 that gets plused requires only making your intentions obvious, not trying to sync up with the support. You'll see similar complaints on the brain dead midfighter from anyone playing primary healer, cause the midfighter will just wander off and out of the support's field of influence.

Just come down to Australia, there's never any queues. There's also only lopsided fights while the US and EU are asleep.

I read part way through your original post and it seems like you have a flawed idea on what makes a good story for an entire MMO audience and the ways that narrative exploration can be done well in a large world like Guild Wars 2. So if you managed to recant your position that narrative choice solely in the hands of the player is the best method of self expression in the genera, I'll adjust my position. So your first position that a false sense of control over narrative direction in the personal story is better than the current method. Your second position was that you don't like all the characters (namely Taime and Braham) and want to use your character's assumed position of authority to strip them of agency. Your third point, which is where you lost me, was that other players existing breaks immersion for you. I didn't bother reading past this cause it all smacked of armchair criticism and personal bias. Firstly I'll put up my creds: I've been studying and applying System Design and Game Design for over a decade. When you list problems like this, it doesn't look like a carefully researched list of faults, it looks like a screed of grievances. So I apologize if this comes off as harsh, but the tone of the OP doesn't induce a sense of an open discussion. To your first point: Obvious narrative decisions put in the player's lap a "key" story beats has two main design problems: first; it multiplies the work needed to be done. For every choice you want to make meaningful such that future events reflect it in a way unlike Mass Effect 3's color picker ending, you have to re-write all dialog that might relate to the other choice. On average for every choice you add 1/4 of later dialog needs variants to reflect it. Guild Wars 2's designers really like giving the player 3 choices so this multiplies up to about 1 and 1/3 times more dialog needing to be written. GW2 management really like running an agile ship that can make new content, this design choice is unfeasible. A bit of theory for the next point: There's a razor for categorizing players in a game called the Bartle Taxonomy (Taxonomy means naming convention) that groups players by what drives them, it has 4 main non-exclusive categories (non-exclusive means players can be in more than one category) Achievers, Explorers, Socializers, and Killers. In order the things each category is driven by in GW2 are [100% completion, achievements and collections], [finding secrets in the maps, mechanics or class builds], [experiencing the story and interacting with other players cooperatively], and finally [PvP and WvW]. What the GW2 devs have decided was to change their approach on story from the core game to the later Living World updates and the expansions and not force all players to engage with all of the story if they didn't want to and to make content for players to seek that suited their desires. So now the self expression enacted via the narrative is in seeking out cool interactions in the world, like the Dowsing Rod. A trophy item with no use except to trigger a dialog in an NPC on the other side of the world from where you find the item. Your character doesn't need to lead the story, but you as a player get to seek out more of the parts of the story that interest you. And by freezing each LW map in time the devs get to put way more detail in the small areas that can tell small stories without having to remove it next update when the issue a character opines about is now addressed. Another note: the name of the story you're mad you don't have more agency over is no longer "Your Story" but that of the world. It doesn't revolve around you. To your second point, in the story the Commander doesn't actually have any authority to make anything happen they can't do with their own power. They're at the top of the organisation structure of the Pact so no one can tell them no because they are a very effective agent when working without bureaucracy. At this point in the story the guild of Dragon's Watch is just a way for everyone skilled enough to accidentally end the world to let everyone capable of saving it know what mistake they just made. To your complaint that Braham and Taimi should stop doing their nonsense: the player character has tried, the only thing you can do is help them after the die is cast. To your third point on other players breaking your immersion. Sounds like a you problem. The living world maps constantly rattle off the names of factions that have marshalled forces in the area, are the other players not part of those forces? Why does the game have to explicitly address the functional aspect of an MMO for you to be satisfied? If you want an experience like that then MMOs aren't for you, and you'd probably enjoy single player RPGs more. You may have noticed the responses got shorter with each point, that's cause each point you brought up sounded more foolish than the last, and less of a fault with the game and more an issue you had yourself that you wanted other people to resolve for you than address it yourself. So the only thing I can recommend is that you go play the re-releases of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and play an MMO for the things an MMO is good for.

During Living World Season 4 Episode 6 War Eternal achievement mastery the only achievement that gave me issues was Salt on the Wound (break 10 weak points during the chase part of The End). The achievement seemed broken, with a lot of the shots seemingly missing. However after swinging the camera around wildly I can confirm all shots do land, even if they appear to miss by a wide margin, it just appears in random looking locations. What can cause issues is that the swapping targets function doesn't work in this instance and you need to mouse click each target manually. I found a cheese strategy that means the threshold you're aiming for is a lot easier to reach. The chase starts with Aurene catching up to Kralkatorak's head to get their attention. This weak point is guaranteed, you'll stay up there until the weak point is broken. Our strategy will be to break this weak point several times over. After breaking the face weak point you fly back to the tail and get bombarded by giant crystals. The trick is to get hit by as many crystals as possible. You normally need 3 hits to be defeated and warp back to the start of the chase. Once you go back you can break another weak point, which means the 9 more you need to break on Kralk's body drops to 8 or 7 as long as you get lucky and catch enough crystals to reset the chase. It's not guaranteed, but since you need to hit each weak point 3 times to defeat them according to the wiki, this was 6 less hits that I had to squeeze in on the bombing run sections of the chase. It's difficult to get any more information on this strategy now that I have the achievement, so if anyone else was stuck on this achievement can you give this strategy a try and see if it does make a measurable difference. If it does work we should add it to the wiki as currently the only useful details is that the tracking for the achievement seems to be based on damage dealt rather than actually weak points destroyed.

Well if you don't want to bend the condition generating traits too hard here's another set, with completely different armor and a focus exclusively on power. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaBBgqxjlNwEZYsN2IeuTqNdA-zxQYvg7x7UKUEkpEIChQOLARMNMYzC-e I also think there's a way to use this to make a support build that can drop a lot of healing if you swap the Rune to Monk and swap acrobatics for Trickery to get boons on steal.

Inspired by a Thief that very successfully chased my Power Deadeye build and held a Camp for a few minutes waiting for the Invicible NPC to give up and take damage, I propose a build that takes the two things people hate about fighting a thief and lean really heavily on that. Build Editor - Gw2Skills.Net The build that killed me was far more condition focused, leaning on D/D 3 to upkeep more evasion to proc the healing, but since I never got to ask them how it worked I got to work brewing something that seemed to follow a similar approach, but with the sword; since it's been ages since I had a build that used it. The point of the build is to try and get in the face of players (cause short duration stealth has no affect on NPC AI) and pressure them with constant movement. The build tries to maintain sustain with heal on evade and heal on teleport, two things we have in great supply. And using boon strip on Steal and Interrupt we can stop opponents from having much control over the direction of combat. Something thieves are hated for is resetting out of combat and coming back fresh. Well did you know that this build can heal almost it's entire 11k health with a single withdraw, 1 second delay and Infiltrator's Strike. Making it look like you did that instead? The main weakness in the build is that I'm a returning player so I might be out of the loop on ways a playstyle like this could be done better. So I implore my fellow thieves to see if our combined knowledge can give us a new thief archtype: The everywhere man! Anyone within 600 range is someone they could be flanking. I'm also asking the forum cause I've got a while set of armor without stats picked so as soon as we find a good set for this I'm going all in.

During the story instance of the crystal dragon after the third set of crystals charged and Kralk does a big blast, the screen starts to shake, and then never stops. It also slowly gets more extreme over time. Also the screenshake effect doesn't stop if you log out of the character and only seems to stop after closing the entire game. Turning off the DX11 beta resolved the issue and allowed the scene to play out normally.