Salvatore.3749

Virtuoso, I have a lot to say. I liked roaming in pve with this mesmer spec, but it was best with group play to nuke. That being said, I don't like pveing much and I primarily play pvp. Overall: I love Virtuoso and the concept of it. However, there was something unique this time around that I noticed. There were few mesmer utility skills that synced well and I found the lack of condi removal to be a bit of problem. I also noticed that condi virtuoso was weaker than power virtuoso by far. In my pvp matches, I do look for epic moments and I had a lot of those with Virtuoso. I was dominating other classes. I think I found challenges with a Mirage and Specter, but that was not a problem. Utilizing the falling blades utility skill while a Spellbreaker ran through, took damage, and then knocking him back into it with my Greatsword felt amazing. I got the down from that. I could function as both roaming duelist and team fighter in pvp, that was nice. I had a reaper freeze and chill the enemy team on a node while I used my utility skills and virtuoso elite skill to wipe them out. I also liked that I could knock foes off nodes and deal decent damage and spike foes. But, not all utility skills worked perfectly. Blink, was great, the damaging utility skills from virtuso was great, but I saw almost no reason to use decoy or any other skills as the clones would fire off their blades quickly (which was nice), but they only had one or two blades. Using my five blades did way more damage. I loved the aegis trait, where every time I block, I would stock a blade, and after firing a blade, I would get aegis. So the blade cycles were harmonious and I had a great cadence when it came to my pvp matches. However, I was not able to really buff my team, but this has that deadeye/thief feel where I'm supporting my team by killing the other team. So dropping the falling blades around my downed team members while the enemy team tries to stomp/cleave was nice or knocking the foes away, but I couldn't send out much boons. Honestly, I'm okay with that as a thief main because that's normally do. However, like a thief main, I was not able to create many combo fields. I am not sure where you could put them in, but I think the virtuoso utility sills could be a light combo field and that may send out more boons to my teammates. Also, Sword was popular the last time around, but I saw no purpose in utilizing Sword as staying in ranged was better overall for kills and holding nodes. Pros: Virtuoso felt unique and I loved it in pvp. GS worked best with D/Pistol and utility skills. It was more of an active casting class that had great bursts and cleave. Cons & Bugs: There is almost no reason to fight at close range with Virtuoso since staying at range provides you with the most strategic damage output. Again, I'm okay with that, but some Mesmer builds relied on sword in the past. Here, sword isn't friendly to virtuoso considering that the majority of its ranged attacks can easily miss at close range and the casting times for some of the utility skills can be too long when a Spellbreaker or Berserker is on top of you. In PvE, the dagger skills worked as if the action cam was turned on. Not a problem if you like the action cam, but it seemed to do that in Kryta a lot. I had to aim while the cam was off and that was odd. Inability to provide boons to others without runes or sigils may be a problem for others. It wasn't for me, but others may not like that.

Since the last beta, I decided to play warrior and after over 200 pvp games as berserker and spellbreaker, I believe I can offer some better input. Warrior's specs became one of my favorite classes to play for pvp because it is unique, I know there are some kinks and tradeoffs with pvp for warrior, but I did play both 5v5 and 3v3. I had some epic moments rezzing my team and killing the enemy teams with Spellbreaker full counter ability combined with the elite banner. Thus, when I played Bladesworn for the second time around, I was seeking those epic moments, and I had them. Overall: I had my epic moments. A lot of the epic moments came from the faster flow generation rate as that was an improvement. Using dragon slash and downing a necro while fighting 3v1 was epic. I found synergy with Might Makes Right in PvP (and even pve roaming), as I was able to generate might rapidly when I sheathed my gunsaber and heal while being hit. Plus, the aegis rework was nice. I did find myself using almost a near full charge or full charge more often than last Beta. I also found that utilizing physical skills and the Peak Performance Trait was wonderful for damage output in PvP. Bull's charge combined with dragon slash 1 left foes dazed for days. Dragon wasn't overpowered, but it did achieve several downs. As the main concerns from others was that this changed what a warrior is, I am not sure that is quite right now. This had a unique feel (loved the total concentration voice over from my beta character btw) because it has this unique mechanic that sets it apart from other especs. These updates made it feel more like a warrior than it did last time because the other traits didn't synergize well with it. In fact, some traits and some utility skills still do not feel quite right. I found solace with berserker stance for generating flow even faster. It almost felt like if I didn't bring berserker's stance, I was set up for failure in those matches as I couldn't unleash a full charge. That's not a bad thing as the play style could shift to lesser charged dragonslashes. However, in comparison to Spellbreaker and berserker, I have won most of matches with Spellbreaker (at least 120) using Sw/Wr & D/Sh with Shouts utility and achieved most kills and a good number of wins with Condi Berserker using Sw/Tor & Axe/Sh, this was another damage dealing class that I liked. It did fill another role of Roaming and Dueling in PvP. That was unique as I mostly play as a dps/support with Spellbreaker and aggressive tank as a berserker. This spec had survivability, but mostly if you didn't utilize the armaments. That was kind of a let down as I hoped the armaments would be more useful in pvp, and they werent. Also, the pistol synced well when coming out of downstate to achieve more flow. Using 5 and then 4 to just blast opponents felt nice. It added significant damage output that I enjoyed and wanted to see. The one thing that I want to see changed is that the Gunsaber be able to use sigils. That was disappointing that I couldn't customize my primary weapon set like I could my other weapon sets. Since you can't weapon swap fast, you don't get the benefit of weapon sigils. No need to craft legendary weapon sigils if I can't use them on my Gunsaber. Then Gunsaber could potentially be weaker than other weapons due to lack of sigil of force or sigil of battle. Maybe having the sigils activate on the dragon slash mechanic would be a fair tradeoff so we don't have Greatsword+? For the cons: There are some kinks with the Gunsaber that I am sure others noticed when playing. In pve (with the little roaming I did) flow was not stored while mounting? That was kind of annoying to start flow over again. Can we get the ability for Gunsaber to use sigils? Can we get the ability for Gunsaber to use sigils? Can we get the ability for Gunsaber to use sigils? Did I mention Gunsaber needs to use sigils? That was odd. We could equip 2 weapons, but only swap between Gunsaber and weapon set 1. It would be better to see sigil of hydromancy used while pulling out the Gunsaber or Sigil of Water that could heal our allies near us. Also, customizing the look of the Gunsaber is not a thing right now. I don't mind the way it looks, I actually like it, but since I know the shiny newness may fade, I would like to see that option. The ability to make aesthetic changes is a big part of GW2 and I think that option would be a nice to have since it is the primary weapon of the Bladesworn. No ability to customize Gunsaber as defensive or offensive. I am not sure where the power coefficient comes from for the gunsaber, but I noticed that my power didn't change when I equipped the Gunsaber. So in theory, I can only make my gunsaber stronger by having another weapon equipped in PvE say, twilight with trinkets/armor. While it seems to be balanced now since the damage output on the skills is high (but not as high as before), that will be a problem if the skills are ever nerfed rendering Bladesworn weaker. Also, a shorter cooldown time from the time Gunsaber is equipped or weapon swapped. 8 seconds was a bit too long. Maybe 6 seconds would feel more fluid. Pros: Smoother playstyle this time around, especially for pvp. Flow generation was an improvement. The improved Bladesword traits allowed for synergy with some traits Strength, Defense, Discipline, and Tactics. I liked that. Arms didn't seem to work well, but I liked the thought of attacking faster with the gunsaber.. Better damage output in pvp. Loved the stuns Otherwise, well done. This felt like a different take on the warrior and I did like it. I know there may be other comments, but these are only what I saw.

Lol. You could just show them their ex-girlfriend's OF. LOL.

You're welcome. I understand what you are saying, but that point is a bit of a sweeping generalization. Thief may be hard to lock down, but it's also hard for the thief to lock others down. If you think about it, the only way the thief wins is by playing aggressively, A reaper or guardian can just out-tank a thief and survive the entire match dealing out less damage. A passive/defensive stealth playing thief cannot do the same. There are no traits or utilities for it. The thief can burn initiative and force all skills on cool-down in a 1v1 with a reaper or guardian. Don't get me started on Spellbreaker's full counter. My Spellbreaker is essentially Melodious versus a thief at this point. I think it really comes down to skilled versus unskilled players in pvp.

In WvW/PvP, I'm assuming you're referring to solo roaming and getting ganked. I'm not sure what class you are playing, if you're an ele, it's easy to get ganked. If you are a warrior, ranger, or mes or any other class, you may want to check those forums for a more viable wvw roaming build because low-skilled thief players actually struggle to kill other classes. From what you have stated, I'm not sure you have the traitlines correct. It' s a10% damage reduction and a vitality boost based on power. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Marauder's_Resilience That's not actually defensive because it rewards more aggressive playstyle by providing the Daredevil with more health so they can take more hits. But, they are still a glass-cannon if you combat the aggression. The dash is good, but it's primarily used a stun break and condi removal. When synergized with shadow-arts, that makes the Daredevil more passive/defensive than aggressive. So what if they stealth for a long time? It sounds like they are using the stealing gives you stealth trait and are using backstab in front (which is not the recommended playstyle). Chances are you are either turning and giving them your back or you are not attacking turning/kiting while they flank you. If that daredevil is using venoms, it's likely they are not fully geared up for condi or power. That means they lack adequate dps and can be countered once they attack or are revealed. There are several hard counters to this playstyle and every class has them. I'm going to give you a long list of what I have encountered as a primary thief player. 1. Ranger - Longbow 2 and 5, traps, and lightning reflexes. Smokescale for blind. GS Maul (2?), skill 5. Shortbow (the bane of my existence with condi). 2. Guardian/DH - traps, longbow 5, anything that makes a damaging symbol, staff, GS whirl (skill 2). Radiance with fire. Aegis. Aegis. Aegis. Never ending Aegis. Pop the shield virtue or the jumping virtue on DH. Use the tether as well. 3. Warrior - heal through it. Warhorn 5. Shield 5. GS skill 5. Cyclone axe. Full Counter (Spellbreaker). Fear me. Sight beyond sight (Spellbreaker). 4. Mesmer - distortion. Sword 2. Torch 5. Staff 5 (Chaos storm) and blind causes confuse. Clones and illusions. GS 5 (the blast wave). 5. Engineer/Scrapper/Holo - grenades, blast fields, static fields, elixirs, turrets. Gadgets remove condis and provide regen. Stealth. Holo fields. Laser discs. Holo bazooka/cannon. Poison gun/elixir gun. Flamethrower (just move around in a cone). 6. Necro /Reaper/ Scourge- Chilled to the Bone. Your soul is mine. The damaging wells. Pop shroud. The sands that damage and heal simultaneously. 7. Rev/Herald/Reneg - Dragon facet - use elite and use the facet that make everything burn in an area on yourself and reveal stealthed foes. Jailis hammers (LOL those suck to fight against as a thief). Staff block. Staff warp. Hammer 3 and 5. Mace 2 (i think that makes the trail). Mallyx's area blasts and condition damage reduction and negation. Ventari's tablet (pull it to you for a burst of heals). Renegade barrage bow skill. Call in the warband for more damage upon the reveal of thief. Sword 2. Sword 3 on revealed with Shiro's jade crystals. Shiro's jade winds. Jailis Elite skill which prevent critical hit. 8. Ele - dagger fire skills. lightning dagger skills. The whip hits in a triangle and it's fun to hit thieves while stealthed for critical damage. Fresh air weaver build. Staff ele in Zergs. Scepter and focus ele. Tempest just use Earth and earthen tempest to counter the stealth. Weavers are hardest to kill when they fight from range so a good Scepter or staff weaver will use all the aoe's in the game to knock out the thief who is attempting a backstab.Traitline where they are attuned to earth and cannot be critically hit will also be in play by a fire, earth, arcane core ele As a note, leeching venoms doesn't do that much damage unless your health is 14k or less. Deadly arts is by far the superior trait line than shadow arts for a condi thief due to the poison the traitline provides. For power traitlines, I prefer critical strikes for higher critical damage attacking my foes from behind or side. General melee player skill tip - you can kite with any weapon in the game. I learned this by playing thief since dagger has such a short range. You need to circle around your target like you would in a real fight (Watch boxing and MMA to see how people cut angles), GW2 is the same way. Enemy melee attacks (mostly autoattacks) can actually miss you if you move out of range (GS is the hardest to move away from).

Honestly, I'm like a robot every 5v5 match. I start with "I'm going to focus on capping nodes. I will head to home first, and then to mid to support. Unless you all wipe, and then I will head to far node. I only fight if I have to and that's mostly to get the cap". It sounds stupid, but I took this from business, set expectations up front, under promise, and over-deliver. Normally, I'll have the most offensive points, most kills, or most outgoing damage with 0-2 deaths. When I just roam the entire time, and take my kills as I roam, the team typically wins. I'll straight up, show up, kill whoever needs to be killed, cap and then leave. Rinse, repeat. I hate getting the whiny player who is like, "go far, go far, just get the decap, just decap, it's so pivotal right now. We don't need your support." Meanwhile it's that same player who gives the other team 30 points for dying so much. Then I show up and finish the kills while they are downed in mid, they rally and say "don't stay here, just roam. Thief is useless in the fight." I sometimes think it's a joke or maybe those players are just super stressed out when they play pvp.

For clarification, are you referring to thief in PvP or WvW? I don't fully agree that shadow arts and daredevil synergize well. Since Daredevil is best played aggressively. Daredevil synergizes best with critical strikes and deadly arts or critical strikes and acrobatics for dps. But, acrobatics was already nerfed into oblivion. Out of curiosity, what would you want to seed nerfed in shadow arts? And why? There is really not much available for thief trait lines already, so I'm just curious.

It looks like it is making a cutting motion. I keep think of the Oni's claws from GW1 where they would teleport and slash you with their claws.

I keep seeing some kind of portal behind them and some kind of cutting motion with the scepter. It is cutting shadow blades at mid range and warping in and out of combat?

It's really not abusable since revealed gives you 2-3 seconds of not using stealth again (1 DE Exception, but it's not game changing). With Stealth you can only lengthen it's duration while your in stealth. The most I've seen a thief stealth for is 15 seconds in a PvP/WvW situations and that's not really that beneficial because the thief is playing too passively. Remember thief is only rewarded for aggression. They are not rewarded for anything else by this game. The more aggressive you play as a thief, the better you are. Combatting a thief's aggression is the best way to beat them. To make this digestable because it's a little more simple than it sounds. Recently, I made a spellblade for sPvP (and it's fun). Knowing that thief, daredevil, and DE could be problems for other team mates in sPvP, I know I have to play differently when the other team has a thief. Against a MM Necro and Daredevil, I target the Daredevil first. Crippled him with axe, used warhorn 4 got his health down to 50% and waited for the stealth, which came. I popped fullcounter and it knocked his health down to around 40% with the absorbtion and block. He used pistol 5 and heartseeker for stealth, I used shield 5 for long block since I was blinded. Heartseeker missed, he was still stealthed and could only be stealthed for like another second, so I just spun with my shield, saw the blocked and just waited. I built up might and I used my dagger 3 to daze him on revealed, immobilized him. He used shadow step, and I used dagger 2 and dagger burst for two leaps, which downed him. I dropped my banner to finish him and grant boons to me and my teammate. In the match, all I did was counter the thief's aggression, and went on the offensive once they were out of stealth. That's all anyone has to do. That kill didn't take that long since I knew how long the thief could be stealthed for. 5 seconds is kind of annoying, but when thief players rely on long stealth durations, , they are playing more passively than aggressively, and it's actually easier to counter when they have long stealth durations because they have to fight at some point to win or cap in PvP/WvW. You can't cap in stealth and you can only perform one attack briefly while in stealth. Thus, one attack versus multiple attacks isn't strong enough. They can also burn initiative quickly if using cloak and dagger or heart seeker and blinding powder. As a note, shadow arts combined with thief's elite specs isn't rewarding in PvP/WvW due to it's inability to provide ally support and damage outside of conditions. A power daredevil relying on stealth isn't going to be as strong as a core power thief relying on stealth simply because trickery and critical strikes or deadly arts is required for maximum damage output, and the elite specs only allow you to take critical strikes or deadly arts when relying on stealth. TL;DR 1. Stealth is not abusable due to revealed and long stealth durations in pvp is not rewarding since thief must play aggressively to win. Thief can't play aggressively while stealthed since they cannot cap nodes or fight continuously while in stealth. 2. Countering thief's aggression is the way to win; long stealth durations have move passive play and can be waited out, thus they do not reward thief since they can only attack once in stealth, and their damage output is limited for a few seconds due to revealed. 3. Block's, evades, and waiting for their attack while attacking or blocking is best. 4. Counterattacking thief once revealed is the best way to fight them. 5. Daredevil and DE with long stealth durations usually sacrifice damage output and thus play more passively. Keep that in mind. 6. Core power thief with shadow arts, trickery, and critical strikes or deadly arts (for mug and dagger training) is by far more powerful since they can achieve maximum dps with shadow arts.

True! That's a good point. In PvE, I use core thief for condi builds so I take Deadly Arts, Shadow Arts, and trickery, but I like the Marauder Daredevil setup OW Roaming. I think it's best with Critical Strikes, Trickery, and Daredevil since I make use of fury and the physical skills more. PvE feels so dry to me as a thief. I hate saying that, but I mean it at time because it feels like it's talents are diminished when there is so much going on in OW. B Bounties are a good example of why it feels a little diminished at times, thief just doesn't seem to do enough during certain bounties. I could take my ranger and deal higher condi damage to bounties faster or take my Guardian to support those around me in a Champion legendary bounty.

Yo, I felt like this Espec's PvP ability was just forgotten about when they made the espec. Did anyone else feel that way? I don't even play warrior much, like I recently started Spellbreaker in sPvP for fun and ended up liking it, but the Bladesworn just left a bad taste in my mouth when I tried it in PvP. It actually worries me about the remaining EoD specializations since the Bladesworn couldn't synergize with a general warrior build. No bursts and no ability to remove boons on burst. I tried the little bullet dragon triggers and it didn't work. Compared to Core Warrior and Spellbreaker, it just didn't feel like a warrior, but like Engineer with 1 kit and no tool belt trying to be a warrior.

Others have pointed out invigorating precision and marauders is better, I agree. Take that trait, and take signet of malice or skelk venom for heals in OW. I try to use builds that heal me while attacking, as thief's best method of survival is being able to consistently play aggressively. If you like using venoms, I would also suggest trying a condi focused build with carrion or trailblazers armor. Then take leeching venoms trait with venom skills. You only need runes of krait, mirage, tormenting. adventurer, nightmare or divinity (as last resort). It just depends on how you want play your thief. For PvE, I prefer condi since not everything has the ability to remove conditions and your attacks are more efficient if they hit.

With your first line, that's literally the frustration of other players. I think people need to play thief more and learn the mechanic. I just posted something before I saw this, but I think the real underlying issue is that some classes do not have the means to counter stealth. The best way to counter a stealth backstab is to turn around and auto-attack to prevent your back from being hit or use an aoe attack in your position to deal damage while the thief is in stealth or give yourself a decent buff to mitigate damage. But, certain classes don't have the aoe mechanic accessible all the time. And a lower skilled player of that class does suffer. The best example that comes to mind is DH because while they can attack around them, they also have some higher cast times and longer CD, thus can be hit hard before they heal themselves or attack around them, and their aoe can be dodged or doesn't do enough damage to force a thief away from them. And if the thief is using sneak attack, well, they are just SOL because a skilled thief won't fight them head on in melee. It just doesn't make sense when your pistol shoots faster than their scepter or bow.

I am kind of late to this thread, I guess we're debating about PvP and WvW. From what I read the debate is that thief's stealth is: 1. Easy to access for low skilled players. 2, Too broken because of de-targeting 3. Thief's bursting capabilities in small group gameplay. I'm going to say number 1 is partially true., but there is a problem with the logic about easy access to stealth. While the stealth mechanic alone is easy to access, that doesn't mean it's always used correctly or efficiently by newer players. If you are using power builds in PvP/WvW, as a thief, one must learn when to pop in and out of stealth or it's wasted and you're dead. It actually takes a lot of time to learn effective positioning to be aggressive - and aggression is thief's primary way to win. Since backstab's power coefficient was nerfed, missing the backstab does not reward high damage and can waste 1 second of stealth from 2 or 3+ seconds of stealth depending on your build. Then the problem comes in as a specialization, you need either critical strikes and trickery or critical strikes and shadow arts for a high dps stealth build. My personal opinion and preference, is to play aggressively, so I would be crazy not to take critical strikes when focusing on backstab critical damage. Otherwise, I can take core thief, sacrifice 3 dodges and better ranged gameplay to focus on backstabs. Still there are a lot of tradeoffs for focusing on stealth power builds. 2 seconds of stealth to land a backstab on a moving target in pvp/wvw takes practice and skill. To have 4+ seconds is nice, but that comes with a sacrifice in damage unless you take core thief. As of now, there are only 2 viable stealth attacks on core thief and 3 on DE for PvP/WvW. So I don't think it's fair to say thief is a broken class and OP because low skill players can become good at it. When in fact, the stealth mechanic requires so much practice. For effective thief gameplay, the devil's in the details and missing some of these details can be the thief's downfall so I can't say it's actually easy for low-skilled players to use. De-targeting, if you miss that close ranged backstab, you're screwed. You can be revealed if you hit the front if the target moves. With a 2 second stealth on a power D/D or D/P build, that's a problem, it's even a problem if you have a shadow arts build because you can waste valuable combat time in stealth. Stealth is also easy to counter. If you play thief, and get good at using stealth, you'll recognize something, you can strike around you with auto-attack or aoe and try to keep the thief away from your back. When done right, you either hit the thief, or turn around enough with auto-attack to prevent thief from hitting your back, thus negating your damage. Also, for a Reaper, all they need to use is "Your soul is mine" and that thief isn't getting near their back. Warrior's warhon barrier skill negates almost the entire backstab's damage by providing barrier and boons. Ele, lol, the best at just popping off aoe in seconds and getting out of the way, while the ele may not win the duel, they likely can avoid being one-shotted from the backstab. There are so many ways around detargerting that it shocks me that professional gamers wouldn't recognize such a mechanic. LOL for number three. I agree and disagree with some statements. As a thief, I'm playing a condi core theif build right now and my death blossom's burst drops bleeding, poison, and torment on evading attacks. My P/D dagger three is nasty. Repeater is nasty. Sneak attack is nasty. Omg, deadly ambush is wonderful for the increase in bleed damage. And it's sweet to watch other players use up their entire utilities to remove conditions and still get bursted down. But, again it's condi so it takes a couple seconds longer than a bursty reaper. With power, it's a different story. We're talking high damage backstab, heartseeker, and headshot combos. With the condi builds, it's hard to miss attacks, but with power builds, it's possible to miss, and when you do, you are penalized hard as a thief. You lose initiative, you miss, and you likely have to attempt to disengage, which is not always possible in PvP. Thus, it comes down to an individual build and playstyle. Sneak attack on pistol, repeater, and even unload in 2v2 and 3v3 is just a monster. But, in 5v5, those same bursting skills, while they are rewarding, are also not top tier if you are 2v1ed because it focuses on single targets. That's a problem imo because I can focus on the ranger and the reaper kills me. I can focus on the DH and the Spellblade kills me. Moreover, a tank versus my thief could just easily waste my time and that time wasted doesn't allow me to cap nodes. Thief isn't the best duelist, but it's likely the best finisher in the game depending on the build you run simply because this game does require people to work together in PvP. Dueling wise, Herald, Reaper, and Soulbeast are likely the better professions for that. Maybe even core mesmer, played skillfully, in 1v1 situations. TL:DR: 1. Stealth is easy to access, but takes a while to practice and do it right. It depends on the player and build. 2, De-targeting can be overcome by aoe and auto-attacking while spinning. 3. Bursting in PvP/WvW scenarios various per build and per amount of group play. Thief is the best finisher, but not the best duelist.