JonnyForgotten.4276

Berserker set is not for beginners. If you'll replace Valkerie, replace it with Marauder instead. Marauder will give you the balance of damage and survivability. Was not saying replace the entire set with Zerker stats, I was saying to mix them into the Valk set until he gets a comfortable balance between damage and hp (similar to Marauder). That said though, yes, Marauder is a great balance and a mix of Marauder and Berserker is the standard. For the OP, learn to use a shortbow as well. It is a very good weapon for clearing mobs and getting around the map.

One thing you can do since you have started with a Valkyrie set is start replacing it piece by piece with Berserker stat pieces until you have a good balance between damage and survivability. For me, this is usually around 17000 hp in a level 80 area like a city. Think part of the problem you are running into (aside from being new) is that you are simply not hitting hard enough to take down targets fast enough to avoid their damage. Power thief needs high critical chance and critical damage to function. As a bonus, the same basic power stat equipment set can be used across most of thief's weapon sets, so you can experiment freely with different weapons after putting together a set you like. :) Other than that, yeah, go run personal story, do the Queensdale thing there and in other maps, gradually building up to higher level areas as you get more comfortable, and have fun!

If you are doing mostly open world, I would suggest using staff and shortbow. Both are very good at dealing with multiple targets, which is the main weakness of p/p (which is only single target). Especially don't skimp on getting used to shortbow. It's a surprisingly good weapon in addition to being a teleport stick. As said above, a mix of marauder and berserker stats is ideal unless you have a dedicated healer with you. I usually build to around 17k hp between those two stat sets and it seems to work out. Another thing to look at is running with Daredevil, Trickery, and Critical Strikes. CS has a skill which heals you for a percentage of outgoing crit damage, and this gives you a nice sustain cushion to train with. Have fun!

There are two sides to balance. Thief was one side. The other has been allowed to run more rampant than Thief ever did. Even placed in a vacuum, thief isn't balanced against itself. Anet didn't really adjust other things in any meaningful way - the nerfs have left it extremely lopsided as a class. No wonder you don't expect thieves to ever agree with you. @OP - if you want to main thief in this game and be in any way competitive, you'll have to make some pretty hard sacrifices, sanity wise. GW2 is no longer...well, it never was (maybe for one brief, shining moment years ago?) - an anywhere near decent game for half-decent pvp. As I have said already, a class like GW2 thief is every average MMO player's wet dream and even more before the deserving balance phase : "an unpunishable class with stupid amount of dmg, mobility and disengage potential" , the unpunishable part has been left almost intact while the dmg component has been deservingly adjusted so that thief players will feel the sting once they become too greedy. The combination of infiltrator's return - no cast time attacks including daze/stuns -stealth on demand and shortbow 1200 retreat and other stuff I may forget atm , makes thief an headache to fight...and it was previously a nightmare to fight thieves because of the stupid AA dmg. Every other class can be caught and punished in 90% of cases...a thief can simply disappear if things go south and this coupled with damage made an ideal combination for roamers in WvW up to 1 year ago. -Fightning d/p with pre-nerf Pulmonary impact and AA ...was truly a nightmare, the thief could simply walk up to you and just spamm AA coupled with headshot everytime you'd move a muscle and ofc thief players consider that kind of gameplay balanced and everybody else needs to l2p..luckily Anet thought otherwise -Then we have s/d thief : infiltrator combo followed by unblockable flanking combo..rinse and repeat till tha target dies...again thieves think this gameplay is balanced and everybody else needs to L2P ofc -The pre cast stealth/vault combo dealing 15k+ dmg out of the blue from stealth...yes yes..L2P and dodge again, very luckily Anet removed the ability to pre cast vault and steal teleport. Thief is supposed to be a slippery support/finisher character....not the ultimate brawler class and it was till some time ago, luckily that got adjusted and I hope it never returns I find this funny considering u have ur own thread called looking at thieves and nerf scope being only to nerf it out of viability lmao. what happened? Did a thief kill u a few times and now ur doing exactly what u said the community does and say a class is OP cuz a few hurt ur ego? Almost ur whole post is a exaggeration and or flat out wrong. I play multiple classes and even weaver can down peeps faster than thief for me these days to join the list of reaper,ranger,holo and rev. I dont play warrior but I'm sure I'd be on the list to if I played it for a while. Thief can gank noobs all night long or a good player once, good luck sec time once they kno ur around. In conquest the can rotate and carry games through their mobility but its definitely little to do with their ability to fight which is less than all other classes hence the +1 role tacked onto decapping. Sure a thief will win a 1v1 if they badly outplay their opponent but that's hardly OP lol. Mostly I was talking about pre-nerf builds which were too oppressive , easy and forgiving to play and Anet thought likewise after analyzing data numbers , it doesn't matter how pro thieves think to be...OP builds will always be complained about and subsequently nerfed.I'll agree with you that certain needed a nerf post HoT. . . what we thief mains are saying is that they went too far. We take great risks to hit a target, being glassy by design, and it feels pretty bad when we take that risk and are rewarded with a tickle of damage. That being said. . .thief is feeling better and better lately. Certainly better than around the patch that made Scrapper unkillable (surprise bunker meta anyone?)Think anet is moving in the right direction balance wise atm.

Agreed. I just happened to have switched back to condi at the Swipe patch, and I am overjoyed with Deadly Ambition. Shortbow has become so useful that I mistakenly kept d/d coming out of PvE into PvP (usually use p/d in pvp), and I didn't even notice until halfway through match, lol. The new trait really, really shines out in PvE land. Stunlocking large groups of enemies with the added posion stacks was just the extra bit of cleave that I was missing. :)

Currently running p/d sb with DA 3-2-1, Trick 3-1-2, DD 2-3-2. Wizard ammy in pvp, and Saerni's mix of Carrion gear +Grieving jewelry (up to ~17k hp) in WvW and PvE (usually switch to d/d for PvE). Utilities are CV for heal, then SoA, Impairing Daggers, Bandit's Defense, and Impact Strike. I tend to stay in shortbow dropping CG clouds and firing my AA to build stacks/ cause interrupts (throwing a steal or Impairing Daggers into this when it seems advantageous) for as long as possible in order to force my opponent into burning their cleanse and healing. When they get low (or they manage to close to melee range), I will usually then switch to p/d for a direct damage spike off of #3. The hybrid damage seems to work well against most classes. Necro's are usually my easiest downs, condi mes the hardest.

Attack that deals spike-level damage and also evades during its attack animation.Extra dodges for zero investment.A protracted block that breaks stuns when it is activated.All this on top of the already "zero-timing and zero-positioning necessary" Thief frame. Just because it doesn't rule PvP with an iron fist doesn't mean that it isn't a cancer-inducing opponent with a brutally straightforward and very passive playstyle. A Weaver PvP playstyle is literally just a PvE-level rotation; the moment that they are engaged in a fight, they instantly start using the same series of skills entirely sustained by passive evasion. It's incredibly predictable. It's no less brainless than any other meta build on the market regardless of how effective it is in any given encounter. Your comment falls into the same category as the guy crying about how Daredevil can be considered a frustrating opponent: it's an incredibly frustrating playstyle because it effortlessly and consistently takes away the agency of an opponent by simply pressing some attack buttons at any given time. Just because it doesn't slam everyone in PvP with just a glance doesn't mean that it isn't derived from an awful, generic design which contributes to an unhealthy PvP environment. But then there's the problem of WHAT OTHER BUILD CAN WE PLAY? You tell me a healthier way to play this class without it being completely out of meta than I'll actually believe Weaver as an actual toxic design like the rest. Also passive evasion? Where? Actually where? Ele had their passives gutted back in HoT and Twist of Fate, from what I remember, is an ACTIVE skill. So when you list out passive evades, I'll consider your comment. And no, passive arcane shield is not an 'evade' either. The only class that has passive evades is thief.Um. . . no? We (teefs) have exactly 1 passive evade triggered by hp drop, and it's on a 40 second CD for 2 seconds of evasion. Every other dodge requires spending INI, using a utility, or using endurance.

Open world PvP no, dedicated dueling arenas in the PvE maps, yes.

Shortbow can be used for offense as well. Drop a poison field from #4, then fire a couple autos through it, repeat. This is a good way to get some cleave from the edges of team fights, as the poison field reduces healing and also causes Daze when you spike the poison stacks to 5 on your opponents. #2 does good damage as well. I would suggest playing around with the weapon a bit. You may be surprised.

Balthazar HP can be done solo, just need some serious stealth to do so.

Fix all of our various projectile issues (thinking of Scorpion Wire, Impairing Daggers). The amount of times I have seen ID just fly off to the side or get "out of range"d by a target running away is just ridiculous. Perhaps increase the projectile speed and tracking so these skills hit more reliably. Give us back some of the damage we lost on dagger and sword AA's. We are supposed to be DEADLY as well as fragile. Tweak weapon skills to be just a little bit faster and smoother. Mostly looking at sword and staff here, think dagger attack speed is fine as is. Shortening the precast on most of our weapon skills and utilities (again, ID pops to mind) would be great and let us be a bit more reactive.

As a thief main: Why in the hell is SB doing what my profession's ingame description says it should? -_-

Been wishing the third hit on IS was an evade for a long time. +1

It is because of despawned dolyak corpses that block the projectiles, this is why it happens, wherever a dolyak died basically lays a reflect for a long time. Huh. Now there's a hypothesis to test.

Honestly, that's (slightly) less annoying than being "out of range" when 600 or less from a target. . . .

Um. . . DJ has a half second tell on its own. Did you not notice the big orange laser with sound effect that precedes the actual shot? Beyond that, to hit for 25k, you ate at least a couple of shots before DJ was even fired so the DE had at least a little malice buildup. Seriously man, learn to watch your screen, turn OFF your music, turn UP your sound, and learn to pay attention. If you didn't have a dodge at that point. . .well, sorry man, you just got outplayed.

Except no because i tried, even with quick pockets you can't. No, really, you can. Neglected to mention I was also using the DD heal, SoA, and endurance food, but it is actually possible, although it does mean burning everything you've got to stay ahead. I mean yes i kept up for like 3 seconds without being able to land any attacks and burning all my ini and cds which basically makes it useless, if that's what you mean.Ah, I see the misunderstanding here. I am talking about being able to GET AWAY from a mounted group and then circle back to your objective, not chase and down a mounted opponent. THAT pretty much takes getting the drop on them, although I find the steal burst (using DA and the confusion ticks from Trick) does work sometimes.

Try vallun's hybrid build. Stacking 5-10 stacks of poison from auto chains is nice. Its cleansible, but I've had good luck with it. Been running p/d, sb or double sb hybrid recently, and it's really not too bad. The unblockable on swipe really shines landing the big condi steal burst. . . plus I am pleased that I can run EF and ID at the same time. :)

Except no because i tried, even with quick pockets you can't. No, really, you can. Neglected to mention I was also using the DD heal, SoA, and endurance food, but it is actually possible, although it does mean burning everything you've got to stay ahead.

On the "mount speed is a nerf to mobile classes" thing: Well, sort of. Don't know if this is true for other classes, but a daredevil with a shortbow and the dash dodge can actually outrun the war kitty, at least in enemy territory (and dang near in friendly territory). Know it is an edge case argument, but there is still a purpose behind really building for movement speed, at least in the context of scouting/roaming. Plus trailing 5-10 mounted opponents behind you across the map is good for the lolz. :)

Dude, I don't think you see what you are looking at in this vid. This thief is playing well (mostly by using range to stay somewhat defensive), but is also playing against opponents who are NOT playing all that well. If the thief misses even one of those evades (and believe me, it's not as easy as you think), he is pretty much toast. Try running that build and seeing how "OP" you think it is.

My main (and dang near only) toon Jonni Smoke in his usual armor set: Riding in Wvw, rocking his summer armor, lol:

Yup yup yup. Lot of focus on your p/d build (:P), but I think these are all pretty good ideas.

I voted to keep mounts. I tend to run very high speed thief builds, so actual travel time hasn't been affected much for me, but I do like not having to constantly do my travel rotation to stay at speed. :) I do think, however, that there need to be some tweaks, namely: Make an instant dismount skill that acts on both the player engaging and the one being engaged.Make the mount somewhat vulnerable to CC. Essentially give the Crippled effect if it gets hit with Cripple, Immob, or Chill.MAYBE lower the hp, although this may not be necessary if 2 happens.

Personal map nav points that we can set ourselves, just to make those long scavenger hunts y'all are so fond of a bit easier. ;)Organize buttons for bank and character inventories.Loadout saves (gear, specs, and all) for PvE, sPvP, and WvWThanks Gaile!