Sir Vincent III.1286

You forgot to address one of my points;"The problem with the PvP is not about the Thief's sustainability, but the sustainability of other professions. Regardless of how much damage the Thief deals, it gets negated by passive and low cooldown heals and damage mitigation. Adding your suggestion to the mix will not solve this problem, it will only make it worst. It will only make everyone tanky and increase stalemates." Basically, there is no need for debilitate if ArenaNet simply make everyone less tanky. Yes, Preparedness should be baseline. Perhaps in a a near future, when ArenaNet choose to re-visit Trickery and revamp it, they will make a lot of the traits in there as baseline. With the addition of Preparation, I would assume that Trickery will be the trait line that will affect it. Probably the new effect for Preparedness when they make the +3 init baseline. Which makes sense. Stealth attacks by no means invisible Thieves. So I disagree with that characteristic. What everybody hates is when Thief stays in stealth for longer than 3 seconds. And yes, we should be the profession that punches through defenses. Steal it, remove it, break it. Warrior Spellbreaker is an insult. That's the Thief's job. They don't even do a good job at breaking spells. A couple of years ago, most Thief players believe that the Thief is dead which includes me. I started playing Necro and Guardian. But now, with the recent changes, I'm back in my Thief. You gotta have faith. ;) Yeah, DA is competing with CS for me right now and I cannot just take both. I have to have Shadow Arts for Flickering and my playstyle favors DA more than CS due to Revealed Training and Exec. And yes, Trick is staple for Core build, But I have to drop Trick for Elite Spec. :/

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. Marauder is HoT only, not sold on Trading Post, and expensive to craft.If you purchase PoF, you get Hot for free"In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price." (source) Is this not the case? I'm under the impression that this is the case. If not, then I stand corrected. I beg to differ. The gear allows for margin of errors. For a Necro, Berserker set won't break them like glass due to their high health pool plus Life Force. For the Thief however, low HP is not advisable. You need to have at least 15k HP if you don't want to have a really bad game experience. You cannot just "avoid enemy attacks" since that means you're not dealing damage. Most of the time, you have to take damage to deal damage and with glass cannon gear, that would mean you'll break like glass before doing anything significant.

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.

Who said no profession should 1v1? I love fighting a team that ignores capping :) when a enemy team only focuses on killing and not capping we always win by landslide. Killing may give more points but time to kill ratio must not equate to holding three nodes and getting kills at same time, least not in my experience. Killing gives you uncontested nodes. :) The more you kill, the more available nodes to cap uncontested. What's being overlooked most of the time is the advantage of sending players out to sit waiting for respawn timer. How many nodes do you think you can cap while one of your opponent is waiting for respawn? The sooner you can down 1-2 opponents, to more points you will gain throughout the game. Time and time again, a game is decided on the result of a team fight.

Pretty close to a build I run (which was based on the build in the video I posted), especially before the last patch. Main difference is that I ran Shortbow instead of Sword/Dagger - partially because I've found that sword/dagger doesn't really work for me, partially because I like having a ranged option, partially because it allows the option of stealth stacking using Smoke Screen, and primarily because the build is still oriented towards capping uncontested nodes, it's just that its other domain is holding those nodes rather than looking for +1s. (Damage isn't great by thief standards - I win the occasional 1v1, and even the odd 1v2 versus bad or overconfident players, but usually by outlasting the enemy... a ganker it is not. And that's running Demolisher...) That video is old though. I can tell by just looking at the DD traits -- weakening and escapist no longer exist. :/ Also looking at that build with 11k health makes me skeptic of its survivability.

Exactly my point ;-) snip My point is, if you make your suggestion baseline, then you just made Condi Thief overpowered since Poison and Debilitate will stack on top of each other reducing healing efficiency by 66% and making your target's damage output to mash potato. As for your argument in sustainability, I would argue that Flickering Shadows has given me a lot of sustainability. Shadow Arts is no longer a stealth-only playstyle, but you can also take it for an active playstyle. If you spec Flickering together with Revealed Training, you effectively improved your staying power and damage output. This is not even counting the benefit from Deadly poison and Lotus. The problem with the PvP is not about the Thief's sustainability, but the sustainability of other professions. Regardless of how much damage the Thief deals, it gets negated by passive and low cooldown heals and damage mitigation. Adding your suggestion to the mix will not solve this problem, it will only make it worst. It will only make everyone tanky and increase stalemates. Scholars, for example, should not have damage mitigation since they have a lot of fire power. The Thief and other adventurers should be the one to take the Scholars out. The Soldiers then takes the Adventurers out in a rock-paper-scissor scenario. However, ArenaNet have developed the professions, especially the Elementalist, to be well rounded which broke the balance of the profession. Guardian is a rock that burns papers and blunt scissors...it shouldn't be this way. I personally do not want Thief to be more tanky. I think ArenaNet has found the balance with the Thief. However, what I want to see is for stealth attacks to deal unmitigated damage. Meaning, Protection buff, Armor, damage reduction trait, etc. will do nothing to mitigate the damage. Of course they need to reduce the damage of the stealth attack to balance it out, but this will ensure that Elementalist and Necro cannot just bunker up while nuking. TL;DR: Change other professions, not the Thief.

I completed mine with my Thief.

One note: If you're clearing trash mobs, spec all middle (Collateral, Payback, BQoBK), however on boss fights, spec Top, Bottom, Top (Malicious, Premed, M7). You get more Initiatives using Mercy at full stack of Malice with M7.

The best way to learn the Thief is understand how each mechanic works. I suggest to travel to Queensdale and just go around the map doing all the event that pops up. The troll event in Queensdale will be the best scenario of a boss fight. You'll learn a lot about dodging attacks there. Once you're bored with the map, then you can go in the next map, which will be more challenging. The first thing that you should pay attention to is what is killing you. If it's standing in an Area of Effect, then you will learn to evade it by dodging out of it next time or learning the telegraph for a sweeping attack.If it's condition damage like poison, then you will learn to cleanse that condition using one of your utility skills (i.e. Hide in Shadows). Later on, you will learn that you can cleanse poison while evading using Withdraw and Trickster Trait (can be found in Trickery traitline). Once you're confident about survival, you can then take more risks in dealing more damage. The more confident you become, the more damage you can deal since you'll learn when to disengage and when to engage. Then go back to Queensdale and try to solo the Troll (if possible). At this time, you should be using instincts instead of watching your skill bar for cooldowns.

No profession should 1v1 in PvP. Period. That kind of mentality is what ruins this game format. Fun fact in PvP - You get more points in killing players than capping nodes. The Thief is more productive in a group killing players than wasting time capping node they cannot defend.

AKA Deadly Ambition + Lotus Poison2 stacks of Poison when striking a foe.Poison: -33% healing effectiveness. ArenaNet beat you to it. EDIT for clarification.

Well, first thing, 90% evade uptime is what's absurd since it's not reality. Evasion windows ranges from 1/2s to 3/4s, with the exception of Instant Reflex and Daggerstorm. Even if you factor all the evasion in, it will not grant a 90% evade uptime. The math don't lie. Second, in any PvP games I've seen and participated in not once that someone was left alone in a point fighting 1v1 for more than 1 minute. I'm not sure if your team mates were laying eggs somewhere on the map that they didn't bother rotating, or maybe they're just sitting around eating popcorn watching you struggle against a squishy Thief. The fact that players are constantly rotating, your claim of fighting 1v1 for 6 minutes is implausible. Now it seems to me that this is a perception issue. Just like many complains about Thief, they are based on what they think they saw instead of what actually had happen. In this case, we have an unreliable witness. So here's the challenge; Try to replicate the DD build and see if you can get 90% evade uptime and last for 6 minutes on a point. Don't forget to jump around to confuse your opponent -- it's very important. Only then you'll find your answer and realize that none of what you've claimed here is plausible. See above on the aforementioned 90% figure. Evidently I made the mistake of believing people would see a figure like "90%" and understand that it is an exaggeration. I will not make this mistake on the thief forums again. I had other players come and fight on the point with me but I asked them to leave and do something elsewhere. The point was under our control at the time and I was more interested in the thief I was fighting than in killing him. I do not know what build he was using. I am neither creative nor skilled enough to recreate it. I am not concerned enough to attempt it. I was intrigued enough to ask the thief forums about it. Thanks. Your mistake is presuming that people will believe your exaggerations without data to back it up...and it's kinda insulting, really. If you're curious about the build, then ask about it without making things up. Just like everything else, the only real and substantive way to know for sure about a build is to play the build yourself. Or at the very least, do yourself a favor of researching the build so the next time you find a Thief with similar build, you'll know how to beat it. Everyone here conducts similar research. I personally have level 80 character for each profession. I play them so I'll know them. Back before the Elite Specs, there was a build called Endless Dodger which is more bunker than the current iteration because Feline Grace was so good. You claim that you're playing GW2 for 6 years and know nothing about Thief builds? That's another thing that makes your claim even less credible. EDIT: typos Well considering I don't record my matches and the results screen doesn't really include any helpful information, I'm not sure what kind of data you would expect me to present. This wasn't a researched post. It wasn't a comparison to an attempt I had made. I only asked with the information I had and the assumption that users on the forum would be familiar enough to point me in the right direction.The data I'm talking about is the answer to the very first question; Is 90% evasion time even possible? Researching for an answer to that question would provide you with data that the answer is objectively a "no." That would have given you a helpful insight on how you would phrase your question here. Then, when you research for the next question; Can a Thief sustain a 90% evasion time for 6 minutes? You will find data that the answer is objectively "not possible." Those two questions answered by your researched data would leave you to ask a simple question; What build gives Thief staying power on the node? No exaggerations. No false presumptions. Those things are historically dangerous to the health of the Thief profession. Well, if that is your position and attitude, then how would you know? Your experience fighting against such build already triggered your curiosity yet you still didn't want to explore the Thief profession? Even if you don't play the Thief profession, it's still beneficial for you to at least understand their mechanics. To answer your original question, no such Thief build exists. But to answer the "simple question" above; If I would build it, it will look like this - http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAYxjlNw6YXsFGJmUXbtaA-zZZ8IyUF4wB focusing on evasion, initiative gain, and 100% boon duration. Enjoy.

The poison duration and the ICD doesn't make it viable for a non-hybrid build. In PvE, you can easily extend the poison duration longer than the ICD, but in PvP, you'll ruin your build just to make this trait work. IMO, it's not worth it, just take Mug.

I'm no expert at all, but isn't an insta-cast unblockable knock down a bit too much ? It's a trade-off for half the range nerf.

P/P as hybrid is even better. You can stack poison (Deadly ambition+Potent poison) while stacking yourself with Might (Unload). However, DD is not a good Elite Spec for P/P. It's exponentially better with Deadeye because of Collateral Damage with Cloaked in Shadow (SA). You AoE siphon life every time you kill your marked target as well as damaging every one around it. IMO, it's way better than the old Ricochet.

If you're taking Sleight, I wouldn't swap Mug for anything especially when you're also taking Even the Odds. Just like Jugglemonkey.8741 said, you can get poison from somewhere else.

Well, first thing, 90% evade uptime is what's absurd since it's not reality. Evasion windows ranges from 1/2s to 3/4s, with the exception of Instant Reflex and Daggerstorm. Even if you factor all the evasion in, it will not grant a 90% evade uptime. The math don't lie. Second, in any PvP games I've seen and participated in not once that someone was left alone in a point fighting 1v1 for more than 1 minute. I'm not sure if your team mates were laying eggs somewhere on the map that they didn't bother rotating, or maybe they're just sitting around eating popcorn watching you struggle against a squishy Thief. The fact that players are constantly rotating, your claim of fighting 1v1 for 6 minutes is implausible. Now it seems to me that this is a perception issue. Just like many complains about Thief, they are based on what they think they saw instead of what actually had happen. In this case, we have an unreliable witness. So here's the challenge; Try to replicate the DD build and see if you can get 90% evade uptime and last for 6 minutes on a point. Don't forget to jump around to confuse your opponent -- it's very important. Only then you'll find your answer and realize that none of what you've claimed here is plausible. See above on the aforementioned 90% figure. Evidently I made the mistake of believing people would see a figure like "90%" and understand that it is an exaggeration. I will not make this mistake on the thief forums again. I had other players come and fight on the point with me but I asked them to leave and do something elsewhere. The point was under our control at the time and I was more interested in the thief I was fighting than in killing him. I do not know what build he was using. I am neither creative nor skilled enough to recreate it. I am not concerned enough to attempt it. I was intrigued enough to ask the thief forums about it. Thanks.Your mistake is presuming that people will believe your exaggerations without data to back it up...and it's kinda insulting, really. If you're curious about the build, then ask about it without making things up. Just like everything else, the only real and substantive way to know for sure about a build is to play the build yourself. Or at the very least, do yourself a favor of researching the build so the next time you find a Thief with similar build, you'll know how to beat it. Everyone here conducts similar research. I personally have level 80 character for each profession. I play them so I'll know them. Back before the Elite Specs, there was a build called Endless Dodger which is more bunker than the current iteration because Feline Grace was so good. You claim that you're playing GW2 for 6 years and know nothing about Thief builds? That's another thing that makes your claim even less credible. EDIT: typos

Well, first thing, 90% evade uptime is what's absurd since it's not reality. Evasion windows ranges from 1/2s to 3/4s, with the exception of Instant Reflex and Daggerstorm. Even if you factor all the evasion in, it will not grant a 90% evade uptime. The math don't lie. Second, in any PvP games I've seen and participated in not once that someone was left alone in a point fighting 1v1 for more than 1 minute. I'm not sure if your team mates were laying eggs somewhere on the map that they didn't bother rotating, or maybe they're just sitting around eating popcorn watching you struggle against a squishy Thief. The fact that players are constantly rotating, your claim of fighting 1v1 for 6 minutes is implausible. Now it seems to me that this is a perception issue. Just like many complains about Thief, they are based on what they think they saw instead of what actually had happen. In this case, we have an unreliable witness. So here's the challenge; Try to replicate the DD build and see if you can get 90% evade uptime and last for 6 minutes on a point. Don't forget to jump around to confuse your opponent -- it's very important. Only then you'll find your answer and realize that none of what you've claimed here is plausible.

Making them cry is not that hard. If you escape before they can finish you off, river will overflow with tears.

Even though I would like to see this in GW2, however, that is no longer a specialization of the Thief. That's sounds more of what a Warrior would do.

I don't like it, seems too randomized for me and that even before considering weapon swaps or kits. Kits will have no effect since it's not the weapon they have equipped. There's only 16 terran weapons and 3 aquatic weapons. That's not "too random". What's random is stealing a Mace from a Guardian using a Longbow and a Greatsword. Or an axe from a Warrior using daggers and swords. Nope, what's random is going into the fight with a class and not knowing what skill you'll get until they pull out the weapon. And then they swap in a bad moment and you still didn't get what you wanted to. You're confusing "random" from "unknown". No, I'm not. When you go into WvW fight it's as good as random including the weapon swap. I guess it's not for everyone. Yup, that's still just my opinon. :pThat's perfectly fine. ;) I'm actually curious on what you want stolen instead using Swipe.

I don't like it, seems too randomized for me and that even before considering weapon swaps or kits. Kits will have no effect since it's not the weapon they have equipped. There's only 16 terran weapons and 3 aquatic weapons. That's not "too random". What's random is stealing a Mace from a Guardian using a Longbow and a Greatsword. Or an axe from a Warrior using daggers and swords. Nope, what's random is going into the fight with a class and not knowing what skill you'll get until they pull out the weapon. And then they swap in a bad moment and you still didn't get what you wanted to. You're confusing "random" from "unknown". No, I'm not. When you go into WvW fight it's as good as random including the weapon swap.I guess it's not for everyone.

I don't like it, seems too randomized for me and that even before considering weapon swaps or kits. Kits will have no effect since it's not the weapon they have equipped. There's only 16 terran weapons and 3 aquatic weapons. That's not "too random". What's random is stealing a Mace from a Guardian using a Longbow and a Greatsword. Or an axe from a Warrior using daggers and swords. Nope, what's random is going into the fight with a class and not knowing what skill you'll get until they pull out the weapon. And then they swap in a bad moment and you still didn't get what you wanted to.You're confusing "random" from "unknown". Even though a Warrior can use many weapons, they can only equip 2 out of 13, which makes the item you're stealing unknown but predictable -- not random.Engineer and Elem can only equip one weapon at a time (no swapping) so it makes the stolen item more predictable. Even if they swap out of their main weapon set, I still don't see anything to complain about. Besides, this thread is about what you and I want. This is what I want. Post what you want. We can agree to disagree.

This is filled with hyperbole. None of this claim makes sense.

I don't like it, seems too randomized for me and that even before considering weapon swaps or kits. Kits will have no effect since it's not the weapon they have equipped. There's only 16 terran weapons and 3 aquatic weapons. That's not "too random". What's random is stealing a Mace from a Guardian using a Longbow and a Greatsword. Or an axe from a Warrior using daggers and swords.