Vecuu.2018

My guild uhh, might be a large part of the reason why you're not allowed to build siege in the WvW Jumping Puzzle.

:)

> @"Yasai.3549" said:

> > @"Vecuu.2018" said:

> > Don't take my Death Blossom!

> > How else am I supposed to play evasion condi thief in WvW?

>

> If yu wanna be food, there are easier ways to be food than D/D Condi Thief.

>

It's a niche build that's a lot of fun to play.

Soloing t3 camps.

Satisfying duelist that most roamers can't fight very effectively.

Tanky enough to zerg fight and has enough AoE cripple to disrupt and cut off tails while fishing for stealth-stomps.

Don't take my Death Blossom!

How else am I supposed to play evasion condi thief in WvW?

Your keybindings hurt my brain.

Didn't it... used to be WvW back in the day too?

You just farmed 500 badges and bought it. You got badges from killing players. In a way, the tracks make it easier cause you don't actually have to kill any players.

It feels strange to comment on this with how sporadic my playtime has been over the years, but similar thoughts has been going my mind recently.

I think it's important to remember that most players are average. By that, I mean that we are not in a world of "hardcore grinders" and "useless n00bs". What this means is that your _average_, no reqs PUG is going to do... okay. That's fine for most content.

The discussion my buddies and I have on this is what we call **Cheese vs Skill**. For instance, if you can stack on the boss's butt with a bunch of Zerker DPS and 1-2 Healers and ignore all boss mechanics, that's "cheese", and if you can run around like a chicken with its head cut off while doing damage, taking zero damage, and reviving downed players all at once, that's "skill."

Cheese is way easier than skill. No two ways about it. If you can ignore boss mechanics, the game gets reduced to a Patchwerk fight (err... Golem fight? I'm old, shhh). Less mechanics to interact with and higher overall DPS, means you kill the boss faster, which means less mechanics to avoid or ignore, so the fight goes quickly and smoothly.

Until it doesn't.

One dps goes down. So another goes for the rally and drops. So the Healer goes for the revive and does less healing so another DPS dies but there's still red circles on the ground and now you can't CC the boss cause you've got three deeps taking dirt naps and the big AoE drops the healer and then the run.

The meta is what it is because it works, but it also reinforces itself. If people rely on 1-2 healers and high dps, people will only look for 1-2 healers and high dps. Because people are only used to running with 1-2 healers and high dps, people hyper focus on rotations and forget how to avoid mechanics.

As a for instance: take LT Kohler from Ascalon Catacombs. I know I'm going way back, but bear with me. How many of you remember how to avoid his scorpion wire pull into spin attack? Do you even care? Does it drop you? I challenge you to take away your ascended gear, and build a 5man team of level 35s and go run AC Explorable. Let me know how it goes. Back in the day, PUGs for AC used to _skip LT Kohler because he was considered too hard_.

I'm mostly rambling, but I'll wrap it up with:

-Dead DPS do zero damage

-Being a "DPS" doing <3k is just as bad, even if you don't ever drop

-git gud

-Be excellent to each other

:)

There are some builds for WvW/PvP that run double daggers as condi-evasion-tanks.

They can be pretty troll, but I enjoy it. :)

So, I play a lot of the style talked about in this thread. Just some quick light shedding and advice for fighting these types of thieves.

First of all, know that the thief is toying with you. It's the thief's major function: to harass and hit and run. You hate it because it lasts 20 minutes, but the thief loves it because, against the right group of players, they can do it to you for _hours._ I only need one take down every 10 minutes or so to keep my WvW tracks capped out. To that end, I'm not actually trying to kill _most of you._ I just need to find that one guy who's level 70 in Greens and farm him while ya'll try your best to stop me. It's hilarious and enjoyable.

A quick bit about how the stealth works. There are a couple of different builds, but most rely on the same handful of tricks:

-Cloak and Dagger, which is done by offhand dagger skill #5. It isn't very initiative efficient and gets blocked by Aegis and prevents the stealth, so Guardians make this tough with Aegis sharing. You can also dodge roll the animation and we whiff.

-Heal skill. IIRC, most players use Hide in Shadows which has a lengthy cast animation you can interrupt. Personally I use a traited Withdraw, which is harder to interract with.

-Smoke field from either offhand pistol #5 or a utility skill and then using Heartseeker through it. Either the thief is dropping a utility skill to take a long cooldown blind field or projectile blocker, which means less burst, or they're using even more Initative on a P/D combo for #5->#2.

-Shadow Refuge. Not all thieves take this because more and more people are taking powerful AoEs for Zerg fighting. Your mileage may vary, but, general wisdom, is to knock/pull them out of it and they get insta-revealed.

-F1 stealing with Shadow Arts. Honestly, this is the king of 1vXing. It's a full on reposition tool with stealth built in that I will often target another Thief to get another tool to vanish again. Paired with Shadowstep's two blinks and CC breakers, this makes us a real pain. I will be in, then out, then in, then in again, then out then in then out.

The first rule of fighting these types of thieves is to realize what build you're up against. Generally, you run into either a D/P power build, or a P/D condition build. There are D/D builds that either go full-power-oneshot, usually given away by Basilisk Venom on their bar, or D/D condi-evasion builds which are troll and can be given away by either Sigil of Malice, or small caltrop AoEs popping up when they dodge. Knowing which type of thief you're fighting is half the battle! (bonus: Deadeyes don't _generally_ want to 1vX, they want to 1v1 and make you explode, same with any variant of P/P whether Daredevil or Classic who want to be backline DPS as you fight their friends).

Another bonus trick: Especially don't fight us just East of Dredge near SMC or near some of the Boderland Shrines. We can use Shortbow #5 to do terrain jumps up cliffs and the likes in certain places which makes us extra slippery.

A well played LB Druid, or various styles of Guardians/Eles can make our life pretty tough. Aegis does a good of stopping both backstab builds as well as condi Cloak and Dagger restealths. I cannot stress how annoying Aegis can be. It's a long cooldown for one player, but if ya'll are a 5man party or squaded up, condi builds can't easily target swap to CnD the nearest guy since every person has an Aegis I have to first pop before we can restealth. Generally, the tankier you are and the more condi cleanse you bring, the less likely a thief will even bother with you. You become the bait to spawn Orange Swords and bring those eager new players for us to farm.

Also, bring CC and try to catch us at the end of a dodgeroll.

TL;DR:

If you're fighting a thief for more than 5 minutes, it's because the thief likes it. Go find something better to do.

Personally, I find Dragonhunter boring.

That being said, I'm also not a huge fan of Guardian's Greatsword, so take it how you will.

Reporting back. Thanks to those who initially gave some basic advice early on as well as those who have kept this conversation going.

I just finished my fully ascended Harrier's set last Wednesday and have been doing T4s every day on my Guardian.

In short, if you are not a very experienced player, or tend to shy away from classes with small health pools and limited mobility, I would recommend going Minstrel's for Pugging T4 Fractals.

The long version: In full Harrier's gear with Monk Runes, I have under 12k health. You can technically give yourself Vigor with your F2 Tome (generally I've found F2 #3/4 to be a waste of GCD), but, especially when you consider most builds don't run a Stunbreak or a repositioning tool, a misstep can mean not only your death but possibly an entire party wipe, especially in 99/100. I know I can still improve, but I also tend to find myself hyper focusing on player's health, positioning, and current boon timers. This leads to a fair bit of situations, especially in times of high damage being taken, when I might not even _target_ an enemy, let alone hit them, so the Power Primary of Harrier's can go to waste.

Now, I don't regret building my Harrier's set and have no intention of building Minstrels. I can just wear some cheap Exotic Soldier's Gear if I want more Tankiness in WvW. One of the draws to Harrier was based on the prospect of Raiding, but I'm unsure if I'm going to seriously pursue raiding.

Some notes about the builds I've been reading up on and adjusting:

https://snowcrows.com/raids/builds/guardian/firebrand/heal/

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Firebrand_-_Support_Healer

Honor and Firebrand traits are obviously mandatory, and, at the moment, I really prefer Virtues as my third. I think Radiance leans too hard on your team being good, and Valor only really brings Monks Focus, which might be worthwhile if made room for a Meditation skill (or two).

Utility-wise, Mantra of Potence and Mantra of Lore are essentially mandatory. There are certain times you could technically drop Lore on certain fights/adds/instability combinations, but, even then, regen is nice. Personally, I have been underwhelmed by Bow of Truth, and felt like the additional healing pulses are generally wasted, which might change if I start running CMs/Raids. In it's place, I really have grown fond of Merciful Intervention. It's basically a two-way "get out of jail free" card. It can CC Break and heal yourself if you whoopsie, OR, perhaps more importantly, the downed player revive aspect is incredibly useful when running with.... unreliable PUGs.

TL;DL: Built Harrier's, enjoying T4s. If you run PUG T4s and nothing else, Minstrel's might make your life easier.

While the stats in Ascended gear are ever-so-slightly higher, the main reason for them are the Infusion slots.

I say rock Exotic for WvW.

I can see how the lack of gear progression is weird, but allow me to give you a different experience.

I started playing with the 3-day head start at launch. Played hardcore for about a year and a half. I had 6 characters level 80 decked out in exotics when Fractals of the Mist was added a year after release. The grind and in-game financial drain that ascended gear meant was a large part of what made me stop playing initially. (there have been significant improvements to FotM progression since then, and I generally enjoy doing my daily T4s)

One of the nicest things about the game, is you can just come back and enjoy it and not feel like you have to play catch-up at each expansion or Living World release. I can literally just come back and play and that's awesome!

Returning old school player here. Barely touched PoF on launch and recently renewed my enjoyment of Guardian with the Firebrand spec.

I've been enjoying doing my daily T4s on my Daredevil, but I'm thinking about setting up my Firebrand as a backup. I've tried to do some research on like metabattle and some of the more popular raiding guild sites, but, the thing is, there's a lot of varieties in FB builds as far as which gear/role to fill, and I'm not really sure I'm understanding the nuances, and I don't have the in-game resources to test all variants of armor.

I want to be in a more healing/buffing role. What's the nuance between a Quickbrand and a Healbrand? How easily can a Healbrand provide 100% quickness? Where is the line drawn between running Minstrel's, Harrier's, and Cleric's gear?