Latest patch: good news?

Here are the latest changes to the Thief:

• Skills that must be performed from stealth are now labeled as “Stealth Attack.”
• Vigorous Recovery: Improved accuracy of description.
• Cloak and Dagger skill: Now functions with the Hidden Killer trait.
• Needle Trap skill: Removed the duration skill fact as being misleading.
• Shadow Shot skill: The projectile portion is now unblockable.
• Choking Gas skill: Added an Unblockable skill fact to reflect functionality.
• Flanking Strike skill:
  
  • Now evades and delivers one strike instead of delivering two attacks.
  • Removed boon removal.
  • Reduced initiative cost from 4 to 3.
  • Now toggles for 5 seconds to a second skill, Larcenous Strike, if the attack hits an enemy.
  • Improved reliability of flanking strike.
• Larcenous Strike: Deliver a quick strike that steals up to two boons from an enemy. Costs 1 initiative.
• Larcenous Strike, Stab skills: Reduced aftercast by 0.5 seconds.
• Mug trait: Can no longer critically hit. Now heals the thief from a range of 1980 health to 2700 health.
• Leeching Venoms trait: Increased the damage scale from power by 33%. Increased range from 325-400 to 325-425.
• Signet of Agility skill: Increased passive stat bonus by 100%.
• Assassin’s Signet skill: Increased passive stat bonus by 100%.
• Revealed effect: Reverted duration to 3 seconds in PvE.
• Trick Shot skill: First arrow is no longer heat-seeking.
• Smoke Screen skill: No longer destroys unblockable missiles.
• Haste skill:
  
• Increased duration by 1 second.
• Players now regenerate endurance at 50% effectiveness (increased from 0%) when under the effects of this skill.

The biggest news are on S/D, with the Flanking Strike changes.  It looks like a good improvement on a S/D build.  Have to test it.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Trying to get back to GW2 is not easy.  Thief class was nerfed in too many aspect.  And it's getting quite boring to play it, as there are just 2 or 3 ways to do it.

So I decided to try something different...  an Elementalist.

Here she is:

Fawe Aether

Elementalist playstyle is very different, ranged caster, with a lot of aoe.  You have only one weapons combination, but each of them will change skills according to your attunement (Fire, Air, Water, Earth).

I am having a lot of fun with it.  Who knows...

Sword/Dagger - My build explained

Sword/Dagger (S/D) is not a very popular weapons-combination.  Dagger/Dagger (D/D) is still one of the most used (Backstab or Condition damage), Sword/Pistol is used a lot too. Some like to play P/D or D/P or even P/P.
Sword/Dagger is something different, it's a different way to play a Thief in GW2.  It's a mix between D/D and S/P, but nothig like any of the two.  You will not deal huge burst damage like in D/D (at the cost of being extremely quick and precise with your fingers!) and you will not have a nice constant damage output with a little control on your target like with S/P (at the cost of having to stand in place while swinging your sword for a couple of seconds!).
S/D is about mobility. Stealth may be useful, but not in my build.  I focus on Initiative regen and Dodging.
This is my 0/30/0/25/15 (S/D with P/P as ranged) .  Let's see what is in there and why.

TRAITS

Deadly Arts (0)
Would use it for a D/D, or maybe for a nice opening with S/P.  Mug gives Steal a solid reason to be used.  But in my build Steal is not needed for the opening, but during the fight if Initiative is getting low.  So, no points in here.

Critical Strikes (30)
I guess this is a must for every Thief.  Precision is extremely important for us.  I use Side Strike for a higher crit chance when hitting from the side or behind, Practiced Tolerance for a nice health bonus (good in PvP),  Executioner is a must unless you use D/D (in this case use Hidden Killer).  There is not much to say, since you play Thief, you should already know everything about these traits.

Shadow Arts (0)
This is the Stealth line.  As I said, many S/D build would use these traits, but I like to play in a different way, so no Stealth trait for me.

Acrobatics (25)
First of all, you should have at least 25 points in either Shadow Arts for Toughness or in Acrobatics for Vitality.  Some theorycrafters say that Toughness works better for Thieves, but since I need the traits in this line, I decided to go 25 points here.  Power of Inertia and Quick Recovery are my choices.  You will evade (V) a lot if you play with this build, and evading will give you some good bonuses. So why not to use them!  If you dodge you will get: a 10% damage bonus till your endurance bar is not full;  one stack of might for 15 seconds; 2 seconds of swiftness.  Also, dodging will use less endurance (as part of its cost it will be returned as you dodge), so you will be able to dodge more.

Trickery (15)
This is probably the unusual part, since most player would rather use these 15 points in Shadow Arts.  But as I said, I focus on Initiative and dodging, not on stealth.  And here I can get 3 more Initiative points (13 instead of the standard 10), stealing that will return me 3 Initiative if needed, and last Thrill of the Crime that will give Fury and Might for 10 seconds.  Fury  gives a straight 20% bonus to critical chance (20%!!!).

SKILLS

I use Hide in Shdows as healing skill.  I like the higer heal from it and the short regen afterwards.  I tested also Signet of Malice, which is not bad, but I'd rather have a strong emergency button.
Signet of Shadows and Signet of Agility for the bonus they give, and Blinding Powder as escape button (but also Roll for Initiative is very good).  Elite skill is Thives Guild.

Changes to my look

Thamira v.2013

Colors are now based on Red (various), Abyss (Black) and Celestial (White).

Changed glowes with the Human cultural T3 ones, and shoulders are from Order of Whispers.

I just like the way every piece has some kind of weapons on it.  I am still not sure 100% about the hood, but I will keep it for the moment.

This is no April's Fool

After a few months away from GW2 I decided to come back and give it a look.

Well, I must admit that not much has changed, but... I am looking at the game in a different way.  I left a lot of things undone, probably because I rushed to 80 and to the top equip, maybe because once I reached 80 I tried to focus only on PvP (and that is still broken somehow).

So I decided to take the game more slowly, doing what I still have left.  And that's a LOT!

What will be mine build?  S/D with a nice 0/30/0/25/15 .  I am not using Shadow Art line as I think that stealth has beed nerfed too much since the start (last nerf few days ago with a longer Revealed debuff).  Initiative is more interesting as it allows me to do more damage and I will dodge a lot instead of stealth.

Well, hope you are still around.  If you are, please, just leave a quick comment to let me know.  Thanks!

New year is here!

2013 has arrived.  More than 4 months have past since launch, and after a short holiday I am back at home. But...

I don't feel the need to log in.  I stare at the screen, with my mouse on the GW2 icon and ask myself: "Ok, once logged what do I want to do?".  And I can't find anything that really gives me a reason to click.  Maybe it's just a temporary lack of interest.  Maybe I should just wait for the new content (or the updates) that is coming in the next few weeks.  But right now I can't find a single good reason to log.  WvWvW is terrible on my server (we are one of the 3 worst servers in EU).  Structured PvP is not an option for me as my guildmates are not interested.  Exploration is done.  Personal story could be a good reason to log, but I am not too much interested in it.  Dungeons would be possible only in pugs for me right now, since I have terrible playing times.  

Also, this blog was a partial success: I have more than 60 views every day from all over the world, but almost no comments, no interactions.  I think that most of those 60 views are just from automatic bot or spiders from search engine or stuff like that.

So, for the moment I will probably put GW2 on hold, waiting to see how the game evolves.

It has been a pleasure to write this blog and to share my experience, my ideas and my findings with all of you.  Thanks a lot to those that posted a comment or a question.

See you all soon, hopefully.

Tenofas (aka Thamira)

Season Greetings

Last night I reached 100% World Completion.  And I did it without the "easy trick", I stayed all the time in my server, waiting and fighting in WvWvW to reach all the required PoI and Vistas.

This year is ending, and the game has been out for 4 months so far.  I did not play much in the last 4-5 weeks due to my job, but I am still going on. 

I would like to thank all those who come to my blog (with an average of 60 views every day in the last 2 months, with almost 10.000 pageviews since I started it). 

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  Or even better, Happy Wintersday!