Guild Wars 2

Hey, what’s the current meta build for a thief?

I’ll take the week to level my thief up, but I will prolly already go in AC story quite early so I’d like some advice if possible.

Thanks!

Current Meta is 25/30/0/0/15, but as you level I suggest running 25/30/0/15/0 for Endurance-on-Dodge and Vigor-on-Heal, as it’ll let you dodge around more often while only losing out on about 5% flat DPS and better Initiative Management. Once you get better at using Evasive Weapon skills (Death Blossom/Pistol Whip) you won’t be needing to actually dodge roll often and can switch over to the former.

Traits are:
Deadly Arts: III (Standard), VI (If your team lacks Vuln.), IX
Critical Strikes: III, VIII, XI
Shadow Arts: Not in the Meta
Acrobatics: III (While learning the class)
Trickery: IV

Healing Skill: Withdraw (Standard, among the highest HPS in the game), Switch to either Hide in Shadows or Signet of Malice if mobility is compromised (Fighting on bridges without rails, near falls or other mobs etc.)

Utility Skills:
Smokescreen (Blocks projectiles, uptime equal to a traited WoR. Can Heartseeker through it for stealth twice if you’re fast.)
Signet of Agility (Precision buff, but the active effect is the most useful. Curing one condition on every nearby team member and refills everyone’s Endurance. Very useful while skipping longer paths, I tend to keep this on all the time.)
Shadow Refuge (Long team stealth, for skipping stuff only. Healing is miniscule, and dark field messes up Blasts so refrain from using this while stacking with a half-competent team.)
Assassin’s Signet (Power boost, active effect can be used to burst down bosses once they reach 25% HP: CnD – Backstab – Heartseeker x3.)
Infiltrator’s Signet (One of the best Stunbreakers in-game, with it’s low CD. Use if you got a slot open and don’t trust your dodge key or the team Guardian to set you up with Aegis/Stability.)

Weapons:
Dagger/Dagger (Highest Single Target DPS)
Sword/Pistol (Cleans out Mobs easily and safely with Pistol Whip and Black Powder. Trivializes just about any mob encounter.)
Shortbow (Use it pre-battle to spam the blast in Fire fields, or Smoke Fields if you’re skipping and SR is on CD/You need both. -Don’t- use it in the actual fight, but that goes without saying.)

Thanks you very much for this detailed guide

I find shadowstep to be a much more reliable stunbreak, honestly.

Whenever someone asks for the thief meta there are usually six different answers, even six different long detailed answers. You can make most sensible builds work.

The meta is 25/30/0/0/15. But my thief is in 25/30/15/0/0, and the 2 people who sometimes thief for me during my daily tours are also in that spec. There are 2 reasons for this:

1) Regain of 2x init via Infusion of Shadow each time you use dagger 5. You’re using that very frequently in your single-target rotation of dagger 5 > backstab > 1x AA chain, repeat, then spamming heartseeker once boss is below 25% health. The 2x init regain per rotation will allow you to maintain enough init to spam heartseeker at the end; if you use the conventional 25/30/0/0/15, you will run out of init and not be able to use heartseeker.

2) Longer stealth via the 15 minor in the 3rd trait line. You’re only ever going to bring a thief to CM and Arah (when you actually need stealth), so in those dungeons, the extra stealth is very helpful. For all the other dungeons, the thief in our group relogs to a different class.

Anierna.6918:

The meta is 25/30/0/0/15. But my thief is in 25/30/15/0/0, and the 2 people who sometimes thief for me during my daily tours are also in that spec. There are 2 reasons for this:

1) Regain of 2x init via Infusion of Shadow each time you use dagger 5. You’re using that very frequently in your single-target rotation of dagger 5 > backstab > 1x AA chain, repeat, then spamming heartseeker once boss is below 25% health. The 2x init regain per rotation will allow you to maintain enough init to spam heartseeker at the end; if you use the conventional 25/30/0/0/15, you will run out of init and not be able to use heartseeker.

2) Longer stealth via the 15 minor in the 3rd trait line. You’re only ever going to bring a thief to CM and Arah (when you actually need stealth), so in those dungeons, the extra stealth is very helpful. For all the other dungeons, the thief in our group relogs to a different class.

While I can definitely see the appeal of this build for skipping, I’d say that in the case of Infusion of Shadows vs Flanking Strikes + Kleptomaniac + Preparedness, the latter still comes out on top now that they’ve increased Initiative Regeneration for thieves. Considering that you’ll be spending about 75% of any boss fight only switching between AA and CnD – Backstab, you’ll have more than enough Initiative to play around with. Once the boss hits 25% HP, you can just use the following setup:

Assassin’s Signet – CnD – Backstab – Heartseeker x2 – Smokescreen – Heartseeker – Backstab.

Normally, the boss will have gone down at this point, or is about to, seeing as you’ll have 4 other people hacking away at it alongside you. Even if you stick to spamming heartseeker, you still have an extra 3 Initiative and a quick refill on Steal + Any signet that should be able to keep you going. I myself have never found myself starving for Initiative with the Meta build.

Stooperdale.3560:

Whenever someone asks for the thief meta there are usually six different answers, even six different long detailed answers. You can make most sensible builds work.

Six metas? You have my curiosity as even for guardian, there are two builds with only slight variants of them depending on the team situation, to a total of six. Here I read already three different, including a training wheel and all have the weapons in common. So what makes them different? Where are those 3-4 other builds?

I can’t think of another build, but maybe the 30/30/0/0/10 build which is optimised for picking up ele conjures, but IMO this build isn’t as good as the normal meta builds since having an ele run out of LH charges would be much worse for dps than a thief using it. Of course it lets you get both improvisation + dagger training, which is convenient.

Maybe not six metas but there’s usually someone who posts something with shadow arts, and someone who posts something with acrobatics. Speed runners can post up pure dps builds all day long but it doesn’t help the casual players who are running PUG dungeons, don’t know tactics, and haven’t the skill to make every dodge.

25/30/x/x/x is most common DPS-specced build. Personally I prefer 15 in Acrobatics, Might on dodge works well with signet of agility; you can get about 5 stacks of might sustained with the signet reduction trait.

10/30/0/0/30 works pretty well too, more for roaming/sPvP though.

Then there’s x/30/30/x/x for the really bulky thief with venom share – which with Skelk venom usually adds up to 15 stacks of vulnerability and torment. I’d say a really good build for someone recently coming into thief.

Pretty much anything with 30 in Critical Strikes is a viable build tbh. They won’t be part of the so-called “meta”, but they more or less works well regardless. Most people wouldn’t even know you weren’t full zerky built since our DPS is usually pretty high with just 30 in Critical Strikes considering how hard we hit with Dagger/Sword attacks. And our damage modifier traits are pretty much littered everywhere.

Stooperdale.3560:

Maybe not six metas but there’s usually someone who posts something with shadow arts, and someone who posts something with acrobatics. Speed runners can post up pure dps builds all day long but it doesn’t help the casual players who are running PUG dungeons, don’t know tactics, and haven’t the skill to make every dodge.

They won’t ever get that skill if they don’t run good builds. Toughness and vitality are crutches that people learn to lean on. Not a problem with solo content, but in group content you have your crippled build: you are letting the team down. You don’t have the practice in running a proper meta build so can’t just swap and adjust. Just go with the meta build and take your lumps and get better.

I’m not asking for a build for thief: I’m asking for the meta build for dungeons. This means the most efficient build for running dungeons. So while I know nothing about thief, I’m pretty sure the venom one is not one of those.

So please stick to builds that are actually useful in dungeons and that a decent dps group would take.

25/30/0/0/15 is the meta build – in high lvl fractals and other harder content you could also run 25/30/0/15/0 (just take the trait with might/dodge to make up for the dps loss).
Always have a shortbow with you (blast finishers) and either sword/pistol (for multiple targets) or dagger/dagger (single target) as your secondary set – swap when needed.

The short answer is: 25/30/15/0/0 for CM and Arah (and TA if you use stealth method instead of a guard) when you need the extra stealth, and 25/30/0/0/15 for the other dungeons (although you shouldnt play thief in those other dungeons anyway, since you’d help your group more by relogging to another class). Both builds use d/d for single target and s/p for trash, and sb for stacking stealth.

Anierna.6918:

The short answer is: 25/30/15/0/0 for CM and Arah (and TA if you use stealth method instead of a guard) when you need the extra stealth, and 25/30/0/0/15 for the other dungeons (although you shouldnt play thief in those other dungeons anyway, since you’d help your group more by relogging to another class). Both builds use d/d for single target and s/p for trash, and sb for stacking stealth.

Tbh you don’t need points in shadow arts, not even in dungeons with longer skips (CM p1, Arah p2), it’s too much of an overkill (my personal experience). The average smoke+SR+smoke combo is more than enough for everything (untraited).

15 in Shadow Arts what.

25/30/0/0/15
Mug is garbage and doesn’t crit, go Sundering Strikes and Dagger Training or change to Improvisation if you know you’re going to be using Fiery Greatsword.
Side Strike, Critical Haste, Executioner. Signet CD reduction isn’t worth as you pop Assassins Signet at the end of combat and should never pop Signet of Malice or Signet of Agility (unless you absolutely need the burst heal/condi cleanse.)
In ideal circumstances where Fury is provided take Flanking Strikes, otherwise take Thrill of the Crime.
An alternative is 30/30/0/0/10 but there isn’t a worthwhile Grandmaster trait so it’s really it’s just 3 initiative vs 50 power, I prefer the initiative.

DPS rotation is CnD + Backstab + auto attack chain, first two hits of the next auto attack chain that hit very quickly then repeat CnD again, do this until 50% HP.
Below 50% HP you replace CnD + Backstab with two Heartseekers.
When the boss’ health is at a burstable level (e.g 10-15% or so depending on the boss) you pop Assassin’s Signet, Haste (if slotted), and Heart Seeker spam, this burst can only be beaten in DPS by the likes of Fiery Greatsword or reflects and will put any Warrior’s Eviscerate to shame. Of course you’ll only have Haste on your bar if you weren’t needed for any utility (e.g smoke screen or Shadow Refuge still on CD) as Assassin’s Signet and Signet of Agility take priority.

An added note Signet of Malice procs on every hit, not every attack, so things like sword cleave, cluster bomb, Daggerstorm (against multiple targets) and FIERY RUSH will make you kitten near invincible.

Good luck Thieferino!

Edit: I should expand, it’s better to maintain CnD rotation until 25% health if you’re actually getting backstabs which is difficult against LoS’ed targets or ones pushed to the wall as trying to manoeuvre around them can end badly. However if you can get the backstabs in (e.g Lupi, Belka, Brie) then continue until 25%