Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone—budding Thief here, first time posting.

I’d been death blossoming through pretty much the whole game because it really is the way to go when it comes to stomping mobs—I could take on ridiculous odds if I used my dodges right. I also just thought the synergies clicked together nicely.

When I hit level 60 I decided I wanted to try something else, so I dumped everything into Deadly Arts and Critical Strikes, with the theory that those are the two death-dealing skills, so I may as well go with them and see what happens.

I don’t really know what weapons this is for, because to be honest I just built this way on principle; Let’s see what happens when I go all-in with what look like the most deepzy skills!

I don’t really know what this build is for. It’s impractical to stomp trash mobs and whatever with Black Powder > Heartseeker > Backstab or Cloak&Dagger > Backstab. And Pistol/dagger is condition damage. My feeling just from experimentation is that cluster bomb spam does lousy damage, and that it’s meant for the big fat AoE and the bleed.

So I’ve been doing unload spam and Flanking Strikes.

Here is what I came up with:

Sundering Strikes or Mug. Sundering Strikes seems like the choice for synergy, but Mug actually deals DAMAGE that isn’t contingent upon other kitten happening.

Venomous Strength. I have two poisons on my bar, so turning them both on for 4 stacks seems nice. I don’t actually know how Might works—does Combined Training give more damage? Either way, Venomous Strength helps me out with Daggerstorm as well as spamming 3.

Residual Venom. My feeling is that this synergizes amusingly with Skale Venom.

Furious Retaliation. Fury rocks.

Combo Crit Chance. For 3-spamming.

Executioner. Because “below 50%” seems like a pretty easily met requirement for that kind of big reward.

Thrill of the Crime. Because swiftness rocks, and fury rocks.

As far as I can tell, this is close to the best possible setup for just dealing straight-up stabby damage. Flanking Strike seems like the best stabby damage without using cheesy PvPish tricks for Backstab. Unload spam is the same because unload spam is just meant for single target damage and combo field abuse.

Of course, the build is sort of lousy at unload spam because it doesn’t have very much initiative.

I don’t really see people insisting that endgame thieves MUST use one of three builds like is the case in other MMOs, and that is refreshing. If anything, Mesmer is that way, and I’m sad because I loved Mesmers in Guild Wars and I really miss the way I could just use my Mesmerness to pretend to be any other kind of caster, and the way I could use Echo to spam confusion-type effects around, and whatnot.

Looking forward to hearing thoughts!

My utility skills tend to be:
Signet of Agility because refilling the dodge meter is amazing.
Skale Venom because as far as I can tell having this on you sucks what with 50% reduced dodge regen and I don’t actually know what “fumble” is.
Ice Drake Venom, see above.

After playing around with Shadow Arts, I have now learned the foolishness of this build.

I would still, however, like to experiment with a Thief who is plain and simple built to murderize.

gonna make a few suggestions first.

Use a builder. This one http://en.gw2codex.com/build/ or this one http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc or this one http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ becuase reading through that mess helps no one.

We don’t know your weapon set. You mention PP skills and S/D skills but Ill tell you now synergy there is going to be kitten if you plan on running both those builds together.

We don’t know the point of the build. Is this end game or just killing trash mobs because from a practical stand point I don’t really see it. your DB build was in a great direction for that task.

Honestly focus down what you want to build to do share it and the community here will surprisingly help you. Edit your OP link the build to builder because we can assuredly know what you want it to do and help you get there if you give up a clear vision of what you see.

There are not 3 builds you can run endgame with thief (a good thing like you said) there are actually a bunch but they tend to follow a theme. Your DPs minded so likely anything you think of on that front has bee thought of before. the options aren’t limited its just if you consider how many people run glass there isn’t much room for innovation there.

This story will start with you showing a build for dps somebody critiquing it to make stronger and you’ll likely end up in mold because it has been done to death.

It’s extremely common to go 25 Deadly Arts and 30 Critical strikes. Getting the Master Minor in other trees beats out any third option you could get in the Deadly Arts tree. The Grandmaster options – Panic Strikes has too stupidly long of a cooldown, and Residual Venom just doesn’t really shine unless you all out venom and take the Shadows Art tree with your Deadly Arts tree for Venomous Aura.

As TheGuy said, there are a bunch of playstyles, and builds to fit that playstyle. Builds are also different for PvE and PvP. A stealth in, burst target down, stealth out doesn’t really work in PvE, especially since the changes.

My opinions of weapons sets in PvE:
D/D – Backstab is great single target damage, but requires a party with good aggro control. 3 lays in a ton of bleeds and is an evade, but relying on a single attack from a weapon set I find weak. Great in PvP, but weak in PvE

D/P – A blinding gap closer and onto an already nice leap can make this a very mobile build. Added with the interrupt and blinds of an offhand pistol, this can be a build that is untouchable against a single target, but it has ZERO multi-target options unless you trait ricochet, which is just LOL if you go for that on this weapon set.

P/D – An extremely common weapon set. Trait CnD for blinds and you can basically blind/bleed blast your target for a pretty low-effort build. Shadow Strike is a nice get out of danger move if you have no dodges left and it’s a champion where your blind won’t save you. Sadly this also lacks multi-target, but Ricochet becomes useful here.

P/P – The obvious draw of this build is unload. So spammable, stacks combo fields, and fun to use. Ricochet can turn this to a 2 target set, but by the time you’ve gone that deep into the trickery tree, you should question if P/D may be better. The big advantage of this set is you never have to go melee range. You can kite anything in your sleep when you couple this with your copious dodges (if traited)

S/D or S/P – Sword I find to be a bit better in PvE, especially against trash. Sword actually has cleave so it can be both effective single target and multi target. 2 is awesome. Off hand dagger means you already have a built in blind (1) with your CnD spam. Off hand pistol means you have Pistol Whip which is a stun followed by rapid sword attack. This move alone is what allowed for some ‘tank anything’ builds back when crit food was broken… but still very useful.

Shortbow – Most builds use this as their off weapon. Some use it as their main. The thief’s only serious AoE weapon, and that reason alone makes it pretty indispensable. The thing is, it’s pretty epic to boot. No build should ever have a skill that never gets touched on this weapon. Skill 1 as a quick multi target auto attack is self evident. Skill 2 is actually indeed amazing damage – hitting up to 15 targets is seriously awesome. Skill 3 cripples, evades, and is mobility. Skill 4 is a giant poison field – we’re talking 20 seconds of poison for anything you can keep in the field + your projectile triggers = perma poison is guaranteed (and poison is powerful with or without condition damage). Skill 5 is a spammable targeted teleport – need I say more?

So pick your weapons, and how you think you want to build for them, and we can go from there.