Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone

So… a long time ago at launch I made a Sylvari Thief and got it to 80. I was playing in sPvP with him and I was quickly drawn to the side of Warrior, as this was the time that the whole ‘Bulls Charge -> Haste -> 100 Blades’ thing was popular…

But recently I’ve been looking for a class to play, and I realised that it’s what I’ve had all along – Thief. But before I start playing him, I wanted to ask a few questions.

1. Are Thieves good in WvW Duo Roaming? (Completely ignore Zerging – I hate it lol).

2. What’s the current state of Thieves like?

3. Do Thieves have a high skill cap, and when mastered are they pretty good? (I really like mastering a class and then playing it a lot and pwning with it lol.)

4. Could anyone link me to a few current popular Thief builds?

5. What cool-looking Medium armor sets are there?

6. Does anyone know any good Thief guides which cover the basics about how to go about duels etc.

That’s all that I can think of.

Thanks loads for all of the replies

The Baws.

1. Yes. Thieves shine in smaller settings, and duoing is no exception. Zerging is a little bit more difficult due to all the aoe, but it’s doable as well if you play smart.

2. We’ve been nerfed several times since launch, but a good thief can still fight a zerg alone (Search for youtube videos by Yishis) or spike someone down before they can react with a right build, so I’d say they are in a pretty good state. Still the kings of small scale WvW

3. A bad thief dies a horrible death, respawns and dies again. A good one won’t, he’s too busy fighting a 2v1 that started as a 5v1. Does that answer your question?

Thief survivability is all active survivability – the only way to survive a big hit is to avoid it. That means in good hands a glass cannon thief can be tougher to kill than a bunker guardian while doing 10k crits, but one mistake can get you killed.

4. x/30/30/x/x, berserker gear with some valkyrie or knight’s mixed in(I’m not an expert, so ask someone else. My gear is mostly zerker and far from optimal). Important traits are +2 initiative on stealth and regenerate health in stealth.

Weapons wise the most popular choice is dagger/pistol: blinding powder + heart seeker to stealth (at least 3xHS for permanent stealth), other than that just use blind, stealth and interrupts as needed to negate damage while doing as much as possible yourself. It’s very effective, though I’ve never liked it.

Dagger/dagger offers the best burst damage, but is slightly less defensive. You can get nearly permanent stealth with well timed cloak and daggers, but it does require melee range.

As a side note, in case you want some fun variety, it’s also possible to build a D/D spike build: something along the lines of 30/30/0/0/10 3 signet build with might on signets can still instagib people despite all the nerfs. Over all the loss of survivability isn’t worth it, but it’s a hilarious build.

Sword/Dagger is my personal favorite. With 30 in acrobatics you can build a Flanking strike spam build, but that aside S/D is one of the most versatile sets we have. Skill 1 does nice damage and cleaves, skill two is a teleport, an immobilize, a handy escape and a condition removal, skill 3 is evade, boon removal and nice damage, 4 is a cripple though often not worth the cost and Cloak and Dagger gives you easy access to stealth and the stealth skill is a daze. What else can you ask for?

I often run S/D with D/D in a x/30/30/x/x build; D/D gives me the burst, S/D gives me a shadowstep in case I’m too far for Cloak and Dagger when I must stealth as well as slightly more defensive 1v1 weapon and cleave in case someone I downed is getting revived.

When I need ranged weapon or additional shadowsteps (in that all out D/D burst build I mentioned, for instance) I bring short bow. Not much to say here, it’s a solid choice. 1 and 2 are nice aoe damage, 4+2 equals weakness, 3 is evade and 5 is a spammable shadowstep. I wouldn’t use SB as a primary weapon, but as a secondary weapon it’s great.

Finally, there are some weaponsets I haven’t mentioned yet due to lack of experience or viability.

Pistol/dagger (and to some extend dagger/dagger) is the king of condition builds. Pistol stealth skill does lots of bleeding, and dagger offhand gives plenty of stealth. However, I don’t have much experience with P/D, so you’ll have to ask someone else if you want to know more.

Pistol/Pistol can be used for spamming Unload. I wouldn’t advice that though, since you lack stealth and mobility and the damage isn’t really THAT great.

Sword/Pistol was nerfed pretty heavily, but I’ve seen some people use it to do a stunlock burst by spamming 3. That’s about all I know about that particular weapon set though..

Finally, there’s a special breed of builds I haven’t heard much from for a while called Venom Share builds. Thieves have skills called Venoms, and a trait that allows you to share the effects with allies. You need 30 in shadow arts for that, and when I last heard of these people used P/D or S/P for weapons.

I’m not sure how much these builds are used these days, since I haven’t kept an eye on P/D builds, but it’s an interesting possibility if you want to play support. You’ll need to ask someone else though…

I hope I didn’t miss anything important there..

5. Go to heart of the mist and look a the PvP Locker. You can preview more or less every armor skin in the game there (Are there any not in the locker? I know legendary weapons aren’t, so maybe something else is missing too, but at any rate, nearly everything is there.) Take your time looking at them and make sure to check the cultural armors further down as well!

6. I’ll just leave this thread here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Guide-to-Thief-Guides/first

EDIT: Bolded stuff to make things easier to find

(Is there supposed to be a message or something when your post gets too long? Mine just refuses to update when I try adding more stuff.. Blame the forums if I say the same thing twice! Copy-Paste time..)

Feel free to message me here or ingame if you have any guestions, though I’ll try to keep an eye on this thread as well. Also, in case one helper isn’t enough, TheMightyAltroll has an entire guild dedicated to helping new thieves here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/AotT-Art-of-the-Thief-Thieves-School/

EDIT: I forgot to mention slot skills:
For heal I’d avoid the signet, otherwise take what works best with the build.

For utilities it’s a matter of personal preference and highly build dependent (venom builds use obviously use venoms for instance), but generally speaking for a typical stealth build you want Shadow Step, and some of these: Blinding Powder, Shadow Refuge, Assasin’s Signet, Infiltrator’s Signet, Signet of Shadows (usually no more than one signet though, and often not even that), or Haste. I also hear some people take traps, but I’ve never used them so ask someone else.

In case just listing skills is too confusing, my personal preference is Shadow Step, Blinding Powder and Shadow Refuge, though some might find that too defensive and bring Assassin’s Signet or something for extra damage.

More offensive builds (= spike builds that aren’t quite as spiky as my beloved 3 signet instagib build.) often bring Haste and possibly some venoms (Most notably Skale Venom for vulnerability), though I’ve never been a huge fan of haste. It only really helps after the main burst anyway..

Speaking of these non signet burst builds really makes me want to do some build crafting…

As for the elite, anything works depending on the situation. Dagger storm is great defensive tool or an additional aoe option, thieves guild is always good and Basilisk Venom is great for bursting (Which you can also do with the x/30/30/x/x stealth build, it just won’t be an instant kill) and it combines well with things like Runes of Lyssa.

EDIT2: Having read all that, I didn’t mention how D/D burst works, which you should probably know. Even a non burst build can use it to deal a nice mini burst, and it might not be immediately obvious like everything else.

First put basilisk venom on if you have it. It prevents the target from moving making landing the backstab easier and stuns generally speaking combine well with spikes. Depending on the build pop any other preparations you have as well and do the spike:

Cloak and Dagger + Steal during C&D cast (instant teleport + damage if traited – the closer to the end of the cast, the better) + backstab. Auto attack or heart seeker to finish.

Ideally you’ll land C&D and steal nearly simultaneously while stunning and Backstab comes 1/4 of a second later, dealing total of 10-25k or so damage depending on build and luck.

In case you have signets, pop Assassin’s signet before spike and everything else if traited for might on signets. They’re instant cast, and signet of shadows can be used to break aegis before spiking.

1. Yes. Actually, I feel like they work better in pairs than alone(where ranger is just better for the PvE/capping side of things) because alone they have to pull out way too often.

2. What should it be? Good in small scale against soft targets, bad against big targets and in large scale, as expected, I’d say

3. Skill cap wise, I’d say, the ranger is a tad big higher due to the nature of pet mechanics, but thief play goes beyond executing skill rotations, which most classes called “hard” come down to in the end. On the other hand, the lower end of thief play is way harder than the lower end of ranger play, so I’d say, thief requires more skill overall, but I still have more respect for people who mastered their ranger than people who mastered their thief.

4. popular builds are
10/30/30/0/0 D/D X with Bers/Soldiers (Conservative backstab build),
20/0/30/20/0 P/D D/D full carrion (wild bill build),
0/30/20/20/0 D/P X with Bers/Soldiers (permastealth build),
10/30/0/0/30 D/D X with full Valkyrie (pure backstab (+ steal) build)

Dunno about sword builds, the last time I rolled sword in WvW was when I ran around with a lev 17 thief and found myself to be more useful by pistol whipping/immobilizing low hp people in zerg warfare.
Of these builds, I played wild bill and pure backstab so far. Both are rather amusing against slower builds but die pretty hard to stunlock burst duel builds.

5. gw2armor.com

6. others mentioned already.

About that permastealth build, why only 20 in Shadow Arts? Regen on stealth and perma stealth combine a little too well for me to justify taking acrobatics instead.

Well, the core is something like 0/30/20/10/0 or actually 0/0/20/10/0. Put the rest where you like.
30/20/20 is a bit more flexible and less suspectible to dazes/interrupts, as you got more initiative regeneration.
If you eat an interrupt while using the first heart seeker, you burnt 9 out of your 12 max initiative without gaining any stealth. Not having any additional regeneration might be your death right there. Also, you got more initiative to cast the awesome headshot as an interrupt of your own.

Woah best reply of the year right there Lol.

After looking around and asking a bunch of people, I’m now trying to decide between Mesmer and Thief for the things I said above… Which one would you say is better or is it just personal preference?

naphack.9346:

interrupt

Good point, I’m so used to running /d that I forgot it’s D/P we’re talking about.

CC is bad as a D/D thief, but you’ll always have a second C&D + all the utilities in case your first stealth attempt fails so getting interrupted is nowhere near as devastating as it is for a D/P thief. On top of that being forced to melee range to stealth and not having that constant blind available means you’ll usually end up taking slightly more damage than D/P, so the extra regen comes in handy.

I can see why you’d want those acrobatics traits now..

The Baws.5164:

Which one would you say is better or is it just personal preference?

Keep in mind that I’m not a mesmer player, but here goes:

First of all, before you start leveling anything for WvW, try both in sPvP. Thieves are weaker there (smaller amount of stat points available, can’t contest points while in stealth), but you’ll get a general feel on how both professions play. Just keep in mind your damage is a lot lower than it would be in WvW.

When it comes to WvW, mesmers are great in larger groups (bigger than two, anyway) due to their portals: hide one in a keep and it can portal an entire army inside. They are also great in small scale fights, since they are pretty hard to catch with all their clones, stealth, short range teleports, clones, invulnerabilities and, of course, their clones. They also do nice damage with their fast recharging mind wrack bursts and phantasms.

That being said, things change dramatically when you increase the enemy numbers. Unlike thieves, mesmers have only limited access to stealth, and their lack of mobility makes escape more difficult. Against a good thief the number of enemies doesn’t really matter, more enemies simply means more targets for cloak and dagger. Because of this, a good stealth build works in every situation from 1v1 to fighting a zerg, which simply isn’t possible as a mesmer.

I wish I could give you a more conclusive answer, but I simply don’t know mesmers well enough to do so. What I do know is that my thief has never let me down in any situation I’ve put it in, and I certainly haven’t been too careful. I’ve done everything from duels to 1v20s to single handedly wiping out every single arrowcart on the walls during a Stonemist siege (and I mean during it – our zerg was having trouble getting past them, so I sneaked in and started breaking them and their users, and I have to footage to prove it), and most of that wouldn’t have been possible with anything else. You never die as a thief unless you make a mistake.

Of course, there are things a mesmer can do that thief can’t, but IMO thieves have a way bigger list.

Then again, that’s just my opinion and I don’t really have anything objective to back it up with. Watch some videos, try both and see which you like the most. My advice is to go with a thief, but someone might disagree

… I wasn’t going to write a wall of text, I swear
Too much forums for me today, I suppose…

Would you say the build in that is good? (Check Description)

And I like walls of text lol Lots for me to refer to…

Well, if I’m completely honest, the gameplay or the editing definitely isn’t. Now let’s take a look at that build…

Seems decent. Not what I’d run, but that’s just a matter of personal preference. I prefer hidden killer over executioner when running dagger mainhand for instance, but both work.

Generally speaking when good thief videos are needed, someone links these: http://www.youtube.com/user/bemeric1/videos
Look for the outnumbered thief videos, and enjoy!