That other Psy guy
Any Other Possible Build?
You could try something weird with venom sharing or something, but dps is usually the way to go for a thief.
There is the unicorn or P/D Condition build, but besides dmg as mainrole the thief lacks in most departments.
When you try to go for a more tanky stealth/mobility thief, your dmg will be pretty low/medicore while you wont have much buffs/control abilities and if you want to use control abilities mainly, you wont do any damage at all as the thief’s utility is totally split from damage.
You can try to go for a x/P built, trying to blind your enemies very often, but you wont do any damage and every necro will do a better job at blinding.
You can try to daze and interrupt one person all the time with headshot or sword’s stealth attack, but your damage will be again pretty low.
This is the curse of the initsystem. While it is a good system to do burst and use your damage abilities back and forth, Anet couldn’t put decent control or buff abilities into the thief’s weaponskills.
Venomshare could be a way to go, but the venoms itself are also pretty lackluster and you need to put tons of traits into it which will end in pretty bad survivability.
Even the “tanky” thief isnt that useful in sPvP, as you will probatly need to stealth now and then which will make you lose the point which you try to defend and the signet of malice-heal unicorn build doesnt perform that well to be set on par with a bunkerguard/ele for pointdefending.
Also in PvE the tanky thief isnt worth much as stealth makes you drop agro and with that you cant “tank” anything. The unicorn build here works abit better but the lack of protection, regeneration and aegis doesnt make thiefs good PvE tanks.
If you are looking for PvE, you can try to utilize the shortbow and spam clusterbombs back and forth, abusing the blast finishers and combofields, but in the end you will rely alot on your teammates and their cooldownsystem to pull of some good combos with it.
Edit:
For PvE: you can buy healing seeds from a karma shop somewhere which create a waterfield. It doesnt has any cooldown and with it you are able to do alot of heals with the clusterbomb blast finisher without relying on any cooldown. But you would need to buy them over and over and I think it would be better if thieves could reliable steal waterfields from enemies or somekind of buffs/CCs/heals.
The Stealsystem is actually a pretty interesting system there as it could be changed that you can steal heals or CCs or buffs.
I made a suggestion on how to change steal here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/The-thief-and-its-gameplay-Your-feedback/page/6#post852944
And with some additional trait changes, you could maybe build a supportfocused thief who uses steal as source for support abilities.
(edited by Panacea.4927)
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Thanks for the input, mostly this confirms my suspicion that thief is a one-trick horse.
What is this “unicorn” build you keep referring to though? I’m going to make the assumption that it’s a derogative term and that no unicorns are involved.
That other Psy guy
From what I extracted from forum posts, an unicorn build was a thief that would use deathblossoms evade to survive dmg while dealing major condition damage. Could be wrong though
Ring of Fire
GL – “The Afternoon’s Watch” [OATH]
GL – “The Afternoon’s Watch” [OATH]
that is indeed a unicorn build. it focuses on high initiative regen and lots of dodges.
a true bunker unicorn build uses two double dagger weapon sets to abuse the trait where when you switch weapons you gain 3 ini. i also max out tricks for the skill that gives you 4 ini when you use a healing spell.
caltrops on dodge, shaman amulet, etc, i dont remember everything. youll have just under 14k hp but have high armor. you gotta learn how to balance your DB with your dodges, with your ini regen and you can keep evading for a VERY long time.
I run a control build that has allowed me much success. I’ve only seen one other Thief in my entire time playing using a similar build, so I’d say it’s unique. Also, it’s fun to use.
Warrior – Whrawl
Thief – Radderic
Mesmer – Smash Kablooey
Thief – Radderic
Mesmer – Smash Kablooey
As already said, Unicorn is a Deathblossom and dodge heavy build which relies on self heal with signet of malice, caltrops, dodges, caltrops on dodge and alot of points in Acrobatics.
It would look somewhat like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAoY4Ylcm6OXey9E+5ECXBL07xXNWkV3jrSrqKA;TwAg2Cmo8x4jwHLMOYkws+Y8x2jpHA
I just smashed it fast together, so there is clearly room for improvement. Just use deathblossom, then dodge, then deathblossom again and rinse and repeat. From time to time switch your weapons to get endurance back and apply again more bleeds. Every bleed heals you due to signet of malice. It is also usefull to use caltrops and to fight in caltrops.
I’m still curious what Vile uses for a control build… I guess the usual S/D dazelock build?
This is a very nice balanced build that has a spot a team if built right. Very mobile, able to live a while, able to put out good damage, some team buffs. Its got pretty much 50% crit each fight if you use your steal and damage just right to get guys down to 50%.
I run a venom sharing build using this set of traits and rune/sigil combo. This is mainly for PVE though, but feel free to have a go at it in grouped pvp, though I wouldn’t recommend it except for WvW.
(copy/paste it)
It might seem weird at first, but let me explain
Condition removal in stealth: Using in combination with dagger skill 5 is your escape, and your only real way to remove conditions, keep this in mind while playing. It’s not a whole lot of condition removal, but I don’t usually have a lot of conditions when I shoot stuff from range (shortbow).
Sigils of battle give 3 might on weapon swap, this forces you somewhat to swap every now and then between melee and range, it’s not that bad really.
Rune sets:
3 x a set that gives 25 power and 20% might duration. Why the F*? Well, first of all, every time you trigger one of your venoms, you gain might. With this particular spec, you will gain might for 33 seconds. Cooldown is 36 seconds on venoms, giving you 8 might for free, continuesly (pretty much).
You also gain might from dodging, giving another 24ish seconds of might per dodge you do. This quickly ramps up to decent amounts.
Every time you throw your cluster bomb (shortbow #2) into a fire field, you give everyone around there an extra 3 stacks of might, lasting about 30 seconds.
All in all, it’s meant for building might, might gives you your damage, both condition damage for double dagger #3, and just raw damage for shortbow shots.
Keep in mind that by speccing venom sharing and giving might on venoms, you are also giving might to allies, improving all round dps of the team.
The poison venom is just sweet, giving a very nice constant tick of damage.
The vulnerability venom is wicked because for a little while your group can go raving mad on whatever your fighting, the more people you share it to, the more damage dealt – especially with the might stacking you can really notice the effect.
The chill venom is because chills are so ‘rare’, and being able to dish out 4 seconds of chill per person with the venoms is just aweeesooome.
The basilisk venom is a bit of a weird one, because it doesn’t stack in duration. If everyone attacks at the same time, and you share it to 4 people, it’ll only last for a bout 2.something seconds, on the other hand, if you’re fighting a large group of mobs, you’ll see everything turn to stone for that amount of time, which is just plain awesome. aoe instant damage fields with this venom is just wicked crowd control.
For boss fights it’s a bit trickier, most bosses can be turned to stone, but annoyingly enough, 2.x seconds just isn’t long enough most of the time to be notable. What you can do is turn off auto attack, share the venom to other people, then as it runs out, shoot once, watch him be stoned again, and then again as that wears off.
Alternative try to share this with pets or minions, they don’t attack as often, and you’ll notice a nice spread of the venom over time.
Works like a charm, would recommend trying it for every thief.
I use 4 pieces of precision/condition damage/power gear (chest,helm,shoulders,pants) and 2 pieces of condition damage/power/vitality gear (boots, gloves), and all jewellery condition damage/vitality/power.
This gives you a healthy 17k health, along with decent toughness. As you’re gonna be mostly ranged and occasionally melee, you’ll live through almost everything.
ps:
root venom is awesome too, but situational (underwater bossfights for instance)
venom life steal is amazing, with no healing improvements except from traits, it heals about 380 per tick, along with signet of malice that’s a rough 500 health / attack, venoms restore your health VERY, VERY quickly
(edited by mptyspace.8135)
ok my build for double dagger death blossom is 0/0/10/30/30
slowed pulse: your gonna be stacking bleeds fast, this lets for early regen
vigorous recovery: this works with vigorous recover and signet of malice to allow perma vigor while in combat
quick recovery: MOAR regen
quick pockets: use this on Cd to maximize ini regen
uncatchable: more bleeds, more cripple
bountiful theft: cuz it benefits you more then thrill of the crime
hastened replenishment: yes even more ini regen
shamans amulet/gem
6/6 rune of the undead
sigil of energy, sigil of geomancy, sigil of hydromancer, sigil of doom
stats are 1897 attack (1226 from condition)
4% crit
3053 armor
13,805 hp (744 healing power)
skills: signet of malice, caltrops, roll for initiative, shadowstep/signet of agility
gameplay: basic theme is a aoe bleed, dodging machine. your excel at holding a point cuz its kitten near impossible to kill you. you are however entirely focused on that, you dont have shortbow to get away if things go wrong.
run in, if you can right away lay down caltrops, then death blossom 3x, immediatly hit steal, deathblossom, weapon swap+use steal item if you want, deathblossom, roll for initiative, cast shadow step slightly behind them, deathblossom once or twice, dodge, dodge, dodge, deathblossom, weapon swap, death blossom, hit signet of malice, death blossom
you get the idea…you can do all that without pausing. if you get to the point where you need to gain some cover, CnD and try to run away or heartseeker away.
you do 2 deathblossoms your slowed pulse kicks and and your regenning, which kicks in vigorous recover which allows you to dodge 3x before you run out of endurance. with sigil of energy for when you swap back to your starting weapons this will give you another dodge.
you can replace shadowstep with signet of agility for even more dodging, as each dodge puts down a mini caltrops.
sigil of hydromancy allows some control so they arent running around too much, sigil of geomancy for more bleeds, sigil of doom cuz poison is a good debuff to have.
its a…really potent build so long as you can avoid getting stunned or knocked down.
Decided to roll a thief today with the intentions of making more of a sort of rogue WoW class. Something that could last longer in a fight and won with the sort of hit and run control approach and some burst setup. This is the build I came up with: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckzzMM9MMMlomMMlomaaxG0mMoRqMa
The goal was to be tanky enough to survive duels and fights long enough to wear the other person out so I went with some extra toughness and the healing through initiative as well as stealth regen. For damage I chose everything that gives me might (dodge roll, vemom and signet use plus anytime I enter stealth) and went with just enough crit to make it work (~43% then the crit sigils on all weapons). I’m also running a knights amulet with a ramp. jewl. Using the runes for strength and might duration.
By the end of the fight I end off with around 8 stacks of might. If I end up using kitten signet and bask vemon for my final burst out of stealth combo I’m usually bursting someone with 14-16 stacks of might.
You end up with decent damage, alright control and 21k ish HP which goes well with the 300 toughness. Just enough to get the job done but still no standing in burst guardian GS aoe spins etc lol.
I’ve only been playing this spec for 2 or so hours butI’m having pretty good success with it if I play well. Duels vs other burst thieves are amazing fun!
Problem with a longer lasting build is, that you bring nothing to the table except delaying the fight in sPvP. Any other class which fights a longer fight will be able to support their team much more with AoEs, Combo fields, blinds, buffs, CCs while the thief just survives longer. Hence I think that thieves arent that useful if they go for longer lasting fights, except they are capable of keeping 2-3 persons busy on their own while the team fights for the objectives.