Guild Wars 2

I built a thief months back when there were d/d berserker thieves 3 shotting (Steal/C&D/BS) people all over wvw, because I wanted to learn the class.

I settled into a p/d 100% bleed duration stealthy survival build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-c;4Rw-_06-VOVd0;9;6TOE;435A58-1;0U-F18;1k06_J9dZCsFm0-s1U;2P-U0Z1d2jZo4A5V0c0P-6Rk06R;9;9;9;9;9;4V6s5R

I haven’t played my thief in quite a while and I’m curious to know if the build is still viable or if time has passed it by.

Thanks in advance for your kind responses.

I run p/d in WvW sometimes and one of my guildies Bllades does also. We personally run 0/0/30/20/20 with Caltrops, Blinding Powder and Shadow Refuge. Along with Thieves guild for the pure burst it has. I personally like it and the only time I really had trouble downing someone was with Healway guardians, BM rangers, or Cond transfer necros. Otherwise it still works. It is one of the more survivable builds due to us not having to be right next to them to fight.

Devon.9061:

I run p/d in WvW sometimes and one of my guildies Bllades does also. We personally run 0/0/30/20/20 with Caltrops, Blinding Powder and Shadow Refuge. Along with Thieves guild for the pure burst it has. I personally like it and the only time I really had trouble downing someone was with Healway guardians, BM rangers, or Cond transfer necros. Otherwise it still works. It is one of the more survivable builds due to us not having to be right next to them to fight.

Noob.

^ this guy introduced me to the build… Even though he is horrible and apparently stalks me. Sorry for going off topic. <3

I have yet to been bursted down by a single thief or warrior when running it. A simple blinding powder to a dodge roll usually stops their burst and if not you should be fine sitting on 19-20k hp with around 2.5k armor. Looks like I surpassed you….. Till we meet again <3 =P

Thanks for your responses. I played the build for a while last night, and this morning.

It rocks for survivability, as you can escape almost anything thrown at you.

Needless to say, if you are fighting someone with a ton of condition removal you aren’t going to win quickly (or at all), but you won’t lose either if you play it smart.

I use my thief as a scout and a small group camp flipper. Build seems to work fine for that.

Thanks again.

I play this build and love it been using it for months now. I use a mix of PTV and COND gear then cond dmg/duration food. Very high survive-ability, I usually always win fights through attrition. If they don’t have cond removal they die very quickly

BTW with 25 stacks of +condition my bleed ticks for 125-130.

Devon.9061:

I have yet to been bursted down by a single thief or warrior when running it. A simple blinding powder to a dodge roll usually stops their burst and if not you should be fine sitting on 19-20k hp with around 2.5k armor. Looks like I surpassed you….. Till we meet again <3 =P

Lol you think 20k hp and 2.5k armor is somthing…do you even play bro?
Theres glass specs out there that make 3.8k look like 2.1k…

Why run Pistol over D/D with shortbow? I’ve used a similar build, but I usually run d/d as it applies bleeds quicker and using caltrops is more streamlined. I imagine full Carrion as well?

I use my 3 Krait, 3 Afflicted, the 36% Super Veggie Pizza and a Sigil of Agony to get to 75% bleed with the 0-0-30-20-20. A good balance between effectiveness while not hitting bleed caps or worrying too much about the bleeds getting cleansed. It’s almost impossible to faceroll to the point that anyone can burst you down. Now 4+, that’s thorny.

I’d like to tell you something.

Bleeds, no matter the number of stacks, can be removed all at once with a single condition cure of any kind. The last duel I’ve made with one of these Pistol/Dagger builds, the Thief wouldn’t harm me AT ALL because I had that pathetic Antidote in the med kit which cures one condition. All the classes pretty much got that kind of skill built somewhere or related to a trait, and they’d just need to pack enough firepower so they get you to make a tactical retreat and they’ll be back to full health with barely any effort and ready to fight you again. The problem is that you might not be at full health if you continue going on, and on, and on.

I have switched to P/D + SB in the last 2 weeks and for me it is the most appropriate spec. I do 0/0/30/20/20. This is for WvW

1V1 it is really good – you can win or leave. I open the fight with poison field from the SB and then use the pistol and CD.

In small groups it is also great as you are often perceived as nonthreatening and you can load people up with bleed stacks.

In Zergs you just use SB as per normal.

The class I have the most trouble with is Guardian (esp Shout), but you can’t own everyone.

You can apply/reapply the bleeds very fast so if someone has average condi removal you can still win. If they have good condi removal make sure you mix in poison with the SB.

I have been doing this for 2 weeks and have never used the 2 or 3 button – perhaps this should be looked at?

One thing I found after lots of trial and error – when you C/D and stealth get far away from the guy before you open fire with rapid fire. This allows you to heal, remove condis and confuse them. Initially I was just letting them have it without counting down the 4 seconds of stealthy goodies.

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

Devon.9061:

I have yet to been bursted down by a single thief or warrior when running it. A simple blinding powder to a dodge roll usually stops their burst and if not you should be fine sitting on 19-20k hp with around 2.5k armor. Looks like I surpassed you….. Till we meet again <3 =P

Lol you think 20k hp and 2.5k armor is somthing…do you even play bro?
Theres glass specs out there that make 3.8k look like 2.1k…

I never said it was a significant amount. I simply stated you would be fine escaping the burst. Do you even read bro?

Shadows Embrace >>>>> P/D

There is a 100% condition duration cap. The max you can get with vital shot and sneak attack is 8s(it may say higher on the toolbar if you have >100% duration, but the max is 8 seconds). With that in mind, I would recommend you using.

0/0/30/20/20

Giver’s pistol
Giver’s dagger
Superior sigil of agony
Sigil of corruption
Rare Veggie
Master Tuning

That will result in 7s bleeds as it rounds up from 6.5+(1s less than the max) but at the same time provides an entire rune set at your disposal which can do much more damage than that extra 1s tick.

Hope I helped!

@doomdesire – this is interesting. You lose 180 condition damage swapping from Carrion to Giver’s (for example) and get 7s bleed duration (1.7*4 = 6.8 = 7 seconds) with your setup.

So for your runes you need to pick that back up to be equivalent on damage (for example).

I actually think you should keep the Carrion weps and the condi damage because Givers use precision which is a wasted stat for Condi thieves.

The do Three (instead of 2) runes of the krait which will give you 165 condi duration = 7 seconds (this is the tipping pt – 160 only gives u 6 seconds).

This is helpful because I had 2 runes of afflicted and 2 runes of the centaur for the bleed duration, i’ll dump those and get 3 runes of the necromancer for the extra vitality – so, a little bit more health would be the result + a little more condi damage for 7 second vs 8 second bleeds.

I think i like that more.

If someone in wvw hasn’t cleansed their bleeds by 7 seconds they are dying anyway

Atherakhia.4086:

Why run Pistol over D/D with shortbow? I’ve used a similar build, but I usually run d/d as it applies bleeds quicker and using caltrops is more streamlined. I imagine full Carrion as well?

I ran DD/Shortbow for a very long time with my thief. However, I realised that whenever I went into combat, I would spam Death Blossom and then just auto attack or switch to shortbow and just poke a bit. Sometimes I never even touched my shortbow and just ran around the enemy or stealthed until my initiative went up.

Took me a while to realise that having P/D instead of shortbow kept the bleeds up until my initiative regenerated, then I’d switch back and spam more Death Blossoms.

To escape from situations without Shortbow, turn off auto-targetting, turn away and spam heartseekers. If you have swiftness it works even better.

Doomdesire.9365:

There is a 100% condition duration cap.

Is this for Sneak Attack bleeds or general conditions? I have a 23 second bleed on my Deathblossom. I know thats what the tooltip says and I’m pretty sure I saw over 20s on the bleed timer when testing. Could be wrong though. Its much easier to increase duration with a 10s bleed then a 4s bleed though so is it just that the 9s mark is tough to hit?

**Just tested and you are correct, caps at 100%, tooltip is wrong.

Blood~

Doomdesire.9365:

There is a 100% condition duration cap. The max you can get with vital shot and sneak attack is 8s(it may say higher on the toolbar if you have >100% duration, but the max is 8 seconds). With that in mind, I would recommend you using.

0/0/30/20/20

Giver’s pistol
Giver’s dagger
Superior sigil of agony
Sigil of corruption
Rare Veggie
Master Tuning

That will result in 7s bleeds as it rounds up from 6.5+(1s less than the max) but at the same time provides an entire rune set at your disposal which can do much more damage than that extra 1s tick.

Hope I helped!

Are you sure it rounds up? I’ve never really paid attention to that close of a duration, and always opted to hit the 75% mark when striving for a lot of duration.

Bloodgruve.6038:

Doomdesire.9365:

There is a 100% condition duration cap.

Is this for Sneak Attack bleeds or general conditions? I have a 23 second bleed on my Deathblossom. I know thats what the tooltip says and I’m pretty sure I saw over 20s on the bleed timer when testing. Could be wrong though. Its much easier to increase duration with a 10s bleed then a 4s bleed though so is it just that the 9s mark is tough to hit?

**Just tested and you are correct, caps at 100%, tooltip is wrong.

Blood~

As far as I know all thief skills have a cap, although the base bleed durations vary. Both sneak attack and vital are capped at 8s max. I think there are some necro bleed skills that don’t have a cap, but I never checked since I don’t play a necro.

Fade.7658:

Doomdesire.9365:

There is a 100% condition duration cap. The max you can get with vital shot and sneak attack is 8s(it may say higher on the toolbar if you have >100% duration, but the max is 8 seconds). With that in mind, I would recommend you using.

0/0/30/20/20

Giver’s pistol
Giver’s dagger
Superior sigil of agony
Sigil of corruption
Rare Veggie
Master Tuning

That will result in 7s bleeds as it rounds up from 6.5+(1s less than the max) but at the same time provides an entire rune set at your disposal which can do much more damage than that extra 1s tick.

Hope I helped!

Are you sure it rounds up? I’ve never really paid attention to that close of a duration, and always opted to hit the 75% mark when striving for a lot of duration.

No it doesnt round up, it only rounds down. 6.9 second is still 6 bleed ticks.

Karolis.4261:

Fade.7658:

Doomdesire.9365:

There is a 100% condition duration cap. The max you can get with vital shot and sneak attack is 8s(it may say higher on the toolbar if you have >100% duration, but the max is 8 seconds). With that in mind, I would recommend you using.

0/0/30/20/20

Giver’s pistol
Giver’s dagger
Superior sigil of agony
Sigil of corruption
Rare Veggie
Master Tuning

That will result in 7s bleeds as it rounds up from 6.5+(1s less than the max) but at the same time provides an entire rune set at your disposal which can do much more damage than that extra 1s tick.

Hope I helped!

Are you sure it rounds up? I’ve never really paid attention to that close of a duration, and always opted to hit the 75% mark when striving for a lot of duration.

No it doesnt round up, it only rounds down. 6.9 second is still 6 bleed ticks.

I just tested. It rounds up, however when you shoot someone and look at the time, say you have 7s, it will show 6s, but it’s the full 7.

Doomdesire.9365:

Karolis.4261:

Fade.7658:

Doomdesire.9365:

There is a 100% condition duration cap. The max you can get with vital shot and sneak attack is 8s(it may say higher on the toolbar if you have >100% duration, but the max is 8 seconds). With that in mind, I would recommend you using.

0/0/30/20/20

Giver’s pistol
Giver’s dagger
Superior sigil of agony
Sigil of corruption
Rare Veggie
Master Tuning

That will result in 7s bleeds as it rounds up from 6.5+(1s less than the max) but at the same time provides an entire rune set at your disposal which can do much more damage than that extra 1s tick.

Hope I helped!

Are you sure it rounds up? I’ve never really paid attention to that close of a duration, and always opted to hit the 75% mark when striving for a lot of duration.

No it doesnt round up, it only rounds down. 6.9 second is still 6 bleed ticks.

I just tested. It rounds up, however when you shoot someone and look at the time, say you have 7s, it will show 6s, but it’s the full 7.

Maybe it was changed few updates back, dunno. And back when i counted it i counted bleed ticks ( flying numbers in air) not bleed time on enemy health bar.
EDIT.: Just tested again. No it doesnt round up. Turn off auto attack, shoot one vital shot and count bleed ticks that appear in flying combat text. For example 20 in DA gives +20 % condition time bleed time thats 4.8s = 4 ticks.

kitten how confusing. If it doesnt round up that changes a lot of grear choices

Conditions, how do they work?

Oh, here’s how:

When a condition is applied, it stays active for its exact duration (6.4 seconds or whatever) even if the tooltip rounds it to 6.5 or 6.25. One second after the first damaging condition is applied, the game checks all conditions currently active on the target. For every bleed, and any poison / burning, it applies that damage. Then it waits for another full second before checking once more.

In this way, an applied bleed that is 6.8 seconds long will never get 7 ticks of damage if it is the first attack used, but if it is applied say, 0.5 seconds after the game makes its ‘check’ for conditions, it will be checked seven times. (at 6.3, 5.3, 4.3, 3.3, 2.3, 1.3, and 0.3 seconds remaining.)

The exact timing for when conditions are checked is reset whenever the game checks for conditions and finds none.

tl;dr – For any attack other than the first, a 6.9s bleed applied at a random timing has a 90% chance of ticking 7 bleeds instead of 6. A 6.2s bleed has a 20% chance of doing the same. But with sufficient micromanagement and godly timing, a player can ensure 7 ticks of damage from a 6.2s bleed by applying the bleed immediately before (within 0.2 seconds) the game runs its condition check.

I love p/d thief.
I enjoy it so much more than burst thief.
pew pew.

yes the constant pew pew unnerves people, they charge you, you stealth, then pewpewpew

Love it

two questions from a guys who mains a necro:
1). P/D condition thief: won`t he/she be in trouble if he will not be able to go melee and C&D ? What if in 1v1 your opponent will dodge / evade when you C&D or you simply miss?

2). 2 x ‘giver’ weps = +20% cond duration? Are you sure they stack ?

Thank you.

rogerwilko.6895:

two questions from a guys who mains a necro:
1). P/D condition thief: won`t he/she be in trouble if he will not be able to go melee and C&D ? What if in 1v1 your opponent will dodge / evade when you C&D or you simply miss?

2). 2 x ‘giver’ weps = +20% cond duration? Are you sure they stack ?

Thank you.

1) Yes they will be in alot of trouble against someone who stays out of melee range. In particular spamming aoe’s at their feet and dodging CnD.

2) Yup, they stack. Tested yesterday with 2X giver’s pistol & dagger

@rogerwilco

I find people staying out of melee range are susceptible to SB Poison/weakness

In addition you can steal to get in Melee range and CND – you can also CND off other monsters.

I really have trouble with D?P Thieves, Shout Guards, etc but you cnat expect to be every class 1 V 1.

I main necro too. but p/d thief is my 2nd favourite class to play. if you miss CnD your screwed lol
trick is not to miss! ;-)