Guild Wars 2

Or do I just suck? I went through AC (don’t even know the name of it, lol) for the first time last night, and I swear I was getting straight up killed in like one hit. Most of it was avoidable of course, but is it possible for a Thief to get hit without dying, or do they get one-shotted no matter what?

I see many thieves just go P+P/SB for dung’s… and in AC there are mobs that’ll knock you down and nom on you to death unless you’re a pretty heavy tank or are able to use something to break the knockdown. If you want to use mele as a thief in a dung, learn to dodge/blind well.

Aberrant.6749:

I see many thieves just go P+P/SB for dung’s… and in AC there are mobs that’ll knock you down and nom on you to death unless you’re a pretty heavy tank or are able to use something to break the knockdown. If you want to use mele as a thief in a dung, learn to dodge/blind well.

Oh yeah, a lot of it was avoidable (of course I didn’t know the encounters or animations), but I’m curious if with the right gear / traits, if I can get hit and not meet certain death, or if that’s pretty much impossible with this profession?

It is most certainly possible once you learn how to play the dungeons.

My thief is d/d & SB.
20/30/0/20/0 with full berzerker’s with ruby orbs on everything. I chose the trait in critical strikes that converts a % of my precision to vitality and along with the points in acrobatics, I ended up with 13.7k HP.
I rarely get one-shotted in lower level dungeons such as AC if I’m at full health, but it’s definitely very easy to die in two or three hits. Therefore, learn the enemy animations and when to dodge their attacks.

For example, right before Kholer’s going to throw out his scorpion wires, he slowly crouches down over a period of 2 seconds. Learn to dodge at that time and use your ranged and it’ll be no problem.

I’ve had pretty substantial problems with dungeons as well. I run a S/P and SB and find I have to stay back almost always with the SB if I don’t want to die almost instantly. It’s incredibly frustrating. I too am hoping to figure out a way to be more survivable and remain useful to my party without just staying at ranged the entire time.

I roll with a 0/0/30/20/20 P/D SB Condi build. Utilities are Caltrops, Roll for Initiative and Shadows Refuge for lifesteal and rezzing. Elite I bounce between Thieves Guild if a single boss fight and Bladestorm if a multiple boss or trash mobs.

I rarely get put in the down state and I have bleeds going all over the place. It is a very good build for dungeons. I have had quite a few people compliment me on it and were thankful that they didn’t have to babysit me in a downstate.

Could you post a link to a skill builder with your setup Archonis? Interested in taking a look at what traits you take in each line.

Also curious what sort of stats you go for on your gear. Do you feel your traits give you enough vita and toughness that you can focus primarily on Condition or Power on your gear?

Its a matter of learning each dungeon – each pull, each pack of mobs, each boss fight. And if you cant, p/p does semi-decent damage nowadays.

Thieves are best at beeing glassy. We dont have regeneration/protection/retaliation available and lowest hp pool with medium armor. Its way worse then any other glass. Thieves defences are either dodge or stealthy. Stealth is not as good in PvE though, it works but not as good in PvP so dodge is best for thieves. Thats why SoA and acrobatics tree is very important in PvE in my opinion.

I’m sitting at 16k HP and 1600 Toughness with around 2000 Power and around 1800 Precision. Going full glass doesn’t feel right to me, so I compromised and kept the majority of the damage that Thieves are meant to be known for while being a little more durable.

However, in the majority of dungeons, I DO go full glass and equip a load of life-leech (Sigil of Blood, Signet of Malice, Omnomberry Ghost) and just spam Pistol Whip all day. No need to even worry about dying.

Rhysati.4932:

Could you post a link to a skill builder with your setup Archonis? Interested in taking a look at what traits you take in each line.

Also curious what sort of stats you go for on your gear. Do you feel your traits give you enough vita and toughness that you can focus primarily on Condition or Power on your gear?

I will post it in a bit. Currently at the family’s house for Christmas.

Thief was my first (and my main) class in GW2. Running AC for the first time, I got my kitten beat up as well. That’s probably when I realized how important it is to l2dodge as a thief. Do not expect to tank mobs, or even take more than a hit or two. The class is designed to do its thing within melee range and get out. You need to constantly have your eyes on your enemy’s animation and get the dodge timings down. Blind fields + auto-attacks are going to be your bread and butter while in melee range. The thief squish can be a little annoying at first, but it’s immensely rewarding as by the time you reach level 60, you’re going to be a beast at dodging, which will carry over if you play any other class as well.

With my build you can tank. Not face tank, but you can hold aggro and keep mobs busy while you tank gets pulled up. Also take some big hits.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckMzc0zMMnbFoMMxvm9MxGGmVqcack8khG7kiO70z707khG7khf7kGW70V7owZ70m

Here is my build that I use in WvW, SPvP and PvE Dungeons. I am able to tank decently, hold and take points and almost always stop glass cannons. I get out a lot of bleeds and keep constant damage while paying attention to my surroundings. I use Shadows Refuge to help heal and give Lifesteal, also I use it to pick up people if they have mobs on them.

I get Carrion gear and put Crest of Soldier on them for the extra health and toughness (I have about 20K health in PvE and WvW along with more toughness). In PvP I use Rune of The Undead.

The build is centered around going into stealth and cleansing conditions, using the stealth attack to stack bleeds, using caltrops to add more bleeds, Roll for Initiative for a stun break and initiative regen (you could also use Shadowstep if you aren’t too worried about initiative, but I use RFI because I can do a little more DPS and it helps with SB if I need more for bleeds, mobility or trick shot spam). Depending on your fight switch out Bladestorm for Thieves guild if you are fighting one or two people. More I recommend Bladestorm (plus it adds more bleeds and snares).

If you have any other questions hit me up.

Thanks Archonis. Might I ask what your reasoning is for taking Uncatchable AND Caltrops? Is there a difference between the caltrops that come out of your rolls and the ones you click to use?

I use Uncatchable to give a couple extra stacks of bleed and when Caltrops is down it help keep my distance until I want to CnD.

I have thought about switching out to the steal buff. It really isn’t a big deal without it, but I just got used to it.

Does the bleeds from Uncatchable stack with the normal Caltrops then? Otherwise I wonder why you’d even have caltrops slotted at all since Uncatchable is far more spammable.

Yes they stack, but the bleed is only 1 sec for Uncatchable.

Uncatchable is best in the situation that you want to keep someone from keeping up with you. Caltrops is about the stacks and damage and Uncatchable is about the utility.

p/d thief here.. 19.5k hps and went 30 in toughness (shadow arts). Condition spec.

Works really well for me.

Yea P/D is a fun build. Very versatile and I really like it in dungeons. Did it in Arah last night and I went down once. I only went down because my team trained a mob on me lol.

skinnyb.5920:

It is most certainly possible once you learn how to play the dungeons.

My thief is d/d & SB.
20/30/0/20/0 with full berzerker’s with ruby orbs on everything. I chose the trait in critical strikes that converts a % of my precision to vitality and along with the points in acrobatics, I ended up with 13.7k HP.
I rarely get one-shotted in lower level dungeons such as AC if I’m at full health, but it’s definitely very easy to die in two or three hits. Therefore, learn the enemy animations and when to dodge their attacks.

For example, right before Kholer’s going to throw out his scorpion wires, he slowly crouches down over a period of 2 seconds. Learn to dodge at that time and use your ranged and it’ll be no problem.

Have fun dying in high lvl fracs by getting looked at.

Thieves are naturally squishy, probably one of the squishiest classes. I run a 20KHP thief and I’m extremely squishy. Stealth is the one tool that completely makes up for that, and then some. But without stealth…my god we are squishy.

Arsenic.8259:

skinnyb.5920:

It is most certainly possible once you learn how to play the dungeons.

My thief is d/d & SB.
20/30/0/20/0 with full berzerker’s with ruby orbs on everything. I chose the trait in critical strikes that converts a % of my precision to vitality and along with the points in acrobatics, I ended up with 13.7k HP.
I rarely get one-shotted in lower level dungeons such as AC if I’m at full health, but it’s definitely very easy to die in two or three hits. Therefore, learn the enemy animations and when to dodge their attacks.

For example, right before Kholer’s going to throw out his scorpion wires, he slowly crouches down over a period of 2 seconds. Learn to dodge at that time and use your ranged and it’ll be no problem.

Have fun dying in high lvl fracs by getting looked at.

Yea, it will be a bad time for any thief that goes glass cannon in any EXP mode dungeon.

Yea have a toughness/vitality build for Thief is great in a dungeon. You tend to either be the last one to die or never die.