(edited by Steinpilz.5078)
Best compromise damage/survivability?
As someone who has trouble going full berzerker on thief, my advice is that you take the time and gold or karma to purchase and experiment with different jewelery setups. Generally, I feel that it’s pretty safe to wear full offensive armor and weapons and put the defense you need in the trinket section. After many hours of playing, I found that a cavalier necklace, 2 cavalier rings and 2 berzerker+valkyrie trinkets was the perfect fit for my skill level (berzerker everything else). Your experience my vary of course. Good luck!
I would prioritize toughness then healing power then vitality for defense. Thieves have a lot of options for removing conditions which is why I don’t really care much about vitality.
Here’s what I’m currently using for gear. A bit more armour without sacrificing too much on offensive stats. Signet of Malice and CS XIII are good enough for healing I think. However I’m sure it could be optimised better. I’m still waiting for suggestions on it in my own thread. For dungeons I would switch to full zerker, as well as change my traits, weapons and skills. A lot of players never dodge in pug dungeons and do just fine if everyone is doing great damage and are stacking :P
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl8MpwplOx7J0PNhQBt9pDQ+9uIDJJd9CA-T1SBwAFVitT9nk7PcV5RkHEQGlgo03s4QAgwEnmjQAgToQAAEA24GPZICgdLA-w
Ways to cleanse condition damage:
- Hide in the Shadows (poison, bleed, burning)
- Shadowstep (3)
- Signet of Agility (1 aoe)
- Sword #2 (1)
- Any ability that stealths you if you trait for SA IV
- Acrobatics VIII (poison, bleed, burning)
- Sigil of Generosity
- Sigil of Purity
- Runes of Lyssa
- Poultry Soups
Use Sword/Pistol.
Stand close to your target and use Pistol #5 every ~5 seconds. Common mobs in PvE and trash mobs in dungeons will be permanently blinded and cannot hit you.
Get Berserker trinkets and weapons, and Soldier armor. Gradually you should be able to read the tells of the bosses better and switch to Berserker armor. The Soldier armor can then still be used against world bosses and many structures as you cannot inflict critical hits against them, making Soldier just as good as Berserker.
As for builds, there is the all-out offensive build 5/6/0/x/x with 3 points in Acrobatics, 3 points in Trickery or 2 points in Trickery and 6 points in Deadly Arts.
A little more group-support orientated but still powerful build is 2/6/0/0/6 which focuses more on Steal.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsaVk8MJBOBt9BqQC0NArG-e
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsaVk8MNBNhs9jOR8O83yaFA
Thanks a lot for the help guys.
Question: Is there not a build that heals with poisons?
Cannot find it, but I remember to have seen it somewhere...
A guild mate of mine run a Venom build once, iirc it looks like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQBbykoNNB/TkImI42fv2NLBA
Dunno where he put the last 2 trait points.
It allows you to heal your allies for 5150+1300+650 (+Healing Power from gear) every 36 seconds, or give your allies 6 stacks of Might before a fight.
Given the fact that you can get 3 stacks of Might for every Shortbow #2 in a fire field and you have to spend 12 trait points for the healing I’m not overly impressed by said build.
There is also an option to use shadow arts for heal on stealth, cleanse on stealth, and blind on stealth. This can give a lot of sustainability with all those three effects triggering on hide in shadows, cloak and dagger, shadow refuge, and so on.
Currently I have this build.
This is the build I currently run on my thief. Have SOOOOO much fun on it. It is all about evades, and with zerker gear, it still hits super hard. Check it out! It’s the build that the thief that won ToL 1 used, sort of introduced it to everyone =D http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0MpwpVOx7J8PNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdfko0XA-TZBFwACeAAl2fYxRAoaZAAnCAA
Minotaurius. I dabble