Guild Wars 2

So, I was building my DD, and always liked cond build.

Played some games with normal cond d/d (krait runes and caltrops on dodge) and it was ok… then I though, What would happen if I run Deadly Arts instead of Trickery.

Well it seemed very very strong for me as I just activated spider venon, F1 someone and then spammed dagger 3 and dodges and ocasionaly heal or imparing daggers and people just died strangely fast and blink away and runned like crazy.

And I was “omg these people are running from me? This is so exciting!”

I won some 2×1 that I didn`t had a clue of what I was doing until I saw both of then downed. o-o. Like spaming dodges and dagger 3 on top of a reaper’s cleaves and aoe while was someone shooting me arrows with his bird trying to bite me.

Check the numbers and types of cond on the spells. (death blossom does a lot of things now)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVn8lCFNhdPBemCkmilWCrbx8E2CznwV4LULAcAWAA-TJxBQBGc/hldKAAwTAwLlBAA

Ok, now to be sincere i`m low rank and still learning, so I maybe that was just luck on like 5 games at a row(?), also probabily everyone playing those games were low rank too, so this is the time someone says “that explains it all you noob, l2p, stupid build just follow the meta”. (Just don`t)

The only person who took me down 1×1 on those 5 games was someone running that DD staff 5/bound dodge build, and he played significantly better than me so i`m totaly ok with that.

I would like you guys, more experienced thieves, to tell if it sucks somehow, or if is realy interesting and has high tier potential or wvw potential.

Feedback on tests would be very much appreciated.

The refuge is there for reviving and for engaging from stealth, as the surprise effect of a thief suddenly appearing seems to make huge difference on my rank (lol) due to low reaction times, but for higher tier I think it could exchanged for anything as I barely used outside those situations I just said.

Thanks.

i fought against that build with my STAFF and won it

its nice build 1v1 but in higher tier you will face guard who can cleanse easily, generosity runes, condi transfer, eles and condi immunity and much more stun abuse

try to get the highest condi dmg so use scavenging rune (more 150 condi dmg)
try to think how you get more condition like chill, vuknerability to cover you bleed and poison, like with hydromancy sigil and frality

in 2v2 and higher your dmg will be cleanse easily and the enemy will focus you untill you SR

ask yourself why staff thief could get you as he dont have much condi cleanse and you will see that every class got more cleanse, block, evades etc.. so they can take you unless they used all their endurance, cleanse….

I run a very similar build, but more of a wvw variant. I don’t take acro, instead Deadly arts/Trickery because I like the confusion on steal and poison dmg from trickery. I recently posted a video showcasing the build, here it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aGMYxDwnF0 enjoy!

CondiDevil is definitely the way to go now. While on paper, Bound is stronger than impaling dagger, the implementation just doesn’t work. The reason is Lotus training allows you to dodge INTO your opponent to gain the benefit, while Bound requires you to dodge and land ON your opponent. In addition, the evade attack skill for the weaponset Dagger/Dagger allows you to Evade while Engaging your opponent, as opposed to disengaging, and is not a 2 part clunky evade like s/d, or a root like s/p. Staff Vault just costs a lot, and suffers similar issues to bound.

I’ve seen a lot of variations on CondiDevil, yours is definitely more offense focused, and less focused on the sustainability of your resources. If you were to fight a similar build focused more on the replenishment of initiative and energy, your build would probably lose. However, as an example, my personal variation has effectively zero mobility, giving up one of the strongest aspects of thief.

Refuge is definitely one of the things you could replace for either the replinishment of initiative or endurance. There is a lot of cleave floating around so rezzes are a LOT more situational, and stealth engage does nothing for condi.

alemfi.5107:

CondiDevil is definitely the way to go now. While on paper, Bound is stronger than impaling dagger, the implementation just doesn’t work. The reason is Lotus training allows you to dodge INTO your opponent to gain the benefit, while Bound requires you to dodge and land ON your opponent. In addition, the evade attack skill for the weaponset Dagger/Dagger allows you to Evade while Engaging your opponent, as opposed to disengaging, and is not a 2 part clunky evade like s/d, or a root like s/p. Staff Vault just costs a lot, and suffers similar issues to bound.

I’ve seen a lot of variations on CondiDevil, yours is definitely more offense focused, and less focused on the sustainability of your resources. If you were to fight a similar build focused more on the replenishment of initiative and energy, your build would probably lose. However, as an example, my personal variation has effectively zero mobility, giving up one of the strongest aspects of thief.

Refuge is definitely one of the things you could replace for either the replinishment of initiative or endurance. There is a lot of cleave floating around so rezzes are a LOT more situational, and stealth engage does nothing for condi.

I second what he’s saying in this post. The main reasons I run the vigor heal, roll for ini, and signet of agility is so that I can constantly be with evades ready be it through ini or dodges. You honestly don’t lose that much mobility with a sb offhand and the runes I run as well. As far as what he said on the SR, he hit the nail on the head, replace it for signet of agility for a free two evades (which means more damage cause more condis). I was thinking about running the venom as well, but I calculated it out and I figured the initiative return from roll for ini actually makes me dps MORE than just having the venom, plus you get another evade to top it off (and stunbreak).

So guys thanks a lot for the feedback, after working some more on the build I realized the same issues and answers you guys posted.

When I did the math the scavenging runes deals more dmg even on the long run because the bonus from “just more cond dmg” aplys to bleed AND poison instead of more especialized runes… also it took me the burden of having to always apply poison or always aply bleed using the other one mostly to cover.

Freeing me to use Calltrops (the utility) that doesn’t aply poison or Spider venon that doesn’t help bleed beeing both effective, widening my options for single target or going point control depending on the match.

And if we consider the fact that someone will always cleanse poison and/or bleed before 10 seconds it becomes MUCH better than cond duration runes.

I´ve dropped refuge for the agility signet and woah that is so much better, using refuge was playing with 1 utility less and now using the signet I realized this.

For now I’m testing malice signet for heal because death blossom and dodges hit 3 times so maybe worth it(?), but on early testing i’m already missing the dd heal.

Maybe the agility signet, energy sigils and dd heal would be too much? (idk tho, maybe one can never have enough dodges) especialy when dodge=dps.

One more question that I have, what you guys think about Trappers Respite + Resourcefull Trapper VS dagger trainning + panic strike?

That first option could solve our problem of more diferent conds to cover for the important ones, aplying vunerability. Might stacks will not be wasted either.

If viable, was thinking on shadow trap on the refuge slot, could work as a gtfo portal and also an engage tool if previously set on point.

As for point control we can go from clocktower “balcony” sides to a point if needed. (tested) works ok on legacy of the foefire from middle to any other point previously set, but spirit watch confused me because i’ve seen it working and it not working on almost the same places (mid to sides / sides to mid).

(probabily because of elevation?)

Need you guys opnion on it to be sure of its viability on a more point control focused build or maybe for a wvw port?. (losing the signet could hurt too much the duel ability)

Thanks for all the aswers as they realy help me with those insights, wish you conddevils luck on the mists o/

i think condi thief no matter the build is more wvw open world build. pvp you must contest a point to win and hardly roaming outside of a point to win.
like if i am being chase off a point by a dmg dealer class its good thing as long they dont do dmg on my group which contesting the point.

sure you could take 1v1 after a while . but after a while help will come to 2v1 you with support or dmg ..

dont get me worng as i love condi builds more than power but condi is boring and wont draw viewers to support esl league etc….

messiah.1908:

i fought against that build with my STAFF and won it

its nice build 1v1 but in higher tier you will face guard who can cleanse easily, generosity runes, condi transfer, eles and condi immunity and much more stun abuse

try to get the highest condi dmg so use scavenging rune (more 150 condi dmg)
try to think how you get more condition like chill, vuknerability to cover you bleed and poison, like with hydromancy sigil and frality

in 2v2 and higher your dmg will be cleanse easily and the enemy will focus you untill you SR

ask yourself why staff thief could get you as he dont have much condi cleanse and you will see that every class got more cleanse, block, evades etc.. so they can take you unless they used all their endurance, cleanse….

Thieves easily have the most evades lol. Pretty much anything we do is an evade now.

omgdracula.6345:

messiah.1908:

i fought against that build with my STAFF and won it

its nice build 1v1 but in higher tier you will face guard who can cleanse easily, generosity runes, condi transfer, eles and condi immunity and much more stun abuse

try to get the highest condi dmg so use scavenging rune (more 150 condi dmg)
try to think how you get more condition like chill, vuknerability to cover you bleed and poison, like with hydromancy sigil and frality

in 2v2 and higher your dmg will be cleanse easily and the enemy will focus you untill you SR

ask yourself why staff thief could get you as he dont have much condi cleanse and you will see that every class got more cleanse, block, evades etc.. so they can take you unless they used all their endurance, cleanse….

Thieves easily have the most evades lol. Pretty much anything we do is an evade now.

this is the reason you dont see thief in top tier now . cause they cant do anything beside evading the fight
so they cant 1v1, other do +1 better thus we evade to oblivion

I’ve been saying it ever since I read the planned changes to poisons: Poison is OP. People just need to learn to abuse it. Dont count it out because of it’s damage, count it in because of its damage AND reduced healing effectiveness. When you take away a heal, you just broke someone.

I actually built a “bunker” variant on my spvp build with carrion ammy and scrapper runes. I went for trickery in stead of acro since the buff to deathblossom lets you use it pretty effectively as a dodge, stealing gives you effectively two evades, one from the init, and one from endurance thief.

I went for withdraw on heal for yet another evade and just loaded up with shadowstep, bandit’s defense, shadow refuge (for stomps) and thieve’s guild (for pressure) and can 1v1 or 1v2 on points for quite some time.

The scrapper runes really help to bump up the EHP of withdraw and offset the lack of armor, and the daze on steal gives you a nice interrupt that you can pop even when you’re locked in a deathblossom animation to cancel a heal or whatever if you’re fighting roamers.

Taking a purity sigil alongside daredevil condi cleanse lets you shrug off most condition pressure, and when you’re bombed heavy you’ve got shadowstep to fall back on.

The damage suffers, but when you play it purely defensively rather than offensively it is very difficult to remove you from a point, usually requiring the other team to send a second guy over to run you off, or letting you just deadlock one of their roamers in a never ending fight on point. Ideally you do normal thief back capping, and bunker the point to force them in to weird splits if you see their roamer coming to recap.

You won’t top the kill chart, but if you time interrupts from steal and bandit’s defense right you can force people to leave points to reset and kill with condition pressure against builds with weak cleanse, and the ability to quickly back cap and then bunker a point against their roamer can seriously mess up their roaming game.

So. Has been a while since I answer this.

Well I´ve been using cond DD a lot on WvW roaming and the results are very good, i mean VERY good.

After playing WvW for a while (following some advice from you guys), I don’t ever think I want to Spvp again.

On wvw, our mobility has more purpose as we can be distant and fast eyes for our commander, our scouting is very important, I never felt so useful on Spvp as on WvW when some commander make a decision of WP back or going for a somewhat risky objective, stopping a whole zerg from what they are doing, and changing his plans, “just” because my scouting provided a “turning tables” info.

And I do that while picking and slaying stray zergers, lost players, other roamers and scouts, or the backline of enemy zerg.

I win lots of 1×1 and 1×2 per day, even won some 1×3.... also LOTS of times I can get into a 1×3, kill one of the enemys with bursting cond+elite stomp, than run to safety after.

I rarely roam with someone, and when I do it is another DD (not cond).

I advice anyone who likes DD to stop Spvp and go try the same as me, for me it completely changed my experience as a thief player, could be the same for you.

I’ve been able to 1×1 anything, realy, and I almost never lose on 1×1, when I do it’s because of severe outplay for a way more experienced duelist (most of them are thiefs)…

Sometimes I lose to people that strike very precisely on the time between dodges with high burst dmg (some med guardians I faced were very good on this, not DH, guardians) , and that’s realy hard do avoid. But happened only like, once a week or something… and when it stomps me: “ok, dragon/phoenix finisher… fine by me losing to this guy, even more ok if it is a good thief player”

Sometimes I encounter people that are sort of “immune” to cond, like some very tough guardians and diamond skin eles or auramancer tempest, but I think power builds would have to just ignore/run from some very tough guys anyway(?).

Also once on a while Ive been unfortunate enough to face a very good reaper duelist, when that happens there is almost nothing you can do to take him down… but on those encounters I just shadowstep away, Steal on another enemy or an sentry to make gap, spam dodges and run, etc… You can also lure him to near one of your sentry and there maybe you have a chance at killing him.

Well, where i’m going with this?

On my experience, we are very strong roamers as DD, we have the mobility that allow us to pick fights and leave it when on disadvantage, and we can 1×1 and 2×1 easily on that cenario. The new elite, while it is good on spvp fells amazing on WvW, when you have so much unorganized zerg fights, a faster (and sightly more difficult to interrupt) stomp will probabily make at least one of your ally raly back to combat.

For now i’m running this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAoY4Yn8lCFNhlOBemCkmiFYCrrwkESUzhwSYKU7PFAKAA-T1xHABkt/wsPAgy0LMi6P1pEEgTCQRK/CAgAwMn5Mn5MnZpAqSZF-w

(Still deciding on going full Dire or remainning half Carrion, viper would not be good as our cond are realy kitten long duration, we need cond dmg)

Whats is important to kill someone is abuse the immobilize from the neddle trap (on heal), panic strike and imparring daggers, (or if you are power, basilisk) as a lot of people you fight are trying to either close gap or run from you and get to their group on WvW.

Would add, that if you are playing cond you MUST hit imparring daggers… if you hit all the daggers the enemy will die on like 5 seconds. But if he dodge the daggers you will have sort of long duel 10-15 seconds more.

You could use SB with very good results, for more scouting and aoe for attacking zergs from wall or on huge fights… probabily would be better overall I admit.

But I rather use d/d d/d because I way too often engage on 2 or 3 enemys, and this weapon set helped me on those fights much more than SB.

Sorry for my dh-brained english (not first language) and please add your own experiences and tips on wvw thief will be much appreciated.