Guild Wars 2

Ok, so here’s the build w/ abilities:
Click Here

I’m only level 73 so far and thus don’t have the 25 or 30 point trait bonuses in Trickery yet but this IS what I’m building towards.
I’m running Dagger/Dagger and Pistol/Pistol as my weapon loadouts (With a switch to Shortbow over the Pistols when ranged AoE is needed).

The main strategy is to Spam Death Blossom as much as possible as fast as possible then finish people off with Heartseeker and Double Strike attacks.
It’s possible to do 3 Death Blossoms right off the bat and due to the “Critical Strike” #8 choice I can immediately pop all 3 signets to pull off a fourth. By the time the fourth is applied I already have regened enough Init to do a fifth (Due to the increased regen speed from “Acrobatics” #9) and then trigger steal (gaining 3 more due to the “Trickery” 5 point passive “Kleptomaniac”) and usually have enough to do a sixth.

At the end of this madness I have applied at least 18 stacks of bleed onto a target (AND every target near him) that is usually causing their health to drop like a rock, and if I’ve done it fast enough still have 15 stacks of might from triggering all my signets.

I can then dodge away, triggering a burst of swiftness, gaining another stack of might, and throwing out caltrops that cripple my opponents (“Critical Strikes” #2, “Acrobatics” #2 & “Trickery” #3). This can turn into an escape or the start of continued beating via a Heartseeker leap.

It’s proven VERY effective in PvE and PvP so far, especially against large groups.
The rate at which this build regains Initiative is INSANE and can effectively be applied to mass spamming any ability (Or giving one’s self the flexibility to use any ability at any time). The amount of raw damage you can pour on using this with “Unload” using pistols is also crazy.

What do all of you out there think?

-Parmeus

Sounds great! I would have thought you to go into Deadly Arts instead of Critical Strikes. I know it is for the initiative regain, but do you think it is better to have more overall power or to get those extra initiative?(I’m just starting a thief)

Elrond.9486:

Sounds great! I would have thought you to go into Deadly Arts instead of Critical Strikes. I know it is for the initiative regain, but do you think it is better to have more overall power or to get those extra initiative?(I’m just starting a thief)

The speed that you end up attacking at with Double Daggers and Pistols is so high that going for higher crit rather than power tends to actually increase your damage output over time. At higher levels your crit chance approaches nearly 50%, and when your attacking SO rapidly you end up criting at least once in every string of attacks. That combined with the crazy fast initiative regen makes this the same (if not better) damage output as you would get from stacking power.

Yeahi think you can either build with signet use or get hidden thief and the 2 initiative regain on stealth in the shadow line. Both great styles for trickery, condition damage setups

I like where this is going, especially leveraging the signets into more initiative. Seems like you might want to switch your heal into Signet of Malice, though.

Daviezero.5940:

I like where this is going, especially leveraging the signets into more initiative. Seems like you might want to switch your heal into Signet of Malice, though.

I considered it, but I honestly like “Hide in Shadows” so much more for a couple reasons:

1. It cures DoT Conditions on you, so it can act as a counter to another thief trying the same strategy on you.
2. The “Heals when you attack” effect of the signet doesn’t seem to actually heal you very much and the active is pretty weak too, with “HiS” you get 3 times that amount of health back in one burst.
3. It stealth’s you, which can sometimes be the difference between life and death in both PvE and PvP situations.

And if you count the fact that it actually ends up giving you MORE initiative back (4 rather than 2) than if it was just the signet (“Trickery” #11 Hastened Replenishment) it ends up overall being the better choice.

Edit: One other note is the fact that I ended up choosing the “Assassins Signet” over the “Infiltrators Signet” as my Number 8 Utility. Even through the Infil Sig does synergize well with this builds “Fast Initiative Regen” theme, the active effect of shadow stepping to your target can sometimes be a hindrance when you just want to get the initiative from it rather than use it to quickly close with your target (That’s what Steal is used for in this build, and with it’s super fast cooldown due to the 30 points in trickery it’s actually MUCH better for it too).

I wonder how much might we can stack with everything. I think each stack is 35 power. So 15+ stacks is sick, especially combined with Bloodlust. Signet Build is out there somewhere!

Thanks for posting this Parmeus. I’ve been using a 0-0-20-20-30 build for a bit now and was looking for something with a little more punch and initiative regen. So I’m happy to find your post and learn about the Signets of Power and Signet Use traits.

My main question now is this: what stats are you stacking for you gear and why? (For PVE and PVP)

I’ve been using the Cariron set (condition dmg/power/vitality) for the high condition dmg, but I don’t like the vitality much and would rather have precision or toughness or more power.

I’d appreciate your — or anyone else’s — thoughts on gear for a Bleed build like yours.

Thanks all!

Interesting, my first thought was “Might work decent in sPvP but would not bring that much to the table tournament wise”. IMO I think it’s to all out on ini regen, you can still stack bleeds with stealth utilitys with pistol main (I prefer P/P but P/D seems to be fotm for w.e reason I will never understand) and that brings some utility to your team as well.

I can easily stack 25 bleeds on a target with my build too but with utilitys, blinding powder, shadow refuge that can be used in numerous situations.

Just my thoughts! =)

I can confirm this build does work well in spvp also, well I use a bit more of a 10 0 0 30 30, it still relies on bleeds and poison as it’s main source of damage, and plus the 30 in both the final two trees help heavily on initiative regen without the need for using signets.

My thief build

From someone who has used something similar to this, a few critiques/tips:

1. Signet of Malice, use it. It is so amazing with dodge caltrops and will synergize even better with your signet setup. I can often dodge >6 times in a row with a signet of agility activation. Doing that through a crowd with Signet of Malice will net you literally dozens of heal ticks per second. Dodge is already really powerful with acrobatics, turn it into a heal with Signet of Malice.

2. Assassin’s Signet isn’t worth it. Agility is an awesome escape along with a well-synergized passive, while Assassin’s passive is just okay and the activation is pretty bland. Take utility caltrops or the always-amazing shadow refuge.

3. It can be a little pricey, but the top-end dodge-enhancing food gives +100 % endurance regeneration and 100 % chance to gain a might stack on dodge. This means that every single dodge will net you 2xmight and you’ll be able to dodge all day long (and heal/cripple/bleed/swiftness, thanks to synergy).

4. With as much dodge as you have, you should actually be able to keep swiftness up long enough to negate most of the use of Signet of Shadows, but it may be worth keeping for the utility.

5. +20 % might duration runes, they’re worth it.