Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing with a lot of direct damage burst builds lately, but I still have yet to really try an evasion/caltrop build. The more I’ve run into other thieves running this build, the more curious I’ve gotten as to how well it performs in comparison to the backstab builds that seem to be popular.

So, my question is: Which build do you think is better? Does one of these builds fit the current meta better than the other?

By all means, bunker condition build,all carrion gear.
It’s perhaps the strongest build in the meta game if you play it smart.
See this video for example:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/P-D-gameplay-footage-in-WvW
And as a general fact, bunker condition builds are currently the best builds in outnumbered fights, among all classes not just thieves.
Simply because of how much dmg conditions cause in this game to the point where you can be completly dependant on them and still be highly invested in defense and survivablity

It’s somewhat effective. You’re going to run into a few problems. You’re not going to be able to hold a point like a traditional bunker because of stealth. Heavy condi removal builds are going to just laugh while they stand on your caltrops. If you’re going for a roamer role then an hgh engi is going to have just way more burst than you because of burning and higher swiftness uptime. For WvW p/d condition is great because you can stealth as much as you need, but when you need to stay on the point outside of stealth you’re going to lose a lot of survivability. If you really want to bunker as a thief, death blossom is where you want to go.

It’s not as effective in spvp as wvw due to 4s revealed.

i run this in spvp sometimes but i run it with 30 in acro line lots of HP to help for 4 secs revealed plus use ambush…helps take s0ome dmg/attention from u.

Condition builds in general, not just thieves, are great because it allows for great sustained DPS through the use of conditions, while allowing you to be tanky. I would always run a condition build over a DPS build. If the thief you’re facing is pure glass, 5 stacks of bleed for 9s each ticking at 120 is enough to take out alot of his HP.

You want to kill people in hotjoins and have lulz: caltrops (use sig of malice, assassin’s reward and shaman’s amulet for teh immortal effect)

You want to actually win games and go tournies: don’t ever, EVER touch a condi thief build. It’s plain horrible. You will get laughed at as you spin like an idiot, crippled/chilled/on top of various forms of nasty aoe like necro wells and stuff. You might actually get to run away but you won’t amount to anything to your team as you will get decapped in 3 seconds and fail to kill anyone or anything.

build gets outperformed in 1v1 against other tief builds due to the enemie porting around at an insane rate with s/d or you not being able to land cnd against d/p with it’s extreme stealth and blinds. shouldn’t be as bad in spvp as in wvw because you can actually use caltrops in its narrow environment. in wvw at least the skill is beyond useless because people just dodge out of it.

another thing (in wvw again, you wont have this problem in spvp) is that people can just run away from you. especially guardians; while this build is extremely potent in duelling situations against many classes and builds you are kinda scr.ewed if your opponent just decides to make a run for it