Guild Wars 2

Title says it all,
Want your opinions

Can a Steal/Backstab build work w/o Executioner?

Been getting board of S/D Evade builds and want to go backstab. (wvw roam)

If I do it though I want it to do a couple things.
1. I want steal to be powerful, (Thrill of Crime, Daze, ETC)
2. When I steal, I want my opponents to have no idea where I went. This means I want stealth on Steal. Which requires 20 in shadow arts.

I want these things to create some decision making hesitancy. If I can get my opponent even for half a second to react slow when I stealth on steal and try to figure out whats going on, the backstabs should come but will it be powerful enough?

So right now I am at 0/0/20/0/30.
D/D with Pressure P/X
Obviously I don’t have enough points for executioner, so can backstab still work here? Or do should I really just conform and drop the stealth on steal.

It depends. With high enough Critical Chance AND the trait +7% CC from behind or the side (Major Adept Trait from Critical Strikes) it could work. But you could go for Caed build which is a 10 30 0 0 30 too. Slow as hell but hits for a lot. And you could go full Valk with Soldier Coat, Legs and Helm, only having 40% max in critical chance

I tried something like that but I personally started to miss having executioner, and you lose crit dmg as well and the 10% dmg with initiative boost. Some classes just do too much dmg or have too many shutdowns/heals that killing them as fast as humanly possible is much more preferred. ;s IE Warriors mainly. I ended up completely dropping shadow arts. I love all the steal traits but it’s kinda hard to mix them into a good damage build without dropping Shadow Arts.

Well if you don’t go 30 in crit, you at least need 15 for initiative management. I wouldn’t advise going 20 pts deep into shadow arts unless you wish to run a perma-stealth build. If that is the case, then go full 30 in shadow arts.

Honestly, I love the concept of stealth on steal, but there are better traits to take in the line. Especially since shadow arts is really only viable for perma stealth thieves (30 pts).

Chicago Jack.5647:

Well if you don’t go 30 in crit, you at least need 15 for initiative management. I wouldn’t advise going 20 pts deep into shadow arts unless you wish to run a perma-stealth build. If that is the case, then go full 30 in shadow arts.

Honestly, I love the concept of stealth on steal, but there are better traits to take in the line. Especially since shadow arts is really only viable for perma stealth thieves (30 pts).

Actually, 0-30-30-10-0 is a good, solid build for any backstab thief, be it D/P (permastealth) or D/D (higher bursts, less versatility).

Zord.6130:

Actually, 0-30-30-10-0 is a good, solid build for any backstab thief, be it D/P (permastealth) or D/D (higher bursts, less versatility).

I know.