Disclaimer:
I try to keep all my toons unique, by having no two toons use the same stat combination armor. My thief is my 3rd level 80 character so I’ve been playing with weird stat combinations for her armor. Berserker, Knight, Soldier, has all been taken by other toons. This build might also be very crap in your opinion, and I’m ok with anyone who thinks this.
I present to you the Cleric Thief (HEALING/power/toughness). This is a dungeon build, but with minor adjustments, I can often do my monthly 50 scalps in WvW with it and rarely die . This thief is tough, very supportive, and easy to play.
The Traits:
The Cleric Thief is actually a venom build. As such the trait allocation is 30/0/30/10/0. The last 10 can actually be placed anywhere, but personally I think Acrobatics has better adept traits compared to Trickery and Critical Strikes.
For Deadly Arts, we’ll be using Venomous Strength, Quick Venoms, and Residual venoms. These traits are pretty much no brainers.
Similarly for Shadow Arts, we’ll be using Shadow’s Embrace, Leeching Venoms, and Venomous Aura. Shadow’s Embrace can be swapped out for Shadow Protector in dungeons where conditions aren’t much of a problem, or Master of Deception for running/mob skipping sequences. You also have access to Shadow’s Rejuvenation, which is great for large area fights where your team is too spread out to make use of Venomous Auras, i.e. Lupi.
Acrobatics is incredibly versatile. Usually I use Vigorous Recovery most of the time, but you can easily find uses for Descent of Shadows, Power of Inertia and even Fleet Shadow.
The Skills:
This build uses S/D and Shorbow. I like to prioritize AoE auto-attacks in PvE so dagger or pistol mainhand is a definite no from me. This is especially important because hitting 3 enemies with a sword attack, or a trick shot will only use up 1 venom. The rest of the skills are: Hide in Shadows, Spider Venom, Skale Venom, Shadowstep, Basilisk Venom. S/D covers many areas; the Auto Attack is AoE, Infiltrator’s Strike and Cloak and Dagger can remove conditions/heal (depends on your adept Shadow Arts trait). Flanking Strike is a boon remover. Great utility right there.
Shadowstep can be swapped out for anything you see fit really.
Finally, I use 6 runes of the Monk for my armor. You get +25% boon duration which pushes 1 more tick of regeneration from Hide in Shadows. Aegis on elite is amazing – Basilisk venom can utilize this more than any other elite in the game. I’m still working out which sigils are best for this build.
What is this build capable of?
Excellent survivability, thanks to high toughness and Leeching Venoms. With over 1300 Healing Power, each hit will leech just under 600hp (this applies for your allies too). The damage is decent and you can easily maintain poison and weakness on your enemies. This build also promotes smarter play – use every second of your stealth to lose conditions and buy time for recharging venoms, turn off auto attack for the shortbow when using basilisk venom on bosses to keep them petrified for longer, always be in infiltration mode for bosses like Lupi to easily escape bubble traps and AoE spams.
WvW
I took this build for a spin in WvW. Changed up Spider and Skale Venoms for Ice Drake, and I take Scorpion Wire. The end effect is simple: Apply any venom, snag an enemy with Trick Shot, pull them in and watch them get destroyed by you and your allies (who also have your venoms). Rarely can anyone escape. This build clearly is not a solo roaming build however.
“We just don’t want players to grind in GW2” – C. Johanson
“it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun, rather than having fun”
Guild missions say otherwise.
