Guild Wars 2

Hi Guys/Gals,
I was wondering what some great condi builds were out there. I was wondering if its even worth rolling a Thief to begin with if I want to do condi DMG. Right now I run a condi Engineer and its really powerful solo, but wanted to change it up.

So I was thinking:
30 Deadly Arts: IV, VIII & XII
10 Acrobatics: II
30 Trickery: II, IX & XI

I’d be running P/P with the following skills:

Hide in Shadows, Drake, Skale & Spider venom. Elite would be Dagger Storm.

I’m planning on using full rabid gear with runes/weapons to get me to 100% condition duration.

I’m thinking that if I can initiate with all my venoms I should be able to mitigate damage from weakness and chill (which now have double duration) and stack on bleeds and poison.

You guys know better than me on Thiefs so let me know what you think.

Personally for condition thief I would run P/D. Reason being is Cloak and Dagger offhand —→stealth --→Sneak attack from stealth(5 stacks of bleed)

Open world PvE? Dungeons? sPvP? WvW?

Seriously, dont go dual pistol.

Its like cutting off both your arms and legs, then you look like a football and do you know what people do to footballs, they kick them while they are vulnerable on the ground.

With dual pistol, you will be other classes plaything, a toy to be kicked around for fun.

Seriously, go pistol / dagger, use auto attack, use cloak and dagger then stealth finisher – sneak attack. Repeat, repeat, repeat + some dodge and look at all other classes dead on the ground. Have fun. Take care. Good luck.

Here is a perfect suvival + condition pistol/dagger trait + rune build , Use carrion gear.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqYVlUmaPXey5E+5EB3Dny0m6p4ritTBX1KA;TgAgyUwY8R4jdGHMyZGBA

Copy this link and put it in your browser.

Thieves rolling condi generally goes p/d or d/d. The former because of sneak attack off of stealth which does 5 stacks of bleeding and then spamming 1 out of stealth to keep the bleeds up then stealthing again, rinse and repeat. You have this option in P/P weaponset as well but P/D has the built in cloak n dagger, so easy access to stealth after every 4 secs of debuff.

My personal preference for PvE is D/D, because of lotus death blossom (3 skill). I prefer this over P/D (for PvE) because LBD is an AoE, and arguably the best AoE available to condi thieves outside of cluster bomb from shortbow. Get into the middle of a mob, LBD, drop caltrops, LBD some more, then CnD or just dodge roll out of there, watch mobs bleed to death.

Problem with the D/D weapon set would be against single targets such as in PvP or WvW, mobs are dumb and will just stand there to let you LBD them. Players are not.

Condi thieves generally don’t invest into DA, the traits offered in DA doesn’t offer as much synergy (besides condition duration) in terms of condition damage and survivability that trickery acrobatics and shadow arts will offer. General condi builds go 0/0/30/20/20 or 0/0/20/20/30 or i’ve also seen 0/0/20/30/20, according to preference.

Hope that helped

Well, I have to say, the 15 pt trait in DA is quite nice to quickly cover bleed stacks. bleed someone, then poison them and they have 2 conditions to remove before they can touch the bleed.
Problem is, thieves actually don’t have as many ways to poison opponents as I wish they had(or let’s put it differently… I wish, spider venom had a shorter cd but fewer stacks…)
Steal will also poison, making a quick steal another way to cover conditions.
From a PvE point of view, trickery is better. But from a PvP point of view, I’d rather have these 20 points in DA.
What you do is burst, swap to d/d(sigil of the geomancer), death blossom, steal, cripple → around 12-15 bleed stacks, covered by 3 conditions.If they pop their cond removal, you follow up with spider venom.

I run 0/0/30(VI, VII, XI)/20(VI, X)/20(II, III) With P/D SB. I use signet of malice, SR, Caltrops, and signet of shadows. For the elite, I switch between DS (when fighting mobs) and Hounds 1v1. I find that I can keep 10-15 bleeds on a single target. I can also tackle very large mobs. The AoE is AMAZING with signet of malice. I use DS as an extra healing skill. Try it out, troll me, whatever. It works great for me. If you have some input on making it better. Please feel free to post it.

How many bleeds can one stack with P/D & SB at 50 or 100% duration?

depends on whether you use caltrops… With a caltrop build, 25 stacks is easily done. Drop caltrops and go afk. it will stack up to 20+ anyway, if you specced high enough into cond duration.
If you are planning on using the build for PvP, I’d actually run with 75% duration, which is way easier to achieve(20 pt in DA, 10% from sigils, 45% from runes).

I suppose you guys get the luxury of running 75% because your base bleed is 4.0, makes sense.

I was thinking that one would want more range in a condition build, but how many caltrops drop?

unless you go for d/d in which case your base bleed is 10s

somebody said DD is the way to go to lvl up for death blossom.

I enjoyed/enjoy it lots in PvE, lots of AoE bleeds that are easy to maintain with decent single target damage for those fights you can’t just rely on conditions for.

I really only WvW so I want to spend as little time in PvE.

Goloith.6349:

I really only WvW so I want to spend as little time in WvW so really looking foward to rolling a Thief.

Wait so you really only WvW but you want to spend as little time in WvW…??? Ehh?

For PvE I definitely recommend D/D for leveling in PvE it is a lot easier to deal with mobs — even better than SB in melee range due to stacking bleeds. I never invested anything in condi duration and I could rack up 12 stacks of bleed within 5 secs, up to 20 if I used caltrops. This is not to say condi duration is a bad idea, I just opted for a more “tanky” spec with superior runes of the undead and carrion gear.

One caution about PvE is when running dungeons, if you’re in a team with a necro or a ranger (or worse, necro AND ranger…), this is a problem. Necros and rangers can stack bleeds just as fast (or depending on their spec, even faster) as thieves can, and once the max 25 stacks is reached, then you’re kind of useless. This is primarily the reason why I switched my build to a burst thief.

In my limited experience in WvW I’ve never seen a D/D condi thief, only P/D. And while increasing the duration of conditions I generally think is a good idea for PvE, I think it’s a better investment to up condition damage and increase survivability in wvw. All the time effort and initiative you will use to stack bleeds up to 20+ is going to go away with 1 condi removal, its more efficient to stack 10-12 bleeds (which you can do again and again easily, no matter how efficient the target is at removing conditions.)

sorry it was typo. I don’t want to spend much time in PvE, but its necessary to level up.

Ahh in that case I’d recommend P/D for wvw if you’re going condi.

But, if rolling a thief in wvw is what you wanna do, then honestly speaking as a player who ran both condi and burst, I had much more success going either d/p or s/d in wvw. It offers a lot more mobility and tools to pick your fights, run away when situation is unfavorable and pick off players 1 on 1.

P/D condi is viable. But I think you’ll get a more “thief like” experience rolling a more burst type build, assuming this is what attracted you to make a thief in the first place.

Silver.4798:

Ahh in that case I’d recommend P/D for wvw if you’re going condi.

But, if rolling a thief in wvw is what you wanna do, then honestly speaking as a player who ran both condi and burst, I had much more success going either d/p or s/d in wvw. It offers a lot more mobility and tools to pick your fights, run away when situation is unfavorable and pick off players 1 on 1.

P/D condi is viable. But I think you’ll get a more “thief like” experience rolling a more burst type build, assuming this is what attracted you to make a thief in the first place.

So direct damage over condition damage?

This video has been going around, to give you an idea of what I mean about a more “thief like” experience (and I personally find more fun!)

A lot of thieves in WvW are going this build or some variation post 4s reveal nerf. Some others use a S/D weaponset instead for a more control based gameplay with a lot of mobility.

The only condition I like to stack and maintain is Vulnerability. It’s cheap because I don’t need much of Condition Damage and stacking Condition Duration instead.

The build is 25/30/0/0/15, main weapon set: S/D, heal: HiS, utilities: Scorpion Wire, Skale Venom, SoS, elite: BV, rune set: Lyssa, sigils: Peril, armor set: Berserker.

The build’s goal is simple, the more Vulnerability stacks, the more damage you make — viable in both solo and group settings, especially vs world bosses.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAqYVlcmaPXey5E+5EC3jk6oaKPFO4X1pAr0KA;T8AAzypESJlSNlSKKYMwIgxCjDGJMrDGBMDA
Thoughts?

Instinctual response AND last refuge? :P Its almost like you enjoy being revealed

I’d go thrill of the crime or flanking strikes myself.

Good idea. That does become a problem from time to time. I like the thrill of the crime as this is not a damage based build and it offers good support for the party.

thrill of the crime is a really nice trait let down slightly by only 1 stack of might.

I often use it just for the 10s swiftness when Im running places.

CornBread.3268:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAqYVlcmaPXey5E+5EC3jk6oaKPFO4X1pAr0KA;T8AAzypESJlSNlSKKYMwIgxCjDGJMrDGBMDA
Thoughts?

Signet of malice is a pve signet, its horrible in pvp, it offers bad healing. Hide in shadows is the only way to go.

The agony rune that gives 10% bleed doesnt stack on dualwield, so you only need one.

5% more damage on shortbow and harpoon is horrible, it doesnt increase the bleed damage, only direct damage. Choose remove condition on stealth instead because then you wont get your kitten handed to you versus other condition players.

I recommend using Carrion gear or apothecary instead of rabid, because rabid is horrible, the extra precision is useless for a p/d condition thief.

Im currently runninfg full apothecary. I do PvE/Dungeons. That was just playing around a bit on the editor.

Rissou.7213:

Signet of malice is a pve signet, its horrible in pvp, it offers bad healing. Hide in shadows is the only way to go.

Its not that bad if you have a high amount of hits and are evading a lot of damage but yeah Hide in Shadows or Withdraw tend to be slightly better

Rissou.7213:

The agony rune that gives 10% bleed doesnt stack on dualwield, so you only need one.

Yes it does.

Rissou.7213:

5% more damage on shortbow and harpoon is horrible, it doesnt increase the bleed damage, only direct damage. Choose remove condition on stealth instead because then you wont get your kitten handed to you versus other condition players.

With clusterbombs higher direct damage it can add to a fair bit specially if your shotgunning, the condition removal on stealth can be nice but you have to have a lot of access to stealth and be able to wait 3 seconds in stealth to get proper use out of it.

Rissou.7213:

I recommend using Carrion gear or apothecary instead of rabid, because rabid is horrible, the extra precision is useless for a p/d condition thief.

Apothecaries is just terrible the healing powers very little use to a thief unless stacking as many tiny scraps of healing you can possibly get and you’d still loose a fair bit of condition damage while precision from rabid gives a higher crit rate meaning all those attacks that are applying conditions are also hitting fairly hard, though a mix of rabid and carrion would be better for both a more even toughness/vit spread and a decent power/precision spread that help your attacks hit harder before your conditions take hold

I’ve actually been running SoM in Wv3 and have had some luck with it, especially with Daggerstorm on a zerg. You still need an escape plan, but it’s fun.

The on thing I haven’t sorted out yet is that I can’t tell if damage from conditions procs heals from SoM or not.

Does anyone know definitively?

nope condition damage ticks do not proc SoM

bah! well they oughta!

/shakesfist

(thanks for the info)

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/

nope condition damage ticks do not proc SoM

I’ll have to check on that, but I’m pretty sure they do. Anyways, I’m talking PvE/Dugeon, cant show builds for that on gw2skills. I found a site though. Check the link at the top of my post and see what yall think.

the confusion comes with the fact that caltrops ticks SoM when it applies the bleeds but the actual condition ticks do not.

If it did I’d be invincible, 27 ticks a second from conditions alone is at least 2700 healing a second multiplied by each mob in range of my AoE condition build… 3-4 mobs and I’d be fully healing every second :P

Dasorine.1964:

Rissou.7213:

Signet of malice is a pve signet, its horrible in pvp, it offers bad healing. Hide in shadows is the only way to go.

Its not that bad if you have a high amount of hits and are evading a lot of damage but yeah Hide in Shadows or Withdraw tend to be slightly better

Rissou.7213:

The agony rune that gives 10% bleed doesnt stack on dualwield, so you only need one.

Yes it does.

Rissou.7213:

5% more damage on shortbow and harpoon is horrible, it doesnt increase the bleed damage, only direct damage. Choose remove condition on stealth instead because then you wont get your kitten handed to you versus other condition players.

With clusterbombs higher direct damage it can add to a fair bit specially if your shotgunning, the condition removal on stealth can be nice but you have to have a lot of access to stealth and be able to wait 3 seconds in stealth to get proper use out of it.

Rissou.7213:

I recommend using Carrion gear or apothecary instead of rabid, because rabid is horrible, the extra precision is useless for a p/d condition thief.

Apothecaries is just terrible the healing powers very little use to a thief unless stacking as many tiny scraps of healing you can possibly get and you’d still loose a fair bit of condition damage while precision from rabid gives a higher crit rate meaning all those attacks that are applying conditions are also hitting fairly hard, though a mix of rabid and carrion would be better for both a more even toughness/vit spread and a decent power/precision spread that help your attacks hit harder before your conditions take hold

Yep, I tested the agony runes, they stack, Im suprised they do since no other 5% rune stack. Thanks for that info!

The remove condition every 3 second is always at good use when you are Pistol/dagger, because you always go cloak and dagger for sneak attack so you can easily wait 3 seconds until it takes effect. Which will save your life vs any other condition stacking class.

Trying to go for direct damage when you focus everything on condition isnt good for thief, maybe works good for other classes like Ranger, but not for thief. Thief is really squishy already and going rabid would kitten yourself and make you not survive at all. You already have enough damage to kill anything you face with Carrion gear.

The reason I also said apothecary is because, you can choose trait that give 5 second regen every time you enter stealth + food that heal 80 every second + the trait that heals you while in stealth, which gives a fair amount of healing.

The reason why Pistol/dagger is so good is just because of the nice condition damage and the great survival due to stealth and healing in stealth.

yeah the permenent stat sigils like +5% crit don’t stack but the condition duration ones do.

Ideally you do want a mix of condition and direct damage otherwise your instantly shut down by condition removal, plus with high precision you then open up your build to utilizing the many on crit effects and such which can be a nice boost. A mix of Carrion and Rabid is also a good choice to even out your defenses as said, but neither is actually that much better than the other.

As healing, both the regen boon given and the healing pulses from the stealth are both only around the 0.1 healing coefficient and the food doesnt scale at all, so in general even if you go full healing gear your only going to be looking at 200-300 health per second improvement at max while giving up about double that in damage from conditions alone when you add in the loss from the damage you’d do while applying the conditions with a higher crit or power score… well its not a good trade off for a class who doesn’t reduce damage coming in by much.

Dasorine.1964:

yeah the permenent stat sigils like +5% crit don’t stack but the condition duration ones do.

Ideally you do want a mix of condition and direct damage otherwise your instantly shut down by condition removal, plus with high precision you then open up your build to utilizing the many on crit effects and such which can be a nice boost. A mix of Carrion and Rabid is also a good choice to even out your defenses as said, but neither is actually that much better than the other.

As healing, both the regen boon given and the healing pulses from the stealth are both only around the 0.1 healing coefficient and the food doesnt scale at all, so in general even if you go full healing gear your only going to be looking at 200-300 health per second improvement at max while giving up about double that in damage from conditions alone when you add in the loss from the damage you’d do while applying the conditions with a higher crit or power score… well its not a good trade off for a class who doesn’t reduce damage coming in by much.

Mm, i never tried the apothecarys, I just thought it sounded good on paper with the healing avaible. Which I agree was stupid to give as a tip. /facepalm

But I still want to stand my ground on not using rabid gear, because even if you crit, the direct damage on pistol auto attack is hitting like a wet noodle because you arent focusing on +critdmg. This is my opinion(obviously), but both works, depends if you are prepared to offer the health for that small amount of direct damage.

indeed, and ideally you do want that mix so your not so glassy against any source of damage anyway, but I do tend to play with a higher crit for things like sigils, its a shame they nerfed pies as they were brilliant with a crit/condi build, keeping you healthy as you stacked up conditions and such.