Guild Wars 2

I’m currently going for a condition build with my Thief and I’m looking to the community for some tips.

So far I’ve traited:

• 30 in Deadly Arts
• 20 in Shadow Arts
• 20 in Trickery

For maximum condition damage I’ve chosen to stay with Trickery, but there’s one problem: Once I get hit I die pretty fast. I have lots of health (Vitality from Shadow Arts) but very little toughness (I can gain that from Acrobatics). So this leaves me with the following;

I will stay with Deadly Arts. So what do you think is best?

• Shadow Arts and Acrobatics
• Acrobatics and Trickery
• My current build: Shadow Arts and Trickery

I would like to kill things pretty fast, survive through condition damage as well as physical damage. My gear is power, condition and vitality.

Thanks in advance

I’m no expert, so take it with a grain of salt, but my level 50 Condition Thief is mostly Acro/Trick, because part of the Condition build is applying the high damage, and the other half is surviving long enough for it to take effect. I find that the flippiness of Acro is vital to this.

Just a quick question, PvE or PvP? If the latter, sPvP or WvW?

sounds like your gear (Carrion set) is correct, so you should have enough vitality to survive alot of stuff. not sure why you’re going down so fast. Thief is kinda squishy but between evasion, stealth, and a decent health pool you should do ok.

i like this build for a Cond Damage thief:

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/thief#3|3|2642|2645|6677|2788|4485|25|1738|1714|0|0|0|0|0|30|750|2387|785|0|0|0|0|15|782|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

weapon sets are Dagger+Dagger and Shortbow.

This build has venom sharing and two venoms so it can provide excellent offensive support. You’ve got Preparedness so you can get off 3 Death Blossoms instead of 2, before running out of init. nice.

The general playstyle of this build depends on the circumstances. In a big group fight stay with your shortbow and just spread venom to your team while taking potshots at people with the bow and using Cluster Bomb for AoE damage. In smaller fights you can really dominate by running into melee and dropping caltrops and popping your venoms while Death Blossoming. the immobilize from Devourer Venom is particularly awesome here as it keeps your enemy stuck in place, accumulating bleed stacks without being able to dodge roll out of the Caltrops or away from your death blossom attacks. by the time the fight is 5 seconds old your opponent will be poisoned, weakened, and have 15 stacks of bleeding on him. pretty nasty. good way to finish the fight from here is to just kite him with Dancing Dagger or even switch back to Shortbow and plink him down while he bleeds out.

I’ve played a little bit in PvP (I love the Mists for the fact that you could try out every single build!) with Trickery and Acrobatics, but then I meet another condition Thief and I die pretty fast due to the lack of health… So maybe I’ll have to skip the Trickery and just go for Acrobatics and Shadow Arts…

Take a look at this guy, he’s insane!

MrPicklez.6473:

Just a quick question, PvE or PvP? If the latter, sPvP or WvW?

I can get inputs for both

My gear is giving me lots of condition damage, power and vitality.

metaphorm.6904:

sounds like your gear (Carrion set) is correct, so you should have enough vitality to survive alot of stuff. not sure why you’re going down so fast. Thief is kinda squishy but between evasion, stealth, and a decent health pool you should do ok.

i like this build for a Cond Damage thief:

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/thief#3|3|2642|2645|6677|2788|4485|25|1738|1714|0|0|0|0|0|30|750|2387|785|0|0|0|0|15|782|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

weapon sets are Dagger+Dagger and Shortbow.

This build has venom sharing and two venoms so it can provide excellent offensive support. You’ve got Preparedness so you can get off 3 Death Blossoms instead of 2, before running out of init. nice.

The general playstyle of this build depends on the circumstances. In a big group fight stay with your shortbow and just spread venom to your team while taking potshots at people with the bow and using Cluster Bomb for AoE damage. In smaller fights you can really dominate by running into melee and dropping caltrops and popping your venoms while Death Blossoming. the immobilize from Devourer Venom is particularly awesome here as it keeps your enemy stuck in place, accumulating bleed stacks without being able to dodge roll out of the Caltrops or away from your death blossom attacks. by the time the fight is 5 seconds old your opponent will be poisoned, weakened, and have 15 stacks of bleeding on him. pretty nasty. good way to finish the fight from here is to just kite him with Dancing Dagger or even switch back to Shortbow and plink him down while he bleeds out.

The Thief is pretty squishy, and I do rarely get hit, but if a glass cannon or a “big guy” with much power get the right punches I’m going down fast. Right now I can easily withstand condition damage, but I’m having a hard time with armor. Those hard hitting guys are the main reason I’m getting downed.

I use the Carrion set as you said which is perfect for this build