Guild Wars 2

The condition builds… These builds are most unlikely to see a nerf and in my opinion the most fun. Theres a few of us tickers out there which just love the idea that a condition build is different from every other MMO’s standard bursty crity thief. We love ANET for giving us guys something new on the table.

So being that DoT thief builds are generally new to the MMO table lets gather them up and see what we got and how we play them

My build is for WvW: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlUm6OHfy9E+JFB3Djq0m6LQXQ3DsKftC;T8AgyyuEcJ5S1liLKYMwIgx2kDGJMLPGBMXA

YOU MAY HAVE TO COPY AND PASTE THE LINK

This build offers great stealth ability, healing ability, evasive ability, condition damage and the steal does exactly what you want it to do; give you even more inititave while putting a poison on the target and at the same time giving you a stolen skill

Note what I did with the shortbow. Switching to this weapon when a guy is about to run away will instantly put a 7sec bleed on him.

It heals in stealth and heals when spending inititave points which can be gained from using one of your many stealth skills.

Have a flick through the tabs to look at sigils and runes and armour choice I made

Skill chain looks like:
DB,DB,steal,DB (at this point they have 9 bleeds and a poison)

switch to short bow and auto attack while letting inititive come back (adding a 7sec bleed)

when they focus you: Pop blinding powder ( sit and wait for ini to come back to full)

switch back to daggers as soon as it is ready (6secs)

DB,DB, Roll for inititive

C&D,auto attack,C&D as much as you like healing every time you do

If your bleeds didnt kill them keep going with DB and regen inititive with your remaining 2 stealth skills.

if you run out or they run away switch to short bow quickly to apply a 7sec bleed and
keep firing sb at them on top

So thats my build, lets see yours!!

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckzMzMzMoMFvooMwvm0Gx0GVsmsqcs8kiO7kiT7khs7kiG7070z7kG270m7kId7owZ70z7ow270M

I really enjoy this build. Stealth removes conditions and heals over time. Poison also heals me. I switch to pistols and use the vital shot while stealthed to deal damage and add several bleeds to my main target. This build works very well for both AoE and single targets.

I exclusively use condition based builds.

D/D.

Caltrops, Death Blossom x3, steal, Death Blossom, stealth /enemy

I use d/d conditions exclusively in sPvP and PvE and have enjoyed much more success, averaging 250-325 points a game.

I stack 15-25 bleeds AoE in seconds and then leave the fight to my team mates who will always win with such weakened enemies. Meanwhile I am running off to the uncontested flag or Champion, thus, getting the points for my contributions towards the kills, and the flag captures.

I have three means of stealth ankittenraited to recover initiative on both stealthing and healing. This make 1v1s easy, and escaping easy too. Three means of stealth + evade on death blossom is fantastic survivability.

My traits are centered around maxing condition damage – duration isn’t as important is sPvP as they can be cleansed, and maxing initiative regen for more death blossoms. I feel particularly awesome when I stack 20 bleeds on somebody and then stealth away, watching them bleed.

I imagine my thief to be the master of slow death, severing arteries and pressure points with feline grace and dexterity before slipping into the shadows to watch the victim limp around before bleeding to death.

All you thieves out there that are kitten face tanking can do 1!

EDIT: will post my traits tomorrow, am in bed on phone atm. Night all.

Mine focuses more on evasion than stealth. Works brilliantly in WvW and PuG sPvP.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmkzz9mmblvomblvop9Mfxcscckq

Use LDB to stack bleeding and the dagger auto-attack (auto hits while dodge rolling if you roll through the enemy) to apply poison to prevent healing.
- 3 escapes with “Withdraw” and “Roll for Initiative” and “Shadowstep”.

- Initiative return from “Steal”, “Withdraw”, and “Roll for Initiative” ensures I can keep a stack of bleeds up even on people with purges.

- I use the Adventurer rune set for the extra dodge.

- “Steal” and “Withdraw” stack “Vigor” so I can keep up the dodgy playstyle.

Overall it makes me really hard to hit. And give me a way out if I do happen to get hit.
I use the carrion armor set/pvp jewel to give myself the boost in hp as well.

To the OP:

Your build is very self-defeating.
1st You say condition damage yet you take all these stealth skills and yet use D/D…What are you spending Int on … stealth or DB for bleeds? and you only have 12 int… so you can’t do it all.
2nd you have only +25% duration… which is fine for SB but for dagger you have to build in increments of 10% due to Ticks only happening at whole secs.

I could maybe see it working if you were P/D using Sneak Attack to apply bleeds and then restealthing….and 25% condition damage makes P/D’s bleeds 5 sec instead of 4 sec

Romeo and Adaneshade build and tactics are much better then the OP’s

I agree with fractal, but further the argument by positing that any DB-centric condi build is a noob slayer and nothing more. Show me a man who will stand in your caltrops field while you flop around like a trout, and I’ll show you an idiot…

I’ll occasionally roll this spec when I want to do condition damage:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VcR3V;1ZwFb0V53PVd0;9;4O-J-O27;243;247-aZV8;2jwmAjw191Ft

Dev→Steal→C&D provides enough time to drop caltrops and fire sneak attack. When they run, Scorpion wire them back into your field and C&D→Sneak Attack again. Quick stack of lethal conditions that are hard to recover from.

SoM triggers constantly, and this is even good in group fights. When in a pinch (especially group situations) drop caltrops and hit your Daggerstorm…just watch out for confusion or retaliation…

Have you guys watched RainyThief’s SB/SB condition build video?

I haven’t tried it and I’m not too good at pvp anyways so I would probably be a bad judge but his video is pretty interesting and makes it seem viable.

Curious what you guys think.

I see a couple problems with it.

1 he is using 20% reduction on Deception.. but only has 1 deception skill.
He has 45% duration from rune… which for SB is not correct. SB has 4 sec bleed which is effective in 25% increments… he either need to add 5% or take away 20%.

I do like his Devourer Venom + Sigil of Superior Geomancy… he said the 2 will immobilized lots of targets… but yet the poison is a 45 sec CD … would have to test it overall

That build looked okay…not amazing…just okay.

Geomancy breaks stealth

Here’s the first video where he comes up with the build and sort of talks through it:

I’m not defending the build or anything just seems interesting to me.

fractal.7039:

To the OP:

Your build is very self-defeating.
1st You say condition damage yet you take all these stealth skills and yet use D/D…What are you spending Int on … stealth or DB for bleeds? and you only have 12 int… so you can’t do it all.
2nd you have only +25% duration… which is fine for SB but for dagger you have to build in increments of 10% due to Ticks only happening at whole secs.

I could maybe see it working if you were P/D using Sneak Attack to apply bleeds and then restealthing….and 25% condition damage makes P/D’s bleeds 5 sec instead of 4 sec

Your way of playing this build is very limited and linear. It doesnt cost ini to go into stealth unless you use cloak and dagger. If you use any other stealth skill you actually get ini for doing so

For a guy who can crunch numbers, you also forgot to add them up. 5% from traits. 15% from runes, 10% from sigil = 30%

My build prolly needs a playstyle video as most people are failing to see how you can regen full inititive in 4 secs by popping a stealth skill (or by using roll)

skill chain is as follows,

DB,DB,steal,DB (at this point they have 9 bleeds and a poison)

switch to short bow and auto attack while letting inititive come back (adding a 7sec bleed)

when they focus you: Pop blinding powder ( sit and wait for ini to come back to full)

DB,DB, Roll for inititive

C&D,auto attack,C&D as much as you like healing every time you do

If your bleeds didnt kill them keep going with DB and regen inititive with your remaining 2 stealth skills.

if you run out or they run away switch to short bow quickly to apply a 7sec bleed and keep firing sb at them on top