Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,

I recently start wearing ascended staff and daredevil power build for PVE.
I have a doubt about the application of the following rotation I have read on “qtfy.eu”.

The rotation is:
01) Dodge
02) (if ready) Fist Flurry + Palm Strike
03) Weakening Charge
04) Auto attack chain
05) Weakening Charge
06) Staff Strike (auto attack chain #1)
07) Staff Bash (auto attack chain #2)
08) Dodge
09) Punishing Strikes (auto attack chain #3)
10) Repeat from step 2.

The goals are maximize damage with bounding dodger and staff master traits.
A good thing to know is that “Weakening Charge” is not only used to spend initiative points but, at the same time, to inflict a decent amount of damage. In order to make “Weaking Charge” hit 3 times (instead of only 2), I have to untarget the boss and aim the camera down from above my character.

Here comes the problem.

If I don’t have the enemy boss as my target I can’t know when use cc skills to break down the defiance bar! At the same time, target and untarget the enemy every time I have to use “Weakening Charge” seems to be very unfeasible!

How to solve the matter? What’s your opinion?

Sorry for my english.
Thank you

Here is the thing, are you talking single target dps roatations? Or are you talking mob pve clearing?

Because if I remember correctly alot of staff thieves just AA for single target bosses,

For mob pve clearing I have been using sigil of stamina on both my staff and shortbow, and it is insane how much more aoe bounding dps you can put out on mobs.

The rotation is easy and unlikely you will die even when surfing big HoT mobs, just
Vault→dodge→Vault→ and when you run out of ini just dodge/bound spam,
With short bow, I spam dodges and cluster bombs, but you are alittle more vulnerable.

I’ve been using staff with sigil of stamina (+1 on this, really good sigil for thief with bound) and force, with S/P on offhand with strength (could prob swap this for something else if you have warriors in party) and bloodlust for trash mobs and breakbars. Works really well I find.

And yeah, I mostly just auto, using bound enough to keep the buff up and 3 to dodge big hits as needed. I use DA CS DD with all damage traits except I take invigorating precision for the sustain, and I was reliably out dps’ing our ele last time we did fractals.

Mistborn.9514:

At the same time, target and untarget the enemy every time I have to use “Weakening Charge” seems to be very unfeasible!

Now I dont play much thief in PvE, but afaik you dont target the boss even when using Staff#2. Having no target when using Weakening charge is the whole point of it.
Its like with heartseeker (Dagger#2) for instance. If you have your camera angle top-down and use these skills (without a target!), the traveling distance is actually shorter, allowing you to land 3/3 hits with Staff#2 easily…even on small hitboxes.

As for the whole defiance bar issue. Most raid bosses actually use some sort of special, highly telegraphed, mechanic that makes it easy to tell when to use CCs.

As you said, one option could be target the bosses, simply autoattack, spam bounds and some vaults … but it gives no satisfaction and no max dps. Of course dying too much isn’t also a great alternative!

I was talking about single target dps rotation (open world, dungeons, fractals and so on). During pve mob rotations there is no problem because I simply do not care to break the defiance bar … some autoattack, some vaults, some bounds, some weaking charge … I just care to stay alive (in order of that sigil of stamina could be a great option, thanks for the idea).

Yes, some bosses (like unbound guardian) have a clear animation when they have defiance bar active but the most of them don’t (idk about raids because I didn’t run them before).

There is another problem I would underline:
if you cast “Weaking Charge” when the enemy boss cast a deadly spell (like champion Jade Armor) you have no time to finish your skill and dodge … and you die.

Some solutions for both problems could be, in some occasions, avoid the use of weaking charge replacing it with vault or swap to the D/D set.

To conlcude … it’s not a big deal (and everything turns around casting weaking charge to hit 3 times insted of 2), I wanted just hear your thoughts. Thank all of you for the replies!

One question for Jugglemonkey:
Do you have 2 staves? One with force + stamina and one with force + air sigils?
Currently I’m running only with the second one.

I’ve been running with just force and stamina on my berserker staff, I have force and air on a marauder staff but I’m probably going to swap the sigils soon so air/force is on the zerk staff and stamina/force is on the marauder one, with stamina/bloodlust on S/P.