Guild Wars 2

I’m currently lvl 70 on my alt-thief-turned-main (cuz I love it that much) and quickly approaching 80. I know I want to use a heavy evasion/dodge build but I’m not sure on the specifics and have been trying a lot of things out (in AC mainly).

If people with an evasion build for dungeons could post their build so I could get some ideas I’d be much appreciative. If you could also include a description of how you play with it and with what type of gear you use (just saying “berserkers” or “knights” is fine) that would be great.

Thanks, I look foreward to hearing what the vets are using.

I used to play condition thief, full rabid (condi\tough\prec) with p/d.
0/0/30/20/20, Gameplay pretty much consists of stealthing + bleeding with Sneak Attack.
Withdraw, Roll for Initiative and the others are pretty much up to you.
Another option is d/d, Death Blossom spam, which is quite nice and dagger autoattack will give you easy access to poison.

Why condition, you might ask?
While I evade, as a power based character, I am not doing any damage. On a condition spec, however, I do keep damaging regardless.

-P/D is excellent for single target, D/D for multiple targets.-

Aiden.6483:

snip

Interesting perspective on the condition damage, I never thought of it that way before! Yeah, I am finding I’m liking withdraw a lot and will probably adapt it into my build. With the vigor on heal trait you have a very high up time of vigor, and its only 5 trait points more for the endurance back when you dodge… but that’s about the extent of “core” part of my build lolz. The rest I keep varying and haven’t even locked down my main weapon set entirely yet. Thanks for the feedback, keep the builds coming =)

I run a 25/30/0/15/0 full GC zerker build with D/D+Sb. Taking Withdraw, Roll for Initiative, and Shadow Refuge as my “must haves,” I can pretty much kite any boss to oblivion using shortbow while still putting out decent damage with autoattacks (1500~2000 crits with sb).

At least 15 points in Acrobatics is key to any evasion build for Feline Grace. The Vigorous Recovery trait also synergizes marvelously with Withdraw.

I find blinds more useful then evades (because you can defend your fellow party members with them), and we have a lot of them too. I’d suggest default to blinds then have evades if blinds won’t work. SB is your best friend when kitten hits the fan.

Dual.8953:

I find blinds more useful then evades (because you can defend your fellow party members with them), and we have a lot of them too. I’d suggest default to blinds then have evades if blinds won’t work. SB is your best friend when kitten hits the fan.

True, blinds are generally more team-focused than evades, but remember that blinds have 90% reduced effectiveness against Champions (the only monsters where an evasion build would truly be necessitated) which makes them completely unreliable as a defense mechanism.

Frankly bleeds are subpar for dungeons, or anything pve besides solo leveling.
20/30/20/, full berserk, S/P, SB. 20 in SA because I run this build for WvW and cant be bothered to change traits 5 times a day, and toughness also helps in pve.

Once you learn the mechanics of dungeons, 24/7 dodge/evasion isn’t much of a concern when you can slot for utilities/dodge only when necessary.

Unfortunately , Blinds not only are useless against bosses, but people tend to do not even notice them…. Most people won’t even realize that their attacks are comboing with blindness. While everyone notices the ‘block’ from the Guardian’s Aegis that just saved them, no one will ever notice that the mob failed to hit him because of your blindness.

Furthermore, experienced groups won’t have any problems at all with trash mobs, so even if they notice your blind contribution, you’ll get a feeling of:
‘Uh… Err… Well… Thanks for your smoke, thiefy… But it wasn’t really necessary… No hards feelings right?

I tried the blinds method before, and I agree, it doesn’t work very well on the boss and usually isn’t needed on mobs.

I find I love the evasion build, although you may not HAVE to avoid everything, you can evade anything you want =)

25/30/0/15/0 is what I run

Dagger main hand (2nd chain grants endurance)
withdraw
shadowstep
assassin’s signet
roll for initiative
Elite doesn’t matter. As a sylvari I take take root.

Just go full dps spec in first 2 lines.

Get vigor on heal in acrobatics.

You now have dagger endurance gain, vigor on heal, dodge endurance gain to ensure you always have dodge available. You also have withdraw, shadowstep, and roll for initiative in case of emergencies. As sylvari I took take root as a last resort, very useful when I end up having to solo a boss or something.

It’s not as bursty as 10 in shadow arts, but you are not sacrificing too much for a lot more survivability.

Your gear is obviously 90% zerker (I personally feel legs, helm, and rings are not worth taking zerker. That said, ascended accessories have much better stat/crit dmg ratio, so that won’t hold true once you get those items.). I also go 6 scholar instead of 5 scholar 1 divinity as I am assuming I will always be above 90% health.

TJL

I run a D/D+SB Condition Thief with 0/0/30/20/20 traits and Carrion gear.

Lots of evasion (rotate between Death Blossom and dodge rolling).
Lots of tiny numbers. 20k hp.

Hide in Shadoes
Caltrops
Signet of Shadows(WvW)/Smokescreen(Dungeons)
Shadow Refuge
Daggerstorm

The build takes a bit of practice to get right, but isn’t overly complicated. It’s easier to PvE with than to PvP, since you can evade scripted attacks, so it might be right up your alley. Unfortunately, it does suffer the same issues with other condition builds of bosses having condition caps. With Pizza, I get up to 95% bleed duration and can keep around 20 stacks of bleed on my target even without using the Utility Caltrops which can add up to 14stacks on its own.

Has anyone ever tried using 2+ signets for their utilities and picking up the signet traits? I started trying this, and it seems like it may work out well with multiple uses, like initiative regain and burst potential as well as the normal signet benefits.

Withdraw works pretty well for a dodge build, espeacily if you combine it with Vigor on Heal and Runes of the Adventurer, but you will lose orb or rune dps then.
This combination allows pretty much 9 dodges in a row and with 20 points in Acrobats you can even take might on dodge and maintain 12-14 Stacks of might on your own, with 30 points in shadow arts for Might on Stealth.
Furthermore you dont need to “waste” utility slots for a few more dodges and can slot caltrops for more damage (your might stacks will boost your condition damage) and also smokescreen to leap through it and block projectiles.

If you desire runes or orbs in your armor, just slot Sigil of Agility as it fills 100% of your endurance every 30 sec instead of 50% endurance every 15 sec of the rune.

You can trait pretty much everything you want for a dodge heavy build, but 20 points in acrobat with Vigor on Heal and Withdraw and Might on Dodge is important. You can even put 25 points in Acrobat and take the 10% additional damage when your endurance isnt full, in case you go direct damage.
Despite the lack of boons which a thief can apply alone the 20% boon duration from Acrobat can come in handy too. Your might stacks on dodge and stealth will last 2 sec longer and in case you take a shortbow, the might stacks from blast finisher in a firefield (and all in all every boon applied from combos) will last longer too.
Due to that much points in acrobat you get also 200 vitality which allows you to wear more zerker gear while still having abit higher health.

Panacea.4927:

Withdraw works pretty well for a dodge build, espeacily if you combine it with Vigor on Heal and Runes of the Adventurer, but you will lose orb or rune dps then.
This combination allows pretty much 9 dodges in a row and with 20 points in Acrobats you can even take might on dodge and maintain 12-14 Stacks of might on your own, with 30 points in shadow arts for Might on Stealth.
Furthermore you dont need to “waste” utility slots for a few more dodges and can slot caltrops for more damage (your might stacks will boost your condition damage) and also smokescreen to leap through it and block projectiles.

If you desire runes or orbs in your armor, just slot Sigil of Agility as it fills 100% of your endurance every 30 sec instead of 50% endurance every 15 sec of the rune.

You can trait pretty much everything you want for a dodge heavy build, but 20 points in acrobat with Vigor on Heal and Withdraw and Might on Dodge is important. You can even put 25 points in Acrobat and take the 10% additional damage when your endurance isnt full, in case you go direct damage.
Despite the lack of boons which a thief can apply alone the 20% boon duration from Acrobat can come in handy too. Your might stacks on dodge and stealth will last 2 sec longer and in case you take a shortbow, the might stacks from blast finisher in a firefield (and all in all every boon applied from combos) will last longer too.
Due to that much points in acrobat you get also 200 vitality which allows you to wear more zerker gear while still having abit higher health.

pretty similar setup i use in wvwvw, i posted in that other thread about soloing supple camps, i dont do dungeons so im not sure how useful weakness is, but if it is, try going 0/0/20/30/20 with 2 shortbows, with quick pockets also and sigil of energy and spam choking gas and cluster bomb also