Guild Wars 2

Am I the only one getting tired of being forced into one of two builds for PvP as a Thief? The MAJORITY of our utility skills are completely unused. For a class as dependent on timing and quick wit to survive as a Thief, their playstyle options are… Really limited…

I have tried virtually every possible build for a thief imaginable and used a large amount of gold/time to test them. Dual Pistol Ricochet. Venom/Venom Share with all weapon combinations. TRAP THIEF (Was that ever even a thing?!). Even Signet Thief left much to be desired. Condition Damage is laughable and nigh pointless.

Refuge, Smoke Bomb and Shadow Step/Infiltrator’s Signet are so good it makes everything else obsolete and pointless to even consider. Stealth is unsurprisingly the king and main focus of Thieves, along with Steal.

My point is… Don’t Thieves, after being beaten with the nerf bat, have VERY few options left to them for viable builds? Thieves are supposed to be stealthy and tricky. Why don’t they feel that way? They feel like squishy, easy-to-predict cowards.

If any of you have managed to create something fun or outside-the-box that works, let me know. I’m starving for a new way to play my thief.

Have you tried S/D in PvP? All the evades are really fun plus it’s super mobile. Venom share can be really fun. There’s also a ninja medic build that’s slightly a troll build but also really good for quick stealth rezzes in team fights and WvW that I’ve heard goof things about.

For team orientated builds in sPvP, d/p (panic strike or CS) and s/d acro pretty much outshine every other spec out there.

But if you’re just looking to be effective and still do well overall, try out zerker (or cele works as well) p/d 6 2 0 0 6 with pack runes (infiltrator signet, SR, and shadowstep as utilities). Using panic strike, improv, and mug, pistol mastery, and usual steal improvement traits.

Recently been using it (though to be fair I mainly wvw solo roam with it, but I’ve run it in sPvP with success in the past) and its relatively successful.

Weaknesses are the inability to provide as much team support as d/p (blinds, interrupts, AoE stealth whatnot) and lacking the ability to sustain in the middle of teamfights that s/d acro has.

Advantages are that it works better against engis and medi guards than most thief builds. You retain the mobility of shortbow since its still the offhand.

Not saying its the best build out there, just a fun other way to play thief.

The only thing forcing you to go one of those 2 builds is a fancy thing called Meta. If you want to be the best ever then going Meta is probably your thing, however, if you don’t really care then you can go absolutely whatever you want because that’s how the game is intended to be played.

I currently run Healing/Condi D/D thief for SPvP with lots of evasive utility.

Is this the best build for thief? No probably not by a long shot.

Do I do well in matches? Ya typically. I have a role and fill it appropriately.

Do I care what people think of my build? No. I play thief exactly how I want to play it. I don’t want to be a squishy coward so I opted to go for annoying untouchable tank.

What it boils down to is do you want to be the best or not. If you do then go Meta builds. There are always going to be 2 or 3 predominant builds in the game. That’s how Meta works. If they buff something or nerf something certain builds are going to fall off and others are going to pick up. That’s the nature of competitive gaming.

If however, you don’t want to be that cowardly, squishy, easy-to-predict target, then don’t be. Spend time looking at traits and skills and weapon set ups and figure out what you want to be and be it. Simple as that. It might not be the best build but skill will probably make up for it and you won’t be as frustrated playing a build you don’t like.

Pretty limited as to what is actually fun to play as well, what with half our utilities being basically passive.
Venoms are seriously just what should have been the Thief’s version of Signets, with passive attack applications tacked on.
And then a disproportionate number of traits are dedicated to both Venoms and Signets.
Hindsight and all that though, I guess.

Well if D/P and S/D are pretty much the best build right now in PvP. I fought some good P/P, S/P and D/D thief in sPvP. In WvW roaming there is also condition P/D build that is pretty good in the right hand (never saw that in spvp yet).

That’s a pretty good diversity of good build. D/P and S/D are on top only because it fit well into the conquest gameplay, if you limit yourself that’s on you.

Plz say conquest,even in that I see non meta theif builds succeed due to skill and strategy. No worries we still here to put rangers and mesmers in check,trap thief works in wvw with Runes of the Trapper. If builds are not fixed after HoT I doubt it will ever happen.

Sagat.3285:

Plz say conquest,even in that I see non meta theif builds succeed due to skill and strategy. No worries we still here to put rangers and mesmers in check,trap thief works in wvw with Runes of the Trapper. If builds are not fixed after HoT I doubt it will ever happen.

Yeah… If they don’t do some major work on each class in terms of (WvW, sPvP, PvE – possibly finally separating the 3 further)balance and build and role diversity a bit prior to the release of HoT, on the release of HoT, or within say 2 (somewhat arbitrary number) months after the release of HoT, it will be pretty clear that it will never happen at that point.

The expansion is a great excuse for them to do some major adjusts to classes. After that it will be the same 6-month (is it?) iteration of “balance” patches.

(And yes, despite how negative my attitude might be towards the current state of the game, I’m am going to get the expansion and play it, simply because a play through (and kittening around thereafter) of gw2 is/was worth it, but it will be probably lose my interest the same way the vanilla version did)

I agree about shadow refuge being way too good. Stealth duration should be reduced by 5 sec but in exchange it stealths you instantly without having to wait 3 sec.

The most effective trait line for thief is shadow arts and the developers put toughness as the stat bonus the stat of least value to the thief class.