Guild Wars 2

So, I’ve started doing fractals recently using my 25/30/0/0/15 full zerker gear thief… am I trying something unreasonable? I figured with all the evades and short CD on healing skills it wouldn’t be so bad, but I keep dying no matter what I do. Often I find myself out of endurance and initiative with all my evades and heal skills on CD. I swap weapons and skills out depending on the occasion, but it doesn’t seem to help.

So far I’ve gotten up to fractals level 19, should I change my build or do I just suck? Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Depends: where are you dying, and what do your groups look like? Fractals are about using the right skills (like Smokescreen) at the right time, fighting encounters the correct way, and getting good support from your group (Aegis, Fury, Might stacks, etc). Nothing wrong with a glass Thief in Fractals just on general principle, but you do have to be on top of your game because your defenses are almost entirely evade-based and you don’t have much of a margin for error. Pistol offhand helps quite a bit on trash because of Black Powder, but for bosses and champs you need to be aware of their moves and tells.

I use it on daily 49 runs without any real issues. When you have a solid group it’s fine.

I do change it a little when either I’m tired or the group isn’t as reliable as usual (not 4 other guildies etc). It becomes 10/30/0/15/15. In either case, I use D/D + S/P and the S/P set has a Sigil of Energy. That is usually more than enough to keep me alive along with the active of Signet of Agility should I ever need it.

Try some Energy Sigils or the Acro variation to learn the encounters such that you’re more able to anticipate and play to a rhythm. When you have good, reliable groups and you know the encounters much better, 25/30/0/0/15 will serve you well.

Aguri.2896:

So, I’ve started doing fractals recently using my 25/30/0/0/15 full zerker gear thief… am I trying something unreasonable? I figured with all the evades and short CD on healing skills it wouldn’t be so bad, but I keep dying no matter what I do. Often I find myself out of endurance and initiative with all my evades and heal skills on CD. I swap weapons and skills out depending on the occasion, but it doesn’t seem to help.

So far I’ve gotten up to fractals level 19, should I change my build or do I just suck? Any advice would be very much appreciated.

You can run full zerker but change your traits 10/30/30/x/x is solid(SA line i-iv-xi). If you still dying alot then maybe add some prec/tough/power gear into the mix. You will have to play better on a thief then most other classes though its still not hard. The pve in this game is pretty easy tbh.

I run 25/30/0/15/0 in fractals. You don’t need to use traits/stats for survivability. You use utility skills and weapon skills for that. Spam blind is your best defense, not stats. Rely on black powder, smoke screen, etc to survive a situation where you can’t rely on regular dodging. If you can’t use blind (like the dredge), rely on sword/X for pistol whip or flanking.

I do PUGs so my groups are random and I am using certain skills depending on encounter but it doesn’t change anything. I’ll die just about anywhere. I’m having the trouble of not being able to sustain survival for long… such as against Mossman, I’ll dodge all his attacks until I run out of endurance/initiative (can’t effectively DPS if I use daggers, I’ll have to spend all on evades), then I have to use heal skills.. then I’m done for.

ok decent thiefs can go full glass and do fine but if you not there yet just change your traits. If struggling d/x melee try sp instead. If you still dying after that well you could change you gear to Knight gear or horrid condi thief(though you should always be in zerker gear for pvE). Tbh I would hate to run with a thief thats in anything but full zerker gear but more time on the floor means less dps.
If you still struggling after all that then maybe use a differen’t class thief isnt’t for everyone just roll a heavy then face roll.

same build I use, just need to time your pistol whips and evades better. perhaps use shortbow a little more

Full glass might be a bit of a stretch. I certainly wouldn’t like to do Fractals with 11000 HP.

But 15 points in Acrobatics should easily pay for itself. That and Sword + Pistol is theoretically all you need.

I personally don’t think all that highly of a full-glass PvE build.

Instead something like 15/30/10/15/0 seems to be much cooler. Still lots of DPS, but AoE Weakness on Shortbow, Condition removal on stealth and lots of extra dodges. It’s especially useful when you’re still learning encounters.

How you guys deal with Mei Trin (aetherblade pirates boss fractal)? I can do it very easily with my ranger, using a longbow, dodging all around when I see her attack animations starting and electricity coming my way, I don’t have any problems with doding the cannon barrage… but with my thief (who is supposed to be my main) it’s all different. I get continously hitted her by electricity that targets everyone, and while it’s totally managable, not too serious but still dangerous from my full berserk ranger’s point of view, it’s 50-65% of my full health instantly gone with the thief. As often as she uses her abilities, withdraw and 3 dodges are simply not enough, and I don’t waste a single roll. I shouldn’t even be using withdraw because it doesn’t heals enough of my max health (percentage), so I tried vitality traits for health / initative used paired with heal / hit signet. Even worse. Also my dps is lacking. I’m forced to be ranged, and shortbow is nowhere near with it’s 1-1.5k hits compared to my ranger who just does a longbow skill 2 and lands 5-6 hits, starting from 2-3k hits going up to 7-9k. Tried double pistols but I really don’t like it, autoattack was always weird (having 2 pistols and using only 1, it’s annoying. I know, from “pro” perspective this isn’t a reason to try to avoid using it), and the dps doesn’t seem to better at all, because p/p against Mai Trin… basicly the same as the longbow, without mobility. p/p 2,3,4,5 are utility skills I doubt thieves can benefit from in this particular boss fight. It won’t give you projectile block, daze doesn’t really matters here (or even works?), unleashing both is a nice damage spike but still nowhere near what I feel I should provide for my party, so I’d prefer shortbow mobility over p/p to help people if they get downed. I know, they shouldn’t get downed, especially not here, but since I don’t have a guild / organized friends for a party, I just basicly go with random people.

Fractal lv13 only, can do every single one without problems with my guard / ranger alt. Thief, the most time I invested in and tried to leave behind in the past weeks so many times for so many reasons I lost counting, seems to suffer in Fractals.

Now, if anyone would be nice enough to spend your time with writing a small guide about what I should look out for, what utility skills (or even traits, experimenting with 10/30/0/0/30 now for party buffs, high crits and s/p, but honestly I’d prefer d/d) I should choose for what fights with specific requirements, I’d really appriciate that.

Full zerker is pretty bad, considering fractals scale (naturally) and in the end, you will die before you can dish out any real dps. Remember, you can crit for 14k all you want, if you’re dead you’re doing 0 dps. CS trait line is real good for numerous reasons, and between runes and 300 + precision and food, you can almost put some cavaliar or valk stats in there, boost your survival without any huge sacrifice to dps.

Full zerker is maybe good up to about 15-20. After that you need to start adjusting your playstyle to be less risky. Blind fields/skills, quick recovery, more ranged less melee.

On my thief, I have 2600 armor, 110% crit dmg and 17k hp. I have everything but my armor ascended and I do fairly well. Not to say I never die or mess up, but I don’t go down in 2-3 hits unless its the ascalon fractal.

If you’re learning the fights as you go along then you’re not going to know the best tactics and you need extra condition clears and dodges. If you pick the right weapon sets and utilities for each fight then you can be more aggressive. Give some acrobatics or shadow arts a try for now, you can use either.

For Mossman just stay out of his melee range and dodge his dancing dagger attack (if you can spot the animation through the all the fire effects). Dancing daggers of your own are good as they cripple him and the wolves.

For Mai Trin you can just hover outside melee range and dodge her pistol shots. Once her shield drops a little you can use evading attacks like death blossom rather than taking all her aoe bleeds. Signet of Shadows gives you speed to dodge the rockets and heartseeker leaps can help. Some stealthy reviving will be appreciated by most teams.

dont use melee weapons as a thief in fractals.

i have full ascended beserker everything,…. and i only die on party wipes….. so:P prolly just your utilities. plust or minuse a few traits but still. also experience goes along way.

a full zerk thief is only as good as his party. if your party members keep goind down and you ahve to revive….ur in trouble too then ur downed.

if they keep the enemies attnetion then you can go DPS crazy.

the higher you get the easier it gets…oddly enough.

Tbh I’m not sure why DD would be better nowadays, with sundering strikes PW packs vulnerability quite fast to make up for the dps loss, and regarding which is more boring, I don’t find spamming the cloak&dagger+backstab combo more entertaining than the other. Not to mention you interrupt with and evade during PW. Also the other weapon skills are useful. A lot more utilty, versus a few % individual dps loss (which is compensated by vulnerability). Try the little less offensive builds others mentioned, 25/30/0/15/0 with SP or 15/30/10/15/0 if you are fond of DD. I ususally run with short bow as second, if you have to range your dps is kittened anyway, and in most cases cluster bomb is just fine compared to unload.

Of course there are some exceptions, Mai Trin is one of them. Because she teleports back and forth, it’s a pain to use cluster bomb, so stick with PP. It’s actually an easy fight (at least on low fractal levels where you are at, I didn’t see it above 20s) if you figure out that you don’t need to dodge most of the aoe, just simply walk out of it. Save the dodges for when you really can’t step out of it. Same for Mossman, you don’t need to spam dodge like crazy. When he is invisible, you can see where he is on the minimap so just try to get away from there. Learn to leave the aggro for warriors and guardians as a thief, your best defense is positioning. Actually DD is good at Mossman, but not if you already have aggro. DD is a pain imho if you have aggro, since then stealth won’t save you. With SP you can evade-tank instead of cloack&daggering and still getting hit, since mobs always finish their attacks on you despite stealth…

Nope, once you learn the encounters you’ll start to die a lot less, getting a solid group comp (2x war, some combination of grd/ele/mes for reflects/absorbs) with players who are also running full zerk dps builds helps a lot as well. No need to camp sb or any other ranged weapon set either, I use d/d with s/p on switch probably 95% of the time on my daily 49 runs.

Now having said all that, there are some boss fights that are thief unfriendly (imbued shaman and molten boss), for those encounters I switch to a zerk dps guardian.

NinjaEd.3946:

Full zerker is pretty bad, considering fractals scale (naturally) and in the end, you will die before you can dish out any real dps. Remember, you can crit for 14k all you want, if you’re dead you’re doing 0 dps. *snip*Full zerker is maybe good up to about 15-20..

Full zerker is the only way to go in high level fractals. If you think you should use other sets then you’ve never actually done high level fractals. You can stack up full sentinels and the tankiest build possible and your still going to be killed in 1 hit. And more importantly where the hell did everyone get the idea that being dead = 0 dps? For a basic example: A fight with an unnamed boss lasts 1 minute. There is 1 full berserker thief and 1 healway guardian. The full berserker thief died after the first 15 seconds but dealt 100k damage. The guardian lived all 60 seconds but only dealt 50k damage. The thief, while being dead, still outdamaged the guardian.

Travlane.5948:

dont use melee weapons as a thief in fractals.

i have full ascended beserker everything,…. and i only die on party wipes….. so:P prolly just your utilities. plust or minuse a few traits but still. also experience goes along way.

a full zerk thief is only as good as his party. if your party members keep goind down and you ahve to revive….ur in trouble too then ur downed.

if they keep the enemies attnetion then you can go DPS crazy.

the higher you get the easier it gets…oddly enough.

Using one’s party members to cover up one’s own skill level isn’t an excuse. Once your experienced enough you should easily be able to run full berserker with a damage build (25/30/0/0/15, 30/30/0/0/10) and carry a terrible party. In fractals the only class that could carry a party better would be mesmer.

Clumsy.6257:

NinjaEd.3946:

Full zerker is pretty bad, considering fractals scale (naturally) and in the end, you will die before you can dish out any real dps. Remember, you can crit for 14k all you want, if you’re dead you’re doing 0 dps. *snip*Full zerker is maybe good up to about 15-20..

Full zerker is the only way to go in high level fractals. If you think you should use other sets then you’ve never actually done high level fractals. You can stack up full sentinels and the tankiest build possible and your still going to be killed in 1 hit. And more importantly where the hell did everyone get the idea that being dead = 0 dps? For a basic example: A fight with an unnamed boss lasts 1 minute. There is 1 full berserker thief and 1 healway guardian. The full berserker thief died after the first 15 seconds but dealt 100k damage. The guardian lived all 60 seconds but only dealt 50k damage. The thief, while being dead, still outdamaged the guardian.

Travlane.5948:

dont use melee weapons as a thief in fractals.

i have full ascended beserker everything,…. and i only die on party wipes….. so:P prolly just your utilities. plust or minuse a few traits but still. also experience goes along way.

a full zerk thief is only as good as his party. if your party members keep goind down and you ahve to revive….ur in trouble too then ur downed.

if they keep the enemies attnetion then you can go DPS crazy.

the higher you get the easier it gets…oddly enough.

Using one’s party members to cover up one’s own skill level isn’t an excuse. Once your experienced enough you should easily be able to run full berserker with a damage build (25/30/0/0/15, 30/30/0/0/10) and carry a terrible party. In fractals the only class that could carry a party better would be mesmer.

you jsut dont understand. its the same with any class. a full clerics guardians is amazing in a group. however…. if his party members suck and keep dying…its going to make him die too. when you set up a build it should be putting some weight on team mates to stay alive so you can do your job. if you wanna make a build that stays alive regardless…. well then youa re not being as productive as possible.

you jsut dont understand. its the same with any class. a full clerics guardians is amazing in a group.

if you wanna make a build that stays alive regardless…. well then youa re not being as productive as possible.

You seem to make a lot of contradicting statements. A full clerics guardian will never be considered good in PvE.

Clumsy.6257:

you jsut dont understand. its the same with any class. a full clerics guardians is amazing in a group.

if you wanna make a build that stays alive regardless…. well then youa re not being as productive as possible.

You seem to make a lot of contradicting statements. A full clerics guardian will never be considered good in PvE.

quite nice in fractals.

1 cleric guard
1 zerk thief
1 zerk warrior
1 mix engi
1 mix mesmer

we do 45 min runs at lvl 50 with this. idk whatever. guess its horrible :P

Travlane.5948:

Clumsy.6257:

you jsut dont understand. its the same with any class. a full clerics guardians is amazing in a group.

if you wanna make a build that stays alive regardless…. well then youa re not being as productive as possible.

You seem to make a lot of contradicting statements. A full clerics guardian will never be considered good in PvE.

quite nice in fractals.

1 cleric guard
1 zerk thief
1 zerk warrior
1 mix engi
1 mix mesmer

we do 45 min runs at lvl 50 with this. idk whatever. guess its horrible :P

If you can guarantee a 45 minute run at that scale then nobody in your party is running clerics and almost everyone is guaranteed to be running full berserkers. Even very experienced players (anybody who thinks clerics is viable isn’t in this category) have problems getting a 45 minute run. Not to mention dredge. Getting dredge literally makes it impossible to get under 45 minutes.

As a follow-up to my first post after reading some of these responses – do NOT listen to anyone who tells you not to use melee weapons or to stay at range as much as possible. These people are either:

1) bad players who are only making the anti-Thief stigma worse with their own incompetence OR
2) playing another class as a primary OR
3) lazy and don’t want to learn fights the correct way like everyone else, and would rather make the 5-man team a 4.5-man team with mediocre DPS from across the room.

Take S/P primary or D/D + S/P with Energy Sigils, take a heavy DPS build with some Acrobatics eg. 25/30/0/15/0 and use the copious amount of evades available from endurance and initiative to accustom yourself to each fight. When you get more confident, you can start removing the Acrobatics and spec in to full DPS. I would advise keeping the Energy Sigils though, they’re fantastic for most scenarios and you lose out on very little without a Force or Accuracy in comparison to losing out on other things.

In essence, you should only ever be cowering away at range if you have terrible FPS and can’t land evades at correct moments due to simple hardware limitation.

Even in PUGs, the practice will pay off. Trust me.

You might want to look at S/D or S/P. I think S/D is more fun, but I also use a build that is heavy in Acrobatics. S/P is better in terms of survivability tools, especially if you’re running straight glass. If you absolutely adore dagger mainhand, then running 15 in Acrobatics as suggested above will help you immensely.

Shortbow is great for mobility, or when range is necessary for survival (ahem Volcanic fractal, Molten bosses). It’s also great for might stacking, and therefore combos well with longbow Warriors and/or Eles. However, I agree with Auesis; avoiding melee is not recommended. More often than not it will cripple your DPS, and since most of PvE is a DPS race that isn’t helpful to your party.

Auesis.7301:

As a follow-up to my first post after reading some of these responses – do NOT listen to anyone who tells you not to use melee weapons or to stay at range as much as possible. These people are either:

1) bad players who are only making the anti-Thief stigma worse with their own incompetence OR
2) playing another class as a primary OR
3) lazy and don’t want to learn fights the correct way like everyone else, and would rather make the 5-man team a 4.5-man team with mediocre DPS from across the room.

Take S/P primary or D/D + S/P with Energy Sigils, take a heavy DPS build with some Acrobatics eg. 25/30/0/15/0 and use the copious amount of evades available from endurance and initiative to accustom yourself to each fight. When you get more confident, you can start removing the Acrobatics and spec in to full DPS. I would advise keeping the Energy Sigils though, they’re fantastic for most scenarios and you lose out on very little without a Force or Accuracy in comparison to losing out on other things.

In essence, you should only ever be cowering away at range if you have terrible FPS and can’t land evades at correct moments due to simple hardware limitation.

Even in PUGs, the practice will pay off. Trust me.

Agree with almost everything, but if you use energy sigils you can easily move those 15 points from acrobatics to trickery for more initiative and take flanking strikes for 5% more damage. Even without those sigils, signet of agility should be enough to get you through most situations when you run out of dodges. IMO, 15 into acrobatics is best when you’re doing solo/duo dungeon runs (lupi in particular).

Clumsy.6257:

Travlane.5948:

Clumsy.6257:

you jsut dont understand. its the same with any class. a full clerics guardians is amazing in a group.

if you wanna make a build that stays alive regardless…. well then youa re not being as productive as possible.

You seem to make a lot of contradicting statements. A full clerics guardian will never be considered good in PvE.

quite nice in fractals.

1 cleric guard
1 zerk thief
1 zerk warrior
1 mix engi
1 mix mesmer

we do 45 min runs at lvl 50 with this. idk whatever. guess its horrible :P

If you can guarantee a 45 minute run at that scale then nobody in your party is running clerics and almost everyone is guaranteed to be running full berserkers. Even very experienced players (anybody who thinks clerics is viable isn’t in this category) have problems getting a 45 minute run. Not to mention dredge. Getting dredge literally makes it impossible to get under 45 minutes.

no really. and can never gaurantee. it was a pug. iasked the builds bc it was so smooth / fast. not even 1 down on the zerker/firestorm. with 1 thief 1 mesmer you can skill most the trash mobs. plus it makes the ones you do have much easier. between shadow refuge and black powder shot and portal and time warp plus aegis and aoe heals….. whip thru fracts so fast. its important to ahve that mix tho bc every lvl is diff. in COF you can have 4 warriors or whatever your flavor is bc its a static dungeon. Frac isnt static tho and each lvl requires diff things so that mix i posted worked really well for us and was so smooth. alot of it was also player experience too so. but still it was kitten mins. between that.

Sartori.6758:

Agree with almost everything, but if you use energy sigils you can easily move those 15 points from acrobatics to trickery for more initiative and take flanking strikes for 5% more damage. Even without those sigils, signet of agility should be enough to get you through most situations when you run out of dodges. IMO, 15 into acrobatics is best when you’re doing solo/duo dungeon runs (lupi in particular).

Yeah, it should be plenty. I’m talking in the context of someone who is struggling with playing like the OP, just to take a big endurance safety net (bigger than necessary) and then start removing it once they know the ropes a little better.

Just a stupid question: what if you don’t finish a fractal run in 45 minutes, but only in 55. Will the world end? I will never understand this obsession with speedruns. The point is to play with friend or friendly people and have fun during it, so who cares if it’s longer by 5-10 minutes? Basically you want to play a certain content LESS? So you don’t enjoy it? Then what’s the point…? Also “it’s a dps race because the longer the fight the higher the chance of wiping” is a total bullkitten. CDs end. If you can survive for 20-30 seconds, you can survive for any lenght of time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about 3 hour runs with constantly dying partymembers, but runs where people have god forbid PVT armor or 15 acro or something like that. I agree with trying to get so close to zerker and ideal builds as possible, but saying something like “if you’re not full zerker and best build, you are carried by the group and make them die” is just total bullkitten and discourages people from playing thief even more.

Strayhand.8216:

Just a stupid question: what if you don’t finish a fractal run in 45 minutes, but only in 55. Will the world end? I will never understand this obsession with speedruns. The point is to play with friend or friendly people and have fun during it, so who cares if it’s longer by 5-10 minutes? Basically you want to play a certain content LESS? So you don’t enjoy it? Then what’s the point…? Also “it’s a dps race because the longer the fight the higher the chance of wiping” is a total bullkitten. CDs end. If you can survive for 20-30 seconds, you can survive for any lenght of time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about 3 hour runs with constantly dying partymembers, but runs where people have god forbid PVT armor or 15 acro or something like that. I agree with trying to get so close to zerker and ideal builds as possible, but saying something like “if you’re not full zerker and best build, you are carried by the group and make them die” is just total bullkitten and discourages people from playing thief even more.

Because you need to understand that simply completing the content isn’t enough. Literally anyone can finish a run, with any gear. Some us strive to better ourselves by going high risk, high reward (the reward being a faster run). In PvE, faster is universally agreed upon as better. You may not like, or understand, that concept, but it is what it is.

Strayhand.8216:

Just a stupid question: what if you don’t finish a fractal run in 45 minutes, but only in 55. Will the world end? I will never understand this obsession with speedruns. The point is to play with friend or friendly people and have fun during it, so who cares if it’s longer by 5-10 minutes? Basically you want to play a certain content LESS? So you don’t enjoy it? Then what’s the point…? Also “it’s a dps race because the longer the fight the higher the chance of wiping” is a total bullkitten. CDs end. If you can survive for 20-30 seconds, you can survive for any lenght of time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about 3 hour runs with constantly dying partymembers, but runs where people have god forbid PVT armor or 15 acro or something like that. I agree with trying to get so close to zerker and ideal builds as possible, but saying something like “if you’re not full zerker and best build, you are carried by the group and make them die” is just total bullkitten and discourages people from playing thief even more.

Because doing a good speedrun is a challenge and getting lower times is fun for some people. I don’t push that mentality on others when I pug, but when I’m running with my guild groups that’s what we do and it’s what we find enjoyable. And the faster you clear a dungeon/fractal the faster you can move on to the next one, so you’re experiencing more and earning gold and loot at a faster clip. Taking your time to smell the roses loses its appeal after a few dozen (or few hundred) runs…

Also, when you get to content where one mistake means that you’re downed, it’s absolutely true that your best chance of success is to finish the encounter as fast as possible.

I understand that, but the thread was going againg into the “if you are not the best then you are a pathetic kitten” direction, while originally it asked for survival tips, so I guess not for how to finish a run as fast as it can be done. Never mind, I guess I envy you that you find challenge in the latter, I personally rather don’t do anything a hundreds of times because I get bored of it long before that.

Nope, I play full zerk at lvl 49.

Just learn to dodge and use your utiltiies. Don’t use melee weapons, you’re not designed to fight anything long term with them since everything 1-shots you. I hardly ever die unless I make a mistake.

Use p/p and s/b instead of a melee weapon. 8k unloads (10-12k with buffs via banner and might)

Amaterasu.6280:

Nope, I play full zerk at lvl 49.

Just learn to dodge and use your utiltiies. Don’t use melee weapons, you’re not designed to fight anything long term with them since everything 1-shots you. I hardly ever die unless I make a mistake.

Use p/p and s/b instead of a melee weapon. 8k unloads (10-12k with buffs via banner and might)

You should probably delete your thief if you can’t use it to its full potential, that being a top tier dps class.

Omg Casey.5973:

Amaterasu.6280:

Nope, I play full zerk at lvl 49.

Just learn to dodge and use your utiltiies. Don’t use melee weapons, you’re not designed to fight anything long term with them since everything 1-shots you. I hardly ever die unless I make a mistake.

Use p/p and s/b instead of a melee weapon. 8k unloads (10-12k with buffs via banner and might)

You should probably delete your thief if you can’t use it to its full potential, that being a top tier dps class.

You’re saying that I should delete my thief if I decide that it’s best to use p/p in fractals? “Full potential” you say…

Trolls will be trolls.

Strayhand.8216:

Just a stupid question: what if you don’t finish a fractal run in 45 minutes, but only in 55. Will the world end? I will never understand this obsession with speedruns. The point is to play with friend or friendly people and have fun during it, so who cares if it’s longer by 5-10 minutes? Basically you want to play a certain content LESS? So you don’t enjoy it? Then what’s the point…? Also “it’s a dps race because the longer the fight the higher the chance of wiping” is a total bullkitten. CDs end. If you can survive for 20-30 seconds, you can survive for any lenght of time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about 3 hour runs with constantly dying partymembers, but runs where people have god forbid PVT armor or 15 acro or something like that. I agree with trying to get so close to zerker and ideal builds as possible, but saying something like “if you’re not full zerker and best build, you are carried by the group and make them die” is just total bullkitten and discourages people from playing thief even more.

its not about hitting a mark. but people who do speed runs are usually very very pro and get it done without fail or deaths. that is the goal. not hitting 45 mins bc u ahve to go to work in 1hr. its more aboutnot wasting 3-4 hours bc ur team cant beat the lava shaman on the 3rd fractal map and u ahve the choice of starting over vs keep trying with a bunch of bad players. point in hand…that happened to me today. it was basically 2 v shaman entire time. 2-3 always kept dying on first ele spawn. had to makethem change build or be booted and coach them thru it. THAT is whypeople do speed runs. if u can do a speed run in first place…ur not going to be having that same conversation. get it?

Amaterasu.6280:

Omg Casey.5973:

Amaterasu.6280:

Nope, I play full zerk at lvl 49.

Just learn to dodge and use your utiltiies. Don’t use melee weapons, you’re not designed to fight anything long term with them since everything 1-shots you. I hardly ever die unless I make a mistake.

Use p/p and s/b instead of a melee weapon. 8k unloads (10-12k with buffs via banner and might)

You should probably delete your thief if you can’t use it to its full potential, that being a top tier dps class.

You’re saying that I should delete my thief if I decide that it’s best to use p/p in fractals? “Full potential” you say…

Trolls will be trolls.

That’s exactly what he’s saying. Just because you “decide that it’s best” doesn’t actually make it the best. In reality your purposely halving your damage to make it easier on yourself. If you not going to play the class to its fullest potential then go play an easier class that you can play to its fullest potential.

Clumsy.6257:

Amaterasu.6280:

Omg Casey.5973:

Amaterasu.6280:

Nope, I play full zerk at lvl 49.

Just learn to dodge and use your utiltiies. Don’t use melee weapons, you’re not designed to fight anything long term with them since everything 1-shots you. I hardly ever die unless I make a mistake.

Use p/p and s/b instead of a melee weapon. 8k unloads (10-12k with buffs via banner and might)

You should probably delete your thief if you can’t use it to its full potential, that being a top tier dps class.

You’re saying that I should delete my thief if I decide that it’s best to use p/p in fractals? “Full potential” you say…

Trolls will be trolls.

That’s exactly what he’s saying. Just because you “decide that it’s best” doesn’t actually make it the best. In reality your purposely halving your damage to make it easier on yourself. If you not going to play the class to its fullest potential then go play an easier class that you can play to its fullest potential.

p/p is actually best in fractals. i have full ascended, did lvl 50 many dozens of times, 4 legendaries etc etc. p/p is the best in fractals and ive played everything.

1guard
1mes
1thief
1warrior
1engi

is an amazing mix to go in with…. granted they are set up right.

“You should probably delete your thief if you can’t use it to its full potential, that being a top tier dps class.”

You should probably stop posting on forums if you’re giving helpful advice like that.

Clumsy.6257:

Amaterasu.6280:

Omg Casey.5973:

Amaterasu.6280:

Nope, I play full zerk at lvl 49.

Just learn to dodge and use your utiltiies. Don’t use melee weapons, you’re not designed to fight anything long term with them since everything 1-shots you. I hardly ever die unless I make a mistake.

Use p/p and s/b instead of a melee weapon. 8k unloads (10-12k with buffs via banner and might)

You should probably delete your thief if you can’t use it to its full potential, that being a top tier dps class.

You’re saying that I should delete my thief if I decide that it’s best to use p/p in fractals? “Full potential” you say…

Trolls will be trolls.

That’s exactly what he’s saying. Just because you “decide that it’s best” doesn’t actually make it the best. In reality your purposely halving your damage to make it easier on yourself. If you not going to play the class to its fullest potential then go play an easier class that you can play to its fullest potential.

If you think that p/p = cutting thief damage in half then you have zero credibility to speak about anything thief related.

Amaterasu.6280:

Clumsy.6257:

Amaterasu.6280:

Omg Casey.5973:

Amaterasu.6280:

Nope, I play full zerk at lvl 49.

Just learn to dodge and use your utiltiies. Don’t use melee weapons, you’re not designed to fight anything long term with them since everything 1-shots you. I hardly ever die unless I make a mistake.

Use p/p and s/b instead of a melee weapon. 8k unloads (10-12k with buffs via banner and might)

You should probably delete your thief if you can’t use it to its full potential, that being a top tier dps class.

You’re saying that I should delete my thief if I decide that it’s best to use p/p in fractals? “Full potential” you say…

Trolls will be trolls.

That’s exactly what he’s saying. Just because you “decide that it’s best” doesn’t actually make it the best. In reality your purposely halving your damage to make it easier on yourself. If you not going to play the class to its fullest potential then go play an easier class that you can play to its fullest potential.

If you think that p/p = cutting thief damage in half then you have zero credibility to speak about anything thief related.

He’s right. 8k-12k Unloads? My Pistol Whips and Sword auto-attacks flatten that single-target DPS like a pancake in a cleave, and don’t get me started on what D/D can do to that same single target in comparison, even unbuffed. Sorry.

Unless you want to argue Ricochet, so you can try and spread your already mediocre DPS with a 50% RNG modifier? That would really make me laugh.

P/P is only better than Shortbow against a single target. In absolutely every other circumstance, it is mediocre at best.

There’s certainly a lot of opinionated people in this thread. :P

OP, first off, this is a game. Do what you enjoy most. Secondly, here is some advice from a fellow thief who is always looking to dish out the highest dps possible.

I run S/P and P/P. The first set is pretty standard. S/P brings the damage while retaining lots of evasion for great self-sustainability. Pistol Whip is your bread and butter damage. On fights where you know the boss has a certain pattern, it’s not a bad idea to pace your pistol whips to evade that specific attack and to save initiative for that specific reason. Head Shot is a very under appreciated skill, too. I’ve stopped so many crazy abilities that mobs do through the proper use of that skill, and I think it adds so much depth to combat. Learning when and where to use Head Shot for specific mobs just adds to the challenge. Remember; Pistol Whip stuns, so it trumps Head Shot, but only if you’re in melee range or can get it off in time. Head Shot has a 900 range, and is near instant in cast time, making it extremely valuable when you can’t be all up in a mob’s grill.

As for P/P? Remember how I said this is a game, and you should have fun? This is my way of having fun. I really enjoy the feel of the weapon set, and since my character has a Wild West sort of vibe to him, it feels very fitting. Regardless, I know and understand that, for the most part, shortbow is a all around more useful utility weapon. But honestly? I don’t care. I attempt to make up for not having a shortbow by learning when and where is best to use my pistol. Low on health? Get out, unload with signet of malice on, and wait for my health to recover before going back in for another melee skirmish. I also put great emphasis on timing my Head Shots to stop mobs from wrecking teammates.

All in all, it is completely viable to go full zerker. I use your exact trait build, and it just calls for a very aware play style to pull off since you’re so squishy. Most importantly out of all of this, though, remember to have fun. Otherwise, this is probably not worth your time.

Travlane.5948:

THAT is why people do guild runs.

Fixed.;) And as I said, I’m not talking about 3 hour runs where people are wiping. I’m talking about this “go meta or delete your character” mentality. If you have a group that is in full berserker, and a group that has PVT armor and builds like e.g. 15 acro instead of 15 trickery, both farming fractals, the first group does 11 runs by the time the second one does 10. Who cares, really.

Strayhand.8216:

Travlane.5948:

THAT is why people do guild runs.

Fixed.;) And as I said, I’m not talking about 3 hour runs where people are wiping. I’m talking about this “go meta or delete your character” mentality. If you have a group that is in full berserker, and a group that has PVT armor and builds like e.g. 15 acro instead of 15 trickery, both farming fractals, the first group does 11 runs by the time the second one does 10. Who cares, really.

Only the people that want to do it as fast as possible care, which is perfectly fair, too. If your guild wants to run against the meta, awesome! If another wants to run full zerker, great! Thats their choice, just like going another prefix instead of zerker is someone elses.

I personally don’t see what all the fuss is about from others; just play the way you want to.

Amiron.1067:

Strayhand.8216:

Travlane.5948:

THAT is why people do guild runs.

Fixed.;) And as I said, I’m not talking about 3 hour runs where people are wiping. I’m talking about this “go meta or delete your character” mentality. If you have a group that is in full berserker, and a group that has PVT armor and builds like e.g. 15 acro instead of 15 trickery, both farming fractals, the first group does 11 runs by the time the second one does 10. Who cares, really.

Only the people that want to do it as fast as possible care, which is perfectly fair, too. If your guild wants to run against the meta, awesome! If another wants to run full zerker, great! Thats their choice, just like going another prefix instead of zerker is someone elses.

I personally don’t see what all the fuss is about from others; just play the way you want to.

most dungeons it doesnt matter what you will run. you WILL finish. maybe 1 or 2 wipes but you will finish. fractals high lvls….. u could fail for 2 hours at one boss with bad players. no gonna happen in COF or HOTW or COE etc. so it DOES mattter bc u cant just play some crappy but fun build. your teamates are depending on you and relying on you. its their time too. if ur lvl 1 or something sure w.e. run what you want. if ur 30-40 or especially at 50 ….not so much. weve kicked people out at 50 on 3rd boss bc there ws NO OTHER CHOICE>

Travlane.5948:

Amiron.1067:

Strayhand.8216:

Travlane.5948:

THAT is why people do guild runs.

Fixed.;) And as I said, I’m not talking about 3 hour runs where people are wiping. I’m talking about this “go meta or delete your character” mentality. If you have a group that is in full berserker, and a group that has PVT armor and builds like e.g. 15 acro instead of 15 trickery, both farming fractals, the first group does 11 runs by the time the second one does 10. Who cares, really.

Only the people that want to do it as fast as possible care, which is perfectly fair, too. If your guild wants to run against the meta, awesome! If another wants to run full zerker, great! Thats their choice, just like going another prefix instead of zerker is someone elses.

I personally don’t see what all the fuss is about from others; just play the way you want to.

most dungeons it doesnt matter what you will run. you WILL finish. maybe 1 or 2 wipes but you will finish. fractals high lvls….. u could fail for 2 hours at one boss with bad players. no gonna happen in COF or HOTW or COE etc. so it DOES mattter bc u cant just play some crappy but fun build. your teamates are depending on you and relying on you. its their time too. if ur lvl 1 or something sure w.e. run what you want. if ur 30-40 or especially at 50 ….not so much. weve kicked people out at 50 on 3rd boss bc there ws NO OTHER CHOICE>

I agree about fractals requiring zerkers at higher levels. Which also saddens me. I wish there was more need for the other roles, because everyone going a cookie-cutter zerker build seems lackluster and doesn’t provoke a lot of though towards builds. I want there to be a reason for me to bring that support Ele, or a reason to bring that cleric geared Guardian.

I think that that’s the problem with fractals in general; it’s a dps race, and the mechanics boil down to burning the boss’s hp as fast as possible. If ANet took a bit to truly revamp fractals where bosses gained certain mechanics as you progressed that required something other than dps, it would really make for an interesting experience. Increasing mob hp and damage as the levels go on is not exciting or very innovative.

Stooperdale.3560:

“You should probably delete your thief if you can’t use it to its full potential, that being a top tier dps class.”

You should probably stop posting on forums if you’re giving helpful advice like that.

Someone using p/p is obviously not listening to advice so why should he give it?

Aguri.2896:

Full DPS thief in fractals… am I an idiot?

No

Aguri.2896:

So, I’ve started doing fractals recently using my 25/30/0/0/15 full zerker gear thief… am I trying something unreasonable?

Yes/No, you are trying to do a high risk/reward setup without the proper skill. Once you learn the encounters like the back of your hand it will prove to be the optimal setup.

Aguri.2896:

I figured with all the evades and short CD on healing skills it wouldn’t be so bad, but I keep dying no matter what I do. Often I find myself out of endurance and initiative with all my evades and heal skills on CD. I swap weapons and skills out depending on the occasion, but it doesn’t seem to help.

So far I’ve gotten up to fractals level 19, should I change my build or do I just suck?
Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Your build looks standard from what I can tell. You do not need to change it unless you want a crutch to help you learn fractals.

Crutches I would suggest to get started
1.— Take 15 points from Trickery and put them into Acrobatics for more dodges
2.— Using Foods
—http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowl_of_Orrian_Truffle_and_Meat_Stew
—http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Food#Life_steal
—http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowl_of_Fire_Salsa (Just Kidding)
3.—The best thing you can do is just practice/ run fractals until you have them fully understood. I would also suggest watching videos of other thieves doing fractals.

Last and possibly least here is an older video that still has some good Thief tactics and general plays you can make to help out on runs.
http://youtu.be/UDtXMDqPbQA

Amiron.1067:

There’s certainly a lot of opinionated people in this thread. :P

OP, first off, this is a game. Do what you enjoy most. Secondly, here is some advice from a fellow thief who is always looking to dish out the highest dps possible.

I run S/P and P/P. The first set is pretty standard. S/P brings the damage while retaining lots of evasion for great self-sustainability. Pistol Whip is your bread and butter damage. On fights where you know the boss has a certain pattern, it’s not a bad idea to pace your pistol whips to evade that specific attack and to save initiative for that specific reason. Head Shot is a very under appreciated skill, too. I’ve stopped so many crazy abilities that mobs do through the proper use of that skill, and I think it adds so much depth to combat. Learning when and where to use Head Shot for specific mobs just adds to the challenge. Remember; Pistol Whip stuns, so it trumps Head Shot, but only if you’re in melee range or can get it off in time. Head Shot has a 900 range, and is near instant in cast time, making it extremely valuable when you can’t be all up in a mob’s grill.

As for P/P? Remember how I said this is a game, and you should have fun? This is my way of having fun. I really enjoy the feel of the weapon set, and since my character has a Wild West sort of vibe to him, it feels very fitting. Regardless, I know and understand that, for the most part, shortbow is a all around more useful utility weapon. But honestly? I don’t care. I attempt to make up for not having a shortbow by learning when and where is best to use my pistol. Low on health? Get out, unload with signet of malice on, and wait for my health to recover before going back in for another melee skirmish. I also put great emphasis on timing my Head Shots to stop mobs from wrecking teammates.

All in all, it is completely viable to go full zerker. I use your exact trait build, and it just calls for a very aware play style to pull off since you’re so squishy. Most importantly out of all of this, though, remember to have fun. Otherwise, this is probably not worth your time.

Im fine with you “playing how you want”, its when you say what you’re doing is the best. If you really want headshot bring dagger/pistol for offhand, its quite superior to p/p unless you can’t handle melee without s/p, that is.

If you go Dagger/Pistol you can get single target blindness and also AoE blindness + that smoke field. Will make you tougher.

Zoid.2568:

If you go Dagger/Pistol you can get single target blindness and also AoE blindness + that smoke field. Will make you tougher.

This guy gets it! +you get that OP heartseeker spam with a stealth combo field to backstab.

Zoid.2568:

If you go Dagger/Pistol you can get single target blindness and also AoE blindness + that smoke field. Will make you tougher.

Congratulations! By understanding this simple tactic your now in the top 1% of thieves.

I don’t know why someone would not recommend melee weapon in fractals…that’s like saying let the Dredge stack boons and watch your teammates die. Heck, I’d steal those boons with my S/D and buff my team and myself to godhood.