Guild Wars 2

This is my 3rd char. Never liked glass builds, and i always build my chars with defensive stats. But wanna try rolling a standard S/P glass thief for PVE this time. My PVE consists of almost entirely dungeoning, as i enjoy them alot. I mainly run AC/TA/CoF/Arah paths, with friends and PUGs.

Seeing that theives actually have some nice slippery tricks (blind tanking with black powder, initiative system instead of CDs etc), im thinking glass might actually work.

So the golden question is: How is your experience dungeoning on a glass thief?

Dont wanna be lazy but just wanna hear some opinions before investing in gear. Be honest lol.

It will differ by thief.

I don’t like glass builds and won’t set my thief up as such. My magic find set is as close to glass cannon as I will get since it’s power/prec/mf for the stats. It works alright but with our low health pool is not smart to do so, especially in PvE. Dungeon bosses hit hard, really hard sometimes. I usually end up using my shortbow unless an opportunity for my S/P shows itself. Your survival for consistent dps and combat rezzing is more important then full out rage dps and aggro pulling.

Thanks Raine, i agree with you. Thats why my necro and ele and rather beefy, and both do very well in dungeons.

But just thinking of try something different this time, living on the edge lolol.

If full zerk gear doesnt work out im most probably going P/V/T gear and zerk trinkets. Or P/V/P gear and P/P/T trinkets

Im not totally glass but PvE blind tanking stuff is def legit

Always bring a ranged weapon with you, S/P will work nice on trash mobs, but there’s plenty of stuff where it’s way easier to kite.

angryteen.2710:

Thanks Raine, i agree with you. Thats why my necro and ele and rather beefy, and both do very well in dungeons.

But just thinking of try something different this time, living on the edge lolol.

If full zerk gear doesnt work out im most probably going P/V/T gear and zerk trinkets. Or P/V/P gear and P/P/T trinkets

If you need more survivability, I think you’re better off using ranged instead of using tank stats on armor.

Imo S/P definitely has more party support than D/D. I’ve moved on from the latter and though I love some of the tricks you can utilize (black powder → blast finisher is pretty nifty for ressing)…it just confuses me that your auto attack does pretty much more damage than any of its other skills. And I have a problem currently of switching to the shortbow and never switching back. I’m gonna stick with it for the time being because it’s something new for me – it also makes soloing most melee enemies pretty trivial.

My current setup:

Full Berserker gear with Emerald Orbs
Mix of Emerald and Ruby/Ruby equivalent Ascended accessories, with exotic Soldier Amulet (too lazy to buy one I actually want)

0/30/0/20/20 with Roll for Initiative, Shadow Refuge, Smoke Screen, Dagger Storm.

Using S/P with:
Superior Sigil of Blood
Signet of Malice
Omnomberry Pie/Ghost

Heal when you attack normally, 66% chance to steal life from crit, 30% chance to steal life on crit, every hit from Pistol Whip having a proc chance. I essentially never die and can face-tank pretty much anything in the game. If I don’t evade a hit while spamming PW, the hit is usually immediately mitigated by the rate at which I get HP back. If things are getting too hairy, roll out, plant Smoke Screen, fire away with SB (while still getting HP back). Heck, you could use P/P as a secondary to proc heals with Unload too, it’s just situational as to whether you have multiple targets to worry about or you’re focusing on a boss etc.

I don’t even NEED Toughness or Vitality to survive. I just have some Emerald as a crutch in case I screw up (I’m prone to brain farts).

Combine that crazy damage/tanking potential with the boon steals/shares from Trickery and weapon utility (daze/blind etc.) and you have yourself a serious contender in a dungeon.

Auesis.7301:

My current setup:

Full Berserker gear with Emerald Orbs
Mix of Emerald and Ruby/Ruby equivalent Ascended accessories, with exotic Soldier Amulet (too lazy to buy one I actually want)

0/30/0/20/20 with Roll for Initiative, Shadow Refuge, Smoke Screen, Dagger Storm.

Using S/P with:
Superior Sigil of Blood
Signet of Malice
Omnomberry Pie/Ghost

I run very nearly the exact same build. I can face tank pretty much anything with Pistol Whip, and Lifeleach. Dagger Storm is insane for groups of mobs … you just do. not. die.

Glass S/P Lifesteal build is the way to go. You will hit like a truck, and as long as you are actively attacking, you will not go down … this of course only applies to PvE.

25/30/0/0/15 full zerker gear with ruby gems, using signet of malice and om nom pie with P/P, the 900 range and very high health regain letsme last longer then any 1 else and i have 11k hp

angryteen.2710:

Thanks Raine, i agree with you. Thats why my necro and ele and rather beefy, and both do very well in dungeons.

But just thinking of try something different this time, living on the edge lolol.

If full zerk gear doesnt work out im most probably going P/V/T gear and zerk trinkets. Or P/V/P gear and P/P/T trinkets

P/V/P gear doesn’t exist in pve.

Basically sword/pistol works great on trash, but is pretty useless on bosses. You’re just too squishy.

Not having P/V/P gear really hurts sword/pistol in dungeons. a 10-14k health pool just isn’t enough. But if you take any vitality gear, you have extremely low crit.

Auesis.7301:

My current setup:

Full Berserker gear with Emerald Orbs
Mix of Emerald and Ruby/Ruby equivalent Ascended accessories, with exotic Soldier Amulet (too lazy to buy one I actually want)

0/30/0/20/20 with Roll for Initiative, Shadow Refuge, Smoke Screen, Dagger Storm.

Using S/P with:
Superior Sigil of Blood
Signet of Malice
Omnomberry Pie/Ghost

Heal when you attack normally, 66% chance to steal life from crit, 30% chance to steal life on crit, every hit from Pistol Whip having a proc chance. I essentially never die and can face-tank pretty much anything in the game. If I don’t evade a hit while spamming PW, the hit is usually immediately mitigated by the rate at which I get HP back. If things are getting too hairy, roll out, plant Smoke Screen, fire away with SB (while still getting HP back). Heck, you could use P/P as a secondary to proc heals with Unload too, it’s just situational as to whether you have multiple targets to worry about or you’re focusing on a boss etc.

I don’t even NEED Toughness or Vitality to survive. I just have some Emerald as a crutch in case I screw up (I’m prone to brain farts).

Combine that crazy damage/tanking potential with the boon steals/shares from Trickery and weapon utility (daze/blind etc.) and you have yourself a serious contender in a dungeon.

might wanna try this setup, care to share your traits?

Devildoc.6721:

angryteen.2710:

Thanks Raine, i agree with you. Thats why my necro and ele and rather beefy, and both do very well in dungeons.

But just thinking of try something different this time, living on the edge lolol.

If full zerk gear doesnt work out im most probably going P/V/T gear and zerk trinkets. Or P/V/P gear and P/P/T trinkets

P/V/P gear doesn’t exist in pve.

Basically sword/pistol works great on trash, but is pretty useless on bosses. You’re just too squishy.

Not having P/V/P gear really hurts sword/pistol in dungeons. a 10-14k health pool just isn’t enough. But if you take any vitality gear, you have extremely low crit.

Yeah. I’ll imagine vs bosses like Lupi or spider queen in TA, ill just have to go P/P and spam unload.

Main discomfort with having a 10-14k health pool is that you really have to be on the ball for cond removal, and places with back to back conditions like TA might be extremely frustrating, if you do not have a guardian/ele in ur team that can easily remove it for you

Also there’s no wiggle room for mistakes i guess, screw up a dodge etc and ur down. haha

“Glass” is fine in dungeons, especially with Pistol off-hand. You’re going to be spending a lot of time in Shortbow regardless of your stats anyway; might as well make it hit hard.

ASP.8093:

“Glass” is fine in dungeons, especially with Pistol off-hand. You’re going to be spending a lot of time in Shortbow regardless of your stats anyway; might as well make it hit hard.

I’ve now done pretty much all the dungeon paths, and gotten into the fractal teen range and I have not had to drop out of melee range except for fights that require everyone to move out. This is a common misconception on these forums that Thieves need to drop in and out of melee range and rely on lower DPS ranged weapons such as the Shortbow or P/P. With a proper melee build and lots of evasion or lifeleech tactics you can survive in melee range just fine as a glass cannon build.

angryteen.2710:

Main discomfort with having a 10-14k health pool is that you really have to be on the ball for cond removal, and places with back to back conditions like TA might be extremely frustrating, if you do not have a guardian/ele in ur team that can easily remove it for you

Sword has spammable condition removal via #2 if you’re worried about it.

angryteen.2710:

might wanna try this setup, care to share your traits?

Sure thing:

0 – Nothing
30 – Practised Tolerance (swapped out for Furious Retaliation if conditions aren’t much of a worry at any particular encounter, and swapped out for Pistol Mastery on a solitary boss for P/P spam), Critical Haste, Executioner
0 – Nothing
20 – Power of Inertia, Quick Recovery
20 – Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft

Auesis.7301:

angryteen.2710:

might wanna try this setup, care to share your traits?

Sure thing:

0 – Nothing
30 – Practised Tolerance (swapped out for Furious Retaliation if conditions aren’t much of a worry at any particular encounter, and swapped out for Pistol Mastery on a solitary boss for P/P spam), Critical Haste, Executioner
0 – Nothing
20 – Power of Inertia, Quick Recovery
20 – Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft

Thanks! gonna give this a shot.