Guild Wars 2

GW2 Forums intro:

I spent some time writing up a compendium of thief builds for my guild because the majority of them love to spread misinformation in guild chat. It’s not being read so much up on my forums, alas, so I thought I’d slap it where there’s a little more activity. If you’re looking for something different than the D/D BS bore-a-thon, this is probably the right place to look at (though it’s here anyway for information’s sake). These are my take on these builds. There are probably better versions of them. I give a lot of freedom anyway.

Note that the formating may be all messed up. I don’t really care. I’m sure you can make sense of this.

Actual post on the ESOL boards:

[center]Thief builds compendium[/center]

I’ve been wanting to write a compendium of trendy thief builds for quite a while now. As the guild has seen an important number of thieves join the ranks as of lately, I figured it’d be finally worth getting it done. Arena Junkies’s most popular guide also happens to be obsolete as well… But it sucked in the first place anyway because it was written by someone that wasn’t me. So sit tight, read through, pick your poison, and go kill stuff. If you have ideas or comments , PM me or contact me in game. If you wish to export this resource, just make sure you give credit where it is due (read: me) or I’ll violently shake my fist in the air.

[center][img]http://www.guildwars2thief.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/gw2-theif-class.jpg[/img][/center]

D/D & SB Backstab burst roamer

Role & goal of the build: Roamer. Go around and assist team by using the element of surprise to deal a massive burst of hardly avoidable Dagger/Dagger damage and crowd control. Heartseeker finishes off low health targets. The Short Bow is used for moving between points of interest.

Core traits & equipment: [color=#ddd123][Core D/D & SB Backstab burst][/color]

Regarding Utility Skills, Assassin’s Signet is a good choice to make your Backstab deal stupid amounts of damage. Unless you’re running a Signet build (see below), pretty much anything you like works. Freedom is nice.

Trait choices include:

-5 floaty points;

-5 into Deadly Arts for 50 additional power and Panic Strike or Residual Venom as your Major Grandmaster

-5 into Trickery for 2 seconds off Steal cooldown and 3 more Initiative

-As your Major Master in Critical Strikes, Signets of Power for the [color=#ddd123][Signet build here][/color], Side Strike for a tad more damage, Practiced Tolerance for a tad more survivability or Critical Haste for some RNG Quickness.

-As your Major Adept in Trickery, Flanking Strikes for a tad more damage, Thrill of the Crime for area of effect boons goodness or Long Reach to get your Steal in faster and less predictably.

D/D & D/D Death Blossom spammer

Role & goal of the build: Point defender or attacker; also very good for soloing Guild Lords and Forest Creatures. Makes use of high Initiative generation (Steal + weapon swapping) to apply like a million stacks of long lasting Bleed through Death Blossom in combination with too many dodge rolls and Uncatchable to wear down basically any opponent without at least two sources of Condition removal.

Core traits & equipment: [color=#ddd123][Core D/D & D/D Death Blossom spammer][/color]

Regarding the Sigils & Runes, it’s debatable here, but… I like Leeching (~1k life steal), Energy & Adventure because they all provide sustainability, survivability and damage at once (remember, your dodge deals damage through Uncatchable).

If you like bleeding more and dying more, a mix of Centaur, Afflicted and Krait can also be fun for 45% bleed duration. Tack on Agony x 2 for 65%.

Regarding Utility Skills, Caltrops or Ambush Trap could both be replaced with Roll for Initiative if more survivability is needed. The extra Initiative obviously translates into damage as well, but overall less than Caltrops or Ambush Trap would themselves deal.

Trait choices include:

-10 floaty points;

-10 into Deadly Arts for 10% additional Condition duration & 100 power, Serpent’s Touch and Potent Poison as your Major Adept for Poison application on Steal and overall longer Poison duration; remember that between Steal, Serpent Poison and Lotus Strike, we’ll have 3 sources of poison, and increasing that by 33% is nothing to scoff at.

-5 into Deadly Arts for 5% additional Condition duration, 50 power, and Serpent’s Touch and 5 into Shadow Arts for 50 Healing & Toughness and Shadow Refuge for a healthy mix of more Poison application through Steal and durability in dire times.

-10 into Shadow Arts for 100 Healing & Toughness to acquire Slowed Pulse if you hate Bleeding.

-As your Major Master in Acrobatics, Pain Response is just awesome given this build’s limited condition removal tools, but Quick Recovery could yield an extra Death Blossom or two over the course of a long fight with no conditions against you. You change this one up according to what you are facing.

Variants:

[color=#ddd123][D/D & SB Death Blossom Oxy bunker][/color]

This is undoubtably one of the most resilient thief build possible. Sacrifices the second D/D set for a Short Bow, allowing you to spam Disabling Shot in dire times (which works even when Immobilized, would you look at that!) or get places and away with Infiltrator’s Arrow. Made almost exclusively for point defense, though you can deal with Guild Lords and Forest Creatures about as well as the core.

Pistol Whip Haste burst roamer

Role & goal of the build: Roamer. Go around and assist team by using the element of surprise to deal a massive Quickness Pistol Whip burst, crowd control and finisher. The Short Bow is used for moving between points of interest.

Core traits & equipment: [color=#ddd123][Core Pistol Whip Haste burst][/color]

Regarding Utility Skills, the choice is entirely yours for the third.

Regarding your Elite Skill, the desire to use Basilisk Venom will dictate that you will go for Residual Venom as your Deadly Arts Major Grandmaster. Panic Strike is otherwise recommended if you plan to go for Thief Guild or Dagger Storm instead. These two choices both provide more damage than the former at the cost of bits of crowd control. Do not understimate the power of a Quickness-Dagger Storm combo.

Trait choices include:

-As your Major Grandmaster in Deadly Arts, Residual Venom is used if you plan on running Basilisk Venom as an Elite Skill. Otherwise, Panic Strike provides a reliable and long lasting Immobilize effect that’s fairly hard to skip.

Venomous Aura roamer

Role & goal of the build: Roamer. Assist your team with the utility provided by providing multiple players with Venoms and associated effects, and the Leeching Venom and Venomous Aura traits.

Core traits & equipment: [color=#ddd123][Core Venomous Aura][/color]

With a coordinated team, you could swap out Thieves Guild with Basilisk Venom – the result would be the longest stunning effect in the world, should you share with one or more allies.

You’ll note that there is no Weapon selection, that the Traits are incomplete, and that no Equipment has been selected; that’s because the core of the build lies only in the Shadow Arts line and the chosen Utility Skills. The rest is really up to you, though I’ll show you my personal favourite variants.

Variants:

[color=#ddd123][P/D & SB Deadly Arts Venomous Aura roamer][/color]

Long lasting ranged Bleeds goodness through Cheap Cloak & Dagger into Sneak Attack combo. Good survivability against melee builds, notably other Thieves, through Shadow Strike (note: the build shows Repeater instead as a Dual Skill – this is wrong). Signet of Malice could replace Hide in Shadows as your Healing Skill.

[color=#ddd123][D/D & SB Trickery Venomous Aura roamer][/color]

Deadly Death Blossom Bleeds, Bountiful Theft Boon removal & allied Vigor and Venomous Aura shenanigans make you a lovely team player and fearsome dueller, to the point of having me on the verge of labelling this build as a point attacker as well.

Trait choices include:

-20 (!) floaty points;

-20 into Deadly Arts for 20% additional Condition duration & 200 power, Serpent’s Touch and Potent Poison as your Major Adept for Poison application on Steal and overall longer Poison duration; also provides with the lovely Lotus Poison for literal permanent Weakness and, of course, reduced Venom cooldowns.

-10 into Deadly Arts for 10% additional Condition duration & 100 power, Serpent’s Touch and Potent Poison; 10 into Acrobatics for 100 Vitality & 10% additional Boon duration, awesome Swiftness bonus on Dodge and, as your Major Adept, Power of Inertia if you desire to basically always have 2-3 stacks of Might on you, or Vigorous Recovery if you’d rather keep Vigor up permanently (in combination with Bountiful Theft) for the survivability and, of course, extra Uncatchable procs.

-10 into Deadly Arts for 10% additional Condition duration & 100 power, Serpent’s Touch and Potent Poison; 30 total into Trickery for 100 Condition Damage & 4 seconds off of Steal’s cooldown and, as your Major Grandmaster, a choice between 4 extra Initiative upon using a Healing Skill (Hastened Replenishment) or a short Daze upon Stealing (Sleight of Hand). I personally like the former.

-20 into Acrobatics for 200 Vitality & 20% additional Boon duration, as your Major Adept, Power of Inertia or Vigorous recovery, the incredible Energy return of Feline grace, and as your Major Master, Pain Response if you are facing quite a bit of Condition damage or, otherwise, Quick Recovery for the extra Initiative translating into more damage. Assassin’s Reward could also be considered if you’re looking into more survival against non Condition damage based builds.

-10 into Acrobatics for 100 Vitality & 10% additional Boon duration, as your Major Adept, Power of Inertia or Vigorous recovery; 30 total into Trickery for 100 Condition Damage & Hastened Replenishment or Sleight of Hand.

Regarding your runes, I’m still debating myself between 6x Adventurer for the Condition Damage and the Energy replenishment upon using a Healing Skill and 2x Krait and 4x Afflicted for the Condition Damage and the greatly improved Bleed and Poison duration. Moar testing is needed.

P/D & SB Bleeder

Role & goal of the build: Melee? Ranged? Attacker? Roamer? Undecided? Try this build and do pretty much whatever you want – it goes for the sweet traits of every line!

-Sorry, link is off for whatever reason-

P/D & SB Condition Shadow Medic

Role & goal of the build: Support roamer. Assist your team with Stealth, Regeneration, more Regeneration and a generous amount of Bleeding. You’re somewhat of a tank, so get in there and try to attract attention.

[color=#ddd123][P/D & SB Condition Shadow Medic][/color]

D/D & SB Power Shadow Medic

Role & goal of the build: Support roamer. Assist your team with Stealth, Regeneration, more Regeneration and little puny stabs. You’re pretty tanky with the dodging, so get in there and try to attract attention, moreso than the above. You also hit for much less, but still more than a glass cannon Ele. Ha-ha-ha.

[color=#ddd123][D/D & SB Power Shadow Medic][/color]

P/P & SB Unload roamer

Role & goal of the build: Pew pew!

[color=#ddd123][P/P & SB Unload roamer][/color]