Guild Wars 2

Help me please! I recently got to level 80 for the first time on my main, a charr thief. Whilst I am loving this character and I think I am getting better at playing as him, anyway, my question is, what armour, weapons and seals should I use on him? at the moment I have all ac exotic gear with the strength and traveller runes. I plan on using dd for the entire rest of the game and I am starting to get the materials needed for the incinerator. Also some help with my traits would be appreciated. Thanks!!

What is your current build?

I’m currently wearing ac armour which gives me power toughness and vitality and it is socketed with travellers runes, this is just to increase my chance to get rares-exotics so I can salvage them. I am looking for armour to keep so obviously I wouldn’t use them, but I don’t know which runes or armour to get. My traits are as follows: 30 deadly arts, 30 crit chance and 10 trickery, I’m not sure if these are the best or not so any comment on these would be appreciated. My utility skills are: Hide in shadows, Shadow Refuge, Shadow Step, Signet of Shadows and Dagger Storm. Sorry for the late response since I was out with some friends then went straight to bed. Thanks!!

Hello pwned, welcome to lvl 80 thief-dom.

What is it you’d like to accomplish on your thief?

Do you want to be:

Very Tanky? (in that case, d/d is good, but d/p or s/p are better, imo)
Very Bursty? (if so, you need to get good at stealthing and damage avoidance, you’ll be squishy)

Very Stealthy?
Not Very Stealthy?

High Physical Damage?
High Condition Damage?

Generally you have to choose, though you can certainly mix, and be “worse” in all categories and a jack of all trades.

I feel there are more options. You can easily be a bursty-tanky backstab thief with no crit chance.

I feel this is the most fun in wvw, because you can destroy a large group’s morale very easily and you’re oh so hard to kill because of several “OH kitten” buttons and ultra high mobility

(Valkyrie + Cavalier + Beryl orbs)
0/30/30/10/0 traits

I agree TNoD. The trade off in that scenario is as you mention, little precision on gear equaling little crit.

However, in the build you cite, you are putting 30 in to critical strikes, which does give you a nice boost to critical. You mentioned being a bursty tanky backstab thief, so you’re taking Hidden Killer for 100% critical on first attack. That’s a smart mix which bolsters some of the drawbacks your gear might have introduced.

Few could out last you (the venom heals/shadow refuge), and few could out burst you (GC Mug/CnD/Haste/Heart Seeker build). I would agree your build is better than either extreme.

Speaking of the gear (Valk/Beryl); If someone liked this play style, but wanted to move away from dagger (since Hidden Killer is really reliant on backstab), they could keep the same gear, but add fury to the mix and take Furious Retaliation from crit strikes (I) and then take Executioner (XI) over hidden killer (XII), along with Thrill of the Crime (I) in Trickery (for added Fury). This could be taken even further with more fury from superior runes of Rage (or the sleeper hit, Altruism, which pairs NICELY with Hide in Shadows for on-demand burst) and now you are strong in a lot of categories.

I am an absolute build addict, it’s always the most interesting part of a game to me.

It is great fun to mix traits/gear to the best effect to your play-style. I think the thief offers the most of that flexibility in this game. I think this draws a lot of us to the profession.

And so to that end, it’s correct that we shouldn’t be “pigeon-holed” in to one extreme or the other, but it is always nice to start by understanding to what extreme you can go (tanky, bursty), so that you can know the fundamentals in order to strike the right balance for you personally.

originally I would have liked my thief to be a bit like the typical assassin, high burst and uses stealth, however between woaden and tnod, I think I prefer that build and I just have one question about it, is it only really for wvw or is it pretty good for pve aswell? Since I would like to build the incinerator I will probably have to do alot of pve so that is the only reason I ask. anyway, great responses and thank you both so much xD

For general PvE you really can’t go wrong with any build.

In dungeons, as a general rule (speed runs being the only exception I can think of), the average populace would prefer you not bring a “Glass Cannon”, so your “tankier” build would be appreciated. I will say, however, that some dungeon mechanics don’t pair well with melee, but the build can easily use ranged as well. (or just learn when to weapon swap)

I personally prefer Pistol/Dagger with Shortbow offhand for PvP, and P/P with Shortbow for PvE Dungeons. Messing with P/D outside of a condition damage build tho and you can end up gimping yourself a bit (but I find it fun and have a similar “good at everything” mentality as TNoD)

No one mentions S/D as it is the red headed step child in the corner but in WvW its can be down right troll worthy. Just about any build will work as long as you have the gear for it and know how it works. A little advice in the general sense. If it doesn’t work the way you want at first don’t give up. Many thief builds despite the stigma that they are easy actually rely on nuance. Many builds require time to get used to.

As far as going after your legendary (unless you feel like buying one) there are numerous guides and no matter the class the path is relatively the same. Your build is not going to matter as much as having MF gear, time, and patience.

TheGuy.3568:

No one mentions S/D as it is the red headed step child in the corner but in WvW its can be down right troll worthy.

Just sit behind certain structures where your sword2 can shadowstep through and rofl as you pop in and out of cover and watch people panick thinking you just stealthed to BS them all. My favorite thing to do as—S/D lol. The 5-6k crits are nice as well on the upscaled/GC people.