Guild Wars 2

Im so clueless, please halp.

well, one specialization is gonna be Trickery since staff rly needs the extra initiative.

the other specialization is up to you. Acrobatics for more survivability or CriticalStrikes-Deadly Arts for for damage output.

As I have said before its gonna be rly hard to kill someone by just using Vault unless you have someone else to snare-chill-immobilize your targets all the time. Thats why Staff thieves should learn to use combination of Impairing Daggers – Steal – Fist Flurry

Yeah. Staff alone isn’t that great if that is all you rely on it hurts yes but I can be tricky vs compitent people. Using stealth and utility skills helps a lot.

I have pretty much the same gear set up as above guy but with more power less crit (2645/204) and and more toughness, yay!… as long as you can get 2500 power and more then 205 crit dmg with at least 50% chance you can rock on staff

Asked for an spvp staff video/build. got d/p.

Top kek.

You didn’t ask for any video.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

You didn’t ask for any video.

Yet I got linked to one. How intriguing.

Alright fine. Here i run.

Edit; posted my wvw/ pve version. S pvp build here, you can run a more glass rune like scholar.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn0MBlOhlPBGmC8PhFYCbuDWCbhaJgAwuxLNcGaDA-TpBFABCcBAuf/hFOCANcIAEvMAAPAAA

And its not spvp ^^.
Anyways: you can go with marauder or paladin. Or even zerker if you only aim for having fun in unranked.
I even tried mender+assassins reward. Its not as bad as it sounds, but I dont think I can recommend it.And of course the valkyrie jumper. Just to give you an idea of what is possible.

Traitlines? Well. Daredevil. Trickery is also a good idea, but acrobatics can work too.
Shadow arts>critical strikes but not much. CS is possible.

Escapists absolution>staff master>impacting disruption. You shouldnt force interrupt skills in a build that has none. So the trait wont work.
UC>BD. You can still decide to change that, but it seems to work better that way.
With the lack of smoke fields, one of the biggest advantages of BD is gone
On the other traitlines just go with the most logical choices. If you have some basic knowledge in building thieves, you cant do much wrong there.

Im a big fan of vampire runes. Ive also seen scrapper or wurm or even thief. Probably depends on whether you want to focus on offensive or defensive.

Sigil of air/blood/fire. No big suprises here.

Channeled vigor or withdraw. I prefer CV but cant say that withdraw is worse.
Bandits defense, shadowstep or both
1st choice: fist flurry, signet of agility
2nd choice: impairing daggers, haste
Impact strike>basilisk venom, unless you want to rely on fist flurry etc for a burst.

General advice:
-Use all staff skills. They are all strong and situational. Vault will be important, but there are others.
-You can basically evade everything with signet of agility, make use of it. Also time your vault in an enemies attack. You evade, they have a harder time denying.
-You have a fast and strong gap closer. Dont be afraid to open a gap. If you use a vault from distance, make sure you dont look their way when you do it and pretent like you are just running around.
-Without stealth or black powder, cleaving is usually faster than stomping.
-Vault is a leap. Use it. Especially in rangers stolen skills.

The proper way to play a thief is to not play a thief
Roll a rev

I second everything Asrat said.

I personally run Paladin amulet so that if you’re caught w/o being able to evade you’re not instantly killed (but even with enough burst it still happens to me at times). I take Trickery (3, 1, 2), Acrobatics (3, 3, 1), and Daredevil (3/1, 2/1, 2/3). It’s a very well rounded build with good damage, mobility, defense, and sustain.

Staff is very rare in pvp but here come builds from the best to the worst:
1. A. dash dps variant- u can switch powder with bandit defense and trait to brawler’s tenacity
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQFAWn8lClOhlPBGOB8PhldCbLAUbaTeThowVY+A2AvgA-TZAXAAw+DAA
1.B. Deadly arts dps staff- it is b for me becouse it crits much less often than crit strikes
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn8lClOhlPBGOB8PhFYCbuDOCXhephzQbQLBEAyAA-TZAXAAw+DAA
2. staff bound variants with “withdraw” heal and/or condi removal on dodge trait. Escapist absolution give u 100% win vs necros but it doesnt help in other duels. u still lose to condi mes.
3. staff with acrobatcis instead of trickery:
pluses: perma regen and perma vigor + much more dodges due to “3 dodges on stun” trait
4. helseth experiment with valkyrie amul + crit sigil on swap on staff
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn0MBlOhFmCGOB8PhFYCbuDOCXhephzQbQLBEAyAA-T5AHwAMLDAc/BAPAAA

Final words. Staff thief role is similar to dp but staff has more gameplay options becouse u can win many duels for ex vs necro and engie its staff favorable. Even rev is 50/50 depending if he kitten s u with staff 5. still u can not nuke ppl as much as dp becouse there is bug which prevents to shteal at te end of the voult. Still u can staff 2 with steal and with perfect timing u ll hit as hard as voult on the enemy.

What do you mean da crit for “much” less, not as much no but I don’t think it’s that much to notice. I thought having over 50% was more then enough and both of them builds are over 62% with out fury.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

What do you mean da crit for “much” less, not as much no but I don’t think it’s that much to notice. I thought having over 50% was more then enough and both of them builds are over 62% with out fury.

mathematicly speaking cs provide 100% fury uptime and much more dmg, escpecially when hp up 90% (7%cd dmg trait). For staff it is essential to crit your voult, otherwise u would be better to autoatack.

Dmg difference when enemy hp is above 50% is huge mathematicly speaking, but its hard to notice beocuse dp deadly arts thief can lower that hp fast with steal and pulmonary impact. Below 50% dmg is only sligtly lower.

So cs give much more dmg (cs: 9.9k voult da:7k voult and only 505 fury uptime) but da gives more utility like small heal, good poison uptime, and some immobilization.