Guild Wars 2

Hey all. I’ve been playing around with my thief a bit and I’ve come up with something I think is an EPIC build. Has great survivability, huge damage and is quite hard to counter. I’m not an expert by any means but I really like what I’ve come up with.

Weapons

Dagger – Classic DPS weapon for a thief, has the most damage.
There are two sigil combinations.

1. (superior) sigils of force + air – We will have 0 in Deadly Arts so the extra 5% damage is useful. The air sigil is just a little bit extra DPS, 30% chance on crit to cause a lighting strike. A bit more damage every 3 crits, can’t complain.
2. (superior) sigils of force – Again, 0 in Deadly Arts, if you want, you can swap the air sigil for another force.

Two weapon type combinations.

1. berserker – Classic burst stats gearing up for most DPS, not really needed in my opinion.
2. valkyrie – Power, vitality and critical damage, vitality will be useful, power we need to buff and crit damage is always welcome.

Shortbow – Classic.. ¸Infiltrator’s arrow for extra mobility, we won’t have a passive (nor active) speed buff.. We can also use it for some AOE damage with it if required for anything.

1. (superior) sigil of hydromancy – We’ll be using the SB to run away from zergs so when we switch to it after killing a player, it’s useful to have the guys chasing us chilled. It will slow them down. We won’t be using the SB for anything offensively orientated so there is no point in getting a sigil of force or accuracy.

Armor

Armor rune:

1. (superior) rune of the thief – We get precision from it, the condition damage is not what we’re after, it’s just there and will aid the poison that our auto-attack applies but it’s about it. Why we’re really going for it is +10% damage while behind or beside a foe. It will make our back stabs more powerful and will really pay off.

Stats:
Multiple options..

1. berserker – Again, classic DPS gear..
2. valkyrie – It’s similar to knights but has vitality instead of toughness. We will be getting toughness from our traits + the weapons so why not spring for HP a bit. If you have high toughness, no vitality, the toughness means almost nothing, vice versa.

Accessories

Again, multiple options:

1. berserker – Classic DPS
2. knights – Again, same reason as above
3. valkyrie – Aand again, same reason as above.

I’ll be using knights with valkyrie jewels.

Traits

We’re going for 0/30/20/0/20

Critical Strikes – Going 30 into them. Traits are: IV, X & XII

1. IV – Concealed Defeat, this is a free slot, place whatever you want, I found nothing else I really found useful. You may say “Why not get Furious Retaliation or Side Strike?” You don’t need it. You should see yourself why after you ready the entire guide.

1. I – Furious Retaliation, when your target reaches 50% HP you will gain fury, upping the crit chance, more possibility of causing a lightning strike, more damage.

1. XII – Hidden killer, 100% crit chance in stealth will ensure a crit on our backstab. executioner is an excellent trait but it’s not as good as hidden killer in this build.

Shadow Arts – We’re going 20 into them. Traits are: VI & VIII

1. VI – Cloaked in shadow, you could use master of deception but this trait will blind your enemy whenever you enter stealth, so if it will be mobile and able to hit you it will miss the first time, equals to less damage.

1. IX – Leeching Venoms, we will be using venoms so we will openly welcome the extra 1k damage that those 3 venom uses will do while healing us for 750HP. You can use what you want here, a lot of great traits, Patience, Hidden Thief (will eliminate the cloak n dagger + steal combo) Find something here that works for you the best.

Trickery We’re going 20 into it. Traits are: IV & VII

1. IV – Flanking strikes, we do more damage on our backstabs, really useful.

1. VIII – Bountiful Theft, this is a free trait slot. I prefer to use VII because if the target has retaliation or protection on it, it just rips it off.

Slot skills

1. Hide in Shadows – Your heal + stealth, no other healing skills is worth using, trust me.
2. Shadowstep – Super useful for escaping a fight, you can also return to confuse the enemies on your positioning, a must have in every build.
3. Devourer Venom – 2 second immobilization x2 (=4 sec) gives you the ability to hit him once after your elite has been used to further keep him non mobile, second time you cloak and dagger and he stays immo’d for the backstab. The most important skill in the build
4. Shadow refuge – Useful for stacking up stealth to hide from zergs or enter fights un-noticed. Can also be a panic button. Very useful skill
5. Your elite, Basilisks Venom – This will be the first skill you use before you engage your target. Will be covered in the rotation section.

Finally, the rotation

First thing you do is /wave at the guy.
Use cloak and dagger followed by a quick steal so you cloak and dagger on the target quickly. Backstab him which will turn him into stone for some time(because of the elite skill). When you see the stone going off (gonna be quite quick) pop the devourer venom, auto attack one more time, this will immo the player for two seconds. Now it’s time for cloak and dagger, this will put one more two second immo on the player (The venom can be applied two times) allowing you to put in the final backstab. If the person is still not dead, heartseeker in an attempt to finish him. The rest is on you to improvise and tune what you do to the situation.

Closing notes

I still havent tested the build anywhere but the mists and it was really successful without any accessories, gear or weapon stats, I imagine it will be killer once fully geared and set up. I’ve taken down the heavy golem in a few seconds using the rotation, again ,with no gear so I can only imagine what it will be like when the character is fully geared up. I’m open to suggestions, criticism (Feel free to criticize, I’m not going to get offended, no worries about that), reviews. I really like how the build went together. I’m not sure if there are any other builds alike, I’m not really active on forums. Have a wonderful day guys, thanks for checking this guide out, cheers!

This is the complete build, exactly the way I’ll be using it:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlUmiO3ey1E+5Ex2jeOUiypIpQ1TBYHLA-jkyA4rAixgIKgkFIqAQ6rIasl1ioxqWwUnER1ujioVDA-w

-Jurica

Forgot about food.. Just use anything that gives you power, toughness, vitality, crit damage, up to you.
Cheers!

Thanks for posting. A few comments to think over:

- Valkyrie Armor must be considered for a backstab build with Hidden Killer. You keep the crit damage that Knight’s lacks

- If you are going to mix armor types, where some slots do not have +crit damage, then it’s important to optimize what goes in what slot. Different slots have a higher stat cost for +1% crit damage. Read post #2 by Loperdos here:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/84827-thief-armor-berzerker-knights-valkyrie-mix/

- The Shortbow is a fairly incredible offensive weapon. It is not just for utility. If you’re just after overland speed to run away, you’re better off spamming Heartseeker with no target. SB teleport is mostly useful if you know the spots where it will allow you z-axis mobility

- Hidden Thief is pretty cool. But there are so many great traits in SA, you might want to consider an alternative way to gain stealth on steal. From range, start CnD, then immediately steal to the target. You’ll finish CnD when you’re there. CnD’s cast time is not interrupted by the teleport. This is a pretty useful trick for a dagger thief to learn

- Critical Haste has a downside, in that it can mess up your timing of revealed. Once you have played a dagger thief for a while, that timing becomes muscle memory. Haste mucks it up

- Retaliation doesn’t hurt any more on a backstab than it does on an autoattack. It’s not a reflect. Though it always hurts, backstabbing thieves are far less likely to do real harm to themselves than, for example, their unload-spamming P/P brethren

Finally, when most folks post builds, they add a link to the completed version so people can see the whole thing at once (and tinker with it). For example, here is my current WvW build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlUmiO3eS+E+5Ex2jeuTiy9wpJtpdFwKA-jEDBYfBCbBkoAksAiIAI9pIaslhFRjVXDTVSpW5KQmzCaeDK1SBonwI-w

Just some things to consider. I fiddle with builds more often than is probably healthy

Oghier.7419:

Thanks for posting. A few comments to think over:

- Valkyrie Armor must be considered for a backstab build with Hidden Killer. You keep the crit damage that Knight’s lacks

- If you are going to mix armor types, where some slots do not have +crit damage, then it’s important to optimize what goes in what slot. Different slots have a higher stat cost for +1% crit damage. Read post #2 by Loperdos here:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/84827-thief-armor-berzerker-knights-valkyrie-mix/

- The Shortbow is a fairly incredible offensive weapon. It is not just for utility. If you’re just after overland speed to run away, you’re better off spamming Heartseeker with no target. SB teleport is mostly useful if you know the spots where it will allow you z-axis mobility

- Hidden Thief is pretty cool. But there are so many great traits in SA, you might want to consider an alternative way to gain stealth on steal. From range, start CnD, then immediately steal to the target. You’ll finish CnD when you’re there. CnD’s cast time is not interrupted by the teleport. This is a pretty useful trick for a dagger thief to learn

- Critical Haste has a downside, in that it can mess up your timing of revealed. Once you have played a dagger thief for a while, that timing becomes muscle memory. Haste mucks it up

- Retaliation doesn’t hurt any more on a backstab than it does on an autoattack. It’s not a reflect. Though it always hurts, backstabbing thieves are far less likely to do real harm to themselves than, for example, their unload-spamming P/P brethren

Finally, when most folks post builds, they add a link to the completed version so people can see the whole thing at once (and tinker with it). For example, here is my current WvW build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlUmiO3eS+E+5Ex2jeuTiy9wpJtpdFwKA-jEDBYfBCbBkoAksAiIAI9pIaslhFRjVXDTVSpW5KQmzCaeDK1SBonwI-w

Just some things to consider. I fiddle with builds more often than is probably healthy

I’ll put in valkyrie armor in the OP then, thanks.
I’m not really going to mix armors. You have the options which you can use. Only thing I’ll be mixing is the accessories, only two types. The armors you can use a full set of any of those and still preform well.
I didn’t know about that trick, I’ll re-visit the traits for a little while.
I’d still like some boons to be removed from the player. If he has protection, that would mean 2/3 of the damage I could do so I’d still keep it, I said it’s a free slot (I think) because I really have little to no clue what to put there. Forgot about the link, thought of making it but forgot by accident. Thanks A TON for the list. I’ll get right to it Have a wonderful day, cheers!