Guild Wars 2

New to making build for thieves. Was just wondering for serious pvp, if a build can get away with not running the thievery line and still be considered viable? The only difference in play I’ve noticed is more initiative and lower steal CD. This is the current build I’m running and have been using in hotjoin and its been working for me so far: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVl0MhynYpTw7Jw/EHwEFvHihdYfBL3gqTgAIDA-TpBFABCcEAe4BAIeZga2fotDBAAnAAA.
Would the damage hit from switching crit strikes to thievery be worth it in the long run?

Thing is you take a damage hit by not running trickery. Lead attacks gives a 1-15% damage increase based on initiative. Last time I did the math running crit strikes gives a slightly greater than ~1.3x damage multiplication on targets over 50% hp vs not running crit strikes. That damage multiplication drops to 1.2x once your targets gets below 50% (Again, 1.2x relative to a build not running crit strikes. At this point executioner can kick in, but executioner would kick in even if you weren’t running crit strikes). Assuming you average around 8 initiative while fighting, that means running crit strikes only gives a ~1.22x/1.12x damage multiplication compared to running trickery.

Now you have to ask yourself, is a ~1.22x/1.12x damage multiplier worth not running Trickery? Well what do you lose from not running trickery? You don’t get 10s of fury/swiftness on steal. That swiftness synergies pretty well with the pack runes you’ve chosen to run. Crit strikes itself doesn’t really offer a good way to access fury despite it’s reliance on it (By the looks of it now you’re relying on your opponent being at 90%+ hp for unrelenting strikes to proc or pack runes to give you fury). And of course you don’t get the +3 initiative overall, +2 initiative on steal, or 35% cdr on steal.

The last one is the biggest deal here. You’ve already traited to mug, apply poison, and stealth for 3s on steal. Lowering the cd on steal as you know gives you all of those things you’ve already traited for more often. The biggest benefit to running trickery isn’t just all the things it offers on steal. It’s the fact that it offers all those things PLUS makes it to where you can get them more often.

Anywho, as a personal verdict I’d say that it isn’t worth running CS over Trick. The dealbreaker being that you lose the 10s of fury on steal that Trick offers. While CS really benefits from having fury, and running it isn’t worth it unless you know you’ll have a 100% fury uptime. That being said you’re good to go if you get a pack rune proc, but imo that’s too unreliable to justify running crit strikes. Personally I’m a crit strikes thief myself, but I drop SA instead of trickery for it (Also swap out BP for Signet of Agility, since I don’t clear condi’s on stealth).

Midi.8359:

Thing is you take a damage hit by not running trickery. Lead attacks gives a 1-15% damage increase based on initiative. Last time I did the math running crit strikes gives a slightly greater than ~1.3x damage multiplication on targets over 50% hp vs not running crit strikes. That damage multiplication drops to 1.2x once your targets gets below 50% (Again, 1.2x relative to a build not running crit strikes. At this point executioner can kick in, but executioner would kick in even if you weren’t running crit strikes). Assuming you average around 8 initiative while fighting, that means running crit strikes only gives a ~1.22x/1.12x damage multiplication compared to running trickery.

Now you have to ask yourself, is a ~1.22x/1.12x damage multiplier worth not running Trickery? Well what do you lose from not running trickery? You don’t get 10s of fury/swiftness on steal. That swiftness synergies pretty well with the pack runes you’ve chosen to run. Crit strikes itself doesn’t really offer a good way to access fury despite it’s reliance on it (By the looks of it now you’re relying on your opponent being at 90%+ hp for unrelenting strikes to proc or pack runes to give you fury). And of course you don’t get the +3 initiative overall, +2 initiative on steal, or 35% cdr on steal.

The last one is the biggest deal here. You’ve already traited to mug, apply poison, and stealth for 3s on steal. Lowering the cd on steal as you know gives you all of those things you’ve already traited for more often. The biggest benefit to running trickery isn’t just all the things it offers on steal. It’s the fact that it offers all those things PLUS makes it to where you can get them more often.

Anywho, as a personal verdict I’d say that it isn’t worth running CS over Trick. The dealbreaker being that you lose the 10s of fury on steal that Trick offers. While CS really benefits from having fury, and running it isn’t worth it unless you know you’ll have a 100% fury uptime. That being said you’re good to go if you get a pack rune proc, but imo that’s too unreliable to justify running crit strikes. Personally I’m a crit strikes thief myself, but I drop SA instead of trickery for it (Also swap out BP for Signet of Agility, since I don’t clear condi’s on stealth).

Wow thanks, I wasn’t expecting such a detailed answer! I really appreciate it. I just ran some games with Crit/SA/Trick and Crit/DA/Trick and while the DA variant obviously had more dmg output, I felt wrecked by condis even with Sig of Agility and shadowstep. It felt a bit weird running a build w/o executioner, but I was happy with the dmg and survivability. I guess my next question would be is it ok to drop executioner for more competitive play? Or should I just try and get more used to Crit/DA/Trick?

Trickery is mandatory because initiative management without it is too weak. Your pool is 25% deeper and you get back 2 initiative everytime you successfully steal, which you can do more often because trickery reduces steal’s recharge.

Trickery just brings too much to the table. As it is, the max initiative increase is ridiculously good (15 initiative should really be baseline), but that’s not all you get:

+1-15% damage, depending on current Initiative (Minor)
+3 Max Initiative (Minor)
+2 Initiative on Steal (Minor)
-35% CD on Steal (Minor + Grandmaster trait)
1s Daze on Steal (Grandmaster trait)
10 seconds of Fury + Might + Swiftness on Steal for yourself and friends (Adept trait)
Strip two boons on Steal, give them and vigor to yourself and friends (Master trait)

So yeah, Trickery is a tough one to skip right now. I strongly believe the Initiative increase and Steal CDR decrease should both be made baseline, as they contribute in a vital way both to every other trait line and the general modus operandi of the Thief.

Amante.8109:

I strongly believe the Initiative increase and Steal CDR decrease should both be made baseline, as they contribute in a vital way both to every other trait line and the general modus operandi of the Thief.

Definitely agree. I feel like I can’t leave out Trickery because what it brings is literally too good to pass up.

Seabreeze.8437:

Amante.8109:

I strongly believe the Initiative increase and Steal CDR decrease should both be made baseline, as they contribute in a vital way both to every other trait line and the general modus operandi of the Thief.

Definitely agree. I feel like I can’t leave out Trickery because what it brings is literally too good to pass up.

Don’t agree on the Steal CDR as every other profession also gets that only via that trait line… difference is though, that every other profession usually has a low CD on their class mechanic, which makes 30% CDR actually 3 seconds. As Steal has a high CD, that one should be reduced by a bit and the Trickery CDR should also be reduced.

Can’t argue with the 3 Ini baseline though, I’d like that as well.

For me, the main reason to run trickery is not the fury, but rather the boonstripping interrupt (interrupting boonstrip?) on steal.
Really, the most important factor for me is that steal can interrupt a stomp or rez even through stability or aegis. Your allies will love you, when you pop out of nowhere, start rezzing and then interrupt the guy trying to stomp while you continue to rezz (less important application nowadays with shadow arts stealthing whatever you try to rezz).
You can also instantly interrupt skills even when you are stunned or knocked down. If you are really desperate, you can even use it to secure a stomp by interrupting the opponent’s downed skill.
Seriously, people always name the damage boost, the fury, the larger initiative pool as their reason to go trickery.
For me, the whole reason to go trickery is the bountiful theft+sleight of hand package. It’s just so kitten versatile.

DA gives a +10% damage increase too from exposed weakness. So I wouldn’t really recommend dropping that. For more competitive play I would honestly recommend dropping Crit Strikes for SA, and dropping executioner for improvisation. Although that’s a much harder build to use properly than Crit Strikes (Gotta really know how to use stolen skills and also account for possible improvisation procs).

As a Crit/DA/Trick user myself I’d say the build is heavily focused around +1’ing. More so than regular SA/DA/Trick thieves as you’ve opted for extra damage in an attempt to finish fights faster/with a higher rate of success. It also likes to try and 1v1 a bit more than a regular SA thief since the added damage can help end fights that’d be too prolonged with a regular SA thief’s damage output. As far as condi’s go however I’d definitely say the build is lacking in condi clear, but not so much that you should be getting wrecked by it. I think learning how to use the sb offensively and avoid unnecessary condi’s that you can helps in that area. Tbh, I dunno how to properly describe the matchup against condi’s, since I feel like I don’t really have too much trouble against them myself. You should be going in and out of fights often enough to where they can’t really stack condi’s on you for a sustained period of time. If they burst apply multiple condi’s on you then you have shadowstep and if they burst stack a single condi on you then you have Signet of Agility. It also helps that a lot of condi-applying classes can be pretty squishy if you manage to hit them at the right time during their rotations.

I think a bigger reason why people run SA over CS is the stealth on rev/steal, stealth duration, and initiative gain. Honestly with CS sometimes you can be starved for initiative if you’ve been fighting for even a moderate period of time. Also if you screw up with a CS build then you’re much more likely dead than if you screw up with a SA build (lack of initiative, lack of stealth duration, and lack of condi clear are all contributing factors to this).

Dunno, I suppose you can run SA/Crit/Trick if it suits your playstyle. But personally I prefer running CS with executioner and exposed weakness to “double down” in your investments (I guess, using the same way of thinking earlier, not running DA gives you a -30% decrease in dps against enemies under 50% that have at least one condition applied to them).

Edit: Also I wanna say I agree with what naphack has to say. I was just pointing out the fury as it is particularly relevant when choosing to run the CS traitline or not.

Just read all the replies, gonna keep tweaking my build further. Thanks for all the replies!