Guild Wars 2

By now everyone knows that when they see Basilisk or devourer venom that you are going in for the BS so they have there finger on the stun breaker and roll to get around this i try and bait the stun break using Devourer Venom at the start with Infiltrator’s Signet for the shadow step to get the C/d and bs they will most of the times stun break out of it and think they are safe then follow up with normall Basilisk Venom c/d bs 90 percent of the time they will not have more then 1 stun breaker so it is a almost defacto kill you do give up 2 skill to acomplish this but then again it has won me most of the 1v1 i have had in wvw and spvp works well with d/p as well as you dont need then shadow step since hs trough blackpowder should hit them and get the immobilize off ( just a small tip i know but since it has been working for me for quite a bit i thought i whould share it).

A solid tip, thank you for sharing it.

However, I suspect that, against the better opponents, they have the durability to survive your initial burst anyway. Against the opponents you can gib, I think baiting a venom is wasted effort.

Mad props for whenever it works, though.

Good players know what each and every venom buff looks like.

Thieves remain to be only good against bad/new players and other thieves.

3 stun breakers……

I only use baslisks venom in a opener if the person I’m going after isn’t payng attention. I save my bas until after they have blown 2 dodge rolls or some other form of cc/get out jail cards. Blowing it at the beginning is really only for full glass specs I would think or somebody running the cd reduction on venoms for a 38 sec bas can catch people by surprise but most dont run that trait.

After you bas its usually a stun break or dodge roll anyway. I don’t think devourer is good enough to take up a slot in my utility bar if I’m a burst build.

I appreciate the comments. I have a lvl 80 warrior, guardian, and Mesmer. In gw1 my main was a assassin and I really enjoyed it a lot. I rolled a thief a week ago and so far at 62, I really enjoy it. My warrior is great at CoF speed runs, fractals, and general Pve. And my guardian I use for dungeons as a pure support build. I made a thief because I was getting owned in WvW, and I wanted to play that style again. These comments help me orient my self to this style again and realistic ideas of how this class is played. I hope that thief (gw1 assassin) will be my main once again. Thank you.

The thing is how many classes have more then 1 stun breaker and save them for that eventuality yes many classes do have more but they do not slot them for that purpose some for chasing aka guardians warriors for burst mesmers for clones ppl even at high lvl expect thiefs to be the 2 button masher that most thiefs have shown themselfs to be it does not always work sure but i have yet to see any person even in high end tpvp manage to stun break out of it if you time the last one it is not perfect but thinking outside the box is what thiefs should do and timing is everything thiefs that burst at the start will die like flys yes it is a easier class to pick up but for that very reason ppl dont take thiefs seriously and when some one does somthing outside of the norm they have no follow up plan i guess why this works for me alot .

Good tip, I’ll remember this next time I switch back to D/D backstab. Been trying S/P and S/D lately since I havent played in a bit, and never tried S/D before. Pretty fun.

I’ve been meaning to try this though, as sometimes they’re running away, Steal’s on CD, and HS just isnt gonna do it. Though, I’m not sure about how I feel running Devourer Venom…. Take’s away from my Shadow Refuge, and I’m not dropping Shadowstep, ever.

That said, if they’re running S/X, you’re probably screwed if they have that Shadow Return from Infy Strike up, and Shadowstep utility. :p