Guild Wars 2

So it always bothered me that you can’t really have a tanky thief in SPvP since the point of bunkering is to hold points and you can’t do that while in stealth. So I figured why not just throw as much sustain onto a thief as possible and hope for the best. Keep in mind I am well aware this is probably not viable in the slightest, but if we were to try to make it as viable as possible, how would we go about doing so. More of a joke than anything, something you’d play in hotjoins for the lols really.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAV8al8Mp3pVOx7J0PNhORt9tFAJIX5W37QcFEA-TpRDABOcEA0uMwxHEA6uAAA8AAEa/BA

Utilities I just kind of threw in there because I had no idea what would complement this.

That’s what I’ve made so far. I figured Sbow would be a natural complement to a build involving crits and multi hits to heal so I’m guessing that’ll be the main weapon. Plus it comes with build in poison so no need for doom sigils. Main issue that comes up is conditions and how I have no way to deal with them other than Generosity sigils, slowed pulse and pain response. S/P just seemed like a nice complement with blind fields and Pistol Whip being great for scoring lots of fast crits. Maybe open with that then switch to Sbow.

Magi amulet seems like the only choice when going for max healing power(I don’t think it affects Invigorating Precision, but it does bring AE to a nice 121 hp per initiative) since no other amulet has precision and healing power except for Celestial.

So, any thoughts or changes you’d make? Keep in mind I’m not looking for a meta build. I could find those easily. This build is just for the heck of it and I had 20 skill points lying around.

Like you said Necro it’s a hotjoin lulz thing. I’m open minded but struggling with it just because there may be a real sustain class around and no matter what you do outside of stealth just leaves you feeling envious.

If I want to contest points against other sustain classes I revert to very heavy heals and just attack out the stealth often so invisible time is minimised, but heals are plentiful. The old unicorn specs are more visible but still require piano playing skills to stay alive.

I did go into a similar direction a while ago , when I really wanted to use venoms , saw the trait that heals you when you use them and decided to build upon that . Just for hotjoin lols ofcourse …

This is sort of what I came up with :
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAsa6anMJSXT20EGNB/TmImg28DRgzl/DtPwCCAA-TJRIwAAeCAgPJAt2fYYZAA

The idea is to trigger some small heals all the time . I cant say how it compares to the crithealing thing , but I can tell you that pistolwhip and unload would heal you up a decent amount really quick .

The immobilize venom was also really useful , so if anything , I would recommend you giving that a try .

I could give venom a shot. I only tested out the build for like half an hour, most people weren’t really accustomed to dealing with a stealthless thief with 23k hp. I could fare pretty well but I found myself using S/P more than Sbow simply for interrupts. Initiative was also quite the luxury. In 1v1s it was hard to keep my health up, but in things like 2v2 on a point my health was usually above 50%. Should be mentioned that engineers destroy this build easily. With so little condition removal, conditions stick for the full duration generally.

I’ll give the venom build a shot but I have a feeling it’ll run into the same issues with dealing with long duration conditions.

And I don’t really like Skelk venom. Even as a burst heal, with cd reduction and siphoning, it still heals for like 40 Hp/s less than withdraw.

Caltrops work with the signet of malice.
Dodger pointholder with the caltrops, sigils of energy, proper points in trickery&acro, and settler’s amulet(Celestial is just fine as well)… It works really great when you have to be confined in a small point. And as for weapons, well Evade uptime complements nicely, so I guess shortbow + D/D.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVl8Mp5pFOx0J0PNBNB59V+SZ0MAzuzjEFA-TpgTQAg9HslBAA
Try to build something based on that, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the results.

First of all,lets get things clear→Thief cannot be used as tank.
Now,making a tanky thief is very much can be done.
First things that comes to my mind about tanky thief is the medi thief build,it can be tweaked to have less stealth,and more sustain.
I would first choose a spec that should not rely on stealth AT ALL,which is mostly s/d-SB. Or even SB-SB or S/d-S/d(S/p would work aswell)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsaVl8MptplNx8J0PRBNhwVNPD/VrAd/M6QA-TJRHABJXGAgTBgAPBgM2fAA
I think CC are important,so S/p and traps would work,the blinding powder is for avoiding friendlies get stomped and stealth ress and to clear some conditions,if you have lots of condies,place blindfield and cluster it.
1v1 fights should be with S/p while bigger fights should be done with SB.
Fight on point should be easy cause you have blind field,lots of evades,and traps to keep ppl at bay.

Yeah , if you want to be super-serious about pointholding , you should probably just modify the meta SD build for tankiness …
The thiefs best defense will always be not getting hit in the first place (that includes condis) , so if you want to be stealthless that means maximum evade spam …

To be totally honest , I cant imagine a thief build that could hold a point against any engineer throwing his crates – you can only evade so much …
And if you are not viable in that sense , you might as well just build for fun and survivability I would say .

Cerpin.9152:

Yeah , if you want to be super-serious about pointholding , you should probably just modify the meta SD build for tankiness …
The thiefs best defense will always be not getting hit in the first place (that includes condis) , so if you want to be stealthless that means maximum evade spam …

To be totally honest , I cant imagine a thief build that could hold a point against any engineer throwing his crates – you can only evade so much …
And if you are not viable in that sense , you might as well just build for fun and survivability I would say .

Actually a condi bunker caltrops thief is a direct counter to an engineer who decides to drop a supply crate.
Your caltrops will leech off his turrets through the signet of malice significantly.

I’m liking all this variety. Totally forgot about Caltrops+SoM. Gonna play around with all of these and see which wins out.

Best you can make is evade on point with sustain. I made a “bunker” thief build numerous months ago. It “worked” but in my eyes only. It jus doesn’t happen because of how thief lacks sustain.

Got stuck on the SoM+Caltrops D/D build. Not so great in 1v1 unless they’re MM necros or rangers, but in group fights of like 2v2 on a point, my hp rarely drops below 50%. Best I’ve gotten is 22 bleed stacks on a single person before they died, coupled with some poison from steal/sbow, they melt pretty fast all while I stay relatively safe. Weakness is definitely other thieves or condi heavy classes, but against things like warriors or engineers it does great.

Okay, I’m on my phone and can’t load any of the builds posted above, but I tried this probably 6 months ago and it worked suprisingly well. I used signet of malice with caltrops on dodge, assassins reward, and caltrops as a utility. I don’t remember the specifics, but I remember I used S/P as the main set and the self heals were pretty ridiculous. This was a pure hot join build though, and I really did nothing but sit on home all game, but it could sustain against one or two players pretty easily. You could probably take Invigorating Precision and do a crit healway build and get better results, but bunker thief can certainly be a thing.

Also: there was a thread on here ages ago named ‘Thief Self Heals’ or something like that, and it kind of gave me the inspiration to try bunker thief out. If anyone wanted to dig it up it probably would still help.

You used to be able to with a tanky P/P healing power/healing effects blindspam build. It did absolutely abysmal damage and condi bombs were pretty strong against it, but pretty much nothing could decap you. The build was actually able to out-bunker or simply holdits ground against every guard, engi, ele, and necro I tested it on, while simply going undefeated against warriors.

With BP nerfed and rangers hitting for real damage on longbow now, though, it’s probably another story (I haven’t tested it since).

I’m trying out the medic build (with soldiers and a bit of healing power for myself until I craft Nomads) and having a blast stealthing and picking up my team-mates of the floor!