Guild Wars 2

I’m wondering if anyone has some good PvE oriented builds for a dagger and shortbow thief out there. Currently I just hit 80 and am running a 10/20/0/20/20 build. It’s working for me, and I’m not having difficulty in the early portions of Orr even in rares and greens, but I can’t help but think my build is not optimal.

Here’s the rub: I don’t really like to stealth a lot. I use Shadow refuge, but that’s about it, and primarily for the heal/group support (to rez an ally safely, for example). I prefer mobility, AoE damage and bleed stacking, and using caltrops to cripple and control the mobs, as well as shortbow 2 shotgun spam. Rather than be sneaky, I currently rely on the healing signet on AoE damage to keep me alive, along with high regen on initiative to keep up the deathblossom and shotgun spam.

Any thoughts? And thoughts on what sort gear I should be looking for based on my playstyle preference?

Thanks!

If all you do is use Death Blossom and Shortbow shotgun for the bleeds from each then something like 20/0/0/20/30 would be great because your auto-attacks will still do a decent amount of damage, your bleed duration will be increased and with Carrion gear your condition damage would be excellent.

Go a bleeding build with 20/0/0/20/30 like incurafy said and spam DB for big mobs of enemys or shotgun bleed skill for long range, though if u can get 5 DB’s in a row, they will bleed to death

Tetsuya.4783:

Go a bleeding build with 20/0/0/20/30 like incurafy said and spam DB for big mobs of enemys or shotgun bleed skill for long range, though if u can get 5 DB’s in a row, they will bleed to death

With this setup should I be wearing Carrion or Valkyrie gear? I use crits to replenish my initiative and keep the DB spam up, how would I go about keeping the crit rate up with this setup, or renewing initiative without the 15 point in Critical Strikes?

Precision is horrible for a condition Thief for the simple fact that you’re relying on DoT (bleeding), not direct damage to kill your opponent. Anything you put into Precision is just going to enhance your direct damage but it’s a waste of points since you’re mainly bleeding your opponent to death.

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/thief#3|3|3537|3997|2645|2786|4989|20|1738|1715|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|20|1165|1168|0|30|782|786|2200|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|25903|48790|48790|48790|48790|48790|

The above build with 100% Carrion gear/Jewels would be excellent for PvE assuming that you’re relying on death blossom and shortbow shotgunning to stack bleeds. Your strategy should revolve around something like…

Use your shortbow auto-attack to round up a group of enemies (the more the better), place Caltrops on the ground in the centre of them when they’re grouped up, switch to D/D and spam death blossom 3 times (15 initiative total), Steal from 1 to get more initiative for another death blossom, then if at this point they’re not all dead, use Roll for Initiative for another one or two death blossoms. If necessary, switch to shortbow and auto-attack kite the remainder of their HP, though this should be non-existent unless you’re killing a Champion.

Easy.