Guild Wars 2

What builds do you think really show off a thief player’s ability. Not looking for builds that ALWAYS guarantee results (I.E. My dire/apoth venom thief( and i say MY to take responsibility of my cheese) ), looking for builds that only reward players that are truly well focused and well played!

PS. not a build posting thread, but a build discussion thread!

d/d and s/d are 2 of my favorites… I tell my buddies d/p is for noob thieves that cant land cloak and dagger lol!

D/D is a lot of fun, D/P is actually a bit overpowered in some cases since you can do perpetual blindness. S/P is a LOT of fun too

I have a venom thief (73) and a glass cannon thief (80 for a while now), both are fun, I don’t really think there are any thief setups that can be played well without some measure of skill, as op as D/P can be it still requires good situation assessment, target prioritization and combat flexibility, it’s just a HIGHLY defensive way to play on average.

D/D, IMO, is the most difficult and most rewarding. Landing CnD takes a lot of time of practicing using the skill to get the timing correctly. Also requires that you instinctively knows how long your stealth will last to get in a position for backstab.

Spyder.9713:

d/d and s/d are 2 of my favorites… I tell my buddies d/p is for noob thieves that cant land cloak and dagger lol!

That is how i generally feel. Personally I think S/D is one of the most boss things a thief can throw at some one. When you can kill some one and all they have to complain about is evades (Which every class has), you know you beat them fair and square.

D/D is also great! I’m glad it’s making a come back! I know it never fully died, but the reason I turned my thief into P/D in the first place was because of the D/P movement. I was fed up with the flack about stealth, and furthermore watching it get so heavily abused i figured conditions would be safe!

Any build that is fully glass, or high-risk, high-reward.

Good players mitigate risk via skill, and fully reap rewards.

Weapon set doesn’t really matter.

style.6173:

ryan.6217:

Spyder.9713:

d/d and s/d are 2 of my favorites… I tell my buddies d/p is for noob thieves that cant land cloak and dagger lol!

That is how i generally feel. Personally I think S/D is one of the most boss things a thief can throw at some one. When you can kill some one and all they have to complain about is evades (Which every class has), you know you beat them fair and square.

D/D is also great! I’m glad it’s making a come back! I know it never fully died, but the reason I turned my thief into P/D in the first place was because of the D/P movement. I was fed up with the flack about stealth, and furthermore watching it get so heavily abused i figured conditions would be safe!

Go P/P in an upper level tourney and be successful. That will be a boss.

S/D, S/P, and D/P are the three meta builds right now. Can’t say someone is a boss using those.

Wow i forgot P/P even existed. D/P and S/P are cheese, never said they were boss. I know this. S/D evade is respectable and when playing versus a respectable opponent S/D is pretty BOSS. Meta or not i give credit where credit is due. I think D/D builds and S/D builds deserve credit. High Risk, high rewards. Now when was the last time I saw P/P? oh yeah. perplexity meta.

I think any GC builds which not using stealth anyway.
I love the challenge playing against other classes and outplaying their builds by simply doding powerful attacks and kite them into my attacks.

dunno what build it is in terms of armor and such, but sword+dagger venomshare with boonrip on steal…. really nice for duo/5 man roaming in WvW.

S/D limited-stealth is the gold standard for “shows off player’s ability”. Anyone who can make it work, has a lot of opportunities to show off some good skills.

Doesn’t matter if it’s a meta build.

…how is S/P cheese? I’ve been running it for months, and it was far underpowered. All of a sudden with one minor buff and a major nerf, it’s apparently cheese. Gotta love this community.

Viking Jorun.5413:

…how is S/P cheese? I’ve been running it for months, and it was far underpowered. All of a sudden with one minor buff and a major nerf, it’s apparently cheese. Gotta love this community.

You’re right ^^ i played S/P in beta! I’m glad it’s gaining it reputation back as of late, because for a while there it went unplayable. I think for a moment al i could picture were warriors 100 blading hopelessly in front of a thief with s/p… but otherwise its in about the same boat as S/D

ryan.6217:

Viking Jorun.5413:

…how is S/P cheese? I’ve been running it for months, and it was far underpowered. All of a sudden with one minor buff and a major nerf, it’s apparently cheese. Gotta love this community.

You’re right ^^ i played S/P in beta! I’m glad it’s gaining it reputation back as of late, because for a while there it went unplayable. I think for a moment al i could picture were warriors 100 blading hopelessly in front of a thief with s/p… but otherwise its in about the same boat as S/D

S/D hasn’t even been cheese since the IR nerf when LS was also increased in cost, making it so that you had to far more carefully use FS+LS. I suppose people translate Meta = Cheese, which isn’t entirely correct, not to mention the fact that there’s a difference between Meta and Viable Again, the second of which boat S/P is in. D/P trickery still remains the only top-tier meta build, with S/D on steady second. The only true cheese build out there is D/P permastealth with Shadow’s Rejuvination. Trickery D/P gives that up and frequently has to break combat to not die with it’s lack of sustained healing, meaning that it takes skill to be successful with trickery D/P, same goes for S/D and S/P.

TL;DR – Cheese means it takes little to no skill to play, like warrior. Thief takes a significant amount of skill to make itself viable in any format, and therefore only has one truly “cheese” build.

Viking Jorun.5413:

ryan.6217:

Viking Jorun.5413:

…how is S/P cheese? I’ve been running it for months, and it was far underpowered. All of a sudden with one minor buff and a major nerf, it’s apparently cheese. Gotta love this community.

You’re right ^^ i played S/P in beta! I’m glad it’s gaining it reputation back as of late, because for a while there it went unplayable. I think for a moment al i could picture were warriors 100 blading hopelessly in front of a thief with s/p… but otherwise its in about the same boat as S/D

S/D hasn’t even been cheese since the IR nerf when LS was also increased in cost, making it so that you had to far more carefully use FS+LS. I suppose people translate Meta = Cheese, which isn’t entirely correct, not to mention the fact that there’s a difference between Meta and Viable Again, the second of which boat S/P is in. D/P trickery still remains the only top-tier meta build, with S/D on steady second. The only true cheese build out there is D/P permastealth with Shadow’s Rejuvination. Trickery D/P gives that up and frequently has to break combat to not die with it’s lack of sustained healing, meaning that it takes skill to be successful with trickery D/P, same goes for S/D and S/P.

TL;DR – Cheese means it takes little to no skill to play, like warrior. Thief takes a significant amount of skill to make itself viable in any format, and therefore only has one truly “cheese” build.

I agree with all of your points, accept that thief only has one cheese build. As an avid user of the condi bunker thief I do strongly believe that it is cheese. I hardly even have to strife. Honestly i can just stand still and auto until somebody reaches me and then i hit 3. Now against mesmers and necros some movement is required. and thought too, but that’s because they are difficult classes.

ryan.6217:

Viking Jorun.5413:

ryan.6217:

Viking Jorun.5413:

…how is S/P cheese? I’ve been running it for months, and it was far underpowered. All of a sudden with one minor buff and a major nerf, it’s apparently cheese. Gotta love this community.

You’re right ^^ i played S/P in beta! I’m glad it’s gaining it reputation back as of late, because for a while there it went unplayable. I think for a moment al i could picture were warriors 100 blading hopelessly in front of a thief with s/p… but otherwise its in about the same boat as S/D

S/D hasn’t even been cheese since the IR nerf when LS was also increased in cost, making it so that you had to far more carefully use FS+LS. I suppose people translate Meta = Cheese, which isn’t entirely correct, not to mention the fact that there’s a difference between Meta and Viable Again, the second of which boat S/P is in. D/P trickery still remains the only top-tier meta build, with S/D on steady second. The only true cheese build out there is D/P permastealth with Shadow’s Rejuvination. Trickery D/P gives that up and frequently has to break combat to not die with it’s lack of sustained healing, meaning that it takes skill to be successful with trickery D/P, same goes for S/D and S/P.

TL;DR – Cheese means it takes little to no skill to play, like warrior. Thief takes a significant amount of skill to make itself viable in any format, and therefore only has one truly “cheese” build.

I agree with all of your points, accept that thief only has one cheese build. As an avid user of the condi bunker thief I do strongly believe that it is cheese. I hardly even have to strife. Honestly i can just stand still and auto until somebody reaches me and then i hit 3. Now against mesmers and necros some movement is required. and thought too, but that’s because they are difficult classes.

Haha, forgot about the good old D/D Unicorn bunker. I suppose that’s pretty cheesy.

Viking Jorun.5413:

…how is S/P cheese? I’ve been running it for months, and it was far underpowered. All of a sudden with one minor buff and a major nerf, it’s apparently cheese. Gotta love this community.

For a class like thief, that’s all it takes.

Buff heartseeker, 2-spam cheese.
Buff Pistolwhip, 3-spam cheese.

While I wouldn’t say S/P is cheesy, I will say that it is incredibly easy, and far too powerful in it’s current form. CC, Evade, Damage all in one skill.

10/30/0/0/30 S/P literally doesn’t press anything but #3 on the left hand of the skill bar. Even worse than S/D ever was.

style.6173:

ryan.6217:

Spyder.9713:

d/d and s/d are 2 of my favorites… I tell my buddies d/p is for noob thieves that cant land cloak and dagger lol!

That is how i generally feel. Personally I think S/D is one of the most boss things a thief can throw at some one. When you can kill some one and all they have to complain about is evades (Which every class has), you know you beat them fair and square.

D/D is also great! I’m glad it’s making a come back! I know it never fully died, but the reason I turned my thief into P/D in the first place was because of the D/P movement. I was fed up with the flack about stealth, and furthermore watching it get so heavily abused i figured conditions would be safe!

Go P/P in an upper level tourney and be successful. That will be a boss.

S/D, S/P, and D/P are the three meta builds right now. Can’t say someone is a boss using those.

There is nothing “meta” about S/D. The build is almost completely extinct.

Reikou.7068:

Viking Jorun.5413:

…how is S/P cheese? I’ve been running it for months, and it was far underpowered. All of a sudden with one minor buff and a major nerf, it’s apparently cheese. Gotta love this community.

For a class like thief, that’s all it takes.

Buff heartseeker, 2-spam cheese.
Buff Pistolwhip, 3-spam cheese.

While I wouldn’t say S/P is cheesy, I will say that it is incredibly easy, and far too powerful in it’s current form. CC, Evade, Damage all in one skill.

10/30/0/0/30 S/P literally doesn’t press anything but #3 on the left hand of the skill bar. Even worse than S/D ever was.

Unfortunately I fear that the 3 spam with PW is just a phase that bad players all seem to go through until they figure out how to actually play the set. I do think that possibly splitting the stun and evade portions into 2 skills might foster more skillful play in the lower tiers? But in high tier TeamPvP you better not be caught spamming 3, because every player and his mother know when that evade frame ends and will take every advantage of that after cast to make sure you go down dead. The fewer pistol whips you use per fight, the better. It has it’s purposes, but one of those does not include burst or a main damage source.

As per your D/X “spam 2” example, the set is exactly like that. Skilled players will bring the set to life, while players who refuse to get better will continue to spam 3 while their allies actually do everything, just like any bad dagger thief will do.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Unfortunately I fear that the 3 spam with PW is just a phase that bad players all seem to go through until they figure out how to actually play the set. I do think that possibly splitting the stun and evade portions into 2 skills might foster more skillful play in the lower tiers? But in high tier TeamPvP you better not be caught spamming 3, because every player and his mother know when that evade frame ends and will take every advantage of that after cast to make sure you go down dead. The fewer pistol whips you use per fight, the better. It has it’s purposes, but one of those does not include burst or a main damage source.

As per your D/X “spam 2” example, the set is exactly like that. Skilled players will bring the set to life, while players who refuse to get better will continue to spam 3 while their allies actually do everything, just like any bad dagger thief will do.

If you want to talk about “high-tier tPvP” you should at least play in “high-tier tPvP.” (You quite obviously don’t, and don’t seem to keep up with it at all either.)

I maintain a top 30 position in the NA tPvP leaderboards, and around top 100 in NA solo queue leaderboards, and quite often play with and against other players in similar leaderboard positions. I personally consider this a decently high-tier, but your opinion may vary.

3-spam is literally what you see in “high-tier tPvP” for S/P right now because Pistolwhip is simply that strong.

Basi -> Lyssa Proc for Fury -> 3 -> Infiltrator Signet first spike. 3 -> Steal for interrupt and fury second spike.

This by itself is enough to shred most of a thief’s usual squishy targets.

Don’t know where your target is? Pistolwhip for Evade and possible hit.
Need to cleave a downed body? Pistolwhip.
Need to sustain on point? Pistolwhip for evades.
Need to take out that trebuchet with impunity? Pistolwhip.
Need to black powder to stand in melee? Pistolwhip for evades instead.

And while I’m sure there are many brilliant and fanciful ways in which you can play S/P to make it seem “skillful,” the fact of the matter is that you’re simply wasting a lot of time and effort when you could simply be pressing #3 a little bit harder.

Reikou.7068:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Unfortunately I fear that the 3 spam with PW is just a phase that bad players all seem to go through until they figure out how to actually play the set. I do think that possibly splitting the stun and evade portions into 2 skills might foster more skillful play in the lower tiers? But in high tier TeamPvP you better not be caught spamming 3, because every player and his mother know when that evade frame ends and will take every advantage of that after cast to make sure you go down dead. The fewer pistol whips you use per fight, the better. It has it’s purposes, but one of those does not include burst or a main damage source.

As per your D/X “spam 2” example, the set is exactly like that. Skilled players will bring the set to life, while players who refuse to get better will continue to spam 3 while their allies actually do everything, just like any bad dagger thief will do.

If you want to talk about “high-tier tPvP” you should at least play in “high-tier tPvP.” (You quite obviously don’t, and don’t seem to keep up with it at all either.)

I maintain a top 30 position in the NA tPvP leaderboards, and around top 100 in NA solo queue leaderboards, and quite often play with and against other players in similar leaderboard positions. I personally consider this a decently high-tier, but your opinion may vary.

3-spam is literally what you see in “high-tier tPvP” for S/P right now because Pistolwhip is simply that strong.

Basi -> Lyssa Proc for Fury -> 3 -> Infiltrator Signet first spike. 3 -> Steal for interrupt and fury second spike.

This by itself is enough to shred most of a thief’s usual squishy targets.

Don’t know where your target is? Pistolwhip for Evade and possible hit.
Need to cleave a downed body? Pistolwhip.
Need to sustain on point? Pistolwhip for evades.
Need to take out that trebuchet with impunity? Pistolwhip.
Need to black powder to stand in melee? Pistolwhip for evades instead.

And while I’m sure there are many brilliant and fanciful ways in which you can play S/P to make it seem “skillful,” the fact of the matter is that you’re simply wasting a lot of time and effort when you could simply be pressing #3 a little bit harder.

3 spam will be less of a thing when they split pistol whip into a two part skill, like flanking strike and larcenous strike are.

I can make the same point about s/d 3 spam though, the skill evades attacks and repositions you, the evade duration is obviously shorter but you get other cool things like boon steal and side striking bonuses.

Main point is that splitting pistol whip will allow for timed use of a stun or flurry as opposed to having to spam it constantly. Expect to see a 3 and 3 initiative cost when it happens assuming the skill isn’t modified in any other way

P/D power build. I’ve tried it, and I love it. It doesn’t sound like it works, but it does. The only problem is the lack of escape-ability that I’m still trying to tweak. Trust me, folks get a little surprised when they see a P/D thief approach and suddenly strike for 9k using Shadow Strike.

“Isn’t that a condition weapon set?” I often hear.

JakobGW.5730:

P/D power build. I’ve tried it, and I love it. It doesn’t sound like it works, but it does. The only problem is the lack of escape-ability that I’m still trying to tweak. Trust me, folks get a little surprised when they see a P/D thief approach and suddenly strike for 9k using Shadow Strike.

“Isn’t that a condition weapon set?” I often hear.

If you’re gonna use a pistol main hand for a power build, wouldn’t it be more useful to just use P/P?

Axelwarrior.9084:

JakobGW.5730:

P/D power build. I’ve tried it, and I love it. It doesn’t sound like it works, but it does. The only problem is the lack of escape-ability that I’m still trying to tweak. Trust me, folks get a little surprised when they see a P/D thief approach and suddenly strike for 9k using Shadow Strike.

“Isn’t that a condition weapon set?” I often hear.

If you’re gonna use a pistol main hand for a power build, wouldn’t it be more useful to just use P/P?

no not really you get more survivability and more dmg by running pd.

Axelwarrior.9084:

If you’re gonna use a pistol main hand for a power build, wouldn’t it be more useful to just use P/P?

P/P has little sustain, P/D Power hits pretty hard and gets the stealth and defence. You can mix gear to maximise P/D on both power and condition, or stick power and have a wider choice of weapons.

D/D signet build full glass. Absolutely no safety net.

S/P is cheese? Spam pistol whip? Have fun whiffing air repeatedly against anyone that is decent. You have to time pistol whip against someone, just as you would your evades, if the opponent is competent. Standing there slashing air is a good way to get killed. In fact, every skill in the set is used in a fight usually, unless the target is glass. I spend most of my time using skill 2 to teleport around and autoattack, waiting for my opponent to make a move and counter appropriately.

Cyricus.2981:

S/P is cheese? Spam pistol whip? Have fun whiffing air repeatedly against anyone that is decent. You have to time pistol whip against someone, just as you would your evades, if the opponent is competent. Standing there slashing air is a good way to get killed. In fact, every skill in the set is used in a fight usually, unless the target is glass. I spend most of my time using skill 2 to teleport around and autoattack, waiting for my opponent to make a move and counter appropriately.

Exactly this. If anyone considers the set cheese because they died to a pistol whip spammer, they should focus on being a better player, or face the fact that the thief for lucky, just as a 2-spamming D/X thief would when you have the rest of their group pressuring you.

Have to agree – there are a lot of them about but they tend to go whiffing thin air, rooting themselves everywhere.

I kinda like the s/p set myself, the reason I don’t use it so much is because when u face a player that has any skill they are usually smart enuff to just move/ evade out pw, usually resulting in only getting 2-3 hits with it and it annoys me being rooted knowing they gonna evade or move out of it and I cant follow for additional hits, thinking about trying to throw devourer venom in somewhere to see if that helps

TL;DR – Cheese means it takes little to no skill to play, like warrior. Thief takes a significant amount of skill to make itself viable in any format, and therefore only has one truly “cheese” build.

This is correct. P/D is not cheese. Over-dramatizing and acting like simply auto attacking is enough to take down anyone with the combination of 3 is just foolish. Anyone who dies to a player doing that is horrid, which only further proves how the build isn’t cheesy. P/D is a very strong set, but half of why people are successful with is because of their lack of skill. The general skill level of players in WvW is horrendously bad.

only ever saw 1 person ever who was successful at being awesome with d/d p/p set up.

Vi Au.8341:

only ever saw 1 person ever who was successful at being awesome with d/d p/p set up.

That’s not as bad as people make it out to be. D/D is already incredibly single-target, so why half your ranged DPS with Shortbow in favor of a strong single-target burst?