Guild Wars 2

I’ve been running condition builds on warrior, necromancer and thief in WvW. I want to try something different. Knowing just how easy it can be to almost one shot people with conditions if they aren’t prepared, I want to take an anti-condition damage approach to this build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlUmKOHcy9E/JFy2DfqC5JuCOlWhbqTxVJfA-j0CBYfERjUgSjUBBJ5ZRrZPBsMsIas6aYKXDRVFD2amIa2gGVKgIWGB-w

I’ve tried to land around 2300 armor and over 2500 power with a decent amount of health – plus I want enough precision to take advantage of the sigil of generosity. I have all the condition clearing I can get and from playing this build for a bit, I can say that the sigil of generosity really is quite awesome. Transferring a huge bleed stack to the enemy is great, but it does require that you manage your condition clearing and pain response is not something you can control. Still I find it very valuable. The burst capability of the build feels ok, with the 13-15 might stacks that I can easily get from signets, venom and dodges.

To sum it up, the build I’m after is:
- Very resistant to condition damage
- Decent damage, with the ability to burst if you need to finish someone.
- Good crit rate (I feel 56% is actually a bit on the low side, but don’t know tbh).
- about 2300 armor.
- As much health as I can get without compromising much with the above.

I would also like 15 in SA to get 1 sec extra stealth, but I don’t know how valuable it really is. I’d miss out on other things.

Input welcome.

People over-exaggerate the condition meta and feel the need to take removal upon removal, sacrificing most of their build for it. I built a hard counter to terrormancers dhuumfire necros which also acts as a counter to hambow warriors, and doesn’t even use stealth. You’ve got to find that threshold, but most of the time you’ll never have more than 3 conditions on you while fighting even the most terrifying condition builds. Condition engineers are included in this.

My philosophy on the cleanse in stealth trait is this: the longer you’re spending in stealth to cleanse, the more time you’re giving your enemy a breath of fresh air to recollect themselves if they’re any sort of decent player. You need to keep constant pressure on any type of condition build, because that’s what will ultimately bring them down. You’ve also got to take into account the fact that many condition spammers (necros, mesmers, engies, rangers) have minions, clones, turrets, spirits and pets you have to worry about which can be major damage soaks against backstab thieves. You need cleave in order to be effective in taking down people who rely on AI, which there are a lot of in the world of condition builds.

I feel like you’re trying to make backstab D/D work against condition builds, but the truth is you’re going to need to change everything to be the hard counter you want to.

Considering running Lyssa Runes with signet of shadow instead.

I also find pain response very random, considering it triggers when you’re below 75% health, and not because you have poison/burn/bleed on you. As a condition cleanse this is pretty bad imo. A condition cleanse build I’d say usually invest more in Shadow Arts, staying in stealth, thuse more of a D/P build with 30 in Shadow Arts than this spread out scheme. You can get the 2 might stacks from entering stealth, which imo, is vastly superior than relying on a venom elite for the might.

Or you can go the other route and invest more in Acrobatics with S/D, tho I’m not very experienced in this area.

@Viking: I don’t understand that answer. The build is using S/D and SB :-)

I see what you’re saying about cleanse in stealth, but you don’t need to stay in stealth. Whenever you use CnD you’ll cleanse one condition as you enter stealth. No need to stay in stealth, which is the reason I decided not to go 15 in SA. But having multiple options for cleansing stealth is good. It’s easy in 2 seconds to put poison, torment, bleed and confusion on a target. My condition thief could in this time frame apply 12 bleed, 6 torment, poison and 3-8 confusion. and after those initial seconds the bleeds would build up quickly. And compared to necromancer and engineer the thief really isn’t great at stacking conditions.

If you’re hit by a codition necromancer, you have seconds to react. It’s not like conditions is a slow death. And once you cleanse – they’ll apply again.

I don’t really like lyssa, since the 25% movement bonus on traveller is wonderful. But of course signet of shadows would work with lyssa that gives precision. Cheers :-)

But traveller is 33 more power, 15% longer boon duration, +2% critical chance and +6% higher critical damage.

Ah, sorry about that. I think I misclicked and accidentally changed your mainhand weapon to dagger upon opening. I’ve never had issues with conditionmancers. When trying to be the anti meta, you also have to take into account the weaknesses of the primary offenders. Necros don’t have much access to stability or rapid attacks, so taking plenty of CC and blinds is almost necessary in shutting one down. I have Bountiful Theft for necros, warriors, rangers, and most anyone with access to long stability, which you can rip (very funny when it’s their elite) and continue to CC them from range. I prefer pistol offhand for this. The other thing is that you should probably focus more on being balanced than doing so much damage. You simply have to outlast condition builds, because unless they’re running apothecary gear, their vitality is only a buffer. If they are running Apothecary gear, you need quick interrupts to shut down their healing.

Here’s my build:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsaVlYmSO3dS6E/5Eh3jyOWzqVgmdP4q81KA-j0DBYfREREgaAiWGgQAM5pIaslhFRjVNDRVLoqkYaXQ6XwmeQ2eAGfLrWKAsFGB-w

I don’t think I quite understand your build.

+780 health
+404 healing power
+10% boon duration

-718 power
-26 armor
-14% crit chance
-61% crit damage

You have condition damage and duration, but only your SB can deliver condition damage. Your withdraw heal for only 164 than mine do with that healing power. It seems like a lot of damage to lose compared to the extra survivability from a bit more health and healing. I think my build may do more than 40% extra damage compared to yours and that’s not even taking my 13-15 might stacks into account when finishing people. I don’t see an extra 40-50% extra survivability. Am I missing something?

Gallows.4318:

I don’t think I quite understand your build.

+780 health
+404 healing power
+10% boon duration

-718 power
-26 armor
-14% crit chance
-61% crit damage

You have condition damage and duration, but only your SB can deliver condition damage. Your withdraw heal for only 164 than mine do with that healing power. It seems like a lot of damage to lose compared to the extra survivability from a bit more health and healing. I think my build may do more than 40% extra damage compared to yours and that’s not even taking my 13-15 might stacks into account when finishing people. I don’t see an extra 40-50% extra survivability. Am I missing something?

I have 45% boon duration. You’re just looking at the stat drop down for raw numbers. Assassin’s reward gives me more sustain than you could hope for, and you aren’t ripping protection, stability, aegis, regen, retal, or interrupting those important heals. The condition damage comes from the Trickery line (why they put it there I have no idea), but it does help in bringing down thieves and mesmers who rely on stealth, while I shotgun cluster bomb at my feet.

I’ve never lost to an S/D or S/P thief if that tells you anything about my build. Sword isn’t a burst damage weapon, so stop treating it like one.that goes for all thieves.

Modified yours to be closer to mine. Slightly lower power and crit damage, but higher might gain. Blind on stealth is great against both physical and condi damage since it negates the stupid channeled attack hitting thing.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlUmKOHcy9E/5Ey2DfqC5JeGOVS1f4qA-jkCBYfERjUgSjUBBJ5RZN7RQsMsIas6aYKXER1WzERzG0oSBExyI-w

Aside: @ Jorun: Condimancers aren’t the biggest problem right now (imo), it’s the condi engineers with access to more conditions than necros plus better (or simply more) utilities such as stuns, pushes, pulls, immobilize, AoE blind, AoE chill, plus invulns, stealth, and blocks. Additionally, they have dhuumfire as a master level trait. Maybe they won’t have all of this on a single build, but they can have a large amount.

Compared to fighting a half decent engi, dhuumfire necros feel extremely balanced to me.

Yep I can see you can rip a lot of boons with steal and sword – does your boon duration apply to boons you steal?

First I tried 30 acrobatics for Assassins Reward, but the healing really didn’t seem like much. After the initial healing from full initiative it heals 89 (according to the gw2-build site if that’s accurate) health per second with perfect timing.

But it’s certainly an interresting build and I’ve always liked the idea of a more all-round thief that can both do direct damage and a bit of condition damage.

In-game my Assassin’s reward heals for 111 per initiative without the +70 healing food, so I don’t believe the Skills site ever updated the scaling with healing power when it was buffed. The boon duration only affects boons you or your allies apply, but it’s mainly for the vigor 100% uptime to give me that defensive edge, although I typically roam with a group of 2 guardians, a mesmer, and an engineer, all of which provide plenty of boons to me which are affected by boon duration (aegis before a fight is nice – default duration of 6 seconds wears off too quickly).

EDIT: As for your build that looks a lot better. Feline Grace is, imo, way more important than Shadow’s Rejuvination for a sustained damage build, but the might in stealth is pretty great, so that allocation looks pretty solid. I would take the Condi removal food over extra power and Withdraw to give you more healing (plus consistent condition removal) but other than that I’d say it’s a pretty successful build.

One thing I’m really big on to boost the effectiveness of my boon duration in solo/small group roaming is blast and projectile finishers through shortbow. While I don’t have direct access to stealth, if I really find a need for a breather, I can get at least 3 seconds if not more through one or more blast finishers in my black powder field. The Engie’s stolen Throw Gunk is amazing when combined with blast finishers to maintain Chaos Armor up to 50% of the fight which gives protection, retal, aegis, and can really mess up your opponent. Ranger water field is great because of its constant regen and condition removal, and with a few blast finishers to keep you healed and some projectiles through it for more regen, it can win you a 1v5 when facing a group with a ranger. I feel that most thieves don’t even think as far as combos, but when running a build like mine it’s important to know everything there is to know about the class and utilize those combos to their fullest.

Maugetarr.6823:

Modified yours to be closer to mine. Slightly lower power and crit damage, but higher might gain. Blind on stealth is great against both physical and condi damage since it negates the stupid channeled attack hitting thing.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlUmKOHcy9E/5Ey2DfqC5JeGOVS1f4qA-jkCBYfERjUgSjUBBJ5RZN7RQsMsIas6aYKXER1WzERzG0oSBExyI-w

Aside: @ Jorun: Condimancers aren’t the biggest problem right now (imo), it’s the condi engineers with access to more conditions than necros plus better (or simply more) utilities such as stuns, pushes, pulls, immobilize, AoE blind, AoE chill, plus invulns, stealth, and blocks. Additionally, they have dhuumfire as a master level trait. Maybe they won’t have all of this on a single build, but they can have a large amount.

Compared to fighting a half decent engi, dhuumfire necros feel extremely balanced to me.

I see the idea behind this. Took 10 DA for the extra power and just used the venom might since I do use the elite. But after 2x stealth with your build I have more than +100 power from might. Good armor and blind on stealth is great. Cheers – I’ll try that out and test for a few days if I miss pain response.

The condition removal food and withdraw is quite nice. Didn’t really think about that. Withdraw cures immobilize, which is one of my major issues.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlYmKOHcy9E/5Ey2DfqC5JeGOVS1f4qA-jEDBYfERjUgSjUBBJ1EK5RZN7JglhFRjVXDT5iIq2kDyaeIzG0oSBgtyI-w

Viking Jorun.5413:

One thing I’m really big on to boost the effectiveness of my boon duration in solo/small group roaming is blast and projectile finishers through shortbow. While I don’t have direct access to stealth, if I really find a need for a breather, I can get at least 3 seconds if not more through one or more blast finishers in my black powder field. The Engie’s stolen Throw Gunk is amazing when combined with blast finishers to maintain Chaos Armor up to 50% of the fight which gives protection, retal, aegis, and can really mess up your opponent. Ranger water field is great because of its constant regen and condition removal, and with a few blast finishers to keep you healed and some projectiles through it for more regen, it can win you a 1v5 when facing a group with a ranger. I feel that most thieves don’t even think as far as combos, but when running a build like mine it’s important to know everything there is to know about the class and utilize those combos to their fullest.

This is why I always hate the suggestion of removing the leap finisher from HS to change D/P’s combo. Our finishers are the one place we really shine. I love throw gunk for the personal chaos armor on D/D as well. If potent poison increased weakness duration as well, we’d actually start having some really awesome group support.