Guild Wars 2

I am new to this class and am still learning about its mechanics but the thief is very interesting to play and fun to use with that said I’d like some advice from the more experienced thief users here.

Firstly I play my thief in WVW most of the time.

I run a 0/30 (III V XI)/10 (IV)/30 (II VI IX)/0 build. My utility skills are usually:
Withdraw – Blinding Powder – Caltrops – Shadowstep – Dagger storm

My equipments are:

-Full Carrion set armor with 6x Superior rune of undead slotted in
-Rabid Trinkets/amulets/rings
-Rampager Pistol/Berserker Dagger
-Berserker Short Bow

- I want to give my thief a harder punch but at the same time I still want to retain a respectable bleed damage, if I change my Carrion set to a Knight set will it be viable?
- If I slot a Sigil of earth to my Short bow will the bleed chance on critical proc on multiple targets or will it proc only on the first target?
- What are other rune choices I can look into for my build?
- How can I tweak my build to be able to stack some might buffs?
- Is Rampager weapons a better choice for me than Berserker weapons?

ok, a few things. with pistol dagger, you should really be 30 points into shadow arts since you stealth so much. it also doesn’t benefit much from the crit strikes tree. also, with the sigil of earth’s CD it isn’t that great for condition thieves. we don’t have any crits bleed traits like necros or warriors for it to synergize with, and we don’t need it to get a lot of bleeds stacked. carrion and apothecary are generally the best for P/D thieves depending on if you want to be more damage (carrion) or tanky (apothecary). power will show more returns on a condition build then precision since you need crit damage to make crits really shine. for runes, 2 afflicted, krait and centaur runes give you 45% bleed duration, then one sigil of agony in your weapons puts you at 55% giving pistol bleeds 2 extra ticks as they get an extra tick every 25% duration.

for might stacking the might on dodge trait works well with might on dodge food, and might on stealth from shadow arts. or for food you could also use veggie pizza to increase your bleed duration and damage.

also, the thing about P/D condition builds is they are about attrition. it really isn’t a great idea to try and hybridize them between crits and condition damage. you sacrifice way to much survivability for so little gained.

Gungnir Grimm.7123:

ok, a few things. with pistol dagger, you should really be 30 points into shadow arts since you stealth so much. it also doesn’t benefit much from the crit strikes tree. also, with the sigil of earth’s CD it isn’t that great for condition thieves. we don’t have any crits bleed traits like necros or warriors for it to synergize with, and we don’t need it to get a lot of bleeds stacked. carrion and apothecary are generally the best for P/D thieves depending on if you want to be more damage (carrion) or tanky (apothecary). power will show more returns on a condition build then precision since you need crit damage to make crits really shine. for runes, 2 afflicted, krait and centaur runes give you 45% bleed duration, then one sigil of agony in your weapons puts you at 55% giving pistol bleeds 2 extra ticks as they get an extra tick every 25% duration.

for might stacking the might on dodge trait works well with might on dodge food, and might on stealth from shadow arts. or for food you could also use veggie pizza to increase your bleed duration and damage.

also, the thing about P/D condition builds is they are about attrition. it really isn’t a great idea to try and hybridize them between crits and condition damage. you sacrifice way to much survivability for so little gained.

I see so I need to focus more on damage over time rather than direct damage, thank you for your advice

P/D is my choice of weapons and I use the 25/0/30/15/0 build with refuge/Spider venom/signet of shadows for utilities. I find Thieves guild to be my favorite elite lately as it really helps to add some direct damage to the condition stacking. I usually end up taking on groups of 4+ with this build and I get plenty of stomps. Problem is that with full carrions gear, you really have to know when to hold em and when to fold em because with the lack of toughness even some upleveled players can blow you up if they really know who they’re fighting. Ele’s are the only ones I don’t like fighting though, permacondition removal lol, but still possible. Like Grimm said its all about patience, and playing hide and seek.

20/0/30/20/0 or 25/0/30/15/0 are probably your best bet for cond damage.
In PvP, that is… For PvE, the caltrops on dodge should probably have priority… 15/0/30/15/10 or 20/0/25/15/10 or something.
Also working on getting the gear for a cond thief.(heck, if that CoF or SE gear didn’t look so kitten ugly, I’d probably grind these till I got full carrion exotics, even tho I hate dungeons)
Right now, I got the options of grinding Orr to craft the stuff or running WvW to get the gear with badges. Well, gonna be a bit of a grind to get it but the greens, I have right now should hold till I got my hands on exotics…

There’s a lot of good advice above this. Below is my super conservative build, it’ll keep you alive through a lot and is very forgiving of mistakes.

WvW P/D & SB I run 0/0/30/20/20 in full Carrion armor and trinkets (getting the Ascended trink stuff with Toughness/CondiDmg). 3 Krait/3 Afflicted runes. Sigil of Corruption/Agony on the P/D. Use whatever you like on the SB.

Traits:
Shadow’s Embrace, Infusion of Shadow, Shadow’s Rejuvenation
Fleet Shadow, Power of Inertia
Uncatchable, Bountiful Theft
Skills:
Hidden in Shadows, Shadowstep, Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder, Thieves Guild

I’ll take out Blinding Powder > Caltrops and Thieves Guild > Daggerstorm when I’m hitting an unupgraded camp alone.

The dodges give you might and mini-caltrop, so you can use the dodge offensively to get a cripple on people and more bleeds is always good. Remember, uncatchable pops the freebie caltrops centered on where you start the dodge, so to use em on someone you have to be close to ON someone. Thanks goodness there’s a marker on the ground you can see now.

The runes plus the +36% CondiDuration pizza (super veggie) gets you past the 75% mark for another bleed tick on your pistol skills. WvW I wouldn’t shoot for 100% with the 25 stack cap, but opt for the lil more punch to your bleeds instead. Use Quality Tuning Crystals for extra CondiDmg, they’re easy affordable.

Stealth clears a condition (or two if you stay in for 3 seconds) and will regen you over 300 health a second. I’ve always found the speed buff to be great since I don’t use Signet of Shadows unless I know I’m going to be on the move long term with a zerg. Even then, I’ll switch it out for something else when I get where I’m going.

P/D, you will stealth A LOT.

Never forget Steal is a shadowstep that comes with an item. The gap closer is the main thing I use it for. That and messing with people’s heads. Bountiful Theft will give you Vigor and a boon strip/steal/share. More dodging is good. In a pinch, you can use it to Steal someone, or a critter, away from you to make distance.

Learn to dance on the outskirts of Shadow Refuge, people will AoE and all kinds of things to blow you out of it. Be ready to dodge inside the area once, or twice, on occasion.

You CAN use Choking Gas (shortbow) freely, or use the real Caltrops skill, while stealthed without being revealed. That’s fun to do to a large group to annoy them. Throw Gunk (from Stealing) will reveal you each pulse of the gunk. NEVER use it if you think you’ll need to get back into stealth quickly.

With this set up, you can also use your stealth stuffs to try to stomp people or hide yours while you revive them. There will be builds out there that you almost never beat head on, but you shouldn’t get tore up unless you make a mistake or two or more.

Shadowstep is your stunbreaker/panic move. Also super emergency CondiCleanse. It can be used for mobility too, but that’s what the shortbow is for. Ok, shortbow for the Shadow Shot and Cluster Bomb (blast finisher spam good). You’ll end up using Cluster Bomb a lot defending towers because you can angle it over from the top of walls. And attacking towers, Cluster Bomb will hurt people on the walls with the blast through the walls.

I also drop Blinding Powder for Caltrops, Scorpion Wire, or Ambush Trap as the situation and mood strikes me.

Experiment with things, you’ll figure out what works best for you.

Personally, condition duration is the new craze in the Engineers section so I’m a bit surprised not to see any 100% condition duration builds out there. Condition duration is like crit dmg % so it’s damaging effects are much great than just continually stacking condition damage. If I do 120 damage per tick for 4 seconds, that’s 480 damage. With 100% duration you’re looking at 100 damage per tick for 8 seconds, that’s 800 damage.

Can condition damage be cleansed? You bet, but so can it at 1,2,3 or 4 seconds. If they remove it I’m out a whopping 80 damage to the target. If I’m lucky and they burned up their condition removal on my poison, chill, weakness or invul I’ve got an opportunity to do another 320 damage.

Remember many people are afraid that their conditions are going to get removed and that is why it is extremely important to to use you’re hardest hitting condition applied last. Think about an Engineer, they are going to bleed you & poison you (if you’re kinda close), then they are going to prybar you and blowtorch you. Burning is the heaviest hitting condition they have so they are saving it for last. That’s why they don’t magnet pull you right away, they want you to waste their useless bleed/poison (sometimes they’ll save poison till your almost dead) conditions first.