Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, so i made a Sylvari thief 3 days ago and i’m loving it, but the thing is that i don’t know how to make an effective PvE build, al the builds that I made didn’t have alot of effect so i was wondering if you guys had a good thief build and i would appreciate it if you would tell me what kinda gear i need cause i have no clue what i should be focusing on and the last thing is that the build must be Dual Dagger/ Dual Pistol just because i love that combination.

thanks !

Glad you’re enjoying thief. You’ll find that the skills are mostly CC driven instead of being direct DPS increases. So choice of skills is really up to personal preference to your style of play (while leveling anyways).

You’ll also probably have a few thief players tell you to switch out one of your weapons with short bow. This is because thieves don’t use weapon skill cooldowns and instead use a shared resource. While you know that, it basically means you’ll usually stick with one weapon set for the majority of the fight while the other is used for utility and/or mobility, which short bow excels at. I’m not telling you to stop using d/d p/p, I’m just saying that thieves aren’t a class that use 2,3,4,5, swap, 2,3,4,5 style rotations.

If you’re leveling then you’re not going to have the best selection of gear people might suggest. D/D and P/P are usually power builds with some condition damage filler, so any stats in gear will be helpful and shouldn’t be an issue when leveling.

D/D’s damage mostly comes from Cloak and Dagger into Backstab and Heartseeker when the mob is low health. Cloak and Dagger into Backstab is sustained high damage when timed right while Heartseeker is burst high damage and will drain your initiative the longer it takes for the mob to die. Try to manage your intiative by not running completely out with attack skill spam.

P/P’s damage mostly comes from Unload and the occassional Sneak Attack. Black Powder is completely broken in pve and can be used when attacking multiple mobs in melee range. They will rarely hit you if you keep blinds up.

While P/P lacks a way to gain stealth, you can use D/D’s Cloak and Dagger then switch while in stealth. Likewise, you can use P/P’s Black Powder then D/D’s Heartseeker to gain stealth and close a gap.

For healing, I would suggest signet of malice or hide in the shadows. Signet generally has the best healing sustain if you keep the passive up but the stealth heal is great for condition fights. Withdraw has the best healing power scaling and healing/sec if you pop it on cd. Not a bad heal to use if you want to switch to p/p after.

Useful Utilities:
Shadowstep – The best stun breaker in the thief’s kitten nal. You can do a lot of interesting plays with this teleport. I suggest you get comfortable with it, as it’s a stun breaker that requires aiming.
Caltrops – while mostly a condition build skill, it still very useful for kiting multiple mobs
Smoke Screen – pretty much makes you and your party untouchable for 7 seconds
Shadow Refuge – great for ressing or escaping a bad situation
Smoke Bomb – a poor man’s stun breaker when things go sour
Roll for Initiative – a good stun breaker that can be used to transition to p/p
Ambush – a good way to keep aggro off of you. The melee thief will use scorpion wire and the ranged thief will use black powder.
Signet of Shadows – passive movement speed
Signet of Agility – passive crit chance and aoe condition cleansing. Also refills endurance and is a good skill combo’d after using Haste.

Dagger Storm is a great ult to use with signet of malice and will usually heal you to full. Thieves Guild is also powerful but has a longer cooldown.

With all that being said, here’s a sample build I came up with. Try to keep your initiative above 6 for 10% more damage output (First Strikes trait). I didn’t fill out the gear or sigils since I assume you’re still leveling and gear stats come randomly unless you want to pay for it. You mostly want to get power, precision, and ferocity for maxing out damage, but condition damage isn’t a wasted stat thanks to your autos.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoY6al8Mp6plOx7J0PNRLhs9pOf888aNfEA

@DanielGames thanks for the reply, I really appreciate that you gave me a tiny lesson about thief ! I really understand now what i need to do thanks to you, i’m gonna try the build for a while see if I can get used to it, really, you helped me out alot !

thanks ! ^^

Aeron.7291:

@DanielGames thanks for the reply, I really appreciate that you gave me a tiny lesson about thief ! I really understand now what i need to do thanks to you, i’m gonna try the build for a while see if I can get used to it, really, you helped me out alot !

thanks ! ^^

np. Keep in mind that the skills I was suggesting were merely for d/d and p/p purposes. The ones I didn’t mention aren’t useless for other builds. Utility venoms are basically the only somewhat useless skills unless you trait for them since they have a long cooldown, but can still be useful since they provide some good burst damage or cc.

I made a post a few weeks ago that had a bunch of tips for thief. You can check my post out here if you want to learn more:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Recommended-build-for-new-player/first#post4243235

I will most definitely check out your post, but ihave one quick question you said i needed to focus on Power, precision, ferocity and condition damage with my armor. But the thing is i don’t really know what sigils i need to use on my armor for when i have completed this build, and also what kind of DD/PP stats do i need to use also power or something else ?

again thanks

Aeron.7291:

I will most definitely check out your post, but ihave one quick question you said i needed to focus on Power, precision, ferocity and condition damage with my armor. But the thing is i don’t really know what sigils i need to use on my armor for when i have completed this build, and also what kind of DD/PP stats do i need to use also power or something else ?

again thanks

Stats for damage:
1) Power
2) Precision*
3) Ferocity
x) Condition Damage**

* Precision might be more valuable than Power because I think it scales well for low levels. However, Power is king at 80.
_** Condition Damage should be your lowest priority of all stats.

Stats for taking direct hits:
1) Toughness
2) Healing Power
3) Vitality
x) Power/Precision/Ferocity (Invigorating Precision: CS XIII)
x) Precision (Practiced Tolerance: CS VI)
x) Precision (Opportunist: CS 3 + Assassin’s Reward: A XI)

Stats for taking condition damage:
1) Vitality
2) Healing Power
x) Power/Precision/Ferocity (Invigorating Precision: CS XIII)
x) Precision (Practiced Tolerance: CS VI)
x) Precision (Opportunist: CS 3 + Assassin’s Reward: A XI)

I’m not going to tell you how much damage stats you should focus on with your gear. Survivability is also important. However you usually want to go full glass cannon in tpvp as thief. WvW isn’t always glass cannon friendly. Dungeons favour full zerker builds. Leveling and non-dungeon pve is really your personal preference.

I don’t think Sigils and Runes are important until 80. Sigil of Force is always good. Energy is useful if you want an extra dodge when switching to p/p. Fire and Air are always fun when you have a decent crit chance. You can never go wrong with Runes of Divinity when learning a class. Scholar, Ogre and Strength are also good. I’m currently using Vampirism when questing.

I honestly don’t think you should worry too much about this though. I think you would better understand the class if you just experimented with different builds as you leveled and even when you’re at 80. The meta builds aren’t important unless you’re in a speedrun dungeon group or tpvp. If you only use those builds with your class then that will be all you will know.

edit:

It should be noted that these order of stat importance weren’t theorycrafted by me and are mostly my personal preference for the situation.

i tried many different builds while leveling, and while some work better than d/d p/p, they were boring as all can be (i’m looking at you s/p and d/p) to level with.

That said, d/d really needs traits to shine in a standard backstab way, which hurts while levelling, as you dont have many/any. So for leveling, condi is extremely powerful on a d/d build. I mixed up some utilies here or there, but basically did this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoY6al0Mp5pFNxpJ8PRhNBtVF8cKZRzBEgOHydB-TFSDABMqWwTKvsUFiXUVBKlILoEkn9HAwEUAAEAHtRb0szduzbezkBoaCA-w

Bascially, run around and gather up as many mobs as possible. Drop caltrops. dodge through them for more caltrops (1st trait in trickery at 30). Then DB through them 2-3 times. Watch them die. If you need more conditions, use the venoms.

I listed the venoms on my build. But they really are not needed until 60ish. When you get to Orr, the venoms and caltrops drop mobs quickly. Oh. And if you can, get all supreme krait for armor at 60. These runes + 35 sec elite (traited) add on so much condition (especially torment) that mobs just imploded. I did all of Orr about 7-10 levels under the mob level, and just destroyed them with this build. mobs are stupid and will chase you with torment on..imploding themselves.

Caltrops + dodge through mobs + Bask Venom + dodge out, let mobs chase you for torment = dead in 3-5 secs. The other two venoms are there if you need more pop for soloing champs/elites.

For heals, i used withdraw mostly. I hate being crippled a dodge all the time. However if you fight condi mobs, HiS would be better to remove those conds. But i only use HiS in my backstab builds..

p/p i used as well, as I do not like the shortbow. p/p is great while levelling for world bosses, as conditions mean less. which is why i put richotet on there.

I used potion of undead for Orr, and magic find food cause i was a noob at the time, but it just destroyed everything anyway.

If you want to really use p/p more the d/d, then drop the venoms, and go into acrobats and take smoke screen. Drop smoke screen and dodge through it, using unload through it to continously blind your target (you can use black powder for this as well).

you could do the standard d/d backstab build. But its weak without traits, and realies heavily on SA line to survive (unless your good at dodging and use acro)..

my two cents anyway…

@DanielGames okay now I fully understand, this means alot to me ! Thanks for all the help !

@mulzi thanks for the help and the build, i’ll take a look at it ! ^^

@DanielGames hey Daniel i’m kinda stuck with the sigils and Armor you explained it wel but it seems not right wath i’ve done, if you wouldn’t mind could you add what armor i should use in the build plus sigils and re-send the build maybe, i took your advise on the armor and sigils but the thing is that i think i screwed it a bit up you know here and there so yeah, I don’t have all the knowledge of the Thief yet, it would be much appreciated if you would do that

Thanks !

Aeron.7291:

@DanielGames hey Daniel i’m kinda stuck with the sigils and Armor you explained it wel but it seems not right wath i’ve done, if you wouldn’t mind could you add what armor i should use in the build plus sigils and re-send the build maybe, i took your advise on the armor and sigils but the thing is that i think i screwed it a bit up you know here and there so yeah, I don’t have all the knowledge of the Thief yet, it would be much appreciated if you would do that

Thanks !

If you’re still leveling then adding gear to the guide won’t help you since that site is mainly used for lvl 80 builds. It doesn’t show anything below lvl 80 rare gear. However, if you’re still using d/d p/p at 80 you could give this build a shot.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoY6al8Mp6plOx7J0PNBPBtdCmdA8OJN5IddDA-TBSDgA9K/Q3fYW9njHAQyJBAU/Ag5PpjAoEkQAj3CA-e

I gave you some toughness as a safety window but with black powder you shouldn’t have much issue. Feel free to use more zerker armour instead if you’re feeling comfortable. I switched some traits up since they might serve you better when you’re 80. When leveling you would get more benefit using a 2 2 2 then 4 4 4 style trait build.

This is by no means an optimised lvl 80 dungeon, wvw roaming, or spvp build. For those you can check these forums, youtube, reddit, etc.

Some useful build links:
http://dulfy.net/2014/07/10/gw2-thief-pve-class-guide/
http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki
http://www.reddit.com/r/gw2esports/comments/23w0wl/tpvp_build_list_up_to_date_builds_as_of_the_april/ (will be outdated next balance patch)

@Danielgames okay I see what you’ve done with the build, I think this will serve me well. You’ve been such a great help haha ^^ .. wish I could do something for you but the only thing I can say is Thanks for everything mate !

Aeron.7291:

@Danielgames okay I see what you’ve done with the build, I think this will serve me well. You’ve been such a great help haha ^^ .. wish I could do something for you but the only thing I can say is Thanks for everything mate !

It’s fine. I sneakily stole 4000 gems from your wallet while you were distracted. If you have a problem with that you can bring it up with my supervisor.

Have fun!