Guild Wars 2

Will you guys change builds? What are you currently using and what will you be using? I don’t expect many people to migrate from Backstab, however I am eyeing a condition stealth thief as a possible alternative.

Thoughts? Opinions?

I might actually try and make a venom build first. And if I can’t build something which isn’t completly subpar, I’ll be leveling my warrior or engineer (not too sure which is more fun and versatile yet).

all the builds pre patch are still viable.
venoms and traps are still useless but scorpion wire is AWESOME for both pvp and pve

10 / 30 / 30 / 0 / 0

Kinda a tanky backstab build. Running full Valkyire hitting around 20k HP, 114% crit damage, 23% crit chance and 2,4k armor.

Only change that affects me is CnD and i dont mind that since my damage mainly comes from backstab anyway.

This is WvW of course.

Instead of D/D I will now be rolling D/P. Shadow Shot is a great gap closer and all the extra blinds are just awesome. Also using Heartseeker out of the smoke field from Black Powder gives you that extra stealth you need. Combined with the improved Smoke Bomb utility it’s great and super fun.

Shizzlenit.7648:

10 / 30 / 30 / 0 / 0

Kinda a tanky backstab build. Running full Valkyire hitting around 20k HP, 114% crit damage

How do you have 114%? I have all possible bonuses and am at 104. Am I missing something?

+10% crit damage food probably

That would explain it

Doomdesire.9365:

What builds are worth it?

The build where you reroll as a warrior.

Nothing much has really changed about our build viabilities. S/D got a bit of a nerf but that’s all.

And don’t forget that WvW doesn’t count as PvP. So a lot of the PvP specific nerfs don’t take effect there.

For PVE/WvW Im gonna try a bunker/condition thief with a full Apothecary set (typical p/d 0/0/30/20/20)

Thieves guild’s scorpion wire got the buff too heh

Advent.2513:

Instead of D/D I will now be rolling D/P. Shadow Shot is a great gap closer and all the extra blinds are just awesome. Also using Heartseeker out of the smoke field from Black Powder gives you that extra stealth you need. Combined with the improved Smoke Bomb utility it’s great and super fun.

I really wish they would make black powder more reliable. I get really angry when I die to a pistol whip / 100 blades while they are standing in black powder. If they did this and cleaned up the animations a little bit I feel d/p would really be a strong weapon set.

has anyone tried to pull some 1 off thier keep with scorpions wire yet xDDD???

and dont listen to people if u roll a warrior ull regret it its dull nothing but pushing 2 or 3 buttons to succeed in anything. if anything i would go guardian much more fun in terms of pve. and pvp.

Battou.7832:

Advent.2513:

Instead of D/D I will now be rolling D/P. Shadow Shot is a great gap closer and all the extra blinds are just awesome. Also using Heartseeker out of the smoke field from Black Powder gives you that extra stealth you need. Combined with the improved Smoke Bomb utility it’s great and super fun.

I really wish they would make black powder more reliable. I get really angry when I die to a pistol whip / 100 blades while they are standing in black powder. If they did this and cleaned up the animations a little bit I feel d/p would really be a strong weapon set.

Of course you will die to Pistol Whip/100b even if you used black powder. I suppose you don´t understand how this ability works m8.
It´s like any other field in the game I´m afraid (it ticks every second → apply blind every second), so if an attacker strikes more then once per second, he will lose the blind debuff by the first attack (which misses), and the next attacks hit you, until the blindness is applied again, so if you expect to facetank these abilities by Black powder, I have no choice that to dissapoint you, unfortunately you have to move out of the range.

Battou.7832:

I really wish they would make black powder more reliable. I get really angry when I die to a pistol whip / 100 blades while they are standing in black powder. If they did this and cleaned up the animations a little bit I feel d/p would really be a strong weapon set.

Fast multihit attacks are meant to partly counter the blind fields. Blind fields reapply blind every 1s at best. Pistol Whip does 9 attacks in 2s or so.

Lordryux.9785:

has anyone tried to pull some 1 off thier keep with scorpions wire yet xDDD???

Yes, nothing special compared to the 900m wire though, you just don’t have to run through the fire to get them.

Only semi viable builds now are heartseeker spam, backstab, and death blossom spam.

shrewd.5319:

Only semi viable builds now are heartseeker spam, backstab, and death blossom spam.

P/D and D/P still both are fine.

shrewd.5319:

Only semi viable builds now are heartseeker spam, backstab, and death blossom spam.

^This.

All my 8v8 matches in sPvP today have been 8 thieves and 8 of the other 7 classes with the 8 thieves all running Steal > CnD > BS spam/HS spam.

My sword/pistol high survivability setup is just as viable today as it’s been for the past month. It’s not the highest throw-weight out there but it’s not meant to be the highest. It’s meant to survive swarms of Risen. Which it does.

According to the patch notes (haven’t played yet), my P/D (pve/wvw) build actually got fixed.

“Sneak Attack: This skill will now only apply the Revealed buff on the first attack that hits an opponent.”

This was applying the buff at the end of the channel instead of the first attack.

As for dancing dagger, I never really relied on the damage. I used it more for the snare than damage.

P/D thief condition build 0/0/30/20/20, skills would be Hide In Shadows, Caltrops, Refuge (and whatever else you want). You want to be able to throw down caltrops, dodge a lot, heal while stealth, and stacking up might every time you dodge and every second you are in stealth. Gearwise, you’ll want Power/Vit/Condition and Condition Duration. Very easy to get up to 20 Bleeds stacked over 100dmg each.

In sPvP the good old ’zerker backstab is still working fine for me.

It takes a bit more effort to survive when fighting experienced players and the shortbow nerf hurt my ability to stand back during a team fight and deliver some good damage until an opportunity to burst down or stealth stomp/res someone arose, but at the end of the day, thief still feels like an amazing roaming class.