I recently came back to Thief, I’ve been playing Ranger previously but got too frustrated with how weak it’s damage is so decide to come back to Thief. I can’t fully settle on a build I love as I’m trying to go something like a Ranger without a pet. Someone that does a lot of damage but can also evade a lot. I’ve come up with this build that seems to work well but I’d like to see what people think of it. And something’s I could possibly change to make it suit me better.
Link to the build: Thief Build
I went with D/D as I enjoy them the most, nothing else really pulling me to them except their just what I enjoy and what suits me best. I enjoy the Sword and Dagger too so might swap out to Sword and Dagger. For the Dagger Sigil I went with Air on the first Dagger for that extra damage it causes, and Might for the Offhand dagger as there’s not much I can use for Off Hand Sigil that benefits me, and might is always nice. For the shortbow I went with Sigil of fire, since shortbow is almost fully AoE I figured an AoE sigil will make it even better, but I’m no expert.
I went for the 10 in Deadly Arts mainly for the “Mug” and the slight extra power, I didn’t go any further cause the rest of the skills don’t really interest me too much, especially the Mini traits since their to do with poison and condition and I’m going for a power/crit build.
The 30 in Critical Strikes is for the Fury when target reaches 50% health, cause this makes my critical chance 90% for 10 seconds which I like a lot, Side Strike is mainly because I couldn’t find anything better to go there, and extra Crit Chance is always nice, as if I open a fight in back attacks I have 97% Crit Chance which is always nice
. Lastly I went with Executioneer instead of the hidden killer, because 100% crit chance in stealth doesn’t interest me at all. Since during all my fights my crit chance is constantly 90-97% so 20% extra damage to targets under 50% health is much better for me.
Shadow Arts I put nothing into because I don’t really constantly stealth, stealth to me is just for getting out of a fight or buying me some time, I don’t really want to be a Stealth Backstab thief cause that’s really just one combo of attacks and nothing else, I like general in-fight builds better as it allows more diversity and change of tactics and combos which keeps me entertained.
The 15 in Acrobatics is purely for the Dodging return’s some endurance, I find this to be one of the most helpful mini traits on the thief’s traits as dodging with thief is key to success, if I’m playing PvE or WvW I switch Power of Inertia for Decent of Shadows as I often like jumping off stuff like cliffs and buildings, and that often leads in an embarrassing death
Lastly I went 15 into trickery for the Thrill of the crime trait, which gives me fury might and swiftness on steal, this is helpful as it works in well with Furious Retaliation, and the more fury I have the better as it keeps my critical chance at 90% pretty much constantly in any fight. Because I steal to open up a fight and get fury, making my crit chance 90%. Then when the target is at 50% I get another fury plus extra damage allowing me to finish the target off nicely
For my amulet and armour runes I went with Berserker for the Amulet and Eagle for the armour for the extra precision
Soo yea, let me know what your opinions are on this build. And if you think it will work well in PvE + PvP + WvW as I love to do all 3 modes, also let me know if any changes I can make will improve it somehow.