Guild Wars 2

There was another thread about this and if it’s viable or not and in which situations it is.

My wife loves her thief, and currently plays a condition build. d/d p/d with SB mixed in there. But more and more I see her using P/P which isn’t supported by her build at all. She is not as good in melee.

Odd I know because she’s a thief. She does mostly open world PVE stuff, with some occasional WVW small group fighting. Once in a while we run with the zerg just for the fun of it.

So:
For her P/P is viable it is now a matter of getting the most out of that set with some survivability. It’s almost akin to a berserker warrior in my mind. (sort of) Kill “X” before it kills you.

Q: What armor, secondary weapon set, sigils, Runes, Jewelry, Traits, Healing and Utility should I be looking at?

I seen some builds in the other thread thought this might be a good place to condense some of those with solid reasoning behind them and what you can actually expect the build to do.

Thanks for all your help and sorry for the long intro read there, felt it kind of important.

If it’s easier for her to play ranged, she might want to try P/D condition instead. A full Carrion setup (Dire could be “better”), with heavy stealth (and stealth cleanse/rejuv.), can be very enjoyable in PvE. She’ll have to get up-close for CnD (traited for blind), and also dodge-caltrops/utility-caltrops, but she’ll get to see large groups of mobs bleed to death while alternating safely between stealths.

If that’s an option, then I would recommend 40% condition-duration food (still cheap), and runes/sigils/etc. to get to 75% or 100% bleed duration. I believe for my last set, I tried Giver weapons, and focused primarily on condition duration. Before that, my set had 100% bleed duration.

If it wasn’t for enjoying P/P in WvW so much, I’d still be using a condition build in PvE myself.

If your wife really love P/P thieves, why not try the Perplexity build (Condition build), you can check it’s gameplay here and discussion build:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/video-D-P-vs-Perplexity-Thief-Thiefsmer/page/2#post2851859

The armor/weapon is Dire set (Toughness, Vitality and Con. damage). For Runes Perplexity. This is not a burst zerk type. This build is mainly uses the “1” to inflict Bleed and “4” that inflicts daze to opponent, and if your opponent is interrupted 5 stacks of confusion will apply.

How well does that work for PvE, xbyte? If you’re fighting slow-hitting mobs (plenty of those), confusion would presumably perform poorly. With no easy access to stealth, the bleeds from sneak-attack will contribute little as well — at the cost of condition/bleed duration bonuses (from alternate runes).

Now I haven’t tried perplexity (thought about it), but mostly berserker P/P would probably be much more efficient.

Barfoi.9537:

How well does that work for PvE, xbyte? If you’re fighting slow-hitting mobs (plenty of those), confusion would presumably perform poorly. With no easy access to stealth, the bleeds from sneak-attack will contribute little as well — at the cost of condition/bleed duration bonuses (from alternate runes).

Now I haven’t tried perplexity (thought about it), but mostly berserker P/P would probably be much more efficient.

Well, for PVE, I won’t recommend this, and yes you are correct P/P zerk is much better in PVE espcially if you’re still leveling up your thief…

Sorry I’m referring this build for WvW only since Perp runes are not available in PvP… You gotta try this for a different game play for your thief

Here’s my own build that I just came up with (I just got to 80 a couple days ago), since P/P really turned out to be what I enjoy when playing the thief. I’m sure builds like this have been used / tried before…but it’s just a possible option if she’s looking for ways to use pistol/pistol in WvW and PvE. So far, I’ve found this build to be very very good in both play types.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqaVlYmKPHdS9E95Ex2Dg+Te6p4rjtTBXvKA-jECBYMCiUFBiIAMBqIaslhFRjVvATXiIq2hoIa1yAUtFA-w

The idea here is obviously high mobility, and hybrid damage. It’s quite survivable, with respectable vitality and toughness…but most of the survivability comes from being extremely hard to catch and hard to hit.

With the food I picked + the trait setup, you get two stacks of might on every dodge. I like traveler runes for the all-around bonuses and the permanent run speed. With the trait setup, you get bursts of more runspeed and high vigor uptime…which allows for a LOT of dodges. I typically have 6+ stacks of might up all the time during a fight.

What I do is keep enemies crippled constantly with caltrops on dodge and the caltrops utility skill, and just wear them down with bleeds and some pretty strong direct damage. I use headshot when needed to interrupt heals or big hits. Once they get below 50% health, I use unload sparingly for very good bursts of 3.5k – 4k damage. Typically, I use very little initiative and have a lot available if I need to escape.

For escaping, I switch to short bow and use shadowstep + infiltrator’s arrow + dodge switftness to outrun almost anyone. I also use shadowstep to clear conditions if needed in an emergency.

This build is most effective moving around the edges of a fight and picking off enemies, or kiting dumb targets to wear them down…if I do go into the middle of the fray (steal to get vigor), it’s usually just to drop caltrops and get back out.

One weakness of the build is when you get a lot of ranged opponents. I use smoke screen to help in that situation, and also have smoke screen + short bow blasting to create stealth if needed in an emergency.

Here is a pp vid 3v1 build is in the description http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIZrsaTsXCU

Sorry I’m referring this build for WvW

I brought that up because the OP said their wife mainly plays with PvE content.

You gotta try this for a different game play

I’ve been tempted! In theory, in sounds fun for an attrition build, but I’m currently enjoying a fast-paced play-style. In the future.

I’m just commenting on what was said above:

The Thiefsmer build found within the following thread really isn’t very strong in PVE, but is incredibly fun in WvW:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/video-D-P-vs-Perplexity-Thief-Thiefsmer/page/2#post2851859

Here is a link to a slightly more do-able item build(without ascended gear):

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|a.5q.h5.a.5q.h1n.0.0.0|5.1q.h5.0.0.0|1q.b1p.1q.b1p.1q.b1p.1q.b1p.1q.71p.1q.71p|1b.9b.1b.9b.1b.9b.1b.9b.1b.9b.1b.62|0.0.u48b.a1.u2ac|30.d|57.5n.5b.5c.0|e

If you’re wife has some extra gold, and wants to watch elementalists and warriors kill themselves with confusion stacks, look no further!

So the only way to see larger burst numbers is full zerker? I talking about 5-10k burst numbers in PVE content. I am looking for something universal that is easy to play in PVE and WVW. I realize that these are generally separate builds.

thanks for the build Fozzik I’ll take a look at it.
The perplexity build looks like a lot of fun, not sure it’s for her.

Edit: I just realized that I might be looking at P/P wrong. I’ve been looking at it like a burst weapon I guess because of unload.

The burst is okay…but really P/P is a great utility set as far as I’m concerned. You can stay at range and reduce incoming damage with interrupts and blinds. You can apply bleeds or other conditions from range and wear people down. In a pinch, you can do pretty good burst damage…but you use up your initiative fast if you just spam things, and you’re a lot less effective. Better to use unload sparingly when the time is right.

I think she’ll be happier in both game types if she’s got some survivability from mobility and toughness. Staying alive with full zerker gear is really tricky, and despite the big crits that are possible, you don’t do any damage when dead. ;-)

When they put the immobilize on skill #2… this gets even better.