Guild Wars 2

I play my thief as a havoc/scout in WvW. Long story short, I ended up with 2 PVT ascended trinkets and the only toon that could put it to good use is my thief. My other toons either don’t need it, or already have what they need.

Perhaps I can mix zerker and PVT for zerging? Or get full PVT and be cheesy? Toss me some ideas. It’d be a shame to waste this lucky find.

Well, I had a guild mate before that used to run a tanky S/D build. Literally his only purpose was to kitten people off because it made him really hard to kill.

I sometimes swap some of the zerk or valk pieces to soldiers, especially if I’m about to 1v2 thieves, I use Scholar runes to make up for the dmg loss, and the added armor or health also makes the runeset a bit more useful. Landing a successful backstab usually deals high enough dmg against thieves anyways with any power set, but since it might be difficult to land against thieves being able to crit most attacks while being fairly tanky is handy (Zerk, Assassin and PvT mix.)

Otherwise wearing Zerk + Valk + Cavalier will provide you with more dmg on your backstabs and high defence at the same time, while wearing Soldier will make you tankier without losing too much precision.

Anything works for zerging since thieves aren’t really useful there anyways, but by going as glassy as possible your cluster bombs can at least hit the same dmg as 1 tick of staff eles meteor storm.

Scouting, well why not, although a scouting build has high enough mobility and escapability so you might as well run around naked, putting PvT on top of that, well..

So, how much PTV can be statted on a thief, to be useful enough, but not cut into too much of the damage output?

I run this atm:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZUQNAsYVl0Mp0plPx3JsPNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdHl+GEA-T1CBABVqqyZKBl4UAglyLvUiAwDAwS1KyTTQR7PkieAGOCABAQACJOxATciTciTciNxJOxJOxJWKgnmAA-w

I find it’s a nice balance, and if I run SA I get 2.6k armor with borderlands bloodlust, which is more than enough for me. You could proba have your PVT rings and have more aggressive armor choices than me to make it up.

If you can keep your base power at 2.2k and a crit chance of 40% before fury as a minimum, you can have more defensive gear without too much of a drop in DPS. Don’t try to go too defensive though, I have a couple of cavalier’s rings from before the ferocity update but there’s too much of a DPS drop to justify them post patch, at least with my build.

I don’t use the critical strikes line though, so I need all the precision I can get. If you invested in CS you could probably afford a little more PVT without too much of a DPS drop, provided you’re still stacking enough power.

Terrible terrible idea you might aswell go condi thief if you want extra survivability.

Only using 1 peice of pvt atm http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZUQRAsa6Yl0Mp0plPx3JsPNRSBx9CCQC88G1ozOMVA-TVDBAB1s/QOqEAxBBoSVIwSZCOqBAwDAILlW5pfgRlgMcEA0RVlAOBABAQAYiTciTciTsUAMpMC-w

If you want some survivability, can try swapping out a few pieces of armor for soldiers.
But trinkets? If you’re running a power build, zerk trinkets are just too valueable to replace with soldier. This might have shifted with the crit damage → ferocity change, but I really don’t think so.

Throw the soldiers on if you want, but you’ll probably get more use out of them selling them for 5 silver.

ya then run 30 shadow arts really viable for trolling

Dakota.4591:

But trinkets? If you’re running a power build, zerk trinkets are just too valueable to replace with soldier.

That changes with Ferocity. Trinkets used to have relatively high crit damage, especially the jewels had like 3% crit damage on a 15 point minor. Now the 15 point Ferocity is 1% crit damage

Personally I use 1/2 PVT trinkets and I swap between PVT chest armor and Valkyrie depending on the situation cause I usually don’t put many points in SAs.
My runes are also Full Pack Runes for a good amount of power, otherwise I think even while zerging it’s pointless if you hit like a wet noodle!

Jugglemonkey.8741:

I run this atm:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZUQNAsYVl0Mp0plPx3JsPNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdHl+GEA-T1CBABVqqyZKBl4UAglyLvUiAwDAwS1KyTTQR7PkieAGOCABAQACJOxATciTciTciNxJOxJOxJWKgnmAA-w

I find it’s a nice balance, and if I run SA I get 2.6k armor with borderlands bloodlust, which is more than enough for me. You could proba have your PVT rings and have more aggressive armor choices than me to make it up.

If you can keep your base power at 2.2k and a crit chance of 40% before fury as a minimum, you can have more defensive gear without too much of a drop in DPS. Don’t try to go too defensive though, I have a couple of cavalier’s rings from before the ferocity update but there’s too much of a DPS drop to justify them post patch, at least with my build.

I don’t use the critical strikes line though, so I need all the precision I can get. If you invested in CS you could probably afford a little more PVT without too much of a DPS drop, provided you’re still stacking enough power.

This is a really intriguing build. Do you get good results from it?

Having soldier helm/chest/leggings with the rest being zerker is a great mix of offense and defense.

Having the right utilities, reaction time and positioning is much more important for surviving as a thief. We’re not meant to face tank damage, and if we build to do that, we don’t do enough damage to be of any use. For a power build anyway.

Best advice for thief outside of sPvP is to start a bit tanky, regardless of your build. As you become more comfortable, build for more damage.

In sPvP, go Berserker Amulet or go home.

Witchdoctor Dan.3814:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

I run this atm:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZUQNAsYVl0Mp0plPx3JsPNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdHl+GEA-T1CBABVqqyZKBl4UAglyLvUiAwDAwS1KyTTQR7PkieAGOCABAQACJOxATciTciTciNxJOxJOxJWKgnmAA-w

I find it’s a nice balance, and if I run SA I get 2.6k armor with borderlands bloodlust, which is more than enough for me. You could proba have your PVT rings and have more aggressive armor choices than me to make it up.

If you can keep your base power at 2.2k and a crit chance of 40% before fury as a minimum, you can have more defensive gear without too much of a drop in DPS. Don’t try to go too defensive though, I have a couple of cavalier’s rings from before the ferocity update but there’s too much of a DPS drop to justify them post patch, at least with my build.

I don’t use the critical strikes line though, so I need all the precision I can get. If you invested in CS you could probably afford a little more PVT without too much of a DPS drop, provided you’re still stacking enough power.

This is a really intriguing build. Do you get good results from it?

It’s pretty strong all round tbh, it’s basically the PvP meta build so it’s great for duelling. The armor choice was from reading Wish’s comments on soldier/zerk vs valk armor:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/WvW-Thief-looking-for-some-insight/first#post2674725

(It’s pretty wordy, but it’s worth a read if you have the patience)

It’s weaker 1vX than a shadow arts build would be, but you’ve got tons of mobility, boon steal and dodges, so you can get away with some outrageously silly things if you’re careful. Just avoid the melee train of the enemy zerg as you won’t last 3 seconds if you’re caught :P