Guild Wars 2

Hi all -

I recently started to do some more PvE on a regular basis, and I wanted to design a condition damage/healing build that’s able to deal some good DoT and also survive longer than the Glass Cannon builds. Still using Dagger/Dagger. I’m hoping to deal good condition damage with venoms and bleeds (thus leading into using Leeching Venoms for added survivability).

Let me start with a couple of questions. Does the healing produced by Signet of Malice and Leeching Venoms provide enough healing to be significant? And if not, would using a Superior Sigil of Life help this at all? Finally, adding a Superior Sigil of Blood on the offhand for added life steal.

Going onto the armor, I’d likely run the Condition/Toughness/Precision Nightmare armor from TA. Would you recommend keeping the Runes of the Nightmare, or maybe swapping this out for something like Superior Rune of the Undead?

Also, I’m not sure where to even start with Traits (other than going far enough into Shadow Arts to get Leeching Venoms). Any recommendations on that front?

I apologize if builds like this have been discussed previously, but I haven’t seen much that works the way that I’m hoping. Looking forward to your thoughts/suggestions.

Feel free to criticize as much as you want – I’m relatively new to PvE Thief!

here is what youre looking for, i tried this for a week in pvp, at the cost of stealth, a major thief tool, you now have unlocked survivability. Against multiple foes, consider dagger storm your second healing skill. And yes, it can be tweaked for pve

I’ve found that after the patch in order to have good PvE survivability as a Thief you need to learn to dodge and abuse pistol whip/death blossom and hope that’s enough for the encounters you’re up against. Stealth use to help but now mobs will jump right back on you as soon as stealth ends… sometimes even following and attacking you while you are still stealthed.

The problem I have with trying to build a tanky/healy Thief is that by the time you’re done you end up being bad at pretty much everything. Bad damage, relatively low hp, unreliable healing (stealth for regen, venomous aura with 300 range??), inability to reliably use stealth and tank (control) mobs… why did you choose to level a Thief, again?

Sigil of Blood, Signet of Malice and Omnoms will keep you up as well or better than Hide In Shadows or Withdraw[ Into Lava and Off Edges] in most cases, but sometimes you need the cleanse and heal without a target from Hide in Shadows.

I think the best thing you can do is buy some yellow gear, make your build the way you want and try your tanky/healy thief in a couple dungeons/fractals… that’s what I did before I salvaged it all and went glass cannon.

Signet of malice ticks on every hit for like 120(more or less depending on healing power). If you’re talking about dungeon or fractal PvE then you need to know that most mobs will smash your face in for 3k+ every hit. So if you could melee them you need to be doing 3k healing every 2-3s to stay up. Signet of Malice is good when there are a lot of enemies, but against solo big hitter mobs it’s very lackluster. If you are going to run signet of malice then make sure you get caltrops, they proc signet hits.

I couldn’t comment on sigil of life as there might be spots in dungeons/fractals where it is useful, but on bosses it isn’t going to provide any healing. Sigil of blood just doesn’t heal enough either. Perhaps sigil of blood+Omnomberry ghost+signet of malice?

The major problem you’re going to have to deal with is health. Even with toughness the mobs will hit hard so you need more than 10k hp. The more health you have, the more ineffective your heals become.

If I was making a PvE thief build I would put 30pts in shadow arts. Get the heal allies when stealthed, blind on stealth(or condition removal), and regen health while stealthed. Then slot blinding power and shadow refuge. This way you have a way of gaining health back at a decent rate and breaking aggro so you can heal. I would probably also go 20 into acrobatics for condition removal or initiative regen.

I probably haven’t answered half your questions, but go to heart of the mists and test out of builds on the Npc’s there(they should dish out plenty of damage to show you your healing capabilities). I’ve never found a vampire/healing build that worked for the thief in dungeons/fractals, things just hit too hard and we heal for so little.

Thanks for the replies.

Wouldn’t DPS be pretty high with bleeds/venoms and the appropriate traits? I suppose it’s more of a DPS/supportive build, rather than a tank. I don’t need to see massive numbers- I’m actually more interested in being able to survive, heal, steal health, dodge, etc.

I’ll still be able to sleep at night even if I don’t get huge Backstab crits. I’m just trying to do something a little different – I’m tired of the Glass Cannon build. Seems a little…bland to me. Yeah, getting a big critical is exciting for a while, but it’s lost the appeal in my mind.

So I’m just looking for something new. I might mess around with some variations on this and report back. Keep in mind, this is PvE oriented. In PvP a Glass Cannon-ish build is still tons of fun to be able to catch/crit to death the runners : )

Any other feedback or experience would be much appreciated! I’ll definitely try out a few builds after work today.

Distaste.4801:

I’ve never found a vampire/healing build that worked for the thief in dungeons/fractals, things just hit too hard and we heal for so little.

Ah – that’s what I’m afraid of. As I mentioned, I’m relatively new to the PvE side of things, so that’s why I’m here seeking advice. I think the build has some potential, but it isn’t quite there yet. I end up being decent at everything, great at nothing (except dodging). A little more tweaking, I suppose!

More suggestions are welcome!

Is this| build a viable one for survivability?

It seems like it might be a decent option for PvE? Keep in mind this is something I’ll be using for some dungeons+roaming around on my own or in small groups doing exploration, events, etc.

Any thoughts from more experienced players? All helpful feedback is appreciated!

While it’s true that big hits on thieves are a problem, consider making use of Weakness skills. Weakness grants 50% of Non Critical hits are glancing blows (50% damage).

Hey, I know this is rather a late reply, but i’ve been fiddling with healing builds myself, as I always run a healing/condition/point holding build in PvP.

I wanted to carry this sort of play style over to PvE and dungeons in general. So i thought up this build, give it a look over, give it a try if you like, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the way you can utilize every skill in your arsenal and keep yourself alive while dishing out considerable condition damage.

I run this build in fractals and WvW, I can tank and take out fully upgraded supply camps and the guild claiming officer room in towers solo with this build and not really have to so much as glance at my HP.

http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/2794-healing-thief

If you want healing, go 30 into SA. Healing/Condition Removal on Stealth + Caltrops + SoM and you’d be hard pressed to die. This is pretty standard for most condition-based thieves.

Make sure you have Carrion or Rabid gear to up your Condition stats so that you’re at 100-base bleeds.

30 in SA for Shadow’s Rejuvenation is good advice. Much, much better sustain over time than leeching venoms (although nothing precludes you from using both). It regens about 300 hp/s on its own, so if you also take the Shadow Protector trait you can get close to 500 hp/s in stealth with only the 300 healing power from the traitline bonus. That’s 2k healing for each Cloak and Dagger if you wait out the whole duration. Shadow Refuge basically becomes a second healing skill capable of getting you back to full health. Take Shadow’s Embrace for condition removal and you’re set for most PvE content.

The Shadow Arts line alone is enough sustain to keep me alive and near full hp in most dungeon encounters with 0 survivability stats on gear (full zerker).