Guild Wars 2

The title pretty much says it all.I recently started a Thieft and i am not sure whether I should build his power and precision or his condition damage/duration

Are you talking about PvE leveling? Dungeons? s/tPvP? WvW? Please be specific, because the answers will vary depending.

First and foremost, its all about your play style. I know that sounds like the easy way out, but its true.
With that said, there are some things to consider:
1) Power/Crit builds: Power builds are meant to dish out major damage through the use of stealth for BS. The issue I have found is, if you build to make your power/crit high enough to make a big difference, you lose out on survivability… you become the glass cannon for lack of a better term. This is alright if you are good at evades and knowing when and how to use stealth. Problem is, ANet seems dead set on adding anti-stealth mechanics any way they can, stealth in PvP and WvW may become a thing of the past.
2) Condi Builds: I currently play a condition build thief with 1300+ condition damage and about 85% condition duration (death blossom bleeds last 19.5 seconds for me). These builds are great because you can build for decent toughness and vitality so you have survivability… the problem comes in striking a balance between your power and attack ratings vs your condition damage and duration. Again, you need to be an evasive thief to pull these builds off. Keep in mind, the two main damage dealing conditions for thief are poisons and bleeds and poisons are, IMHO meek. Also, with the current slew of passive condition removal out there… it seems that all a toon needs to do is sneeze to remove 3 conditions anymore… these builds become somewhat less effective. Also, if the rumor about bleed and poison stack nerfs are true, then bleeds and poisons will only stack to 5 stacks not the 25 they currently do. That, for a condition thief is a major hit in damage output.

So what it all comes down to is building to suit your play style and thinking about the pros and cons of each type of build. Good Luck.

Bleeds will not be affected by the upcoming changes to how conditions stack. Only those conditions that stack in duration, not actual stacks will be affected, such as blind and poison.

Ruggan.4102:

First and foremost, its all about your play style. I know that sounds like the easy way out, but its true.
With that said, there are some things to consider:
1) Power/Crit builds: Power builds are meant to dish out major damage through the use of stealth for BS. The issue I have found is, if you build to make your power/crit high enough to make a big difference, you lose out on survivability… you become the glass cannon for lack of a better term. This is alright if you are good at evades and knowing when and how to use stealth. Problem is, ANet seems dead set on adding anti-stealth mechanics any way they can, stealth in PvP and WvW may become a thing of the past.
2) Condi Builds: I currently play a condition build thief with 1300+ condition damage and about 85% condition duration (death blossom bleeds last 19.5 seconds for me). These builds are great because you can build for decent toughness and vitality so you have survivability… the problem comes in striking a balance between your power and attack ratings vs your condition damage and duration. Again, you need to be an evasive thief to pull these builds off. Keep in mind, the two main damage dealing conditions for thief are poisons and bleeds and poisons are, IMHO meek. Also, with the current slew of passive condition removal out there… it seems that all a toon needs to do is sneeze to remove 3 conditions anymore… these builds become somewhat less effective. Also, if the rumor about bleed and poison stack nerfs are true, then bleeds and poisons will only stack to 5 stacks not the 25 they currently do. That, for a condition thief is a major hit in damage output.

So what it all comes down to is building to suit your play style and thinking about the pros and cons of each type of build. Good Luck.

Thanks a lot dude.That is the answer I was looking for

Personally, I’d only use condi builds for roaming in WvW, maybe D/D in sPvP.

Power builds are much better most other places. In addition that extra damage will help you get more “tags” during the fight.