Guild Wars 2

Ok, so I have read a lot of terrible posts about thieves being weak in PvE, so I decided to shed some light on just one of the many powerful PvE builds. Enjoy!

0 / 30 / 20 / 20 / 0

Critical Strikes (30 points):
Side Strike (III) – Critical Haste (X) – Executioner (XI)

Shadow Arts (20 points):
Infusion of Shadow (V) – Cloaked in Shadow (VI)

Acrobatics (20 points):
Power of Inertia (II) – Assassin’s Reward (X) or Quick Recovery (IX)

No power? Why?

Well, the power tree only offers power mixed with condition duration. Condition damage is in a weak state right now and should be avoided. And of course, most of the gear you craft or buy will already have power. The critical strike tree will offer 2 great stats and traits that are downright powerful. The other two trees will offer tons of mobility and most importantly, the ability to survive.

Gearing:

I feel the stats are currently prioritized in this order:

Power > Precision > Crit Dmg % > Toughness >/= Vitality

Take note that condition damage is not listed and that is exactly how I feel about it.

Note: This does not mean you should only build items with the top 3 stats. You must mix in toughness and vitality if you plan to survive the tougher encounters. A lot of people are arguing about which of those stats is better. The answer is neither. YOU NEED BOTH.

Utility Skills: (My preference)

Signet of Malice – Life on hit owns. Thieves hit quite often. You can still use it as a heal.

Signet of Agility or Signet of Shadows – Depending on whether I want speed/mobility or more dmg/de-buff removal.

Shadow Refuge – This will mesh well with the traits chosen. It will provide a small heal. It creates a combo field for allies. It is great for hiding yourself while reviving you downed teammates (something all players should do).

Caltrops – AoE bleed application and a major crippling effect. Less Death Blossom needed – More back-stab etc.

Shadowstep: (Option 1) – To remove stuns and escape all sorts of fun things during boss fights.

Scorpion Wire: (Option 2) – Great at pulling and isolating specific targets.

Daggerstorm: I shouldn’t have to explain this one.

Edit: Thieves guild is amazing. I use it most of the time now. I still got love for Daggerstorm though and use it in spam chain encounters.

Weapons:

I use two weapon combinations – But use whatever works for you per usual.

D/D – I use this most of the time. When I play with my friends I can get away with doing max damage with D/D. Drop Caltops, fly around causing even more opening bleeds with DB. Use dancing dagger for AoE. Cloak and Dagger with back-stab spam works here. Under 50% Heartseeker will own with Executioner trait from the front side. If you run into trouble Cloak and Dagger or Shadow Refuge out (also causing a blind due to traits). Don’t forget to use Daggerstorm/Thieves guild!

D/P – I use this when things get rough and surviving is an issue. Drag yourself to targets and Blind with 3. Use 5 constantly to blind targets for your team thereafter. Sneak in HS whenever possible as the target drops below 50%. Stealth whenever you can to Blind and retreat.

SB – Oh kitten I can’t fight in melee range cause I am injured or scared. Please allow me to create a poison combo field for the team with 4 and Blast away with 2.

I hope this guide helps people find the success that I have found and feel they are contributing more to the group. Thanks for reading.

Quasi Mota.7390:

Daggerstorm: I shouldn’t have to explain this one.

If you’re trying to write up a guide, then maybe you actually should explain why you took Daggerstorm, and how it fits into the build.

I have a similar build but do not use death blossom except for very specific situations.
For AOE damage, i use shortbow exclusively. Auto attack and cluster bomb and poison cloud are > DB.

When on a boss, vetern, or wanting single target damage I do this rotation with DD.

CnD, backstab, full auto attack sequence, repeat. It’s higher direct damage.

Quasi Mota.7390:

Daggerstorm: I shouldn’t have to explain this one.

Yes you do. Because it’s basically death blossom but with much less bleed damage and the tendency to pull in enemies you can’t even see on your screen yet.

Thieves’ guild is a better choice for nearly all situations.

I wouldn’t recommend Daggerstorm in most builds. It does have a cool combo with Shadow Refuge though. Spinning in a dark field creates draining bolts and is a good way to wipe lots of weak enemies at once as you can drain-tank them.

But for Dungeons its useless. you don’t find large amounts of weak enemies and drain-tanking in a Dark field doesn’t matter (the drains aren’t enough to keep you alive). What happens when you Daggerstorm in a dungeon is you severely nerf your own DPS for 8 seconds (daggerstorm has lower damage output than using regular attacks) to produce an 8 second whirl finisher.

If you’ve got a better whirl finisher (Death Blossom) then there is no reason to have Daggerstorm. it sucks. the damage is low. it makes you vulnerable (to everything but direct projectiles) and denies your ability to maneuver or use utility skills for 8 freakin seconds.

For PvE i’d recommend either Basilisk Venom (if you have Venomous Aura) or Thieve’s Guild (in general the best elite skill) or even a racial skill. Daggerstorm is good for solo PvE but bad for group PvE like dungeons or DE’s.

Daggerstorm is very effective due to its Stability mechanism. Combined with Signet of Malice and Shadow Refuge it gives you guaranteed heavy healing for a short amount of time for no initiative cost vs DB which costs a whole lot.

I generally am not worried too much about pulling extra mobs except when I’m out in the world. In the world I don’t worry so much about dying anyhow though.

I’ll spend more time with the other Elites now though and give the others more consideration. It’s pretty obvious I struck a nerve with my Daggerstorm comment.

Hah, Quasi. I didn’t expect you to take all of this flak for daggerstorm! Poor guy.

I actually prefer daggerstorm, too. I also happen to run Signet of malice and Shadow Refuge, just like you.

It reflects projectiles for 8 sec, makes you immune to CC, provides a nice healing boost in your aforementioned manner, and it’s only a 90 sec CD. I loved Thieve’s Guild, but with 3 minutes of downtime, I just barely use it >.<

We’re not flaming or upset, we’re mostly surprised by that particular decision because its effectiveness compared to most other elite skills is questionable in most occasions.

It’s definitely handy when you’re surrounded and when combined with black powder. But in 90% of situations you’re probably better off with something else.

let me just re-iterate the weakness of Dagger Storm in dungeons. i’ll go over it in a bit more detail.

1. Vs. a Single Target: Dagger Storm will actually deal less damage then your auto-attack
2. Vs. Multiple Targets: Dagger Storm has the potential to be worthwhile as an AoE attack. Caltrops, Death Blossom, and Cluster Bomb all do more damage though. They’re also safer. Dagger Storm has only one advantage here, which is that it doesn’t take initiative.
3. Defensively: while you are immune to knockdowns and will deflect single-target projectile attacks aimed at you (generally this is only arrows and bullets type stuff, many ranged attacks are not projectiles) you still take full damage from melee and AoE. this ends up being making you alot MORE vulnerable while spinning in dagger storm because you cannot dodge out of the way and you cannot use any of your defensive skills to jump back or go into stealth or whatever. you are much more likely to get yourself killed while spinning in Daggerstorm then you are while using normal attacks
4. 90 Second Cooldown: not a very important distinction in dungeons. you have alot of control over when encounters occur. unlike PvP, where the action is constant and a shorter cooldown really does imply using a skill twice as frequently, in PvE you get to use your elite skill at least once in every fight that matters. My opinion is that 1 activation of Thieves Guild is alot better than 1 activation of dagger storm, and likely is better than 2 activations.

@ Zarrak – Thank you, I love the ability as well. Especially for certain chain encounters, the low cool-down is quite useful.

@ Shooopa and Metaphorm – I thoroughly respect the comments you two have made in reference to Daggerstorm as well. Tonight I will dine on thieves guild whilst dining on Explorer content and hopefully get a better judgement on the skill in general.

I am not retracting my love of Daggerstorm just yet, it can be beneficial in many situations and the sheer healing power of the spell should not be overlooked imho.

@ Nefarious – TY for showing love for something I had not aforementioned and enlightening the community. For single target, assuming you can hold your ground, CnD, backstab, and straight forward attacks can RICK-ROLL targets. CnD is more than just an evasive ability and should be viewed as such. Keep in mind that this build causes blind in stealth and generally is about keeping your team alive as well.

After careful analysis I have found my preference in elite skills.

I still find Daggerstorm most valuable in almost all trash scenarios. Thieves Guild will do serious DPS in boss or single target encounters. There is no harm in switching talents per encounter and I encourage everyone to do so.

@ Gearing:

An easy way to gear for PvE for a new thief is to grab a couple strong pieces of Karma Gear – Use chest chest, shoulders, legs or hat for some steady stats. Craft berserker gear to fill in the rest of the slots. A strong mix of Emerald, Beryl and Ruby jewels will add strong DPS and toughness to your build. Happy hunting.

Strange, for PVE I’ve been using S/P and Pistol Whipping my way to victory. I tried D/D but it seems the damage is just so poor versus the AOE that I have with S, and the survivability of S/P.

Then again, this is just a new class for me. Any feedback would be great.

Absolution.2851:

Strange, for PVE I’ve been using S/P and Pistol Whipping my way to victory. I tried D/D but it seems the damage is just so poor versus the AOE that I have with S, and the survivability of S/P.

Then again, this is just a new class for me. Any feedback would be great.

The damage of D/D is amazing and is higher than pistol whip on single target.

CnD (3-5k), Backstab (4-8k), auto attack sequence (2-5k). That is up to 18k in 5 seconds, without haste. Compare that to your numbers of pistol whip without haste on single target. With the proper traits, you can do this sequence over and over….it is sustainable. This is quite possibly the highest sustained single target dps in the game, imo.

The major reason S/P is a good is because it is pbaoe. However, shortbow completely dominates S/P in aoe fights, and should be used as such.

D/D and Shortbow is my preference

For a better and more in depth discussion of DD and S/P, see “The Shadow”s post here. A third of the way down the page

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/65757-thief-huh-what-is-it-good-for/

Thanks Nef for the heads up, last night I switched to D/D just to experiment and its working rather well.

I’m at lv50 now and I’m spec’d 0/20/0/20/0. Is my crit supposed to be really low?

metaphorm.6904:

let me just re-iterate the weakness of Dagger Storm in dungeons. i’ll go over it in a bit more detail.

1. Vs. a Single Target: Dagger Storm will actually deal less damage then your auto-attack
2. Vs. Multiple Targets: Dagger Storm has the potential to be worthwhile as an AoE attack. Caltrops, Death Blossom, and Cluster Bomb all do more damage though. They’re also safer. Dagger Storm has only one advantage here, which is that it doesn’t take initiative.

Not my experience.

Dagger storm against especially champions and veterans does far more damage than my normal attacks, occasionally several times more. Not sure how I could do so much with normal attacks in most situations.

Caltrops is very nice, but does very little damage. I use it mostly as CC and letting mobs bleed while I hide.

Seems to me all of the work well in the right situation, but here I see people stating pretty much the opposite of what I see.

Of course, maybe you guys are much higher level, and that makes the difference? I’m a level 41 and daggerstorm is definitely more damage than my other attacks, regardless of what the description says.

I will say that it can get you into trouble.

I run mostly with an elementalist, and the combination of fire fields and thief attacks is pretty amazing, and dagger storm really burns them down then.

In defense of Caltrops:

Caltrops is an area of AoE slow and bleeding. These bleed stacks don’t do a whole lot on their own, but if you add to them with Death Blossom or Cluster Bomb Detonation, the stacks start to add up. In condition-oriented builds, this is awesome.

You mentioned you often run with an Elementalist, so I imagine that you probably have some slows available most of the time. I usually don’t, and having a full area where enemies are always Crippled is fantastic support in solo and group PvE settings.

Absolution.2851:

Thanks Nef for the heads up, last night I switched to D/D just to experiment and its working rather well.

I’m at lv50 now and I’m spec’d 0/20/0/20/0. Is my crit supposed to be really low?

I can’t speak to using backstab under level 80. I should have been more specific in my post… I was talking about endgame PVE, notably dungeons.

When leveling, my favorite and most effective build utilized grouping enemies together, dropping caltrops, and using deathblossom. I put 15 into trickery for this, as you can then steal for another deathblossom. YOu can then either stealth and watch them tick down or use roll for ini and do more deathblossoms. This is IMO the best build for leveling because it is effective for killing multiples, whereas direct damage daggers are slower and you kill one at a time.

At 80 you start grouping and doing dungeons that are difficult. With the stack limit on condition damage, I switched to the single target direct damage build.

shannon,

Caltrops stacks bleeds VERY quickly on mobs in the area. approximately 1 stack per second for 14 seconds. if you have invested in condition damage on your gear then those bleed stacks end up being one of the largest sources of AoE damage available to the class.

I’m using a 30/10/10/20/0 build with P/T/V armor and Runes of the Dolyak. Everything else is Berserker oriented. The hard hitting plus solidness of the build is holding up really well for me, and dungeons, while not a cakewalk, are not too bad.

I would like to incorporate some extra condition damage into the build, but of the D/D and P/P sets I use (plus SB for WvW), I really can’t afford to take points away from Power or Precision for a single attack (DB).

Thieves guild isn’t just for single targets – their best feature is they pull attention away from you while also doing significant damage. Calling them in when you’re in over your head can turn a fight around instantly.

Caltrops are vastly underrated. They’re perfect for events where enemies spawn and run to a certain area like the separatists attacking the charr caravan in Diessa Plateau. Throw them down in their path, get back and then hit them with cluster bombs.

Shooopa.5632:

Thieves guild isn’t just for single targets – their best feature is they pull attention away from you while also doing significant damage. Calling them in when you’re in over your head can turn a fight around instantly.

Which is exactly what Daggerstorm does if you’re using Signet of Malice, except much more often and with much better applications in a high target environment.

There’s better choices in some dungeon situations, but in most PvE where you get to pick your number of targets there is no reason to just not pull as many mobs as you possibly can and destroy them all with daggerstorm.

Except daggerstorm has this bad habit of not killing everything around you, but just wounding them. It throws daggers in very specific directions instead of covering an entire 360 degree area.

And again, you can’t dodge or do anything else for the entire duration of the attack.

Signet of Malice I’ve found doesn’t restore as much health as it need to in order to be extremely helpful. Enemies will almost always drain your HP faster than it can replenikitten.

…Re-pl-en-ish is considered profanity? Since when?

It’s reacting to the sh and the it at the end I think.

Dagger storm is only really good for its AoE cripple and bleeds, which lets you be a good control-Thief. It’s not actually good damage.

Since this is PvE, one should always use Thieves Guild.
One of them almost always uses Smoke Screen, while the other draws aggro. It’s win-win-win.

And as far as I’m concerned, Thieves are great in PvE.

High DPS is a given, and with the right specs, you can easily do Control (That’s when Dagger Storm is a good choice).
Supportive Thieves are trickier, because AoE stealth or venom require prior coordination with allies.

Hah. I should rename this the Daggerstorm viability thread. Both abilities are good.

I use Daggerstorm on the encounters that spawn hectic relentless trash constantly. There are plenty of these in the harder explorer dungeons without question. You don’t have to sit in the middle of the packs, you can work the outside and slow the mobs for your group while still doing fairly strong dps to most targets. My crit build (the point of this post) crits constantly on most targets for 2 – 2.5k depending on which gear set I am using.

I use Thieves Guild on almost everything else. A couple hard hitting mobs or single target fights. Fights that require less zone control and less AoE generally. No one ever said you must only choose one skill and stick with it. Some of you will fall in love with this ability and use it as your only elite skill. I can’t hate on that.

Try my Katarina build.

One build which revolves around your daggerstorm/pve style of play and has a decent heal. I would most recommend this for wvwvw though, and massive pve mob killing due to it’s burst lifesteal. I would use a set of cleric armor and use this build.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#czkMzzzzMovNFoovNFm9MpfxMRMcsk

This is based off of pretty much what I call my Katarina build.(from League of Legends.)
If anyone has played League of legends and played Katarina, you will understand why I named it. Katarina is a champion that focuses on her spellvamp/lifesteal in the game.
The idea of this build is to utilize your daggerstorm and your healing ability and run into any large group of monsters and tank everything. This also builds tankiness into your style of play. It’s mainly a semi-condition thief because of its high rate of condition damage traits. This build is more for survival instead of a typical burst damage that a thief is supposed to play as. Your dagger storm is considered a 90 second heal due to it’s massive heal with signet of malice depending on how much monster in one area. The more, the better.
The second build I recommend is also kind of tanky, and close up style of play. This is a tanky backstab build. I normally don’t recommend this in pvp because in pvp as a thief going backstab, it’s better off going full damage rather than this.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#czkzzc0zMovNFoovNFmax0ffczobMV

This build utilizes stacking might off your dodging instead of the traditional build of backstabbing whereas you do damage with a consistency of high power. All in all, the more you dodge, the more damage you deal. I would go Berserker armors on this build, and superior sigil with stacking power. With this buld, it’s more focused on boss fights and 1v1ing enemies. Since it’s a backstab build, you’ll expect to see a speed in killing 1 monster or two significantly fast.

One of the key points I make in the post is that condition damage is mostly worthless for PvE dungeons. I can also say that stealing is something you shouldn’t be too concerned with aside from breaking out of CC.

Several encounters or bosses will trap you in crowd control effects that can be broken by using steal or shadow-step. Keep this in mind thieves.

And finally, I do not recommend putting even one point in Trickery for PvE dungeons. Shadow Arts will provide blinds and toughness to keep you and your group alive in your moments of greater need.

Protip.

Deadly arts is not bad.

Build around poison and duration. Ridiculous damage. The damage is crazy.

30 Deadly Arts. Yes power adds crap tons of damage. 30 into Crit strikes.

You can magnify that damage with 2 might every poison proc. And Crit trait that gives 5 might on activating a signet. You can also get 20% faster signet charge from it, and also run 2 signets. Shadows and power sigs, Bam 10 stacks of might AND 150% dmg on next attack, use a poison first.

I don’t understand why people hate deadly arts? It rocks. You can also get 20% faster poison cds, and much more added on with power.

Power stacks with might, so, if you get might from deadly arts, you are getting more power from each stack.

Use infusion of shadow go 10 into shadow arts with 30 Deadly arts and 30 crit strike.

Run dagger/pistol in PvE and PvP. You can tank and offset the squishyness.

Use black powder, auto attack, auto attack, heartseeker. Being in the smoke field of black powder, you gain stealth for 3 seconds when you heartseeker, and if you keep black powder in melee range of your target, you can infinite dodge and heartseeker gain auto stealth, then do it again.

You need shadow refuge to abuse this more.

Any poison works, look over the poison traits in deadly arts, they rock, and not many people utilize the power/might boon gains off it.

I’ve hit well over 3.6k power, absolute ridiculous damage. Use perception sigil on bow swap, get 25 stacks, use food and acc sigil on offhand and fire on mainhand, grats you have well over 70% crit with crit traits, and proc crazy dmg every 5-7 seconds on your crits.

This is the extreme of extreme of glass cannon builds, able to make even guardians go “wtf?”.

Nothing comes even close to the burst of this.

Martym, could u post your build?

using www.guildhead.com skill calc

PolleyPocket.9162:

Martym, could u post your build?

using www.guildhead.com skill calc

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#cckzM9rxxa9MmkRMRqV

30 Deadly Arts:

Venomous strength. Procs on each poison apply. Up to 10 stacks of might just from this. for 2x might every proc, since we’re running Deadly arts, deadly arts also applys poison on a steal, so add 2 more stacks of might boon.

Stealing applys poison.

300 power.

3 seconds of weakness.

Improvisation auto recharges random poisons/deception/tricks/signets/traps on a steal.

Quick venoms. 20% faster venom recharge.

Exposed weakness: 10% more damage when target has a condition. Crazy dmg.

30 critical strikes:

5% free crit @ health above 90%

Signets of power, gain 5 stacks of might on activating a sig. Can activate power sig + shadows at same time, which = 10 stacks of might, on top, if you activate poison before, you are also getting 2 stacks of might everytime poison procs. If you use SPider poison that is 5 procs. Which is 10 stacks, and another 10 stacks from 2 sigs. 20 stacks total if used together.

Signet Use. 2 initiative every signet activate. 4 if you use 2.

First Strikes: 10% dmg if initiative is over 6. More burst.

Executioner 20% more dmg if target is under 50% health.

10 Shadow Arts:

Blind / stealth if you drop below 25% health.

Infusion of Shadow. Works on field states. If you utilize dagger/pistol as I do, you black powder / auto attack / auto attack / heartseeker.

Heartseeker gives stealth if within the field of black powder.. Which activates infusion of shadow and gives you 2 initiative.

ok mate, thanks alot!

Build for lots of crit chance preferably over 50%. Use omnomberry pie for the 66% chance to steal life on a crit. There is no cooldown on that lifesteal, which is 338 each proc on my thief. Dive into a zerg and use dagger storm and then shadowstep away when done. I survive about 90% of the time doing this and it can change the tide of a battle. The bigger the clump of enemies the more healing you get.

Signet of malice would work in much the same way. I’ve never needed to try it because the pie is so good.

@ Martym – I have dabbled quite a bit in glass-cannon builds. The build you posted is great and many thieves will find great success in sPvP and even WvW using these kind of traits. In WvW, I personally still prefer one built around being a tough thief and surviving long encounters with enemy players, or scrapping in smaller groups. This is a personal choice. All of your points are valid and pure DPS builds are great to smack players down and show dominance.

In PvE dungeons, I would not recommend such a build… the idea is team-think. Are you providing the best defense and utility you should be? Are you surviving the tougher encounters and dungeon paths that the most slippery profession in the game should? Your revival abilities for down players are superior to most professions and your ability to blind and keep your group alive is very substantial.

@ grubnick – Thanks for bringing up yet another really important point. Many food buffs in the game provide substantial abilities and Life-Steal is only one of them. I personally use magic find food because I lack the magic find I love so much in world areas. Magic find gear itself is glass cannon and a great example of what not to bring a PvE dungeon.

There are many great choices to bring and I’d love for more people to discuss them here if possible.

I been playing around more with that life on crit food grubnick mentioned. It is very sexy in combination with this or any other crit build. Y’all should try it out. End rant.

@Martym
It’s a nice build if all your focused on is doing damage. But what happens in a dungeon when something farts in your general direction? You go down and there goes all that DPS you’re supposed to be doing.

I’d much rather some survivability so my team is not constantly ressing me.

Thieves Guild is my favorite elite in the game, it crushes Daggerstorm in all ways.

Anyways, I’ve gone a bit against conventional wisdom and am playing a Condtion build. I run DD/Shortbow, 25 / 0 / 0 /25 /20 Active Traits are Dagger Training /Mug, Power of Inertia/Quick Recovery, and Thrill of the Crime/Bountiful Theft.

Utilities are Spider Venom, Roll for Initiative, Shadow Refuge, and Thieves Guild, with the default heal.

The basic play for it is to bounce around the scene like a jumping bean. I dodge twice on the way in (my Endurance regen is fine for this, by the time I get close a third Dodge will be ready), which build Might stacks and lowers my endurance, which ups my damage. Then I DB as many enemies as I can hit, as many times as I can (usually three non-stop, then a cycle of 111, then another).

When I need more Initiative, I Steal, which Poisons the target, Weakens him (because he’s poisoned), does direct damage, gives me three initiative, gives me and my allies ten seconds of Might, Fury, Swiftness, Vigor, and potentially random buffs the enemy has, and I’m ready to go. Note that you can get all those buffs by stealing even without an enemy around (which means ten seconds of Swiftness every thirty seconds or so outside of combat), except for the Vigor, which requires that you hit an enemy. Also keep in mind that the passive Swiftness buff from Acro stacks with this one for time, so if you Dodge continuously you can keep it up for about 20 seconds straight (10+2+2. . .2. . . . .2. . . . +2).

I dodge as often as possible, and there is very little time spent in a battle where I’m not either mid-Dodge or mid-DB. Remember that all the Might stacks buff the bleed and poison ticks considerably.

Roll is great for when I get stuck, or just need some extra Initiative. Shadow Refuge is great for when nearby people fall, or just to get some healing in when the main heal is down.

I almost never use Heart Seeker or Cloak and Dagger, but I do use Dancing Dagger when enemies are at a distance and grouped up. It is actually a quite devastating move when there are only two enemies, as it bounces between them hitting each twice.

I switch to bow for those giant clusterkitten events where you don’t want to get anywhere near the enemy, and I just drop poison fields and MIRV strikes. When I’m just traveling or doing jump puzzles, I swap Shadow Signet in for the Venom, and Power of Inertia for Descent of Shadows to take the edge off the fall damage. It’s saved my life more than once and makes travel a lot less scary.

Overall I find it a very useful build. I contribute well to events, and almost never die in combat

Came looking for advice and maybe found some in all the posts. Thief was my first class but I had a lot of trouble with it early on and put it aside for other classes.

I am currently 34 and my setup atm is 10/0/5/0/9. I took sundering strikes as my 10pt skill.

I mainly run D/D and current skills I am using are Signets of malice,assassin and shadows along with skale venom and thieves guild. I mostly solo but always join in when I see an event on screen as they are always a lot of fun I do have a SB as well but don’t use it very often as i am not very good at kiting.

Would love any opinions people may have and whether I should change my traits to different trees or change my skills.

Thanks

Would love any opinions people may have and whether I should change my traits to different trees or change my skills.

Well, I think the real question is, what are you doing wrong? What I mean is, what problems are you having that you think need to work better? Do you die too often? Do you take too long to kill things? Can you not complete various content that you think you should? Do you run out of Initiative too often? Which moves would you like to use (balance aside)? There are lots of different ways to build a Thief, so “fixing” it for you means knowing which way you’d like to build it.

@ Ohoni – Nice post. I’m probably gonna try out some builds like this since I already have a set of my old faithful Power/Crit gear for the crit build. One thing I love about this game is how easy it is to obtain max stats.

@Ohoni Thanks for your reply. I don’t think I have trouble killing stuff but I do die a bit even though I can kill stuff 2-3 levels above me (or was last night at least) I do run out of initiative but I think it because of using death blossum a tad too much.

I am not very good at running around in circles killing stuff to avoid hits either, it’s not my forte hence I don’t do a lot of PvP and haven’t done in any MMO I have played in last 10-15 yrs.

I think ultimately I just want to best my limited skills allow me to be. If that means adjusting talents then so be it, so more curious on what the better and higher level thieves are doing. I know everyone is different and has different ideas which is obvious by this thread so looking at ideas more than specifics. I am 38-39 so should hit 40 tonight so seems like might be a good idea to change traits then.

Again thanks for your response

@ Kodo – D/D is my favorite weapon combo and is what I use because I like the tools and damage it provides. But for leveling, especially because you would prefer a more “stand your ground” approach, you might wan’t to try out ye ol’ Sword/Pistol combo. It smacks down and stuns one target while releasing repetitive blows on all targets in a frontal cone. Mix this with some good power, toughness and vitality gear while using traits and utilities that you feel keep you alive best like thieves guild and shadow refuge. The sword hits multiple targets, I usually rounded a few mobs and cleaved them to death while strafing when I was leveling.

Thanks for reply. I will check trade shop for a decent sword/pistol combo tonight. I do like D/D but am open to different strategies to make myself better. I have 5 different classes i am trying to balance so can get a little confusing at times.

I haven’t run any dungeons yet either, maybe I might look at doing on the weekend possibly. I am an Aussie playing on a Euro server so it’s a little barren when I am on during the week as most of them are at work.

@Ohoni Thanks for your reply. I don’t think I have trouble killing stuff but I do die a bit even though I can kill stuff 2-3 levels above me (or was last night at least) I do run out of initiative but I think it because of using death blossum a tad too much.

I am not very good at running around in circles killing stuff to avoid hits either, it’s not my forte hence I don’t do a lot of PvP and haven’t done in any MMO I have played in last 10-15 yrs.

Ok, well then let’s see what your options are. If you die too much, you could raise your defensive stats, but in my limited experience with that, even a maxed defense thief is no heavy tank, so it isn’t worth it, but anyone who has more experience with that might disagree. I think the best defense for Thieves is dodging, and several traits in Acro, and elsewhere, are great for upping your dodge options, making sure it’s almost always available. Some people use dodge only as an escape from big hits, going “wait for it, wait for it, DODGE!” right before the attack lands. You can try this, but with an Dagger Acro Thief it isn’t really necessary, you can just dodge whenever and wherever, avoiding attacks you don’t even see coming. I think mobility is very important for thieves. Other builds, as I understand, make good use of shadow steps and teleports to move around, but I think the important part is to not be where the enemy is hitting.

You don’t need to constantly circle the target like with some classes. I find it most effective to just keep flipping over their heads, switching back and forth, maybe backing up a bit as I go. I used to have the trait that dropped Caltrops when I did this, but I don’t know, it didn’t seem to do as much damage or land as reliably as I liked (did look cool though).

As for Initiative management, you’ll never have enough, you’ll always run out at some point, but there are a lot of ways to make it better. In my build, I get +3 to my maximum from Trickery, which usually means a bonus Death Blossom at the start. I also get a +2 per 10 seconds from the Master-trait in Acro. Then when I’m on empty and need to take another shot, the adept trait from Trickery gives me 3 ini when I steal. I honestly almost never used steal from 1-40 or so, but once I started picking up a bunch of traits that kitted it out, I use it constantly. I just double-tap f1 to dump whatever effect it has and then do another DB.

If I’m really desperate, I use Roll for Initiative, which givekitten more to use, but I tend to leave it alone, because it’s best use is defensively. Any time you get locked down, knocked down, can’t get away, the enemy is going to seriously punish you for that if you let them. Roll is the get out of jail free card, canceling the CC effect and launching you out of the way. It’s your eject button from a bad situation. Refuse and Roll never leave my bar.

I really like having Shadow Refuge as a back-up heal, and keep in mind that not only does it stealth you (shedding agro), and give you some regen, but it also is a dark field, meaning if you start chucking Dancing Daggers (or other “projectile” attacks), it leeches additional life from the target.

If I’m in a fight and it’s going well, I take no real damage at all. If I do take more than 30-40% damage, I pop the heal and stealth, then re-engage. If I take 30-40% damage again and the heal isn’t back up yet, I drop Shadow Refuge, and either camp it out, or use Dancing daggers to re-enter the fight a bit (this doesn’t usually heal me to full, but it does take the edge off and slow the enemies down a bit). If I’m really feeling pressured, I drop the Thieves Guild, which tend to draw off agro until I can heal. If you’re really pressed don’t feel too bad about hiding behind terrain to avoid damage. Don’t forget that stealthing can drop agro from you if you’re a decent distance from where the enemy comes from.

Btw, the wiki didn’t have any damage listed for the Mug trait, so I tested it in the Mists area, and it seemed to do around 1300 damage to Heavy Golems, 2000 to Light, which was slightly higher than doing a backstab from the front side, or doing the final hit of the auto-attack combo.

Oh, and btw, about progression, I listed my level 80 build, but of course I didn’t start there. From 1-40, I built myself to be 10 Trickery, 10 Acro, and 10 Deadly, in that order. Then when I hit 40 I dumped 20 into Acro and 10 into Trickery, then put the next 10 into Trickery, then the next 10 into Deadly. The Deadly abilities are cool, but I found the mobility and Initiative from the other trees to be more vital. Then once I hit 60 I dumped 25 into Acro, 20 into Trickery, 5 into Deadly, and then from 60-80 I dumped the rest of my points into Deadly.

People may disagree, but I just didn’t find Trickery’s “+1% damage per ini” to be useful since I typically have minimal ini levels during combat, and none of the Grandmaster slotted skills seemed incredible to me, while the Acro and Deadly Grandmaster passives mean that if I dodge into combat and use DB on an enemy, every subsequent hit does 20% more damage (hopefully, not 100% sure that’s been tested to stack).

Oh, and one other passing mention, Ambush. This was my goto skill for quite a while, because it’s just so very cool. I switched to Spider Venom because I think the added Condition damage is worth it on my build, but Ambush is highly useful. It drops a “line” field that if any enemy touches it, a buddy thief will spawn next to you. This guy is great, he does decent damage, distracts enemies to split agro, the trick is to drop it directly on top of an enemy, rather than to try and “lure” them onto it.

Executioner is pretty incredible. Also, foregoing the Shadow Arts tree leaves the group without blinds for the most part, unless you use a pistol. Blinds imho, are one of our most useful profession components. I will not speak to whether condition builds or critical strike builds are superior, there are clear advantages to both, as intended.

Yea I am just about hit 40 which was another reason for my question, time to take another look at traits. I also don’t use steal much but did play with it a bit last night and it’s something else I need to look more into and figure out how to use properly. I love thieves guild, especially when getting jumped by a veteran like I did last night they soon made mincemeat of him

Thanks for all your help and i will definitely try and put some of what you have talked about into practice

I picked up a sword and a pistol and added caltrops instead of signet that gives speed. Pistol whip is just wow. I hit 41 and soling multiple lvl 45 mobs without thieves guild. I did use them on a lvl 45 veteran but I am only Asuran after all.

I also changed my spec to what was in the op and it seems to be working ok. So far so good

Thanks again for all the imput everyone i really appreciate it.

Trait builds are great…some weapons offer more to team play than they do for solo-play.
Is this supposed to be a dungeon build? if you’re going to post a viable build and put it up for scrutiny it might be a great idea to post what it’s built FOR

From what I can kinda tell, this is an attempt at making a heavy damage control build which is reliant on the healing from the signet, but it’s all fun and games til an elite mob ganks you with an aoe, I’m not saying this is bad mind you. But ultimately I feel there are a few variables to take into consideration when you bring something into a dungeon, namely what kind of team aiding utility and combo field generator will you bring, outside of the “near mandatory” stuff like shadows refuge.

Say you as stated bring daggerstorm and not thieves guild, should it be a single target fight, you’ve now lost out imho, as the two thieves would offer up a lot more in terms of single target debuffs than daggerstorm would with it’s cripple etc. So probably best to avoid simply stating “use this utility setup” unless you specify reasons.

also, be aware that promoting condition builds is a good idea for spvp but on certain paths they lose out a LOT due to “kill x burrow, no organic structure” while being swarmed it’s a small matter but if you get say 2 thieves who are condition builds, they can end up taking longer and falling victim to the bleed cap if they don’t coordinate right.

But lets again (because you don’t specify) look at your choices for utilities in regards to a dungeon run

Signet of shadows has a nice active, which makes it semi viable and moving faster is nice for kiting segments, though you do have swiftness on evade so that kinda negates that.

Signet of assassins is lackluster in it’s active, and while the extra power is nice, it’s not REALLY all that impressive unless you’re going for burst, burst being near useless for the most part in dungeons and usually too risky in melee, whilst also being lackluster from a ranged perspective unless you employ precision timing, and even then… wouldn’t recommend it outside a burst pvp build

other choices are a lot better I feel and you did state “my preference” which makes it subjective to you.

As for major traits, why slowed pulse? you have access to cloak and dagger, so the condition removal trait would be FAR more viable, removing a condition when you stealth immediately, and with 15 or more points in shadow arts, removing another before you de-stealth… it’s insanely powerful compared to the situational slow pulse… I find this flawed thinking on your part :S no offense.

power of inertia is great, and I do like it a lot from the acro tree, yet I often find vigor suits me better so I can’t say much on this other than it’s up to choice

Assassins reward suits this kind of build though stacking with the signet of malice,
Yet I still find it lackluster, this is one of those “I’m too lazy to crunch the numbers” things, I’d honestly use it for S/P and not D/D as I find D/D to be more hit n run and D/P to be more shut down and sustain/weaken

@ Hellkaiser – You bring up several good points.

I have been using Signet of Agility rather than Assassin due to the boon removal from that. It adds a ton of precision, which works well with this build and removes de-buffs from you and your whole team. A very effective signet indeed. I still switch to Signet of Shadows whenever I need heavy mobility in a fight, even though it will be over-written by endurance swiftness procs from the Acrobatics tree.

Signet of Malice is no joke. You can be practically dead and pop a few DB’s whirling yourself back to full health. If you are decent at avoidance or dodging, your signet will most likely keep you alive without ever having to use the heal function of it. This is not speculation, I have used in for almost every dungeon path in the game thus far.

If I were to remove Assassin’s Reward, the points would be placed in Shadow Arts to get the 25 point trait adding might (Hidden Assassin). If I were to remove Slowed Pulse, it would not be to add Shadow’s Embrace to remove boons because I hardly ever sit around for 3 seconds in stealth. I would sooner, and have already used Infusion of Shadow, which provides more damage and stealth applications to this particular back-stab / blind / healing build.

But lets go back to Slowed Pulse and its purpose here. When you use DB twice in this build (combined with Signet of Malice) you gain life regeneration. Now DB should only be used for this style of healing or as a safe opener. This is because you shouldn’t be building condition damage to begin with and stealth back-stabs will do way more damage. I’m also really fond of Dancing Dagger, but hey, that might just be me.

As far as promoting condition builds.. well that’s certainly not me. I have always advised not to build condition damage. It’s currently on useful in sPvP for the most part. Its hardly useful in PvE and WvW. Focus on Power/Crit/Crit%/Tough/Vit.

In regards to Daggerstorm, I doubt you read the rest of this thread because the topic has been thoroughly exhausted. I use Thieves Guild about 75% of events. I generally switch to Daggerstorm for events that chain spawn mobs in dungeons because I can get 2-3 heavy damage and healing applications per event rather than just one cast of Thieves Guild.

I never stated that this was the best build out there. This is an amazing build for survivability, teamwork, blinds and heavy dps. Its a great place for new PvE players to start and not-so-new players to dominate. As your personal preferences take hold and gear improves you can change the traits up to add more dps or whatever the hell you are looking for.

can you reexplain this part right here:

If I were to remove Assassin’s Reward, the points would be placed in Shadow Arts to get the 25 point trait adding might (Hidden Assassin). If I were to remove Slowed Pulse, it would not be to add Shadow’s Embrace to remove boons because I hardly ever sit around for 3 seconds in stealth. I would sooner, and have already used Infusion of Shadow, which provides more damage and stealth applications to this particular back-stab / blind / healing build.
But lets go back to Slowed Pulse and its purpose here. When you use DB twice in this build (combined with Signet of Malice) you gain life regeneration. Now DB should only be used for this style of healing or as a safe opener. This is because you shouldn’t be building condition damage to begin with and stealth back-stabs will do way more damage. I’m also really fond of Dancing Dagger, but hey, that might just be me.

are you saying you gain health regen, when you DB twice (stack 6 bleeds) with just the Slowed Pulse trait…

correct me if i am wrong but the tooltip says “Grant 10 seconds of regeneration if you have 5 or more stacks of bleeding. This effect can trigger once every 30 seconds.” so that means you have to have bleeds on yourself (a condition on yourself), not on the enemy. so i would think that that trait slot would be better served as something else….