Guild Wars 2

Major flaw on my part. Use Infusion of Shadow instead of Slowed Pulse.

Oh, and where’s your critical haste?!

That one skill alone transformed my entire game. I had been playing without it for nearly this entire time but tried it out yesterday just for the hell of it.

I will never go back.

Haste is not the same as quickness – haste speeds up your attacks to the point where an auto attack chain is a blur. It may be the single most devastating skill the thief has, only challenged by back stab.

Oh kitten I’m gonna replace Furious Retaliation and check out Critical Haste tonight.

Shooopa.5632:

Oh, and where’s your critical haste?!

That one skill alone transformed my entire game. I had been playing without it for nearly this entire time but tried it out yesterday just for the hell of it.

I will never go back.

Haste is not the same as quickness – haste speeds up your attacks to the point where an auto attack chain is a blur. It may be the single most devastating skill the thief has, only challenged by back stab.

Haste is exactly the same as Quickness.

Quasi mota i have a suggestion for you.

This is a strong build but if i where you i will consider a little dip in the trickery tree. Instead of putting 20 point in shadow arts, i prefer spend 10 point in trickery; this unlock Kleptomaniac (steal grants 3 initiative) for a reliable source of initiative and some very powerfull adept traits like Thrill of the Crime (steal buff you and your ally with fury, might and swiftness for 10s) or Uncatchable (instant Caltrops when you dodge)

stof.9341:

Haste is exactly the same as Quickness.

No it isn’t. Quickness is a speed boost for movement only. Haste is a speed boost for your attacks. In PvE, haste makes you hilariously powerful because it activates often and lets you make short work of mobs.

It’s however less reliable in PvP because the fights are shorter and you have less margin of error.

Quasi Mota.7390:

Oh kitten I’m gonna replace Furious Retaliation and check out Critical Haste tonight.

It makes mobs a complete joke. But it’s less reliable in PvP I’m told. Fortunately it’s a major trait so you can swap it out for something else when doing that.

Updated to include Critical Haste.

Shooopa.5632:

stof.9341:

Haste is exactly the same as Quickness.

No it isn’t. Quickness is a speed boost for movement only. Haste is a speed boost for your attacks. In PvE, haste makes you hilariously powerful because it activates often and lets you make short work of mobs.

It’s however less reliable in PvP because the fights are shorter and you have less margin of error.

You are right that Haste isn’t exactly the same as Quickness. But the later isn’t move speed. Swiftness is the movement speed boost.

Haste is a thief skill that gives you the “Quickness” boost along a debuff. Same as Frenzy gives warriors the Quickness boost along another debuff. The thief trait and the weapon sigil that triggers the Quickness boost is just that : improved attack speed and nothing else.

“One of the key points I make in the post is that condition damage is mostly worthless for PvE dungeons.”

why are you saying Condition dmg thief is no good for PVE dungeons?

Tricky.6983:

“One of the key points I make in the post is that condition damage is mostly worthless for PvE dungeons.”

why are you saying Condition dmg thief is no good for PVE dungeons?

Condition damage can be viable for dungeons, but not so much in a pickup group. Bleed stacks are hardcapped so if you have multiple people trying to use heavy-condition builds you’re going to hit a point where their effectiveness is heavily diminished. Conditions also don’t benefit from vulnerability, which is a major damage boost against long-lasting group targets for power-based setups.

You can mitigate a lot of this via group coordination though. If you’re building a guild group from scratch, just figure out who is bringing bleeds, poison, burn, etc. It isn’t impossible to make condition damage viable, it just takes more effort.

I know I’m late to the party but wanted to say thank you for this thread topic. I’ve gotten some very useful information here from you and others as I’ve restarted my thief from scratch after having some real difficulty in the mid levels with combining damage with survivability for PvE. while I -can- PvP pretty well, I simply don’t enjoy it and most build discussions are PvP or WvW focused.

“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.”

It’s viable if you’re running a precision based build but be aware you can’t crit on burrows etc in ac, thus precision is missing out here as is condition damage. yes critical haste is WELL worth the investment as is the 5might on signet use but the condition removal is a niche aspect and you’d get just as much use if you’re traited for acrobatics to 15 minimum, it’s good yes, I don’t dispute that. But is it the most reliable you can get and or offer more than say blinding powder, caltrops, smokescreen or shadow refuge? they’re what they have to compete with viability wise always.

“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."

I don’t doubt it, S/P seems best suited for it with it’s wide sweeping cone, it procs from caltrops too and daggerstorm, it’s best used imho on mass enemies where it procs WAY more times and offers up better passive healing than a few stealth burst heals would, with assassins reward it’s all stacks up nicely.

Shadows embrace easily procs removing anything your hide in shadows does not immediately, it can be a real lifesaver and also procs the INSTANT you hit stealth and then again on the third second in stealth I find it kitten near mandatory sometimes to be honest.

FYI, I made that assumption about slowed pulse too lol, it’s defensive not offensive.
As for infusion of shadow it’s SOLID, but it’s best use imho is with a d/p build for it’s refund from cnd and black powder into hearsteeker stealth leap. the alternatives ofc are always there, there’s never much wrong with taking a defensive passive cooldown instead of “moar damage” for those times when accidents happen.

still a nice suggestion build wise but needs just a little more thought that’s all
if I were you, I’d narrow things down to a nice balanced melee set/ranged set build and work on cramming in synergy trait wise for it or perhaps 2 ranged sets etc due to some things just being way better with specific weapons

Hellkaiser, you’re vastly underestimating how powerful an insta-full endurance bar is with the right setup. It absolutely offers more than some of the traditionally powerful utilities on activation while offering a passive benefit between those periods. The multiplicative effect of dodges with dodge-affecting traits makes SoAgility one of the most synergistic utilities thieves have.

1. Take dodgetrops (10 points in trickery)
2. Take Power of Inertia and Feline Grace (15 points in acrobatics)
3. Use Signet of Malice
4. Eat level 80 dodge-boosting food (might on dodge, increased endurance regen). Optional, but makes this go from “pretty neat combo” to godly.

Now suddenly you can tap Agility and then triple-tap your dodge key for:
1. Three dodges worth of invulnerability/movement, you get 2 dodges worth of endurance back, and each of those you use refunds you another third of a dodge. Couple that with your boosted regen over that period and you can chain it thrice with more coming swiftly after that.
2. 6 stacks of might, duration depending on your runes and how deep into acrobatics you are, but even in the short term that means 210 power and condition damage. You’re probably at 12 total stacks if you just dodged prior to activating your signet, and remember you can get 5 more if you took the might-on-signet trait.
3. >6s of swiftness, again, depending on your boon duration boost.
4. You’ve laid 3 caltrops fields, each causing bleed and cripple once per second for four seconds.
5. Signet of Malice heals you for >100 hp per second per target per field. 100 hp doesn’t sound like much, but if you lay this combo down on a group you’re looking at thousands of hp/second healed while you’re mostly invulnerable rolling around.
6. And it still counts as a condition removal for you and your buddies.

Signet of Agility is highly underrated, and easily in the same tier as things like caltrops and shadow refuge. It is a passive damage boost that, on activation, provides an incredible boost to both offensive and defensive strength.

Ohoni.6057:

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.

Ohoni’s build also works great for shortbow. Just switch around your utilities. Hide in Shadows for melee mobs or Sig of Malice for range, Needle trap, Caltrops, Thieves Guild elite.

Steal when not locked on, few rolls for might, Needle trap, Choking Gas (you can miss and hit in front for trick shot poison combo, you can hear the sound animation for it.) Cluster Bomb bleed, rolling sideways for might or use Disabling shot for kiting. You can use Caltrops for a filler and additional bleed or save for next mob while C-Gas is on cd but I find it’s always up. I run with D/P or P/P secondary which you can finish off with this instead switching just before you use disabling shot as stated above. I found thieves to be way to squishy but to much fun to pass on. If you run Hide in Shadows for heals and switch Sig of Shadows for Shadow of Refuge, popping Thieves guild when needed you have alot of survivability and a crapload of kiting.

Ohoni, thanks for sharing your wisdom.

I dont get it. You pick traits that are used when you are stealthed. But you dont say to use any skills that stealth you except the bubble (which for damage is replaced by the caltrops or signets) I dont get you man lol.

Killermonkey.1867:

I dont get it. You pick traits that are used when you are stealthed. But you dont say to use any skills that stealth you except the bubble (which for damage is replaced by the caltrops or signets) I dont get you man lol.

didn’t mention anything about traits, was sticking with Ohoni’s posted traits @L40 for the poison, might, fury and swiftness stacking boons . If you were referring to slot skills I myself run signet of malice and rarely need heals. When I mentioned slotting Hide in Shadows and having Shadow refuge was for increasing survivability. Basically noticed that Ohoni’s build worked well with shortbow or P/P. Also and being able to switch back to D/D at anytime with little changes.

For great justice!