Guild Wars 2

I’ve recently picked up thief, and I’m looking to do some PvE and WvW as a roamer, I’m looking for a D/D backstab glass cannon build, I’m used to dodging, played a melee mesmer full zerk, so that isn’t an issue and it’s a nice challenge of course, but I’m looking for some advice from you experienced thieves for some builds.

Best regards

there is the traditional 25/30/0/0/0 and just put the last 15 in acro or trickery. it is the glassiest cannoniest thing we have. there are also more survivable builds like 10/30/30/0/0 that heals and removes conditions while in stealth, giving it some improved staying power. there are hidden killer builds that rely on said trait to giveback stabs 100% crit chance so they can make great use of valkyrie armor, or just so they don’t have to hope they don’t have the odd non crit back stab. you do have to give up a 20% damage bonus on enemies below 50% hp to get it though. it comes down to how much glass do you want in your cannon.

Thanks, I’d prefer zerker with maybe some knights to add a little bit of toughness for wvw, the traditional one seems really full glass cannon and looks like it can do an insane amount of damage.

What do you think of this one: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAoYVlUmCO3eS9E95Ex2jdqTeqzgmts/wVB

some valkyrie or soldiers will likely serve you better, thieves get a better return off of vitality than toughness, at least up to a point. also, you may want to use fleet shadows over power of inertia while you get used to position in stealth for back stabs. it also helps you run away, which is invaluable while you are learning.

Thank you for the suggestion, what would you suggest to trade off for valk or soldier gear, jewels or maybe a chest piece/legs or daggers?

it’s really up to you, though I would recommend not going below 40% crit chance. honestly if you want to add survivability to it hidden killer would help significantly as you wouldn’t have to worry about crit chance as much. then you could just add valkyrie gear till your crit chance dropped to around 30%. when your opponents health hits 50% you gain fury from one of your traits, and have a 50% crit chance for 10 seconds, which should be enough to finish them off. and even without that trait 30% enough for the last half of a fight with the amount of power that build has.

Hm, that seems like a pretty good choice for a tanky build, what do you think of going full zerker? Mainly a glass cannon spec with the survivability coming from evades and stealth, could you use the editor to make an example of a spec that could do that? Btw appreciate all the advice you’ve given me so far thanks alot

I agree with Grimm, if you want to base your build off of backstab, the difference in full zerker vs going valkyrie or cavalier isn’t that big since you will have 100% crit off of hidden killer anyway. You will crit more often from your autoattacks , but that’s not where most of your damage output is from.

To be blunt, stealth defense can be finicky especially if people start throwing down AoE’s. Can you go full zerker thief and be successful? Certainly, but in my opinion you can vastly increase your margin of error while getting pretty much the same damage output going valkyrie or cavalier and slotting beryl or ruby orbs.

Check out the damage output this dude is getting off of valkyrie and divinity:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Yishis-RIOT-WvW-Post-Nerf-Thief-Outnumbered/first#post1789655

(It also helps that this guy plays the class like a boss, my skill level is nowhere near that)

Thanks man, that guy is insanely good, I still want DD though, but would you suggest adding cavalier to the zerk or valk? And I’m still not sure where to add them, on which of the pieces

Leths.6751:

Hm, that seems like a pretty good choice for a tanky build, what do you think of going full zerker? Mainly a glass cannon spec with the survivability coming from evades and stealth, could you use the editor to make an example of a spec that could do that? Btw appreciate all the advice you’ve given me so far thanks alot

honestly just take roll for initiative and signet of agility, along side vigor on healing from acrobatics and the build you linked earlier will work for that. I will warn you though, full zerker on a thief is asking to be accidentally one-shot by someone at the first mistake. definitely not the easiest build to learn with.

Thanks for all your help guys, and thank you Grimm for taking me into TS3 to help me out, I have an idea where to go from here, and thanks for your build for wvw