Guild Wars 2

This is a build I mainly designed for dungeons, but it works in general PvE too. It is a 5/6/0/1/2 build, and traited to provide swiftness and fury to both yourself and the group. Since Thief usually don’t have this when they need it, this is much better than not having it at all or relying on groups to bring them. It is also useful if you are stealthing through mobs, you can use Steal (untargeted) to grant a few seconds of swiftness to everyone close by. Along with Runes of the Pack and the swiftness on dodge trait, you can maintain swiftness and fury on yourself and the group for about half the time. I choose Pack runes because it seemed to fit this build the best, also with Scholars I was rarely able to get the +10% bonus.

Note: if you want perma swiftness, you can trait 3 into Acrobatics for it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoY8al8Mp6pFOx3JsPRxLBtdGa+G8aN6OhA0DA-ThRBwAXV+dT9HU6HIu/AgnAgZlgAA-e

Any thoughts on the build, or how I can improve it?

Yeah, use the meta build for dungeons.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Thief_-_D/D_S/P_Shortbow

I don’t know why swiftness is so important for you. The best thing a thief can do is bringing damage to the table (or stealth to skip parts).

If you want swiftness:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Medical_Pack
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pot_Of_Hylek_Poison
=
Perma swiftness

Just run the build that apocom linked.
Need more info? Check Dulfy
http://dulfy.net/2014/07/10/gw2-thief-pve-class-guide/

Yup. Thrill of the Crime and Runes of the Pack are a nice combination. I use it myself in PvP. When pugging in PvE it’s an issue that you can’t rely on the pugs to have good, or effective or even useful builds, and a lot use stat combinations like soldier’s and knight’s. Being able to provide buffs to at the least provide some of the stats those people are lacking is pretty big, and goes a long way to increasing chances of success. It’s one of the reasons why elementalists were so good as a pug class - because they were able to stack up a lot of might for their allies. The other reasons thought, was that they had good damage potential while being very forgiving, and they also provided protection and healing to their allies. Thieves can’t effectively do this, so while being able to provide fury is a good thing, it doesn’t address the issue of offensive capacity in full or all the issues. The thing with elementalists is, it was what they do best. I’d say keep that in mind and focus on what you can do best as a thief. That would be dealing damage, reviving allies, stealthing past mobs, and possibly providing some fury to the group. I wouldn’t get too held up on maintaining permanent swiftness for them or yourself; you have infiltrator’s arrow after all.Those 5 points in acrobatics would be better placed in trickery or deadly arts.

Other good traits like increased movement speed while in stealth to keep you ahead of the group so they don’t run through shadow refuge if you started with smoke screen blasting, and your own condition cleansing with 10 shadow arts can be ignored and traited for during an instance now, and then switched back after serving their purpose. Before that wasn’t possible. That was a reason for many build variations in the past - for those that wanted to have access to these traits when needed. Now you can’t really go wrong; going deep into deadly arts and critical strikes is it. There’s nothing wrong with your build. It’s nice and good to see some thought about allies is given. You’ll still get criticized though.. Mostly by people who just want to be the ones to point out meta builds and how everyone should be using them.

I really don’t get Rune of the Pack. Swiftness is not that good, just stealth if you have a hard time with some runs.

If you find it hard to keep 90% for scholar because you play with pugs, take Rune of the Ranger (mini count) or Eagle. If you want to make better use of trill of the crime Rune of Rage would be better. You only give 1 might, increasing its duration would be useless, but fury is good so increasing its duration would’t be so bad.

Why combined training over Dagger Training? Pistol Whip is good, but a 5% increased dmg on all Dagger skill is better than a 5% dmg increased on pistol whip only (who use death blossom really).

I don’t get the focus on swiftness for dungeon. Why put 5pts in acrobatic over the last 5pts in deadly arts to get revealed training.

Overall, its a good build. I question the choice of rune and the focus on switfness, but even with that you will have more dps than most pugs.

Thaddeus.4891:

I really don’t get Rune of the Pack. Swiftness is not that good, just stealth if you have a hard time with some runs.

If you find it hard to keep 90% for scholar because you play with pugs, take Rune of the Ranger (mini count) or Eagle. If you want to make better use of trill of the crime Rune of Rage would be better. You only give 1 might, increasing its duration would be useless, but fury is good so increasing its duration would’t be so bad.

Why combined training over Dagger Training? Pistol Whip is good, but a 5% increased dmg on all Dagger skill is better than a 5% dmg increased on pistol whip only (who use death blossom really).

I don’t get the focus on swiftness for dungeon. Why put 5pts in acrobatic over the last 5pts in deadly arts to get revealed training.

Overall, its a good build. I question the choice of rune and the focus on switfness, but even with that you will have more dps than most pugs.

Power is the most effective offensive stat, primarily. Up to a point.. I forget the figure but it’s over 3000 power, precision becomes more effective. Rune of the Pack grants power. Eagle and Rage don’t.

The power from Pack trumps the precision from Eagle. Pack also gives +125 precision as the 6th bonus which is active all the time. It’s increase as an overall percentage depend on your other offensive stats, but I know that with 2/0/0/6/6 (PvP build) that +125 precision works out to be a bit over +4% or +5% damage overall (I forget which one, but it’s better either way). This makes it better than +6% less than half the time. (Less than half the time as opposed to half yes, because if you’re killing it faster after 50% health then it takes less time than the first half).

The power from Pack trumps the Ferocity from Rage. Gaining fury 10 seconds every 20 seconds is statistically the same as gaining it for 15 seconds every 30. The second and sixth bonuses on Rage only increase that 15 seconds to 18. That’s not much for two rune slots. It works out to be an extra 20% critical chance for 3 seconds every 30 seconds, which is 10% of the time, whereas Pack gives that +125 precision, which is roughly 5.95% crit chance, 100% of the time.

Pack is better without accounting for the swiftness and might, or the fact that that fury (and swiftness and might) goes to your allies as well as yourself.

Edit: Actually slightly wrong. I can’t remember whether +125 precision worked out to be little over +4% or +5% damage overall for the mentioned PvP build. I don’t need to work it out again though because it doesn’t change the conclusion.

125 precision is 6% crit chance. How a 6% crit chance will increase you dmg by 4-5%??

Rune of the Ranger give you 155 precision over the 125 precision of the Rune of Pack. Rune of the Ranger Win.

Rune of the Ranger give you 100 ferocity and constant 7% dmg modifier over the 175 power of the Rune of Pack.
Rune of Ranger Win.

But you are right with the rune of the eagle. Less good than Rune of pack.

I won’t gonna defend the Rune of Rage here. I would never take that. But OP wanted to give more boons and fury is was better than swiftness in dungeon. Keep in mind that if Rage will give you less personal dps, the increased duration on fury will affect all your group. I see both Pack and Rage as relatively bad, but if he want to give boons with steal, Rage will be better overall.

Thaddeus.4891:

125 precision is 6% crit chance. How a 6% crit chance will increase you dmg by 4-5%??

You calculate the average damage increase overall, acquired by the increase of the stat in question, in order to compare it with another stat.

Thaddeus.4891:

Rune of the Ranger give you 155 precision over the 125 precision of the Rune of Pack. Rune of the Ranger Win.

Rune of the Ranger give you 100 ferocity and constant 7% dmg modifier over the 175 power of the Rune of Pack.
Rune of Ranger Win.

Not quite.

Rune of the Ranger:
+175 precision 100% of the time = average of +8.33% critical chance
Total: +8.33% critical chance
Rune of the Pack:
+125 precision 100% of the time = average of +5.95% critical chance
+Fury 50% of the time = average of 10% critical chance
Total: +15.95% critical chance

But, that’s not sufficient. 7% damage increase and ferocity does not simply compare to power. We need maths.

Damage = Weapon strength * Power * Modifier * Skill coefficient / Armor
Factoring in critical hits is of course a simple matter of increasing X% of the result by Y%, where X is critical chance and Y is critical damage.

Critical chance gets rounded down - at least, I think it does. Armour isn’t really important here since it’ll be the same for both calculations, but let’s assume 2600 (base for heavy) just to make the number smaller and easier to read. The coefficient isn’t important either - so long as it’s above 0 - since it also will be the same in both calculations, so let’s just assume a coefficient of 1.

Let’s take the OP’s build to compare. Assuming a damage coefficient of 1, the maximum damage modifier and health-related critical chance boosts from traits and upgrades, the stats without runes are:
Weapon strength: 905-1000 (average: 952.5)
Damage modifiers: +5%, +10%, +10% (totals +27.05% or *1.2705) (from Superior Sigil of Force, and the traits Exposed Weakness and First Strikes)
Damage coefficient: 1
Power: 2241
Precision: 2134
Ferocity: 1028
Fury up-time: 30.23% (from Thrill of the Crime: 31.75/10.5)
Additional critical chance: +5% (from the trait Keen Observer)

With Runes of the Pack:
Weapon strength: +0 [952.5]
Damage modifiers: +0% [+27.05% or *1.2705]
Damage coefficient: +0 [1]
Power: +175 [2416]
Precision: +125 [2259]
Ferocity: +0 [1028]
Fury up-time: +50% [+95.34%]
Additional critical chance: +0% [+5%]

Average critical chance: ((2259-832)/21)+(95.34/100*20)+5 = 92%
Critical damage: (1028/15)+150 = 218%

Average non-critical hit: (952.5*2416*1.2705*1)/2600 = 1124.5098
Average overall damage with critical chance and critical damage factored in: (1124.5098/100*92*2.18)+(1124.5098/100*8) = 2345.2776

With Runes of the Ranger:
Weapon strength: +0 [952.5]
Damage modifiers: +7% [+35.9435% or *1.359435]
Damage coefficient: +0 [1]
Power: +0 [2241]
Precision: +175 [2309]
Ferocity: +100 [1128]
Fury up-time: +0% [30.23%]
Additional critical chance: +0% [+5%]

Average critical chance: ((2309-832)/21)+(30.23/100*20)+5 = 81%
Critical damage: (1128/15)+150 = 225%

Average non-critical hit: (952.5*2241*1.359435*1)/2600 = 1116.0713
Average overall damage with critical chance and critical damage factored in: (1116.0713/100*81*2.25)+(1116.0713/100*19) = 2246.0935

Pack takes this win.

I don’t agree on your average critical chance for the Rune of the Pack. But the difference is small.

In the end you are right. The Rune of the Pack have better dps than the Rune of the Ranger in that particular situation. If nobody give any amount of fury and if you get hit at least 4 times in about 1sec or less each 20 second.

Your fury uptime estimate won’t happen in any real situation. Its 25% chance when you get hit with a 20sec CD. So when the 20sec CD finish you need to get hit and you have 25% chance that it give you fury.

In dungeon, those two runes will probably give around the same amount of dps if there is no other source of fury. I have to confess that I didn’t expect that, but I have to agree now that i did the math too. I’m use to have 100% uptime of fury in most of my group, even pugs, so I kind of underestimate the power of the fury on hits.

So conclusion.

If your party give no fury. Rune of the pack will have about 4% more dps than ranger AND will give about 40-50% uptime fury to the whole party, which is a significant boost.

If your party give fury. Rune of the Ranger will have about 4% more dps over the Rune of the Pack.

Rune of the Pack is more interesting that I originally though for casual player, but again you need to get hit by enemies so it can be quickly get ugly or just drop in term of dps.

Edit : Scholar will give you about 5-6% more dps than Ranger. But the damage multiplier is harder to keep so it depend on you if you feel you can stay at 90% hp enough time. If you can keep your hp at 90% for 45% of the time or more, then Scholar will be better. If you can’t, then Ranger will be better.

Of course! The maths I believe to be right but there is the flaw of needing to get hit. I subconsciously dismissed that detail; I’m a PvPer and we get hit all the time!