Guild Wars 2

What’s up fellow thieves?

I’m here to talk about a rather interesting twist and perhaps a new style of play compared to the current meta for pvp thieves. Lifesteal Thief.

Are you tired of getting rocked by guardians? Want a bit more survivability when you don’t have the first hit? Are high dps counters like blind and Aegis ruining your day?

You’re in luck. With the Lifesteal Thief, you’ll be making guardians give up, rangers rage, and turret engis cry in distraught shame.
My version if the build is S/D SB, however, any combination of weapons will work fine, however, I encourage the shortbow because of the mobility it brings to the table.

Let’s get started. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl8Mp8pdPxwJsPNBMRt9yVBdIXrg2JQEEAA-TZBBABAcKAEc/ByLD03DAIgjAAA

I know what you’re thinking “Eww, Invigorating Precision? Assassin’s pendant? Sigils of accuracy? Rune of the Traveler? who doesn’t run venoms? And thieves’ guild is the worst elite!”
Hear me out though, it all serves a purpose.
Overview:

This build is an early attempt at trying to min-max damage-to-healing ratio while still offering incredible mobility as well as gaining the upper hand in one-v-one situations. It makes heavy use of healing on hit, and man does it hit hard. A good deal of sustain comes from being able to deal constant damage to the enemy, and having a couple stealths to secure a kill or get away. As a result, the surviving most encounters is easy, even if you’re on the losing side, as long as you’re dishing out damage or remain in stealth. The build also isn’t designed to deal as much damage as possible, either, but to merely stay alive long enough to deal significant damage.

Naturally, this build all about being able to crit near constantly to get the most benefit out of having a series of on-crit bonuses. And at 79.95% critical chance (At idle), you’re able to go through players like a hot knife through butter, without wasting any benefits that fury provides (not going over 100% crit chance).

Sigils of accuracy ensure you’re hitting those crits and seeing your traits pay off. Despite being a “worse” combination (Lower flat dps than running berserker amulet and sigils of force), they provide a great deal of sustain for thieves that rely on being able to crit reliably, such as this. Despite being a 6/6/2/0/0 build, it continually proves to be quite a good balance between lethality and survivability.

https://i.gyazo.com/0fe96b9e93373a5f3522f1ab8233f76f.png
[Pictured: Stats. Note that crit chance. Mmm]
Deadly Arts:
In this traitline, I’ve selected mug, sundering strikes, and Panic strike to be my first trait set. Mug is a fairly decent immediate heal, and at 2k, it’s almost more worth it to regularly use it instead of your heal skill in a clutch situation. Sundering strikes might be a controversial pick, but I personally find it synchronizes well with the rest of the build by consistently placing a condition on the target (Which exposed weakness can take advantage of with an extra 10% damage.) Panic strike is one of the best grandmaster traits for the Deadly arts line, (Because, honestly, we’re not running venoms so Residual Venom need not apply and the debuff associated Revealed Training is honestly something to be avoided. 200 power for 2 seconds just isn’t worth a good escape.)

Critical Strikes:
Secondly, in this line, we have Practiced Tolerance (survivability!), Critical Haste (amazing synergy.) and Invigorating Precision (lifesteal is god here).
Assuming you deal 2.5k in a crit, Invigorating Precision returns about 375 health, in addition to Signet of Malice’s 139 per strike. So, with most attacks that you deal are going to return about 514 per attack. The beauty of it, however, comes with fighting groups of people. If you’re able to focus and attack two targets at the same time, (IE, engineers, minionmancers, shatter mesmers, rangers, (spectral?) guardians, and other thieves that run thieves guild, as well as multiple opponents.) Every swing of your sword or autoattack of your SB that’kittenting more than one target returns you twice as much health and deals double damage to whomever you’re fighting against (Divided amongst them). 514 attack now returns 1028 for two targets and 1542 for 3, etc.

A good strategy to use to your advantage is to swing wildly at any of the opposite team who dares try to heal their ally. This not only keeps them from getting rallied, but also can do massive damage to the person doing the healing, subsequently healing yourself and giving them a bad time.

Shadow arts:
Finally, in the Shadow arts line, I run Master of Deception in order to get quicker access to both Blinding Powder and Shadow Refuge. Of course, this is a malleable part of the build, however, easy access to stealth provides safe map mobility, quick escapes, and kitten adversaries. Never underestimate the power of a well-used blinding powder.

Equipment:
Short bow is almost required for any self respecting thief (Unless they’re trying something silly with a mainhand pistol) as it allows easy map navigation, assists in quick escapes, and more build specifically, an easy ranged way to pick health off from faraway groups of targets. Regardless, I fitted it with Sigil of Force and Accuracy to improve my healing output as well as damage potential.

Sword/Dagger is a bit more out of personal preference. High damage cleaving hits provided by the autoattack give good health back from clusters of enemies as well as the mobility that Infiltrator’s strike offers. Flanking strike combines a boon rip with a dodge (Great for most boon reliant classes like guardian and elementalist.) Finally, Dancing daggers provides a good boost to your health due to the multi-target potential and ability to cripple (allowing you to keep a bit of distance.) Cloak and Dagger is unfortunately too high cost and low stealth for me to find it effective, but those with good initiative management might be able to get away with using it to dodge out of fights instead of blinding powder. Personally, I’m only one to run from a fight if I’m out of initiative, so I hardly ever get value out of using it.

Of course, this is more for personal preference. As far as the sigils go, however, generosity and accuracy are great for dealing with condition damage, and with near constant crits, you’re usually ditching them onto whoever you’re fighting faster than they can apply them.

Assassins Amulet provides solid assassins stats, thereby increasing critical chance and vastly increasing viability when combined with Practiced Tolerance. Despite having less damage output than Berzerker’s stats, the sustain that comes with it is invaluable to the build.

Rune of the Traveler is probably the thing I’m most uncertain about running. It offers a 25% increase in movement speed in exchange for some significant stats. After trying rune of the pack, rune of the eagle, and rune of the scholar, I personally found that Rune of Divinity offered the most secure means of staying alive and still dealing solid damage. However, I personally deemed a movement speed buff to be worth more in terms of utility than extra stats, but I wasn’t willing to drop signet of Agility for it.

Utility Skills:
Signet of Malice provides solid heal-on-hit that’s a little less random than Invigorating Precision. Of course, it’s important not to pop the skill unless you’re no longer going to deal continuous damage. (Like when you have to turn tail from a fight) Overall, it synergizes well with heal on crit by supplementing a little extra.

Shadow Refuge is one of the best thief utility skills in the game. With almost 8 seconds of stealth, it allows you to travel about the map in style.

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/43847/gw011.jpg
[Pictured: BAMF]

Blinding Powder is one of those more controversial picks. I’ve found it’s saved me countless times when the heat gets turned up. A good blinding powder, however, can be the difference between stomping an opponent or joining them in death. It’s also great for quick revives and heals. Also, with the correct timing, it can be used to interrupt enemy stomp attempts on teammates who are autoattacking.

Signet of agility is a solid pick because it not only raises critical chance (and health when running Practiced Tolerance) but also provides a cheap condition cleanse for pesky conditions when backing off from a fight.

Thieves guild is likely one of those underrated elites. It not only confuses AI, but also might confuse your opponent too. Oftentimes I can cast it in stealth only to down someone a moment later because they’ve blown all their cooldowns on killing off the thieves. The thieves also come equipped with moderate to good damage potential, as well as scorpion wire for interrupts and CC. A good alternative might be Dagger Storm for its reflect potential and high yield for stolen life, however, it tends to be a bit more situational than thieves guild is, which works well for groups as well as difficult one v one situations, which Dagger Storm lacks. Basilisk Venom, while being good for CC, is far too easily blocked by Aegis and also requires certain traits to be good.

This build is good against:
1. Groups of people in team fights.
2. Builds that use NPCs for DPS or support
3. Aegis, as the build doesn’t rely on burst damage, as well as blind for the same reason.
4. Most classes.
5. Noobs.

This build is bad against
1. Any kind of block or lots of CC.
2. Power engineers, some ranger builds, and some guardian builds.
3. Heavy burst damage.
4. People who actually know how to play.

TL:DR Invigorating Precision based build is actually pretty solid when it’s built right.

General gameplay tips:

1. Using the right race is important with any pvp character. Tanky classes would benefit playing as charr or norn, while squishy ones like thieves would benefit from rolling smaller humans or even Asuran characters. This became such a problem that Arenanet opted to add an option to make all characters human during matches.

2. Know your limits. Never pick a fair fight unless you have to. Fight on points, and if you go down, try and make sure that the point stays uncapped as long as possible by sitting atop it.

3. A majority of this build requires constant dps to be healing. Try and get as much dps in as you can, and you’ll be rewarded with additional health.

4. Try rearranging your keyboard scheme to be more intuitive. WASD are my movement keys, and so skills 1-5 are set to Q, E, Z, X, C, respectively. And 6-9 are set to 1-4.

Video? I’ll likely work one one in the future. In the meantime, I hope to see you all in the arena.

https://i.gyazo.com/0347d5c84bfb57297292aa876e891194.gif
[Pictured: #winning]

Of course, I always welcome any constructive criticism you might have. By all means, try it out, see if you enjoy it as much as I do.

On a lifesteal build, what made you not pick Sigil of Blood/Leeching or Rune of Vampirism? Also, this is quite similar to my faceroll S/P build for PvE. I like it.

Invigorating Precision is good indeed, especially with pistol whip! I actually use that trait to solo camps and towers in WvW (haven’t had the chance to solo a keep yet).
Trying the trait against players… I don’t see why not. I’ll give it a shot

Use pistol secondary, pistol whip will work better. Change elite to basilisk. Change to lower steal cooldown and daze trait line instead of power.

sword 2, Pistol whip, steal.
Long range gap closing, daze, 3 boons, 2 boon steal, and alot of hits activating your healing signet.

Sword 2 out. Basilisk venom, sword 2, pistol whip.

Etc etc.

Much better synergy with what you are trying to do and achieve. It also works well. Pistol offhand can also daze, and blinding field for stomps and support.

Video for you all. I had a lot of fun making it, hahaha