Guild Wars 2

Since the ruckus over stealth in recent days, I’m considering returning to my old build. I dubbed it “The Acrobat”, and for good reason. While the Revealed increase made rotations for the S/D daze routine a lot more awkward, I’ve decided to use the weapon set in the way that I used to – being a royal PITA for mobs while dishing out my damage, being supporty when required. It worked for Fractals 30+, at least. Keep a spare second Dagger for small encounters where spike damage can be exploited, but apart from that, it’s mostly S/D and Shortbow.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|c.1c.hd.8.1c.h17|5.1g.h17|1c.a4.1c.a4.1c.a4.1c.a4.1c.a4.1c.a4|1g.67.2s.0.3s.0.1g.67.1g.67.3s.0|0.u61b.k16.k39.0|39.7|59.5a.5d.5b.5v|e

Basically, this build has a rather high skill floor (like most Thief dungeon melee setups), with decent payoff and nice team support by way of “pseudo-tanking” (maintaining aggro by avoiding damage altogether), stealths for revives and aggro maintenance and Smokescreen for protection against projectiles and to shelter ressing (HIGHLY overlooked). From memory, I only ever needed to use FS for evasion very rarely. The amount of damage mitigations available in this build is just hilarious.

Situational changes:

Withdraw/HiS = depending on threat posed by conditions at any given time, but bear in mind the access to Vigor that Withdraw grants (I chose the Curry Butternut Squash Soup over Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew for this reason).

Smokescreen/Shadowstep = depending on threat posed by projectiles and necessity for getting around the battlefield quickly.

Cloaked in Shadow/Shadow’s Embrace/Infusion of Shadow – depending on what is best for each fight.

Furious Retaliation/Side Strike – Fighting a lot of Silvers with high HP? Stick with SS. Lots of weaker mobs? Fury, fury everywhere.

Important things to remember as a dungeon Thief, particularly in this build:

Shortbow – Choking Gas + Cluster Bomb = Area Weakness. Highly overlooked combo and easier to execute in succession with Quick Recovery.

Survival comes through evasion – you won’t be sponging hits, you’ll be avoiding them altogether, whether that’s dodging, skill-tied evasion or blind. The only reason I have Soldier Armor and Emerald Orbs is for when I screw up (I’m prone to brain farts), I have a little defence to sponge whatever I let get through. If you’re confident enough, go full Berserker. It’s also because I’m incredibly cheap and don’t want to buy more armor just yet when I have 5 other characters to continue gearing. My advice is if you’re going to put survivability anywhere, put it in your main armor – accessories should be all about the damage.

Don’t be afraid to switch out utilities when needed – too often do I see Thieves maintain pointless skills on their skillbars.

If I think of anything else, I’ll edit. Try it! My GPU is dead, so I can’t record gameplay just yet, but when I get a replacement I’ll make a full video with demonstration. For now, if you like, just plonk the traits on and see how it works for yourself and try and get comfortable with it.

Important thing to note – I WOULD have Berserker weapons and FULL Ascended Berserker trinkets, but I’m still terrified of transmuting my Bolt and Incinerator, and I spent all my laurels on Chauncey, and I have yet to get the new earrings. I have simply put in my own stuff for my own reference, but change the weapons to Berserker and full accessories to Ascended Berserker if you please.

I use a similar build now and it’s pretty solid and some versatility. Dagger/dagger is also well supported if you need it. I find it offers the least when the best tactics for an encounter are pistol/pistol or big aoe + signet of malice.

Yeah, I switched out to D/D against smaller encounters for the higher damage and in huge encounters eg. Dredge Fractal, I temporarily stayed further back with Shortbow to apply the Weakness and good AoE damage until the numbers thinned out.

Thank you so much for reposting this! I found your earlier one (and got your PM – thanks!) and I’m just so excited to switch to this. It’s exactly what I was looking for.

The new link is fantastic as it can really help a lowbie like (my thief is level 40!) for figuring out what sorts of gear to get.

BIG THANKS ! <3

No problem, glad you like it

This seems like a very low skill floor to me. You’ve given up about 70% of your dps for hp armor and defensive utility.

I’d like to know where that arbitrary 70% came from. Pre-patch I utilised 0/30/25/15/0 and stacked 10-ish Might when using the stealth cycle and dodges for damage, but I removed it for the sake of Revealed screwing the cycle. That was one of the most reliable methods of buffing DPS, and admittedly that is gone, but where is this “70%”? Like I said, if I weren’t so cheap, I’d go full Berserker on the gear, so don’t mention that.

Auesis.7301:

I’d like to know where that arbitrary 70% came from. Pre-patch I utilised 0/30/25/15/0 and stacked 10-ish Might when using the stealth cycle and dodges for damage, but I removed it for the sake of Revealed screwing the cycle. That was one of the most reliable methods of buffing DPS, and admittedly that is gone, but where is this “70%”? Like I said, if I weren’t so cheap, I’d go full Berserker on the gear, so don’t mention that.

Do you include CnD and tactical strike in with your damage rotation with your sword?

I used to, but as I’ve already said, I cannot test how well it works in to a rotation post-patch. That’s why I downplayed stealthing, as I may not even be able to reliably incorporate it at regular intervals (hence 25 SA is not necessary). When I finish building my new rig I can test the difference between the two variations with a 4s debuff time for myself. For now, I’m going off word-of-mouth.

Your build is getting 2903 DPS with the auto attack chain. Compare this to the DPS auto attack chain of a real DPS buidl (6866) and you get roughly 42% of the damage.

So your right, your only losing 68% of your DPS.

And to my knowledge there is nothing that S/D can do that will make up that difference…

Does a “real” DPS build have both 30 DA and 30 CS? If so, I am not even remotely interested in it. I like helping my team in other ways. If I wanted to be a DPS jockey, I’d take my Warrior instead.

Auesis.7301:

Does a “real” DPS build have both 30 DA and 30 CS? If so, I am not even remotely interested in it. I like helping my team in other ways. If I wanted to be a DPS jockey, I’d take my Warrior instead.

100% of your team support is from your utility and weapon skills, all of which can be used on a dps build.

It’s your personal survivability that’s tied to the traits.

Out of interest, is this DPS build also primarily using main-hand dagger, hence not having the potential benefit of cleave? Not that it matters much, because I’m still not convinced. I like having access to both lower cooldowns for my most used utilities (the ones I’m supporting my team with) and stealth blinds (also indirect support at PB range) and higher initiative regen along with the evasion enhancements. It felt synergetic, or at least I’m sure it did, it’s been a LONG time since I used it. I can test it properly mid-next week. Still waiting on the CPU, GPU and monitor.

S/P actually, but D/D is only like 7000 now anyways

D/D is 30/30/10/0/0 you get infused shadow for the CONSTANT cloak and daggers
S/P is 30/30/0/0/10 so you can get the 5% back damage

you could easily go 25/30/0/15/0 with s/p though, that’s usually what i reccomend for newer players

I knew that was what D/D would be, but S/P…that’s a big no-no then. I despise S/P and its playstyle. Nothing to do with ease of play or anything – I just hate the aesthetic and feeling of it. Used 30/30/0/0/10 with S/P for DPS in Arah p4 pre-nerf and…I could not see myself using it anywhere except for that and that alone. Just a personal taste thing. Something about it just isn’t fun. Shame.

trust me, if your running S/D use 30/30/10/0/0 and take your support utilities with full berzerker gear