Sinister thief
In case it isn’t clear, venom share does not require you to stay in range of allies for it to work. You can share and then run off somewhere else and they still get the venoms. It could use a radius buff, but it’s not too bad.
Choice between venoms or traps/caltrops or something else entirely comes down to playstyle. If you run with a minion master and share venoms with him, you can get 30 stacks of poison on a single target. If you’re alone, that same skill is 6 stacks. Traps and caltrops are beter for area control while venoms are better for bursting and supporting your allies.
Switch critical strikes for trickery. Sinister is not going to 100-0 someone with a backstab crit. It just gives good supplemental damage to your very strong conditions.
Swap the signet. Shortbow gives plenty of mobility, and you’re missing out on many other useful utilities. Shadowstep is a stunbreak, condi clear and mobility, SR is great reset tool, and there are other good choices. If you decide on venomshare, you may consider ambush trap and thieves guild if you’re roaming solo, in which case improv could be an alternative to potent poison.
D/D with a glassy sinister build is risky. DD can pull it off with lotus training and tons of dodges, but you may be better off with P/D. It has the benefit of having a powerful hybrid stealth attack, while backstab doesn’t apply conditions and death blossom does little direct damage. P/D can also apply torment and the range and constant stealthing for sneak attack will help you stay alive.
yea i tried the same build but with trickery instead, caltrops and dodges and i survived more in bosses for example. Tho with venom share i did a lot more damage with the poison stacking, some serious condi damage, but i love dodges and those kind of skills (my fav ranger skill is lightning reflexes so lol) so i dont know i suppose i can swap between build of find a happy medium take the signet out for the poison or something.
Also you are right, SB #5 ability is equal or greater than 25% speed, when i wasnt using the signet sometimes i passed people running with speed buff of some kind, i just hate feeling so slow but yea i suppose i need that utility skill more than 25% speed.
In case it isn’t clear, venom share does not require you to stay in range of allies for it to work. You can share and then run off somewhere else and they still get the venoms. It could use a radius buff, but it’s not too bad.
Choice between venoms or traps/caltrops or something else entirely comes down to playstyle. If you run with a minion master and share venoms with him, you can get 30 stacks of poison on a single target. If you’re alone, that same skill is 6 stacks. Traps and caltrops are beter for area control while venoms are better for bursting and supporting your allies.
Switch critical strikes for trickery. Sinister is not going to 100-0 someone with a backstab crit. It just gives good supplemental damage to your very strong conditions.
Swap the signet. Shortbow gives plenty of mobility, and you’re missing out on many other useful utilities. Shadowstep is a stunbreak, condi clear and mobility, SR is great reset tool, and there are other good choices. If you decide on venomshare, you may consider ambush trap and thieves guild if you’re roaming solo, in which case improv could be an alternative to potent poison.
D/D with a glassy sinister build is risky. DD can pull it off with lotus training and tons of dodges, but you may be better off with P/D. It has the benefit of having a powerful hybrid stealth attack, while backstab doesn’t apply conditions and death blossom does little direct damage. P/D can also apply torment and the range and constant stealthing for sneak attack will help you stay alive.
Necros and venom share thieves have so much synergy its ridiculous, me and a necro were getting zerged by packs ob mobs during some event in VB. The necro used that minion shout as well as summoning Flesh Golem before entering RS. I cast Spider and Basi Venom, the 2 vets break bars disappeared followed by the mobs dropping like flies left and right….
Never going back to using a zerker thief xD Currently running dire armors, sinister weps, and am working on sinister accessories
In case it isn’t clear, venom share does not require you to stay in range of allies for it to work. You can share and then run off somewhere else and they still get the venoms. It could use a radius buff, but it’s not too bad.
Choice between venoms or traps/caltrops or something else entirely comes down to playstyle. If you run with a minion master and share venoms with him, you can get 30 stacks of poison on a single target. If you’re alone, that same skill is 6 stacks. Traps and caltrops are beter for area control while venoms are better for bursting and supporting your allies.
Switch critical strikes for trickery. Sinister is not going to 100-0 someone with a backstab crit. It just gives good supplemental damage to your very strong conditions.
Swap the signet. Shortbow gives plenty of mobility, and you’re missing out on many other useful utilities. Shadowstep is a stunbreak, condi clear and mobility, SR is great reset tool, and there are other good choices. If you decide on venomshare, you may consider ambush trap and thieves guild if you’re roaming solo, in which case improv could be an alternative to potent poison.
D/D with a glassy sinister build is risky. DD can pull it off with lotus training and tons of dodges, but you may be better off with P/D. It has the benefit of having a powerful hybrid stealth attack, while backstab doesn’t apply conditions and death blossom does little direct damage. P/D can also apply torment and the range and constant stealthing for sneak attack will help you stay alive.
Necros and venom share thieves have so much synergy its ridiculous, me and a necro were getting zerged by packs ob mobs during some event in VB. The necro used that minion shout as well as summoning Flesh Golem before entering RS. I cast Spider and Basi Venom, the 2 vets break bars disappeared followed by the mobs dropping like flies left and right….
Never going back to using a zerker thief xD Currently running dire armors, sinister weps, and am working on sinister accessories
one question why dire armor with sinister trinkets and weapons? i mean i dont think a few sinister pieces will give you enough precision to make a difference on crit. i dont know lol, like i said i suck a thief. How much precision is needed? I have a dire set also but using sinister now, when i made my thief i desided he was going to be the condition guy because my other characters were direct dmg. That was long ago, with the change to conditions i suppose make everything better.
If you’re not running sigils, runes, or abilities that proc on crit, then precision is just a passive increase to overall damage and you can use however little or much you’re comfortable with. If you are running sigils, runes, or abilities that proc on crit and/or are concerned with maximizing, then precision is much more important as both a passive increase to ability damage as well as slightly increasing the frequency of on-crit effects. He likely mixes dire with sinister because he feels he may be unnecessarily tanky with full dire or too squishy with full sinister. My understanding of PvE Thief is we should gear for damage and rely upon dodges and movement for survival over gear. However, I’m also a very limited in my PvE experience and have none whatsoever in the content that supposedly can’t be survived with just timely dodge rolls. Nonetheless, I hope this is helpful.
I personally like Carrion as a set in-between Dire and Sinister.
Unfortunately there is still no Carrion accessories though…
Dire armor will provide a little boost in survivability while retaining high condi damage. You only lose a little direct damage. I never liked carrion as I felt the power without precision didn’t give enough damage to matter, while the vitality without toughness didn’t give enough durability. With impacting disruption and bound, I think a carrion P/P hybrid could be interesting though.
In case it isn’t clear, venom share does not require you to stay in range of allies for it to work. You can share and then run off somewhere else and they still get the venoms. It could use a radius buff, but it’s not too bad.
Choice between venoms or traps/caltrops or something else entirely comes down to playstyle. If you run with a minion master and share venoms with him, you can get 30 stacks of poison on a single target. If you’re alone, that same skill is 6 stacks. Traps and caltrops are beter for area control while venoms are better for bursting and supporting your allies.
Switch critical strikes for trickery. Sinister is not going to 100-0 someone with a backstab crit. It just gives good supplemental damage to your very strong conditions.
Swap the signet. Shortbow gives plenty of mobility, and you’re missing out on many other useful utilities. Shadowstep is a stunbreak, condi clear and mobility, SR is great reset tool, and there are other good choices. If you decide on venomshare, you may consider ambush trap and thieves guild if you’re roaming solo, in which case improv could be an alternative to potent poison.
D/D with a glassy sinister build is risky. DD can pull it off with lotus training and tons of dodges, but you may be better off with P/D. It has the benefit of having a powerful hybrid stealth attack, while backstab doesn’t apply conditions and death blossom does little direct damage. P/D can also apply torment and the range and constant stealthing for sneak attack will help you stay alive.
Necros and venom share thieves have so much synergy its ridiculous, me and a necro were getting zerged by packs ob mobs during some event in VB. The necro used that minion shout as well as summoning Flesh Golem before entering RS. I cast Spider and Basi Venom, the 2 vets break bars disappeared followed by the mobs dropping like flies left and right….
Never going back to using a zerker thief xD Currently running dire armors, sinister weps, and am working on sinister accessories
one question why dire armor with sinister trinkets and weapons? i mean i dont think a few sinister pieces will give you enough precision to make a difference on crit. i dont know lol, like i said i suck a thief. How much precision is needed? I have a dire set also but using sinister now, when i made my thief i desided he was going to be the condition guy because my other characters were direct dmg. That was long ago, with the change to conditions i suppose make everything better.
I dont like being glassy as hell, where one mistake may be my last, the damage mitigation offered by the dire is must in scenarios where either im being super mobbed down by enemies, or my condi’s wont kill a vet/champ i’m soloing in time.
Also timely dodges only go so far, usually if im out of LDB, venoms/caltrops on CD, i’ll use SB 5 and kite for a bit (have the rune that causes bleeding on weapon swap so im not at too much of a loss). Still figuring out whether im gonna run runes of the krait, runes of Orr, or mad king runes though (input is greatly appreciated here)
As far precision goes, when running a condi thief unless you have sigils that proc only on crit it isnt all that necessary.
(edited by Kill.3458)