Guild Wars 2

Can do they do decent range and melee? Is pistols better now? I know I hear in pvp they dont do so hot.

Thief isn’t awful in pvp, it’s just outclassed in the same role by Rev. It’s like saying why would you drive a mini cooper when you could drive a corvette, both will get you there but one is significantly nicer.

Anyways, on topic. I hear thief has one of the highest DPS now, condi venom share is strong and daredevil staff works too. Again though, we have minimal team support, so the question is why bring this DPS that offers no support over a slightly worse one that offers good team support. This is thinking for raids though, for open world it’s perfectly viable and hella fun.

Venomshare thief is highly underrated, but you loose DD traitline unfortunatly. You can support your team as the fastest breakbarkiller ingame and with bountiful theft and lifesteal. Nothing for world records, but very strong for PuGs and organized groups as well.
I think this is one of the best condi builds for dungeons too (50% breakbar dmg + poisson bursts instead of slowly stacking up)

Well if rangers are getting into groups i dont see how thiefs arent.

DeoDose.4237:

I think this is one of the best condi builds for dungeons too (50% breakbar dmg + poisson bursts instead of slowly stacking up)

problem with venomshare outside of raids is it has no AoE damage. venomshare is all single target

Ryou.2398:

Can do they do decent range and melee? Is pistols better now? I know I hear in pvp they dont do so hot.

If you’re talking solo open world HoT PvE, thief is top notch. I’ve only tried rev, necro, ele, and thief to 80 so far, but the thief feels like a god in open world. He moves faster, kills faster, and avoids damage far better than any of the others, in my experience. And when the going gets tough, thief is also by far the best at disengaging and escaping.

If you’re looking for an easy-to-play open world build, I suggest the following setup:

Daredevil: 3-1-2
Deadly Arts: 2-x-3
Crit Strikes: x-2-3

Heal: channeled vigor
Utilities: agility signet, power signet, and bandit’s defense
Elite: impact strike

With unhindered combat, dodging provides full uptime swiftness and breaks movement impairing effects on demand. You have multiple sources of endurance regen between steal, channeled vigor, and the agility signet (as well as smaller gains on all weapon skills) ensuring that you never run out of evades. In fact, you can dodge so much and for longer distances that dodging becomes a faster way of covering ground both in and out of combat.

Impact strike deals strong damage, can keep tough enemies locked down so you can take them out quickly, and is fantastic for breakbars. And bandit’s defense is all the stun break you could ever need.

Invigorating precision in the crit strikes line is a great help for sustaining your health inbetween heals. But if you need stronger heals, channeled vigor and mug together can restore most of your health in a hurry while also providing mobility in the form of a full endurance bar refill and an enemy targeted teleport.

I recommend staff, although d/p works well also. I prefer staff for the area effect damage. D/P is probably a bit more fun to play, but it takes more time to take down groups of enemies when you have to essentially isolate single targets rather than grouping them up and burning them down. S/P is also a good option – better area effect than d/p and a similar playstyle, but staff is still faster.

You need a ranged weapon set as well. I recommend p/p. In open world, when I drop back to range it’s almost always either a single strong enemy with frequent melee range CC or because standing in fire is bad. Unload spam is fairly strong while you have initiative, which matches up nicely because all I really want to do is deal some damage from safety until I can get back into close range and finish the fight.

Shortbow is good for mobility, but the damage is weak particularly against single targets. And you already have great mobility anyway.

For raids, I hear from the more serious raiders out there that thief is rather limited in terms of team support. They have strong DPS and breakbar capability, but that’s about it. Having said that, as a more casual raider, my guild commented last night that everything goes faster (especially breakbars!) with my thief in the raid. So unless your guild is obsessed with min-maxing their raid, I don’t see why thief can’t contribute sufficiently to justify a spot.

Ryou.2398:

and melee? I

/euips staff

1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1

/repeate

kudos on balance ANet

MadVisions.4529:

Ryou.2398:

and melee? I

/euips staff

1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1

/repeate

kudos on balance ANet

for maximum dps, you have to also use bound
and the timing is actually pretty tricky to optimize

reikken.4961:

MadVisions.4529:

Ryou.2398:

and melee? I

/euips staff

1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1

/repeate

kudos on balance ANet

for maximum dps, you have to also use bound
and the timing is actually pretty tricky to optimize

You dodge just enough to keep up that buff…not exactly something I would call ‘tricky’, especially if you’ve ever played anything like condi engi, lol.

I’ll likely give a Staff Thief a go … I’ve thought about it for awhile but haven’t taken the plunge on it yet.

Dahkeus.8243:

reikken.4961:

MadVisions.4529:

Ryou.2398:

and melee? I

/euips staff

1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1

/repeate

kudos on balance ANet

for maximum dps, you have to also use bound
and the timing is actually pretty tricky to optimize

You dodge just enough to keep up that buff…not exactly something I would call ‘tricky’, especially if you’ve ever played anything like condi engi, lol.

Sure it’s nothing like engi, but unlike normal skills, you can’t queue up a dodge, so you have to time it just right. Go too early and you interrupt your attack; go too late and you waste time. Both notably lower your dps and are worse than not dodging at all. For most other rotations, you can just spam the appropriate skill button a few times a moment before the correct time to use it, and it will be used at the optimal time and not interrupt the previous attack.

Dodge 0.1 sec too early, and you lose the last hit of punishing strikes. ie a 13% dps loss for that chain. dodge 0.1 sec too late, and you lose 0.1 sec of time, ie a 7% dps loss on that chain.

DeadSurvivor.6157:

I’ll likely give a Staff Thief a go … I’ve thought about it for awhile but haven’t taken the plunge on it yet.

It’s very fun. And grab a dominator staff while you are at it. Pretend you are a klingon warrior or something.
Below pic is not my character, but shows what you’ll look like holding a dominator staff.
http://i.imgur.com/QpDAXFi.jpg