Guild Wars 2

Hi all!

Been a while since I’ve been on the thief forum. I actually stripped down my thief from it’s divine gear, to invest the gold into another class I like playing. I’m thinking of getting back into the thief action, and the weapons I want to use are pistol/dagger, condition style. I only play as a roamer in WvW, sometimes accompanied by one or two friends. No PvE. So the main focus is just some roaming fun.

After a bit of theorycrafting I came up with this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqY4alcmKPHdS+E+5EB3ji60m6p4ritTBWlPA-jEzAouioRTBCItIZUHI6AcesIasFsgUziW5LsKIM1KRUtXpIa1CBoYOA-w

I’ll have 25 stacks of corruption on me when roaming, so add another 250 condi damage.

I have some questions about the build. Mainly if it’s any good. Any opinions on the amount of condition damage/healing power? Is healing power worth it on a build like this? Or should I just try to get as much Dire as possible?

What about the healing skill/utilities? Go with HiS or is Signet of Malice worth a try?

I know you can just buy Dire weapons from the TP, what about armor/trinkets? I know you can get Dire Armor from I think CoE, but I’m not much of a farmer. Have about 35 gold to spend on the entire set of gear, along with about enough laurels for 2 trinkets and a lot of materials for crafting (although I don’t remember if I have the medium armor crafting profession at 400).

Other then that, do sigils of agony stack?

As for the offhand, I’m in doubt between shortbow and dagger/pistol. Shortbow gets me good mobility and on demand poison, but does not grant me stealth or heavy blind potential. Whereas with Dagger pistol I lose out on the great mobility (partially covered by HS), get a little poison through dagger 1 chain, but an awesome interrupt with pistol 4 and a great stomp skill in pistol 5. Not to mention reliable stealth through pistol 5+ HS.

Lots of questions, I know. Thanks in advance for your time!

signet of malice is nice when you fight big groups or can utilize the caltrops with body shot perfectly
as p/d is not spammable set like p/p or d/d death blossom dont expect to heal much
also you said you like roaming so i expect you fight against 3-5 ppl

so i think the best way to go is full dire
take signet of bursting for more dmg
take shadow protector which give you more regen (if you know how the hit cnd)
and take vigorous recovery and you dont need speed as you are range attack
take withdraw to clear other set of condition off you
and drop caltrops for skale venom as you want 2 more conditions to do dmg and cover your bleeding

regarding seconds set either are good d/p use to escape only and dont use it for headshot and some opening combo with skale venom + shadow shot + shadow strike+steal+shadow strike for 7 stacks of torment

agony stacks

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAqYlYmaO3ey7E+5EB3Dna0m6p4rdtTBXlPA-j0BBUAAUIgZSFRjtGsIas6FYKWER1eFFRrGA-w

try this for roaming, its what im using atm and its the best build ive made for myself.
I use pistol mainhand on one weapon slot, and dagger offhand on the other weapon slot so I don’t have to buy 2 weapon sets, but I can still use the sigil on swap that way if you didn’t know about that “trick”

at first I was kind of nervous on using only one p/d without a different weapon swap, but all the evades and healing made up for it.

youre getting leeching every weapon swap, so that’s around 9xx dmg to them and healing for yourself, I cant remember the exact number number but its close to 1k. same for withdraw, you get that small heal from withdraw ontop of that extra heal and damage from more leeching and now u just removed any immo, chill crip on yourself with 10 secs of vigor

I think the utilities speak for themselves, you should know which ones you want, but I would stick with dag storm for all those engis out there, cause they usually take themselves out once u pop it lol

The build used by Loading is almost identical to my own. I tried SOM but it does not generate enough health per hit to be worth it. It only in very specific circumstances that it better. Withdraw is much better and allows you to keep distance.

Runes of Scavenging are nice with a full set of dire as the toughness is over 3k and vitality not too bad either. I much prefer this over more duration as 40 percent duration from food is plenty.

I use signet of shadows as he does to roam but when I get near a battle will swap that out for a venom. D/d I keep as my off hand in case I meet bigger groups and want to lay some death blossom down.

With roll for initiative and withdraw along with your dodges you can keep distance. Under my shadow hearts I have started using the regen when stealthing an ally trait and am finding it very handy. If you time it right you can have constant regen on . I am testing to see how well constant regen will work with that SOM but am really tied to Withdraw and that extra dodge.

I can generally keep my condition damage at 2200 and with the might on hide and a sigil of battle on weapon swap can psuh this to 2400 without much problem. The key then is getting as many types of conditions on as possible so they not so easily cleansed. My own build is 10/0/30/0/30 . It lots of fun and very survivable.

Pardon me my build is 10/0/30/0/30. Made a typo and I can never get that edit function to work. I really like the MUG as it adds poison on steal and gets you a nice heal. One sigil is energy on weapon swap along with battle and this allows me more dodges without going down the acrobatic line. The 30 in trickery puts on another 100 condi damage over putting that in acrobatics and allows me to steal every 21 seconds.

I use steal a lot. It a great gap closer. I have switched between less trickery and some more in acrobatics and like them both but keep coming back to trickery to 30 (Both the grandmaster traits on trickery are very useful and I swap them in and out)

babazhook.6805:

…
I can generally keep my condition damage at 2200 …

?
I see builds getting to 1200-1400, add 250 from corruption and some more from food and, well. that’s still a long way from 2200-2400. So, how do you get it to 2200?

Loading.4503:

try this for roaming, its what im using atm and its the best build ive made for myself.
I use pistol mainhand on one weapon slot, and dagger offhand on the other weapon slot so I don’t have to buy 2 weapon sets, but I can still use the sigil on swap that way if you didn’t know about that “trick”

So if you put P in one set main hand and D in the other off hand, you can use both and then swap as if you had two sets and sigils will still activate?

frans.8092:

babazhook.6805:

…
I can generally keep my condition damage at 2200 …

?
I see builds getting to 1200-1400, add 250 from corruption and some more from food and, well. that’s still a long way from 2200-2400. So, how do you get it to 2200?

Sigil of bursting each hand on main weapon. One the alternate weapon I put battle on one , energy on the other. Thats an extra 6 percent. All weapons are dire though I sometimes swap in apothecary for some more heal.

The 6th trait on scavenging runes adds 7 percent condition damage based on vitality. With my vitality that is +102. All my gear is dire including trinkets, Base without food or stacks is right near 1740 add stacks you are at 1990. Rare veggie pizza adds 40 percent duration 70 more condition and then the tuning crystal (around 160 condition damage) which puts you around 2200. You generally get bonuses in wvw as well that tweak this up a bit based on server status.

I generally run over 3k armor, 16khp . If you skip mug and take acrobatics instead for might on dodge the hit points go up by around 1000 but I prefer mug for the steal and poison on steal.

If you play it right you can have might running a lot and can get even more might if you go Acrobatics tree to add boon duration and might on dodge.

Hey babazhook, if you have a build editor link to show your traits (roman numerals) and so forth that would be cool. Sounds like an interesting build. Do you also just go straight P/D?

here is a build mention above

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqYVlYmKNHay1E/5EB3Dna0m694rj1saFuJA-jECBoOCi0Cgk0A0HQZSFRjtGsIasKZER1KlYSBAzyK-w

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqY4YlYm6O3eS+E+5EC3DnipSKvHO4XZWaFoJA-j0CB4iCyoOgk0Bi+AmEBMTqIas1gFRjVJjIqWpEzYeIaG0pWKgFlGB-w

Build here. Note I sub in blinding powder between Signet of shadows when I need faster movement. I will plug in a number of different skills in that slot when I am near a battle. Sometimes I put in a venom such as skale or spider venom. It pretty flexible. I like Roll for Init as a stun break , init gen and it removes those nasty immobiles that happen. I was using blind on stealth but am experimenting with the steal on stealth now.

Another nice trick is to use Caltrops there, use the shadow refuge to stealth, sneak up to a ram at a gate and lay down the caltrops. Those folk that stand there using the ram don’t know what hit them. You then sneak back into the tower you defend.

Instinctual response i prefer over thrill of the crime. You do not need Fury so this will stealth you and put both might and regen on you rather then might and fury and swiftness. You can also use stealth on steal in the SA line which on a 21 second steal cycle will give might and regen whenever you steal. The SA line can be very flexible with shadows embrace being the only must have. Some might want that swiftness more and can use thrill of the crime rather then throw feathers. Persobal choice there depending in style.

Instinctual response has saved me more times then I can count when I get backstabbed while hanging at the fringe using the pistol. You get might regen stealth and can reset position easy.

With all the stealths you get good cleansing of conditions. This without the Cnd’s you can use.

Note I also keep a dagger with SIGIL of corruption. I Use this to build my stacks then swap it out so the condition number you see, just add another 250 to it.

I use d/d and p/d in battle usually the PD but switch to d/d for the energy for more dodge and then to lay down some DBS at times if I fight in a crowd and want to get some AOE bleeds down. The heartseeker does hit hard enough to finish someone who is close to death off quick and as a gap closer.

As you can see none of my INIT comes from the trait lines being nerfed next patch so it will only get stronger.

Those looks really nice. Appreciate that time you took.

Do you not miss Descent of Shadows in WvW?

Qaelyn.7612:

Those looks really nice. Appreciate that time you took.

Do you not miss Descent of Shadows in WvW?

Yes I miss it. If I do go back to it I will drop MUG but I want to see how all the changes pan out. What I like about the overall build is I can swap skills in and out without “breaking” it too much. There a number of runesets for armors you can plug in to change the build without hurting overall damge such as antitoxin or torment.

What I really want to do is earn enough beetletun seals to get rune of the Noble and try it.

Cool.

You know I’ve tried a hundred builds trying to figure out one that I can even be good enough to practice with and this one might finally be it. I had already mostly settled on PD+DD but was having trouble with the defense/offense split.

I made a PvP version to test out 1v1 and it looked promising. Of course I had to make a pile of changes and you can’t really get the condition damage high enough in there. But at least I don’t get immediately slaughtered like I usually do.

I do miss DoS and also the thing that gets you more energy on dodge rolls. All the effects on steal are great but it’s still only every 21.5s… not sure how much to give up for the steals.

If I do keep the 30 in trickery I’d probably have to add back the trait that stealths on steal. It’s just super handy for newbies like me as it’s one less thing to chain… steal and pistol #1.

Wow, lots of good advice in here guys, thanks a lot. Forgot how helpful and fun a forum can be because of all the whining (I play warrior main since launch..).

Definitely know what I’m going to try. 10/0/30/0/30 seems like a big improvement to 0/0/30/20/20. I like all the dodge moves suggested here, but I am more of a stealth/tele style player. So I probably will be using D/P as offhand, just for the stealth generating and blind puddle. Death Blossom is nice, but seems situational.

Again, thanks for all the advice!