[Theory Crafting] Shadow Venom Executioner
So I’ve been experimenting with a new variant of the build I normally run. In this build I’ve dropped Trickery and replaced it with DA. The other two lines are Daredevil and SA. I was worried about the loss of the Trickery line and honestly have not nearly as disadvantaged as I thought I would.
With this build I get access to low cool downs across HiS and Shadowstep, stealth on steal every 30 seconds and boonsteal on stealth attacks. If I really want I can swap out the stealth on steal for the lower venom cooldowns (24, 24, 32 respectively).
I lose the extra initiative but I gain the damage boost from DA which makes up for the loss of confusion and the loss of cooldown reduction on steal. The gain of poison on immobilize turns Body Shot into a solid attack skill. The extra poison on steal is more reliable than confusion and the spider venom I use is much stronger.
Overall, the build is less reliant on initiative, much like the power builds after the auto-attack changes.
I’ll report back about WvW after I’ve done some more WvW testing.
I really thiink DA hard to pass up with P/D. In My case I dropped DrD. I did consider Tr for a while but since I wanted to top out Boon theft , I stuck to that line. Leaving BT aside I really do not think the biggest loss the extra INI. it the 15 percent extra damage from the LA trait which pushes your poison to close to 50 percent more damage, and uncatchable and given DrD has 10 percent add on dodge and psuedo uncatcable via impaling if you go that route , they can operate much the same if one specced impaling over UC.
I tried this using rune of the trapper and the needle trap on heal talent, and normal needle trap. I stole on one of those d/d thieves that only use dodge for condi clear, then dropped two traps on him and ran away so he didn’t even see me. Then I watched from behind a pilar as he dodged repeatedly trying to clear condi, but noone was hitting him so he died. It’s a lot of fun, even if it isn’t as effective as other condi specs.
I tried this using rune of the trapper and the needle trap on heal talent, and normal needle trap. I stole on one of those d/d thieves that only use dodge for condi clear, then dropped two traps on him and ran away so he didn’t even see me. Then I watched from behind a pilar as he dodged repeatedly trying to clear condi, but noone was hitting him so he died. It’s a lot of fun, even if it isn’t as effective as other condi specs.
The advantage of Rune of the trapper is of course with less INI in the build overall you are not as reliant on that INI to generate stealth for a sneak attack. Quite frankly when facing a d/d condi build, It my feeling p/d at great advantage. D/D condition is weak in stealth access and mobility, both key to a Thief build , and once the P/d user learns the timing on DB , they can easily be kept in check with pistol 2 due to the locked animation of the deathblossom. The trap is nice to get the added conditions , but a combo of Pistol 2 with a steal and sneak attack then port away and wait with 3 works very well. The likelihood of getting a trap to trigger also goes up simply by dropping one under the others DB spam.
P/d stealth also tends to have higher access to cleanse meaning you tend to stay ahead with your cleanses over D/D.