Guild Wars 2

Build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn0MBFOhVmCGmC8PhFyiyLASgCYu279ifLDHrNE-TJBFAB/XGggDBAAHBg73fAA

Couple of notes:

I only solo Q, so wanted a build that can fulfill the thief roles, BUT also fill in the void when my team needs picking up somewhere it’s lacking… notably in sustained team fights.

This build has very high mobility, excellent condi clear, very tanky, decent burst and high sustain damage.

Permanent Fury, 83% crit chance and 180%crit damage.

Condi clear: On demand from Heal and Signet.
DD trait Escapists Absolution is incredible in team fights – evading through necro wells/DH traps actually cleanses you.

You can tie the enemy team up in 1v2’s and 1v3’s and they just can’t touch you with all the evades, damage mitigation and cleanse you have.
But you can still put the damage down when you want.

One Vault will pretty much finish off anyone on 20%hp.

Burst/Opener: Basilisk Venom > Steal > Fist Flurry > Palm Strike > AA > Vault

Signet of Agility could be swapped out for anything you prefer, probably Shadow Step or blinding Powder. Signet of Agility is nice though because it’s a passive damage increase, and active condi clear + extra evades which are direct damage mitigations AND condi clears.

Anyway Bullkitten aside… build works: Kills stuff, moves quick, doesn’t die (and is fun).

Looks nice enough. Pretty much what i would be playing if I hadnt too much fun trolling around with zerker.
Just two quick suggestions:
-U use trickster but only a single trick. I’d recommend bountiful theft, brawlers tenacy and Channeled vigor as heal.
-I personally like vampire runes. Healing seems better than toughness on our class.
Of course one can never predict, how changes will actually impact combat performance, but I think it could be worth a shot.

Asrat.2645:

Looks nice enough. Pretty much what i would be playing if I hadnt too much fun trolling around with zerker.
Just two quick suggestions:
-U use trickster but only a single trick. I’d recommend bountiful theft, brawlers tenacy and Channeled vigor as heal.
-I personally like vampire runes. Healing seems better than toughness on our class.
Of course one can never predict, how changes will actually impact combat performance, but I think it could be worth a shot.

Yeah interesting suggestions. The main crux of the build is to gain the (really quite epic) survivability that you get from the: Paladin’s Amulet – Scrapper Rune – Escapist’s Absolution combination. Then mitigate the damage loss by getting back the majority of the lost damage stats in other ways.

I really like Channeled Vigor[although it can be interrupted] but it needs to be used with Brawlers Tenacity which loses out 7% damage, and the damage output feels just right on this build atm. Again, I really like Bountiful Theft but the on demand condi clear of Withdraw is worth traiting to lower it’s cooldown. Withdraw will pretty much always clear 2 condis because it’s also an evade so will proc Escapist’s Absolution.

They’re my thoughts – I’ll give it a go though, coz why not!?

I see. I always considered escapist absolution by far enough to deal with condi, but then again I had either pain response or shadowstep as an emergency clear on most of my recent builds.
However most of the benefits withdraw brings to the class are already covered by unhindered combatant, and channeled vigor is a strong heal with even moar dodges.
The tenacy will also lower the cd of your main stunbreak.
If you steal stability or retaliation it is a potential gamechanger, protection or even a few stacks of might should make up for the damage loss.

im pretty sure this build will get stomped by a random rev or scrapper since they have bigger sustained damage and bigger survivability

also zero chances against druid or elem, simply lack of crit damage wont let you overpower their sustain and you’ll eventually have to move away because unlike your endurance bar their heals are endless

fist flurry is absolutely useless unless you carry enough stuns to be able to land it succesfully and basilisk venom + chain from bandit’s defense is far from being enough

Lexander.4579:

im pretty sure this build will get stomped by a random rev or scrapper since they have bigger sustained damage and bigger survivability

also zero chances against druid or elem, simply lack of crit damage wont let you overpower their sustain and you’ll eventually have to move away because unlike your endurance bar their heals are endless

fist flurry is absolutely useless unless you carry enough stuns to be able to land it succesfully and basilisk venom + chain from bandit’s defense is far from being enough

Much better success rate against Scrapper and Rev with this build. In fact I can pretty much hold a point against a Scrapper indefinitely. Engi is my 2nd most played prof though (about 1600 games). Scrapper damage is fairly easy to avoid. If the Scrapper isn’t good I can out sustain him – just need to get his Elixir S proc out of the way then Basi>Burst. Most Scrappers are Marauder so once they’ve blown hammer will often switch to Elixir gun and this is pretty much a free 9 seconds of wailing on them because you can cleanse everything. 2 rotations of that and it’s generally a dead Scrapper. If he pops Sneak gyro just Vault into it – he’ll leave the point in a hurry.

Rev is a winnable fight, once you’ve got them on the defensive. Save shield for UA, steal for the slow, evade their heal etc.

In the current meta – glass builds with small high damage windows lose to sustainability because of all the passive defensives going around

Thief usually has something better to do than 1v1, even with Marauder/Deadly Arts are you really going to waste time 1v1’ing a Druid/Ele?

Fist Flurry is awesome – takes practice but totally worth it. Can pull it off quite nicely on targets that aren’t stunned – with good timing. And it’s absolutely Godly for +1’ing and for poaching enemies beast with last hit in Niflhel.

Sounds like you didn’t actually try this out – you should. This build does enough damage… not omgwtf damage – but you don’t need it. The damage you lose is well and truly made up for by the sustain.

Asrat.2645:

I see. I always considered escapist absolution by far enough to deal with condi, but then again I had either pain response or shadowstep as an emergency clear on most of my recent builds.
However most of the benefits withdraw brings to the class are already covered by unhindered combatant, and channeled vigor is a strong heal with even moar dodges.
The tenacy will also lower the cd of your main stunbreak.
If you steal stability or retaliation it is a potential gamechanger, protection or even a few stacks of might should make up for the damage loss.

OK – tried this out for about 15 games.

Thoughts:
Evades for Daaaayyyssss – which is nice.
CV heal has 3/4sec cast time – having it interrupted by random CC in team fights happens too often.
Channeled Vigor heal is never used with full endurance so heal is not substantially better.
The Withdraw build does more damage and has better survivability.
Bottom line:- in the heat of battle Traited Withdraw is just much more reliable than Traited Channeled Vigor.

Also 7% extra damage just FEELS like I’m in a sweet spot for damage. I 100-0 Marauders in a burst, but without that 7% I found myself often JUST shy of finishing people off.

You can combo Signet of Agility into Channeled Vigor for a good heal, but that’s pretty situational. I really wanted it to work because all those evades are strong, and keep the cleanses rolling – but that 3/4sec cast time! I died in too many situations where I would have lived, if my heal hadn’t been interrupted. Now if it was instant cast with a slightly lower heal – yeah THAT would be a thing!

your opener/burst should be

(weapon skill) + steal +fist flurry

As weapon skill you can either go with staff#4 or staff#2

You can also use Bounding Dodger as opener and hit Steal just before you land on the ground.

Also, you can start by throwing Impairing Dagger for even more burst.

I have been using a similar build (staff/sb with trickery and critical strikes, and paladin amulet).

I can agree with OP that the cast time on CV is unfortunate – sometimes I even interrupt it myself if I start channeling but then need to dodge right away, and then it’s on full cd. I’ll probably switch to Withdraw as you use.

The combo of paladin + staff in my experience gives the sustain needed to stay in fights a bit longer than with marauder. I use Invigorating Precision for even more sustain, but I also use a more aggressive rune (Pack).

I haven’t tried out Fist Flurry yet, I’ll need to do that.

Probably depends on what level and situation youre in. CV right in the middle of a team fight is indeed tricky. I usually expect to loose my point anyways, so I have no problem with dodging to a safer spot to use it.
I have used withdraw in a recent build and I have to admit, that it is still an amazing skill to heal and as a panic buttom.
Not exactly sure, which one will prove to be more effective. Might just be depending on what you like better personally.

Zilvereen.2091:

your opener/burst should be

(weapon skill) + steal +fist flurry

As weapon skill you can either go with staff#4 or staff#2

You can also use Bounding Dodger as opener and hit Steal just before you land on the ground.

Also, you can start by throwing Impairing Dagger for even more burst.

Yeah absolutely! When specced into dagger/pistol, pre-casting a Heartseeker is totally worth it.
With staff my preferred skill is Staff 2 but I tend not to use it if I’m using Basilisk venom and want to get a Fist Flurry off because after staff 2 the stun wears off just before the Palm Strike.
With staff skill 4, again with Basi Venom the blind has worn off by the time Palm Strike stun is finished – and without Basi I’d usually rather Steal>Vault than Blind>Steal.

Without Basi Venom up though, I agree – Staff 2 > steal is nice damage.

fluidmonolith.3584:

I have been using a similar build (staff/sb with trickery and critical strikes, and paladin amulet).

I can agree with OP that the cast time on CV is unfortunate – sometimes I even interrupt it myself if I start channeling but then need to dodge right away, and then it’s on full cd. I’ll probably switch to Withdraw as you use.

The combo of paladin + staff in my experience gives the sustain needed to stay in fights a bit longer than with marauder. I use Invigorating Precision for even more sustain, but I also use a more aggressive rune (Pack).

I haven’t tried out Fist Flurry yet, I’ll need to do that.

Yeah Scrapper Rune really helps with survivability (7% less damage is noticeable) and Signet of Agility makes up for losing Pack Rune. You have to play with Fist Flurry quite a bit to get a feel for it. Realise early on that not getting the Palm Strike off when your enemy is not stunned is still worth it for the burst damage to finish someone off.

Asrat.2645:

Probably depends on what level and situation youre in. CV right in the middle of a team fight is indeed tricky. I usually expect to loose my point anyways, so I have no problem with dodging to a safer spot to use it.
I have used withdraw in a recent build and I have to admit, that it is still an amazing skill to heal and as a panic buttom.
Not exactly sure, which one will prove to be more effective. Might just be depending on what you like better personally.

Yeah different playstyle. Definitely one of the benefits of Withdraw is not needing to leave the point. With how tanky/cleanse-y this build is you can hold/delay losing a point 1v2 for a decent amount of time usually. 1v1 you can kill/hold point against pretty much anything – with DH can be touch and go. One thing you’ll very rarely do is die.

I use scrapper runes in wvw and pvp on my thief. Not really looked into new builds for pvp as I only play unranked now. I don’t quite like the idea of giving up da just to get that few extra crit dmg tbh using paladin amulet. Still running marurder in pvp mode, might try weakening strikes instead of havoc mastery wich will help our a lot too.