Guild Wars 2

I’m looking to begin progressing my Thief through Fractals, and was hoping for some advice on the best set up as far as gear and traits go.

Probably full berserker’s if youre skilled enough.

I’d use S/P for trash and then D/P or D/D for bosses. With shorbow in the offhand for ranged.

Make sure to use smokescreen since projectile blocks are very useful in fractals like the dredge and harpy fractals, and shadow refuge is great too.

For traits I’d go full into critical strikes for execution, and I feel like the rest should go into SA and Acro for surivability, but thats personal preference really.

Change your weapons and utilities around in each fractal. You know what the fights are going to be and it is worth a few seconds to prepare properly. This means that you’re better knowing the class and getting the most out of the skills rather than having one optimal build that works best for everything.

full zerker 25/30/10/0/5, use d/d backstab spam whenever possible, where ranged is needed switch to pistols and pistol traits.
Most of trash is S/P or D/P for blinds.
And, if you are a thief, contribute to our usefulness, and teach warriors/eles/engis/etc to use fire fields before fights for might stacking.

Personally, I recommend a 0/30/15/25/0 build. This is what I currently use for level 40-79. The only important traits are Executioner for CS, and Quick Recovery in Acro.

I switch between S/P and D/P depending on the fight ahead, with SB as the weapon swap (always). The trait slot in shadow arts can be changed between Shadows Embrace (turning all your stealth skills/utilities into condition removal) or Infusion of Shadow for perma stealthing your team through mobs they wanna skip using BP + weapon swap Cluster spam.

S/P will allow you to mitigate a LOT team of damage if your group pulls correctly (grouping them up for you), while dishing out really nice cone AOE damage. D/P is better for boss fights that you know you can get up close on safely. Shadows Embrace will give you a condition cleanse when you HS into BP. That means you get a Backstab + a cleanse.

Try it out, I find it’s by far the most useful builds I’ve run in PVE. Goes over well with the troops.

aB EXT.1287:

Personally, I recommend a 0/30/15/25/0 build. This is what I currently use for level 40-79. The only important traits are Executioner for CS, and Quick Recovery in Acro.

I switch between S/P and D/P depending on the fight ahead, with SB as the weapon swap (always). The trait slot in shadow arts can be changed between Shadows Embrace (turning all your stealth skills/utilities into condition removal) or Infusion of Shadow for perma stealthing your team through mobs they wanna skip using BP + weapon swap Cluster spam.

S/P will allow you to mitigate a LOT team of damage if your group pulls correctly (grouping them up for you), while dishing out really nice cone AOE damage. D/P is better for boss fights that you know you can get up close on safely. Shadows Embrace will give you a condition cleanse when you HS into BP. That means you get a Backstab + a cleanse.

Try it out, I find it’s by far the most useful builds I’ve run in PVE. Goes over well with the troops.

I use a very similar but I put the 30 in acrobatics, in single target fights I take Master Trapper trait it works great with Shadow Trap (Fury, 10 Might) is gives a nice burst moment. (I don’t run hardcore teams with ultimate setups mostly pugs)

@ aB EXT: Thanks for the description, that build looks like a good place for me to jump in. I got my Thief to 80, got him geared and then kind of put him on the back burner. I’m starting to learn all the combo tricks I can pull off by myself, and it’s pretty sick.

Do you run with Berserker Gear? I’m currently running a combo of Knight’s and Valk, with berserker accessories until I get better adjusted to the class.