Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

Trying to get away from the glass cannon thief and do something different. Something more tanky and that can stand toe to toe with another player(s) while not suffering too much on damage. Just looking for an alternative to backstab thief.

My thoughts so far.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlcmCNXay9E+5Ey2jeqCJKuHJFU1UdFwKA (Copy and paste to browser)

Armor and weapons is the question. I thought maybe Cleric since we have a lot of abilities that scale well with healing power but how much precision would we have to sacrifice for that more healing sustained?

My weapon of choice was D/D for backstab and Hidden Killer for 100% crits but you can swap out D/D for S/D and get Executioner for more dmg output. Luckily, I believe this build can work with any weapon combination. S/P and P/P will have the multi-hit attacks that take advantage of SoM’s passive healing but it’s totally up to your playstyle.

All from GW2 Wiki:

Leeching Venoms – Heals for 325 plus 0.2 x Healing Power.
Shadow’s Rejuvenation – Does not grant the boon regeneration. Instead, pulses a heal when you enter stealth and every second you remain in stealth.
Each pulse heals for 293 + 0.1 * Healing Power at 80.
Shadow Refuge – Each pulse heals for 355 + 0.18 * Healing Power at 80. (Pulses five times over four seconds, once as it’s cast and then once each second.)
Signet of Malice – The passive gains 5% benefit from Healing Power.
The active gains 50% benefit from Healing Power, though this is not shown in the tooltip. (100 + 0.05 * Healing Power for passive) or (3275 + 0.5 * healing power for active).

I didn’t pick up Assassin’s Reward but you could go for this instead of so much down Critical Strikes. Here is the formula: At level 80, this heals you for 69 + (0.035 x healing power) per point of initiative spent.

Just a demonstration though, we take 1000 Healing Power and add it to all your abilities.

Leeching Venoms: Each strike with poison will heal for 525 (8 poison attacks available = 4200 health).
Shadow’s Rejuvenation (letting stealth last at least 3 of 4 seconds): When you first enter stealth and for 3 seconds after you gain 1572 health (per description).
Shadow’s Refuge(may be incorrect, have not tested): 2675 (5 pulses) + 4323 (10 seconds of stealth + when entering stealth).
SoM per hit: 150 per attack.
Assassin’s Reward: 1248(104 health per 1 initiative) healing for 12 initiative spent. That’s it. Hence why I did not pick it up.

This build gets even more ridiculous if you throw in life stealing food and god knows what else I haven’t thought of… Sorry for the wall of text.

TLDR: Option for giving yourself sustaining health through doing damage and stealth.

Ok now the cons of your build :
You got 1 single stealth skill , shadow refuge. after you use it you can be bursted down by an d/d thief that use blinding powder or singet of shadows and makes you miss your C &D
You got no stunbreaker , an glass cannon warrior can literally faceroll you bull charge +frenzy +100b
Your mobility is low since you got pistol on main hand , no singet of shadows , you can be kited easy, even by an guardian who just leap away +retreat
You got no CC
Not sure how you deal with mesmers with this build but if they kick you out of shadow refuge you are preety much dead.
You should consider add at least 1 stunbreaker or blinding powder / singet of shadows

http://www.ehmry.com/topic/1419-thieves-looking-for-a-survivable-wvw-build/

My tank build

Lol, that’s my trait distribution. But I don’t have venoms, nothing in the traits suggests using them

You don’t get that much from +healing, it’s more like Shadows Rejuvenation goes from 300 to 400.

I am no fan of venom’s, they don’t hit so hard and for your healing, they’re on long cool-downs and the when of I-need-some-healing will not always coincide with the when in die-already!. Stealth works better in that aspect, you’d usually seek stealth either use sneak-attack or backstab, or to withdraw from too much damaging attention. You free up skill-slot for things like stunbreakers and shadowstepping and shadow-arts has just more usefull major’s to choose from to adapt to a situation. And you don’t really need Cleric’s gear, just berserker, soldiers, knights, carrion, that sort of stuff

Rayya, he’s D/D + SB – but I agree on the stunbreaker.

@Giit

Show me where the mean thief touched you…….

Thanks for the feedback. I played around with it in spvp using cleric neck + rampager gem and I had about 24 crit which felt like enough. Sometimes I felt like my guardian’s AH build. Thanks for the link Adaneshade I will look into that soon. Was hoping I found a rare build that could be viable. Ill keep crunching numbers and see how it pans out. Poor Giit, it’s ok Giit we understand why you troll the thief forums.

Venoms aren’t worth it unless you’re running with a group and sharing them. Going deep venoms just for leeching venoms is burning a bunch of utility slots for not a lot of output.

You’d get far better defensive and offensive returns by going deeper into Acrobatics for extra dodges/might on dodge and then using a utility slot on Signet of Agility. If you’re trying to bunker up in sPvP, taking Caltrops and Caltrops-on-Dodge from Trickery can also make anyone sticking around to fight you in melee range regret it very quickly, even if you aren’t stacking a ton of condition damage. TBH, though, if you’re going D/D there’s something to be said for putting more into conditions and utilizing death blossom to get even more evade uptime. Time spent evading is time spent invulnerable, and you can get very high uptime chaining together death blossom and dodges.

Balanced damage/tank gear usually pairs Knights armor and weapons and Beryl accessories (with 1 emerald earring). Soldiers Armor/Weps + Knights accessories slotted with Ruby jewels is also an alternative that achieves largely the same thing.

Full tank is viable with a P/D condition build though (I have mine geared with Shamans armor/weps and Apothecary trinkets).