Guild Wars 2

Yo!

So i’m new to thief and i’m having trouble in verdant brink with breaking breakbars. Is pistol daze and basilisk venom our only options until we become daredevils?

Terimac.5871:

Yo!

So i’m new to thief and i’m having trouble in verdant brink with breaking breakbars. Is pistol daze and basilisk venom our only options until we become daredevils?

Anything that applies a control effect, including daze on steal and stolen skills like mace head crack are options for breakbar depletion.

That and scorpion wire.

Impairing daggers, impact strike. Good day.

Basilisks Venom works quite well.

Sword:
Stealth attack, pistol whip

Pistol:
Pistol whip, head shot

Staff:
Stealth attack

Steal:
Sleight of hand, mace head crack, skull fear

Utilities:
Tripwire, scorpion wire, ambush trap (thief may use scorpion wire), bandit’s defense, distracting daggers, fist flurry/palm strike

Elites:
Basilisk venom, thieves guild (thief uses scorpion wire), impact strike

Break bars deplete from these (though effectiveness changes based on mob scale, for instance vet+ doesn’t break to damage):

Blind
Cripple
Chill
Root
Damage
Fear
All forms of stun.

I’d suggest Pistol/Pistol as its easier with Bandits Defense, Scorpion Wire and either Distracting/Impairing/Tripwire. Probably basilisk, the new elite is for pvp.

If you’re specced in to trickery daze on steal is solid for any build. When fighting mordrem you have a good chance to also get a branch as the stolen item, which you can follow up the steal with.

Also, the new daredevil elite is better than BV at smashing break bars, even if you don’t have any traits invested in physicals given the daze>launch in its first two attacks, which is two hard CCs with no cast time compared to BV’s one CC with a cast time if you haven’t traited for venoms.

PopeUrban.2578:

If you’re specced in to trickery daze on steal is solid for any build. When fighting mordrem you have a good chance to also get a branch as the stolen item, which you can follow up the steal with.

Also, the new daredevil elite is better than BV at smashing break bars, even if you don’t have any traits invested in physicals given the daze>launch in its first two attacks, which is two hard CCs with no cast time compared to BV’s one CC with a cast time if you haven’t traited for venoms.

Other way. You cast once, BV is set. You cast twice (in melee range) and you get TD. Also (some kind of bug) but BV takes more of a breakbar per hit than TD. Just a thought.

Serious Thought.5394:

PopeUrban.2578:

If you’re specced in to trickery daze on steal is solid for any build. When fighting mordrem you have a good chance to also get a branch as the stolen item, which you can follow up the steal with.

Also, the new daredevil elite is better than BV at smashing break bars, even if you don’t have any traits invested in physicals given the daze>launch in its first two attacks, which is two hard CCs with no cast time compared to BV’s one CC with a cast time if you haven’t traited for venoms.

Other way. You cast once, BV is set. You cast twice (in melee range) and you get TD. Also (some kind of bug) but BV takes more of a breakbar per hit than TD. Just a thought.

Not quite. For BV to work you need to cast BV, and then execute an attack (or two attacks when traited). In the instance of TD, you’re executing two attack animations with no cast.

I’ll have to experiment with the break bar hit of one BV versus two hits of TD. I generally don’t take BV specifically because of the cast animation.

Oh my bad. I thought we were comparing casts not animation-casts. Oh well. I usually play pistol/pistol these days. Best weaponset now. (Yay bound)

Serious Thought.5394:

Break bars deplete from these (though effectiveness changes based on mob scale, for instance vet+ doesn’t break to damage):

Blind
Cripple
Chill
Root
Damage
Fear
All forms of stun.

I’d suggest Pistol/Pistol as its easier with Bandits Defense, Scorpion Wire and either Distracting/Impairing/Tripwire. Probably basilisk, the new elite is for pvp.

Best answer.

I found that blind fields are ironically a good way to break bars together with steal daze.

*/P won’t lack ways to break bars with any build.

Just a precision.
Break bars deplete considerably from hard CC like :
launch, daze, stun, knockdown, etc…

It depletes slower with soft CC like:
immob, cripple, chill, etc… (basically conditions that affect your movements)

Hard CC is like direct damage to the break bar.
Soft CC is like condition damage to the break bar (the “damage” doesn’t apply directly but continuously until the condi ends).

As for elite, Basilisk Venom is a great CC if you combine it with venomous aura to share it with people around you.
But by itself, it’s less efficient than impact strike especially if you’re going for a power build.
Basilisk Venom has two 1s stone CC on it.
Impact strike has a 2s daze + a launch (which then deplete the break bar more). In addition its cooldown is slightly smaller than Basilisk venom if you trait for it in the minor DD tree.

The duration of the CC (be it hard or soft) impacts the amount of bar depleted. For hard CC the duration seems to affect the amount of direct damage to the bar.

PS : blind by itself does nothing to the break bar (it’s the stealth attacks with CC that do)

Sword/Pistol is the king of breakbar damage.

Sword’s best damage skill is its autoattack, thus all intiiative can be spent on the stunning pistol whip or headshot abilities when not commited to blackpowder shot.
Blackpowder field applies the blind DoT field.
Using bounding dodge in the blackpowder field applies stealth, allowing you to use the sword’s sneak attack, a blind/daze.

Also, I haven’t tried it since the change, but venomous aura with basalisk venom used to be enough to stun bosses through stability twice.