Guild Wars 2

Hi I’m relatively new to the game still just hit 30 on my thief and was wondering how I should be speccing myself. I can’t decide which will be better condition/crit or power/crit and if condition crit is better do I still spec some power to keep base damage up or what? I’m so confused. Any tips and or advice would be extremely appreciated!

power crit.

condition crit makes no sense.

So i dont want to increasce condition damage for higher ticks? bc as thiefs we aplly a considerable amount of bleeds and poisons. so i wouldnt wanna put more dmg into those aspects?

condition damage is pretty gimp, especially for a thief.

oh wow thought that was kinda our thing…

Condi/power would be better than condi/crit.

condi thief sux…imo
unless pvp/wvw with p/d

for dagger/dagger thiefs?

and whats best for soloing? dagger/dagger dagger/pistol?

Excalibur.9748:

condition damage is pretty gimp, especially for a thief.

d/p cant beat my non invis build thats condi based. there are great builds for condi. melee classes have no chance against my bleed build. 0. :P

DanH.5879:

condi thief sux…imo
unless pvp/wvw with p/d

d/d condi is actually good …..but only under 2 conditions. (no pun intended) you ahve to have theright build and play it to perfection. there is a draw match when facing d/p if they are good tho.

So focusing on bleeds how should I be building? I played some last night and have gear with condi and + prec. I thought that if my gear gives me big boosts to those I should a slot them with either + power/vit or power/condi or power/prec? On a side note I crit for 3.3k on my backstab so had. A happy moment lol

I used to play a DD condi thief, for ages, and it works well in PvE. It does ok in PvP/WvW too, but to be honest Pow/Crit is far superior here, and works just as well if not better in PvE too.

There are two main problems I find with condi builds:
1) Most players have some way of removing conditions and any player with some sense will save their remover for when you have burned through your initiative, removing the majority of your damage output in an instant. P/D does not suffer from this so much because it is easy to restack the bleeds again, but for DD stacking bleeds is costly. Direct damage builds do not have this problem anywhere near as badly. Once the damage has been done, it can only be removed with a heal. Condition damage can be removed with a heal AND condition removers. Yes, direct damage attacks can be blocked/evaded, but so can condition attacks. The only other thing to defend against direct damage is protection, but this only reduces it by a third and generally doesn’t last long, condition removal removes ALL your damage. You may have had a few ticks deal damage, but I would say the % of damage loss to condition damage from a remover is somewhere in the region of 60% or more.
2) Defeating an enemy with conditions takes a good amount of time more than it does with Pow/Crit builds, which provides your enemy much more time to react to what you are doing.

Neither of the above are major issues, as a good player will be able to get around them and make good use of conditions. But from my personal experience of running both builds for a fair amount of time, I’d say Pow/Crit is superior in terms of defeating your foe faster and more effectively. Also, I have been defeated by direct damage builds a heck of a lot more than by condition builds. Whether this is because more people run crit builds or not I do not know, but what I do know is, I find fighting condi builds a LOT easier.

Wow that’s so insightful thanks so much that really helps me out only thing is that basically all gear has +condi and +prec so do I just slot power/crit? Will def be trying d/p later thanks a ton!

If you are just looking for a spec to level, S/P utilizing power/prec is probably your best bet.

but wont i be doing less dmg with only one melee and only utility from my psitol?

If you are going down the Pow+Crit road you’ll want a fair amount, if not all, berserker gear. This maximizes your power and critical damage bonus. So long as your crit rate is around the 50% mark you will be hitting hard enough, and if you are going to use DP, then the critical hits trait Hidden Killer is very useful for ensuring you get the most out of your backstabs.

With regards to SP, when specced to Pow+Crit it can hit very hard. And if you use Signet of Malice combined with Pistol Whip (SP dual skill) it can heal you up nicely and evade all the while you are doing it.

What weapons and spec you use really depends on how you like to play. Personally I use DP and SB in all areas of the game. DP for single target and SB for multiple targets. The mobility, the blinds, the stealth on DP and the evades and shadowstepping provided by these 2 sets is excellent. While SP has very good damage, evades, blinds, shadowstepping, boon stealing and condi removal, I prefer the ‘no target required’ mobility provided by DP (heartseeker). You could have DP and SP if you prefer, and I have had a few fights with some good thieves using this set up, but I prefer to have a ranged option, and for me SB is perfect.

But like I say, it’s really down to personal taste. What I find easy to use and fun to play, you may find difficult and/or boring. So I would advise you to go to the Heart of the Mists and practice a few builds against the NPCs, the Chieftan and Svanir, then if you feel comfortable with the build you choose, have a few rounds in sPvP to see how you fair vs players.

Just to add, if you are only looking for a build to level up your thief in PvE, then a DD condi build will work just as well as a Pow+Crit build. It offers a lot of evasion and can stack a lot of bleeds on multiple foes. The right DD build can hit the bleed cap on its own and the fact that this can be done to up to 5 enemies makes for taking out a lot of mobs very easy. That said, the SP+Signet of Malice set up can often outshine the DD build in terms of defeating mobs quickly and providing more utility and support.

It’s a tough choice I’m afraid, but one only you can truly make in the end. I hope what we’ve said helps at least

Ya know I haven’t even seen pistol whip on my toolbar for main hand dagger offhand pistol. Do I have to switch em?

Black mike.8690:

Ya know I haven’t even seen pistol whip on my toolbar for main hand dagger offhand pistol. Do I have to switch em?

Pistol whip is a skill you get with Sword/Pistol, not Dagger/Pistol.

Running Condition Damage and Crit together doesn’t make much sense, because Crit doesn’t increase the damage of your condition attacks. I know its on gear in game, but it really only makes sense for certain builds, none of which are terribly great, and the thief Condi builds don’t really get much out of it.

If you want to do a D/D condition build, I am a big fan. (I’m actually switching over my current build to run D/D again, once I have better gear.) I like that DB makes it easy to take on multiple mobs at a time in PvE. (I mostly play PvE, and I wouldn’t recommend using this build in PvP unless you are very good with it.) It can be a little slower than using D/P, etc., but if you round up a group at once and take them all down together, that helps. At 80, I prefer to run Carrion gear, which has Power/Condi/Vit on it.

If you want direct damage, there are a lot of good builds to pick from. I’ve currently been running the D/P & SB set-up that Rin talked about. Good damage, mobility and survivability. You’ll want Power, Precision and Crit Damage, and as much defensive stats as you feel you need to stay alive. (I like to mix in some Valkyrie pieces for extra Vitality.) The Sword/* builds are good too, and have different styles to them. The good thing is, if you decide to go this route, the gear and trait lines will mostly work for any of the weapon sets (with some tweaks) so you can try out the different weapon configurations without having to completely re-spec and re-gear your character. Just play around with everything. I never bothered with D/P after trying it in beta and dismissing it, then picked it up again a couple moths ago and suddenly loved it. Sometimes its hard to tell what you will like until you try it.

Awesome! All great information thank u all so much I will def be trying out both s/p and d/p I am really interested in the pistol whip skill for sure, but I do love my huge backstab as well so we will see thanks again!