Guild Wars 2

Hello there, so I’ve started this game around 6 days ago, got lvl 13 mesmer and lvl 31 thief, and I’m in love with thief! I started to play some PvP games and won 2 out of 5 i played.. yeh.. I use d/p and shortbow as my secondary but i cant seem to dish out that much damage in team fights, and I don’t know if it’s cause I’m bad with thief or using my skills. I usually enter the fight with smokefield-heartseeker and steal, but i dont seem to do any damage and enemies just ignore me lol. So I was thinking, what would be the best burst build for PvP? Any ideas?

http://imgur.com/kRNLsiB,7RuKcoK,7sWAozP#2
3 images ^

Burst usually fails in sPvP since players have inherently higher HP/armor and the damage and modifiers are inherently lower than in WvW before even considering the array of thief skill damage reductions in sPvP-only.

Some of the more standard builds are pretty much the best you get, paired with fire + air sigils (which are cheesy as all hell). Anything really building to one-shot people in sPvP will normally just fail to do so because of the higher innate durability of all builds and the format favoring more durable/resilient styles of play as well.

As far as “best burst attainable” goes, something like my build here will pretty much hit the theoretical maximum. That said, it won’t exactly be very good in general, and not much more effective than most standard builds at +1’ing fights as the thief must resort to doing due to general inadequacies in the current sPvP format. I imagine in the near future it will also only get worse.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Post-Your-Build-Thread/page/4#post4647153

Thanks a lot, your comment made me understand more about logic of pvp and game. GL HF!!

Highest possible burst? I have been summoned!

..Basically, DeceiverX is doing it right. For absolute maximum burst, swap Shadow Refuge for Signet of Malice and change a few traits and you’re good to go. It should look a little something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVl8MpxpFOxzJ8PNRLRt9IECfgXnh2PQAEiA-T1CBABHfCAg4BAUp6PScIAwa/BAOgCZp8LP9BMqEMFNMMckCCAgAcz2sv9Ngzbezbezbeu5Nv5Nv5NLFQELjA-w

Ancient video of the build in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9d4Og8KbEM

I also did some math to figure out just how much damage you could do with these kinds of builds if all the stars aligned once upon a time, ended up with a solid 80k burst.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/balance/The-Highest-Theoretical-Burst/first#post4093244

Have fun!

yski.7642:

Highest possible burst? I have been summoned!

..Basically, DeceiverX is doing it right. For absolute maximum burst, swap Shadow Refuge for Signet of Malice and change a few traits and you’re good to go. It should look a little something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVl8MpxpFOxzJ8PNRLRt9IECfgXnh2PQAEiA-T1CBABHfCAg4BAUp6PScIAwa/BAOgCZp8LP9BMqEMFNMMckCCAgAcz2sv9Ngzbezbezbeu5Nv5Nv5NLFQELjA-w

Ancient video of the build in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9d4Og8KbEM

I also did some math to figure out just how much damage you could do with these kinds of builds if all the stars aligned once upon a time, ended up with a solid 80k burst.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/balance/The-Highest-Theoretical-Burst/first#post4093244

Have fun!

You surely should work on another BS montage.

True that Crit Damage got nerfed, but add some applied Strenght and a way to get 5 extra stacks of Might and you are good to go. (tip: Shadow trap gives 10 stacks of might now for enough time to use in a burst).

Lastly I will agree with DeceiverX:
Runes of Inteligence are the way to go for D/D Thiefs.
I’ve being testing some builds with it and it blows since you can trait your self a bit more bunky and still hit for 10k+ backstabs.

Im wondering if the followiong isnt higher damage?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Furious_Sharpening_Stone

Might not be that good on a glass thief with no toughness from armor/traits?

Thanks everyone!! I will give some tries on the builds! They sound pretty powerful, tho sacrificing mobility. And again, thanks!

KytsuNe.4357:

Thanks everyone!! I will give some tries on the builds! They sound pretty powerful, tho sacrificing mobility. And again, thanks!

More like they sacrifice everything.

SoulSin.5682:

KytsuNe.4357:

Thanks everyone!! I will give some tries on the builds! They sound pretty powerful, tho sacrificing mobility. And again, thanks!

More like they sacrifice everything.

This is why I choose not to run SoM. The cleansing heal + stealth is huge and too good to pass up against heavies or tankier/condition-based builds imho.

SoulSin.5682:

More like they sacrifice everything.

^This. You give up your ability to fight and run in return for the ability to instantly delete unsuspecting targets. If you ever get attacked, you will die. The trick is to avoid attention until you are ready to kill.

To make it a little easier, you could go with DeceiverX’s suggestion and take Hide in Shadows instead of SoM. You won’t see a real difference in damage, so unless you are making a fancy backstab montage 3 signets should be plenty :P

You surely should work on another BS montage.

I’m not actively playing atm – I just kind of got side tracked and ended up on the forums.

Besides, I feel like I’d have to do some silly PvE grind for ascended gear to get the absolute highest crits before doing another video. What’s the point in going for a 4 signet build if the damage I do isn’t any higher than what a normal build with better gear could do?

The fact I have multiple characters that all want ascended gear isn’t helping >.<

You can also always choose not to use all three as well. If I find myself in a situation that requires an escape, such as a 1v2, I’ll normally also just activate two (IS and AS), blow up the glassy target with steal to also spike, and leave SoS for the extra mobility while using another CnD and HiS to cleanse conditions and run away after dropping the first target. If the other stays to res, I can re-engage while they’re busy doing that, pop SoS for extra might to commit to the fight for damage, and DPS them down or swap into my alternate set and skirmish around for a bit. The perks of valkyrie armor

As far as ascended goes, the difference overall is pretty marginal, especially so for the armor. You’re looking something along the lines of what I believe is around only 14 power and 1% crit damage on the armor (I.E. around 175-200 damage on a 10k stab), and the weapons are genuinely easy to make with not too huge of a damage margin. The armor only really means something when around 1300g of Omni infusions are applied to it – in which case it’s adding only a total of +44 power still with the 1% crit damage.

So really the armor in full infusions will only add a few hundred extra damage or so at peak, which isn’t much. The weapons will do the same if not a little more but obviously for a much, much lower price.