Guild Wars 2

Hello.
I’m writing here to get some information about Thief in PvE (dungeons, fractals, events, quests, shortly all PVE stuff). Let’s back to the topic. I would like to know which weapon should I use as a thief to get the highest dps. What type of gear and what type of damage should I do (stealth + backstab (on d/d) or conditions).

Actually I’m using 25/30/0/0/15 (but after doing CoE p2 I changed traits for 20/30/0/15/0 (dodge required))

So please help me.
Thanks for responds and for advices.

For PVE. I pretty much use a high int build with lots of dodges and swiftness. Using short bow as the main weapon for AOE trash pack damage and instances that requires a lot of evasion whilst using D/P for single target, melee situations, blind tanking and interrupts.

0/30/10/30/0

While it isn’t a stealth build. Blinding powder, shadow refuge, black powder/HS combo all come in handy for condition removal.

Gear should be no other than full berserker to obtain the best possible damage.

Hey. Thanks for an answer. I noticed that berserker gear goes in pair with low survivability. Isn’t it bad for dungeon/PVE thief ?

Sorrow.8357:

Hey. Thanks for an answer. I noticed that berserker gear goes in pair with low survivability. Isn’t it bad for dungeon/PVE thief ?

Less seasoned Thief = no ’serker for you, get some Valkyries/Soldiers.
Seasoned/Veteran Thief = go ’serker all the way.

What Sir Vincent said.

If you have experience playing other classes and know a dungeon, bosses, things to avoid, etc, zerker is great.

You need to be a little more specific when you say “highest DPS” because technically speaking that would be full zerker going dagger/dagger 25/30/0/0/15. See Brazil’s DPS thief if that’s what you’re interested in, that is pretty much going balls to the wall on DPS. If you run this build you’re basically saying you like to live on the edge and have balls of titanium (or, you bit of a hell of a lot more than you can chew). No survivability, no condi cleanse, etc etc, DPS through the roof.

I much prefer to have at least SOME semblance of defense in case I mess up or something unexpected happens. 15/30/10/0/15, D/P and SB, all zerker gear, ruby orbs (because I’m poor). Still do plenty of DPS. Has excellent performance in PvE. I substitute in some soldier/cavalier gear with zerker coat and leggings in WvW.

EDIT: The classic DPS build with high survivability I believe is 10/30/30/0/0, very versatile.

I’m not with Sir Vincent III on this one. I’m a veteran thief. Allthough I took a break for a very long time, I’ve spent most of my time playing thief.

I’ve had discussions about this everywhere. On this forum, ingame (with skilled thief players) and on gw2guru. Most people will indeed always claim that zerker is the only way for thief. I still prefer having a lot of vitality and a small amount of extra toughness. I’ve played scholar runes and full zerk, but I went back to divinity with some valk items (jewellery full zerk though). The damage is less than when going full zerk, but it’s still good dps. Your autoattacks crit way less though, that’s the major downside. I can roam in WvW (different traits and utilities though) and go anywhere in PvE with the same builds.

For easy PvE or coordinated groups in harder content I would suggest d/d and full zerker. For a more versatile build (e.g WvW, PvE, solo, big events etc) I would advise some extra vitality and toughness atleast. You can get away with full zerker when you know what to expect, yet it’s not the expected but the unexpected that kills you and for that I prefer some passive mitigation.

Most versatile and useful weaponsets imo are D/P, S/D and S/P. Highest DPS is D/D though.

Azure Prower.8701:

For PVE. I pretty much use a high int build with lots of dodges and swiftness. Using short bow as the main weapon for AOE trash pack damage and instances that requires a lot of evasion whilst using D/P for single target, melee situations, blind tanking and interrupts.

0/30/10/30/0

While it isn’t a stealth build. Blinding powder, shadow refuge, black powder/HS combo all come in handy for condition removal.

Gear should be no other than full berserker to obtain the best possible damage.

Damage mitigation through blinds and dodging, nice.

Full berserker gear is the best, but you have to be really skilled to survive in high level fractals with 13000HP and no armor. I consider myself an above average player, and I still die sometimes.

I would recommend running 15/30/0/25/0 for a little extra HP and not much power loss, this also gets you better initiative regen which is always good. Personally, I mix in Valkyrie armor with my zerkers, just enough to boost my HP up to like 16k… and making sure to keep 50% crit.

I also use dagger/pistol and shortbow for weapons. You can keep weakness on a boss permanently as long as you are auto attacking, or with shortbow, you can keep weakness and poison on whole trash packs. SB is great AE damage, and dagger is great single target damage.

S/P aoe+ black powder can killed alot mobs in PVE seriously!
Swords gives you melee aoe and pistol can stun and use black powder.
For dungeons i suggested bow and P/P! Thief aren’t tank but damage dealers.

@Stx You can no longer keep perma weakness up

Lotus Poison: Increased the weakness duration to 4 seconds, but it can only apply once every 20 seconds per target.

The trait description stayed the same though.