Guild Wars 2

Hey all.

I love the thief. In every game I always play the Rogue leather-wearing archetype and this game is no different!

I am having no problem in PvE whatsoever, running a dagger/dagger bleed build with high mobility and stealth tactics.

But I am more interested in PvP. I am quite a big PvP player but I don’t think I’ve found my niche with the Thief in this game yet.

Here are the ‘standard’ builds I have used and my thoughts on them.

- Condition build, D/D: Fun for PvE and yeah it is okay in PvP. Death Blossom gives great AoE bleeds and survivability, seconding as an evade. But the whole meta atm seems based around burst. Warriors/Mesmers and glass cannon Thieves are running riot. Necromancers and Guardians LAUGH at my attempts to make them bleed, too. Overall, I love how durable a condition build is, but the offense is totally lacklustre. I have heard that Venom builds are quite effective but I have never used one, if anybody has any ideas for a venom build, lemme know.

- Backstab/Heartseeker/Pistol Whip burst: I’ll begin by saying I HATE Pistol Whip. It requires you to stand still. Thieves should never stand still. I have been running with a Backstab/Heartseeker build the last few days. It’s literally a case of kill in 3 hits or get hit in 3 hits, but that is not my issue with this build… I actually feel such a high-risk build suits the Thief stereotype. My issue with the build is just how reliant it is on cooldowns. Once you’ve blown Basilisk Venom, Steal and Assassin’s signet, you are pretty much totally useless for around a minute, give or take. I can’t stand that, I really can’t. And yes, it’s always fun to MELT people in 3 hits but really, how useful is killing 1 person then running away for a minute to the team in the long run? Not at all.

- After watching the Yippie Kay Yay thief PvP vids I decided to use his Pistol/Dagger build, attracted to the high survivability it offers compared to a backstab build. But it just seems a little misplaced in sPvP, and more suited to roaming in WvW, which is where he plays it. The maps are too small for this build in sPvP, or so my experiences tell me. It does take a while to whittle opponent’s health down, which is fine in WvW but in sPvP, the pace is a lot faster, and if you take too long to kill somebody, the chances of something intervening is a lot bigger.

So TL;DR

Condition offense, in my experiences is too easily countered and out of place in a direct damage based meta.

Backstab is fun for 1 kill then you are useless for a minute.

P/D is fun but too slow for sPvP more suited for WvW.

My question to you, my betters, is this: Is there another route for Thief sPvP? None of these three types of gameplay are ‘clicking’ for me :’(

My wish is to find a build, or create one with the help of you guys, to create a Thief whose damage isn’t totally kittened but can also stay alive for a drawn out fight.

Have you tried a D/P backstab build? Less “bursty” than a D/D CnD build, but picking up some better avoidance (Black Powder) and an interrupt instead? You can get some long lasting Black Powder chains going with the right approach—it’s a very strong anti-melee build.

I run it with SoShadows for the speed/extra blind, Blinding Power/Shadow Refuge (depending), and SoAgility for the condition removal.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fYAQNAoaVlUmaOHfS4E95Ex2jeKUe6pgsjtTBXtKA;TsAA2CnoqxUjoGbNuak1swYgxECA is a close approximation of what I run most of the time. D/P builds are actually fairly popular in tPvP too, so not sure how you missed it.

It must have just slipped through my net or something but it sounds like a very interesting build that might just be right up my alley.

I find CnD quite difficult to land in PvP once Steal/Venom is on CD so this might just work for me.

I am going to try it out right now! Thanks very much for the reply.

If anybody else has any ideas, let me know! I am open to everything.

EDIT: Elithrar, do you happen to know of any vids showcasing this build? Thanks again.

Only some older ones from BWE3, but they will give you the playstyle:

http://youtu.be/LnioaHVRjh4
http://youtu.be/39cVK9552Io

His builds are a bit different to mine—I have 30 in Crit Strikes as Executioner is too good to pass up.

super thief special heals / support build

- 30 shadow: shadow protector, shadow rejuvenation, pick any for the middle slot, condition removal can be good or hidden thief.

- 20 acrobatics: Assassin’s reward gives heal per initiative point spent, anything you like that goes with your utilities for the first slot.

20 or 10/10 any other, i like trickery for thrill of the crime and bountiful theft. but critical can work great since you gain initiative on crits.

any dagger offhand works great with it so you can use cloak and dagger to capitalize on healing in stealth. or dagger and pistol, setting up the black powder heartseeker combo to get into stealth and try for backstabs. runes of dwayna or lyssa, i always get dagger storm. can work with either hide in shadows or signet of malice. my utility slots are blinding powder, shadow refuge, and 1 other that i change around, sometimes trip wire, sometimes roll for initiative, shadow step, or agility signet. using a lot of stealths you gain heavy healing and in general avoidance of heavy hitting direct damage. it makes you hard to fight unless they can land some serious daze, root, knockdowns. the stats that seem to work best are balanced but with good amount of power, healing, HP, and precision/crit damage. I was able to set it up with berserker/valkyrie