Thief of the Silverwaste

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Posted by: Slalom.3174

Slalom.3174

I haven’t really played thief and this topic does not apply to PvP or WvW.
But I have a sylvari thief I have been saving for general fun play in HoT.

Currently running a full sinister engineer in the Silverwaste events (VW and such). He has a great initial burst of burning and bleeds which melts most everything. After that it is dodge and move while awaiting cooldown before bursting again. With a 19-20K health pool and 2400 Armor he survives pretty well.

A thief doesn’t have those Health+Armor safeguards. Is that why I see p/p thieves running around SIlverwaste? I would rather not go the pew-pew route (save that for a ranger ).

So…
Strictly speaking about PVE in the Silverwaste and the upcoming Verdant Brink, what sort of gear (or gear mix) will excel for a thief in that environment? I think I want to stick with condition, so Sinister. Dire, Rabid, Rampager or a mix?
Sword+Dagger/Shortbow? Dagger+Pistol/Shortbow?

If you have any insight or opinion after playing against those mobs in Beta, please let’s hear it.

Thanks in advance.

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Posted by: Interpret Interrupt.3824

Interpret Interrupt.3824

The thief thing has to do with the ability to tag all the enemies. You do not have to do the most damage, you just need to hit everything a certain percentage. People use thieves in silverwaste because the shortbow allows for multiple enemy hits with reasonable damage from auto attack. Meanwhile, the thief mobility allows it to just between the multiple events getting credit for each thing. It is about min maxing your rewards.
The gear is not as important, so much as the playstyle. But a nice zerker set will do you fine.

TLDR; thieves use range to tag multiple enemies and get credit for rewards. mobility helps them to get to each reward zone faster for more rewards.

K Pop
The Warrior, The Necro, The F1 Connoisseur
http://www.twitch.tv/interpretinterrupt

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Posted by: knyy.6427

knyy.6427

i only play zerker in pve as thief. but in bwe2 i tested condi daredevil with d/d, condi dodge and it was way easier to be alive during fights in verdant brink than with staff. but the fights took so long. i had a mix of rabid and rampager, cause there was no option for sinister.
the thing is condi thief is not “viable” in pve because you dont have access to burning, the broken condition. you just dont do enough condi damage.
so i suggest you go zerker.

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Posted by: Slalom.3174

Slalom.3174

i only play zerker in pve as thief. but in bwe2 i tested condi daredevil with d/d, condi dodge and it was way easier to be alive during fights in verdant brink than with staff. but the fights took so long. i had a mix of rabid and rampager, cause there was no option for sinister.
the thing is condi thief is not “viable” in pve because you dont have access to burning, the broken condition. you just dont do enough condi damage.
so i suggest you go zerker.

Just the kind of advice I was hoping for. Thanks
I guess zerker is still the way to go then (Too bad. I do so like conditions on my engie ).

Checked my vault and have a full set of both berserker and sinister stored away. Pays to be a packrat.

Now will work on weapon sets, runes and traits. Always so much fun…. :/

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Posted by: Black Frog.9274

Black Frog.9274

The nature of the enemies in SW makes standing close to them an extremely bad idea. If you do melee, you’re constantly having to get into and out of range, which makes fights so much longer. You only have so many evades you can do with thief these days and if you get rooted by husks or crippled by dogs, things get sticky fast. Teragrifs will eat your thief for lunch.

I Like to Run Randomly Around the Map

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Posted by: DresdenAllblack.1249

DresdenAllblack.1249

Zerker is great, but I like having some Vitality in the mix.

Angelina is free game again.
Crystal Desert

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Posted by: Slalom.3174

Slalom.3174

Thanks, Black Frog.9274… more to think about.

With engie, I rely on Rocket boots, AED Elixir S, dodge/endurance, health and armor to bounce around teragriffs. But they can put a hurtin’ on ya.
Most mobs I can handle face-to-face, but teragriffs’ “charge” has such a wide swath dodging doesn’t get me out of the way sometimes. Gotta be able to take a big,big hit, get up, get moving, recover and return.

And forget the teragriff bounce! haah

Gonna have to give this more thought and experimentation.

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Posted by: Amante.8109

Amante.8109

Traditionally, people haven’t run Condi builds in PvE because a lot of the earlier content is rife with mobs that die too quick and structures that are immune to conditions.

The newer areas like Silverwastes seem designed with Conditions more in mind. Sinister/Rampager P/D is actually quite good there, and with Verdant Brink and other HoT zones mirroring the design principles of Silverwastes, P/D should continue to get better in PvE. Impaling Lotus and Impairing Daggers add a lot to the spec as well

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Posted by: Sir Vincent III.1286

Sir Vincent III.1286

Full glass cannon D/D build. You don’t need survivability as long as you stay in a group. You’ll receive plenty of healing and protection and might that all you have to do is focus on what you do best — deal damage.

You only die when you’re alone, so don’t do that.

http://sirvincentiii.com ~ In the beginning…there was Tarnished Coast…
Full set of 5 unique skills for both dual-wield weapon sets: P/P and D/D – Make it happen
PvE – DD/CS/AC – If that didn’t work, roll a Reaper or Revenant.

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Posted by: sinfulechoes.9503

sinfulechoes.9503

I do VW everyday or every other day, a few times whenever, with berserker gear and never really have problems unless caught alone with the nasty (usually unseen til too late) teragriff/leecher combo. She seems to excel with the Champion Mordrem Mangler as she has so many ways to destroy pustules really fast.

I find shortbow to be essential for everything except the solo VW bosses, when I sometimes switch to pistols. D/D is my usual melee setup here as it can still cripple multiple enemies in a emergency, if I need to back off and “reset”. ( Things can get dicey quick as we all know)

(edited by sinfulechoes.9503)

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Posted by: Slalom.3174

Slalom.3174

Thanks everyone for the insight.

Guess what, based on what y’all have said I am stuck between berserker and sinister.

Will play around for a bit with gw2skills to see what I like.

Thanks again. Much appreciated.

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Posted by: Tasao.4623

Tasao.4623

In Silverwastes my Thief is Sinister accessories with Carrion armor and weapons for a bit more survivability. Dagger/Dagger+Shortbow. Deadly Strikes, Acrobatics, Shadow Arts at the moment but the second two change a lot.

Acrobatics keeps you from getting pinned down by giving you a lot of Vigor and by breaking stuns and the constant immobilizes mordrem like to spam with Hard To Catch and Don’t Stop.

I’m using Shadow Arts right now for the two Venom traits, which gives me a ~30-40 second CD on major condi burst damage that scales based on how many allies are around me. I use the poison, torment, and stun venoms. Which I think is Spider, Skelk, and Basilisk Venoms.

The stealth helps even though my only stealth abilities are the passive stealth on ressing an ally and my heal skill, since my last utility slot is spent on Signet of Shadows for the 25% speed boost and aoe blind.

When not using venoms I usually use Trickery instead of Shadow Arts and take Caltrops, Dagger Storm, and maybe Needle Trap. Then trait for tricks to cure conditions and have a shorter CD, and for steal to give might, fury, swiftness, vigor, and to daze or confuse enemies, and for dodging to drop caltrops.
I sometimes switch Deadly Arts traits to support traps as well. You can have your heal drop a needle trap, and make all traps applies 5 vuln to enemies and 5 might to you. So you can double need trap enemies and really ruin their day.

Shortbow gives good area coverage with Choking Gas and Trick Shot pinging everything. Shortbow5 provides superior mobility.
Dagger/Dagger gives bleed stacks AND evades for surviving in melee with Death Blossom. Dagger5’s stealth also helps escape sticky situations and Dagger4’s thrown knife helps tag enemies and cripple multiple enemies with its bouncing, which also applies venoms in a pinch.

I tried this build with Daredevil last BWE and it worked very well. I took Hide in Shadows, Caltrops, Disabling Daggers, Shadowstep, and the Elite combo. Was able to dodge a lot and spam condis while doing it, then switch to Death Blossoms or Shortbow3s for evades while regenerating Endurance, then start dodging again, then use more evading skills, etc, to be largely untouchable during fights.

Lots of aoe condition coverage, but Steal + Disabling Daggers + the Elite combo allowed me to still pick out and focus down high priority targets liked Mordrem Snipers. And even when that spike combo was down, I could still use all of my evades and teleports to jump past the other enemies to get my hands on the priority target for destruction. And even if I couldn’t, if they were inaccessible, I could evade something like a Sniper’s Rapid Fire for long periods of time while dealing damage to the more immediate enemies.

With the above setup I sit at 17.3k hp, poison (and weakness as a result) and bleed constantly, sprinkle on some other condis like torment, have high vigor uptime for dodging, get swiftness when dodging, automatically break incoming stuns every 30 seconds and refill endurance, cripple and chill have 50% reduced durations, and incoming immobilized turn into cripple instead once every 10 seconds.

Makes it very easy to survive in the Silverwastes. Venoms also leech life and because of the waves most events use to spawn Mordrem in the zone, they’re frequently back up for each new wave.

Edit: Holy Wall of Text. Sorry about that. Got carried away.