Guild Wars 2

Hi,

New to the GW world, and was interested in playing a condition thief, but I don’t like having venoms in my utility slots (I find it hard to go without Shadowstep and Shadow Refuge) so I decided to try a bleed build instead.

Here’s the build

0/0/30/20/20
Shadow Arts: Slowed Pulse, Cloaked in Shadow, Shadow’s Rejuvenation
Acrobatics: Vigorous Recovery, Pain Response
Trickery: Uncatchable, Thrill of the Crime

I run Carrion amulet with Shaman jewel. I end up with about 18k hp, 2400 armor, 1150 condition dmg, +65% bleed duration, and regen on stealth.

Been playing with this build for the past couple of days, I like it but still looking to make some tweaks. I’d like to incorporate Scorpion Wire to pull enemies into my caltrops, or replace the shortbow with D/D for LDB… something to speed up killing a tad.

I can survive most fights, when in doubt, CnD and let stealth run out to CnD again and again to get a little hp back and/or wait for heal/shadow refuge CD to be up.

I like roaming, backcapping, and keeping enemies busy while waiting for reinforcements.

Any thoughts on the build? Thanks in advance.

I like the idea but the issue is that you have no defensive cooldowns to outlast your opponents, especially when they are a ranged dps.

I use a similar type of build as a warhorm/sword warrior and i find it that it works great but i have alot of condition removal abilities and i have heavy armor.

Still i would like to try your build in wvw with caltrops/Shortbow spam

Hm true for WvW, sPvP doesn’t have map layouts that keep ranged dps far enough from me for the most part. Steal, cripple, shadowstep, infiltrator’s arrow, swiftness on dodge keeps me near them.

For condition removal, Hide in Shadows and Shadowstep handle that, sometimes I take the trait to remove conditions while stealthed.

I don’t often have survival issues, and I can outlast 1v3 around a cap point until reinforcements get there, staying stealthed and casting caltrops when it’s up. Granted I may not kill them in those cases, since I can’t attack from stealth while doing that but I keep them from capping.

I just wish thieves had more abilities that bleed…

In my opinion your traits don’t synergize well with you skill and weapon sets and they way you’d have to play it.
Replace Cloaked in Shadows with Shadow’s Embrace. The blind on stealth doesn’t help you that much while condition removal on stealth is awesome. A 4s stealth will actually remove 2 conditions with this trait.
If you want to stack Vigor, get Withdraw as healing skill. It has only 15s CD, a decent heal and a dodge+stun break included. Get Beautiful Theft instead of Thrill of the Crime to have access to perma Vigor.
Regen traits are not reliable. Heal on spending Initiative would be better imo.
You might want to get a another good trait instead of Slowed Pulse. Get Initiative gain on stealth or -20% CD on Deception skills.

Slowed Pulse is ok, but you have Pain Response. Using both seems counter intuitive to me. If you go with Shadow Protector you should find you gain far more regeneration. (I am assuming you’re going to basically be using C&D and Sneack Attack frequently) Otherwise, Infusion of Shadow works well if you’re wanting more Init regen, though this isn’t an initiative intensive build, this trait greatly helps you keep your total up and available. Shadow’s Embrace is a nice one too, as it triggers when you first go into stealth and again after the 3rd second.

I’m also a fan of Fleet Shadows, because I like to make maximum use of stealth time to drastically reposition myself and disorient my intended prey. But that’s just a personal preference.

Otherwise your build will probably work well enough to try it out and get a feel for it. After playing it for a little while you’ll know better than anyone else what about it isn’t sitting right with you and that you’d like to change. (If anything)

Thanks for the comments.

Malicious, I’ll try the vigor stacking and Withdrawal, didn’t realize it was only a 15s CD. Blind on stealth has been pretty good for stomping downed players though.

Ravnodaus, Shadow Protector grants me regen as well? Tooltip says when I stealth an ally, they gain regen.

You’re right the build isn’t too ini intensive, but with more ini I could throw in some Body Shots for good measure so I’ll try that as well.

Thanks guys.

Shadow protector does grant you the regen too, I know.. it isn’t clear about it from the tooltip.

Try it out and see for yourself, but in my experience using dancing dagger instead of body shots just seems to work better. Makes sure they’re crippled at all times, does really good damage….especially vs a ranger or any 2vYou. Body shot seems slow, a dps loss overall… great for maintaining vuln on a boss or focus target with allies, less so solo. But try it out yourself and figure out what you prefer.

Good luck and happy hunting!

My tips:
1. Choose between Shadow’s Embrace (condition removal on stealth) if you have trouble w/ condition or Hidden Thief (stealth on steal) for more offense.
2. You need Infusion of Shadow (Gain 2 initiative on stealth), you need it to put out any reliable damage with CnD>Sneak Attack
3. Keep the shortbow. Death Blossom is a whole different build in itself where you need to keep high initiative recovery. Choking Gas + Cluster Bomb is way too good for this build. AOE weakness + Mobility too good + keep in mind that Cluster Bomb applies 3 stacks of bleed when you pop it at pointblank range (Carrion Amulet gives enough Power for cluster bomb to still hit hard while applying tons of bleeds)