Guild Wars 2

Is there any way to create some type of support build for the thief?

The only thing I’m coming up with is speccing into Trickery for Bountiful Theft and Thrill of the Crime, then going deep into Shadow Arts for Venomous Auras. Then grab some Venoms and Shadow Refuge.

Is that about all I can do? Is there something more effective? Would a party even benefit at all from this type of build (PvE)?

I really doubt you can support much as a thief. try to look around for some bow builds but again, I doubt that.
Thieves exceel at dealing loads of damage in a short amount of time, being very mobile and avoid all sort of stuff…
this build you’re having is basiclly a mobility type which makes no sense cause another prof would do the support role much better and you’ll pull more dps for the both of you. Just my opinion.

You want support?

1. Shortbow
2. Poison Field
3. Scatter-Shot spam.

Also, get Shadow Refuge so that you can revive your teammates in the middle of combat.

Also, use a pistol off-hand for Headshot.

I believe thiefs are not specifically good at support. However there are some party based skills and traits here and there. Read traits and skills descriptions carefully – i’m sure you’ll come up with something. One thing you haven’t mentioned – Agility signet. It removes condition from you and your party members which is pretty iseful.

Either a full venom share, or personally I like deception skills and master of deception (for 48/24 sec Improved recharge) with Shadow refuge, blinding powder, scorp wire or smoke screen, Lot of choices really for 3rd based on situations.

Shadow protector to give regen boon when stealthing allies, Infusion of shadow to gain 2 initiative anytime you enter stealth. Trickery for thrill of the crime & bountiful theft at least. I like hastened replenishment for 4 more initiative on heal. This synergizes for condition damage.

shortbow is my favorite choice when it comes to pve and overall support. you can deal great bleed damage by cluster bombing with proper detonation, poison combos, and have sword/dagger off if you need to swap for stealth, dagger 4 can also be handy. Dual pistol is another possibility since pistol off has good utility but I think sword pistol is the best overall set thanks to infiltrator strike. For cloak and dagger though it may be worth keeping a dagger offhand which is why the following has sword dagger secondary set

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#Mckc0mz0mFnRomFnRo9MxaxzcVcVkq

Thief ability to support is highly tied to the team composition and especially what kind of field they bring to the table.

For example with durable fire fields you can give 25 stacks of might easily, with a water field you can become the best healer of the game.

Of course you need the shortbow, and bring along some utilities like shadow refuge, caltrops, smoke screen, scorpion wire, blinding powder or agility signet. Venom share also works but i really think it’s overestimated in pve.

Support is the weakest area for the Thief. compared to some other classes a Thief struggles to find good support options where a Guardian or Engineer is just tripping over how many good support options they have.

However, its not impossible to provide useful support.

Shadow Refuge and Smoke Screen are two quite useful support oriented utility abilities. They both drop combo fields and dramatically increase group survivability.

The Shortbow is a good ranged support weapon, with a Poison Combo field and alot of combo finishers to synergize with other people’s fields.

Traits can offer additional levels of support but I wouldn’t try to trait exclusively for it or you may end up with a kind of inchorent build. Venomous Aura is great offensive support but it works even better when you yourself are making effective use of the Venoms. A Steal-to-Buff build with the Trickery traits can be useful as well, but the buffs provided are strictly short duration (10 second boons on 45 second cooldown) so its not really sufficient to be a focal point of your group role. Just a nice bonus.

Black powder by itself is one of the best support skills in the game. There is nothing else that will mitigate damage as well against non-unshakable mobs. Shadow refuge and the thief’s ability to easily get out of danger and stay alive for long periods of time also make us one of the best ressers. Blast combo finishers are the best kind of combo finishers and nobody can put them out like we can with the shortbow. Spamming cluster bomb into certain combo fields can do wonders.

Best part is you can do all of this without even having to spec your traits into it.

Hmmmm. Yeah, I’ll have to mess around with it some. I think I was overestimating the stealing boons (I never found any hard numbers on them) and underestimating the usefulness of combo fields, but I’ve been recently putting fields to really good use on my Staff/Well Necro and figuring out the ins and outs of it, so I’ll definitely have to look more into that, since there are plenty of fields/finishers to choose from in thief.

I’m still curious about the second part of the question, though. Would a supporty type thief even really be wanted? Or are people with thieves in the group more looking for them to just throw out a bunch of damage?