Guild Wars 2

what’s funny about thief builds is that once another one is discovered every thief i run across except in rare instances uses it
it’s like the collective mind of the skritt tinkering away trying to find more ways to …steal things, only to have the entire skritt village use the same method, and then everyone goes broke and the process repeats itself.

That’s why I haven’t released my build, and have no plans on doing so. I’ll release other builds until I die, though.

Which build?
Message Body length must at least be 15.

Xscyt.5463:

Which build?
Message Body length must at least be 15.

dagger/pistol.
i like cheese for the same reason i must type 15 characters.

That’s cause anet nerfs all of our builds except backstab.

I have a mini Skrit Forager, his name is Miskers, he gives away my position when Im hiding in stealth.

I think you will find that most people copy the build but tweak it to their own play style. I think thats what they do anyway.

The thing is that the Thief has 7 possible weapon combinations. Some of them suck, and as the Thief shares cooldowns between both sets, the switch should either be for utility (Shortbow) or synergy (like mixing S/D with D/P).

You know how many weapon combinations a Warrior have? 19. Ranger, Guardian, Necro or Mesmer all have 10 or more sets. And all them have separate cooldown on their switch so it’s viable to focus on both weapon sets making the diversity grow.

You know that an Elementalist with a single weapon has almost as many weapon skills as the Thief with all his weapons combined? Yep, that’s how versatile the Thief is.

Once you get a weapon set, there are a number of ways to play it, and many of them either suck or are constantly hit by the nerf-bat which corners all thieves on very similar builds to stay competitive.

I’m trying to stay on support builds even with recent hard hits making even more players focus on backstabbing around.

The reason you see many thieves using similar builds (with their own tweaks to adapt to play style) is that it’s the only way to stay competitive with the least versatile profession in the game.

The Thief needs at least another off-hand (a second sword would be perfect) and a 2 handed ranged weapon (a rifle to create a sniper role and finally give the Thief 1200 range so he can fight in WvW), which would put him at 11 combinations and on par with most professions (despite not benefiting from switchs so he would still be inferior in viable options, but at least there would be some diversity).

A lot of thieves run similar builds because ANet nerfs every build that becomes viable apart from backstab builds.

My current build will go with me to the grave.

Id: KILL. MURDER. Backstab build? DAMAGE! TAKE. KILL.

Ego: Take ALL the traits! I am a unique snowflake, and I feel good about myself!

Super-Ego: You are a reprehensible piece of kitten. Repent! Spec Shadow Arts only, ignore remaining 40 points, only spam Shadow Refuge on helpless, downed friendly Warriors.

I guess that makes me a hippie.

EDIT: Why is everyone using “synergy” now? This is new.

With so many useless traits, people will eventually fall into the same dilemma.

I’ve been thinking about it, and the comparison to thief players and skritt is actually pretty apt. Not because thieves be stealin’ or anything, but more in a general forum sense. Really it could apply to any build-focused forum.

On the forum, a lot of people bring a lot of ideas forward which are rapidly examined / attacked / refined by others, until the more generally liked or successful builds emerge. That’s how skritt work: a lot of (relatively) simple minds working on the same problem until they reach a solution or consensus.

Skritt are probably faster though.