Guild Wars 2

Looking for some up to date information on thief runes. Best way I find is to get other peoples feedback on what they use and why they use it.

So what runes do you use, and why:

Build: Power Build

Runes: Scholar Runes

Why: In pve it gives the most damage in dungeons, which people like for speed runs.

In WvW I am normally shortbow’ing with full health during zergs, and in 1v1 I usually get the first burst in, and find that no matter who I am against, they need to go straight on the defensive or I will be in trouble.

Scholar because I open with a burst when I’m at above 90% and if I take damage I heal above 90% by the time my burst is ready again.

I guess it helps that I use smoke screen and often times mitigate tons of opening damage.

I use Rage on my crit thief. They may not be as meta as Strength or Scholar, but they’re not terrible, and I like to mix it up, rather than have Strength or Scholar on every one of my characters.

Build: Leech d/d
Runes: Mad king

Why: Mad king gives good bonuses to both condition and raw damage, and in a leech dagger build you use a combination of deathblossom and heartseeker for damage, so you can’t gear too heavily toward one or the other. In addition, the elite effect counts each bird peck as a separate attack. This combines extremely well with signet of malice+invigorating precision combo. This means that your zerg-healing is off the charts with daggerstorm, and you have a reliable and quickly recharging burst heal to go along with your passive heals when using basilisk venom. Also, you’re a walking John Woo movie with all of those birds and flashy acrobatics. That’s just fun.

Pack runes atm, mainly because they work well with just about any power build and I’m not up for crafting more ascended armor. Cheap too.

Build: Power D/D
Rune: Pack runes
Why: The fury might swiftness is nice, the swiftness duration synergizes with my food (gain swiftness on killing a foe) so I gain longer swiftness after killing a foe which is good in outnumbered fights and for roaming. They’re relatively cheap and good for a thief for basically any power build imo.

Build: Power/Condi P/D – Short bow
Rune: Balthazar
Why: Burning adds to my burst setup. Been using it for about 10 months now

PvE: Scholar runes – Because there’s really no reason to run anything else unless you just can’t afford scholar runes yet. =P

WvW: Traveler runes – I like the passive 25% speed in WvW since 90% of WvW is running around the massive map…

sPvP: Strength Runes – It’s either this or privateer/ogre runes and I don’t like having pets that give away my position while in stealth.

Builds I use:

PvE – meta power build. 5/6/0/0/3 when using S/P on trash or P/P on ranged fights and 6/6/0/0/2 on single target fights where I use D/D.

WvW – 0/6/6/2/0 (same build Yishis runs), but I haven’t messed with WvW in a while…my least favorite part of the game.

sPvP – 2/6/0/0/6 S/D. If I get subjected to Skyham, I’ll switch to D/P with the same traits.

WvW:

Power: centaur- I use withdraw so have 100% swiftness up time, fast than traveler and also gives +175 to power. For power builds, I feel that I can’t afford to use speed signet so need mobility in my runes.

Condi: Krait- 3 utilities (mainly infiltrators signet) don’t feel manditory so I use speed signet and go for other stuff on runes. Have been experimenting with a lot of runes but I like the bleed duration. Also really like sunless, balthazar and aristocracy (havent farmed them yet)

sPvP:

Strength runes because with might on dodge in the acro trait line + strength runes you can do high damage and have good survivability

P/D with krait runes. those bleeds last FOREEEEVEEEER. extra bonuses aren’t anything to write home about, but since the “AoE condis on elite” is on a 30s CD, you can bring basi venom and get a bunch of conditions to cover your bleeds.

Mix sample so far, keep adding what you use please Thief community, will use it for a guide soon.

Build: Power P/P (I notice a lack of this here) :p
Rune: Pack
Why: +175 Power +125 Precision +30% Swiftness

alchemyst.2165:

Build: Power D/D
Rune: Pack runes
Why: The fury might swiftness is nice, the swiftness duration synergizes with my food (gain swiftness on killing a foe) so I gain longer swiftness after killing a foe which is good in outnumbered fights and for roaming. They’re relatively cheap and good for a thief for basically any power build imo.

have you tried using Assassin’s Retreat? I was stacking 3+mins a lot of the time when I used it

Build: Power S/P + D/D + SB
Rune: Strength
Why: Moar Might. Can’t afford to Scholar because my damage is so high I always draw all aggros, anywhere, everywhere. And frankly strength rune + strength sigil on a 90+% crtitrate post-fury works really well.

Build: Power

Runes: Eagle for dungeons(easy dps), traveler for roaming (25% is still nice and I’m too lazy to buy anything new), altruism for blobbing(can’t post build, but trust me it is good), hoelbrak/rage/pack for pvp (usually these 3 give me something on a build I need, rarely do I need raw damage such as ogre or scholar or eagle).

Build: Condition

Runes: Krait, undead sometimes.

Build: Healing power

Runes: uhh……

Build Power S/D + SB
Rune: Superior Sigil of Rage
Why: I am use sizer build (2/0/0/6/6) and maintain full time fury.

Build: Sd crit/trick or dp crit/trick

Ogre with dp, as they give the best dmg, and the rock dog is very useful at body blocking certain projectiles.

Pack with sd, because you get lots of precision out of them

I use Traveler rune. XD (move 25% faster)
S/P P/P (pvp)

Most Thief may think I’m lame. Agree, in term of DPS output.
But I down a lot of decent thief with this. (and some luck)

As you can see Signet of movement (the one that give passive 25% movement)
is a bit useless when active.
so basically this rune give me 1 more Utility skill!!!!!!!. no other rune can give me that.

Have to say my PVP life and PVE are a lot better when I replace Signet of movement with Shadow Step.

I actually use Runes of the Thief for my Power/Condi Hybrid Thief.

Precision, Condition Damage, plus a sweet damage boost for flanking.

Build and Runes: Strictly solo PvE Power build using Vampirism Runes.
Why: Lifesteal for heal burst and a passive “time to go” mistform notification.

Major reason:
The lifesteal from a critical backstab and critical Heartseeker are just too good to pass. If you have Mug and used CnD -> Steal after Withdraw, you’ll get another heal burst. It gives my D/D build a lot of staying power.

The mistform from Vamp runes is my indicator when I stayed too long in melee or I’m taking too much hits from range. It gives invulnerability as I re-position myself out of range giving me time to heal or stealth.

Minor reason:
The 15% chance for lifesteal after receiving damage is “ok” during boss fights since I get constantly getting hit. What I’m not sure though is if this stacks with the lifesteal after healing.

S/P I use Pack in WvW and Ogre in PvP
Pack for the extra swiftness and for the AoE boons for my group when in fights, along with the precision boost helps a lot. I use Ogre for the damage bonus as well as the rock dog helps give some minor additional damage plus it soaks up some incoming damage.

For P/D I use Krait for the bleed duration and the extra conditions on elite usage helps a lot for condition bursting and covering up bleeds.

Pack runes because Fury and Power/Precision.

D/D SB (2, 6, 6) or D/P SB wvw (0,6,6,2)

Still on travellers runes those extra stats and 25% MS along with a cavs necklace on 2,6,6 make for ok survivability. zerk necklace on 0 6 6 2 d/p.

I stuck with Melandru, since I generally run a evade/gunslinger setup. Although, I’ve been tempted to try P/P condi, and would most likely plop Antitoxin on that setup.
I figure, if I’m going to be visible, I’d best make it plenty hard for someone to keep cripple/immob on my behind.

>>Build and Runes: Strictly solo PvE Power build using Vampirism Runes.
Why: Lifesteal for heal burst and a passive “time to go” mistform notification.

Are those Runes buggy as others have suggested?

I know you use them PvE but do you think they would be counterproductive in WvW due to that mistform as in, turning to mist just as you ready to down the enemy thus giving HIM time to recover?

Advent.6193:

I stuck with Melandru, since I generally run a evade/gunslinger setup. Although, I’ve been tempted to try P/P condi, and would most likely plop Antitoxin on that setup.
I figure, if I’m going to be visible, I’d best make it plenty hard for someone to keep cripple/immob on my behind.

isn’t the whole point of P/P condi that it only works with perplexity runes?

I use rune of Altruism on my S/D set. Extra fury uptime is good for dungeon run.