Guild Wars 2

The topic title is pretty straight forward. How would you play a Thief in a Support capacity in WvW. I am not a solo roamer and typically don’t enjoy DPS roles. I mostly run with a guild group taking smaller objectives. So I am curious how to play in a small group setting.

Venom share can be kinda supporty. I had a guild mate who ran full nomads on thief, and he cound run into the middle of hug zergs and be fine. If you are that tanky, you can also rez allies with stealth more easily.

So, venom share, tank, stealth rezzing.

venom share, poison spam(reduces enemy heals), and blast finishers.

Mostly just stealth and regen I believe. I mean venom share is nice but that’s more of an offensive thing, and not so much a support thing.

i play support teef in pvp
support by superior firepower!
and steal gives fury, swiftness + might

It’s not my bag, but, I was roaming with a support thief who used venom share.

The venom heal (shared) is actually quite potent! He also ran:

Regen on stealth
-50% damage in stealth
Blind on stealth

He made a noticeable difference to the survivability of our party.

If you are talking about role there two big category : Gank and Scout.

Gank : Your role is to target caster of the other side. These are Elementalist/Necromancer (and Engineer in pugs zerg). In a decent zerg, casters will spread so that the enemy’s melee train can’t focus more than one at a time. So that’s the gank’s job to find those solitary casters and put them down to releave your zerg from the range pressures (Meteor Shower, Lava Front, Static Field, Frozen Ground, Necro Wells and Mark, etc). Your role is also to finish downed players, because its dangerous for a melee train to stay in one place while they try to finish 1 guy. You also serve as an anti-gank to help your caster when they are being focused.

Scout : Your role is to scout the enemy. Roamer usually can give a good idea of where enemy’s zerg are, but sometime someone that can specifically follow an enemy zerg, go into keep before it flip, stay in front of the zerg to make sure they know what’s there or things like that can be really useful.

It consists of dying. Lots and lots of dying.

Vshare is the most notable, however ninja nurse and the tankblinder are also things to consider.

There are vShare builds out there, and this is targeted almost exclusively for roaming parties.

Ninja Nurse is just Basically something like 0/0/6/6/2 built on durability and stealth spamming and interrupting to get people revived/stealth to prevent stomps. Would recommend S/D and P/P for Infil Strike to get in and out easier + cleansing and boon stealing/evasion, headshot to interrupt stomps, etc.

The tankblinder is a P/P/Sb build that runs similarly to ninja nurse, but utilizes poison fields in the middle of a blob for heal cuts and blasting them, as well as constantly applying smoke fields for blinds via the pistol and whirling those blinds with Dagger storm or a stolen warrior’s whirling axe. It can also tank by whirling a Shadow Refuge for the leeching bolts. It’s meant for trying to disrupt major bombs and take damage in wake of others due to the thief being associated with glassy periphery.

Not much really in the lines of direct support like in most games. VShare is probably the most useful solution and can hold its own reasonably as well.

Black Frog.9274:

It consists of dying. Lots and lots of dying.

<hands depressed thief a dire P/D build>

DeceiverX.8361:

The tankblinder is a P/P/Sb build that runs similarly to ninja nurse, but utilizes poison fields in the middle of a blob for heal cuts and blasting them, as well as constantly applying smoke fields for blinds via the pistol and whirling those blinds with Dagger storm or a stolen warrior’s whirling axe. It can also tank by whirling a Shadow Refuge for the leeching bolts. It’s meant for trying to disrupt major bombs and take damage in wake of others due to the thief being associated with glassy periphery.

I’d like to see this build. I haven’t seen any thief, ever survive in the middle of a blob. I’d also like know what you mean by “blob.” In T1, blobs are huge on all sides and I don’t think there’s much in the way of thief tank that could survive it. Finally, I’d like to see how you actually run it, because everything you say sounds good on the surface, but working from the inside of fields for offensive purposes doesn’t work well when the zerg is in constant motion. But I’m a pretty awful player, so I’m willing to learn.

MightyMicah.7451:

Black Frog.9274:

It consists of dying. Lots and lots of dying.

<hands depressed thief a dire P/D build>

Let me guess, another PvP player. I do WvW. If I wanted to solo roam, maybe. Run with the zerg using P/D? Probably not. But see above, teach me how it’s done.

I haven’t played the build myself but knew someone at one point who did. If I can get into contact with him I’ll ask if he has any video footage/what his build actually was. I usually play periph in T2; which after much wiping last night, I can safely say the enemy blob was approaching the 100 number in EBG (ours was a measly 35). Being inside the blob is often safer than outside depending on how good your group is. Even on my glassy periph build I sometimes move into the fray to heal and cleanse conditions due to the constant called-waters and subsequent blasting + projectiles through symbols for the cleanses. Only on nights we’re hugely outnumbered like last night or not playing well will being inside be considerably more risky.

I believe the build was something like Nomad’s + Melandru, Water/Generosity sigils, 0/0/6/6/2 or 0/0/6/4/4 traits with I think antitoxin heal IIRC, up with pretty much entirely supportive traits in the SA line. I can’t recall the latter two lines, as he either ran uncatchable or MA for the shadow arts procs for stealth. All I recall is that he was surprisingly tanky and took a lot of hate from the enemies which left the front-liners and back line DPS happier. Far from something necessary or optimal, but it fit his crappy internet/PC well enough :P

With some experimenting and practice something along these lines would probably replicate close enough to what he was doing.

Use a shortbow.

You don’t run in the middle of the blob, you run around it. Use shortbow 3 and 5 as well as dodges to avoid direct combat. You want a build with some toughness and vitality in case some enemy ranger makes you a target.

Apply poison fields to the enemy back line and flanks. Do not drop a poison field on your own front line.

Blast your own front line with shortbow 2 often. A single thief should be able to generate huge amounts of AoE might, retaliation and healing. If your commander calls for fire or water blast the kitten out of it.

Use shadow refuge to get downed allies up.

You can swap to d/p if you need to escape and reset. Or you can use it to stealth finish downed enemies.

Used to run Frontline back in the day.

Always in SB blast finishing the fields and requires a good group to utilize thieves up there.

Proper stability distribution, water field use, and protection up time.

The best part of having a thief in the Frontline is the damage from shot gunned cluster bombs is really nice.

While putting down all those poison fields you might as well have 3 in deadly arts to add weakness to it. Maybe use Potent Poison with Orr runes to bump the poison duration.

Black Frog.9274:

MightyMicah.7451:

Black Frog.9274:

It consists of dying. Lots and lots of dying.

<hands depressed thief a dire P/D build>

Let me guess, another PvP player. I do WvW. If I wanted to solo roam, maybe. Run with the zerg using P/D? Probably not. But see above, teach me how it’s done.

If you’re running shortbow for all the reasons listed above, p/d isn’t a terrible choice for a secondary.

It’s easy to land cloak and daggers to drop whoever is targeting you or to stomp, and shadow strike can be used to back out of the blob. Evade on shortbow #3 so it brings complimenting utility.

Dire is a good gear choice for toughness/vitality but you could just as easily use soldier/sentinel gear. You’ll be doing mostly dirty work with this type of build, but your poison and cluster bombs will benefit from the condition damage.

If you are supporting a zerg, venom share is the only option. Whether its for damage, healing, or both that’s the only option. You can run a heavy single target dps build and snipe the backline but its not nearly as beneficial to the group as helping them lockdown groups of players and steamrolling them.

However venom share thief is difficult to play because of the nature of venoms and how limited the build choice is when it comes to traits but its manageable with good group composition and communication (you’re gana want some stability^^)

If anet listened to venom feedback and took it more seriously venoms probably would of been fixed into a more known build but I rarely see anyone run it. Once they realize how sub-par it is to an actual support build its only there for fun really.

NinjaEd.3946:

If anet listened to venom feedback and took it more seriously venoms probably would of been fixed into a more known build but I rarely see anyone run it. Once they realize how sub-par it is to an actual support build its only there for fun really.

you are right, venoms aren’t the greatest “support” choice. however, that doesn’t mean they need to be fixed… if used the right way, they can still be very strong for a damage/support hybrid build.

this for example works pretty well for me in ranked pvp:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-c33V;1VwkZ0Y5FPFd0;9;4T-T-937B;138B;12;0aNV0U;1cV19cV191D

Shinigami.2398:

NinjaEd.3946:

If anet listened to venom feedback and took it more seriously venoms probably would of been fixed into a more known build but I rarely see anyone run it. Once they realize how sub-par it is to an actual support build its only there for fun really.

you are right, venoms aren’t the greatest “support” choice. however, that doesn’t mean they need to be fixed… if used the right way, they can still be very strong for a damage/support hybrid build.

this for example works pretty well for me in ranked pvp:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-c33V;1VwkZ0Y5FPFd0;9;4T-T-937B;138B;12;0aNV0U;1cV19cV191D

If you’re taking d/d over p/d, why not put an intelligence sigil on dagger to take advantage of all the power from the carrion amulet instead of sigil of force? Would be pretty handy to swap > cloak and dagger > backstab.

Still, I see p/d as far more effective in a venom share build in pvp. Much more consistent bleed stacks than spamming death blossom.

P/P is also a good way to go for the power-based builds with leeching, as proper casting can let a thief chain venoms on all eight shots of unload, interrupt on headshot, and sustain with the blinds, while reserving additional venom casts when needed. A friend of mine runs this and does remarkably good damage with quite a surprising amount of durability.

Shanks.2907:

If you’re taking d/d over p/d, why not put an intelligence sigil on dagger to take advantage of all the power from the carrion amulet instead of sigil of force? Would be pretty handy to swap > cloak and dagger > backstab.

Still, I see p/d as far more effective in a venom share build in pvp. Much more consistent bleed stacks than spamming death blossom.

didn’t put much thought into the sigils, thx for the tip i’ll try intelligence out. as for p/d, i just don’t like it as much. d/d suits my playstyle better… also, death blossoms worth lies not only in bleed stacks but rather in the evasion it provides.

What is a support thief?

A thief who use support skills to support his team?

No really, if you want support your team then take another class, their support skills (especially Venomshare) aren’t worth it or better use stealth and dmg skills.

Black Teagan.9215:

What is a support thief?

A thief who use support skills to support his team?

No really, if you want support your team then take another class, their support skills (especially Venomshare) aren’t worth it or better use stealth and dmg skills.

I was looking for a way to pin the enemy train to one point so they wont run out of the necros wells etc.. I thought about venom share but now I read that it wasnt viable. Could you point out a better alternative, please?

Currently we are running sigils of hydromancy on our melees, but the cold applied does not seem to suffice :<

After HoT i would look into 6 X X 6 6. Get 2700 tough, 2300 power, 30% crit chance, around 16,000 hps, and as much ferocity as you can cram in there.

I tried out metabattle’s support thief build. It is definitely pretty interesting; it does it’s intended job alright. I’m below average a thief anyway so maybe in the hands of someone who actually knows all the tricks it would definitely be extremely annoying to take down… Dmg reduction in stealth + stealth upon rezzing… Faster movement in stealth and jumping into a Zerg and zipping out relatively fine is interesting considering thief is so squishy. I may have to try full nomads for the lulz one day.

lagoriel.6475:

Black Teagan.9215:

What is a support thief?

A thief who use support skills to support his team?

No really, if you want support your team then take another class, their support skills (especially Venomshare) aren’t worth it or better use stealth and dmg skills.

I was looking for a way to pin the enemy train to one point so they wont run out of the necros wells etc.. I thought about venom share but now I read that it wasnt viable. Could you point out a better alternative, please?

Currently we are running sigils of hydromancy on our melees, but the cold applied does not seem to suffice :<

Venom share + necro wells melt everyone, immob with dmg from zerker necro is so potent, venom wells are considered cheese by many.