Guild Wars 2

Please post specifics, and gearing on what you believe to be the best thief PvP build.. I am freshly 80 and unsure how I want to proceed…

D/D damage in pvp seems pretty insane, but I hear a lot of love for condition builds as well, and pistol whip builds. Please post your build and a short explanation of why you think it is the best, and how you gear for it.

Thank you !

There is no best build in my opinion. It all depends on your play style and where you plan to pvp. For example in sPvP I prefer a heavy condition build with d/d and in WvW I prefer a heavy vitality, healing survivability build, using p/d and d/d.

Build will vary from “glass cannon” to heavy “tank” survivability builds. There are all kinds in between. You need to decide how you want to play your thief, then find a build that suits you.

Have fun!

Just sort of ask yourself if you want to be the type of thief that kills people really fast but doesn’t have much staying power or a slower killer with a ton of surviveability.

Fast killers are the d/d (backstab) or s/p thief(pistol whip +haste) that go crit/power and all the %dmg/power boosts.

Going condition damage and big into shadow arts and acrobatics and focusing on stealth skills and evasion while using Heartseeker for movement rather than damage would be the latter. d/d and d/p are good for that using stuff like calatrops and shadow refuge.

ur gonna wanna go some tanky abilities if you wanna survive, the glass cannon builds i’ve tried are not fun, u mite get a big hit once in a while, but ur gonna die..alot…i can backstab for 3-4 k after clicking cloak n dagger then running behind them, then F1 steal skill and pretty much can tear anyone down in 10 seconds or less. And rarely die to…..i have ZERO point in the critical hits tree, all power and everything else. good luck to you.

As someone else said, there is no best build. You have to go with what you’re comfortable with, and playstyle. Or just start trying out alot of the common builds until you find something that works for you. Then, make it your own.

Also just because you’re glass cannon though doesnt mean you cant get the kitten out if kitten hits the fan. I usually run glass cannon/backstab build, but I keep Shadowstep for a number of reasons. It removes conditions, gets me out of the Bulls Charge > 100 Blades/Devourer Venom > Pistol Whip combos, it confuses the crap out of people. Seriously.

Run away and use Shadowstep. When they get close enough to you, stealth, and hit Shadow Return. They will continue to run forward while you’re already behind him and running in the opposite direction.

Or backstab someone, shadowstep away, throw a dancing dagger. They start rushing towards you, shadow return behind them, CnD > Backstab again. Shadowstep is too valuable, I’m not sure if I will ever give it up.

Pveistoohard.com/traits

Use mine, it’s a DD/SB spec for tourney. I’ve been making it since bwe3, and it’s very effective. I also got some of my videos on my site where you can see me using this exact spec. It’s great for most 1v1s, and the AOE damage from cluster bomb is rediculous. My utility abilities and runes fit the traits perfectly as well. Don’t do a variation of the utility abilities, because each one is crutial to the build. Everyone else will most likely just post cookie cutter specs built by fail thiefs. If you really want to influence your team to win in tourney, use my spec.

anything, they’re op.

For me backstabber D/D build is the favorite. You only die a lot with that build when you are new to it. If you play it for a while, you learn when to use what to stay alive.

As others mentioned, more a personal preference thing. Do you like to bleed people slowly? Do you like to burst casters down in three to five seconds?

Hid, that build link doesn’t work from your guild site.

I prefer venom share, has great soloing capacity and is very useful in team fights. S/P + Shortbow ftw

Thank you everyone, some really great information in here, and it looks like it is time for me to hit the field and see what works!

Depends on your playstyle, the most effective builds I played were D/D backstab build, D/D conidtion build, Pistol Whip and Shortbow venom support thief.

BS/Spamseeker with permastealth, always has been, probably always will be.

Anything, as long as they match your playstyle.

Sword + Dagger or Dagger + Dagger w/ Heartseeker spam.

Have fun.

rickshaw.5279:

Sword + Dagger or Dagger + Dagger w/ Heartseeker spam.

Have fun.

Not true. If you’re running HS build and you’re encountering a noob you’ll smack him easy, but meet a player that know what he is doing and you’re screwed.

I’m very fond of my condition thief. I play P/D and SB. You won’t see me but you will bleed, freeze, get sick and move very slow. My build is condition and survivability and its working very well in all parts of the game

Heartseeker spam is useless. it does terrible damage until target is low on health. i can’t believe people are still talking about this as if it was a real thing. spamming HS to finish off a weak player is a real thing. spamming it for the whole fight isn’t.

Yea Heartseeker above 50% life deals less damage/time than your autoattack, so have fun with that.

Dagger + Pistol Stealth build is fun. Has tons of survivability and with a bit of might stacking, does a lot of damage as well. Using blackpowder + heartseeker to stealth + blind, as well as shadow refuge/hide in shadows, you have tons of ways to break combat and survive, and setup backstabs and heartseeker crits.

Too many people don’t get it. = )

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/thief#3|3|2642|3361|134|3997|4989|25|1738|1704|0|30|1195|1193|1728|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|15|786|0|0|0|0|3|28035|0|49965|49965|49965|49965|49965|25790|0|0|0|0|0|

D/D Build I’m using. It’s meant for WvW, I rely on my evade, blinding powder, shadow step to stay alive and get out of sticky situations, the shortbow helps too. Some people might question my lack of vit and toughness, but I fair pretty well unless its a focused attack on me and I didn’t see it comming (invisible enemies).

Signet of Shadows might be questionable, but I scout a lot and mobility is very important. Dagger storm I find usually more useful in WvW situations than TG, with this build after you heal is up you actually have to use CnD, evades, BP, SS smartly and timely to survive till the heal is off of CD.

I normally don’t heartseeker spam unless the target has significant heads way in front of me and I need to finish him off (HS is cheaper than DD). Normally against 2 target or a Ranger and his pet I can just spam DD and they would be downed or near death by the time I am up in their face.

the goal is to burst down the enemy quickly or shock a large group of enemies to back away and disperse them for your team to get in and finish them off, hit and run and wear the enemy down.

Yes my goal here is mainly sPvP and tourneys.

I really want a lot of burst damage to take down any one target, I like frontloaded big numbers. But I definitely want to be able to escape afterwards, or have decent surviveability. So of course I can come in and kill another target…

I see a lot of people talking about pistol whip and stunlocking… What’s the deal with that exactly? I also like builds where I have a kitten load of stuns and can lock someone down. Basically, I want the best 1v1 burst spec/gear that I can attain.

From the looks of here, it’s seeming like D/D or D/P ? I do like D/P as well for she Shadow shot and head shot I feel is better than the dot or the thrown dagger. I’m just having so much trouble deciding. lolol

http://en.gw2codex.com/build/19281-hid-s-tournament-build

Try using this link. It should work. Sorry about that

Have a look here for various builds and indepth discussion: http://www.youtube.com/user/rainythief/videos?view=0 .

I found this channel yesterday and the amount of thief PvP related information is amazing.