Guild Wars 2

Runes (Armor):
Currently I’m deciding on Nightmare, Thorns and Orr. All seem pretty good as they boost Poison duration which seems to be the main source of condi damage for Thieves (if I’m not wrong).

Sigil (Weapon):
Sigil of Bursting and Sigil of Malice?

Well bleed is also a major source of Condi damage from a thief. In order to build a thief based on bleed using d/d one does not really have to focus on particular traits to get those higher ticks. Nor are there utilities that add a lot in the way of bleeds that make or break the build.

Impaling lotus is about the only one a bleed thief feels the need to take but in very general terms most condi thieves take that anyways.

In order to get poison up there impairing daggers, a venom, potent poison and dagger training all have to be considered. Added to this one needs sources of duration increase as posions tend not last as long base.

So while I do not think poison the main source of condi damage , it is true that you really do not have to foucs a lot on bleeds to allow good bleed damage.

I have one main problem with nightmare and that is it causes an oppopent to run away when triggered. Not something I really like when I am trying to lay DB on him.

Orr is good and will get more poison overall then Thorns albeit marginally.

Sigil of Geomancy or doom works good if you are doing a lot of weapon swaps. IE i traited quickpockets and use d/din each weapon set and swap to generate endurance and INI so I can get more Impales and DBS.

Rata Sum works nice if using a hybrid Sinister build. It adds duration to weakness and poison and that 6 bonus gives a field that is long lasting through which your DB whirls can be very effective. Very niche however.

Allicted is also a set one can consider as it adds to bleed and poison duration. The downed skill is sort of meh but it can catch a person unawares trying to stomp you while that field up.

I myself still use thorns.

Ah, I just only realized how condi thief works. It’s by spamming Death Blossom right? Since it deals 3 ticks of 10 seconds bleed. I hardly used that skill in my zerker build since cloak/backstab was the better choice in PvE with zerker. If so, Rune of the Krait looks really good, since it increases bleeding duration by so much and even provides additional bleeding when I use my elite skill.

Durability runes are worth considering as well. I switched to them from Krait runes and found I stayed up longer in fights. The problem with Krait runes is that you only get the +duration benefit if the conditions go uncleansed (same with +duration sigils). I’m currently experimenting with Dragonhunter and Trapper runes to see if it is worth working some traps into my build.

Bleed is the weakest condition, 30 stacks of bleed is like same damage as 10 stacks burning. Limited/inconsistant poison application too.

Condi thief is ok in theory just don’t expect to deal anywhere even remotely close to berserker damage.

I use Krait. It makes me sad though that all our elites suck for procing stuff since it applies once the elite ends long cast~ Daggerstorm will never work unless you fully channel it and we usually don’t have time for that being pathetic glass figurines. I use the Daredevil Elite just for the first move and 2nd if CC is needed just to activate it.

And to put it out there; Mad King runes have an amusing proc and benefit Signet of Malice and Earth Sigils. A personal lulz I enjoy. ;x

I been conflicted with using bleed or poison duration sigils but in the end stuck with bleed and skipped out on Deadly Arts cuz slowness makes me sad. ;/ Condi Thief is banned from swiftness.

Thank you all for your replies

Just to clear some stuffs, I already have my full ascended zerker; just wanted to get a condi set so I’d have a better time looking for raids. Never used condi build before so I was rather clueless about how it worked.

Depends on how you build it.

Personally, I use mad king runes, and I highly reccommend them for any d/d condi build running signet of malice for PvE. It seriously increases your survivability. Swap to daggerstorm when you’re killing piles of trash, and get hilariously overpowered healing that easily tops out your HP. Fighting a boss? Swap to basilisk venom and run the runes on cooldown for great sustain while never stopping your DPS.

For PvP? Orr or Krait for DPS. There are never enough hits per second for signet of malice to work properly in PvP, so withdraw is a better option. However, if you’re looking to bunker points (which you can do with condi d/d, you simply need to play extremely deensively and use all your daggerstorms like dodges) go with the hilarious stacking of scrapper runes with your daredevil traits and a carrion ammy. Play it right and that survivability is pretty wild.

PopeUrban.2578:

Depends on how you build it.

Personally, I use mad king runes, and I highly reccommend them for any d/d condi build running signet of malice for PvE. It seriously increases your survivability. Swap to daggerstorm when you’re killing piles of trash, and get hilariously overpowered healing that easily tops out your HP. Fighting a boss? Swap to basilisk venom and run the runes on cooldown for great sustain while never stopping your DPS.

For PvP? Orr or Krait for DPS. There are never enough hits per second for signet of malice to work properly in PvP, so withdraw is a better option. However, if you’re looking to bunker points (which you can do with condi d/d, you simply need to play extremely deensively and use all your daggerstorms like dodges) go with the hilarious stacking of scrapper runes with your daredevil traits and a carrion ammy. Play it right and that survivability is pretty wild.

SOM works fine against single opponets IF you have traited significant healing.

Against a single opponent (wvw) i get just under 600 heal from SOM on the three db attacks plus 515 off assassins and the proc on evade from fortitude of some 550 health per DB. 1700 heal per DB means in between those evades he has to hit for some pretty good damge or I just get all the health back. Now the real key here to SOM is the utilities you trait given these do not help withdraw.

Uncatchable heals , Caltrops if traited heals. Impairing daggers heals and of course your impaling lotus heals. In the 15 seconds time it takes withdraw to come off cooldown I am going to get a whole lot more total healing off the SOM.

Withdraw of course has those Immob cleanses and the gap opener which are its main advantages.

babazhook.6805:

PopeUrban.2578:

Depends on how you build it.

Personally, I use mad king runes, and I highly reccommend them for any d/d condi build running signet of malice for PvE. It seriously increases your survivability. Swap to daggerstorm when you’re killing piles of trash, and get hilariously overpowered healing that easily tops out your HP. Fighting a boss? Swap to basilisk venom and run the runes on cooldown for great sustain while never stopping your DPS.

For PvP? Orr or Krait for DPS. There are never enough hits per second for signet of malice to work properly in PvP, so withdraw is a better option. However, if you’re looking to bunker points (which you can do with condi d/d, you simply need to play extremely deensively and use all your daggerstorms like dodges) go with the hilarious stacking of scrapper runes with your daredevil traits and a carrion ammy. Play it right and that survivability is pretty wild.

SOM works fine against single opponets IF you have traited significant healing.

Against a single opponent (wvw) i get just under 600 heal from SOM on the three db attacks plus 515 off assassins and the proc on evade from fortitude of some 550 health per DB. 1700 heal per DB means in between those evades he has to hit for some pretty good damge or I just get all the health back. Now the real key here to SOM is the utilities you trait given these do not help withdraw.

Uncatchable heals , Caltrops if traited heals. Impairing daggers heals and of course your impaling lotus heals. In the 15 seconds time it takes withdraw to come off cooldown I am going to get a whole lot more total healing off the SOM.

Withdraw of course has those Immob cleanses and the gap opener which are its main advantages.

SoM procs once per hit every time you inflict damage or conditions. For example, if you spread caltrops over 5 afkers, SoM will heal you 50 times during it’s entire duration. It can actually be a good thing to use if you have 2 bunkers on an objective because the healing alone will make you that much harder to kill.

I use Krait runes on my DIRE Condi D/D Thief and love it.

Good points on SoM guys, i just can’t for the life of me reconcile with with what I feel is acceptable condi damage.

Don’t get me wrong, I love SoM, but I messed with it a lot in PvP builds and aside from completely throwing out all my damage it just wasn’t delivering for me. I swapped for withdraw and just got better synergy. SoM has a lot of conditions that I need to meet to get the heals I wanted out of it, and I felt I was giving up too much of the build to stack on passive healing.

I use it in PvE though, and it works for me there simply because mob attack rates are slower and thus I can stick with mostly dps stats and still get great use out of it.

Imo you should go for Scavenger runes.

I say this because most of our cond are 8 sec+ duration, a time that we actualy don’t need to extend even longer, by that time we most of times already downed the person or got cced and died.

IF people suffered all seconds of imparring daggers + BD spam cond pressure they would surely die, but they don’t, they cleanse it. (while they can)

With cond rev being a meta choice I figure most people would be returning their cleanses to the skill bar so hardly a thief will suceed to use his whole cond long durations before a cleanse washes it away, making pure cond dmg increase better than cond duration.

Scavenging runes gives more cond dmg, a bit more DPS with leeching 2 times, with a bit more survivability.

I use this and specialize on cond bursting opponents, by doing Steal > Trappers Respite > Venom+Imparring Daggers. In my experience this play can finish people off quite quickly.

If you are going for cond duration runes and a more lasting fight plan, trying to make the opponent use all the cleanse and still killing him after (like Krait). I would propose also using Frailty sigils, to add another cond for cleanse, this way your long duration bleed should be a bit harder to get rid of.

Edit: Only now I realized he is talking raids, not pvp or wvw roamming that I just assumed would be the only place a cond thief is possible.

Well.. so imo you realy shouldn’t use cond thief or even thief on raids, raids is a 10 guys thing so you probabily should be using the strongest thing you can to realy help the other nine, not think of only your fun.

But if you MUST play thief on raids, you should go berseker for dps role as some bosses seem very dps capped and thief still has a suitable dps if thats the only thing a team needs.

Kaliny.8265:

Imo you should go for Scavenger runes.

I say this because most of our cond are 8 sec+ duration, a time that we actualy don’t need to extend even longer, by that time we most of times already downed the person or got cced and died.

IF people suffered all seconds of imparring daggers + BD spam cond pressure they would surely die, but they don’t, they cleanse it. (while they can)

With cond rev being a meta choice I figure most people would be returning their cleanses to the skill bar so hardly a thief will suceed to use his whole cond long durations before a cleanse washes it away, making pure cond dmg increase better than cond duration.

Scavenging runes gives more cond dmg, a bit more DPS with leeching 2 times, with a bit more survivability.

I use this and specialize on cond bursting opponents, by doing Steal > Trappers Respite > Venom+Imparring Daggers. In my experience this play can finish people off quite quickly.

If you are going for cond duration runes and a more lasting fight plan, trying to make the opponent use all the cleanse and still killing him after (like Krait). I would propose also using Frailty sigils, to add another cond for cleanse, this way your long duration bleed should be a bit harder to get rid of.

Edit: Only now I realized he is talking raids, not pvp or wvw roamming that I just assumed would be the only place a cond thief is possible.

Well.. so imo you realy shouldn’t use cond thief or even thief on raids, raids is a 10 guys thing so you probabily should be using the strongest thing you can to realy help the other nine, not think of only your fun.

But if you MUST play thief on raids, you should go berseker for dps role as some bosses seem very dps capped and thief still has a suitable dps if thats the only thing a team needs.

Scavenger a great choice if you use withdraw as your heal. Not so much so if going for SOM build. As to durations of conditions a lot depends on the build itself. If taking dagger mastery for the poison I really think you need to get poison duration up as high as you can , thus something like thorns.

I have found withThorns that even with all the evades it rare not to have less then 2 of the +50 stacks on during a fight and will often go higher. If one accepts that minimum then there a 100 bonus to Condi , which aligns nicely with the bonus from #6 on scavenger. It then becomes an issue of weighing off that lifesteal against poison duration.

Now if using thorns and you NEVER get that added bonus, well then you are never getting hit meaning you are likely wnning the fight.

Thorns #6 effect has an 10sec internal cd tho… so you will reach 100 cond dmg only on the pos-10 seconds fight.

The pro side is they have no limit (unless there is a limit but unwriten), so on long lasting fights like against roamming groups that could get higher than Scavenger runes.

While I agree thorns would work nicely with dagger trainning I wouln’t run dragger trainning unless you like SoM

With SoM build, you will want to hit a lot more times to keep alive and also not use the heal active… so probabily thorns+dagger trainning works nice on that build.

Mine is more of a cond bursting style… with trappers respite, imparring daggers, venom and the scavenger runes proc beeing the tools I use to quickly end the fight. (if this fails I proceed to normal db+lotus dodge spam)

Just FYI. Venomshare condi d/d daredevil is actually a pretty nice hybrid support/damage build for raids. It allows some others to take some CC off their bar and still easily burst breakbars, and keeps up decently in damage on bosses due to the way venomshare works off the thief’s condition stats.

It’s also much less prone to interruption of its damage rotation due to how short it is.
Basically, you make up the extra DPS by letting other people take a DPS util in place of a CC util since shared BV is effectively 10s of stun on a 40s cooldown for the party.

You’re not going to get that advantage in a PUG with PUG-Meta builds, but in a static guild group where people build around one another it works quite well.

Krait Rune + Impact Strike is a really good combo that when traited, Impact Strike will be available as soon as Krait goes out of CD.

The Undead Rune is very good also, complements Dire set really well.

One rune that I’m currently experimenting on is Rune of the Berseker, which is pure damage and is really good with Carrion. The main reason I gravitated towards this rune is when I was fighting a Tempest with Diamond Skin traited in PvP. The extra non-condition damage was very effective.

Another sigil to consider again is draining. It does 1100 damage and gets you over 1000 life. This great for a Condi build trying to bust down diamond skin and if you got some interrupts in your build can really throw a kibosh in an enemies rotations.

Now you get that in on an impact strike chnain and manage to pull of an interrupt , you can boost the damage there niceley and get some healing in. It akin to a mug in some respects.

babazhook.6805:

Another sigil to consider again is draining. It does 1100 damage and gets you over 1000 life. This great for a Condi build trying to bust down diamond skin and if you got some interrupts in your build can really throw a kibosh in an enemies rotations.

Now you get that in on an impact strike chnain and manage to pull of an interrupt , you can boost the damage there niceley and get some healing in. It akin to a mug in some respects.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Leeching

actually 975 but thats a lot if you consider that it heals you too for the same value… I think I ll use it on my build, probabily will burst nicely along with the Scavenging Runes Heal proc (I use it just when I respawn so I ll have the proc on my first attack).

thats 2K dmg on top of everthing else you will cast… I think it could easily pierce diamond skin if you are running carrion… idk about my dire build but I ll certainly try it, beeing a cond burst build this suggestion can realy work nicely ^^

(i`m already using double d/d for the energy sigil so might as well use another ‘’on swap’’ sigil)

What heal are you using Kaliny? I find SoM really really good for a double dagger combo with acro/trick/DD, when ever I use withdraw etc I feel much more squishy, where as on low HP with SoM I can heal up very fast passively whilst dealing out the damage. also using geo with energy to keep the bleeds stacking up heavily, might try a leech as well, good for entertaining multiple enemies!

I use Channeled Vigor… but I though a lot about all the options

I tryed Dagger Trainning + SoM but I felt it leaves me with no options of retreating from a fight or trying to block line of sight, ressing people, or well, lets just say it pressed me to do certain plays and I felt bad about it.

I also played with withdraw a long time but I use acro because of no SB so withdraw is a bit less needed, I realized more heal from channeled vigor and more endurance (+beeing able to not run agility signet) seemed better…

When I tryed channeled vigor I considered using trappers respite and felt very confortable with the way it plays, I used to run spike trap on my P/D cond thief pre-hot on wvw roam so I realy like trappers respite.

When I started using it I noticed the immobilize could help me get a garanted imparring daggers+venom and that combination would usualy kill the opponent.

If not, they would at least take the enemy to the treshold to trigger Panic Strike, chainning a lot of Immob that gave me free time to aply the venom stacks.

I learned I could also benefit from heal>steal to lay a trap on the enemy’s feet and Shadowstep+heal to the front of my enemy to deny his escape, then I just married to the concept…

The rest of the build is based on that… if the enemy manage to cleanse the burst, of course I ll start DB spam but nowhere near as powerfull as a krait runes+SoM DB spam… mine is more of a tatical delay until I can setup other burst or reposition with steal or simply wait for cds while dealing some dmg.

I like it a lot for pvp as it is sort of unexpected high cond burst… also on wvw (I use dire there) so I can 2/3v1…

What I am considering is this.

Put on the long Villified Perplexity runes.
Trait Pressure strike and SOH out of trickery.
Trait distracting daggers.
Trait Basilisk Venom.
Place sigil draining on a weapon.

Now in addition to the number of on demand interrupts which can hit when an enemy tries to cleanse or heal that interrupt will give.

5 stacks confusion lasting about 10 seconds on a 15 second cooldown.
3 stacks torment
Lifesteal/damage for around 1100.

This IMO is more potential Confusion stacks then one gets from BA.

If you pull off a steal that interrupts. and are traited in DA you also lay on poison and weakness. You maintain the abilty to spam all those bleeds off the DB and the poison from dagger mastery if traited. The third utility would have to be something like bandits defense or shadowstep for the stun break.

woah thats crazy xD…

idk… while perplexity was indeed hated as the cheesiest of all runes and is very strong on mesmer I don’t think it would be as good on thief as other runes we have at disposal… the motive is that everything aply or bleed, or poison, or both of them so we should focus on boasting one of those.

also the perplexity runes effect has internal cd so fortunaly you can’t aply a lot of stacks

Kaliny.8265:

woah thats crazy xD…

idk… while perplexity was indeed hated as the cheesiest of all runes and is very strong on mesmer I don’t think it would be as good on thief as other runes we have at disposal… the motive is that everything aply or bleed, or poison, or both of them so we should focus on boasting one of those.

also the perplexity runes effect has internal cd so fortunaly you can’t aply a lot of stacks

Yes but you do not need a lot of stacks. Five is quite damaging and it more there to cover up your bleeds and poison. It will also prevent the target from performing an action while those on at risk of taking more damage . The torment off the pressure strikes gets him when he tries to run away. There is the on hit bonus that adds 3 confusion stacks in the rune as well .

Bleed I have no concerns on duration whatsover as all base bleed durations are decent and one rarely sees them run full duration without a cleanse.

Poison is iffy. You do get that 33 percent duration off mastery built in but would definitely stack less due to the low duration on dagger mastery. The question then becomes does the extra stacks of poison you might have on out damage that confusion.

Now even IF a poison duration build does more damage overall , there no getting away from how potent well timed interrupts can be in their own right and interrupts that load a lot of baggage on the target even more so. You will still have a decent amount of stacks of poison on to inhibit heals and do damage .

There are times where you will be without a dodge or DB available and switching to an interrupt to load on conditions will keep the pressure on during those times. Imapiring daggers can be used here followed by distracting for slow/poison/confusion/torment/ and immob then back to your DBS and dodges.

As to the hate to perplexity , tough. With what the theif has to deal with these days i will take any edge even if the guy I just killed “does not like it”.

Damage sounds nice, but is it worth the trade off for the bonus ini or other things you gain from acro towards survival??

babazhook seeing as your thief interrupt build will have slightly less dps and more of a cond burst because of the perplexity runes internal cd you might as well go ’’full burst" using the heal tricks with trappers respite as I said before.

SoM is at its best if you are playing for full DB spam with extra initiative for those too… (aka ebola thief) more cond dps oriented

What do you think? The problem imo is that you need trickery for the confusion on steal too, and if you are running imparring daggers and a interrupt kit you probabily would be best suited for bursting.

Are you considering running acro? or SB? without any of those your mobility will be very kitten, barely unplayable for wvw…. and for imparring daggers be a real burst utility DA is of utmost importance… so idk

My point is cond thief now works (barely) if you are commited with dps (SoM+Agility Signet/Roll for Initiative+Krait Runes/Thorns… Tric/Acro/DD)

Or cond-burst: Imparring Daggers, Venom, Scavenging Runes and DA traits (most importantly the 33% poison dmg and duration and trappers respite)… most people give up acro to have this extra dmg, and use SB to make up for the mobility loss… I think this is giving up way too much survivability by losing the extra D/D sigil set and all acro traits, thats why I run DA/Acro/DD and no SB.

Although for spvp I generaly run DA/Tri/DD so I have maximum burst possible and try to stay alive by picking the fight and the moment to jump in and out (shadowstep on build too)

Before developing ever further your interruption build concept you should probabily commit to one of those 2 game-styles (if you didn’t already do so)

Kaliny.8265:

babazhook seeing as your thief interrupt build will have slightly less dps and more of a cond burst because of the perplexity runes internal cd you might as well go ’’full burst" using the heal tricks with trappers respite as I said before.

SoM is at its best if you are playing for full DB spam with extra initiative for those too… (aka ebola thief) more cond dps oriented

What do you think? The problem imo is that you need trickery for the confusion on steal too, and if you are running imparring daggers and a interrupt kit you probabily would be best suited for bursting.

Are you considering running acro? or SB? without any of those your mobility will be very kitten, barely unplayable for wvw…. and for imparring daggers be a real burst utility DA is of utmost importance… so idk

My point is cond thief now works (barely) if you are commited with dps (SoM+Agility Signet/Roll for Initiative+Krait Runes/Thorns… Tric/Acro/DD)

Or cond-burst: Imparring Daggers, Venom, Scavenging Runes and DA traits (most importantly the 33% poison dmg and duration and trappers respite)… most people give up acro to have this extra dmg, and use SB to make up for the mobility loss… I think this is giving up way too much survivability by losing the extra D/D sigil set and all acro traits, thats why I run DA/Acro/DD and no SB.

Although for spvp I generaly run DA/Tri/DD so I have maximum burst possible and try to stay alive by picking the fight and the moment to jump in and out (shadowstep on build too)

Before developing ever further your interruption build concept you should probabily commit to one of those 2 game-styles (if you didn’t already do so)

It goes without saying that trickery needed as I would want pressure strikes and of course uncatchable and the SOH.

This leaves me to choose between Acro and DA for the third. CS will not help such a build and SA would not add a lot. Acro gives a bit of swiftness on dodge for cross map albeit not enough. DA will utput more damage but Acro will allow more sustain and those few added dodges will work to make up for the loss of damage from DA line.

I think I will just toy with it first and then see what sort of changes come our way in the balance patch. I have been playing with interrupts in a power build using staff and p/p and it a lot of fun and quite effective.

Well if you are going wvw roaming I highly recomend you go for Acro or equip a shortbow if you decide for DA…

Acro does not make up for the loss of dmg from DA. Choosing acro above DA is totaly ok, but keep in mind its a sizeable (but sometimes necessary) sacrifice to dmg in order to have survivability and mobility.

I though you were going for bewildering ambush since your have 30% confusion duration and the perplexity interrupt proc has a 8sec cd. But I can see why yet another interrupt can be good on its own, specialy when aplying torment.

( I also recommend you change the title of the thread because people made some good points on builds and cond dd gameplay that have no relation with sigil or runes)

Kaliny.8265:

( I also recommend you change the title of the thread because people made some good points on builds and cond dd gameplay that have no relation with sigil or runes)

Well do remember this is about an interrupt building using sigil of that nature.

I tweaked my build last night for a lark and went those route. It fun in a d/d condition build.

Using SOH and mug , I can get 3600 heal plus 1500 damage along with all of those other effects mentioned (confusion/torment/poison/weakness) on a single well timed steal that interrupts every 20 seconds. This has potential.