Guild Wars 2

Just as the title asks. Whenever I ask this people don’t even mention Sinister, they just tell me to ‘go Dire’, but that’s not the point. This is just something I want to try, it’s not like I’m ditching the Dires completely, I’m keeping them while I see if this works. The point, unsurprisingly, is this:

Would a P/D Condition Build work with the new Sinister stats?

1. I currently have full Dire Exotic armour, 2 Dire Daggers with the Sigil of Battle, 2 Dire Pistols with the Sigil of Doom, and 5 Ascended trinkets, all Sinister.

a) My backpiece is Rabid. Is it worth spending 250 Vicious Claws to get a Sinister one?
b) Following on from that, should I go full Sinister or should I combine it with Dire/Rabid/something else?

2. My thief uses the following skills: Shadow Refuge, Signet of Shadows, Shadowstep, Basilisk Venom. He uses the traits 0/0/0/6/2/6, and from left-to-right, top-to-bottom, goes: IV, V, XI, VI, III, VII, XIII.

a) Would it be necessary to change any skills to better suit Sinister stats?
b) Would it be necessary to change any traits to better suit Sinister stats?

With sinister you gain direct dmg equivalent to knights and that combined with weak direct dmg on pistol aa, makes sinister subpar vs dire. Ofc, for a max dmg (condi & direct), sinister is best but you will lose a lot of survivability by not using dire.

You could mix is some sinister for cases like diamond skin ele but they don’t seem to be that common.

Dire is better.

Nah, I’m kidding haha. It probably is, I think, but I’m not just gonna blow you off like that! Anyways, honestly dude try it! That’s how real pros are made. By crafting build after build and learning from each mistake and improvement.

It seems to me that if you use this set, you’ll be very glassy so I’d say try to perhaps focus on condi bombing? I’m actually crafting a dire P/D on my thief right now and even on that condi bombing can be effective if done right. So I’d imagine with the added damage from power and precision, you could perhaps burst pretty dang hard.

Anyways, let us know how this goes! I’d be interested to hear the progress report.

My P/D thief uses sinister armor with dire/sinister mix of trinkets. It out damages dire and allows me to use proc on crit sigils such as torment to add more condition damage.

Stealth and dodges in the p/d build provide ample staying power. The extra armor/vitality of Dire can certainly help in survival but it can very often goes to waste as one avoids so many hits in the first place.

I suggest if you find in your build that your health rarely drops to dangerous levels given your style of play then sinister a candidate.

I use torment runes and a torment sigil in my build. The build is a 2/0/6/0/6.The weapons remain Dire. Off hand set is d/d and i will often swap to the offset for heartseeker to finish. I like the extra damage provided on the Shadowstrike as well and while the crit rate is only 25 percent in the current build this does mean an extra torment on every sneak attack and the boost when crits kick in from the regular attacks. I might yet tweak the build a bit so I can get a wee bit more vitality.

(I do use a lot more shadow strike in my build and the damage boost on that significant even in a low power build if the crit kicks in. This at no sacrifice at all to the condi damage)

Wow, thank you guys. You’ve all been very helpful, and I’ve decided how I want to go about doing this.

First, I want to take the Sinister armour, substitute the Dire stuff in my Bank, and go for it, testing dungeons, world bosses and WvW (not sPvP for obvious reasons).

Then I’d like to see how often I die. When it comes to stealthing I am not particularly skilled so we’ll have to see.

If I die a lot, I will slowly return the Dire armour into the build until I find some sort of balance.

Still unsure about that Rabid backpiece though. Progress will come soon!

I never thought they’d introduce this combination. You’d hit harder then anything, but very squishy. Pistol Sneak Attack has good scaling with power (power P/D is playable), this could be very deadly.

It hits harder and is more durable than the P/P builds out there, so at worst you’re not awful.

Though meta P/D should carry you no matter what build you play. My testing with berserker P/D demonstrated the build is so ridiculously strong it doesn’t matter what you do.

DeceiverX.8361:

It hits harder and is more durable than the P/P builds out there, so at worst you’re not awful.

Though meta P/D should carry you no matter what build you play. My testing with berserker P/D demonstrated the build is so ridiculously strong it doesn’t matter what you do.

I call bull crap.

Okay, I’ve done a bit of testing in PvE and here’s what I’ve come up with:

The Silverwastes Test:

I would maybe have done more but I need that Bioluminescence. Anyway, this works pretty well at both defending keeps and defending carriers. What it doesn’t work well at at all is taking keeps, it just can’t stand that condition. On the bosses it’s kind of mediocre. It doesn’t have the range, though the Dire version didn’t either.

Survivability wasn’t a huge problem, the Vinewrath champions are most of the time pretty easy apart from the normal moments like getting knocked out of the honeycomb and nobody killing the Pustules.

In other words, this build is a little above average in normal PvE.

The CoF Test:

I didn’t have the time to do multiple dungeons so I went for the three paths of CoF.

P1 – Works pretty easily, can do everything really well with no survivability problems.

P2 – Also works pretty easily, but don’t try to solo the Magmacyte bit. It isn’t for you.

P3 – Oh boy. Nope. Bad at surviving at the three torches at the beginning. Rest is fine up until taking back a point from the Flame Legion. We lost loads of times with like 1 wave left and one guy even criticised me for not using the latest boring glass cannon meta build. ¬.¬

In other words, in dungeons, this build does pretty well usually, mostly as a support guy who occasionally goes in with a Cloak and Dagger, but CoF P3 is a definite no-go.

Next is WvW, then conclusions. Not testing in sPvP for obvious reasons.

The armor/weapon is definitely has merit but that would be very difficult to balance since all those stats are damage stats. Typically an ideal armor/weapon has 2 damage and 1 survival stats or 1 damage and 2 survival stats, but never all 3 as damage.

This has the same risk as the Assassin set and if you know what you’re doing, it might just work.

However, contrary to your weapon of choice, I think this would shine better withe a D/D weapon set which can normalize the damage output of the set.

I’m curious to see the numbers.

You can mix different types and with Sinister you can better mix and match your preference.

With the added precision I’d maybe look at on-critical effects, like sigils of Blight, Strength

Sadly, the hottest part of damage from a direct build comes from ferocity and not from power alone.

But still you can make good use of the precision and power by using the good and old Air + Fire. Every 6 seconds you will trigger air twice and fire once for a good chunk of direct damage.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

However, contrary to your weapon of choice, I think this would shine better withe a D/D weapon set which can normalize the damage output of the set.

I’m curious to see the numbers.

I will disagree here. D/D only have DB for ConD damage and for the rest of the set you might as well stick with berserker.

I mean… DB uses too much initiative, you won’t have initiative to conect a C&D + Backstab after using all of it on 3~4 DB.

SoulSin.5682:

Sadly, the hottest part of damage from a direct build comes from ferocity and not from power alone.

But still you can make good use of the precision and power by using the good and old Air + Fire. Every 6 seconds you will trigger air twice and fire once for a good chunk of direct damage.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

However, contrary to your weapon of choice, I think this would shine better withe a D/D weapon set which can normalize the damage output of the set.

I’m curious to see the numbers.

I will disagree here. D/D only have DB for ConD damage and for the rest of the set you might as well stick with berserker.

I mean… DB uses too much initiative, you won’t have initiative to conect a C&D + Backstab after using all of it on 3~4 DB.

Heartseeker is a better choice then CNd and backstab in a build such as this. You use your conditions to get that health low enough and then finish with heartseeker. In a pure Condi build the HS will do significantly less damage over a build using sinister stats.

HS is quicker and costs less INI.

deathblossom will stacks bleeds faster then any other source.

Don’t forget that Sneak Attack and Shadow Strike scale well with power.

Oh wow, this overnight discussion is really interesting, especially the bit about critical sigils, something I hadn’t considered as a possibility as all I had been testing was basically survivability.

As above, the idea with the Sinister build was basically focused on the main damage output, Sneak Attack, as well as how well I can just walk up and Cloak and Dagger.

Air and Fire is an interesting idea, one that completely defeats the point of having double P/D sets to switch between, as that Sigil of Battle really helps stack up the might with getting might every time I stealth, which gets me quite a bit of might. The Doom sigil could go though, but having another condition to put on every few seconds is always really good.

Regarding mixing armour, yes, it is probably best if I go something like half Dire in my armour and keep all else Sinister (other than that Rabid backpiece – should I get a Dire one then?) By the way, I have Krait runes on all my armour since most of the conditions I do will be bleed.

I also disagree with making the build D/D, it is much more reliable to stack conditions on P/D.

So the plan is this:

Use half Dire, half Sinister for armour, Sinister for everything else.
Stick with Doom and Battle for now – possibly Battle and a critical sigil could work.

Also, can someone give me advice on that backpiece?

Keep this in mind that when comparing might stacks from Sigil of battle swaps with an on crit sigil.

What is the maximum stacks to expect from that extra might.? How much extra damage can you expect from it both condition wise and direct damage wise.

How does that compare to Air going off every 3 to 4 seconds? Will that sudden spike damage of an Air sigil firing be of greater benefit in your build then more gradual damage that might be higher overall?

To d/d as the offweapon set. I understand why you want to go the route of “on swap” and wish to use just p/d but in a hybrid set a different off hand offers more flexibility. Heartseeker is one example but D/D allows the p/d user to deal with things like diamond skin or give an alternative when a warrior has berserker stance running.

(if you hide on a warrior and he uses that stance P/d sneak attack will go to waste so backstab him)

It may not be as EASY to apply bleeds with the DB but it much more effective and those bleeds last a long long time. As example in your p/d set if you see an enemy rezzing a downed player you can target only one with p/d. DB will hot everyone on that area and load on the bleeds. If an enemy thief uses SR to hide DB works great as you spam a few over that area. In my own p/d build I will use the needle trap to immobilize an opponent (no dodges) and then DB over him to load on those bleeds. (SB is another alternative here and offers yet more flexibility)

DB also is a pseudo evade which can help with getting through AOE while laying damage on,

Ah, sorry, but I’d only skim-read that entire conversation, and thought you meant for me to completely replace P/D with D/D. In that case, yes, I see what you mean, and Air and Fire are now definite possibilities.

Your strategy seems very interesting, so I’ll definitely try that out. What skills do you use? I run Hide in Shadows, Shadow Refuge, Signet of Shadows, Shadowstep, and Basilisk Venom (I probably said this somewhere), so I’d be interested to see what you substituted for Needle Trap.

My P/d sinister build uses trapper runes. This gives a lot more hides. without having to use INI to do so. As well everytime I lay a trap I clean two conditions and everytime I lay a trap i gain might, regen from shadow protector and heal from shadows rejuv

I use Needle trap and the Ambush trap though I will sub other traps/utils in time to time on utility bar in place of ambush . I have thieves guild as my Elite when in smaller groups or roaming and daggerstorm when in larger groups. (Daggerstrom is only good in 1v1 or small group when trying to reflect rapid fire)

What I can do here is set an Ambush trap for that thief and then cast Thieves Guild and have three thieves fighting for me.

Heal is withdraw or hide in shadows.

The other utility is variable sometimes Caltrops sometimes Shadow refuge or rfi for stun break . I use torment as one crit sigil just to keep another stack of that on to supplement what I get from shadow strike. Lots will work here. I might switch this out to Air instead as there more damage overall. (I think air superior to fire. Shorter cooldown more single target damage)

Caltrops leaves that big red circle that many (not all) tend to avoid when they see it. What I like to do is lay a needle trap and when it triggered and the person immobilized drop caltrops. If already in hiding sneak attack, switch to d/d and do some death blossoms.

I know some people like Krait runes and they a very good choice but I have found it more effective with my own style of play to focus on gear/items that maximize ALL conditions towards 100 percent. In that way I am not reliant on the one (bleed) and the other conditions such as immobilize , torment and confusion become much more powerful. IE for Body shot with 100 percent duration becomes 5 stacks of vulnerability for 6 seconds and a 2 second immobilize for the same INI spent. ( I am not currently not at 100 percent but at 80)

This makes me slow for cross map movement and what I will often do is use signet of shadows when moving across the map and swap it out just before a battle.

Sorry, got more curious now, so I must ask some more things:

What exact sigils do you run on your P/D and D/D?
How have you mixed the stats in your armour?
What traits do you use?

Sorry if this is tedious.

I have tried TWO versions of traits. I wanted to get my Condition duration as high as possible without giving up Condition damage.

All my armor is sinister.
My weapons are variable.
My trinkets a mix . The rings and backpack are rampager.
The three other items the DIRE plus rabid set.

The daggers have TORMENT on one Corruption the other. I use these to stack my corruption. Since the sigil of torment an AOE attack and the skill DB an AOE attack with multiple attacks through each animation that torment triggers virtually every time used. (barring that cooldown)

On my p/d set I use Malice and Torment (The latter I might change to Air)

My runes are trappers. I use the Toxic Focusing crystal for 10 percent condition duration and the Pizza.

This gives me a base of 40(pizza)10(crystal)10(malice)+10 (trappers) condition duration on the p/d set and 10 percent less on the d/d set (which has higher base durations on the bleeds so actually has longer lasting bleeds).

Trait loadout is one of these two.

3/0/3/2/6. This gives me A duration of 85 percent and when going this route I take Corrosive traps. If I go those route my weapons dire.

Or

0/0/6/2/6

I use GIVERS weapons on the p/d set in this build so as to get the higher durations. It not required as 70 is generally pretty good. This build grants me all the boons from stealth.

The traits in Trickery are Long reach /uncatchable and bewildering ambush in both cases.

The 2 in acro is for Trap mastery.

In SA i have shadows embrace in each version and add Shadows rejuv and shadow protector in the version with 6 in stealth.

The condition damage in both is right around 2000 when stacks factored in.

BOTH builds are effective. I played most of the time with 0/0/6/2/6 as It has more in the way of survival . I have lately been using 3/0/3/2/6 as I have found that the loss of vitality and armor I had by going from Dire to Sinister was not as crippling as i thought it might be. I am also a fan of poison on steal and the lotus poison trait in the DA line. Weakness is a powerful condition and in dropping the 3 in SA i gain weakness and Vulnerability on my needle trap.

babazhook.6805:

SoulSin.5682:

Sadly, the hottest part of damage from a direct build comes from ferocity and not from power alone.

But still you can make good use of the precision and power by using the good and old Air + Fire. Every 6 seconds you will trigger air twice and fire once for a good chunk of direct damage.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

However, contrary to your weapon of choice, I think this would shine better withe a D/D weapon set which can normalize the damage output of the set.

I’m curious to see the numbers.

I will disagree here. D/D only have DB for ConD damage and for the rest of the set you might as well stick with berserker.

I mean… DB uses too much initiative, you won’t have initiative to conect a C&D + Backstab after using all of it on 3~4 DB.

Heartseeker is a better choice then CNd and backstab in a build such as this. You use your conditions to get that health low enough and then finish with heartseeker. In a pure Condi build the HS will do significantly less damage over a build using sinister stats.

HS is quicker and costs less INI.

deathblossom will stacks bleeds faster then any other source.

Exactly what I was thinking. CnD→BS→DB→AA/HS

That’s the best thing about Sinister, you don’t have to waste Inits by trying to stack bleed since they’ll have higher potency and your other attacks crits. It’s a perfect balance in terms of damage and if you’re a seasoned Thief, you wouldn’t even have to build for survivability.