Guild Wars 2

hello all-

new to thieves here and since the patch made them more appealing, i decided to give them a try.

before i go on, i want to point out that i would be running dungeons/fotm and possibly wvw. i have an effective build on my guard that i use for hotjoins so i’m not looking for pvp with a thief..yet anyway.

here is the current build i’m working with:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|c.1g.h14.8.1g.h1|5.1g.h17|1c.71a.1c.71a.1g.71a.1c.71a.1c.71a.1c.71a|2s.0.2s.0.3s.0.2v.0.3v.0.2s.0|a3.u16b.0.u278.0|1b.1|59.5c.5a.5h.5v|e

i’m a little flexible with the way traits are distributed, though i would like to retain the 30 in CS and possibly 20 in acro. 10 in DA seems like a waste just to access the heal from mug, but having an extra heal is handy. i’m not asking for something amazing like a super bursty+bunker build because frankly i don’t believe any profession is going have superb damage, control and support all at the same time. my thief i want to have great dps while having access to condition removals. being tanky is not something i want to excel in.

also, if possible, i want to avoid SA because i don’t have any real use for stealth outside of wvw and i can retrait for it if need. i chose runes of the air because the extra 3-4k hits will come in handy, though if i’ll be dodging often, perhaps lyssa would be better to clear conditions when i use bas venom or dagger storm?

tl;dr-
how do i gain access to condition removal that withdraw/dodging won’t grant me on a more reliable basis than 45sec cd from traits/lyssa runes while avoiding 10 in SA? if i MUST, i will trait for shadow’s embrace, but to me, it’s wasteful, just like i’m currently using 10 in DA for the heal on mug.

anyway, thanks all!
i hope to learn more(than i already am) from your videos and useful threads =]

well without going for stealth removal or switching heals (which wouldn’t really solve the problem just trade 3 conditions for a different 3 conditions but with a longer cooldown) your basically looking at liberal use of shadow step utility, infiltrators strike (sword #2) and possibly look into slotting in signet of agility in combat instead of signet of shadows(arguably a better choice for a high evasion build anyway as swiftness on dodge overwrites the signet of shadows run buff while signet of agility is a full endurance bar fill).

Though lyssa runes could be a good idea, the Air isn’t really going to be helpful as while the swiftness duration and such is nice the nuke when you get hit is counter productive to the thief “don’t get hit else you break apart like wet paper” style.

that said you should ideally be using stealth at least a little bit anyway due to it being a good portion of a thief’s defense (not to mention tactical strike can be nice) even if your rolling primarily evasion for you defense, making it a question of whether conditions become enough issue that you have to get the best condition removal you can or whether you can hold off for mugs healing, mobility and utility.

Signet of agility seems like a good fit. Extra damage from precision up and refilling endurance (more might and all the other good things from dodging) with condition removal when used. Recharge is fairly short but of little consequence if using it can put your enemy under 50% for the fury and bonus damage. Also would make might from signet usage more viable without having to change trait point distribution. Drop precision converted to vitality to take it if you’re serious about not caring about tanking, as the extra damage from the might stacks and the damage mitigation from free refills on endurance can easily make up for the minor buff to hp. Does that sound good to you?

yeah practiced tolerance is fairly limited due to working off base precision only, signets of power or signet use would be good alternatives.

Signets of power for ArtC’s reasoning, signet use because it works well with signet of agility, not only do you get to use the signet more (so more team condition removal and team endurance refill thus more dodges) but also gives it the added effect of restoring some initiative as well (which with S/D can mean more boon stealing or more condition clearing)

thanks for the replies!

so i’ve switched out tolerance for signet use and yes it totally makes sense to use signet of agility over shadows. do you think it’s overkill to swap 10 in DA for SA to grab shadow’s embrace? with IS’s condition removal along with the signet of agility, i don’t think i’ll need to use stealth to remove additional conditions, but i guess i can play around with that later as it’s only a retrait. the difference is losing out on 100 power for 100 armor, but i gain almost 4% dmg reduction in the process if i fail to time my dodges correctly.

also, rune of the air will interrupt my stealth, so that’s another reason why i shouldn’t take embrace. i’m not against using stealth…it’s situational, but i’m not into disappearing so often that i drop my dps(maybe take up hidden killer?) at this point, taking lyssa runes does seem to be a bit overkill….mm more choices

anyway, thanks again! i will definitely try out the proposed changes

well with the rest of your build and your lower rate of stealth use your both most likely not going to have to worry too much about conditions and would get more use out of the mug’s combat mobility over going 10 in SA