Guild Wars 2

Hi guys

I’m fairly new to thief class so go easy on me.
I’ve been experimenting with some build options and this is what I come up with:
A backstab build relies more on evasion than stealth (link)

As there are 3 main ways to regain health during combat
- Signet of Malice
- Invigorating Precision
- Assassins’ Reward
I just want to ask which ones can be affected by poison and healing power stat?

Also, has any pro thief out there experimenting with similar builds like this before? What is your experience? Ive been having good results so far.

Any constructive feedback is welcome.

33% reduced healing effectiveness from poison affects any and all incoming healing. Healing power affects any and all outgoing healing, with the exception of life stealing. Outgoing healing includes when you heal yourself. Life stealing is separate from life siphoning (necromancers), which is affected by healing power.

There is a 4th way to regain health in combat: Regeneration boon. Thief can acquire it with the shadow protector trait, granting 10s regeneration on stealth, or about 40% up-time with pain response.

Backstab is a stealth attack, meaning it requires stealth. A backstab build therefore must rely on stealth, otherwise it is not really a backstab build. Having evades is always helpful toward survivability, but they don’t replace stealth where the goal is to land numerous backstabs.

Your power looks very low to me, for a backstab build.

The main problem with signet of malice is poison. Being a heal over time, you can’t cleanse or wait out the poison before getting the full heal - all the while you are poisoned, your healing skill becomes less and less effective for its cool down (yes I know signet of malice is used for its passive, but it still has a cool down here: attack frequency). There is also a disadvantage in needing to hit to heal, because if your opponent blinds, blocks or evades you, or kites for a bit, you won’t be healing.
I noticed you have vigorous recovery instead of something like pain response or even fleet of foot. Vigorous recovery with signet of malice? If you’re in a position where you’re forced to use the signet, that vigor will be helpful for sure, but you’re passing up regeneration and condition removal for something you’ll rarely use.

If evasion is what you want, I suggest going Sword/Dagger. Otherwise, if it’s backstab you want, I suggest Dagger/Pistol, with shadow’s rejuvination from shadow arts instead of assassin’s reward from acrobatics. I assume this is for WvW; in PvP you’ll want to avoid shadow arts, going for 6 critical strikes and 6 acrobatics or trickery, or 0 critical stikes and in both 6 acrobatics and trickery.

Edit: Corrected a crucial typo!

You forgot to include incoming healing as well.

Outgoing healing is healing you give to others, but not yourself. Incoming healing is healing that you get, whether it be from yourself or others.

Poison affects incoming healing.

Healing Power affects all healing you do but not all healing you get.

If you are poisoned, you will heal allies for the full amount (as long as they are not poisoned) but you will not heal yourself for the full amount.

@Impact

Thank you for your clarification about poison and healing power.
You seem to be quite knowledgeable about the class and strike me as a cool-headed guy among the thief community.

Regarding to the suggestion to go for SA D/D Backstab build or S/D build, I just want to make clear that I’ve done a fair bit of research and do know about all the mainstream/meta builds. However, this is not what I’m going for, I simply just enjoy exploring some new options outside of meta.

I was one of the few mesmers running clone-death condi builds and got laughed at before PU condi mesmer became the new meta and clone-death condi variants got popular.
So while I appreciate your good intention and useful advice, I must respectfully disregard most of them.

However, I agree with you about the Vigorous Recovery trait being underused in this setup, so I shall take on your advice and swap out for Pain Response.

Also, about the power stat being a bit low, my excuse is that I’m just using what I have at the moment as well as going tanky so I can get used to the playstyle before committing into glasscannon-ish gear. From your experience, how much power should I aim for? With this build, I pretty much have 5+ might stacks at all time, would that boost the power stat to a decent level?

Again, thanks very much for your comprehensive feedback.

@Esplen
Thanks for your clarification as well.

Esplen.3940:

You forgot to include incoming healing as well.

Outgoing healing is healing you give to others, but not yourself. Incoming healing is healing that you get, whether it be from yourself or others.

Poison affects incoming healing.

Healing Power affects all healing you *do* but not all healing you *get*.

If you are poisoned, you will heal allies for the full amount (as long as they are not poisoned) but you will not heal yourself for the full amount.

I did mention incoming healing. In the combat log, healing yourself comes under outgoing healing because it scales with your healing power. I clarified this to avoid confusion:

Impact.2780:

Outgoing healing includes when you heal yourself.

You’re right about poison, of course. I meant "incoming healing" for poison.

keenlam.4753:

Also, about the power stat being a bit low, my excuse is that I’m just using what I have at the moment as well as going tanky so I can get used to the playstyle before committing into glasscannon-ish gear. From your experience, how much power should I aim for? With this build, I pretty much have 5+ might stacks at all time, would that boost the power stat to a decent level?

That’s a good idea. I did the same thing with soldiers to knights to berserker on my first character (elementalist) when I used to PvE, and have recommended it to others before. I’ve also recommended trying the D/P shadow arts build before moving to acrobatics or trickery to get a feel for the class first to new thieves. +1 for trying your own thing, most people will argue it’s not the meta and the meta is the meta for a reason, but how then did we come to have builds in the first place =P. It’s also an important part in learning about a class if you ask me; if you go straight for a build someone else made then you jump in without much knowledge of what else your class can do, and actually less appreciation for what your build might be able to do.

Even with might I think it will be quite low power. Backstab is usually about getting really high backstab crits, which means a more defensive alternative is to exclude precision for toughness and run with the hidden killer trait. Where you have healing others would have blinds to mitigate entire hits, and where you have precision others might have more power and hidden killer, and I honestly think the latter of each is a stronger combination if you’re aiming to pull off as many backstabs as possible. If however you’re playing evasively instead, and using more auto attacks than the traditional backstab play style, perhaps it will still work well. One can only try!

When I go to WvW I just keep to my PvP build and its berserker stats, relying purely on evades and withdraw for survival over toughness and additional healing, but maybe I’m just lazy =P.