Guild Wars 2

Hey folks,

no matter how “bad” the thief is compared to other classes, I really love the smooth way of playing and the versatility the class offers. I’ve tested any other class and only thief gives me that feeling.

Right now I’m playing my thief in PvP and PvE (Open world solely atm); and I have a couple of questions about thief in PvE / Open World.

1.) When using dagger, is it more reasonable to go for D/D or D/P? I have a feeling D/D offers a bit more damage. When using D/D, do you recommend using skill #4 and #3 for > 3mobs? Or

2.) How is heartseeker #2 damage wise? Is it recommendable to use it when the enemies below 50%? Or would you just keep autoattacking?

3.)Utility skills is another issue. I usually run around with 3 signets (heal signet, power, precision and 25% movement for OW). Against some enemies I miss a stun breaker; yet I don’t know what stun breaker’s the best; bandit’s defense got a pretty good cd, but when I use it to break a stun I won’t be able to attack immediately, which is a nuisance. Any hints/ tips?
When playing in open world, I love trating Invigorating Precision. It’s a safe® way to keep being in melee fights for a longer time and keeps you usually above 90% life for the 10% damage bonus.

4.) Staff or Dagger in Open world? What do you recommend? I can’t really say the one weapon feels “weaker”, yet I got the impression staff is a bit more centered on dealing aoe damage, which is a plus in open world… any clear pros/ cons? Is staff as good as dagger?

If you have any other tips for me, I gladly listen to them!

That’s it so far, thank you in advance !

PvE open, dungeons, raids, fractals:
1) Always D/D – offhand pistol is a waste und less it is against trashmobs but then you should rather use S/P.
2) If you’re running decent crit, heartseeker after 50%.
3) Running signets usually isn’t the best idea, especially in pve. Use Shadowstep, withdraw, roll for initative. You can also use bandits defense but try these 3. If you want extra power use food instead. And Signet of Malice is rather hard to pull off – it’s a bit stupid that that’s the first heal when creating a thief.
4) Depends on your playstyle. Both are good and you should have an AoE weapon (shortbow or staff) as a second set.

Another tipp: Watch thief videos – even if that’s pvp/wvw – you see what skills they use and get an idea how to play thief even if it’s against npcs. the D/D power videos are a few years old though but still valid for PvE.

Im not really a fan of S/P, so I’d rather stick with D/D instead.
what about Death Blossom and Dancing Dagger? Ist it a smart choice to use these skills against 3 or more foes? Or should I stick to Autoattacking?

Yes – I started as a keyboard turner and clicker – I couldn’t really handle shortbow so my only option to do AoE damage was death blossom. If you can pull that off you can also pull off signet of malice.

In some fractals you can’t use dagger mainhand as poison buffs the enemies – so think of some other options to do damage. My thief has got all weapons thief can use on him and I’m using them, even though I’m a D/D thief.

ETA: Try withdraw for some time though and SB or staff as your AoE damage.
And: Autoattack depends on who you’re fighting. Death blossom and dancing dagger hit 3, AA 2. In dungeons/fractals/against bosses you should still try to CnD, BS, AA, CnD and so on.

You should look for DnT nike’s builds on google. There are o lots of hints about every class, gear, food an even the optimal rotation.
For exemple for thief it’s CnD -> BS -> AA full chain -> 2 AA then CnD and repeat. At 50% it’s AA chain -> Heartseeker -> AA chain (like that you have full initiative for the trait [more init = more dmg].
Under 25 you active signet +15% dmg for 5 next strike and spam HS. I play like this and yes it does an incredible amount of dps (for like 3 sec but after the boss is dead).

About weapon, D/D for single target damage, Sword/Pistol for trashes (cleave and Blind! Usefull in pve solo or grouped). Staff ? I don’t know this weapon I just came from a 1 years break but it should do less single target damage than daggers.

Edit : grammar

Answering your staff question,

It does less theoretical damage to a single target as to what D/D would. However it has a much safer DPS rotation and cleaves up to 5 which makes it more favorable as an all rounder, not to mention extra evades from weapon skills and endurance generation. D/D really does not allow for many mistakes although it feels far more satisfying to use imo.

I personally prefer to run both Staff+ D/P if in open world solo. The staff effectively cleaves mobs whilst DP allows me to spam blinds to take on veterans with minimal effort and some elites. It provides the utility to stealth hide away when the going gets a bit extreme (Like needing to get past some champs without getting 1 shot). I know SP is the Favored option for trash mobs but this is just a personal preference.

When in a general group, I like to camp on shortbow for additional blasts to benefit the group and only use staff as a damage dealer.

thanks for all the answers, but yet I still don’t know what stunbreaker to use :’D

But I managed to figure out another awesome thing:
I always thought Bounding Dodger is the ultimate non plus ultra in PvE.
I switched that trait against unhindered combatant which is so much better because:
- the dodge animation itself is shorter
- reliable condi remover
- gives you swiftness, so you can drop the 25% movement signet and replace it (which is really great)
- damage reduction, which is especially useful in HoT (open world)

AS for utility skills I’m still trying out some things. I think Fist Flurry is pretty much a nice to have damage skill, especially combined with D/D, cause it triggers Impacting Disruption (that’s obviously the trait u’re skilling when you’re Daredevil and using D/D).

Infiltrators Signet is, with bandit’s defense arguably the best stun breaker when it comes down to cooldown time. I’ve tried Roll for Initiatve and Withdraw, but when you’re using Unhindered Combatant, you’re not so often in need of these and might pull off another stun breaker.

Question is: Who is stunning you that often (in PvE).
Maybe time your dodges a bit better? =)

staff is best in pve. even if u have always full vuln, voult combo or 2 is best dps

Jana.6831:

Question is: Who is stunning you that often (in PvE).
Maybe time your dodges a bit better? =)

Counterquestion: Have you played the HoT expansion? =)

On a serious note tho, you can’t always evade any cc by dodges (depending on the kind of mob).

If you claim to prevent any ingoing cc by perfect doding ever I personally find that highly doubtful.. but then again.. maybe you’re just too l33t.

Nefarius.9702:

Jana.6831:

Question is: Who is stunning you that often (in PvE).
Maybe time your dodges a bit better? =)

Counterquestion: Have you played the HoT expansion? =)

Nefarius.9702:

If you claim to prevent any ingoing cc by perfect doding ever I personally find that highly doubtful.. but then again.. maybe you’re just too l33t.

Guess I am as I’m doing all of the HoT maps on a vanilla thief (did the story solo (except the last which you can’t do alone anyway) if it’s of any worth – I usually fall asleep during personal story).
Maybe try to be a bit more humble and take advise?

ETA: If being stunned is that big of a problem to you, try acrobatics with hard to catch and instant reflexes.

Never said hot maps were hard, but there are more kind of mobs that use cc.

Be proud that you don’t use any stun breakers, but since I asked for good stun breakers your statement “learn to dodge =)” is neither a reasonable nor a constructive advise.

You make yourself look kitteny , so I please reduce your comments to constructive advise or get out of the topic, please.

Nefarius.9702:

You make yourself look kitteny , so I please reduce your comments to constructive advise or get out of the topic, please.

You both look kittenty.

You because you asked for advice & Jana gave you the valid feedback that best stunbreak is to not be hit by the stun in the first place. It’s a bit like asking, “What’s the best heal so that I can stand in the red and not die?” The answer is to not stand in the red in the first place.

Jana looks kittenty because she got baited by your attitude. Don’t get sucked into scrubs with a bad attitude.

I gave more advise but this guy rather went full PvE mode on everything “I KNOW HOW TO PLAY!!! PVE IS HARD; ALRIGHT? DON’T TELL ME THAT I NEED TO BE MORE ATTENTIVE OF MY SURROUNDINGS I NEED MORE BUFFS!”
So he rather runs a 4 signet build in PvE – because he knows better – any advise was useless from the start.

at Blaqatak: Nope, it’s more like asking for the best healing skill and getting the advise: “avoid getting damaged”; so was her comment; dispensable and the way she phrased it – big headed. All I did was asking for constructive advice, which other players gave me to rethink the way to play, which helped me.

But yeah, I’m no longer getting soaked into this immature discussion. Thanks for these who helped me with reasoned answers; topic can be closed.

I prefer to use staff over dagger and for weapon swap I use Shortbow for openworld and d/p for raids/fractals/… (d/p if additional cc is needed, use headshot afew times and just autoattack untill you cans wap back to staff ).
Staff and SB are also amazing for AoE dmg unlike dagger.

For utility I try to use Signet of Agility and Signet of Power? (Forgot it’s name haha the one that gives power as passive) and as 3rd utility I take what I need but it usualy is one of the Physical skills or shadowstep if needed and I usualy swap the Power signet for movment signet for open world cuz who wants to be slow? I always use Daredevils healing skill, Signet doesnt have enough heals if you ask me. For elite use whatever you like, but if you need cc for breakbars take venom, if you need aoe use lotus.

Oh, and never use S/P or you’ll be made fun of ^^

For running around open world pve, i prefer d/p.

Shadowshot is good for killing mob after mob, headshot good for breaking bars, blind field is imba against most enemies, give 9+ secs stealth anywhere and synergizes so well with bounding dodger.

You can do some backstabs and its good vs some mobs, but most mobs die super fast to autoattacks if serker.

Invigorating precision makes open world stuff so much easier, i run it most of the time, still instant gibbing most things.

I normally just run channeled vigor, the three signets and impact strike + shortbow or dual pistol in 2nd set (bow for general use mobility, bit of ranged and aoe – dual pistol are much greater dps against bosses / single targets etc, if you need to stay on range in a fight)

If you really want to slot a stun breaker, shadowstep instead of movement or power signet wouldnt be bad.

@ Vykoz: Thank you so much for that idea (Pistol 6 and bounding dodger)
Think I just found my found my ideal weaponset for OW.

Sorry for the double post –
but two more questions came up and im not entirely sure about the best solution:

1) What sigills do I use for Shortbow in OpenPve ? 5% + Air? Or should I consider fire or even bloodlust? What about fracs / raids?

2) When fighting with D/D and facing MORE than 1 enemy, do I still use CnD in my rota? Or do I go for aaing mainly? Cause CnD only hits 1 enemy…

pro hint: switch to revenant

nope, took me long enough to find a class that really fits my playstile.

Any hints regarding my questions?

Nefarius.9702:

Sorry for the double post –
but two more questions came up and im not entirely sure about the best solution:

1) What sigills do I use for Shortbow in OpenPve ? 5% + Air? Or should I consider fire or even bloodlust? What about fracs / raids?

2) When fighting with D/D and facing MORE than 1 enemy, do I still use CnD in my rota? Or do I go for aaing mainly? Cause CnD only hits 1 enemy…

1) Shortbow is really more of a utility weapon but sometimes the extra bit of damage from clusterbomb and AA. I personally prefer to run it with sigil of leeching+ air as the leeching procc can carry onto weapon swap (roughly under a 1k heal). I wvw with the shortbow so air for that extra bit of crit pressure, otherwise sigil energy for the extra evade for even more utility although its a bit unnecessary with Daredevil.

2.) Always CD once revealed is gone as the stealth will remove mob pressure from you and you are able to slowly and surely rid your targets with large crits. CnD will also give you time for your Cooldowns to recharge. In PVE, you can easily juke the npc’s by frequently stealthing and bursting . Deathblossom is not a dps skill unless you’re a condition thief, it’s more of a gimmicky evade and any thief worth their salt will know not to spam heartseeker in PVE unless target is under 25% (assuming you are talking about pve. PVP wise, I sometimes use Heartseeker to close small gaps to targets)