Guild Wars 2

Asrat.2645:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVn8lCdmiFmCGOBkmiFYCrrwkEqCzhwSYLULBEAKAA-TJRAQBTsMAD3fAAnAAD8AAAA

I’ve found much more use with Dagger Training than Mug. With it, your Death Blossom has a chance to apply poison to all of your targets. It’s far more damage than Mug if you can spare Mug’s negligible heal—esspecially when you consider all the other poison augmentations you’re running.

Not to disregard any of the other changes mentioned, but I think we need an overhaul of P/P. Both the weapon set itself and traits to complement it. I written about it before: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Can-we-get-a-new-Pistol-auto-attack/first#post6017717

I second everything Asrat said.

I personally run Paladin amulet so that if you’re caught w/o being able to evade you’re not instantly killed (but even with enough burst it still happens to me at times). I take Trickery (3, 1, 2), Acrobatics (3, 3, 1), and Daredevil (3/1, 2/1, 2/3). It’s a very well rounded build with good damage, mobility, defense, and sustain.

It’s pretty bad, I’ve never used it. If anything, it helps set you up for an offensive Bound, but good with good spacing you don’t need it. The initiative is better spent elsewhere.

Lexander.4579:

Slim.3024:

I am surprised you guys forego Trickery completely. I’d pick Trickery over Daredevil even for a condition build.

trickery is extremely overrated and surely its nowhere close to daredevil in its strength

^ This ^

Without Daredevil, a condi D/D Thief would be terrible. Trickery is nice, but I’ve come to learn it doesn’t match up to the various types of sustain from Acrobatics.

Deathrubber.3861:

EA is fine on fighting dps or bunkers but its not enough for condi necro, thiefs and mesmer as they constantly apply mutiple conditions and when it comes to highlevel fight enemies will counter the trait accordingly. so i got the recently buffed pain response instead of instant reflexes (cause ur able to evade everything) and shadowstep instead of needletrap. shadowstep is not replaceble.

Yep channeled vigor is perfect and we can finally part agility signet from our hearts :P but what im referring too is the also recently rebuffed assassins reward (got back the power from like 2~years ago) in combination with the new sage amulet as this means 1k+ heal on every death blossom evade. (mind that the sage amulet stats on gw2skills are wrong)

Haha im starting to think Bandits Defense is another unreplaceble skill espacially if u not running power havoc mastery and got brawlers tenacity. Nah but shadowstep in combination with sb 5 is what makes the match mate. its useful in so many ways but that would need its own thread.

Pain Response is definitely another good option, I’m going to try running it. As for Shadowstep, how are you using it? The condi removal from that isn’t all that great, and the shadowstep is a bit of an over kill since you’re already running SB.

As for the healing from Assassin’s Reward, with Sage Amulet it’s only ~600 heal, not 1k. But you’re losing out on 4k Vitality from Carrion and losing out on condi damage. Not to mention that the regen from Upper Hand has comparable healing in addition to the initiative gain. So while Assassins’ Reward isn’t bad, it doesn’t seem to match up to Upper Hand.

Deathrubber.3861:

@Casual mentions despised facts and he is right but i woulndt go with that excact build as u need more cleanse, heal and shadowstep

Just curious, where are you getting more cleanse and healing? I have no problem with conditions thanks to Escapist’s Absolution (not to mention the fact that you’re also mitigating the application of conditions due to evades as well). As for healing, my build is running the biggest heal we have: Channeled Vigor (if it were PvE, then you might get more consistent healing from Signet of Malice). As for a shadowstep, I think you could certainly swap out Bandit’s Defense for one and it would probably be fine. But it seems that a 12 second CD stun break with a hard knockdown is far better than a 30/50 sec CD stun break with negligible mobility benefits.

I’ve been running a condi D/D build for quite some time, and I personally think it’s one of our strongest builds for PvP (I’d even go as far to say it’s our best build). With the right set up, it’s a very well rounded build—with solid condition and direct damage, amazing sustain, and (just enough) mobility. After much tweaking, this is my current set up for this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVn8lCFmitNBemCkmilWCb+EuCfhaBgDwCo7K8EqCA-TpRAABA8AAIrMgHHCg+PCACu/gBnAAA

This build complements the Thief’s roaming play style really well. Instead of decapping a point then having to merely run away because you can’t 1v1 hardly any class, you’re able to stand your ground and solo almost any class, and even can 1v2, or 1v3 people at times (or survive for long enough so that your team can come to help or make progress elsewhere on the map). Because of its high sustain, you can also solo enemy lords and NPCs easily. On its surface, this build seems like a mindless #3 spam, but in reality that are a lot of key parts to this build that separate the “trolls” from those who actually know how to play the build.

While I don’t think this build has any glaring weaknesses, some things to watch out for are being stun locked, kited, and overly spamming skills. As for stuns, in previous iterations of the build I frequently ran into being stun locked then burst down before I could evade or do anything. With the new build, you have lots of health to withstand a good amount of damage should you find yourself unable to take advantage of your evades. But the real key is to avoid getting stun locked in the place, that’s why I run a 12 second stun break (Bandit’s Defense), Instant Reflexes, and Hard to Catch.

As for being kited, this is where you have to keep in mind you have more moves than just #3. When pushing, I engage almost every fight with Steal, and go ahead with a #3 and a dodge to cripple them and avoid their initial burst. With #4 you can apply cripple should they get out of your range. You also have Impairing Daggers and Needle Trap for immobilizing, not to mention lots of damage as well. With all of these things combined, you will seldom be out of reach of your target.

When it comes to skill use, this is what requires more focus than what most people realize (even more than I realize). On the outside, every looks at condi D/D and just sees troll people spamming #3 until someone dies. But if you space out your moves appropriately and dodge/evade intelligently then you can beat almost any class in a 1v1 (note: this requires lots of knowledge of other classes and their play styles). Don’t just run in there and spam #3 and dodge until you’re out of resources, because then you’ll run out of evades and lose both your sustain and damage. In my previous builds, I was running Trickery instead of Acrobatics, and I would often run out of endurance and initiative. But with Upper Hand and the additional vigor (and a proper rotation), you’ll find yourself with plenty of resources during a fight.

One important thing to keep in mind is to rotate in auto attacks—they do solid damage, apply lots of poison (and weakness) and refund endurance. Another important part of this build is the trap! Needle Trap does tons of damage and allows you to start each fight strongly. I suggest using Impairing Daggers when they get trapped so they can’t dodge from it. I’ll also occasionally use Heartseeker if they’re under 10% and are out of range for my other moves. Oh, and don’t forget Cloak and Dagger for stealth stomps!

So when played correctly, this build is far more complex than simply spamming dodge and #3. In my opinion, the main reason people think this build is troll is because it has much more room for error than other Thief builds due to its high vitality and sustain (with evades, regen, low CD heal, life steal from runes, etc.). If you’re looking for a fun and viable alternative play style for Thief then I highly recommend trying this build out!

Yeah the weapon set and/or traits for Pistol need to have something for AOE. Desperado type skill would be nice to give more incentive to weave in and out of combat instead of just sitting on the side shooting from a distance.

Yeah. Gw2 has a lot of weapon sets with awkward moves that don’t really fit into the build, such as Daredevil Staff #3 and Pistol #2 which is rarely used.

Sir Mad.1092:

Well I guess that’s where the dual weapons system shows its limit (aka first 2 and last 2 skills always remain the same). It makes perfectly sense with melee weapons (you use one, then the other), but IRL, if you have 2 guns, you’re gonna fire them at the same time: there’s no reason to keep firing the first one only. Skill 1 for dual pistols should reflect that, and change just like skill #3.

2 options IMHO: either you make it a chain attack, as you suggested (right pistol, left pistol, then both pistols for a mini unload), or you directly change #1 to a mini unload and maybe turn 3 into something else (for instance a “desperado” skill where you would shoot in every direction around you).

I like these suggestions too. As I said before, I’m sure there’s plenty of ways to make it better, but it’s evident that the way it is now isn’t very good. I just want them to make it something that’s fun, coherent, and viable. Right now it’s none of those lol.

With Anet’s recent theme of buffing auto attacks for Thieves, I think it’s time they make a change to the Pistol auto attack. When I 1st saw this game in beta, my favorite thing was seeing an agile, evasive shooter with dual pistols like Dante or something. While I’m sure there’s plenty of things they can do to spice up P/P, one of its primary weaknesses is it’s extremely weak auto attack.

In my opinion, the 2 main problems with the auto attack are: 1) the slow rate of fire and 2) the bleed.

P/P has the fastest way to “unload” all of your initiative, yet it has the worst auto attack of all the weapon sets. Making a large part of your game play stale and not very effective. They should increase the rate of fire (whether by lowering it at the base speed, or by making a trait speed it up, like Rangers have for their Long Bow). And while it’s not a common theme for ranged auto attacks (if at all), they could perhaps make it a chainable attack series to give it additional effects and make it more appealing than just a dull shot (some animation changes to it wouldn’t hurt either).

As for the bleed (both the regular and stealth auto), it just doesn’t thematically fit into the burst-oriented P/P set (e.g., the pistol trait is in the Critical Strikes trait line). Now I know there’s the cheesy P/D build that has seen varying degrees of success that I’m sure plenty of people don’t want to lose. So my suggestion would be to add a trait that adds bleeding to the auto attack for those who want to still run that build. But as it stands now, it’s just a rather useless and non-cohesive element of the P/P set.

These changes will keep to theme that Anet is striving for with the Thief this year and it will make such a cool weapon set much more coherent, enjoyable, and viable.

Yeah, I wish I could use my staff, but I don’t have enough trait points to spec out Daredevil fully. Right now I only have minor traits and it’s really lacking in usefulness at the moment. That’s why I’m running D/D Carrion (with some toughness weaved in there), so I can use the trait lines I have unlocked to maximize my spec. I think if I were to a burst build, I’d go Marauder for the extra life so I don’t get one shot.

As for my “life steal.” I have Leeching Venoms (running 4 venoms), Rune of Scavenging, and I’ll eventually have Driven fortitude. So I have plenty of healing for solo play, which is what I was going for.

I know a condition build isn’t the best for solo or PvE, but it’s really my only option right now until I get spec into Daredevil more.

Thanks for all the tips guys. For now I’ve switch to a D/D venom spec for solo play with Carrion gear. 20k HP, lots of evades, life steal, and solid damage. Only problem is accidentally Death Blossoming off the ledges lol

At this point I’m just solo playing through the quest stuff in HoT, then I’ll go into some group content when I’m ready. But I can’t hardly do anything without dying multiple times. As far as weapons go, I want to use staff, but right now I keep dying. So I’m open to other stuff. But yeah, every time an event happens and there’s a boss, I’m forced to switch to short bow, otherwise I’ll be 2 shot if I try to melee. But I only have so much initiative and endurance before they can get to me, and then it doesn’t take long for me to go down. For my gear, as I said I’m full Berserker for the most part. I’m all for speccing into different stats and traits if that’s what needs to happen. But I was just wondering if there are others out there who are having an easier time without having to modify their builds that much for casual solo play.

Never thought I’d ever ask a question like this, but I’m having a hard time finding answers. Been playing this game for quite a while, but I spend 95% of my time PvPing. But lately I’ve been going through the HoT stuff and want to get more into the PvE side of things on my Thief. But whether I’m casually leveling or in a group setting, I can’t help but die so fast all the time. In any setting, I can only take 1-3 hits before I’m downed, regardless of my weapon set. Of course, I’m running full Berserkers, but every guide I look up has that as a typical build. So how am I supposed to avoid getting downed so fast? Do I need to spec into defensive traits and gear? Am I playing it incorrectly?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Rain.9213:

I’m having a blast on Daredevil too. I’m having a ton of success fighting condies with that evade trait and shadowstep cleansing. Also, that 10% damage staff trait is completely not mandatory. I deal plenty of damage running DA/Tr/DD with Scrapper runes and I have pretty kitten good survivability too. I fight Revenants, Dragonhunters, Reapers, and Chronomancers regularly and only lose when I get +1’d or if I mess up real bad like not landing a steal at a critical point in the fight. Other than that, I make mince meat of almost everything I come across. I think Daredevil is fine tbh. Once the balance patch comes, if the other specs get toned down a bit, I think we’ll be doing even better and maybe even make meta again.

If you want to complain about something, complain about base Thief. While you can still use it to some degree of success, it gets outclassed by everything.

I agree 100%

Simonoly.4352:

I adore the Daredevil traits. The leap finisher from Bounding Dodger has been transformative for P/P and condi clear on evade and weakness on crit are delicious. Staff is mediocre though, with its functionality pretty much revolving around Vault. Bandit’s Defense is amazing, but the other utilities are pretty useless. Elite physical is fun to use, but Basilisk is still the king.

I’d quite like to see some nerfs to Dragonhunter and Herald soon though so Thief can actually do something in sPvP.

Although it hasn’t been that strong, I’ve mained P/P since I started playing this game. I haven’t tried it yet with Daredevil since I’m having so much fun with the staff, but it looks like it might have some potential.

As far as staff goes, I pretty much just autoattack and spam Vault lol. Occasionally I’ll throw out a Dust Strike. But with the Daredevil runes, you can dodge, Vault for 5k 5-target aoe, dodge, and rinse and repeat 3 times. That’s around 15k damage with mobility and evades built in.

For the physical skills, I think they’re mostly pretty good. When traited, they all have really short CDs and bring a variety of tools to your kit. The heal is on a 15 sec CD and heals more than any of the others (not to mentioned the endurance regen). Fist Flurry and Palm Strike are quick damage moves you can rotate in easily. I personally don’t care for Bandit’s Defense as I was using it was a stun break, which when you do that you rarely can follow up with the kick (so I swapped it out for Shadowstep). I don’t use Distracting Daggers, but I love Impairing Daggers—hit someone with that and you can get off 2 vaults and your Fist Flurry/Palm Strike within the immobile for 15-20k damage.

As for the Elite, I think it’s my favorite elite ever. To my knowledge, it’s the only ability that lets you finish someone. If you down someone with the 1st 2 hits, then you can finish them instantly with the 3rd hit. I personally think it’s better than Basilisk and far more enjoyable to use too. Being able to quickly finish someone in a fight seems much better than a 1-2 second stun, especially when it already has a 2 second Daze built into it.

Azukas.1426:

New account I see

New account? I’ve had this before the game came out.

Well, there are still several ways the spec could be better (e.g., 3 slot move is useless). As far as condi cleanse goes, the evade condi cleanse is great, especially if you have Unhindered Combatant. I regularly have 60-120 condis cleared per game. Sure, you’re missing out on the 10% damage trait, but the condi cleanse is a necessity. I have yet to play the class in PvE, so this is all based on my experiences in PvP.

Just wanted to say—contrary to what seems popular opinion right now—that I’m having a blast playing the Daredevil with staff! I’ve mained Thief since this game came out, playing sporadically over the years, and this is by far the most fun I’ve had playing this game. I played the Daredevil in beta a few months ago and it was extremely underwhelming. So when I got into HoT I figured I’d try to play another class since I thought Thief was boring and under-powered.

But after trying to play about 5 other classes, I decided to give my Thief another shot first. And wow, I’m glad I did! It seems like they cleaned up a lot of the skills and their animations, making the Daredevil look and feel fun. And with the right build, I feel rather powerful too. The spec has solid damage, decent sustain (both condi and direct damage), and more mobility than I know what to do with.

So for those of you who are wary of Thief (whether you’ve played it before or not), I encourage you to at least try it out! And to Anet, thanks for listening and making this class fun again!