thieves are in a great spot right now, are you kidding me? in PvE thieves have the highest dps outside of eles when running a good build, WvW thieves that run SA are some of the most annoying roamers that exist, and every high level tPvP match has at least 1 thief thanks to their unparalleled out of combat mobility and ability to end fights quickly with high burst. When played at a high skill level, thief is one of the best classes.
don’t listen to exe, trickery is most certainly not support. Lead strikes gives you a significant dps boost if you can manage initiative well, and thrill of the crime gives you ~50% uptime on fury with sleight of hand. 2/0/6/0/6 is easily one of the best small scale builds there is.
Honestly though, is SA really optimal for 1v1 fights over trickery? I don’t play sword MH much but I always seem to have an easier time 1v1ing with a 10/30/0/0/30 d/p build than a 10/30/30/0/0 d/d build, both full zerk and with scholar runes. The interrupts and blinds really make it easy to shut down melee builds. It could just be d/p being d/p, since I’m not that enthusiastic about playing d/d trickery.
So does revealed training grant bonus power while revealed, as we originally believed, or does it apply to attacks initiated from stealth? If its the latter, I’m immediately switching to 6/6/0/0/1 for wvw so I can feel better about the crit damage nerf.
Traits are weird. d/p is a backstab build, and those 30 points in acrobatics should go into SA for sustain + survivability or trickery for burst + utility. I’m also not a fan of knight’s armor, I would replace with either full zerk or 3 soldier+ 3 zerk. Also, sigils of force don’t stack, you only need 1, probably replacing the mainhand with fire or air. Other than that, looks fine.
Dire 0/0/30/20/20 or 10/0/30/0/30 are fairly common p/d builds in wvw. Don’t run p/d in PvE though, you basically become deadweight and contribute nothing to the team that a zerk thief doesn’t.
when mesmers spam stealth, they can still cast phantoms and summon clones, dealing damage while hidden. Of course they can’t stealth as often as thieves, who have to reveal themselves in order to attack. CnD spamming thieves excel at harassing groups of players who are easily distracted, which you seem to fall under. Just ignore the thief until he opens, then fight him.
still seems like it is by popular consensus judging by all the thieves I see running it. I’m just confused as to why people praise its playstyle being so compelling when it’s mostly just CnD + BS + rinse and repeat.
I belive that D/D actually was originally designed for a different playstyle than most people associate it with. I was in my opinion designed as a hybrid weapon set that complements high crit chance and low power with condition damage and on crit effects.
Unfortunately people did not get that and turned the set into a one trick pony, this is understandable to a degree since to make the original design work you would need more vitality than you can usually get (especially with the rampager gear you would want to use for that kind of playstyle).
Also the power creep with ascended gear has blown the efficacy of the one trick way out of proportion, the stat budget at the moment is way to high across the board but especially when it comes to crit damage.
So what people usally call D/D playstyle is more of an accident than intended by the original design.
That’s an interesting perspective, and would explain why d/d has a random bleed stacking skill in its kit. It’s a shame that hybrid builds aren’t very prominent in the meta; it would allow for some nice build diversities.
I think that you’re enjoying D/P more because with D/P, you get to vary between 5 useful skills, versus the 3 that D/D has. I find myself playing both builds equally, I play D/D when I want to go around laughing at how I just instagibbed that guy, and D/P when I really want to win.
that’s basically how I think of it; d/d is better against groups of bad players, d/p is better vs equally skilled players.
So i’ve been running meta SA d/d for a while now, and just recently started picking up a trickery d/p build by the suggestion of a forum-goer. I noticed that a lot of people here see d/d as more fun than d/p, and I used to be one of them until trying the trickery build. Honestly, after trying d/d again after running d/p for a week or so felt really boring. Pretty much every fight was the same repetitive CnD + backstab + 1 chain and repeat, with little variation between each fight. Even running full zerk, SA d/d still doesn’t feel like it has a lot of risk, and for me it just feels like trickery d/p has better burst thanks to thrill of the crime and lead strikes, more variation since you have more initiative to use on other skills other than 5 and 2, better outplay potential thanks to more interrupts and better out of stealth sustained dps thanks to more blinds + thrill of the crime (again). I guess d/d can be fun when you can troll with zergs while chaining CnD, but in a real fight vs a skilled opponent, I can’t really see the appeal to d/d anymore. I don’t know if its just the “honeymoon phase” of trying a new build, but what your guys’ reasons for playing meta d/d over other builds?
For pvp, (spvp or wvw roaming), 10-30-0-0-30 trickery build is best imo. Has the highest skill cap and leaves a lot of room to make plays. D/P and Shortbow. Extremely powerful if played correctly. Some people prefer having shadow arts in their build, however I personally believe that its a crutch traitline and doesn’t contribute to your team as much as a trickery build does. However, if you want to never die and abuse the stealth mechanic go ahead and use it.
what gear would you use for that build? I usually only run that in sPvP, but I’ve found that full zerk usually isn’t that great in wvw.
Hey, I made this post because I’m unsure of which class I want to learn next for small-man wvwing. I was just wondering if a guardian or warrior is more effective in zerk/knights gear, since I see so many warriors nowadays running full pvt tank. What are your guys’ opinion on which profession would make a better dps frontliner?
the dmg hits a the same time as when you teleport to them, taking you out stealth. shadow shot is different, you teleport, then the bullet catches up to you. i prefer the extra dmg + heal rather than to save it for as long as possible until i need a gap closer, i always have shadow shot for a gap closer anyways.
you can mug into backstab as long as you start the bs and steal before it lands. BS has a casttime, and you can precast it just like a CnD, although the time frame is shorter.
it’s a pretty commonplace build; pretty standard so it should work well, although I would swap out the weapons to zerkers. Also consider a mix of soldier and zerker armor.
umm I don’t know if I’m missing something, but those 2 builds are exactly the same, but with different foods. You really could have just asked which food you should use. Also, power is the most important damage stat, so the second build would give higher dps. Lastly, you say you want to sustain in combat, but your full zerk gear really isn’t going to do that, beryl orbs or not. You’ll get blown up in fights with 3 or more enemies even if only 1 of them specs for damage.
So I just came back from a hiatus from gw2, and wanted to get back to playing my thief, which was my favorite class before I took a break. From what I’ve collected it seems that the flanking strike S/D build (10/30/0/30/0) and Trickery D/P (10/30/0/0/30) are the most popular builds being run at this time. However, I am a primarily D/D user, since the S/D set can’t match the single target damage that a Dagger set deals out, and I’ve never liked D/P because I suck with it and It just doesn’t fit my playstyle. So basically, my question here is, is it viable to switch out the pistol offhand in the trickery build to a dagger and run that in a tournament environment?
Thanks for the great answers, I will definitely be trying those builds out once I get back into the groove of tournament play. If I may ask 1 more question, which build would be best suited for situations like 1v1 fights, 5v5 teamfights, capturing nodes, and things of that sort?
So i haven’t played gw2 in several months, and back then people primarily ran permastealth d/p builds, but I never really was into that kind of stuff, opting with a more bursty build without as much stealth. Now that i’m back from my break, I need a little help adjusting to what is new in wvw and tournament pvp. So just a real quick question, what is currently the standard build for spvp, wvw, 1v1, teamfights, etc? I’ve done some digging around but haven’t come to a decisive conclusion yet
real quick heads up, don’t pick your order based on the stats the armor gives. They’re only rares and won’t give you the optimal stats. Pick your order based on aesthetics and the looks of the armor.
one thing I noticed is that you’re using s/p, which might be why you think thief does less damage. If you run d/d, which is the highest dps set for thief, you would most likely end up with more dps on a single target
So now that the traditional GC build has been hit pretty heavily, and most GCs get one shotted while not being able to one shot as consistently anymore, will more defensive burst builds such as 0/30/30/0/10 become more viable?
I’ve mainly been watching Caed’s stream and past broadcasts, where he runs a glass cannon d/p and sb build. So judging by the answers, GCs are so popular because of the high paced playstyle of tournaments and a need to end fights quickly so people can take points faster? Are thieves supposed to function like hit or miss in pvp where you can either obliterate the enemy or get killed instantly with one mistake?
So pretty much since I started playing in November or so, I haven’t touched spvp until now, and have been pvping solely in WvW. For the longest time, i’ve ran a pretty cookie cutter 10/30/30/0/0 d/d build focusing on stealth and survivability, and it has worked magnificantly pretty much all the time. However, i’ve started watching high tier thief play, and it seems like everyone runs glass cannon d/d or d/p. I’ve never really liked glassy builds, but it seems like 25/30/0/0/15 is what basically everyone runs in spvp. Could someone explain to me why glass cannon builds are optimal in competitive play, yet only mediocre in every other aspect of the game?
So since the recent patch, i’ve been pretty confused as to how to set up my traits for my thief in wvw or spvp situations. Before, I ran 0/30/30/10/0, but because of the recent stealth nerfs, i’m not sure if 30 in SA is a good investment anymore. I prefer a less bursty glass cannon thief that just hits and runs, but a more dueling 1v1 thief that can sustain his damage through constant CnDs and BS’s, and have survivability to survive encounters, which is why I ran 0/30/30/10/0. Does anyone have suggestions to how I should allocate my traits now or do you still think 0/30/30/10/0 is still optimal for my purposes?
So i’ve recently hit 80 on my female human thief alt, and got 2 sets of armor to transmute on, and a set of valkyrie exotics that I will use the stats for. However, i’m being really indecisive right now, and can’t decide on which to use. Could I get some people’s opinions on which looks better? I know it’s up to me in the end but i’ve probably spent days just pondering about this and I still can’t make a final decision.
well is up to you, if you are going to change that armor set, you will need better skins also.
personaly i like the most :
seraph daggers- small size
mystic spike – medium size
corrupted shard – the almost the size of an sword
hmm I don’t think i’ll change the armor since I really like it, and will probably use it for a long time. I’m really just trying to decide the best dagger to go with the set, but can’t really decide which of the 3 I like the most :/
so I’ve recently hit level 80 on my human thief, and i just got my exotics for everything except the daggers. Thing is, I can just get whatever cheap exotic dagger I want, then transmute a better looking skin. Right now, i’m kinda stuck between the legionnaire, usoku’s needle, and ebon vanguard dagger, but can’t really make a final decision. I like legionnaire dagger because of the design of the blade and pretty much everything looks thief-like to me. I also like the Usoku’s Needle, but the way it’s wielded kinda turns me off, in that you slash with it and i’m not sure how it would look with duelist armor. Here’s some screenshots if you guys are wondering what i’m talking about.
9/10 for Lilliana Monteclair, it sounds like a well-fitting name for a noble human, especially the last name. My commoner female thief’s name is Ailaena, not really sure where I came up with that, but I feel kind of stupid for not making a last name after reading some of the other names in the thread >.<
