Guild Wars 2

Thanks for the info!

Were those nerfs only in Spvp or were they also in WvW? Last I played I felt really good roaming as rev.

What are the good roaming classes now?

Right now I’m leaning towards pack. For basically 3 reasons. 1). It synergizes better with the small group I usually run with. 2). I can steal might stacks from other might stacking builds. So building my own is not a huge deal for me And 3). I liked s/d before it was meta so I have no problems going off-meta.

I still plan on being evade heavy so I won’t get full benefit from that but I feel that the trade off will be worth it.

Static.9841:

Amonatory.2453:

Evalia.7103:

EpicSuperFail.9518:

Hi everyone!

I am curious about s/d thief in wvw. What is the meta there now in terms of traits, armor, and runes. I am just returning from a 6 month break so I was curious. I was running a 10/0/0/30/30 (2/0/0/6/6 now) build a while ago. Is that still viable? I heard that it is for Spvp.

Thanks!

It’s great both talking wvw and spvp; combine it with strength runes and berserker gear and you’ll see what the hype’s about.
I’d recommend Ogre runes with exotic armor as a cheap alternative to Strength/Ascended by the way.
Now as to the post above, Pack runes are not good in my opinion because you already have a very decent fury uptime and 100% swiftness using steal and dodges.

False, Pack runes all the way.

Why Pack runes?

Actually, I’m curious too

Awesome, thanks for the replies!

Hi everyone!

I am curious about s/d thief in wvw. What is the meta there now in terms of traits, armor, and runes. I am just returning from a 6 month break so I was curious. I was running a 10/0/0/30/30 (2/0/0/6/6 now) build a while ago. Is that still viable? I heard that it is for Spvp.

Thanks!

Both of your montages are blocked for me bc of copyright

Well, thank you everyone for the help. I’m still going to stick with thief. Looks like I’m going for the old standby d/d build.

I’m definitely disappointed at the current state of thief. I may look into p/d bleed or just go d/d backstab.

One last question. Are there any hybrid damage builds for thief? Remember a few odd ones popping up.

So from what I’m gathering…. D/D burst seems to be the most viable option. Do bleed builds still exist, D/D or P/D?

I never really relied on the perma stealth aspect of d/p. I enjoyed the versatility of bp. I’m gathering d/d is viable, what about s/d and s/p?

Oh. Well crap. I guess the real question is, are thieves still one of the best roamers, or do the other classes surpass them.

Oh wow, why would you say that? What has happened since I’ve been gone!? I noticed that shortbow is now 900 range max for everything.

Hey all,

I have been gone for about 5 months and now I am back. I require assistance about the current meta, builds, strategies for a thief in WvW. I enjoy solo and small group roaming and point capping. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

FYI – My thief is a d/p with Knights armor.

Hey everyone, I am pretty new to dungeon runs and I was wondering: what is the ideal dungeon/fractals setup for a Thief in terms of gear and stats? I understand that skills and utilities may change depending on the dungeon, but I am looking for a general setup. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

This. Freaking this. There have been many times where my wire will just knock the person over and not pull him at all.

Does anybody know what color dyes his thief is wearing?

You can use the wild animals to your advantage. Aggro them and stealth away to see them attack nearby enemy players!

awesome video! I think this is interesting. What argument can you make for choosing a condition/crit hybrid over full crit or full condition? I am in the process of getting exotic gear and I don’t want to spend the money until I am totally sure what build I want.

Grimwolf.7163:

Ah, right. I wasn’t thinking in the context of the actual question. For a “unicorn” Thief Apothecary actually does look best. The only way to pair Condition damage with Toughness is either through Rabid or Apothecary, and with stacked healing and neither Power nor Critical Damage I would actually place Healing Power over Precision.
As far as Carrion goes, the Vitality would be hugely counter-productive for the self healing.

Haha yeah, I still kind of want to be a unicorn, but right now I am in a state of analyzing all viable thief builds except GC burst. Hate that stuff lol. Your answer helps me alot, thank you!

Fade.7658:

The bleed tics start at around 115 or so, but ramp up fairly quickly as stacks of might build up. Average stacks of might is around 6-8. I typically see average tics of 126 or so during a fight.

As for healing power, I wasn’t actually aiming for it. I wanted the toughness that came with it. It is a nice perk though.

Sweet! Thank you for your answer.

Fade.7658:

I’m running full Apothecary armor (Runes of the Soldier (5) and Rune of Ice (1), Chrysocola Earrings (with Apothecary upgrades), Shaman rings and a Shaman amulet, all with the apothecary upgrades.

I lose a little power, but I end up with 925 healing power, 2708 Armor and ~19.2K health, with ~1525 condition damage (+55% bleed duration), after food buffs, sigil of corruption and the constant might stacking from entering stealth, dodging, poison use etc.

I find that it makes for a pretty durable P/D build. Atm, I’m running 15/0/30/15/10 that seems to work pretty well.

Heals are pretty good from what I’ve seen, and I’ve tried two different healing approaches. Leeching Poison (500ish per poison)/Shadow Protector (261 per regen tic), or running Shadow Protector(261 per regen tic)/Shadow’s Rejuvenation (531ish), with Assassin’s Reward (409ish for CnD).

I haven’t tested the first one that much, but it looks promising with Lotus poison to reduce damage.

Cool! I’m glad apothecary’s is viable for a condition thief. I am starting to think it may not be the best option though. For example, on a D/D condition Ele it would be great simply because they are always in their opponents view. They would constantly need the toughness and healing to keep them alive. For us as thieves however, we can stealth which can reset the aggro on us bar AOE’s. I may be wrong in this thinking, and I really do like the idea of doing major healing everytime I stealth, but I think there were some valid points in this thread that the extra damage from carrion or rampager’s is worth it.

So, I am curious, do you disagree with my thinking? I do think that there is alot of potential for Apothecary’s on a thief. How much do your bleed’s tick for with your spec? I am genuinely curious because I have not yet purchased any armor sets while I try to figure out what I want to buy. I am even now considering Rampager’s, which is something I have completely ignored for forever haha.

roamzero.9486:

The trade off for taking pure Apothecary compared to pure Carrion stats is about 25% direct damage, 12% condition damage, and 15% EHP. You gain, however about a 25-30% more HP per heal on most of the healing traits (Shadow Rejuvenation in particular), which translates to almost 100% more effective healing when factoring in EHP. A mix of Carrion armor + Apothecary trinkets might be the best option IMO.

I feel that way too.

Tulisin.6945:

EpicSuperFail.9518:

That seems like a good line of reasoning but I’m worried that by specializing in nothing you would not be able to do anyone thing effectively while performing everything “ok.”

That isn’t really how GW2 works. Condition damage scales linearly, so there’s no diminishing returns or exponential gains. Given that a certain amount of stat points will boost damage by a given percentage you have to look at your overall damage type output before stats. For a made-up numbers example, say you’re doing 500 power-based DPS and 500 condition-based DPS. Also assume that pushing all of your stats in one direction will double DPS (100 % increase). If you push them all towards conditions, you’re doing 500/1000, 1500 total. If you push them all towards power you’re doing 1000/500, 1500 total. If you split them down the middle you’re doing 750/750, 1500 total. Gear specialization, in this case, doesn’t reward you with DPS, but does make your damage a little more versatile (a big part of it can’t be stopped by condition removal, but a big part of it is also delivered immediately without a need to wait).

Now, for actual application you have to take into account two major factors not demonstrated by such a simple example:
1. DPS is not always split 50/50 between the two damage types. DPS type is usually decided by skill choice. You choose to use Death Blossom more than other abilities because you’ve decided to synergize with condition damage more. This means that your total DPS output could shift to something like 75/25, meaning doubling one side or the other could have a different effect on actual DPS. However, it is important to note that the ratio will almost never be 0/100 in favor of condition damage, although 0/100 in favor of power-based damage is possible.

2. There are more synergies than those granted purely by gear stats, namely benefits inherent to traits (triggers, etc.) These benefits do stack multiplicatively with raw stats and can create stat sweet spots. For instance, the swiftness-on-crit proc from the Critical Strikes line makes each point of precision more valuable than its raw effect would suggest, however it also creates a point of diminishing returns wherein more points past a certain level (where you’ve got a lot of swiftness-proc CD due to proccing it really fast) are worth less than points before that level. This significantly complicates the point.

The reason I suggest Rampager’s gear in your specific case and all-stat gear in general is that the raw benefits of these stats are large enough to offset the small losses. In specific, with Rampager you give up a rather small amount of Condition damage in return for a large sum of power/precision. Even if power-based damage is <25 % of your total raw damage output (remember, this means naked, not comparing your beefed-up conditions to ignored power damage), the offensive boost is going to be significant. In the case of Divinity Runes/Triforge/etc you often do experience a very real drop in offense or defense when switching from something like a 90/64/64 neckpiece, but the raw returns are nearly double the raw losses on the other (defense/offense) side.

People are used to creating incredibly streamlined stat/skill setups in other MMOs, and those aren’t ineffective in GW2, but that kind of build philosophy can result in overall combat effectiveness when skills and situations refuse to cooperate (Cluster Bomb will always have a significant power-based component, C&D will always be useful in a pinch, even the most power-based dagger builds will apply poison with auto attack, etc).

That’s a very valid point. Hmmm…. realistically with rampagers what kind of stats would I have? Also what armor/trinkets/weapons do you run and what type of build should I run? I am afraid of sacrificing too much survivability with this armor set and related build but the idea of sustained damage as you said is attractive. That’s what draws me towards condition builds. Survivability and sustained damage.

Alright sweet, thanks!

Tulisin.6945:

I’d put forth that mixing in some Rampager would allow you to better maintain power-based offense. 20 in Acrobatics/Trickery means you’ll likely be pushing Might anyways, and Rampager will ensure that things like Cluster Bomb, C&D and auto attacks are far more effective.

People gear up with an idea like “I’m a condition build, I should min/max for that”, but there are very few skills that only do pure condition damage, and with linear scaling an investment in other offensive stats is going to give you a leg up in more situations than you realize. Consider that for much of the duration of a Death Blossom or utilizing a Cluster Bomb from a “safe” location you will get zero mileage out of defensive stats but plenty of damage out of power/precision. This is why, personally, I’m a huge fan of things like the new +allstat rings, Divinity Runes, and Triforge Pendant. If you’re using power-based damage, condition based damage, taking hits, and healing yourself, you’re getting a lot of net value out of utilizing every one of those stats. Same with Might, if you’re pushing Might stacks and not using one of the two bonuses that Might gives, you’re missing out on the effect of a lot of stat points.

That seems like a good line of reasoning but I’m worried that by specializing in nothing you would not be able to do anyone thing effectively while performing everything “ok.” Have you had much success with this idea?

Gungnir Grimm.7123:

EpicSuperFail.9518:

Ok, cool. Then what about runes for my armor. I was going to go with a full set of undead for apothecary’s, would you recommend something else for carrion or would undead work well enough for carrion as well?

Undead works, but I would highly recommend keeping a stock of condition duration food with you if you use it. I use 3 krait 3 affliction for the bleed duration of 30%, with death blossom every 10% bleed duration you get an extra tick of bleed, and if you use a pistol/dagger set as well, 25% increments get you an extra tick, so with most of the rare veggie pizza line of food, you can get 2-3 extra pistol ticks depending on your weapon sigils, and a lot more out of DB. that said, since bleeds are easy for players to cleanse if they are aware, so for pvp pistol gets more out of the duration boost than D/D.

as for Tulisin’s rampager idea, mixing it in doesn’t net you much of an increase in damage, and one of the main draws of condition builds is their durability, while you could go full GC with rampager and have one devastating dagger storm/DB, you come to the problem of being made of glass, and taking longer to kill someone than a full burst build.

any other questions?

So if every 10% gets me an extra tick, would a sigil of agony be better than a sigil of geomancy for my dagger?

Ok, cool. Then what about runes for my armor. I was going to go with a full set of undead for apothecary’s, would you recommend something else for carrion or would undead work well enough for carrion as well?

My skill-bar, incase you were wondering, includes blinding powder, shadow step, shadow refuge, and either dagger storm or thieves guild depending on the situation.

Hey everybody, I have enough gold for one set of exotic armor. I run a 0/0/30/20/20 D/D and SB rainbow bacon wings condition build. I don’t use the caltrops utility except in unique situations. My question is this: Apothecary’s or Carrion for a condition thief? I use both Assassin’s reward and Shadow’s Rejuvenation so I benefit greatly from the extra healing power of Apothecary’s, but I am unsure if that is worth the hit my vitality takes from not having Carrion. Also, is the added toughness worth it as well? My play style involves a lot of applying conditions then stealthing away for a few seconds so I believe I would utilize the healing power quite well. Would a combination of the two sets be better? Any help would be appreciated!

I was also having the stealth thing where a party member on the other team could see me. I don’t know if that is a bug or not, but I do believe it happens. I asked him about it and he said he could still see me when I was running around in stealth.

Is there a PvE exotic set with toughness/healing power/ condition damage spread of stats?

Edit: Is there any jewelry with those stats? If not, are there any that are close?

Thanks in advance!