Guild Wars 2

this is pretty similar to something I run in WvW. The quickness makes the s/d fairly bursty, which is pretty deadly given the flanking-larcenous combo.

Also, I’m currently using leadership runes for boon duration, which is pretty interesting, and will be even more interesting with Deadeye

My feedback:

1) The Mark should be insta-cast. I personally dont see how it’d be ‘gamebreaking’ or ‘specifically advantageous’ if it were made insta-cast. Steal is already instant and does everything Deadeye’s Mark can do, literally everything – except build Malice of course. It’s a handicap I just dont see a reason for.

2) Skill 5 needs to have a different color while kneeling. There were a number of times i went to cancel (move free) and ended up kneeling – or I noticed I kneeled again and went to cancel – ending up canceling and kneeling again… this resulted in my death many times.

3) I’d like to be able to cancel my kneel just by moving (WASD), not by hitting 5 again which gave me a lot of problems (read above). If kneeling were canceled by just moving (not by dodging, which is great to allow while kneeling), this would open up a 5th kneeling skill! Could open it up to be Death’s Judgement, and keep skill 4 as retreat in both standing & kneeling, idk options are pretty endless!

4) Stolen skills disappear when the mark wears off. Again, stealing from enemies keeps the stolen skill to use elsewhere – albeit less potent stolen skills (thank you for the upgrade). I’d like to have ‘em after the mark wears off but I understand there’s more likely tradeoff reasons (likely due to them directly affecting the stolen target and being more powerful than standard stolen skills).

Everything else I was really happy with and really enjoyed the cantrips, they each have their time, place, and reasons for use.

PS to the forums: A lot of people on here say malice builds too slow, but they dont understand A-net (and myself) doesn’t want thieves running around blasting people for 30k with a 1s setup (remember heartseeker just after release?), instantly refreshing and doing it again – that is just asinine and would literally be gamebreaking. Theres a reason it builds slowly.

Sword or Dagger IMO. You can mainhand sword, or mh dagger. D/P is good for dps and roaming, sword provides more utility for fracs and WvW unless you need/want blinds. It really depends on your play style.

I’d personally make a sword since I’m a fan of S/D.

I like the setups and overall skill use. IMO this is how deadeye should be played, good showcase. It seemed everytime I built up a 1-shot, it was either randomly dodged, or blocked, and a few ‘out of range’ that didn’t land – but the subsequent auto attack did… ya figure that one out.

I would’ve allocated more time to playing DE if it werent for the fact I actually WANT tickets, pips, rank, etc… for my live account. It was fun playing DE in WvW until I hit diamond chest on my beta toon…

MrForz.1953:

Zalavaaris.5329:

Just made mine last night, so worth it. It’s killing me that I have to wait a month to fully use it lol

I’ve already been waiting for an eternity to use that kitten legendary since both engi and warrior have no hope with it and I’m skeptical that this spec will make decent use of it.

I crafted predator specifically for Deadeye, and I will FIND a way to make decent use of it.

Overall though, I think DE will do well.

saerni.2584:

Steal from warrior: armor piercing rounds
Steal from guard: unblockable rounds
Steal from engineer: incendiary round
Steal from Mesmer: confusing rounds

Or just random abilities :p

Steal from Mesmer: portal rounds

! ! ! H Y P E ! ! !

I’ve been doing my s/d tricks/acro/dd build. Ports with s/d #2, withdraw, RFI, and shadow step if I feel like it. So I have endless ports, condi removal, disengage/kite, and if I run d/p swap (with or w/o bound) – add stealth.

If you party doesn’t have another thief to match my mobility, you’re not catching me – even d/p or staff thieves have issues keeping up.

Agreed.

As Thief: I need to dedicate an entire weap set to have any chance to counter DH, and I need to do it using p/p with intermittent stealth, skirting the outsides of the point. Due to the blocks, heals, invuln, more blocks, pulls and pushes, this takes a while… so long that it’s not worth it. This is the only play I have against a DH, while they stand on a point LOL’ing at me cuz I cant do jack to cap it. It’s a perfectly designed profession to stand on point and defend said point.

Also, warr’s need to be toned the hell down. Shield stance, endure pain x2, on top of ridiculous damage and CC. The whole point of balance is trade-off: be tanky and do less damage, do more damage and be less tanky, strong utility/CC and less damage, less utility/CC and more damage. It seems seems Warrs & DH’s have all of the above without sacrifice of the other, but please explain how/if I’m wrong

If DH is counter to Thief, I’m fine with it, however I’m not fine with 2-3 counters per team as a usual basis. IMO the game should be more “if Guard=2, then Guard1=Red Guard2=Blue, addiontionalguard=0”, same for any profession.

For now, I’ll add to the issue and just start playing DH cuz: F it.

I played vs. a condi thief in ranked, he did end up killing our lord with evade spam, but dismal at any other place on the map. I countered him with s/d (yes – sword / dagger). #2 > CnD > Stealth attack and sometime after this they died, god forbid near anyone on my team.

The weakness is: you cant be immob’d, stun, or caught outside your evade frames – at all. Works against mindless ability spam, not against someone who’s specifically watching for the end of your evades.

I’m on Dragonbrand, and for a while there was a ghost thief trolling our home BL when we were paired with NSP and SoS (so it may have been this guy). As a thief, I’m fairly familiar to the mechanics, how & why it works, but countering the condi burst as thief is the tricky part. I ended up using a sword/d – d/p setup and WvW traps to counter.

It’s great when it works (due to the immobilize) so long as you can:

• Immob your target, or your target doesn’t move much
• You’re not revealed, ever.
• Targets lack condi cleanse

but easily countered by:

• running in random directions, listening for the trap sound effects (dodge)
• good condi clear (few have/run it)
• lay down a WvW stealth disruptor trap and watch them heartseeker away in vain

Personally I’m not a fan of the build or play because it can be countered fairly easily, and limited to trolling players unless certain criteria are met.

If you’re looking into a condi thief setup, look at p/d. Definitely hard to counter (at least as power thief).

saerni.2584:

“A favorite peeve of mine is even the stairs on the inside of WvW towers are painted “no-go” even though the enemy certainly can’t see the stairs from outside."

The stairs… bottom of the stairs… left of the stairs… oh maybe somewhere around – nope… hah doesn’t matter now cuz I’M DEAD. Yes the stairs are truly a death trap.

Next time I’ll just stop what I’m doing, find a way to ask the enemy players to stop what they’re doing, so I can figure out a valid path from my location, then we can all resume our game play!

Edit New sig to show my support!

I like how I loose fights because my port abilities cant find a “valid path”. Imagine if shield stance or endure pain didn’t activate cuz: “game says so”.

How about a checkbox option “well find a kitten valid path and port me to it because it’s better than this kitten storm that is here” for “No valid path to target” errors…… Or a 1200 range “Hard to Catch” style ability, anything but “sorrynotsorry”.

yes I’m angry

Theres 2 ways you could go about doing PvE:

• Using Ivigorating precision with a Trick/Crit/DD lineup, and using the healing signet for even more heals. This works best if you’re running damage gear (Marauder, Zerker, etc..) with a good crit chance.
• Using a Trickery/Acro/DD build allowing you to dodge, dodge some more, and dodge even more. This is what I do as I’ve come to stop relying on IP & healing signet (I run the channeled vigor heal 100% of my play time).

ProTips:

• Use Bounding Dodger instead of Unhindered Combatant to weaponize your dodges, giving you damage output with your evades, but primarily to also not move you so far from the target that it resets their attack sequence (making them less predictable); this also puts you at a disadvantage because now you’re outside melee range and have to get back in. Thief works best when you’re all up in their face.
• Bandits Defense is entirely too useful to run without, EVER. Keep this slotted and you’ll always have a good duration block, and can use it offensively (when you learn you’ll be attacked) for the knockdown, allowing for at least 2 vaults & staff 3.

Dont rely on dust strike/blind spam, it’s a handicap and a bandaid. Instead learn to pay attention to their attack animations, and opt for rotations like:

• dodge (bound) + steal > staff 3 > vault > staff 3 > dodge (into target) > vault, etc….
• or dodge + steal > AA once-twice (dont finish chain) > vault > staff 3 > dodge in > vault > AA chain > and one of the many evades (staff 3, vault, dodge).

This was my general PvE setup (yes I was nearly full zerk), until I swapped to full marauders for WvW (TY condi spam). If I change out any utility for anything, it’s shadow step.

GL hope this helps.

Vale Guardian seems to be hitting more on the “Punch” attack.

I usually Chronotank VG with 1577 toughness, his “Punch” attack was hitting me for 5k-5600. I gear toughness up to 1904, and was hitting me 4100-4600, the same damage taken by our Druid with 1400 toughness yet higher overall armor.

I’ve tanked VG for months up until now and never been hit this hard.
Runing: Commanders armor & weap, Knights rings, zerk/valk acc’s amulet and back.

Can anyone confirm if these numbers are the usual? Am I missing something?

Hi, I was planning on crafting a full Asc armor set for using a build like this to finally bring one of my clothies in Fractals (I’ve been putting it off for a long time). I used to do frac 50’s before HoT, and have full asc: Medium Vipers & Marauders, and Heavy Viper’s that I used on Warr, Guard, Thief, Ranger, so I’m not totally new, just for the content/structure released with HoT.

I chose the Ele because of this recent build I’ve been running. Very tanky, lots of condi damage, and can even provide auramancing support, condi removal, or more dps given a few swaps of traits or Fire > Water.

I’m curious if anyone out there has experience with condi ele’s in fractals and raids, and would like to know if a Dire condi tempest would be viable. If not, why so?

Edit The build reflects a Cavalier backpiece. This build reflects what I actually have and have access to acquire. I’m not aware of how to stat-swap the back pieces (if possible) so I’d get a condi focused back piece later on after some fractals.

I wasn’t aware one of the 4 stats werent convertible.

I dont think it’d be patched so it cant be converted. That would skyrocket demand for flax overnight, and kill any hope of guilds leveling their perks at a reasonable cost. I just dont see their economy dev allowing that.

That rumor, and knowing A-net, is enough to encourage ppl to get it done soon though!

This is based on a question presented to me on here in PM about making a Viper’s set. Posting it here so others can benefit.

Sure thing, but a forewarning, crafting mine took about 200g and I had 72 Elonian Leather Squares made because I knew a shift would happen with leather. But I did have to buy some Bolts of Damask.

Right now per GW2 Efficiency (using nothing owned) it costs 136g to make a Viper’s Doublet (but you’ll need 75 auric dust, ley line sparks, etc..) and 125g for a Forgemaster’s Doublet. So in the end, you’ll save about 66g and wont be limited to how many sparks/dust/oil you have on you. Here’s how I did it….

• First off: theres a site called https://gw2efficiency.com/ and it literally breaks down everything for you. Create an account, get the API from your GW2 account page and plug it in there, and GW2Efficiency will literally give you a shopping list of what you need, how much it costs w/CURRENT TP prices, etc… So this site is an invaluable resource when getting the best deal for your gold.

• Second: What you’re gonna do, is buy the Recipe: Ascended Insignia (bought for Karma at any crafting vendor) because you’re gonna make a full set of Forgemaster’s gear. Forgemaster’s uses Powerful Venom Sacs, and these are about 8s/ea. on the TP, way cheaper than any other T6 crafting material.

So after buying the Insignia Recipe, select Forgemaster’s. Now you’ll need 30 laurel’s and 18g and buy the slot specific recipe’s (boots, gloves, coat, etc..) and select Forgemaster’s. [Hey you said dumb it down!]

• Third: Now you’re gonna make the Gear. Use GW2 Efficiency to see whats the lowest cost method of doing it. If you loaded the API it’ll show the cost with your materials that you currently own. At this point you’ll have a full set of Ascended Forgemaster’s (Rampager’s?) Gear.

• Fourth: Make 6 EXOTIC Viper’s Insignias. EXOTIC level quality, EXOTIC EXOTIC. I emphasize EXOTIC Viper’s insignias because I actually made an ascended version of Maruader’s and it’s account bound so dont do what I did… =(.

• Final Step: Next, you’ll need 6 Anthology of Heroes, 30 Ectos, 6 Viper’s Insignia’s, and your 6 Forgemaster’s armor pieces in the Mystic forge (per /wiki Ascended Armor page, at the bottom) and change the attribute to Viper’s.

Again, doing this route will save you about 66g and grind getting the other materials, and you can do the same thing for Marauder’s, Commander’s, Minstrel’s, Wanderer’s, etc… because you’ve already got the recipe’s to make Forgemaster’s Gear!

Edit At the time I did this, the cost savings was a bit more (just after launch), but remains a valid work-around so people can still craft the new Armor, and the mats required to make the new stuff can go to somewhere else in the game.

working as intended

Ya I posted my thoughts on Nike’s vid concerning Staff DD here

Personally I think it’s very short sighted. I agree skills 3 & 4 could use some attention, but not more so than core thief… and the record repeats.

Lucky Shot.7650:

I’m having a tough time trying to figure out how to craft gear with viper’s stat combination. I bought both the insigna and the inscription at auric basin. I found myself with a viper’s weapon recipe book in the inventory but I don’t know how I got it. I don’t have any book for viper’s armor, where do you drop/buy those?

Also, Black Diamonds. I’ve been farming verdant brink for quite some time, but I ended up with only one diamond from opening airship cargo. I’m still working my way truough nuhoch lore mastery to get nuhoch language and buy vials of chak acid to open crystalized supply crates, I hope the drop rate of diamonds for those aren’t as low as airship cargos.

Here’s something that will really help you if you deal in Ascended gear. I looked at crafting some exotic Viper’s gear, but thanks to flax requirement via oil, it was 16g per piece (and theres 6 pieces of armor)…. I said no. If I’m going to invest 16g/piece for exotic gear, I’m going to do Ascended gear. But in crafting Ascended Viper’s stuff, I’d need the new Ascended insignia recipe and make Jeweled Damask Patch’s right?… no.

Right now Powerful Venom Sacs are frickin cheap, So I churned out a whole set of Ascended Forgemaster’s Rampager stat gear, made 6 exotic armor insignia’s with easily purchased black diamonds, and xmuted it all in the forge. This work-around process is vastly cheaper and easier to do than following the ‘official’ recipes.

I decided to make Ascended gear because I just simply wasn’t paying 16g/Exotic armor piece, which I find appalling for simple exotic crafted gear. I also had 70 elonian leather squares and 4 stacks of ecto’s I had saved up before HoT release…. so… there’s that.

If you want to make Exotic armor, I’d say pass, because the investment in making it just simply isn’t worth it. Right now because everything is new, guild halls are demanding flax like none other, we’re monetarily compelled to get our money’s worth by making ascended, or going with an ‘old’ stat.

TL;DR

• Craft Ascended Rampager’s armor using super cheap Powerful Venom Sac’s
• Xmute in the forge for 1g60s in Ecto’s, 10 shards, and new Exotic Armor Insignia
• Better value than paying 16g+ per Exotic armor item in Flax cost alone.
• Not guaranteed a Viper’s armor Insignia when salvaging your exotic crafted armor.

Right now the price of Elonian squares, and all that is inflated quite a bit because of demand. Look at GW2Efficiency.com for the real crafting cost of the Armor Insignias.

This is just what I did.

blackdirk.1324:

@Potato.7318

No.

First… who really cares about meta in dungeons nowadays ? Grinding Dungeons is no longer interesting so there’s no use to have a “meta” anymore..

Second… High lvl fractals still are in demand for thieves and people are beginning to understand full power team in high fractals are obsolete… its funny to notice in the lfg how the comments are different between lvl 1-50 fractals and 70+

Third… I agree however that DD is not a drastic change in our class but DD has a lot of synergy with our other specializations ! It gives us a gameplay based upon mobility and.. a third dodge is really useful.

Fourth …Staff is a great weapon.. btw is there any other weapon having a reflect missile and whirlwind in their 1# and still doing damage ? Staff #5 deals a huge spike damage.. is a dodge .. a combo leap and can be used for mobility..
Staff got 2 dodges, blind, cripple, whirlwind and leap combo, reflect missile.. and it’s not enough for you ?
Are you serious ? Maybe were you expecting for fire, water, and smoke field too ?
Staff is a good weapon mixing AoE damage, mobility and survivability.

And Fifth … About our new physical skills..they are all (beside the heal) giving us some tools to break the defiance bar.. no other class is able to have so much tools to do that. In fractals thieves are able to break this bar alone. (And i dont even speak about basilisk venom share)

So.. NO we are not in a precarious Spot in PvE .. we may be in PvP however.

I understand you may have expected more changes with our Elite specialization but saying it put us in a precarious spot is a nonsense…so i wish you having some success in your new class because DD will not change imo.

^ This

Serious Thought.5394:

Easy fixes (order top to bottom):

Preparedness baseline because we can’t function without this ONE trait holding us by the thingies we shall not mention. Non negotiable when Friggin Illusionary Persona gets a free pass.
Lead Attacks changed. It encourages you to NOT spend initiative right now, its counter productive to playing your class.
Hp to be swapped with other medium class. We don’t have any tools to flat out say “0 damage take it. suck it.” but the other two do. This is the theme in all classes, if you notice. A way to literally say 0 damage at 11k hp. Yet Thief no? I say swap our hp to engis, let them enjoy the struggle and separate the meek and mighty.

Alas, devs will not listen to playerbase. Inb4 Dec 10 repeat. This is what, D-Day 3 for Thief? Daredevil is fine, base is just utter garbage at this point.

Edit: I do agree mostly with blackdirk. Mostly. I play pvp a lot. PvE this spec is fantastic (but dps is low. problem with other lines though, not DD- DD gives me 27% damage).

^ and that

IDK I’ve been using Trick/DA/DD with staff, using Withdraw/Channeled Vigor, RFI, SoA, Fist Flurry, and Impact strike and have had some pretty good success in hotjoin and unranked.

I use pack runes & dash, with brawlers & staff master traits. I steal (daze) matrix punch > stun (if all land which they usually do). At this point they’re usually sub 50% in which I vault. They pop defensive CD’s as an “OH S*#!” response and I dash around them dodging most their crap until fist flurry is up, get in and finish the job.

Staff for me is a “hit hard and fast” very aggressive play style. With enough crits you can take someone down in about 2sec.

babazhook.6805:

Given posion and bleed are our most accessible conditions in the base build it is my opinion that poison duration needs to be increased in a thief d/d build over bleed as the base durations of the bleeds are already significant.

As such poison duration runes would fit the bill. Orrian is good applying that extra stack of poison on occassion but the quickness bonus 6 is sort of meh in a condition build.

Rata Sum are interesting but more sutiable to a hybrid build. You can use the number 6 bonus to get a whole lof of whirls off of for extra condition loads.

Sunless has some nice decrease on incoming conditions but the fear on number 6 could be a hindrance fearing the enemy away from you when you need to be laying on bleeds. That said with nerfs to condition foods that 15 percent condition duration decrease is more significant.

The afflicted runes are not all bad adding both poison and bleed durations and that death nova can sometimes play your way and down an overconfident enemy but is really too situational in that regard.

I just managed to get my final piece for a Superior rune of Thorns set and that works pretty good. Typically I have found you can expect around 200 more to your condition damage although it can go as high as 300 and that akin to having two sigils of bursting.

See this is where I was headed, buff poison duration especially with potent poison buff. Quickness could be good for shelling out more dagger attacks for lotus poison, but…

Superior Rune of Thorns! I completely didn’t even know this was in the game, and this is definitely the rune I’ve been looking for! Thanks for this.

I’d like to try Orr runes, to focus on Poison uptime, given Potent Poison trait. Krait runes however allow you to stack bleeds to 30+ easily with caltrops. I tried adventurer, but spamming DB & dodge just doesn’t seem like a sustainable playstyle in dungeons/raids/fracts. Currently I think I’m running Afflicted in my condi set, for boost to bleed & poison duration, because those are the conditions we put out the most.

I’m thinking about the condi play style with a focus on d/d AA’s with the Dagger training trait. This would put poison stacks in the 12’s if not more with a venom, using Viper’s armor for good amounts of Power and Condi.

But to get my Orr runes… Arah runs… =(

Edit For sigils I’m using Bursting & Malice on my d/d set.

clown.7148:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYzs5r8oMak

He showcase both D/D and Staff PvE-

I didn’t like Nike’s explanation & guide. I feel like it’s too entrenched in the old meta that is phasing out, given he’s still a proponent of full zerk w/scholar, using Crit/DA/DD and the usual zerk glass signets. This guide seems more to me like someone holding on to their VHS because DVD players aren’t really an improvement.

A-net is actively removing the old zerk meta with the introduction of more condi based mobs & bosses, break bars, faster paced game play with the need for more dodge/evade/+damage reduction.

I’m sure this old zerk-glass build is great on paper, given a stationary non-threatening target to go through min-max rotations, but I have a few questions:

• How about the simple lack of utility/cc with this build?
• How many people actually stay HP>90% for scholar bonus?
• Is the synergy between: Brawlers Tenacity, Bound, and Staff Master traits being considered?

Staff play offers a highly mobile play style. Staff master and Bound tell you “I need to dodge to gain +dmg”, Brawlers > Havoc will let you use physical skills faster (coupled with the already short CD’s) and grant you endurance on physicals (INI cost Staff abilities also) for more dodge, thus more bounds/leap finishers/survivability (the situational ‘usefulness’ of this is directly related to bound).

If using a Trick/DA/DD build with physical utilities, the thief would bring 7 CC’s for break bars, 8 if they land a block, all of which on rather short CD’s, AoE burst via vault (pack raptors anyone?), weakening strikes, and on demand 600 range blind to boot. Not to mention Fist Flurry hits hard (at least for now).

With the argument against staff limited to “if you can land all 3 weakening strikes”, it seems like what staff has to offer simply isn’t being considered. I see d/d best used for a +condi build with Orr runes, especially if you want to focus on the AA.

I’ve made a full Ascended Viper’s armor & weap set for condi Thief, so far I think condi is more of a niche application for certain encounters, because I see too much versatility for a Marauder’s direct damage build.

I’m at 1697 +condi with food & crystal, Bursting & Malice sigils, Poison at 180dps/stack, bleeds at 118dps/stack. With potent poison, I feel Thief should be focusing on poison duration vs. bleeds. We can more easily stack higher bleeds than poison, but I dont really have access to 6 Runes of Orr (I think this would be the best rune for condi Thief), so I’m going to try Afflicted runes after Krait runes.

I initially started with adventurer runes for the synergy of low cd heals & DD trait line, but now I’m re-thinking play style with a focus on dagger auto-attacks for poison and endurance to fuel more dodges for Lotus Training.

I think there’s some good potential for condi thief, and I also think it will be d/d-SB or p/d. I’m thinking for a mainly ranged fight, bound with p/p might be better as you’d have easier access to stealth for steak attack.

Anyone have any suggestions for Sigil/Rune combos, especially considering potent poison trait?

TrueTears.2149:

Today we have faced with a cond thief who was spamming db nonstop. We 3 ppl werent able to kill him in the node due to evasions. Can you explain how is that achieved? i d like to try that build too if u can share. Thanks. Have fun.( i am not new to pvp by the way, playing since the original gw2 betA)

Lol yep that could have been me too. I even told them “need aimbot yo”. In one game there were 2 people who were constantly trying to take me down, they couldn’t touch me because of all the evades. Meanwhile they were close enough trying to hit me, I was stacking condi’s on them constantly. I played that spec for the better part of the day, it was absolute hilarity.

Now as to one of the posters above, yes it does take some time to deplete all of your resources, but if specc’d with brawlers tenacity and acro line, the downtime between the skill rotation to restore your resources (endurance, initiative) is pretty low.

I’d dodge in (lotus training), DB, DB, dodge, DB DB, dodge, RFI, dodge-steal, withdraw (gain vigor & 50 end), DB, Dodge, SoA, dodge some more, DB some more… usually by this time they’re on the ground, sometimes at which point instead of finishing them, I’d continue my LOL-Ballet until they died; otherwise I have cloak and dagger to stealth and finish.

I’ve made/xmuted a full set of marauder’s for a staff direct-damage build, and use nothing other than Trick/DA/DD. I usually roll Channeled Vigor, RFI, SoA, and the last is usually what I switch out depending on what’s needed. Fist Flurry does a crap ton of burst and it’s on a short CD with Brawlers Tenacity. For PvE meta events, etc.. I always have dash slotted, theres just no equal with pack runes.

I nee to play around with Havoc + Bound, but since I usually PvE w/o them, something tells me theres even more damage to be had.

I’ve been trying out DareDevil Staff almost exclusively since HoT dropped. Does any one else feel like it is just 5 -> 2 -> dodge a few times -> 5 -> 2? I feel like if I’m not in Staff, I should just SB and tag everything because I’m going to die if I don’t.

Ya I feel this way too, but I’ve seen vault crit for 15k, and hits 5 targets… I’m alright. It seems to be the gameplay the dev’s want to see thieves go:

Hit hard and fast, get in get out….
Hit Low-Med and slow, but absurd amount of evades while doing so.

I got my full Ascended Viper’s set too, because I like the possibility of condi thief, just not entirely sure on practicality for PvE…. WvW on the other hand will be hilarious.

We all know acro line synergizes well with DD line, but acro line can be made up with Adventurer runes and a sigil, aside hard to catch trait. For PvE condi (which I’m working towards a Viper’s build) I’m going DD/DA/xx with the last being either Trickery, Crit, or even acro, as the content dictates.

Heavy CC? Going Acro/Tricks
Boon Removal? Tricks
Break bar depletion: SA venomshare, you bet.
Heavy burst needed: Tricks/Crit
Sustain: Crit/Acro

In any case, DD/DA will not move, just swap a few traits around as needed. IMO this is the future of the Thief, so get on board, sink, or swim like the others.

Overworld.9613:

Khazik.8052:

“but ***class has condi removal”.. great, I have 7 dodges that evade, deal condi damage, remove condi’s, and heal me before I tap into my spammable initiative abilities.

Hard counters to this would be necromancers reflecting all conditions (that health pool is not a fan of the conditions we can squeeze out) and Guardians, who if they’re lucky or good can pen you in with their fancy cages.

But considering Thief matchup history has been almost entirely bad, that’s a solid build for PvP in the current meta

The only annoying thing w/necro’s is their double health bar death shroud. Assuming they hit me with their condi transfer, the condi’s are cleared during evade frames on a 1s cd.

I will note however, those guard traps are super annoying, and screwed me a few times starting out w/my condi build. My answer is: trigger, and tele out, or do my ballet dancing inside.

Alright, so +condi is the theme of HoT xpac and I decided to give a condi DD build a go in some sPvP matchups, and it’s very strong.

Why’s this relevant? +1 “role” is not a role, it’s a bandaid. Sure you can slot dash DD and have the extreme mobility and literally swim through the map, but I chose condi because +1 is not a role IMO.

As a condi build (lotus training, adventure runes, SoA, carrion ammy) I not only 1v1 well, I 1v2 well, and can even 1v3 if they’re all dumb enough to stay close. They simply cant hit me with anything, there’s sooo many evades. The thing is: every time you’re evading, you’re loosing condi’s, healing yourself, and dealing damage, all during those evade frames.

+1 is dead if you’re willing to accept & move in the direction the game dev’s want you to (condi, not zerk). Sure there’s marauder’s/zerk direct damage builds, and they’ll always be there, but they’ll be inferior because… wait for it…

thief cant break toughness/tanky builds quickly, it’s been stated many times before and it’s only true using direct damage (power, precision, ferocity). So how about try a damage mode that negates the impact of toughness?

“but ***class has condi removal”.. great, I have 7 dodges that evade, deal condi damage, remove condi’s, and heal me before I tap into my spammable initiative abilities.

Obviously we cant pick all the lines that would boost condi dmg in any/all ways because that would be imbalanced, just as any other class would be (I say this not knowing all the +condi setups on other classes however…).

That said, DD lotus training, coupled with d/d, energy sigils/adventurer runes, our new heal, SoA, you can literally spam condi’s while evading, which I think is pretty awesome, but it’s very repetitive.

IMO, pick a viper’s/sinister/etc.. condi gear setup you’re comfy with, and select trait lines that you find applicable to the content you’re currently doing. Be it: HoT PvE, dungeons (maybe you dont need boon steals?), meta events, etc.. . Maybe you need caltrops on dodge to kite mobs, or now you’re party could use venom share for torment stacking on a mob with kitten burn window before they’re on the move again… etc…

I’m sure something will come up. IMO just go with the notion there is no ONE setup for condi build. It seems to be the theme of the content.

I’m not sure if this is a bug, glitch, etc.. but theres no loot or achievement for killing the Legendary Wyvern atop the cliffs (using mushroom mastery) in the HoT story step 4: “The Jungle Provides”.

I was also disappointed to discover there was no Juvenile wyvern there to tame… =(

Accessed as I first meet the Itzel scout between the rock faces.

Well for those looking, I’ve done a lot of looking as well. You can only access the recipe after you’ve unlocked all of your elite training, the whole line. You get a chest, which for me contained “Daredevil’s Scarf” with a daredevil rune in it, exotic head piece.

I then went to the Laurel Vendor and purchased the recipe for 1 laurel and…. 80s? Under the Achievement tab (I think it’s the bottom one in the UI).

Ran around with 2 necros last night doing a lot of the HP’s in the maps. Ninja’d some Mastery & HP’s as per classic Thief style, feelin good…. until they started talking about casually getting 7k non crits =(.

Ya I couldn’t find anything on a listed reddit link in another post about HOW TO SPECIFICALLY ACQUIRE THESE RUNES.

Maybe I dont see it because I havent unlocked all of the DD stuff? But I dont see it in my DD trait training….

thanks for this, crashed 5 times during a Teq event, missed the main chest at the end. Consulted google and here I found you.

I did just get Pact Commander 5 last night and went to bed, so this all makes sense.

thanks for this

I like how basi venom didn’t do squat to the warr in the first fight shown….
Edit 2nd time used*

Impact.2780:

Nothing is designed to burst down targets using direct damage, which staff is, and Settler’s gear, or even Knight’s for that matter. Berserker and Marauder.

his friend was the thief.
OP is the one in knights/settler’s.
FTFY

honestly, too much kitten is going on for me to notice Y or N lol. I’d have to say “no i havent seen it”, but it feels like it is….

All I got to say: I love Lindsey Stirling’s music, I’m a fan.

Bllade.1029:

From an Spvp standpoint, the problem is also that the maps are so small even if a Thief’s mobility can make it for a decap it doesn’t take long for someone to come and knock them right off.

Thief doesn’t have enough damage potential to justify its all around fragility.

The boon meta prevalent in Spvp and the ease of access to them is one of the biggest reasons Thief is struggling so hard. The lack of consequences for this meta has created this hosh posh of passive boon spam. Protection and aegis being far too accessible to far too many professions. Also, not enough potential consequences for using those boons.

Also, Spvp meta builds revolve around passive defenses. This mentality comes from anet in the form of “everyones a winner.” These passive defenses do the work for many professions in the game and therefor severely lower the skill floor. The only passive defenses a Thief has access to is in stealth; That leads me to my next point.

Stealth is a double-edged sword in regards to Thief. To gain any sort of passive condi removal or sustain, stealth is REQUIRED. This is done via Shadow Arts which is the only viable option for a defensive tree a Thief has. Now a days, reveal is much more prevalent.

Why is this bad? Because unlike every other profession in the game, reveal shuts down an entire defensive trait line. It is the only mechanic in the game that completely nullifies a primary core defensive mechanic of a profession.

Stealth also means -1. So a Thief is always balancing +1 and -1. Once a Thief goes into stealth to recover with the passives it means its out of the fight. Where as most professions in the game can sustain while at the same time being on the offensive.

This is why Thief skill floor is so much higher than every other profession and the skill ceiling is getting lower…and lower…and lower.

This is also why Daredevil was created the way it was, to make up for the SA trees massive drawbacks.

Let’s hope Daredevil fills in the gaps and puts Thieves back where they need to be.

Also, i’m pretty sure Sir Vivcent is a Thief RP’er or something. It’s pretty obvious judging by his/her comments that he in fact doesn’t actually play a Thief in Spvp.

+1 all of this.

IMO, I want to see the core thief improved, and DD bring something new/different/more to the proverbial table, rather be a band-aid for whats lacking in, and what should be, in other trait lines. That to me doesn’t say “elite”, nor is it like the other elite trees for the other professions… and it just baffles me how many people are actually content with this, let alone willing to actually pay for it. It’s 1/9 ways players get to explore and interact with the entire game. 11% of the game needs some real improvement.. (omitting the rest of this sentence).

I like how the majority answer to problems like this is “reroll”. Nothing is being done about said issues, not even a protest by “rerolling”.

My answer: I’m simply not going to pay for it. I’m not buying HoT until I see real improvement in Thief. If the entire thief community had this discipline, real change would happen…

mompen.7952:

So I’ve tinkered a bit with this one:

The Exuberance Thief:

(WvW roaming)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVl0MhSnYvTw7Jw/EHwEkPNxpN7Ls8UoTQAyAA-T1CFABVfEAWTLQw7P02DAAgTAwVKBRSJSSKvSTXwCHCAVU/hUAUszC-w

It has high HP (20k with foods) and runes/food that utilize a high HP-pool.

Rest of the setup is pretty standard, but you may notice no shadowarts, whuut?
All my tricks remove conditions and have reduced CD’s and my sigils remove conditions. Sigil of generosity is (?) the most expensive sigil in the game atm, but very worth it. Always funny to transfer burn stacks back to guards/engi’s.

It has good power, very high ferocity meaning your crits hit pretty hard (Hidden Killer for guaranteed crit backstabs) and a high HP-pool. After guard stacks getting removed this is crucial.

Hey that looks pretty interesting, I’m gonna play around with that tonight. I’m on the tablet so I can’t see what armor or runes you have selected but I like the stats and utilities.

I like how we’re basing the strengths of a class on it’s ability to leave/disengage a fight, rather finish it….

Am I the only one who thinks thats F’d up?

The better question: Why bring a Thief, given other options?
What does a Thief bring to the team, that another profession cannot…?

Sure, go +1 all you want, decap, the usual. But lets say you go decap, and some boon-ranger comes along, or condi necro/mez/engi/warr/x*#!@#$%. Run away saying “sorry to bother you, just keeping the spot warm” because they can push you off with laughable ease. Stay? Likely die and come back 15s later, so you can recap your home point… now thats mobility!

IMO, if Thief is brought on your team, it’s for posterity, nostalgia, or pitty and nothing more.

Edit

There’s an amusing dynamic to me. For thieves to be mobile, they must expend their resources leaving them low on options during the initial engage, whereas a Herald will just Legend swap and be back up to normal resource levels.

^ This

This was a great write up. I’m always disappointed to say the least, when reading about daredevil. Other profs get Avatar form, reaper, changed F1-5 skills, even traversing the time-space continuum itself; thieves… a weaker form of a previous minor trait.

I’m really curious as to how Thief DD got the “pass” for being an elite spec, and not just a rework & rename of Acrobatics trait line.

Maybe we haven’t seen the real elite trait line?

Rekt.5360:

Hannibal.5739:

Hello fellow thieves

I am a inexperienced thief trying to get into pvp and would like to know if you guys/gals would be willing to help a newbie understand this class a little better. First let me state that I’m not looking for fotm builds and I know pvp takes a lot of practice before I will become somewhat decent lol. I’m looking for any tips you can spare that will help ease the frustration a bit and hopefully in the near future I’ll become a pain in the kitten for the opposition :-)

I plan on using d/d as main and maybe p/p as my secondary weapon set (hate shortbow). For traits i intend to go with DA/SA/Tric. The problem for me is idk if i wanna make my thief a trickster, trapper, deception or venom thief.

Are their any synergies with these utility skills and the weapons/traits i plan on using or any tips i should be aware of? Also I haven’t read anybody talk about tricks or venom skills lately (maybe never) and was wondering is something wrong with them or people just don/t use them that often.

If you insist on playing d/d then get ready for a VERY rough ride. It’s what I run since I can’t stand d/p and since I feel s/d to have terrible damage output compared to survivability, butby running d/d you’re gutting yourself so bad you have no idea. D/p can easily handle 1v1s you won’t even stand a chance in and is much better in practically every other way, from CC, to stealth uptime (on demand stealth is something d/d does NOT have, having to use cloak and dagger for a stealth is extremely punishing in some cases, like vs good warriors), to shadowstepping to your foe, to damage mitigation, to practically everything. I also don’t recommend p/p as a second weapon set. Shortbow is godly in that it allows you to disengage somewhat well on a build with terrible disengage potential on its main weapon set (d/d). If you insist on running d/d + p/p then you WILL die nearly for sure the moment you’re caught with your pants down or outnumbered; situations Shortbow will allow you to escape, sometimes with relative ease. Shortbow is also not a weapon set you camp, you don’t pew pew with it, only reason you use it is for the mobility #5, The poison to counter rezzing #4, the evade shot #3 and the nice burst #2 can provide but standing far away and pew pewing is NOT what a shortbow teef does.

For D/d I run DA,SA and CS for maximum damage potential, as that’s the only good thing you can do. Get in there crit a lot, crit hard and get out before a Mesmer or nearly any other burst class decides to sneeze at you because you’ll realize it’s too late by the time they do since you can’t disengage.

My apologies if I came out as rude, that wasn’t my intention I’m just a bit exasperated with the state of d/d and s/d right now ><

Man I used to roll d/d-p/p only in dungeons after launch, it was a good gig. Now we’re the expected stealth bot to rez our downed party members.

As long as thief is a raid viable profession…
That’s all I care about.

I cringed every time you got them down, and didn’t drop a blinding powder to secure the finish. I’m thinking about switching Acro for SA to take that stealth on steal to open me up to some more backstabs, thanks for sharing.