Guild Wars 2

Ahoy, glad to see you’re giving this build a whirl! I’ve been having way too much fun running this in WvW, and also the Mender’s version in PVP. The sustain on this guy is completely unreal!

I don’t see the point of taking Honor tree, honestly though.

In this build, the symbols play a big part in contributing to the overall sustain, which is why I love Writ of Persistence, and with almost unlimited blocking going on, the Invigorated Bulwark can stack pretty high refilling HP from zero to full in a blink, plus mace is so delicious now, with the protection and aegis it grants all your mates, traited for every 12 seconds.

Looking at your version of the build looks solid, though I personally prefer rocking the sword. Right now the Symbol of Blade is over the top with a short cooldown, free teleport to the enemy, an AoE blind, it grants you Fury, and also AoE heals you; all for pressing number 2! Plus I find the “chance on crit” sigils get triggered more because of the high Fury uptime.

I’m going to put a bee in your bonnet, but with the passive condition removal, and Hunter’s Fortification, I’ve really had no trouble shrugging off conditions. I think there’s room in your build to drop Smiter’s Boon, in favor of Focus Mastery if you’re looking to push your sustain to new levels of awesome. Sure there’s the reduced cooldowns which help with your rotations, but it also grants you protection with 3 & 4 (-33 incoming damage!), and I find you can almost always have it up, or have an emergency protection waiting in the wings.

As someone who’s mained three thieves predominantly in WvW, from my perspective I thought thieves were in a “good” place. With the recent server links, I was tossed in with Desolation, and at that point started getting harassed with salty whispers from teammates, “Go reroll… thieves have too many hard counters… they’re a liability to our server, etc”.

I do believe thieves have a genuine place when played properly, but you really have to hustle to make it work. Choosing the conditions of the engagement, using the environment to one’s advantage, ganking a player after they’ve blown all their cooldowns clearing a camp, or killing off players who’ve been weakened… though a lot of it sounds like scrambling for the crumbs left behind by others.

In this current meta, with all the sustain, passive defences and whatnot, the “high risk high reward” is increasingly not being “rewarded” nearly enough for all the effort.

To gain some perspective on playing other classes, I dusted off an old guardian and recast him as a dragonhunter, and it’s ridiculous how all the moving parts have so many synergies and how forgiving it is to play in a tanky sense while still smacking hard. I have a feeling that thief, as a profession, will need to be examined hard, and rebuilt from the ground up.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVQQRApd8en8cClChVDBWdC8Dhl6hSe+z//HrGCip4KA2hYA-TRDFABAp0b9TAAAHBgbUGc/+DDoEE4HAwI6H608HBHEAZUfIFVYyQDBpAEdMA-e

While playing Symbolic build in WvW, I always like to experiment, to see how far you can push gear in a certain direction, in this case adding more passive damage reduction for unprecedented sustain. Nigh impossible to be killed, unless 1v4+, but even then, it’ll be a grudge match of attrition.

Swapped in the Superior Rune of the Scrapper for the 7% damage reduction, plus the +10% Damage Reduction food, and the passive from Hunter’s Fortification adding another 10%. With all the blocking going on and the removal of conditions, I opted to invest in Focus Mastery, giving the focus 4 & 5 a -33% damage reduction, and reduced recharge. I found the original Symbolic Dragonhunter build to be susceptible to CC chains, and these tweaks patch up the gaps and allow to survive burst if stunned. Plus the reduced recharge allows you to work through the rotations faster.

Overall, super tanky, and still a bruiser. In the hands of someone more capable I imagine it’d be very effective, but I’ve taken on 1v2s with classes than normally destroy me one on one. Tangoing with a Chronomancer and Revenant duo… Elementalist and those bulky healing Druids, no problem! Juggernaut your way through camps and towers, defend those nodes indefinitely, be impervious to all danger!

Depardieux, the Norn, the legend, the gentle-hearted monolith of the north!

He was granted superhuman strength when he fell into a cauldron of Orrian Steak Frittes as a child, and is quick to lift his blacksmith’s hammer when the Dragon scourge of Jormag descends upon Shiverpeak Mountains.

I was able to respectfully adapt the Meta-Battle build for WvW on the cheap using a mix of Magi/Cleric and a few Soldier pieces.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVQQRApd8en8cClChVDBWdC8DhlGiSe4L+n/aYXgAArAigRA-TBDFABN8AAA4IAMi+BCOIAda+LFVYEVJIDnAAgU+lhGia2fQG1HIEArxA-e

I’d been trying to hustle and make core thief work in WvW for the last few months, and finally caved in and upgraded to HoT. I dusted off an old Guardian and gave him new life as a Symbolic Dragonhunter; it feels like I’ve stumbled into god mode! Crazy amounts of sustain as I was able to hold towers against multiple foes, and even shrugged off a few zerglings that put me into their crosshairs.

I’ve always played a tank in other MMOs, so this build is very much within my comfort zone while still having some teeth to put pressure onto an opponent. Much recommended!

For one person sure, but when your whole team is now getting them? That 2 sec immob coming from 5 people. Stacking duration, that 10 sec. better than 4.

And another thing to consider with regards to venomous aura: “venoms shared by this trait will use the thief’s attributes (condition damage, healing power, etc.) instead of the player’s to whom it was applied.”

So if my thief is geared with 2200 condition damage, and shares Spider Venoms and Skale Venoms; they’ll have plenty of bite, especially when they stack so quickly when others are involved.

You could already do this.

In other news Epidemic works fantastically on cannons and oil pots.

Well it was a bug, that was fixed, but cropped back up recently.

I tried to make Perplexity work, but it seems to be a lot of effort to get only 3 stacks of confusion to stick.

One thing I’ve noticed about the sixth bonus which makes it a little more practical to use than the Tormenting rune: “This rune now applies 3 stacks of confusion for 6 seconds in a radius of 240 around the player upon using a healing skill. The internal cooldown remains at 15 seconds.”

If I use withdraw, the confusion AOE lingers for 6 seconds, so if the opponent tries to close the gap or gets close, they invariably get a little dirt on their hands. That being said, you’d be lucky to get 10 stacks in a single fight, which really doesn’t do much in the long run.

I am happy to report, I can apply my shared venoms to arrow carts! Long range Basilisk for the win!

I’m wholly new to the GW world, but I love theorycrafting and build diversity.

Alright, so I dole out stacks of confusion on heal, which frees me up from having to play duo-pistols for the interrupt; very cool, I prefer running Pistol-Dagger.

I can imagine something like this working by pre-casting Hide in Shadows, followed by a Steal, and the opponent now has 8 stacks of confusion and other conditions depending on spec. Heck, I might even grab Trapper’s Respite, so now they’re sitting on a trap for 4 seconds of immobilize, and more poisons and bleeds. Sneak Attack to unload more conditions, and Shadow Strike away.

Hmm, the wheels are turning.

I can think of extremely cheesy ways to abuse this new change to perplex

Hmmm, I was wondering if it would be worth it to just strip down to 4 Runes of Perplexity, and augment the build with Rune of Orr or Krait.

But cheesy ways to abuse the new changes you say?

pulls up chair

Do tell!

: +20% Confusion 40px.png Confusion duration; when you interrupt a foe, cause 5 stacks of confusion for 8 seconds. (Cooldown: 15s)

The old version of the Superior Runes of Perplexity before the changes for comparison.

Superior Rune of Perplexity: Changed the sixth bonus. This rune now applies 3 stacks of confusion for 6 seconds in a radius of 240 around the player upon using a healing skill. The internal cooldown remains at 15 seconds.

I’m always a fan of playing odd builds, and last night after saving gold, I was finally able to buy six Perplexity runes for a P/P condi thief; they were synergizing nicely with “headshot” to interrupt for 5 stacks, while also padding some additional torment.

They were meant to replace my Superior Runes of Tormenting, because the “on heal” effect isn’t reliable, even if using Withdrawl, the radius is too small to be effective.

Overnight, the change to the Perplexity runes have broken the way the build would work. Ideally, as a P/P thief, I want to be keeping my distance, and sadly, having to get close to the enemy to drop just 3 stacks of confusion might not be worth it. To top it off, they were bleeding expensive, I lost about 80g in one night of transactions.

A sad day for my thieves in general today, as my venomshare thief also took a hit from the nerf bat.

I’m sad.

The nerf to venomshare has wrecked my support thief build I was running for WvW. The radius was already difficult enough to handle, but at 240, it’ll be a tight squeeze to get people crowded onto a spot to take advantage of the buff. Add in the lack of might when it triggers, and overall, this is pretty weak.

Make sure to pack your bags with plenty of toilet paper; it seems to do wonders for baiting an enemy out of their tower.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Toilet_Paper

The patron saint of the disabling shot, Père Fouettard is a master of choking gas and cluster bombs. Despite the gain in weight he’s experienced since adopting double shortbows, he’s still the slipperiest thief in all of Gandara.

Bad children, beware!

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vZEQNAqYVlsMh2mYTTwoJw/EHyElePniAwvFjxHyzheYHA-TlSHQB26ECUrHEgAOCBZUJ4z2fIhK/AwBQgRq/EgDBgb03kZIAgVVSBsoYL-w

This is the P/D build I’ve been running with in WvW, to great effect. It’s a little unorthodox, but uses full Dire with Trapper runes, that work in synergy to create an ambush-condi-bomb thief.

I’ve been playing with the build for a few weeks and it’s very bursty while also allowing you to take on the 1v2s.

Situationally, it’s great if you’re getting the opening ambush on another player. You’ll be applying conditions quickly on the opener, and if a player doesn’t deal with them, they will die in the next few seconds, otherwise, you’ve already knocked them down to 1/4th of their health to start.

When there’s an enemy I’m about to engage, I pop my venoms (sometimes saving Basilisk if I think I’ll need a gap closer). The trick now is to use Hide in Shadows, while combo-ing with a Steal. You’ll arrive on top of the enemy in stealth because of Hide in Shadows, but you’ll also be dropping a Needle Trap at their feet, which is triggered at the end of the heal. This’ll immobilize them for 4.5 seconds, while applying a ton of vulnerability and mights, and from here, since you’re in stealth, you can unload a Sneak Attack applying +5 stacks of bleed, plus all the venoms you’ve triggered. If they’re ranged, I’ll stay close to them, perhaps a caltrop dodge, or Shadowstrike to get away if melee.

You’ve set them up the condi-BOMB! If they don’t deal and cleanse those conditions, they’re more or less dead right away. Even if they survive, they’re usually down to 1/4th health, and it’s easy to pick them off.

To take on camps and such, (or if in a 1v2 situation) I switch out Basilisk in favour of Thieves Guild, and then share my venom with my rogue companions, which allows you to quickly hose down clumps of enemies. The venomous aura is amazing if you’re running with a group too; you’ll notice in skirmishes, when two blobs are squaring off against each other, the moment you pop your venoms, the opponents just melt.

Overall, I’m happy with the build, it’s a little cheese, perhaps OP in some regards, but as a thief in a WvW situation, I figure all’s fair in the heat of war!

Yes, I must concur!

I’ve been a casual player, and had put off joining the WvW ranks for so long, thinking I’d be way behind the learning curve to be of any help.

Well to my delight, the Gandara bracket is very welcoming and plenty carebear. (or you guys say kitten, amirite?) I had no reason to be intimidated, and I’m enjoying the sense of community.

The way the events unfold, makes WvW feel less like Lord of the Rings, and moreso like a romp through Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail.

Highly recommended!

A glimpse at my new thief; Mrs. Swan might be small in stature, but she carries a big gun, and is well versed in the art of poison.

I’m new to WvW, and had rolled a Trapper build with my first character, not realising the stigma associated with the spec.

Indeed, it’s very possible to stay 100% in stealth, which provides its own meta-game of frantically trying to reload the smoke-screen and pistol combo while trying not to clip anything.

Instead of dropping Caltrops, I run with tripwire and ambush, as well as calling the “Thieves Guild” from stealth. Improvisation is a MUST; being able to get a refresh on skills is like mana from heaven. (bring out MOAR thieves! drop more Need Traps!) Or just being able to use Blinding Tufts twice is sweet!

I found in addition to being a stellar scouting build, I could flip camps and such easily without breaking stealth. The notoriety happens after someone’s been killed by a Trapper thief, and their friends show up in a gang to smoke out “The Ghost of Danelon Pass”. If I break stealth accidentally, it’s usually game over for my poor thief; but inevitably, I’m probably getting what I deserve.

Thanks for sharing!

I’ve arrived into GW2 after a long stint as a Warcraft PVPer; some of those skills port over well, but I’m still struggling coming to terms with the various class mechanics and such. The videos are a big help to hone my thieving skills, and to anticipate what’ll be thrown at me.

Agemnon.4608:

Is that Crushed Bone with Electro Blue? I like that combination sometimes since Crushed Bone tends to be that perfect off white.

Not nearly so fancy; this was a mix of Winter Ice, and White Gold!

Rocking the norn thief cultural look, while at maximum body size.

I’m enjoying the hamfisted approach; more bruiser, less cat burglar!