Guild Wars 2

Rifle and off-hand sword. Every teef’s amazon wish list.

Shortbow #3 already cripples as far as I know. So the 10% damage increase would be an overkill as it’s basically permanent for shortbow.

There is a way to make this fair without having to change so much. Just make shadow refuge give you immunity to revealing spells just for the duration while it’s up.

I don’t disagree with giving other classes some measures to counter stealth. Just makes the fight more interesting in my opinion.

IGN: Xiloquin
Playstyle:All PVP forms
Server: I forgot xD

Going to reinstall the game on 23rd.

Lord Pain.3480:

Great build. Makes up for the dmg nerf conpletely. Only issue would be for those who are used to having movement speed. Other than that the damage is beautiful. Great job.

Thank you lord pain, I’m glad you like it. You get used to the reduced movement speed it’s never been a problem for me, but if anyone is too used to having that extra MS, you can drop infiltrator’s signet for signet of shadows.

Mug is perfect with 30 trickery, the heal/damage/poison it provides is more than necessary in my opinion, for both survivability and applying pressure.

Lord Pain.3480:

In WvW, what are the average numbers? In terms of CnD/backstab hits vs tanky/squishy classes and how much might are you averaging? @omri.8196

I average 12-15 might stacks, all depends on how much you cnd and dodge. Of course occasionally it goes as high as 17-20 might stacks with the use of the signet.

I average 5k bstabs on 3k+ armor heavies, 4k is lowest and 6k( sometimes 7k) is highest depending on the might stacks at that moment.
I average 7k on squishies, 6k being the lowest and 8k/9k being the highest, again depends on might stacks.
10k+ bstabs on uplevels.

Add a 1.2k damage on those numbers if you wanna count sigil of air. You always have a 50% chance for it to proc on your bstab, if it didnt proc on your cnd that is.

I believe for some people these numbers can be even higher, I don’t have ascended armor or weapons and i dont have guard stacks yet. Hope that answered your question.

Meridian.8730:

The OP doesn’t acknowledge that there are plenty of professions and builds that he will NEVER do enough damage to actually kill, like any decent necro, warrior, engineer or bunk ranger.

I don’t know about you but when I play with my guild and we go Group vs Group, the enemy’s group is almost always divided into two, the melee train and the heavy dps classes who cling to fight from the edges, like staff eles/longbow rangers/ necros/ mesmers/ and thieves aswell. Your job as a thief is to take out or inturrupt these targets and let the melee trains (warriors, guardians, bunkers) clash with each others.

If you’re roaming and you faced any of the professions you mentioned, of course you can’t one shot them, but you can still win with a good fight =/.

Raithe.5712:

First – thanks for the build concept. Love it.

I’ve been running 06350 now for the past week and its great. I’ve even run it in sPVP just to get cycles on the rotation and build muscle memory. Overall, I like it better than my pre-patch d/d build but the play style does change.

First off – I am full ascended, and all infusion slotted and have access to applied str and fortitude. This build is so hyper leveraged to power that I suspect even the seemingly small difference between full exotic and full ascended is noticeable.

I run 1 piece zerk armor (helm) and the rest valk. All zerk weapon and zerk trinkets. Just under 20k health for wPVP with buffs and power/precision food which is where I think this build shines.

Playstyle: Well, obviously Mug is gone and so is the big initial opening approach to combat. I play relatively defensively early in engagements now and build might stakes. The extra dodge really helps with this. I keep blinding powder slotted and signet of shadows. Once I got used to relying on the dodges I don’t miss the SR’s (refuge and rejuve). I still abuse the hell out of blinding powder – just can’t give it up but when I run in groups I will slot Refuge instead if there is no class giving consistent run speed. Otherwise I slot SR over the signet.

Incidently – Does anyone else use blinding powder/sb for rooting fleeing players? I love it.

Another aspect that changes in play style – from my experience – is the value of SB cluster bomb. With 15-20 stacks of might there are all sorts of useful times to switch out to bow and drop clusters. For this reason I run sigil of battle on my SB for the +3 might on swap (bloodlust is the other sigil). I run accuracy/strength on my daggers.

Trait wise I am using:

Furious Retal, Practiced Tolerance, Executioner
Shadow Embrace, Infusion of Shadow
Power of Inertia

Infusion of shadow has good synergy with First Strikes.
I was a hidden killer d/d thief for a long time. But Executioner just plays better with this build for me. The burst is deeper into a fight, not front loaded so executioner has much greater leverage than with the old mug based play style.

I find I am weak versus the same classes I was before – Condi Necro and Engineer. Engineers seem a bit more manageable now with the extra dodge and better DPS after I’ve built might with the SB.

Regards

You’re welcome Raithe, hope you enjoy it.

One thing I want to point out, yesterday I tought this build to my friend. I noticed that he arranges his attacks based on how many might stacks he has. Say he was at 17 stacks, and he knows that in 2 or 3 seconds they’re gonna decrease to 12 stacks, so he rushes his burst before he loses more might stacks, and that is not good at all. I told him he needs to arrange his attacks based on his target’s movements not how many stacks he has.

All I want to say is play the build normaly, the might stacks come naturally as you progress though the fight, never pay attention to how many might stacks you have.

Any feedback is appreciated guys, and if you have questions I’ll try to answer what I can.

Sparrow.5936:

I literally run the same build 0/6/5/3/0 sometimes 0/6/6/2.

I’ve been racking my brain with this conundrum too. I’m soo tempted to spend the 70g and get the runes of strength as they would synergize the best.

I went with Ogre runes, because I hardly ever trait into DA since i hate the traits there, so power was very important to me, and the 4% damage boost is nice. not as good as 7% but better than 0%. Scholar got expensive too and that rune set is mainly for ganking people with backstab.

I was however wondering if anyone has any experience with Superior Rune of the Warrior? It has nice stats but I dont fully understand how the 6th rune power works. It says on weapon swap 20% reduction in recharge. Does that mean if i have Shadow refuge (60 sec cooldown) and use it , and while its counting down i weapon swap does it turn into 48 sec cooldown? what happens if I weapon swap again 9 seconds later, does it stack and turn into a 36 sec cooldown etc.. ??? Anyone know?

No man, doesn’t work like that. Your weapon swap cooldown is what’s going to be affected, normaly you have 10s cooldown when you swap, these runes reduces that by 20%.

honzuf.2691:

Thanks for great build!
And what about using toughnes instead of vitality (valkyrie > cavalier equip) in this build? I think thief have weak heals and toughnes works with that better.

Power isn’t a primary stat in cavalier gears, so damage wise cavalier loses to valkyrie that’s a given.
If you run cavalier instead of valkyrie you’re gonna end up with 10k or 11k hp, conditions will kill you in a matter of seconds, and if you think about it, even with the reduced direct damage on you because of the toughness on cavalier, you’re still going to feel squishy because there is no vitality to back that toughness up, with a 10k hp pool a 3k armor wouldn’t make a difference.

Vitality > toughness for thieves. And by the way thief has 2 of the best heals in the game. My personal favorite is withdraw, instant, cannot be inturrupted, has an evade, clears IMMOB, gives you the ability to reposition, good healing ammount for a small hp pool, and sets on a 15 seconds cooldown. How can you say no to that. :P

BlazingBeast.3104:

This build seems good!I would like to know though,being one of many that didnt buy runes of strength early and dont have money to afford now,what would be an alternative rune set for this build?
Air?Wurm?Ogre?Something else?

A good offensive alternative would be Ogre, scholar, pirate. Pirate in particular helps with the might stacking.

If you’re a withdraw healer I recommend runes of the centaur, its a good set of power runes that with “Withdraw” gives you perma swifrness. Plus they’re dirt cheap.

Try to get strength runes evantually because they work best with this build.

fluffdragon.1523:

Proposal
Alright, I’m going to say that the 5 Initiative cost for the combined skills is actually pretty acceptable. It places a hefty cost on the skill and focuses not on abusing it, but rather on careful execution. That’s fine.

However, let’s merge the skill chain back together the way it used to be, but with one caveat: the boon steal remains on the second strike (as opposed to its original behavior as part of the first). This returns the feeling of speed to the action and the weapon set, and maintains flow by not having an awkward toggle (or double button-press) to fully execution the action.

And while I understand that having the ability to use Larcenous Strike on a second target is quite useful, it honestly feels very counter-intuitive to have split the skill into a chain in the first place. Especially because you’ve got 4 seconds to activate* the second attack if you were intending to use it elsewhere.

No. Sword/dagger #3 being split is actually great; On my trickery build where “steal” is traited to steal 2 boons, I often prepare a “Larcenous Strike” before engaging then proceed with the combo “steal” + " Larcenous Strike" for a total of 3 boons steal in a matter of split second. It is also a great combo for burst as a sword/dagger user. If the skill returns to its previous status where it’s not split, it would be harder and would take longer to pull off that combo, whereas when it’s split, you have a 4 seconds window to aim your steal and make sure you don’t waste it on a dodge.

Your suggestion about infiltrator’s strike will make things worse, I’d rather have the ability to juke my enemies and escape critical situations with infiltrator’s return than to have an at-will shadowstep ability that will most likely require a target for it to cast, making it an unreliable ability for escaping purposes. And if this at-will shadowstep was a castable aoe, might as well just call it infiltrator’s arrow and be done with it.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I thought Air was a no no to use when utilizing stealth becuase of the late hitting proc and revealing you.

Yeah I’m using strength sigil instead of air for now until the bug is fixed, and actually strength sigil is better than air for dps, but burst wise air is better.

scabrous.7835:

I have incorporated Sigil of Air and Runes of Strength into my build and must say that I hit very hard atm, no doubt. Just wonder if it’s people that got more glassy or the setup that packs a punch.

As far as I know nothing have changed in defense.

It has a 30 seconds ICD. I use it on my S/D build. It gives me a nice little momentum especially against squishies where I can trade massive damage in little time, it throws them off most of the time.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Major point is Traveler runes are obsolete for DD builds so Fleet Shadow may see some more love now so I have to agree with Dee Jay as 50% (it says 50 but is it 50 or just 33?) movement in stealth helps a ton in combat. I’m not saying strength runes suck I’m jut saying they are expensive atm so I may go with wurm for now :p I’m considering salvaging my old Valkyrie with the travel runes and out the money toward new valk gear and runes

I used fleet shadow in my build pre-patch, it was a main trait for me. But so far, not using it, its been little difference for me because I rely on Steal and infiltrator’s signet for backstabbing most of the time, and if they’re on cooldown I make sure to cripple my enemy with dancing dagger before i CnD them.

Dee Jay.2460:

This is pretty much the build I’ve been playing for the past 4 months.

I came across Runes of Strength a while pack as a cheap alternative to Scholar Runes and have run with them ever since. Shadow Arts ensures constant Might and so the build can benefit from the 7% damage bonus all the time.

I’d say it’s solid. It worked well enough for me with both D/D and D/P.

I did however opt for Fleet of Foot over Power of Inertia since the basic run-speed isn’t sufficient and extra Might stacks not all that important. And it’s not like the build has excessive dodges either.

I wouldn’t expect anything exception from this setup. Damage will still be lower than prior to the patch and heavy condition bombs are still going to screw you over. But it works well enough.

Actually Dee jay, the runes were bugged pre-patch, the damage bonus was 5% and it never applied, so for the past 4 months you weren’t getting that bonus damage untill they fixed it in this patch. But now its 7% and it applies, so its worth building around it. I do agree with you that the damage is lower than pre-patch, but this build is all about compensating for that damage loss, and it does that effectively, so far I’m seeing little difference in damage between now and pre-patch.

mPascoal.4258:

Okay what do you guys think of this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoY8alsMp0pdPxyJ8PNBPBtdBmdA4uEbYEddDA-TFTBwAXOBA02fwsSwrK5icgC6qcAv+BUaYWcQA0cEAyp+DgHAAhAKPBA-w

Also, do you think, Thief really needs 25% speed in WvW? Because I’m not changing Infiltrator’s Signet for the speed signet

Yes that’s good, but I still see roam for you to up your damage. You could switch to Hidden killer trait, that way you can drop sigil of intelligence for sigil of air(1.2k plus damage is not something you wanna overlook). Start using sharpening stones and power food, you dont really need prec food if you run hidden killer, and you don’t need life steal on crits as much as you need power right now, you already have 30 SA for survivability.

You could do these changes only if you run hidden killer. The way I see it Executioner is an overkill for backstab builds and does not synergies well with them. I’ll give you an example, imagine you backstabed someone and got them to 55% of their health, then you backstab them again and now they are at 20% hp, untill this point you have not been benefited from the executioner’s bonus at all because the first 2 backstabs were peformed on a target that has more than 50% HP. Now this target is sitting at 20% hp, the next backstab is going to kill him with executioner’s bonus or without it, thats why i think its an overkill.

Executioner is a great trait, but its not a trait you want to use it for backstabbing, it works a lot better with sword p/d and p/p builds.

Edit: As for your question about the thief needing 25% MS in WvW. Based on my experience, no you don’t need a passive 25% MS, but I always actively boosted my movement speed, by heal “withdrawing” forward instead of backward for example, or dodge for 2 seconds swiftness then follow with 2 heartseekers. But that’s just me, I’m used to not having 25% MS because i never used it before.

It’s one of the best traits in Deadly arts, you forgot to mention that it increases your damage by 10% after you steal, as long as you keep the stolen ability.

Most people overlook it because they can’t control it, but its really worth it when you basilik venom twice, or get two shadow refuges.

Yeah you’re right, it could be an F2 ability next to steal, called “reveal”.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Is this the only viable way to play D/D now? Is there no good all out DPS builds now?

I never said it’s the only viable build for d/d. its actually the same old common d/d build with just loads of might stacks and a 7% dmg boost from runes, I’ll take that any day.

LOL yeah well I got critted for 10k from a mesmer’s down state phantasm while trying to stomp him. Got 1 shotted good game well played. :p

Luranni.9470:

Slcrisis.6930:

I’m in full Valk atm and normally run with food buffs too, after patch I feel like that’s making little difference, did everyone suddenly get glassier? I feel like everything is hitting me for shi loads and I get quite low hp much faster than pre patch.

You’re not alone, I noticed that right away using the same build from pre to post-patch. Others have noticed it too. It feels like somehow amidst all the changes to traits/runes/sigils/ferocity that something in defense got borked. OR base-line damage calculations on some skills is broken somehow as some tank warriors and guardians I play with have reported an increase in their ability damage.

Unfortunately due to having an incomplete combat log it’s next to impossible to parse and figure out what could have changed.

I believe it’s an AI bug, you feel way squshier than before right? Well you’re not, its just that professions with AI that can crit is bugged, something about that AI having the same attributes of the player’s runes. So mesmer phants, ranger pets, guardian spirit weapons and mm necro hit for waaay harder than pre patch, I hope they fix this soon because its put the thief in a very bad position.

And just to put this out there, there is a food that gives you might on dodge and 40% endurance regen which is really nice for this build. I still take the risk of going for power food though. See what suits you best.

mompen.7952:

Any tips regarding my survival issues? Seems like people now know better how to fight us (and thats a good thing, maybe less QQ?) I find it hard to land a C&D at good players ^^

My friend you can still run this build with 0/30/30/10/0 just as effectively, you can trait SR for that extra survivability and still gain a lot of might stacks without feline grace. I did mention that feline grace is just my style, that extra dodge with withdraw heal is just my way of avoiding critical damage so to speak.

As for your issue with CnD, this is exactly the reason why d/d is concidered high skill cap set, your skills with landing CnD determines how good you are with d/d.

So be proud that you’re still a d/d thief, and good hunting.

charkin.2936:

What utilities do you use?

withdraw heal, infiltrator’s signet, shadow refuge, shadowstep, basilik venom.

I don’t really like basilik venom that much anymore, it used to be my lyssa popper and my 45 sec cooldown mass condi removal, but now its just a brief stun with nothing special for an elite( for a 1 second stun to be elite I think ATLEAST it should be unbreakable). I debate on starting to use daggerstorm, people don’t expect much anymore and using it in its right time can turn the tables.

Well I hope it’s just a bug that is going to be fixed, because I certainly don’t like getting 2 shotted from a warlock phantasm. It’s like every profession with AI that can hit a crit got 2x stronger than pre patch.

babazhook.6805:

>&gt

That said it IS a function of time. Sigil of force is superior in short fights, Sigil of battle is superior as the length of the engagement goes up.

That’s very true. That’s what I was trying to say in my main post when I said that force had it from the start but battle or strength needed to stack might first.

Thing is my secondery weapon is shortbow, and I don’t find myself switching to it much in a 0/30/30/10/0 build, thats why I wouldnt go for sigil of battle. when I’m on my trickery build its different though, I’m on my shortbow 80% of the time.

runes traits and foods you were using?

mompen.7952:

Do you think this will work with a mixed zerk/valk armor set?

I was thinking of using head, chest, pants valk, and the rest zerker, or do I loose out on a lot of defense that way?

You wanna squeeze as much vitality as you can, believe it or not its your best friend now. The crit damage nerf may have pushed people towards condi meta even more, and here vitality serves you best.

Well, I’ve tested it, replaced sigil of air with sigil of strength, turns out sigil of strength is far superior to air DPS wise, maybe not as good as air in burst though, if you’re a chain backstabber you’re appreciate sigil of strength more. I myself like it more.

with sigil of strength on my off hand dagger, and my traited for might infiltrator’s signet, I maintain a good 17 might stacks in combat, and it bursts to 20+ stacks with the use of the signet, making me deal high backstabs even on tanky targets, which is really really good concidering this is not a gimmiki squishy build and the fact I tested it in Spvp where damage is reduced compared to wvw.

mPascoal.4258:

red light november.3521:

anyone tried 5 scholar with 1 divinity?

Ruby orbs would be better than that.

What about Sigil of Inteligence and Sigil of Battle along with Executioner? Or just Sigil of inteligence with Sigil of Strengh

You’ve brought my attention to an idea, sigil of strength or battle would be a good substitute for sigil of air ( at least for now since sigil of air reveals you if it procs on CnD which is a bug).

Just don’t replace sigil of force for strength or battle, for sigil of force is roughly equal to a 5 or 6 solid might stacks, so you will be getting the same results with on both ends.

Lockon.5312:

Ran the traits yesterday with a berserker armor and by far without the Runes of Strength yet I finally was able to strike for 8k with backstab. At first I did thought it was a fluke but was able to reproduce again the same results. Signet of Power + Backstab + Stacks of Might boon (preferably more than 7 stacks) will give you 8k above damage. I also incorporated skills such as Skale Venom (if I know I can easily get close) and if not I change that to infiltrator’s signet.

The trick is to use infiltrator’s signet to get close use Cloak and Dagger then Signet of Power then do the backstab. Don’t rush your attack as well as you have the whole 4 secs. to position yourself directly at the back of your opponent.

I’d imagine even better results for you if you were running strength runes at that moment.

Funny part is I thought it was rangers that gave me this mysterious revealed debuff, then I look around and there are no rangers, I’m like what the hell? lol

Thanks for pointing this out.

mPascoal.4258:

or just full Valkyrie and Zerker is better and I will just have to get used to low toughness?

Well if you think about it the damage nerf hit all professions not just thief, so people won’t be hitting as high as they used to, which makes room for giving up some toughness.

Valk/zerk mix or full zerk is what you want now for maximum damage, preferably valk/zerk mix.

Lockon.5312:

Does this apply to WvW? I mean, if you have tried this in WvW, what were the results?

Yes it does, and the results were little to no difference than my backstabs from pre patch(around 600 less damage than before which is not terrible). You have to be 10+ might stacks to feel the difference, and its easy to maintain that amount of stacks with this build. Both might from stealth and dodges lasts for 25 seconds.

babazhook.6805:

Runes of strength might gen even more then that with the number 4 trait but then you count on being hit for that extra might which is not something one should look to be doing

It would be stupid to get hit on purpose to get a might stack lol.

its really good if you dont miss your backstabs, I can tell you that much.

The new fixed strength runes over shadowed all the other power runes, they are even better than ogre and scholar now. But they still obligate you to build for a might stacking build. For example, if you run a trickery build with strength runes you won’t be utilizing what the runes have to offer 100% of the time. I don’t really see a reason for Anet to nerf these runes because 1. they are conditional 2. its only fair to have a set of runes like that after the damage nerf that’s been done.

Don’t worry man I don’t see them getting nerfed.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/balanaced-d-d-build/first#post3923736

Glad you like it maugetarr, I’ve been testing it in spvp too and most of the time I too maintain 12-17 might stacks, which makes me backstab for a good a mount of damage. It’s not bad at all for spvp.

But this is more of a wvw build to make up for the crit damage nerf, I still like trickery more for spvp mainly because 4 seconds revealed makes d/d a bit slower than trickery builds.

I had to regear too, had some pvt and cavalier gears. So yeah I feel ye.

Unfortunatly travler runes won’t cut it for the common d/d spec anymore, some might go for signet of shadows. As for me am used to not having movement speed boost, I actually never needed it.

You all know by now that the common 10/30/30/0/0 and 0/30/30/10/0 dagger/dagger specs have suffered from the last patch.
This is what I use now to compensate for the loss in damage.
*Valk armor and weapons ( Had to shelf some pvt gears as am sure many of you have)
*Zerk trinkets

*traits: 0/30/25/15/0 or should i say 0/6/5/3/0 (this also works as well with the standard 0/30/30/10/0 build, the reason i went 15 in acrobatics is because I love the extra dodge and it suits my playstyle more. So its up to you.)

-> Critical strikes tree: Signets of power / Signet use / Hidden killer
->Shadow arts tree: Cloaked in shadow / Shadow’s embrace. ( and shadow’s rejuvenation if you’re running the 0/30/30/10/0 version)
->Acrobatics tree: Power of inertia

Utilities: Infiltrator’s signet/ shadow refuge/ shadowstep.

• IF you feel like you don’t need the 5 stacks from infiltrator’s signet you can switch the signet traits to any traits you like and drop the signet for another utility you feel comfortable with.

*Sigils: 1. Dagger/Dagger:Force and air for maximum burst.
2. Shortbow: Bloodlust, the second one is anything you feel comfortable with, I went for bloodlust and air.

*Runes: Runes of strength.
1): +25 Power
(2): +10% Might Duration
(3): +50 Power
(4): 15% Might duration; 25% chance when struck to gain Might for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 5s)
(5): +100 Power
(6): +20% might duration; +7% damage while under the effects of Might.

Pre patch these runes were bugged, but now they are fixed and give 7% damage (under the effect of might). Obviously with this build you’re gonna keep a high number of might stacks from 25 in shadow arts and power of inertia trait, and they’re gonna stick around for longer with 60% increased might duration.

The added power from the might stacks + the 7% damage increase from the runes seems like the best idea for me to compensate for the crit damage nerf.

*There is a food that gives you might on dodge and 40% endurance regen which works well with this build. I still run power foods though.

*Always make sure to farm bloodlust (and guard stacks if you have them) to make sure you have every bit of power you can obtain, it will boost your damage quite a lot. you can place bloodlust on shortbow since you can equit two sigils on it now.

Good hunting teefs.

Hmm if anything, I want to see a different animation. It feels like I’m throwing a piece of flying paper most of the time. I want to see a solid throwing form, a high speed projectile that on impact would feel like a ninja has just thrown their kunai on tree or something and the kunai went ZnNnnNNnnn, that image would require the skill to be a single target skill, with a small cast time that includes the thief flipping the dagger spinning it in air to hold it from its tip and throw it, the dagger on impact will deliver a great deal of damage, apply cripple and torment (regardless of how many stacks) and blood on hit animation, and the dagger would remain stuck on the target’s body where it hit for a short duration of time or until the torment is gone or something.

Remember, we are a single target profession, we are not meant for aoe.

Harbinger.8637:

Posted this in your last thread, but Rune of Strength 6th bonus is bugged, doesn’t work. Better of going Hoelbrak, and getting the -20% condition duration.

Yeah my last thread got deleted. Hoelbrak is just as good anyway, but I didn’t know strength’s 6th was bugged. :/

Berserker meditation guardian is one of the best professions in this game.

Guardian needs little changes, a few tweaks here and there, like increasing the accuracy of sword 3, decreasing the cooldowns on shield skills.

This class surely does not need a major buff, it is already strong as it is right now. Any major buff would make guardian dominate all the other classes.

Quit your whining really, it’s getting annoying.

Traveler runes might be good for pve/wvw only because you already have high damage due to the high critical damage that you can get, but in spvp you’re giving up a good chunk of damage that guardian actually needs when you use speed runes. In both game modes you’ll have to give up on using awesome power or precision runes for a lame speed bonus that every other profession have already. I can never see traveler runes as a perfect alternative, it is just an Okay alternative.