Guild Wars 2

I have fought these revs on my pistol/dagger Condi thief, and they have never been an issue. Are there builds that counter it with relative ease? Do I just happen to play one that does?

@Balasar keep us updated and keep your head up.

I changed my build around a lot this season and now I’m winning a lot on my thief. I also realized that I was not playing thief properly in PvP when the season started because I was so used to roaming in WvW, and in previous PvP seasons, I played elementalist. Now that I play the class right in PvP with +1 and constant decap and moving to where there’s an opportunity, my team wins a lot more often. I still end up with players that seem to have gotten placed higher than they should have, but it’s best to work with them and give advice in chat rather than what lots of people do, which is flame them. The advice to stop playing after 2 losses to take a break is a good one, and it’s something I started doing as well. If you lose and enter the queue right away, sometimes you get placed with some of the same people you just lost with, and at that point, everyone is on edge and you may still have frustrations with some of them as they do with you.

Look for me in game and I’m happy to duel with you if you want to practice against a thief or to just bounce some strategy ideas off of.

saerni.2584:

I can’t stop laughing.

+1

Will someone please help me understand what determines the amount of rating points you win or lose after ranked pvp matches? I never knew last season or this season, and I didn’t see a good reason on the wiki. Thanks everyone!

Yeah it was because it dropped when casting my heal, so he probably didn’t notice, and we were fighting on a point.

Another issue is that traps like needle trap are a long rectangle, so even in pvp where you have a point, it’s hard to get someone to step on it. Rangers and guardians get much more utility out of theirs in my opinion, but when you do land needle trap, it’s pretty awesome. I was about to die against a necro in pvp yesterday and right before, he hit my needle trap and I ended up winning the fight as a result.

Sifu.9745:

Sontaran.5904:

Sifu.9745:

Here is mine list on non-meta “broken” builds:
1. condi Thief d/d or p/d.

I haven’t seen anyone call p/d broken recently. Would you mind elaborating on why p/d is broken in your opinion? I find it to be a fair, balanced, and difficult to master set.

Not as broken as d/d. But it depends how do you play it: if you get that Trait which cause Poison on Immobilize, you have much easier job, as your main source of dmg AND cc at the same time is #2 (Body Shot) + Venoms. If you rely on #3 (shadow Strike) and Traps you have much harder time.
But then why would you only focus on one weapon set if you can equip both: d/d and p/d? SB is not that mandatory anyway. It’s highly recommended but i drop it sometimes for p/d offset as my main weapon set is always d/d.
Also there is an act of surprise included: no one would expect you to play with p/d

Body shot only has limited uses, but you have to use SB in pvp to quickly decap. I ran p/d with SB and dash in pvp last night and had a lot of wins. I wasn’t getting as many kills as I would playing d/d or s/d Condi, but I was contributing to the team the same way a d/p dash power thief would and it helped us win. I was able to win 1v1 when I needed to and had mobility to run away as well. I played with DA over SA, so I had a little less stealth but more damage.

Sifu.9745:

Here is mine list on non-meta “broken” builds:
1. condi Thief d/d or p/d.

I haven’t seen anyone call p/d broken recently. Would you mind elaborating on why p/d is broken in your opinion? I find it to be a fair, balanced, and difficult to master set.

@babazhook
I got you, and that makes sense. I tested SA at one point over TR and then over DA, but it only worked in very specific dueling scenarios.

The key here is SB because you can lay the poison field and then get poison bolts on DB and dodge. You also get poison from dagger attacks in the DA line, poison from steal, and better duration for spider venom. The SB helps with getting out of trouble as well if shadow step is on cool down.

It’s awesome because I can get more damage from poison than bleeds, so if they only cleanse 1 Condi, they still melt. You can even interrupt people with choking gas, which is great in team fights like small group roaming.

Your build is definitely the more durable setup, but I would worry about people just running away and not enough burst in the smaller fights. I suppose it depends on what types of fights you are in as well. Another consideration is that against other Condi thieves running EA, I can burst and stop attacking them while they melt since so many run acro and constantly dodge over DA.

@babazhook that’s interesting on the build. I like channeled vigor for the endurance gain, and I don’t use acro on the build because DA is so much damage with it and trickery is essential for the initiative, boon theft, and confusion on steal for me in both pvp and wvw. I did test an acro/tr/DrD version, and while it was super durable, it lacked burst that I need for pvp and wvw roaming, so I go da/tr/DrD. It’s possible to make the build work with da/acro/DrD in wvw, but you give up a lot in my opinion with trickery. I find that bountiful theft makes this build work a lot better because you rip the boons your opponent needs to survive in a 1v1 situation. I also don’t zerg much as I like to roam, but this does work in zergs if you’re careful.

Nice and thanks for sharing. I have the same setup but with runes of the traveler on mine for mobility and Condi duration.

This video is awesome. I loved the use of shadow step to setup the one shot backstab. You also switched to staff at the right moments, which I thought was great. I’ve been using a staff and d/p setup in wvw roaming lately and it’s been a blast. I wish it worked for pvp, but I find that pvp requires sb, so I run different setups there.

I’ve had the most success with D/D Condi this season and I’ve had some success with D/P power, but with how weird the matchmaking has been, I’ve found D/D Condi to work better because I can hold my own and win most fights. I stopped trying with staff power and S/D Condi because they are easily countered at this point.

Nice. What’s the actual build? I didn’t see a link. Do you think this works better than S/D Condi?

I’ve had some success with staff in pvp, but are the builds in the guide up to date? What are you using that works right now? I might do some tests and then post a build here after I find something that works.

As the most mobile profession with access to stealth on demand, I think 1200 range would make us overpowered. Also, if it happened, it would then just lead to annoying nerfs later on that probably mess up our current builds.

IGN: A Bisporigera
Thief Type: Scholar
Server: Fort Aspenwood
Experience with thief:
I main a thief and play in all game modes with it, but I play WvW the most, particularly with roaming. I test different builds regularly, and I enjoy staff more than any other weapon. I have been playing for about a year on gw2.

Cool, can I get an invite?

What is the Teef guild? I main a thief and it sounds interesting.

That’s great insight! I might test it out when I’m holding points and not running so far. I do use strength in pvp, just not wvw at the moment.

XTR.9604:

More videos added to condi warrior build page.

These are great, and I’m playing a build that is similar to yours but I adapted it to exotic gear since I don’t have ascended yet. I also swapped strength line for discipline. Is there a reason you like strength over discipline for this? I find the fast hands, faster run speed, condi cleanse and weapon swap very useful when roaming. What do you think are the pros and cons of using either discipline or strength in your build, and have you tried it with discipline?

Ghotistyx.6942:

If you have Berserker (which I’m sure you do), you could have a lot of fun using Axe/Axe + Axe/Torch and swapping between the two.

Here it is
Because you’ve got Frostfang, I made the build thematic with both Fire and Ice. Elementalist Runes and Ghost Pepper Poppers feed into that idea. You have lots of Power and Condition damage and your crits will fuel your adrenaline bar. You should be running at around 85% crit chance mid fight. You can weapon swap on cooldown to get all those extra effects and to pull off your burst combo. Start in Torch and use Torch 5. Use Axe 2, Axe 3, and Torch 4 in succession, then weapon swap to Axe/Axe and use Axe 4 and then Axe 5. You’ll get a disgustingly high amount of Burn stacks, and honestly, Flames of War into Whirling Axe is just too much fun not to do. You can Shattering Blow on cooldown (It should sync with King of Fires) for more condition damage while your axe itself is still doing respectable power damage. Berserk at will for those delicious boons and for Always Angry. If you don’t want the chill then you can replace Ele Runes with Flame Legion and the Pepper Poppers with another On-crit food like one of the Allspice Cakes. You won’t need two mainhand weapons. Just use one MH Axe and your OH Axe and Torch.

Is this the best build there could ever be? Not at all. But its fun and unique, and that’s what matters. You’ll have competitive damage for anything you want to do until you hit things like Raids or higher fractals where builds truly matter. If you don’t like this idea then tweaking the GS+A/Sh build would probably be fine too.

This is awesome, thanks! Something was up with the link, but I fixed it here and now it works. It will be fun to test this out.

Ghotistyx.6942:

If you have Berserker (which I’m sure you do), you could have a lot of fun using Axe/Axe + Axe/Torch and swapping between the two.

I’ll edit this with a build concept when I’m more free

Awesome! I have HoT, but I’m leveling up instead of boosting to 80 so that I don’t miss out on the story content. I tried each class and really love playing the warrior, so for now I’ll just go axe/axe and just rotate other stuff in to try it and understand it. I’m thinking of swapping in a bit of axe/shield or mace/shield to use the stuns before whirling axe as well. I’m still interested in your build concept as I will have berserker eventually.

If running the axe/axe, is there a reason to use gs? I’m running axe/axe right now in open world pve leveling and have had success with bow on swap and also with sword/warhorn when I need mobility. I am looking for other swap options to maximize melee dps. I’m not looking to use gs. Does anyone have advice to add on the pve side? I’m looking for build options myself.