I play a support thief in a dungeon-running group that includes two elementalists and two guardians. It’s a blast (finisher). Here’s the build, and some thoughts on thief support:
Deadly Arts 20 [III (dmg on steal), IX (extra dagger dmg)]
Shadow Arts 30 [I (Deception recharge), III (stealthed allies regen), XI (stealth regen)]
Acrobatics 20 [III (vigor on heal), X (heal per initiative spent)]
I run D/D and SB; Withdraw is my heal. For utilities, I run Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder, and a third determined by the fight (Smoke Screen against ranged; Caltrops for groups; Signet of Agility for extra condition removal, etc. ).
Thieves have a bunch of ways to help out a group, and I like that they’re a little more interesting and involved than throwing down a boon stick. Here are a few:
- (1) Poison / Weakness combo: If you trait 15 in DA, you weaken targets for three seconds when you poison them. Poison by itself isn’t a great condition in PVE (except maybe against targets that heal), but adding weakness for the 50% damage reduction on all non-crit hits makes it fantastic. Thieves have a bunch of non-venom ways to poison / weaken enemies. If we’re fighting one big boss, I’ll dagger autoattack from time to time to apply the poison; if we’re fighting a group, it’s 4 on shortbow to put down a poison field, then maybe a few shortbow autoattacks through the field to keep it up. Neither application takes very long.
- (2) Stealth heals / regen: With some investment in Shadow Arts, you can safely revive your unlucky / terrible comrades. Putting in 15 points gives you an extra second on most — but not all — instances of stealth, and taking trait III gives Allies a short burst of regen for the duration of the stealth. (This includes you, too.) Since I’ve got a ton of mobility from the swiftness-on-dodge trait in Acrobatics, I can quickly get to most downed allies before their timer is up, and Blinding Powder with the extra duration usually lasts long enough to bring them back up. For anyone else, I’ll throw down Shadow Refuge, enjoy the doubled regen, and stealth anyone nearby who will also be able to help with the revive. I enjoy playing medic, but YMMV.
- (3) Tons of combo finishers. 2 on shortbow is a cheap (three initiative) blast finisher with basically no cooldown. Before big fights, I’ll blast combo with the elems’ fire fields to give us easy stacks of area might, and during fights I’ll combo with whatever is around from time to time to help out as needed. We’ve got an expensive whirl with 3 on dagger that I’ve used to proc Cleansing Bolts, and leap with 2 on dagger for an extra stealth through Smoke Screen, etc. I can’t grant my allies regen, might, etc. normally, but with easy access to relatively spammable (i.e., low initiative cost) finishers, I can make sure some boons are up pretty much constantly.
- (4) Damage. I still provide excellent DPS despite spending a good portion of my time applying conditions, proccing combos, and healing the fallen. Ignore the grousing about the stealth nerf to the thief D/D CnD BS, etc. rotation — it’s still amazing single target damage. With my build, I’ve got the mobility and toughness / vitality to run full Berzerker gear and almost never die. Plus, anyone can do mindless damage — it’s fun to be useful.
Cheers.