Guild Wars 2

idontnoso.9850:

This is just one of the many builds I’ve tinkered with. I’ve tried venoms (some what worthless). Stealing (worthless). Traps (worthless). So many useless abilities that are just wasting space.

By no means am I saying that other classes need a debuff, but I am saying that certain things about the thief need to be altered in order for viable builds to be made. Like WHY ARE VENOMS NOT IN THE TRAIT LINE THAT OFFERS CONDITION DAMAGE!?!?! SERIOUSLY!

If anyone has been successful in creating an uncommon build, please feel free to share!

Stealing useless? In PvE maybe.. But in PvP set up for 3 initiative on steal, might, vigor, fury, swiftness, 2 boons stolen, 1 sec daze, and dmg + heal on steal every 20 seconds by going 30 into that line. Also you’ll have a huge initiative pool and dmg per initiative.

What mostly bothers me is condition damage in that line, I lose 300 stats of something
else for 300 condition damage.

Venoms are fine in their current position. Venoms benefit a lot more from condition duration than they do from condition damage, which makes them usable for both condition builds and direct damage builds.

Traps are pretty okay in 1v1 unless they get dodged, which puts them on their long
cd without contributing to anything. In 1vX they only do good if 2 targets step on them at the same time.. They could certainly need a duration they stay up after triggered, and lower cds, and possibly some buffs like adding a couple of stacks of bleeds and other things.

Firstly, here’s a good way of setting up gear without ascended items,
gaining a good balance between damage and defense:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAsIAA-jEyAYrAm8UWzeCithioxqXwUlCp6yI7NKiWNA-w

And here’s a way with full zerker ascended items:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAsIAA-jkxAorAm8UWzeCithioxqrxUuER1A-w

Simply because the stats per crit dmg ratio is different depending on pieces,
so going with crit dmg on wrong pieces when trying to build defensively
will result in a stat waste.

To shape gear further you need to decide what build and playstyle you want.

Some examples, and I’m aware that 10 points are lacking from some of them,
simply cuz they can be placed anywhere depending on what you want or find
yourself needing of.

0/30/30/0/0 – Stealth Build
0/30/0/30/0 – Acrobat Build
0/30/0/25/15 – Acrobat with good initiative management.
0/20/30/20/0 – Hybrid Acro/Stealth
10/30/0/0/30 – GC trickery steal build
30/x/x/x/x – Annoying swordsman

Example of playstyles:
Daze lock, evade spam, teleport spam, or all 3, cond duration (annoying swordsman).

There are also some guides here in the forum if you don’t mind searching for a bit.
But beware that some might be outdated.

Highly skilled D/D eles and bunker D/D eles wont in normal cases die to thieves.

My tactics mostly:
First dodge ride the lightning, then I walk away watching the ele
smash is face in the keyboard, I start dpsing the ele with the shortbow,
shortbow will let you easily evade any extra attacks and cripple him and
he’ll lose health steadily, the ele will be forced into water and heal up.
And the fight will be reset from the eles part, with water attunement on cooldown.
Usually then I do my best to try burst them down during these 10-15 seconds,
Since I use D/P I will be able to keep the ele blinded and land 2 backstabs along
with some auto attacks. And as he’s about to switch to water attunement again,
I put basilisk up and shadowshot and heartseeker the ele if low hp,
and head shot once the stun ends to prevent or interrupt any heals.
followed by another heartseeker or shadow shot since they usually
are keeping you chilled.

Otherwise, my best suggestion is to simply leave them if you aren’t prepared
to fight for a longer fight.

Why not make block/aegis only work when players strike from in front?
In my mind it only seems logical that you can’t block someone who hits you in the back.
This would lead to a reward for a good blocker, as you won’t be able to mindlessly
smakitteno your block and stand around like a braindead baboon.

And no, a mechanism like this would leave thieves with only auto attack,
or other non stealth options. Since backstab would be fully unreliable
and making a build based around backstab would only lead to delayed dmg
and long fights and too much time in stealth.

Interesting topic. I’ll add some things that seem poorly implemented/unintended.

Last Refuge triggering in the middle of the daggerstorm,
during shortbow trick shot, while pistol projectiles are mid air, and while
grunk stolen from engineers does damage, and in the middle of melee auto attack
chains. Which is causing reveal.

Channeled attacks tracking and damaging the thief while in stealth.
Fully interrupting the skill putting it on its full cooldown would be wrong though,
but something like a cooldown based on how long he used the ability.
If he was channeling for ½ its duration, then ½ cooldown.

Disabling shot sometimes bugging and keeping the thief on spot,
noticed it occurs more often while evading warriors bulls charge and similar things.

Lack of viable build variations.

P/P – I think dual wielding pistols should be made independant and the first
3 skills redesigned.

And feels like they didn’t really thing through the recent buff to blind.
Right now it works as an AoE aegis, ofc condition removal removes it,
but it got way too strong, especially with thieves high access to blinds.
It was already strong as it was pre-buffed.

Recent initiative increases on S/D, and the stunbreaker removal from Shadow Return
made the weapon set less playable for other than high initiative regen builds,
Adding to the lack of viable builds even more.

Firstly, I’m no expert on venom share builds, I think most of them are made for
condition dmg and healing power(?), but I prefer direct dmg when attacking zergs with SB.

So made this build because I was bored.
And it looks pretty interesting from my point of view. It’s untested
and I have no clue if it’s viable, so I’ll post it anyways to see what you
other thieves think.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQFAVlYmaPXaS1E+5EB3DjC1nqz4m2s/AXB-jUyAYLAiAQyTZN7JIWzKiGreBTVKkqLjs3oIa1CBMaBA-w

Pros:
Sharing venoms to nearby allies granting them lifesteal and might.
Perma swiftness + AoE swiftness every 15 seconds from the heal.
Decent defensive stats.
Evasive with vigor every 15 seconds from heal and endurance return on dodges.
Poison field and AoE damage from the shortbow.

Cons:
low crit dmg
low access to stealth
low initiative regen
No access to fury.
No condition removal.

Left 2nd weapon set empty, but preferably D/P for escaping or an other
weapon set with access to stealth.

Wolfe.3097:

nice builds, ive considered hidden killer over executioner, the ability to ALWAYS crit from stealth is super nice, does it outweight executioner? not sure cuz when you do crit with executioner it hits harder, and your attacks outside of stealth will hit harder after that 50% mark.

It’s honestly hard to say which is better.

Going with executioner would however make you rely a lot more on crit chance,
not really a problem though. :p
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlUm6OXcy5E/5Ex2je6Tey9woKtpeFILA-jE0AYrkhvEEpIAkFIiAY2DK9psmADYhrIas6FMVZSVuBS7CbwFk9GIujsKEwoFA-w

I’m rolling with this one, I really enjoy it for longer fights.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlYm6OXcS5E/5ExmieuTuHG1pNtTBWtKA-j0zAYLioRCCAZBiIAm9gSfKrJwA2GCbfYIa6FMVZSVuBS7CbwFk9GKrCBMaCA-w

And when I’m in the mood for cracking nuts:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlUm6OXcy5E/5Ex2je6Tiy9woKtpdFuKA-j0zAYrkhvEEJIAkFIqAY6bRrJwAWcLiGreBTVmUlbg0uwGcBZvRSdHYSBExYA-w
Not really good for other situations than when sneaking up on someone 1v1.

Mug deals okay damage, I’ve noticed many times, especially with the nutcracker build
that the difference between life and death for my opponent was these 2k damage
mug deals. But I prefer being able to use steal while in stealth or save it for mid-fight
where these 2k damages don’t matter much.

CrAzY.3275:

I carry d/p but i refuse to rely, or obsess over blackpowder, heartseeker spamming as many thieves do. That being said I do agree with I should have stealthed, I rushed too much

This, pretty much. You rushed when you shouldn’t have and didn’t rush when you should have.

Low heal uptime and you should have kept a better eye on your enviroment.
Never played mesmer, but I take it he was playing a phantasm build,
in which he sacrifices other things for making the phantasms strong.

This mesmer actually looked a lot easier than shatter mesmers were a while back.

lol @ the title

Yeah, should still work, doesn’t remove the stoned effect though, it needs to wear off
after using shadow return.

Azingly.2064:

Thanks everyone i have actually been watching yishis videos and checking out his build. I am confused whether to use beserker exotics or beserker ascendeds. Can anyone clarify? Also, where does the damage from dp come from. Is it backstabe or auto attaacjs?
Thanks

Here’s some comparisons between the two, and main prioritys etc..

Backstab is top priority in both D/P and D/D, Auto Attack is second priority,
it’s important to keep high uptime on both to keep pressure.

Heartseeker also serve as a top priority against targets with around and below 25% health.

Blackpowder>Heartseeker and Cloak and Dagger serve as fillers when obtaining stealth. Cloak and Dagger deals more dmg than heartseeker deals on targets above 50% hp, and about same on targets below, on 25% and lower heartseeker deals more.

D/D has the advantage of being more initiative friendly, allowing the thief
to pick up other traits and utilities, granting more damage or more survival through
other ways from these.

Blackpowder>Heartseeker takes a bit longer to pull off than simply CnD,
and is easier to interrupt since the Smoke field is a warning sign, and any
ranged interrupt that hits the thief while inside BP or mid-air with heartseeker
will block the stealth.

Shadow Shot serve best as a gap closer and may replace backstab if you’ll be
unsuccessful pulling one off. (chasing targets for too long will allow them to easily
outlast your dps.)

You should upgrade all your equipment to level 80 exotics asap.

The damage difference between D/P and D/D is low,
while the survival difference is high.

D/P however is a better option when roaming, since you can stealth on demand
escape zergs and pick fights. and the blind combo field is your best friend
and allows you to freely melee autoattack targets within its zone.

Blackpowder> 1 – 1 3/4 auto attack chain, followed by a heartseeker and backstab from behind.

Shadow Shot is the best gap closer, heartseeker when the target is low health.

When you can’t catch up with your target while stealthed for a
backstab => Shadow Shot, if below 25% heartseeker.

Headshot to interrupt stuff.

D/P is just much more complete as a weapon set for pvp than D/D.

I suggest playing a 0/30/30/10/0 build, with init regen while in stealth and 2 init
when using a skill that stealths you, with this you can perma-stealth,
both are picked up from from shadow arts.
Hidden Killer from 30 critical strikes, and 50% movement speed while in
stealth(acrobatics) if you don’t use Signet of Shadows.
And Infiltrator’s Signet to give a small buff to overall init regen.

Once you begin to learn what you you want from your build, you can
modify your build further and personalize it.

I also suggest that you pick up 14-15k hp and and ~1400 toughness.
Chest, Legs and Helmet are the best slots to go with Soldier or Knight equipment.
While Shoulders, gloves, boots and jewelry are best as valkyrie and berserker.

Here’s some improvised ideas that imo would improve the thief for the future.
Not changes we likely would see, but changes at least I would like to see
to increase build variety.

Currently thieves rely too much on Grandmaster traits, to maintain
enough dmg or surv to kill other players than full glass cannons before other
players kill them. And with a lot of dmg nerfs since release, we rely on these grandmaster traits even more, since we were never given something to make up for the dmg loss..

I would want to see changes like Hidden Killer moved to Master,
and possibly the crit chance from it nerfed to ~40-60% instead of 100% to
balance it out a bit. D/x relies way too much on this trait for leaving it out.
Other classes I’ve played have the traits they rely most on with their weapon set
spread all over over between adept and grandmaster in their dmg lines,
while thief benefits most from grandmaster.

Shadow Protector 10 seconds regeneration instead of 5.

Last Refuge to queue up after your attacks, and interrupt skill usage for 0.5 seconds.
Instead of insta revealing when fighting something.

Assassins Signet changed to 20% damage on next 5 attacks, currently
the dmg increase difference between passive and active is way too low.

Traps need to become viable, and instead of being single target
(unless 2 ppl walk over them simultaneously) stay up for a bit to work
on additional targets.

Venoms need an improval too.

Basilisk Venom take advantage of stun increasing runes/sigils.
We have way too low access to being able to disable targets, like other
classes do with fears, knockdowns and stuns with weapon skills
for way higher duration than thieves do with their elite skill.
Sure, we have a pistol whip, and a couple of dazes, but I find them useless
compared to a whole kitten knockdown.

And I don’t see where the lotus poison nerf came from.
Maybe Gas Cloud, poison on steal, spider venom and a couple of body shots stacked
vulnerability too quickly. But well, just body shot spam stacks it even quicker.

And the cluster bomb nerf? o_O
It’s a kittening snail while it is in air which makes up for the high range.
Now it’s both a kittening snail and short range.

And now S/D has no way of countering D/D eles or engineers anymore.
And will end up perma knocked down on spot against them if the Shadow Return fails,
as it likely does, which usually means the thieves death in 3-5 seconds, unless in a
defensive build which gives up their ability to kill ppl for having enough defense to survive. We need the stunbreaker back or be given stability or protection without having to blow Elite Skills.

So guardians should be immune to D/x thieves main attack for
12+ seconds if they have access to 3 aegis?
And not to meantion the additional time when using shield skills
dodging and running away from the stealthed thief who tries
to perform a successful backstab with the already big chance to fail
against a skilled player.

Why not make backstab unblockable when striking from behind?
That would be perfect if this was implemented. Reveal when striking
from in front on a blocking target, and successful backstab when striking from behind.

1. D/D works good as a gap closer, death blossom for the dmg part, a good cripple,
CnD for stealth and untargeted heartseeker for getting away. A good option for roaming.

Shortbow has a teleport which is unaffected by immobilize/cripple/chill, a decent evade, decent AoE damage and a poison combo field. A good option for the tightest situations and zerg fights.
The choice is yours.

2. I prefer using Caltrops, Shadow Refuge and Shadow Step/Roll for initiative. Caltrops to be switched to other utilities based on situations, but if used right caltrops can deal devastating damage to melee players and smaller groups. Shadow Refuge simply because of its versatile usefulness. And 3rd, a stunbreaker to keep you alive.

3. Going with Deadly Arts instead of trickery, will grant you better damage with the extra bleed ticks, might and power. But will limit your choice of utilities towards venoms. Both trickery and deadly arts make viable builds. Trickery however has 3 extra initiative and more options for utilities, and can be slightly more easy to stay alive with.

4.
-Infusion of Shadow (SA V) is usually a must have for spam-to-win stealth builds, 2 less iniatiative every 4 seconds makes it a win of 5 initiative per 10 seconds, which is bigger than all the initiative regen skills together, unless in stealth with Patience (SA X).

-Cloaked in the Shadows (SA VI) and Shadow’s Embrace (SA IV) is a hard choice to make. With CitS you will be able to walk away freely after using your CnD, while
SE is superior against ranged condition heavy builds.

-Since P/D isn’t a monster on eating initiative Assassin’s Reward (Ac X) is less usefull than other traits. Fleet of Foot, Power of Inertia, Pain Response, Descent of Shadows are better options imo.

Other traits look perfectly good imo.

5. 6x 15% bleed is useless in 20 trickery builds if you always go with food. Since
it puts the bleeds at 7.75 sec as you can see in the build editor. You can either change all runes to something like runes of undead or whatever you prefer (you will have 6 second bleeds though). Or remove 2 runes, and put it on something else useful.
If you don’t always run with food, it’s fine to keep it at x6 15%

More of an overlook and explanation of everything concerning P/D rather
than a direct answer to your questions. But I hope you’ll find it helpful. :p

It has cast time, can be countered by knocking the thief out of it, also it limits
the thief to the zone where it is placed and allows players to easily
spam AoE’s in the zone.

I’d personally pick some other utility for most duels. And Shadow Refuge solely
for escaping, staying alive in bigger fights and saving downed allies.
However Shadow Refuge is somewhat nice with P/D for taking advantage
of the combo field for life steal and 2 stealths.

Most bad manner skill in a duel is Thieves Guild imo, it can ofc
be countered as well with projectile reflection and dpsing the
thieves down, but not really easy with them spamming blinds
and scorpion wire with a player dpsing your back.
And because of that will grant you a big advantage as a thief against some players.
But well, other ppl use their OP elite skills too in duels so why not.

I’d say Shadow Return should work like a teleport, as long as the distance
between the player and the Shadow Return spot is below 1200.
If above it should return the player 1200y and follow ground pathing.

God Of Fissures.8627:

If there is no pathing in the area OR the place you are attempting to shadowstep to cannot be reached by directly walking there, the shadowstep fails.

Yes, that’s how it’s supposed to be, but not how it works currently.

I can walk uphills but not shadowstep or shadow return uphills.
If the leaked patch notes are true, we will lie stunned/knocked down in the same spot
if the shadow return fails. And since it doesn’t take much for it to fail, it renders
the ability unreliable for its purpose.

You’ll always feel glassy in X/X/0/0/0 based builds,
and it’s not viable for longer fights.

You’d need almost every piece of your gear to be items with defensive stats
for you to achieve the toughness of casual SA builds.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAoImI2eAAAwTdGAAA9H4KA-jEyAYrAm9KiGbboIasKGMVZS1lRWfC4NKiWNA-w

and casual SA builds:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAoKmI2eAAAQUuHAQpNtrAWB-jEyAYrAm9EETfKrtB0+AR0oeBTVSEV7NKiWNA-w

(just gear setups, and didn’t spend much time balancing)

Learn to counter thieves, and they wont give you problems.

Same with Engineers, Elementalists, Rangers etc. unless you counter them
they keep you knocked down or immobilized on spot,
and killing you in 3-12 seconds depending on their builds.

Unlike these which have the potential to disable you during the whole
fight until you die, thieves lacks reliable disabling ccs and hits slightly harder with
their burst skills.

- Turn your front to their backstabs, they mostly are really predictable.
- When you’re low hp, the casual thief will usually spam Heartseeker,
counter it by blocking, do a swift knockdown.
- Dodging the thieves CnD will prevent him from going in stealth, CnD
is usually performed after every attack chain. Against D/D right after you
get Poison on yourself, against S/D right after you are immobilized from IS
or right after you are crippled or if they dodge in the middle of the attack chain
the first attack is usually CnD when they come near you.

- Look for Basilisk venom under the thieves buffs, if a thief comes runing towards you
with this, you most likely have a killspike incoming, and if the thief is lucky the killspike
deals about ~15k dmg if he’s succesfull.
Killspike: It’s done by Starting up CnD, pressing shadowstep/steal in the middle of channeling, stun from basilisk venom, stealth from CnD and backstab from stealth.
Cloak and Dagger can crit 3-5k, steal deals 2000-2500dmg, Backstab crits 7-10k (just wrote some normal values)

Counter it by predicting when he’ll steal (1200 range) and dodge.
If he’s succesful with stunning you, press your stunbreaker and perform a quick dodge,
run and turn your front towards the thief and his backstab will hit for crap dmg.

Now the most likely glasscannon thief is left vulnerable and has to retreat.

Use your über warrior mobility to hunt him down, knock him down, beat him,
kick him, crush him, eat his liver (Vitamin A is good for your health).

Just some suggestions, there are many ways to counter thieves, best thing to do
is just trying the class out and learn how it behaves.
And you’ll see that they can’t really reduce their damage more than it already
has been nerfed during the past months for the class to be viable.

I’d also like to suggest that you always read your Combat log when you have
these wtf moments.

Currently if you press 2 weapon-skills or utilities in a row,
they queue up and get performed in order, without any way
to break it, besides dodging to break channeling.

I’d like to suggest that this simply could be turned off,
or the time before the next ability gets queued up to be delayed.

Especially on thief this causes problems, because of initiative and
time until an ability starts casting combined with spammable abilities,
this creates great confusion for players, and may cause the player to
perform things like:
x2 CnD, x2 Heartseeker, x2 Trick shot, x2 Blackpowder, x2 Concussion Shot etc.
And a thief using 2 Cloak and Daggers in a row is usually a dead thief in tight situations.

Yes, activating signets turns off the passive for the cooldown duration.
The usage is fully situational.

Whether to use them or not is fully situational.
Trigger agility if you really need to dodge something,
Infiltrator’s Signet if you really need to break a stun,
Assassin’s Signet if you need to burst down something fast,
Malice if you are critically in need of a heal.

I was on my bunker thief once, 19k hp, I had stunbreaker on cooldown.
Then suddenly I hear the warrior charge sound behind me, I get knocked down,
the warrior pressed 1 button (hundred blades) and I died, wtf???

Warrior damage really??? with those knockdowns -_____________-

Could happen to someone finishing off a mesmer too if he ignores the warrior.

6k backstabs on npcs is normal while playing a viable build.

If you wanna go higher.
x6 Scholar Runes
x1 Superior Sigil of Force
x1 Superior Sigil of Bloodlust on 25 stacks
x12 Might from minor 25 trait in shadow arts
Assassins signet triggered

Go with at least ~100% Crit Damage and ~3500damage with food buffs and signet.
and 0/30/30/10/0

Even with this you might still hit between 5-7k on high armored targets.

Edit: Made an example build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlUm6OXcS5E/5Ey2jeqCJKuHGlS1UdFwKA-jkyAYLioRCCIZBiKAk9EETfKrF3ioxqXwUlER1ejioVLFQEjBA-w

Pewintodo.4138:

Ghostwolf.9863:

- Save dodges, blinds, aegis for their C&D
Besides these skill-based ways, there aren’t really any hard-counters, besides
their low ability to catch up with players who are running away from them.

Are you suggesting that thieves are slow? I thought all the Bookahs had died out!

Yeah, P/x are really fast with that 3 sec swiftness on dodge that ends right after the recovering from the dodge, or that 25% mspeed from signet of shadows which easily
is outrun by swiftness. And so heavy on gap closer with that 45 sec cooldown steal, and possibly 2 shadow steps from utilities. It’s so easy to catch Guardians, Elementalists, Mesmers, Engineers, Warriors, Rangers. wth was I thinking…

Only SB and D/x stands a chance to this über-mobility !

- Save dodges, blinds, aegis for their C&D
- Cleanse conditions after their sneak attack.
- Keep pets etc. on passive or better unsummoned.
- Stay away from mobs, don’t follow thieves who run towards mobs, kill nearby
critters with aoes.
- They also have low access to condition removal and stun breakers in most cases, to
maintain good damage. Which makes them highly vulnerable to Chill, Slow, Immobilize, Knockdowns and Stuns.
- Kite them with ranged weapon, if they can’t access stealth they can’t do nothing.

Besides these skill-based ways, there aren’t really any hard-counters, besides
their low ability to catch up with players who are running away from them.

Personally I found Necromancers, Rangers and Engineers with proper skill and builds
superior against this one. D/D Elementalists and Guardians unkillable.

Warriors and Mesmers are usually the ones who are easy prey
with their stereotypical builds.

Currently up on Elona’s Reach (EU)

I haven’t been running events in cursed shore for about a month now.
And as I need to buy the exotic soldier back, I decided to go there and try
take the temple of Grenth, I got about 15+ people there.

It went smoothly and normally, a couple of people were one shotted etc.
but we managed to finish off the priest.

The cleansing event starts, we kill some mobs..
1 minute later 2 champion spiders spawn, and like 120158120580 veteran spiders.
The whole group along with the npcs got kitten d ofc.

It’s like the game told us: You did a good job, now screw you, gtfo and never come back here! – So that’s what I’ll do until I see some change in this…

It’s like the game was throwing rocks at us, and since we survived,
instead of picking bigger rocks or hand grenades it went all the way to a nuclear bomb
to exterminate us and prevent us from taking the temple.

The temples were fine a month back, they were hard to take,
but if people really wanted to take them they would be able to
sooner or later every day.

After this I also checked and guested on other more crowded and
successful PvE servers than Seafarer’s Rest, and none of them had been
able to take Grenth either.. And this was during the evening on a Saturday,
when most people is supposed to be online.

Cursed Shore broken, yay…

Backstab build with very high dmg:survival ratio.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlUmaPXcS4E+5Ey2jeqCJKuHGlT1UdFuKA-jEzAYLioRCCAZBiKAm8UWzeBM9B1GKiGreBTVKkqLjs3oIa1SBExYA-w

It’s a lot up to you what you want from your builds.
This one focuses around CnD>Backstab>auto-attack chain>CnD>Backstab
And when the target is below 25% hp, Heartseeker and Auto Attack.

And when you fall low on health, you stay in stealth for a bit to regenerate health,
also staying in stealth will remove conditions and stuff, wont remove agony(fractals of the mists) but everything else.

And playing dungeons as uplevel is always a bit squishy, but once you reach level
80 have your aim set on 1.4k toughness and 15k vit if you wanna be able to resist
some damage without losing a big part of your own damage.

I made somewhat a “guide” here to which gear slots to not pick crit damage on
to gain a win in stats.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Optimal-cd-gear-for-high-dmg-def/first#post2095955

Nothing has really changed the past few months when it comes to leveling and PvE.
You can still go by the guides you find on the forum.
Writing down some options that I find good for leveling anyways.

Condition with Caltrops:
Pick up Caltrops as utility and place it in the center of your target,
caltrops on dodge from 10 trickery also grants you some additional bleeds when
enemies are chasing you.
Dagger Dagger. Death Blossom Spam.
Pistol Dagger. Cloak & Dagger> Sneak Attack > 2 Vital Shots > Cloak & Dagger and repeat.

D/D has high damage, great AoE, and doesn’t rely a lot on stealth, while P/D is single
target, semi-ranged and stealth based. P/D has superior survival, D/D has superior damage.

Power, Crit/Crit Dmg:
Sword Pistol (AoE), invest a bit on initiative pool/regen (infiltrators signet, quick recovery from acrobatics traitline 20, 15 trickery, 15 critical strikes.)
Blackpowder keeps you safe from attacks, pistolwhip attacks while dodging, you also
have access to a ranged interrupt.

Dagger Pistol (Single Target), invest on initiative pool like above, also aim for 30 Shadow Arts for the health regen trait, while at 10 points pick up 2 initiative on stealth. Blackpowder > Autoattack > heartseeker before the smoke field ends > Backstab from behind. Repeat. And Shadow Shot from range to bring you up to your enemy and save you some walking.

Shortbow, is also a good choice for leveling also it makes a good secondary weapon
for most builds. It mainly focuses around direct dmg with auto attack and clusterbomb, but also has decent condition dmg with spamming cluster bomb for
the shattering effect + the poison field, the mobility of infiltrators arrow is also worthwhile when traveling across the map, disabling shot gives you an additional evade.

Traits :
Offense:
Critical Strikes line if you are going for Direct dmg.
Deadly Arts & Critical Strikes for low survival and high direct dmg.
Trickery or Deadly arts are good choices for condition builds, Deadly Arts
for poison usage and condition duration. Trickery for caltrops on dodge and condition dmg. However the 3 extra initiative can be handy for many initiative based builds.

Defense:
Shadow Arts for stealth based builds, health regen while in stealth at 30 points.
Acrobatics, 15 points here returns 40% of the used endurance everytime you dodge.
for a non stealth builds acrobatics would be a bit more viable than Shadow Arts for making up the defense part.

evilapprentice.6379:

Even if the trait was “Randomly recharge 1 equipped utility” it would still be too random to be counted on IMO.

I’d find this pretty good actually. If it had a chance to recharge additional ones of the same type.

“Randomly picks venom 1, and in addition a seperate 33% chance for each additional venom to recharge.” High luck = all venoms including BV , bad luck = at least one venom besides BV.

Also it should recharge already recharged utilities, to still give it a 33% chance to give
nothing unless you have all utilities on cooldown.

D/D Elementalists, are annoying, if they successfully get a stun or knockdown up while
stun breaker is on cooldown, it usually takes about 3-4 seconds for them to kill me, while it’d take 30 seconds of constant dps to kill them..

Mesmers, with any good berserker builds, more survival than
thieves in short fights, with higher burst and higher overall dps.

Engineers with knockdown builds.
Necromancers.
Bunker Rangers.
Guardians with heal builds.

These have been my biggest problems no matter which
weapon set or build I’ve been using. ofc. there is a way or two
to counter these builds, but usually they have the upper hand if played right by
an average player.

After playing around a bit with different equipment builds.
I noticed how Critical Damage is a lot more expensive on some parts compared
to the others.

The stat costs

Helmet/Legs: 1% = 16
Rings: 1% = 16
Back: 1% = 16
Chest: 1% = 14.4
2H w: 1% = 14.2
Earring: 1% = 13.3
1H: 1% = 12.8
Amulet: 1% = 12.8
Shoulders/boots/gloves: 1% = 12
. .. Orb: 1% = 7
Exquisite . ..: 1% = 5

So counted that going for full cd would create a huge stat loss.
While taking crit dmg on Jewels and Orbs would create a stat win.

So how many stats is actually 1% crit dmg worth?
Compared to trait lines 1% is worth 10 stats, while compared to jewels 5 stats.
I suspect the high rate on jewels is made to make up for the loss due
to rounding on gear. But that doesn’t remove the fact that someone could
make use of this gaining a good defense with decent not too glassy dmg.

A raw unascended example build with 0/30/30/10/0 which uses what I explained:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYFmA2eAAAAw9AAAAorAAA-jkyAYLioxceATeKrZPo2wQ06DhVvgpKFS1lR2bUEtaA-w

2007 power (3007)
1706 precision (42%)
1480 toughness (2544)
1340 vitality (15 045)
87% crit dmg
——
6533 stats
87% crit dmg
——
And after a minor alteration with some slots:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYFmA2eAAAAw9AAAAorAAA-jkyAYLioxcuwayLhZPo2wQ06DhVvgpKFk1lJ1bUEtaA-w

2006 power (3006)
1722 precision (42%)
1464 toughness (2528)
1325 vitality (14 895)
86% crit dmg
—-
6 517 stats
86% crit dmg
a loss of 16 stats and 1% crit dmg
—-

Doesn’t look much, let’s put full berserker..

2039 power (3039)
1998 Precision (56%)
1216 toughness (2280)
1016 vitality (11 805)
104% crit dmg
—-
6269 stats
104% crit dmg
Compared to the build on top, a loss of 264 stats and a gain of 17% crit dmg, 1% = 15.5
—-

What would be the optimal build to you other thieves?

Modified and completed the top build for usage with Dagger/Pistol in case someone is interested.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlYm6OXcS5E/5Ey2jeqCJKuHGlT1UdFwKA-jEzAYLioRCCAZBiKAmzDYyTZN7B1GKiGreBTVKkqLjs3oIa1SBExYA-w

A more tanky alternative:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlYmiP3dS5E95ExmieuTuHG1pNtTBWtKA-j0yAYLioRKiQGZBiIAm+UWTgCithioxqXwUlDRWZi6OKiWtQAjWAA-w

Pros

• 2.5k armor.
• ~15k hp.
• 57% Crit Chance, 69% with sigil stacks, +7% from behind or sides and +%5 when above 90% hp.
• Above 90% crit dmg without ascended jewelry.
• Perma-stealth.
• Doesn’t rely on backstab, and relies more on keeping up constant pressure and blinds.

Cons

• Backstab doesn’t always critically hit.
• Lower burst and more sustained dps.
• Highly defensive bunker builds may be impossible to kill.
• Food is important to keep the build to its potential.

Backstab build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlUmiPXcS5E95Ex2jeuTiy9woOtpdFwKA-jkyAYLioRCiQGZBiKAm+KiGbboIasKGMlZg0nK1ejioVLFQELAA-w

Nearly 4k attack with full potential might and 25 sigil stacks..
114% crit dmg
~2.5k armor
~15k hp
39% crit chance, with 100% on backstab.

Would break sneak attacks if the opposing player can just circle around and spam weapon-slot 1 to unstealth the thief. Allthough it doesn’t apply reveal, it makes a hard hit on initiative and stealth-utility.

And since you choose to compare this game to WoW I can also point out that you can’t swing around freely in the air in WoW with other than ground targeted AoE attacks or AoE attacks that uses the player center, which of all have a limit like cooldown or rage etc.

I think however someone bashing something invisible, should be alerted that he’s
bashing something invisible. Like that it shows up dmg or simply “hit”
and lets weapon-skill 1 move on to next in its chain.

Blackpowder instead of Last Refuge could work, but would only work well with
dagger mainhand thieves. And wouldn’t save others than that from ranged
kill attempts.

Shadow Refuge would be broken, since the pulses wont be able to stack stealth,
which it mainly serves best purpose for, all this since the opposing
player is able to spam attacks in the area with a 100% chance to hit the thief.

Deep trickery is useless for other than condition thieves.
And I would personally not want to see a decreased initiative usage on Infiltrators Strike and Shadow Return in balancing perspective, neither for cluster bomb..
Increased initiative usage on Heartseeker would create havoc for d/p thieves, would also ruin all other usages of
Heartseeker, and would strain thieves ability to execute low health targets.

“Put all your points from Critical Strikes to Trickery np! You will get plenty of condition dmg and lower steal duration for your D/D and D/P crit dmg build! And lose all other useful traits!”

As your intentions may be good to increase counterplay against stealth
and severely reduce the offensive way of using 2 2 2 2 2, this is not the way.

Here you go, a solid argument that critically strikes your groin.

A very basic glass cannon D/D build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlUmaNXcy7E/5Ex2jeuTe6VgsaPupNbJA-T0Ag0CnI4SxljLDXSuscNKYZxBiZBPIA

With 25 BL stacks, 5 might, the base HS dmg is 2347 dmg on targets below 25% hp
the 58% crit dmg puts its critical damage at 208% base damage, 4937.92 crit dmg.
(since base crit dmg is 150% afaik)

Then from traits, runes/sigils these percents:
4937.92 : 5% + 5% + 5% +10% + 10% + 10% + 20%

246.8 + 246.8 + 246.8 + 493.7 + 493.7 + 493.7 + 987.5 = 3209 + 4937 = 8146crit.

Activating the Assassins Signet.
4788 : 5% + 5% + 5% + 10% + 10% + 10% + 15% + 20%

239.4 + 239.4 + 239.4 + 478.8 + 478.8 + 478.8 + 718.2 + 957.6 = 3830 + 4788 = 8618crit.

This formula looks pretty accurate to me, just a theory though since I have no clue
about how these percents scale. And this is on 2600 armor.

Yep, from temples in Orr and from WvW.

If you roll a backstab build it may be nice to go with some Valkyrie or Cavalier pieces too.

The idea is good.

As long as the player being pulled can decline the pull to avoid noob usage and trolling.
Maybe through the activation key? Though I have a feeling that would be hardcoded
on engine level to add.

Nope, the trait increases Poison duration.
Which is a seperate effect under the category of conditions.

Basilisk Venom, also has its own effect which isn’t counted as a stun,
for other than stun-breaking purposes.
So unlike daze and normal stuns, the sigil of paralyzation doesn’t extend it.

Thief doesn’t have any traits that stack Burn/Bleed on critical strikes.
Which makes Carrion superior to Rabid. It could however work
to go full rabid as well, since the high crit chance would make up for the lost power,
though you would have a lot lower health pool.

If I were you I’d save the laurels to buy pieces with crit dmg for future builds
or use them for other characters.

Pistolwhip:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsaVlYmCP3dS4E+5Ex2jeqTe6pgsjtTBXlPA-jwyAYLioRCCIZBiQAk9Y0YTfAVtioxqWwUlCp6zI7OKiWtQA6WAA-e

I’d try something similar to this.

Balanced stats towards maintaining high defense while keeping high damage.
1402 toughness, 16 545 hp, 2970/3220 ap, 54% crit chance, 90% crit dmg. With food. :p
Fully without ascended jewelry, which would boost it even more.

Would need to play it for a while to optimize it any further.

Something to think about though is that non stealth builds have few options for
condition removal. This one only has Pain Response (and signet of agility),
Personal choice of runes and sigils could boost that.

Alternatively I would move 10 points from trickery to acrobatics for Quick Recovery
which also would put your hp at 17.5k, or 5 points for the 10% dmg increase when endurance isn’t full.

Steinpilz.5078:

I just cannot decide, I like Shadow Shotbut I also like Pistol Whip.
What is your opinion?
Somehow I got the impression that with Pistol Whip my character auto-evades, making her unhittable….

Yep, that’s correct, Pistol Whip keeps you evaded for it’s duration.

However, the decision depends on what style you like the most.
S/P relies highly on shadow steps and evades.
While D/P relies on stealth and successful backstabs,

PvE – S/P
WvW – D/P
spvp – both should be good, though S/P is based around minimum stealth
and helps you keep capture points contested.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlYmiP3dy5E95ExmieuTuHG1pNtTBWtKA-jAyAYLiox0HRGbCEqqVENW1CmqkIq2bwoV7OAECY0CA-e

Check this one out, on thief it doesn’t pay well to go for a lot of defense.
But this one is pretty tanky anyways.

Some modifications that would make the traps feel more worthwile,
and even though these buffs, the traps would still not feel good enough to be worth
filling an utility slot for. Also I’d like to see a master perk for prolonging the
duration of the traps uptime effect, preferably in 10 trickery.
And also the traps should be slightly wider.

Ambush Trap: More hp to the thief spawned by it.

Tripwire: Should stay up for about 2-3 seconds after triggered to knock down additional targets that tries to pass it.

Needle Trap: Should immobilize and poison when triggered, and for 6-8 seconds afterwards cripple and poison additional targets that walk over it.

Shadow Trap: When triggered it should make you able to shadow step to its
location rather than target, should ignore pathfinding (like mesmers port),
longer uptime on the shadow pursuit.

We actually have more ways than any other class to counter our own class.

BP counters Backstab.
Headshot and Tactical Strike counters BP>HS
CnD counters stealth, if you are able to predict the thief
Our high evasion counters CnD and pretty much everything else.
Clusterbomb counters Shadow Refuge
Shadow Refuge counters Shadow Refuge
etc.

The “new” dodge spam build that many thieves started playing with is a
bigger issue when it comes to countering than what stealth builds are.

I think the current one is pretty fine as it is.

1/2 bar = x1 C&D, x1 Infiltrator’s Arrow
3/5 bar = BP + HSx3
etc.

Nothing more to it, no numbers to read, no halved diamonds to get confused about.

I think though, they should add more options to customization of the UI,
like increasing the size or moving things, like these diamonds, conditions, boons etc.

Escthiil.3210:

Definitely agree that the current design is a huge crutch to thieves with a lower skill level that simply spams. The game should encourage more counter play. This will give thieves a higher skill cap as good ones need to be masters of timing. I mean honestly, it’s not even hard to break the aegis before you proceed.

And it is not even hard to apply aegis when the thief stealths.

And to break it and keep the same survival level, the thief is forced
to outwait stealth, break aegis and restealth.

And with 3 possible ways of activating aegis, this creates a
gap of 12+ seconds before the thief is able to perform any decent damage,
against the class that takes least damage as it is.

The thing is, backstab is the only powerful skill a backstab build has.
Warrior for instance can clunk out 3 times more damage by using all
of his weapon skills then what a thief can do with 1 backstab and heartseeker spam to 0 iniatiative.

Edit: was refering to GS warriors.

Though every other class in the game doesn’t rely on any of these cooldown
based attacks as much as thief does on stealth and backstab.

If Aegis would reveal thieves, the player with aegis is immune against stealth attacks
for Aegis duration + 3/4 seconds reveal. That would force the thief to not attack at
all, and wait out stealth, and remove the aegis with one 700 dmg auto attack,
and restealth, and the player puts Aegis up again.
So basically, if a guardian would have 3 access to Aegis, this would stack
3 times of stealth durations before the thief is able to use his main damaging ability.
So immunity against stealth attacks for 14+ seconds (Rough number, included time to restealth, stealth outwaited/revealed etc.)

Counterplay? maybe. But it would leave the thief only to Auto-attack and Heartseeker(which ppl want a cd on as well o.O)

Currently, true counterplay is to use Aegis when the thief is about to CnD and that’s it.
So it’s unskillful play from the guardian side to put it up while the thief is in stealth, if not using it to avoid the backstab along with dodges and turning the front towards the thief or running away from the slow stealthed thief.

Travlane.5948:

shadowstep breaks stealth…idk y….but not shadow return or any of the eothers

Visual bug as far as I’m concerned. :p