Guild Wars 2

so we are blue this week huh? wonder how many ET tower/keeps I will have to try and enter or escape into before that actually sinks in.

Travlane.5948:

Gungnir Grimm.7123:

Dasorine.1964:

Auesis.7301:

I think they just meant the Signets with statistical bonuses ie. Power/Precision etc. SoM doesn’t really apply there. Same with SoS. I’d eat my hat if it became 50% passive speed…

If it did, you’d still be capped at 33% most likely :P

yeah, but in combat it would be insane since the cap is 133% of out of combat speed, so it would be like our speed in stealth trait.

i think its only 50% out of combat speed. bc of the thieves skill. it wont stack with anything else. basically i wasnt going 200% at all.

by 133% I meant 133% total not 133% above normal speed.

Dasorine.1964:

Auesis.7301:

I think they just meant the Signets with statistical bonuses ie. Power/Precision etc. SoM doesn’t really apply there. Same with SoS. I’d eat my hat if it became 50% passive speed…

If it did, you’d still be capped at 33% most likely :P

yeah, but in combat it would be insane since the cap is 133% of out of combat speed, so it would be like our speed in stealth trait.

eh, I tend to avoid d/p myself. I just don’t find it that fun, so I will let someone else who actually uses it advise you on that one.

sigil of agony on the other dagger will give your DB an extra tick, and geomancy is another nice option since it is a PBAoE that gives 3 stacks of bleed on weapon swap.

it depends on what you want to do, S/P works great for WvW and PvE. as far as a more balanced gear, getting 30-40% crit chance with zerker then using Valkyrie or PVT gear can give you a good amount of survivability, with valk not giving up too much damage, and PVT gear making you much more resilient while maintaining decent damage. since a thief has somewhat plentiful acess to fury through Thrill of the Crime and Furious Retaliation, we can keep fury up enough for the crit chance loss to not matter that much. if you are going to use S/P outside of PvE, keep in mind it is based around control and mobility rather than the outright damage of the dagger main hand. one of my favorite WvW s/p builds is 10/30/0/15/15. you can move incredibly fast with a shorbow in your second slot, control and pressure opponents with S/P as your main weapons, and drop BP on downed opponents for easy stomps. also keep in mind steal and shadow step can be used while channeling PW to keep an enemy in range if necessary. also, PW should be used when you need the stun, evade, or the hit volume on top of damage, not just for raw damage since it can be moved out of and your auto attack chain does as much damage. as an example, is that warrior starting up 100 blades on your downed buddy? pre-cast PW then steal to the warrior for a nice damage spike and and interruption on that meanie. while headshot would work too, PW is nice in that it mixes the interrupt in with an evade and damage.

there is no hard cap on crit damage to my knowledge.

ens.9854:

I propose ICBMs!

I propose orbital bombardment satellites!

the most efficient builds are D/D with condition damage gear and caltrops, so you can death blossom and kite all day, and S/P which can use Black powder and pistol whip to blind/evade tank all day long. both make good use of signet of malice, caltrops, and points in acrobatics. put points into trickery and acrobatics for DB spam (and deadly arts helps too, but only in 10 point increments to get extra DB ticks) and critical strikes and acrobatics for S/P. both can take on groups of opponents with ease, so chose your favorite and go crazy, but be aware the DB build has an easier time of it against enemies of higher levels since bleeds don’t glance.

Edited: spelling errors and the like fixed

RyuDragnier.9476:

Ignore him. The only thing that really makes a thief powerful IMO is how stealth works in general. I’ve fought thieves without them using stealth before, and while the fight wasn’t easy, it wasn’t painstakingly hard either. Add stealth into the mix though, and the fight gets thrown in favor of the thief easily. So you fix how stealth functions, possibly with all evaded and blocked attacks forcing you out of stealth, and with out of range attacks and missed attacks that were not caused by an evasion not take you out of stealth, and you fix the problem. Too bad that’s probably a coding nightmare…

actually, with the way that venoms and such work, it probably wouldn’t be too hard to do it. however with the buggy past of venoms, and anets speed of bug fixing, it could potentially break the thief for a few weeks.

just a few points from my experience, as far as stealth condition removal, without traiting into shadow arts for it, our condition removal isn’t that great without a sword main hand. that means defensive thieves can often deal with condition when the GC thieves cant. also there are professions even better at handling conditions, such as necros who can fling conditions back at people, use them to heal, or convert them to boons. they may not be able to cleanse as often, but they can have a much greater effect when they do.

as far as bp/hs stealthing having no counter, immobilizes can stop HS from reaching the field, and I have seen people who are starting to learn to knock back/immobilize thieves when they see BP go off, making the thief blow 6 initiative with no gain. it is harder to counter than CnD certainly, but it does cost more initiative and doesn’t posses the same burst capability as off hand dagger.

lastly, your proposed initiative cost increase for BP would be horrible for s/p builds. they use it for defensive purposes (mostly in PvE I admit, but ever see a haste HS spam thief try and kill someone through BP?) and stomping. it is a common problem when balancing the thief though. almost everything meant to counter a build perceived as OP so far has hurt builds that use the same ability in a different way far worse.

and yeah, P/P needs some love, though that is all in the pistol main hands court. pistol off hand is great as is.

well, for we also have initiative as our class mechanic. we are the only class that can spam abilities, if all the complaints about how op HS spam is have escaped you. we can do things like evasion spam with certain builds that other classes have no hope of doing because of our flexible resource system. the problem comes when people ignore initiative because it is in the background. if you main a thief it is far less obvious than other mechanics, but no less powerful. also, as for modifying steal “only mug gets chosen” is full of crap. I know of several builds that take bountiful theft and/or thrill of the crime. honestly the only steal trait I never see is the daze on steal from 30 points into trickery.

the problem there comes in WvW. since Anet considers it PvE for balance purposes, that 200 life steal becomes insane, especial in combination with things like dagger storm, cluster bomb, and high hit volume builds like s/p and p/p. cluster bomb for instance can get 15 hits in one shot if you detonate it and all 3 bombs hit the max targets, that is an extra 3k damage over all targets, and as much healing. also, venom share builds would go crazy with it. between the venom life steal and the signet’s you could heal for 3.6k from a single P/W if you only hit one target, while in evasion and controlling your target. I think we would be better off just increasing SoM and our other healing methods scaling with healing power.

Lyonell.1753:

Hum, personally I always played thiefs and warriors in every game out there, from MMOs to table top games, now in none of those games do a thief obtained so much stealth advantage as they do in this one. Thiefs in GW2 got about 70% stealth time, this makes them almost unkillable as they can simply run away when needed, stealth to finish opponents off and so on it goes. If we take any other successful mmo, thiefs/rogues were only allowed into stealth when they were out of combat with a midium/high cool down force stealth skill, in GW2 a thief can go into stealth with almost every utility many weapon skills and even one of their heals. Now how is it that you say not going into stealth whenever you want is game breaking when the only thing preventing you from doing so is lack of initiative and bad positioning at most?

where are you getting the 70% stealth time and stealth making thieves unkillable from? a thief without 15 points in SA can’t have even 50% stealth up time while actually attacking an opponent after the nerf, and it was only 50% before. even with the 15 points into shadow arts it is 50% not 70%. if a thief is invisible 70% of a fight it isn’t a fight they are winning. most thieves wont even stay in stealth the full duration unless they are deep into shadow arts for it’s benefits. they will back stab/ tactical strike/ sneak attack as soon as possible to maximize damage even if they are invested in it unless they do need the healing/cleansing. as for running away, stealth isn’t really necessary for that, my s/p thief can out run eles without stealth. and for stealth finishers, they leave the thief vulnerable to being nuked, as if he stealths near a downed enemy/ally you know where he is at, you can nuke the living crap out of him or just knock him back. also, not almost every utility can take us into stealth, we have SR, blinding powder, and one trap that has to be triggered first for direct stealths, and one smoke combo field we have to leap/blast in. as for weapon skills we have CnD, which eats half of base initiative, and black powder with leap or blast finishers which eat even more. also, even the revealed nerf was reverted, there is still 3 seconds of it. he wasn’t asking for no revealed, as you seem to think, just a undo of the nerf. please learn a bit more about the class before talking about it like you know it.

Edit: sorry for the sudden rant, just tired of explaining the class to people who aren’t entirely clear on how it works, who insist on talking about it like they do.

I use s/p for most everything, in PvE between PW and black powder is is very survivable and capable of hitting multiple targets, in WvW it lends itself to group play, with black powder for stomps and a ranged daze for interrupting, on top of pistol whips ability to drop stun after stun on targets. it also works quite well with venom share builds given the high hit volume of PW. the build can also easily be made insanely mobile for scouting and harassing seeing as there isn’t near as much temptation in shadow arts so you can drop points in acro and trickery and outrun everything. also, infiltrator’s strike. its more of a control/survivability build, which tends to make it less popular when thieves lean so easily to burst. that said, I don’t thing reverting the PW nerf would be so bad given the lifesteal food and quickness nerfs. another point is it isn’t as good at 1v1s and 1v2s as D/D and D/P builds, but when running with a group the control it can unleash is absolutely amazing.

honestly if you are going 25 points into SA you may as well go the full 30 for the healing. also, in pvp using hidden killer for small groups and while roaming will be beneficial as it ensures the backstab crit, and you can switch to executioner for large fights and burst down low health targets. also, as much as some people love it, I find SoS a bad habit for stealth prone builds, SoA will give you extra dodge rolls and a condition cleanse, and you can take the 50% movement speed in stealth trait to help with positioning. it also allows for better sprinting if you are willing to burn dodge rolls to catch a running target.

0/30/30/10/0 and 10/30/30/0/0 are both great shadow arts BS builds. may want to use d/p if you do any sPvP though, as the ability to stealth without a target and BP stomps are more valuable there than the target and ally rich areas of WvW and PvE, where the extra damage from CnD and the bouncing snare from dancing dagger can be more helpful.

didn’t see it mentioned so in case I am not actually blind, the two common leveling builds you may want to use, at least for a while, are double daggers with condition damage gear. you use death blossom and the caltrops utility to bleed and kite enemies to death. with signet of malice as the heal you can drop massive groups of enemies with almost no risk. the other is sword/pistol with power gear. using the weapon sets black powder and pistol whip abilities you can blind and evade tank most damage while using the fact the swords auto attack hits multiple targets to take down groups of enemies. once again signet of malice comes in handy, as does caltrops (more for the hit volume than the bleeds with a power build, but the bleeds will still hurt.) as for traits, both tend to use acrobatics for survivability, with points in crit strikes for S/P for damage, and points in trickery and deadly arts for D/D to enhance condtion damage and duration. though only put points into deadly arts in 10 point increments, as that is when death blosssom gets it’s extra ticks of damage. (it gets one every 10% duration, the pistol bleeds get one every 25%)

Wiser with Age.3714:

The free caltrops from dodging got nerfed some, if you were using that trait. There was a universal nerf to Quickness, which reduced it from +100% speed to +50% speed. Then to deal with the PvP / WvW stealth builds, the Revealed debuff from attacking out of stealth was increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.

The Revealed nerf might be restored in the near future for PvE only, but no one knows for sure. Other than that, there were numerous tweaks made in the past months. I remember S/D players complaining about their spec getting hit at some point, but I can’t recall whether it was Combo #3 or some other issue.

the S/D nerf was to tactical strike’s duration in PvP. I think that was before he left though. also, you reminded me, dodge roll caltrops have a larger area, and the caltrops utility took a 5 second duration nerf from 15 to 10 second duration.

well, as far as changes, two major ones are revealed now lasts 4 seconds, and quickness took a 50% nerf in speed. I think the cluster bomb nerf was after you left or not but it took a 15% damage hit at some point.

the revealed nerf isn’t that bad in WvW and PvP to be honest, especially against an opponent who wont let you CnD them on revealed falling off every time. in PvE however it hurt like crazy for any build that used stealth.

valkyrie will serve you well if you want to keep as much damage as posible, power vitality toughness through dungeon or invader gear if you want a bit more survivability than valk offers. also if you are d/d or d/p or realy any weapon set that stealths often 30 points into SA really really helps survivability.

you do eventually get ways to get longer stealths than 3 seconds, but the point of stealth in this game is quick maneuvers. we dance in and out of stealth over the course of a fight. it can also be made (for thieves) to heal us, cure conditions and restore initiative. in PvE it isn’t that great unless you put points into shadow arts, 30 preferably which requires level 60.

for leveling dual daggers with condition damage gear and using death blossom and caltrops to bleed and kite things to death, or sword/pistol with power gear to evade/blind tank things are far more efficient than most stealth setups.

Edit: stealth is far more useful in WvW and PvP. it can be used to sneak groups to enemy siege, or avoid enemy zergs as example. it also confuses the crap out of people who don’t know how to react to it.

1 second on aplication with no ICD would make more sense to me. it would also allow you to spread it with venom share though, so that could be interesting.

for leveling, D/D conditions using death blossom, caltrops, and putting points into trickery, deadly arts, and acrobatics works great. you bleed and kite everything. the other common leveling build is s/p, where you use black powder and pistol whip to blind and evade mobs as you cut them down with AoE attacks. Signet of malice works great for both, as does caltrops since it procs SoM every pulse. shadow refuge is your friend for the channeled skill challenges, chest, and guarded resource nodes. thieves guild is a great elite for skill challenges against veterans, since they will blind, deal a good bit of damage, and take aggro on occasion.

for leveling a thief, d/d with caltrops and death blossom spam in condition gear and s/p in power gear using black powder and P/W are usually the fastest and safest ways to level. as far as projectiles are concerned, smoke screen and dagger storm both work wonders if you are having issues with them once you have access to those abilities.

if you want double daggers with survivability something like 0/30/30/10/0 with hidden killer and valkyrie armor or 10/30/30/0/0 with a mix of berserker and valkyrie armor both work great.

hidden killer builds for one, finishing high durability targets for another. take a hidden killer build with 30% crit chance as an example. the first 50% of the opponents health may drop fairly quickly with the back stab, making the fury come in for finishing the job with a 50% crit chance before going back into stealth to go after the next target. also, 30 shadow arts back stab builds may not go into trickery at all so it is a nice alternative. my S/P build uses both furious retaliation and thrill of the crime to maximize up-time so I can have more valkyrie gear equipped.

the problem is that the downed state for thieves is very polarized. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in PvP and WvW, but in PvE it is near useless. Anet is a lot less willing to separate skills for PvE and PvP this time around, so it will likely just be left alone, or made even better than it is for pvp by any PvE buffs, which will probably lead to nerfs making it even more useless for PvE and hurting PvP and WvW as well.

Leths.6751:

Hm, that seems like a pretty good choice for a tanky build, what do you think of going full zerker? Mainly a glass cannon spec with the survivability coming from evades and stealth, could you use the editor to make an example of a spec that could do that? Btw appreciate all the advice you’ve given me so far thanks alot

honestly just take roll for initiative and signet of agility, along side vigor on healing from acrobatics and the build you linked earlier will work for that. I will warn you though, full zerker on a thief is asking to be accidentally one-shot by someone at the first mistake. definitely not the easiest build to learn with.

it’s really up to you, though I would recommend not going below 40% crit chance. honestly if you want to add survivability to it hidden killer would help significantly as you wouldn’t have to worry about crit chance as much. then you could just add valkyrie gear till your crit chance dropped to around 30%. when your opponents health hits 50% you gain fury from one of your traits, and have a 50% crit chance for 10 seconds, which should be enough to finish them off. and even without that trait 30% enough for the last half of a fight with the amount of power that build has.

some valkyrie or soldiers will likely serve you better, thieves get a better return off of vitality than toughness, at least up to a point. also, you may want to use fleet shadows over power of inertia while you get used to position in stealth for back stabs. it also helps you run away, which is invaluable while you are learning.

there is the traditional 25/30/0/0/0 and just put the last 15 in acro or trickery. it is the glassiest cannoniest thing we have. there are also more survivable builds like 10/30/30/0/0 that heals and removes conditions while in stealth, giving it some improved staying power. there are hidden killer builds that rely on said trait to giveback stabs 100% crit chance so they can make great use of valkyrie armor, or just so they don’t have to hope they don’t have the odd non crit back stab. you do have to give up a 20% damage bonus on enemies below 50% hp to get it though. it comes down to how much glass do you want in your cannon.

Vitality is quite necessary for thieves if you want durability. toughness works better over time, but you need some vitality if you want to keep yourself alive through burst damage or condition enemies. if you have to chose between the two, vitality has the higher payout for thieves.
also, just as an idea you could take furious retaliation and thrill of the crime, have a base crit chance of 30-40% and make the rest of your gear power-vitality-toughness.

as for stats, my venom share setup uses clerics armor and weapons with soldiers accessories. mainly because of the wonky way in which leeching venoms works. for weapons that work with it, I like S/P for the added control and utility of the pistol off hand and pistol whips high hit volume for venom procs.

ok, a few things. with pistol dagger, you should really be 30 points into shadow arts since you stealth so much. it also doesn’t benefit much from the crit strikes tree. also, with the sigil of earth’s CD it isn’t that great for condition thieves. we don’t have any crits bleed traits like necros or warriors for it to synergize with, and we don’t need it to get a lot of bleeds stacked. carrion and apothecary are generally the best for P/D thieves depending on if you want to be more damage (carrion) or tanky (apothecary). power will show more returns on a condition build then precision since you need crit damage to make crits really shine. for runes, 2 afflicted, krait and centaur runes give you 45% bleed duration, then one sigil of agony in your weapons puts you at 55% giving pistol bleeds 2 extra ticks as they get an extra tick every 25% duration.

for might stacking the might on dodge trait works well with might on dodge food, and might on stealth from shadow arts. or for food you could also use veggie pizza to increase your bleed duration and damage.

also, the thing about P/D condition builds is they are about attrition. it really isn’t a great idea to try and hybridize them between crits and condition damage. you sacrifice way to much survivability for so little gained.

well, for dungeons I run s/p and short bow. black powder ruins normal mobs days, and pistol whip puts you into evade for part of it, so you can do a bit more face tanking than normal. making good use of dodge rolls and shadow steps is crucial for dungeon thieves. mixing some soldiers of valkyrie gear into your armor also helps. full zerker in dungeons takes a while to get the hang of without constantly floor tanking so ease into it if it is what you want to do. we may not have the damage of warriors but we do have some usefulness. SR SoA and caltrops are all great for group utility for instance.

that said we could definitely use some work on the PvE side of things, but we aren’t way to bad if we are careful.

honestly taking 10 out of trickery and putting it into SA would probably help your survivability if you still want to use P/D. also, a signet of geomancy on the off hand dagger can be useful. you can start out spamming DB, then weapon swap to bleed everything to the max, utility into stealth, then start the p/d rotation on your main target. when your initiative/cds recharge do it again. on the other hand, if you think you could do with less stealth, pick up 4 initiative on heal from trickery, and switch your heal to withdraw. the 15 second CD makes the on heal traits useable more often, and it acts as a longer dodge roll.

also, have you seen the evasion “bunker” build?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/PVP-bunker-dodger-build-v2-NEW-Vids/page/2#post1749240

shadow arts is still a great trait line, the nerf hurt it a bit, but more in pve than pvp/wvw. you should be fine with your old build.

seeing as the pistol bleeds only gain a tick every 25% bleed duration, more than worth it. so only the 25% 50% 75% and full 100% marks give those bleeds extra ticks. death blossom is every 10% if you use it as well.

1.) you aren’t missing anything by making your thief Asuran, so just play the race you like.

2.) sword/pistol with a focus on power and precision, and dagger/dagger with condition damage as a focus both work really well for leveling. sword/pistol uses black powder and pistol whip to blind/evade tank enemies, while dagger/dagger conditions uses death blossom and the caltrops utility to bleed enemies to death while kiting them. really though any weapon set you like works for leveling. those two are just considered the most efficient. as far as trait builds, if you are using power based attacks critical strikes is a good tree, and for conditions trickery. survivability comes from acrobatics and/or shadow arts. at first pick traits based on the stats you want, then at later levels focus on the major and minor traits you want.

3.) I cant think of any videos for PvE right now, but the people on the forums are quite helpful. just let us know if you have any questions we can help answer. some advice though, time your dodges, thieves cant take hits well at all. signet of malice works well while leveling if you pull big groups, as well as in combination with caltrops and dagger storm. shadow refuge is a really nice ability, so pick it up when you can. you can use it to harvest resource nodes or open chests while ignoring the big baddies that tend to guard the more valuable stuff.

Ozone.7315:

Hey guys, I started playing about a week ago so still a big noob, here are a couple questions for you guys, any help will be appreciated

1) Why do i keep hearing people saying leveling jewelry to 400 is a waste of time? whats soo bad about this discipline?

2) With the recent nerf to thieves whats a good and viable build with nice amount of damage level up from 20 to 60 (solo PvE and dugeons)

3) what trait tree should I max first to make PvE easier but without sacrificing much damage?

1.) as stated, ascended jewelry kinda screws the profession over.

2.) for leveling D/D condition damage with death blossom spam and caltrops, and S/P power/crit builds are still pretty much the most effective ways to level. for D/D conditions just stack condition damage, then bleed and kite. for S/P between black powder and pistol whip entire groups of mobs will never be able to hit you.

3.) the trait tree depends on the build. crit strikes tends to work best for power builds, trickery for condition damage builds, and acrobatics and shadow arts are great lines for survivability.

as far as strengths and weaknesses, thieves have incredibly high burst, high mobility, and plenty of stealth access. we pay for that in a few areas. we share the lowest base HP with Eles and guardians, with no real access to defensive boons, and our high burst can not be sustained, once we burn our initiative we have to recharge. most of our survivability is in not getting hit through evades and stealth.

classes thieves have a hard time against tent to be guardians, non GC warriors, and anything that is bunker built. the longer a fight is drawn out, the less likely we are to win. the general strategy for thieves is to burst someone down, get out to recharge initiative and hp then jump back in. some people build for more longevity, but it isn’t common.

as far as our builds, there is the infamous 25 deadly arts 30 crit strikes backstab build. it is a one trick pony that if the initial burst doesn’t kill its target it will most likely run away or die given equal skill. there are more balanced back stab builds, which can vary greatly depending on preference. some people invest in shadow arts for a backstabber that has much more longevity, some people take hidden killer in critical strikes so they can use valkyrie gear over berserker.

if back stab isn’t your cup of tea, S/D is quite fun. it is another stealth heavy setup, that dazes from stealth instead of dealing massive damage. it tends to have more staying power than BS builds due to the sword’s abilities, and it can rip boons right off a target without having to invest 20 points into trickery for bountiful theft.

there is also S/P, which is sadly under-used in WvW. if forgoes most stealth, and gains off hand pistol utility. you get a combo field that blinds every second for a short time with black powder, and a fairly cheap ranged daze. you also have pistol whip, which even after the damage nerf on it a while back hits hard enough if you can get all of it to connect, and puts you into evade for part of it. if you combine it with steal (especially with mug) you can teleport in at the end of the wind up and imedialy stun the enemy going into the evade/self root section of the skill and deal massive burst.

short bow tends to be our most used weapon for our second weapon set. it has massive mobility, and most of our AoE.

dual pistols have unload working for them, allowing quite good ranged burst, but other than unload, all the good pistol attacks are on the off hand.

for condition damage you can use P/D, which took a good hit with the latest patch, and the good ole D/D and short bow combo. P/D chains stealth to use the pistol’s stealth attack to stack bleeds, while healing in stealth. it is the hardest to kill thief out there. it also has trouble killing anyone who isn’t determined to go down fighting. D/D and shortbow is more of an AoE and area denial focused condition build. death blossom is far more obvious of and attack, but it is an Aoe, evade, long duration bleed attack.with 15 points in trickery you can get 4 off of a full initiative bar by using 3, stealing then using the 4th, putting up to 12 bleeds on surrounding enemies while being invuln for a good bit of it. both builds make good use of caltrops.

forgot about D/P until now. it uses black powder and heart seeker to enter stealth, and is quite powerful. howver, seeing as I Don’t really care for it, I will let someone else who has more experience with it explain that one.

running a 10/30/0/15/15 s/p & p/p for now. may try out a hidden killer build after they fix the bug.

the thing about S/P in pvp and wvw is it’s mobility and utility. you dont realy use PW for just the damage since after the nerf a while back your auto attack is as good as it for damage. it’s use comes in its hit volume, the stun, and the evade. if you have anything with quickness procs or haste on your bar, use it for damage in concert with that. also, because stealth is limited with the set, weapon swap often, preferably with a ranged weapon. IS in, PW, mug to them when they run out of it, shadow return then fight from range for the weapon swap timer. you can head shot whenever they start casting their heal if you know what to look out for.

as far as builds, I have seen and used a few, honestly I like 10/30/0/15/15 with S/P and short bow with dual pistols in my bag. traits are mug in deadly arts (will have to see how the potential nerf hurts it) quickness chance on crit and executioner from crit strikes, and thrill of the crime from trickery as preferred major traits, with the rest as whatever you prefer. if you just throw together your own, I would recomend at least 15 in acrobatics as a requirement. you can’t rely on stealth as much with S/P unless you have a dagger offhand with your second set so the extra dodging is invaluable.

well, we may be able to do it more often, but we are also more vulnerable while we do it. it is simply less powerful than stability and invuln stomps. things like the guardian down ability for instance still work on us while doing a stealth stomp. also, we may be invisible but most thieves are burst thieves and therefore quite squishy. any attacks on where we obviously are when we try it can quite often end with a downed thief showing up 3-4 seconds later instead of a dead ally. also, in the next major patch they have claimed that they will make it so that exiting stealth in any way will give revealed, so we will be vulnerable after doing it. also, CnD is 6 initiative, which is half of our base resource pool. even if traited to refund 2 initiative on stealth it is still 1/3 of it. we are burning potential damage, utility, or mobility for the security to stomp without a near certain chance of death in a group fight.

as a thief you have no choice but to rely on your mobility. try to stay on the outside edge of the brawl unless you are in the middle of bursting a target down, then get back outside with some form of shadow step or stealth or both. also, signet of malice can be a life saver in large fights. combined with caltrops or dagger storm it can pump out a ton of healing. if you are cluster bombing on top of the caltrops and occasional dagger storms even better. if none of that works for you, you may want to try to find a way to get 15 points in acrobatics. the extra dodges work wonders.

after maxing out critical strikes it is pretty much your preference. 15 into trickery for the extra initiative and thrill of the crime never hurts, and acrobatics is also quite useful if you need some survivability.

ok, a few things. first, thief and drawn out fights dont get along. at all. you pretty much have to be survivability focused to stay in a fight long term, so condition builds are the main option for just staying in the fight. as a burst thief you run in, burst someone down then make like a tree and get the crap out. you then recover initiative and hp and do so again. the longer a fight lasts, the less likely a thief is going to win.

something else to take into account is that vitality is better for thieves than toughness in most situations. this is due to the thief’s low base hp.

your current build is effectively the instagib back stab build, good against other GCs, the unaware, and the less skilled. it does have a higher learning curve against more durable targets. you may want to switch out sundering strikes with mug if you stick to that build. if you want survivability mixed into your build, you could take 15 out of deadly arts, and put it into acrobatics. you will gain some hp and be able to dodge more often. you could also put points into shadow arts to improve your stealth abilities and gain a bit of toughness. I can’t personally make myself put points into it unless I go a full 30 for healing while in stealth though.

as far as a second weapon, shortbow gives you much improved mobility, and AoE, dual pistols give you black powder and ranged burst, and sword/x gives you infiltrators strike and an auto attack that can hit more than one target, in addition to the off hand’s abilities. short bow is generally the favored second weapon for it’s AoE and massive mobility.

as far as the jobs you can do, roam and take supply camps, use caltrops, dagger storm, and signet of malice together to put a lot of pressure on zergs and then stealth/shadow step out. find weakened targets and rezzers and burst them down. stealth out to enemy siege and take it out. you can use shadow refuge to allow 4 other people to sneak up to the siege equipment with you. stealth rez downed players, and stealth stomp enemies.

the thief plays a lot differently than the necro, so it may take some getting used to. have fun, and just ask if you have any questions.

:Edit for over zealous censor

turning off auto attack fixes it from my experience. also, if you are auto attacking and then steal you will connect with steal and stealth before your shot hits, then the shot connecting forces you to drop stealth.

Red Falcon.8257:

Gungnir Grimm.7123:

many people still don’t try to CC or predict a thief’s movement and actions as they should. I still run into some who don’t seem to have any kind of defensive utility slotted. add to that glass warriors are still the most common from my experience and it is explainable.

that said, any warrior built even slightly defensively has a large advantage over burst thieves, they just are not as prone to do it as guardians, who find it far easier. given two equally skilled opponents in proper builds I find guardians and warriors my toughest opponents when I am in a burst build, and necro’s and guardians when I am in a condition build.

I’m actually near-full GC but I never lost to Thieves unless they got me totally from behind (lol) while EP was on CD and I wasn’t paying attention – but that maybe happened 2-3 times over my 1400 hours.
In any other case they will just CnD+Steal into 0 damage, I whirl for 10k and at this point they either:
- come out of stealth and be hit for 14k eviscerate + Rush(which follows stealth) if they dodge
- use shadow refuge and be hit for 10k+ while inside
- use blinding powder to continue stealthing and I Shieldblock until they unstealth
- try restealthing with CnD that I dodge, and finish them
- escape
S/D thieves I just Balanced stance their whole stuns and blam blam dead.

The only Thieves I feel forced to run from are P/D ones, they just troll you and heal up so it’s not worth the gamble for me.

yeah, I see an axe and shield on a warrior while I am in a burst build I go find a softer target. Also, I was talking about the average warrior I run into, which you are not.

it is actually quite viable in WvW, but between being tied with P/P for least acess to stealth and the PW nerf that happened a while back a lot of people write if off for anything other than PvE. that said it is still quite powerful, you still have IS and the sword auto attack, plus a ranged daze and the mighty black powder from the pistol off hand. PW can also still be useful, seeing at it has a short stun that can interrupt and puts you into a short evasion. It may root you but you can still steal to move while channeling it so if they run out of it in the wrong direction you can give them a nasty surprise. survivability can be an issue seeing as it doesn’t use stealth as much as other weapon sets, but 15 points into acrobatics and signet of agility go a long way to help you live. it is also quite good for soloing camps since the sword auto attack and pistol whip hit multiple targets.

another thing is you can fill the stealth hole with weapon swaps. open up with a back stab from D/D then switch to S/P to beat the crap out of them, then use black powder to stomp, or reverse it and switch to D/D then CnD when you need to disengage for a second or two to recharge. with ranged weapons you can IS in, PW or attack for a bit, use the IS return, and kite them while you wait for utility or heal CDs. the big thing is the set brings a lot of utility to the field from the off hand, and mobility from the main hand, so you have to make sure you take advantage of it.