Guild Wars 2

Sword/Pistol is a nice dungeon set (with Shortbow secondary), since you have access to Blinds (useful for trash), a repeatable stun, and auto-evade. If that’s acceptable to you, it comes recommended. DPS is very good on Sword as well. Lots of trait setups work, and you can run full zerkers (or mostly zerkers) if you wish. I suggest at least 15 Acrobatics, for Feline Grace.

Unfortunately, you will never have it as easy as Warrior. We have the lowest health and so-so Armor, so your non-dodge damage mitigation is mostly limited to what you can get from your party members. Although dodging is very good, and learning the “tells” of various bosses will help your survival chances considerably.

Arganthium.5638:

If only 165 precision was any good… It’s worth (at base) 37 power […]

Nonsense, as usual. Precision isn’t better than power or crit damage, but you still need some in a lot of builds, and it has non-“damage” effects on gameplay (on-crit effects). It’s ~8% crit chance you don’t need from somewhere else.

in which case stability isn’t going to help you anyways.

Please do your best not to conflate “Lyssa runes are useful” with “Lyssa runes are only used for Stability”. Try hard.

+10% condi duration is nothing, and has horrible coordination with precision.

Nonsense. Condition duration of 0% would be “nothing”. Check your calculator. Condition duration also isn’t just for damaging conditions, it also helps with Blind, Cripple, Immob, Vuln, Weakness, Poison (healing debuff), etc. Stuff that’s found (and used) on builds that aren’t bleed/venom/confusion/torment based.

The 4 buff is good

Yes it is. High chance of a useful boon in combat, lasts a while with a little boon duration.

The 6 buff is extremely unreliable if you’re using an elite on a CD more than 1 min.

I think maybe you don’t know what “unreliable” means. The #6 rune effect is always reliable unless you get interrupted during the 1-second aftercast.

Also, is “X doesn’t happen on an Excel spreadsheet” your only argument against the mathematics of this game? Because that’s pretty sad.

No, just my response to people who don’t understand the practical applications of math in real-world situations. If you want some variety, come up with a different way to miss the point.

Travlane.5948:

lyssa runes are not worth sacrificing a full set of rune stats just for 5 secs on all boons every few mins.

It’s a good thing that they also give 165 Precision, 10% condi duration, a random boon every time you use a healing skill (works great with Withdraw), and remove every single condition whenever you use your elite. All of the boons except maybe Swiftness and Might are useful. Vigor, Stability, Protection, Aegis, Regen, Fury, Retaliation… all good.

You build power and crit damage via traits and gear when you use Lyssa. It’s not rocket science.

Arganthium.5638:

You just said that it’s “not ideal from an efficiency standpoint”, and now you’re telling me that it’s actually usable. You’re basically building entirely around just being able to get stability, which is no way to play, to say the least.

Oh please. The Stability is complete gravy. Lyssa grants a random boon on heal, and removes all conditions + gives all boons for 5+ seconds on elite use. The secondary stats are Precision and 10% condition duration. This runeset would be worth using even if Stability wasn’t included. Basilisk Venom ensures that.

The decision is almost entirely lopsided; either I can possibly sacrifice the value of my runes and my elite for a relatively small amount of stability given that it only applies to one person, or I can just slot Shadowstep and one or two other stunbreakers/stomp ensurers that work with my build anyways and hope that that’s sufficient.

Yeah sure, just Stability. And condition removal. And Aegis, and Regen, and Protection, and Retaliation, and Vigor, and Fury, and Swiftness, and even a stack of Might because Why Not™.

Like I’ve said to you before, this is not Excel Wars. You can run Lyssa + normal things 99% of the time, and then quickly slot in DS and cancel it with a dodge roll for those times when you’re battling a Hammer Warrior and want to smack them around with impunity for 15 seconds. This is the reality of the game, as opposed to the unreality of what you think the game ought to be.

Just because something exists as an option does not in any way make it viable, as you seem to be arguing.

It takes all of a fraction of a second to turn a totally normal build into a specific-case countermeasure. Doesn’t even require a trait toggle. These are the little things that give experienced players an edge in a fight.

And in this case, an answer to the OP’s problem. If he’s really so concerned about Stability access, he can get some on Thief. His choice whether the price is worth paying, naturally, but in the generic case it’s totally defensible as a sometimes-counter, and nowhere have I been dishonest about the costs.

Arganthium.5638:

That’s like saying […]

No, it’s nothing at all like that bad analogy you just made.

It’s honestly not even usable.

Nonsense. Lyssa by itself is viable on Thief, and is usable with any elite, not just DS. This exists as an option if you’d like to have 13s+ of Stability in a fight: slot DS and burn it early. Otherwise, don’t. Very simple. Almost everyone understands how decision trees work, and if you don’t, I suggest Googling it.

Arganthium.5638:

Sounds highly efficient […]

I didn’t make a judgment call, I just listed a way to do it. It’s obviously not ideal from an efficiency standpoint, but there are literally (an aside, this is the proper use of that word: take notes) no other options if you want consistent access to Stability on Thief, thus the price you pay.

Impact.2780:

We have plenty of sources of cripple.. […] Vitality? Pfft. If I want that I’ll get it via armour/weapons, not runes.

Who are you talking to? I was responding to someone who was talking about their Guardian. A class that has no real access to soft CC.

Ludus Rex.1562:

The grass is always greener, mah friend. So sick of having to use Runes of Speed in every single sPvP build…

Yeah, it must be a huge kitten to have a runeset that addresses two of your biggest class weaknesses in one go. I mean, they added movespeed and vitality, couldn’t they have given you some soft CC on-hit, too? And a pony?

Saikano.7853:

i want stability for thieves!

Use a full set of Lyssa runes, activate Dagger Storm and then evade-cancel the channel animation, so that you can fight normally. That’ll give you 13+ seconds of Stability every 90 seconds, more if you spec Acrobatics or use boon duration food.

That’s the price of stability on Thief.

BobbyT.7192:

And I think assassin retreat works on white mobs, not able to test it atm tho

It does not. Ambient creatures don’t give you the Swiftness.

Depends: where are you dying, and what do your groups look like? Fractals are about using the right skills (like Smokescreen) at the right time, fighting encounters the correct way, and getting good support from your group (Aegis, Fury, Might stacks, etc). Nothing wrong with a glass Thief in Fractals just on general principle, but you do have to be on top of your game because your defenses are almost entirely evade-based and you don’t have much of a margin for error. Pistol offhand helps quite a bit on trash because of Black Powder, but for bosses and champs you need to be aware of their moves and tells.

TheGuy.3568:

True in regards to your second observation but isn’t that the point. You trade the extra DPS or utility of another set for the utility for traveler’s runes. Speaking plainly if you don’t mind running slightly slower than the next guy use another set. If you don’t mind occupying one utility slot for extra movement speed use another set. If you do mind use travelers. No one set is perfect for each and every build. Each set has it’s trade offs.

It’s sort of an important observation considering the investment that you’re required to make to solve something that’s not really a huge problem in the first place. Specialized sets have trade-offs, but they don’t cost an entire ascended weapon’s worth of gold, either.

Demand does beat supply but the price seems to have stabilized.

Small comfort for people who want a set. There’s nowhere near enough of these runes to go around. Scholar’s are in a much better place.

^ Not enough Traveler runes for everyone. Besides, it lacks the focus than other rune sets can provide for builds.

^ That’s a neat build. Do you really get a lot out of Infiltrator’s Signet, though? Or miss having Fury access?

It works pretty well, although sometimes you may want to use Signet of Malice in place of Withdraw (such as when you are flipping camps). I strongly recommend using Lyssa runes (both for the buff on healing skill, and also condi removal and all buffs on elite skill), and using something other than Thieves Guild (Basilisk and Dagger Storm are both good).

I tweak my build constantly to fit what I am trying to accomplish at the moment, but I’m running something similar to this for S/P right now:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsaVlcmaPXcS4E/5Ey2jKUn4J/DkVPjsS+A-j0DBYfREJEAbJZUAYUEAEBRkKAJBqIasVRFRjV/AT5SIV7CS9C2qDwbADA-w

I can explain whatever doesn’t make sense.

Your traits need a little bit of adjustment. You are just barely missing the 10% damage bonus in both Acrobatics and Deadly Arts; whichever path you go, you ought to get one or the other. It’s very easy to keep someone conditioned with S/P (use Sundering Strikes), and fairly straightforward to keep less than full endurance for Fluid Strikes (especially in a no stealth build). You may want to consider Trickery to make it easier to use First Strikes, and give your self access to Fury (Thrill of the Crime).

Good luck with it. S/P is pretty fun now.

^ You might as well challenge people to a game of Words with Friends for all that it has to do with what you’re trying to prove. “Venomshare” is not a solo spec.

Arganthium.5638:

Yes, I do, as a matter of fact, although I usually prefer the word “pathetic” to make my sentence easier to lather in disgust.

I’m surprised… not that you actually do (which I believe), but that people put up with it. Admittedly this is an assumption on my part. Maybe they don’t!

[…]the fact that this was your only “counterargument” […]

It’s the only one that I posted, at least. I didn’t want to continue unless and until I ascertained whether it was worth it. And it’s not, so that’s the end of that.

Docherty.8372:

As a fellow S/P devotee, may I ask why? I can understand it is useful sometimes (towers, zergs etc), but in a duel I’d consider it totally useless (with the exception of Rangers, whose pets assure that they eat double damage from the AA bounce).

It’s hard to keep someone in range when they don’t want to be there. PW is better post-patch, and IS is good, but other than that a Sword build is vulnerable to being kited. I can compete at range with a Shortbow if it’s necessary, and it sometimes can be.

It’s also useful when I’m in a fight where I have a significant disadvantage; Shortbow #3 allows me to punch above my weight class, if I either need to chip away at someone or wait for a utility skill to come off cooldown. To say nothing of the mobility that #5 offers for travel/escape/chasedown, or access to Poison that’s otherwise absent (I don’t spec DA or use venoms).

I don’t like P/D as an option, here, as fun as Shadow Strike can be.

Don’t forget Fury and Swiftness – players are reluctant to give up their CS traits, but tend to not perceive that ultimately the boon-stacker is not surrendering DPS at all […]

Precision from CS is the Robin in that combination; I can get 14% crit chance from a lot of other places. The bigger punch to the gut is the loss of 30 crit damage, which is harder to replace. Power-based damage on thief really relies on triple-threat of Power/CritChance/CritDmg. Fury and Might only give you two legs of the tripod.

Finally, I feel after the nerfs to Quickness and Opportunist (the biggest worst nerf of all, they gutted it like a fish) I can’t find any interest in Critical Strikes, the traits are no good for dueling anymore, and in WvW we build for the traits, not the stats – however much I’d like the extra crit damage.

I’m intrigued enough to think about finding a way to make it work, but on the surface I’m skeptical that I could make up for the damage loss.

Time to dial back the quote blocks here:

frans.8092:

[…] blow all venoms and get 6 stacks for 20 seconds, while might on dodge can have 4-5 stacks up at all time. […] No burst then, I figured part of the venom burst was getting all these leeches in short time frame. […] Without eh burst option the Leech really isn’t a good heal. […] P/D kills slowly and will not build up swiftness easily. […] P/D is in stealth a lot, it also removes an extra condition on the 3rd second in stealth […] Improving Vital Shot is a lost cause. […] What build […] You give up 15 points Acro or Trickses for one extra strike on 3 venoms. […

You want to run runes like this when you are relying on Might stacks in a condition build, because this keeps the stacks cooking for a lot longer. Skelk double-dips on the #6 skill due to being both a heal and a venom (and it’s a strong burst heal with follow-ups). It’s relatively straightforward to maintain significant Might during battles. It also works quite nicely in the Venomshare setup, because boon duration depends on the source of the boon, not the target, so you’re giving out some fairly decent Might stacks to people.

I am very surprised that you thought Leeching was hit-based; it’s not the kind of error someone who has tried it would make. Adding ~1200-2000 damage to Sneak Attack with one venom application (that still retains its original effect) would be pretty ridiculous. I think we’d see a lot more LV in that case, which I guess is why it’s never worked this way. Hell, I’d find a way to get 15 SA and Spider venom into my S/P build if this was a thing.

Assassin’s Reward Retreat only cares about kills, not speed. With a 5 second ICD, it’s better not to shred things too quickly anyway. Dumb mobs don’t have condition duration reduction, bleed clearing, and they don’t know how to deal with Torment. But as I said, it’s not a linchpin to the build: Thrill is fine for tactical IMS, and SoS + 10 CS deserves a nod for having instant Might stacks and a very useful (stomp-assisting) Blind on it. Last time: AR is nice, but totally unnecessary if you don’t like the mechanics.

P/D is in stealth a lot… sometimes. You need stealth to set up Sneak Attack, but otherwise being stealthed is time when you’re not attacking. That’s useful when you either need to heal or you need to buy time for your conditions to do their work, but as long as you have venoms off cooldown on a build like this you can keep putting out pressure by creating space with Shadow Strike and applying LV with Vital Shot. People (rightly) poop on Vital Shot for being a bad skill, but LV makes it usable by adding ~400 damage a shot and healing you, while costing you nothing for initiative. It does have a venom pre-req, but that’s easier to make happen than Sneak Attack’s pre-req of stealth (which depends on being able to land CnD a lot of the time). tl;dr, Vital Shot is a lot harder to ignore when it’s doing double the damage and sticking conditions on you at 900 range.

I gave you the template. If you don’t like it, nobody’s gonna make you play it, but don’t give me baloney about 15 points in DA “only being” an extra hit on 3 venoms, as if the Power/Condi duration and Venom recharge/Exposed weakness traits didn’t exist. I’m done responding here; you can have the last word unless there’s something new you want to say.

Docherty.8372:

Without being argumentative about it (I dunno about these builds you mention), I’d suggest it’s very very strong, good enough Thieves everywhere should think carefully about whether they could gain from putting that shortbow into the backpack and manually switching it back in when it might become useful again – like tower defense, or dungeons.

The synergy with on-swap Sigils is delicious, particularly Sigils of Battle – did you guys know, that for a 30 Acro with 95% boon duration (with runes+food), the Might stacks last 39 seconds? Three every ten seconds (+3 init), with Power of Inertia (29 seconds) you can cap stacks and sustain them… if you got perma-Vigor by going deep into Trickery, gravy.

I’d love to do something like this, but running S/P means that I need my shortbow for actual combat. Right now I run 25 Acro and put the extra 5 points towards 15 Trickery, so that I can more easily use the +10% damage bonus from 25 CS. Sustain in long engagements is becoming difficult without AR, though.

Deep Acro/Trickery for perma Might/Vigor sounds nice, but I don’t know what weaponset would be able to leverage both sides of it. D/D? It’d be a very slippery build, but you’d have to work hard to get damage out it.

Interceptor.2653:

Arganthium.5638:

Interceptor.2653:

[snip]

Your sad little examples […]

Do you talk like this to people in real life?

This was a real question.

[quote]

Dahkeus.8243:

Hide in Shadows

*Hard to Catch

frans.8092:

Venoms are on a 45 (36 traited) second cooldown, the might stacks they yield with Venomous Strength don’t match up against the might on dodge, or the loss of utility slots.

Might on dodge is more limited by the nature of your endurance bar; might on venom application has more freedom for manipulation. A 36s recharge is no issue, since you can keep one or more venoms primed, as they last 30s. There are five potential spots for venoms, and you don’t need to use all of them (nor should you). Spacing out venoms for Leeching is probably a good idea just on general principle, since you are strike-limited.

And if you slot all venoms you have no IMS – unless you take runes which in turn takes condition damage output down), no caltrops or shadow refuge.

This is nonsense. You have 10 points left over for whatever you want, which can include Assassin’s Reward or Thrill. SoS is sufficient for covering distance in general, and can be swapped out prior to engagements (or not: it’s a source of Might/Blind if you run 10 CS).

Leeching Venoms is in Shadow Arts, the 15 + 15 points in Deadly Arts do not contribute more then an extra strike and a 20% shorter cooldown on slotted venoms. The extra strike (@400 damage) is all you are getting for it, provided it lands and you want to sacrifice Cloaked in Shadow or Shadows Embrace for it.

You can also sacrifice Shadow’s Rejuvenation. No rule that says GMs slots have to be used for GM traits. That extra strike applies to all venoms, and also comes with extra healing from the life leech, which helps sustain.

Residual Venoms grants one extra strike on duration stacking conditions, which doesn’t help that much.

What? Residual Venoms grants an extra hit all on venoms, including Skelk and Basilisk. Skale Venom has an intensity-stacking condition (Torment) that benefits from RV as well. I don’t know what you are talking about, here. Basilisk doesn’t even stack, but the second hit is nonetheless valuable for dealing with Aegis and evades.

Similarly, with all the cleansing going round the 15% extra condition duration is not what I’d spend trait point on that could give me more endurance, vigor, even fury and swiftness. I rather have solid traits with condition duration from runes or food.

Fight someone eating soup and rocking Melandru’s, and then tell me that condition duration doesn’t matter.

Starting with 30/x/30/x/x yields, imo, a weaker P/D then 0/x/30/x/x – it probably bursts a little better but looses on survivability.

I’m not sure you’d necessarily notice the difference, or care about it even if you did. The Dire or hybrid-Dire version of this build is incredibly survivable just from base stats.

It’s fine if your personal preference is to run something else, but that’s an entirely different kettle of fish than whether or not 30 DA is a good idea.

Maugetarr.6823:

Actually for about 2k power, 6 stacks of might is a 10% increase. If you’re in and out of stealth it’s pretty easy to maintain that, but it really depends on your playstyle.

As you implied, it’s not really the same thing. Stealthed windows are also time when you aren’t doing power-based damage. Another complication is that Fluid Strikes is literally set up by Power of Inertia, if you’re running it, which is half the Might but for longer (because of boon duration).

Domey.9804:

pain response is more like “ok”.the only viable choice for master as its the only condi cleanse in acro. evry traitline has bonus dmg on 25…all are good. acrobatics offers nothing for defense SA couldnt do better , except dodges (acro 15).

Yeah, but Feline Grace is more than just a throwaway investment: it’s a really good skill. And once you are already 15 points invested in Acrobatics, it only costs 10 points to get to Fluid Strikes, and you might as well take Pain Response on the way. Shadow Arts does not have a 10% damage boost skill, and 2 stacks of Might on stealth does not begin to come close to replacing that.

frans.8092:

There are 15 points in DA that would be better spend in Trickery and/or Acrobatics, that is the problem. Nothing in DA beyond Lotus Poison is particularly useful for P/D. Venoms are weak without a group to share them with, all the pressure, healing stealth and attrition comes from and is supported by other sources then Deadly Arts.

I don’t agree. DA has no trait waste, either in terms of slottable skills (Venomous Strength, Quick Venoms, Residual Venom) or the Power/Condition duration that it raises. Don’t sleep on the Might stacks: P/D is double-dipping here, because you use both sides of it. Even that silly Vital Shot peashooter becomes a credible DPS generator when your Leeching Venoms are hitting for 380+ damage per shot.

That’s not to say that Trickery/Acro aren’t good as well, but builds are about choices. 30 DA is perfectly fine. This is the spec I’d recommend to anyone who wants to venomshare, but also wants to use venoms solo.

Domey.9804:

do you really play thief? what you said makes no sense unless you trait for stealth on steal (which is absolutely crap) and do not take other defensive traits which REALLY boost your surv (like blind , rejuvenation and condi remove).

Why are you lecturing me about someone else’s build? Those thieves exist in WvW, and they sacrifice survival to get the OHKO. They can’t kill me with it, because I am not glass. They will feast on someone who has cruddy health and Armor, though.

Anyway, you don’t need stealth on steal to get off a backstab. You can just stealth beforehand. A simple Black Powder + Heartseeker combo will do it; you don’t even need to use a utility slot for it.

acrobatics above 15 is waste in wvw.

Nonsense. Pain Response is really good for WvW, and the bonus damage from Fluid Strikes at 25 points is also pretty useful.

Oxygen.5918:

You sacrifice something for this “couple hundred”. At what point do you stop?

It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. A couple hundred on a build with SoM and AR is going to have a lot of staying power; you can stop there (or earlier) if it fills your needs. I can usually get by without since I have ~2400 Armor generally, but I do carry food with Healing Power on it, for those times when I am in a long engagement where there won’t be a lot of opportunities to disengage or heal fully.

I mean, for kitten’s sake, anyone here who has 30 SA has 300 Healing Power in their build. True story.

frans.8092:

Venomshare goes 30 into Deadly Arts, I believe, while P/D and D/D condition needs some Acrobatics and or Trickery (and some more solo utility then venoms provide). I’ve thought about trying venom-share on a P/D build (15/0/30/15/10 I used) but the venomshare lacks some of it’s DA traits then. If you can propose a useful venomshare – P/D trait distribution I’ll be happy to look at it.

There’s nothing wrong with a 30/x/30/x/x P/D build. Your damage is coming from condition damage (bleeds, torment) and power (regular attacks, Leeching Venoms). You have plenty of Might available. It’s not bursty, but it has a lot of pressure, healing, stealth, and attrition built in. Dire and Carrion both work.

The last 10 points can go wherever. Trickery has Thrill/Reach, Acrobatics has Might/Vigor, and even CS has an argument since you can take extra Pistol damage or leverage a bit of the Precision that ascended trinkets force onto condition builds.

Oxygen.5918:

Cutting your power by 900 would never be worth 900 healing power in increased “survivability”, even if you ran every healing thing in the book.

Nobody is making this argument. Who are you refuting? Someone suggested swapping out two trinkets, not changing your whole suit into Cleric’s. A couple hundred healing power does actually make a difference someone would care about, without necessarily adulterating your DPS to “wet noodle” levels.

ipan.4356:

For illustrative example, if you have two teams, one well rounded, and one completely glass, it’s possible the glass team will mop the floor with the well rounded team, if they can down the entire team in the first volley/exchange – basically, before the ‘roundedness’ has time to kick in.

That’s fair, but the 5v5 example is mostly structured PvP matches, and “well-rounded” is a fairly ambiguous designation. Also, things like Aegis and Protection really complicate matters from the standpoint of “down people on the first exchange”. The spillover point depends on your “threshold”.

But I don’t like talking about such a small part of GW2 in the first place. PvP is very nearly an entirely different game from PvE and WvW.

Arganthium.5638:

Interceptor.2653:

[snip]

Your sad little examples […]

Do you talk like this to people in real life?

Arganthium.5638:

Actually, Oxygg has the right idea. Builds can be a balance between those two variables, but in order to find the optimal mix, you have to compare the two in terms of amplification. Amplifying your healing might allow you to live 5% longer, but the same amount of power could let you kill 150% faster. Mathematically speaking, situations like this are actually fairly typical; power is virtually always going to be better than HealPow.

Guild Wars does not take place on an Excel spreadsheet. If your measure of a stat’s worth revolves around what happens in a controlled 1v1 duel, I’d advise that you look at what happens in practice, because it’s quite different.

In reality, fights are messy. You may be fighting multiple people at once, getting hit from places you can’t see, ambushed, etc. A perfectly coiffed optimal-DPS build might wreck the golems in the Heart of the Mists, but one mistake or errant stun in WvW turns that into a liability for your realm.

I can take a wombo-combo Mug->Backstab->HS/CnD and live to tell about it, because I’m not glassy and will therefore have time to react. I can walk into an upgraded Supply Camp and flatten the thing by myself, and have full health during the whole fight just in case someone drops in to play. I can pick up a friend and wipe out a Tower, tanking the Lord myself. I can jump on a ram in an emergency and take arrows to the face if someone had to back off under fire. I can run up to a downed enemy in a free-for-all, throw down a Black Powder, and stomp them without worrying about incidental AOE damage taking me down while I’m defenseless.

And all the while, I maintain enough damage to shadowstep over to that ‘zerker caster on the edge of a fight, and blow them away with a bread-n-butter combo. That’s what a balanced build can do in WvW. People who carefully use secondary statistics to eliminate edge cases can handle a lot more situations.

And from a non-Thief perspective, battles of attrition are how smaller forces defeat larger ones. A coordinated group with heals, boons, and synergistic combo fields can hold out against a lot of firepower because of player AOE limits and their innate sustain. Groups like that feed on the glassy ‘zerker targets, because they go down even under limited DPS. Since nobody is rallying easily off of a bunker knot, that means either 1) the glass damage contribution is lost, since they die, or 2) the glass DPS endangers his/her team that’s trying to pick them up.

You could also just as easily argue that glass thieves are good for downing opponents and thereby rallying allies.

Not a solid argument. They aren’t that much better at it than Thieves with a little bit more survivability.

Oxygen.5918:

Killing is the ultimate utility.

And you cannot deal damage when you are dead. Builds are always a balance between DPS and survival, especially in WvW, where glass Thieves are nothing but rallybots for the other team when they go down.

Ulalume.2470:

Today i’m ready to try this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqYVlYmiP3cy9E95EB3Dnm0m6zgsjV/gMB-jUDB4iYYNgoOCR0CYk0g00AUHI0HQZqFRjtgZIalPhVJjIqW3ATKAYWDA-w

You may want to use 10/0/30/0/30 instead of 15/0/30/0/25. Lotus Poison is good for a cover condition, but it’s not better than the Trickery GM trait. Hastened Replenishment is great since you are already using Withdraw (and mentioned that you have init problems), and Sleight of Hand gives you even better Steal recharge and a Daze to go with it.

Thrill of the Crime may want to be occasionally swapped out for Long Reach. Don’t sleep on 1500 range for gap-closing and initiation. That’s beyond the range at which most classes can even engage on you, and if you take Hidden Thief in Master Shadow Arts you can even start stealthed for your first Sneak Attack.

Use Skale Venom on your bar if you find that you need a cover condition. It gives Vulnerability/Torment, which is going to give you a bit more damage and diversify you from just bleeding. Only one venom, though. You can theoretically put Devourer here as well if you need to kite someone.

Consider the situation where you do all of the stuff that I just said: you can engage at long range, stick Poison/Vuln/Torment on someone while Dazing them at 1500 range, rip two boons, and open with your bread and butter Sneak Attack move for damage and bleeds. And then 20 seconds or so later, the combo is available again. Meanwhile you have Shadow Strike and CnD to play with.

Think about it.

Dungeons: I generally run a standard S/P build. Blinds and cleave are very useful for trash, and the DPS is very good for bosses (with the auto-evade on PW helping to stay alive). Shadow Refuge is always on my bar for either skipping content or playing field medic.

WvW: I roam with the same build, although I’ve literally done every non-S/D build that popularly exists. Zerg I pull out my shortbow and play crit games with Cluster Bomb, using Dagger Storm to get bag-tags. I will swap back to S/P and blow up a glass caster at the edges of combat if possible. Zerg fights are usually lopsided anyway, and I don’t play for serious on a karma train.

Other classes: Thief is good at Thief things. Grass is always greener on the other side. There are improvements that I could make to the class, but many classes have the same sort of holes that we do. My Guardian has been the same basically since release, with the same issues.

Weaponsets: I have used everything. I will generally swap sets if I find that I want to change things up, or if I need to get better synergy with my roaming partner. I have a stock of exotic gear that switch/experiment on the fly.

Power level: I feel like Thief is in a generally good place, although Warriors make me feel like a kindergartener. I feast on Rangers, and feel bad for them and all their bugs. I also feel bad for Necros, but only in PvE.

Stat combos: I like a power-based build with a focus on crit rate (since we have several good on-crit options available), and enough Toughness/Vitality to keep from getting insta-blicked. I run Knight’s armor with Zerk weapons/trinkets, puts me at around 16-17k health, and that generally works well for me. Food and trait respecs take care of whatever hole that I need to shore up for a particular event. I have a stock of Soldier’s stuff in the bank when I need extra defense, or when fighting things that I can’t crit.

frans.8092:

His point was probably that this venom-share build is rather unusable without a group. Not many people are going to want to retrain traits regularly, or enjoy logging off because there’s no group to play with.

You don’t need to retrain your traits. Venomshare is basically a condition build at its core (either D/D or P/D or both), and you just need to swap the GM trait from Venomous Aura to Shadow’s Rejuvenation (or to a Master trait, if necessary). The other venom-based traits (extra hit, leeching, reduced cooldowns) are perfectly usable solo.

EDIT: it’s also worth noting that you can keep using Venomshare solo if you use Ambush and/or Thieves Guild. Although that’s a bit of a gimmicky build, so generally I’d just expect people to swap traits.

Arganthium.5638:

If you think healing power is good, go do the math.

How in the name of Grenth do you “do the math” for healing power’s value versus power/precision? That’s a completely subjective thing, the analysis of which depends entirely on what you’re doing. Not everyone’s ideal is a wombo-combo ’zerker’s build, y’know.

TheAmpca.1753:

Maybe you don’t, but I do, and let me say, you are missing out on a lot. You don’t even need a lot, just 2 or so trinkets with healing power and boom couple that with signet of malice and some regen and you are now extremely tanky.

+1 to this. A couple of ascended Cleric’s rings move SoM from 100 → 110, and AR from 69 → 79, increases of 10/14.5% respectively, not to mention what the +136 Toughness does for you (’bout 6% damage reduction on my build). That stuff adds up quickly over the course of a fight.

Zacchary.6183:

Contrary to popular belief, you actually can make stuff up.

I was referring to the quality of the retorts. In addition to being challenged to a duel, and you flexing your forum activity plus making personal attacks, there was even an infracted post that accused me of being on ANet’s take. This is stuff that would get you disqualified from an elementary school debate.

There is a reason. Perhaps its because experienced people are tired of telling ignorant to less experienced people, maybe?

I’m not prepared to make guesses about people’s motivations. I’m just looking at the thief build options objectively. I’ve been playing Thief since beta, and I’ve run every build under the sun, except S/D (which was in vogue while I was playing S/P Perplexity). Someone who says that this class needs more diversity, is frankly either 1) looking at some extremely specific scenario and over-weighted it, or 2) out of their tree.

evilapprentice.6379:

What does that have to do with OP’s statement?

It’s a matter of perspective.

If your aim is to complain about AR and HtC, it’s awkward and inconvenient, because most people who spec in Acrobatics are going to have at least 10 points in CS and non-negligible Precision. So in that light, it clearly has nothing to do with the OP, which is mostly about snark and whinging, which I haven’t done.

But if you’re an Acrobatics-spec Thief who is legitimately looking for increased survivability post-patch, I just gave you the solution to your problem, since the 5-7% buff to PT makes it more palatable to sacrifice a little bit of offense at the Adept slot. I swap out Furious Retaliation for this trait situationally now when Acro-specced, whereas before I avoided it entirely.

Are there any Acrobatics thieves that don’t have at least some investment in Critical Strikes? Spend a trait slot on the newly-upgraded Practiced Tolerance. I get about ~1400-1500 extra health out of it, depending; not bad for an Adept.

This is easy to reproduce. Dodge roll just as you fire off the arrow from the #5 Shortbow skill, but before it Shadowsteps you. You’ll roll in place rather than rolling forward.

Zacchary.6183:

Interceptor.2653:

stuff

I don’t even know why I am arguing with a guy who has less than 2 pages of posts

This is the greatest thread ever. Thief actually has quite a bit of build diversity, and the people who disagree with me have the following retorts:

1) one guy challenges me to a 1v1 to prove that a group-combat spec is not viable, and
2) someone judges my worth as a Thief by measuring how many posts I’ve made on a forum.

I can’t even make this stuff up. Not a single reasonable, objective counter-argument, just “no u”.

Venomshare sounds like it doesn’t really do very well in most situations. :I

This is called “moving the goalposts”. You walked back your original stance (which included many non-venomshare builds), and then expanded the field outside of PvP/WvW, resulting in you refuting an argument that I never actually made in the first place. It’s the natural result of entering an discussion in bad faith.

Travlane.5948:

no srry you missed the point. but thats bc we are using black and white words rather than inflections upon words.

It’s not really my responsibility to make your posts cogent: it’s yours. I laid out my argument, you challenged me to a duel, and now this is where we’re done talking.

Zacchary.6183:

My standard is: “Does it work in most situations?”

Then I think that you should adhere to your standard, since quite a lot of Thief builds work in most situations. There are a lot of “situations” in this game, and no build is the best at all of them. Playstyle has a big effect on build choice, because Thieves can easily disengage from bad matchups.

And Venomshare does not. It works in organized group settings but beyond that it’s useless.

It is excellent in an organized group. The Thief is providing all sorts of conditions, healing, might stacks, and giving people damage off of Leeching. Outside of group, Venomous Aura obviously doesn’t do much (nobody to share it with), so you just re-slot the GM trait to something else, like Shadow’s Rejuvenation. No muss, no fuss.

Travlane.5948:

srry ur wrong. tell u what… i challenge you to a fight. you run full venom share ill run build of my choice….and ill run naked. ya? ill spank ya 9/10 times prolly more. nuff said.

So just to be clear: when someone makes the point that venomshare is powerful in organized groups, your rebuttal is to challenge them to a 1on1 fight, and this is supposed to prove your position correct?

Arganthium.5638:

Also, Venom Share is still going to be kinda sucky overall, IMO.

Nonsense. Venomshare — like all builds — has to put it into a position to succeed. If you’re in small group combat where people are fairly disciplined, it’s extraordinarily useful. Everyone talks about Residual Venom, but the real money is in Leeching Venoms and Venomous Strength.

Zacchary.6183:

That’s the keyword… “Functional”.

No, the key word is this one, from your post:

me

If your standard is “best and only the best for XYZ situation”, that’s cool. However, balance in WvW or otherwise is more than just one aspect; builds are about tradeoffs, and acceptable results. None of the “non-viable” builds are so far behind that they fail to perform.

frans.8092:

Why is P/D gimmicky?

The need for continuous re-stealths, mostly. I have no problem with the build at all, but it rests on sort of a Jenga tower because of the Sneak Attack thing.

Zacchary.6183:

So a sub-par set becomes a little more sub-par. […] Venomshare was never a good thing to begin with. […] d/p is gimmicky and unless you go for damage this set is best for trolling. […] p/d is a weak condition build […]
I do agree with SB though. It is way better than p/x.

Thanks for demonstrating exactly what I was talking about WRT people with very specific definitions of “viable”. All of those builds are perfectly functional in WvW; i.e. you can use them and carve out successes for yourself.

Very misplaced thread. Thieves on the whole are actually in a fairly decent place right now, in terms of build diversity. S/P is back, venomshare is now a legit thing, D/P has always been good, P/D is gimmicky but effective, and Shortbow remains good even after a year and a half of nothing but nerfs.

I guess that this is a situation where “viable” has some tight, unwavering definition known only to the OP.

Grandmaster trait that’s 30 points down the Shadow Arts line, allows you to share Venom skills with up to four other people (cap is five, including yourself; you give them the venoms when you activate them, and they will use them when they hit things). It passes across the extra hit from Residual Venom, the effect from Leeching Venoms, and the bonus Might from Venomous Strength as well. Thieves Guild is useful with sharing because each of the two NPCs that arrives count as an “ally”.

Sort of requires that you dedicate your whole build to sharing, otherwise it’s less useful than other setups.

Also Dagger Storm: blowing that in a zerg with SoM and some Toughness makes it real hard to die.

Although the SoM/Withdraw decision usually comes down to something other raw healing over time, in my opinion. Withdraw is the one to go to if you need the condition removal and/or you’re running something with an effect on-heal (like Vigorous Recovery, for instance), whereas SoM tends to be more strictly hit-based.