Guild Wars 2

Basically what everyone else here has said, but also keep in mind that power > ferocity. I use the following build (with a few adjustments depending):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFQQJAoYhcMac25wwBf0APAC5fv2JKQ5qJfC-TFzFwAKOgApUPwkKOKVacUZ2iTAgGdAy2fIwBCwiWCAKBN8AAIDAzWA-w
Works wonders for me. Some say the crit dmg is a tad low, but the 2100 power more than makes up for it imo. The sigisl can be changed, I just prefer doom over air atm because I encounter a lot of warriors and it just messes them up. Also great for 1v1ing other eles, and also helps a lot against engis and guards.
tl;dr
Soldier/knight mix is pretty much the way to go.

What if warriors screamed “YOLO MODE ACTIVATED” really loudly when they hit endure pain? I feel like this would really help players who don’t know what 0 damage means.

On my thief, I use the following keybindings:
1: F
5:R
F1: E
Heal: X
Util 1: Mouse 5
Util 2: Mouse 4
Util 3: z
Elite: Button on my mouse above mouse
Dodge: shift
Works really well for me, but it may not work for others at all. It’s all about trial and error- find what works for you and what doesn’t

I’d take a look at Nightblade, as he is imo one of the best thieves ever (such amazing, wow). He just released a new video and it’s on the thief page, but here’s the link to it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw8Um09hdEI
His build is in the description but here it is too:
http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQJAoYlsMp0pdPxyJ8PNBNBtdFGeI4uGrYGaFAA-TFSBABJqH4hHAgZKBvSpXXKDIa/hcU/BgTAApAsaZE-w
Great base line to build off of if it doesn’t quite suite you!

XPGAMER.7324:

Currently making a training video on how to 1v1 vs every common thief build + weaponset using d/d. Putting alot of time and effort into it, so it’ll be very thorough and a nice vid to watch. Should be published in the next week or 2.

Awesome video man! Also can’t wait for this!

The problem with going celestial is you don’t have any armor that provides with vitality or toughness, so you’re going to be overly squishy. Imo, you’ll want to go a soldier knight mix, probably with more soldier than knight b/c you lack vitality. You don’t need more damage at this point, you need more survivability. My ele sits at around 165% crit damage usually, which is more than enough. I sometimes swap some things out to get a little more toughness as I like to be at around 2600 armor, usually putting me at around 157% crit damage or so If I recall correctly.

Are you zerging or mainly roaming?

Gandalf.1537:

Quakeman.9378:

I personally roam with D/D, but I use staff in zergs. I run a very glassy staff build : 66002 with full zerk armor and trinks. Really my only goal is to pump out massive aoe damage and it does it perfectly. You have to be EXTREMELY careful though. I stay in the back of the zerg, and I’m always watching out for random thieves. I personally love the play style, but some may find it too squishy for their tastes.

Whats your build for that, I to run full zerk armor and trinkets. Am looking for a good solid build to dish out major damage.

I also have a solid supportive build while in a zerg. Works nice to,

I just put together the build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhMMqc2zwsBf0AEAS4ARWI+TpOleD-TVCBwAGVyhV5gElg4U/BwFAg4+Dp0BkwkXgHAQAAEA25ODyAkPGA-w
I use runes of the ogre just for more carnage. I also have a staff with sigil of night instead of the sigil of accuracy if it’s night time. Now, this build hits like a freaking truck, but you’re beyond squishy. Worth it imo. This build allows you to melt a zerg with a well placed meteor shower, you just have to be patient. Mist form also allows you push out some and land a meteor shower a little further back into the main mass of their zerg.

I personally roam with D/D, but I use staff in zergs. I run a very glassy staff build : 66002 with full zerk armor and trinks. Really my only goal is to pump out massive aoe damage and it does it perfectly. You have to be EXTREMELY careful though. I stay in the back of the zerg, and I’m always watching out for random thieves. I personally love the play style, but some may find it too squishy for their tastes.

Awesome playing! Quick question though, Which build do you use the most?

WoW…..Just…wow. This is amazing. Best resource for PvE I’ve ever seen hands down. Major thanks to all who helped with this!

You mean like shadowstepping backwards while you pull someone with scorpion wire to try and pull them farther? I’ll try this tomorrow and report my findings!

One does not simply play thief with a high ping.

I used to be on Kaineng and I have to say, I kind of miss it. I’m on sbi atm and even though we’re t2, the roaming is a lot worse. We’re up against mag atm, and it’s just constant zerging. Makes me sad dodging zergs every 10min.

Peow peow.2189:

Having played thief since the beginning of Guild Wars 2, I would like to discuss the reasons it needs to be buffed

1) Invisibility

First of all, invisibility is almost useless.

You can still take damage, we should have the ability to put on an aura that damages opponents in a radius while we are invis

2) we dont hit enough damage

Thiefs should haev 10% damage increase. Our class is based on damage not surviving.
We need more

3) Not enough stun breaks.

Thiefs can be stunned and killed easily with close to no stun breaks bar 1.

4) Not enough health

Way to low hp

Will add more as time progresses

SUpport list

- Saggat (thief)
- Ticktickbomb (Thief)
- Biggiesmalz (Mesmer)
- Panny(Warrior)
- Purpleownz (Mesmer)
- Tagas (Thief)

Can you add me to the support list too?

Have some siege!

I feel that 8 seconds is way too low for a utility. Especially one that would allow for easy spammable interrupts.

Do you have an enemy selected? If I’m running away I always click to unselect any enemies I had selected, otherwise your movement-based skills will go to them, and as you said, your death.

Juba.8406:

warrior already got high base health why would you go for more ?

It’s a condition meta atm, and I personally agree that having more health is better atm. I sit at around 27k hp with full guard buffs, and I notice that it helps a lot against condi classes such as necros and engis.

Anything’s viable, but some tend to work better than others. If you find it works well for you, then use it. I personally like Gs / Hammer more, but Mace/Sh GS isn’t bad.

I just can’t even……. the panda hat just fits in so well lol

Gamgee.8612:

Idk. People have huge problems with blinds and me aswell. I just think that it’s ok. Because it’s really the only thing that counters my warrior. If these suggestions got implemented I would land my burst near enough every time, which is just too good combined with Cleansing Ire. The only thing that makes Cleansing Ire not outright OP is blinds.

Though I hate blinds deeply, I still like the challenge of trying to avoid it when fighting a good thief for example and it’s really an element in the game.

It should be as it is, or remove the trait entirely. It’s not good enough, but these suggestions would just make it too good.

I have run Hydromancy sigil since a long time because it does basically the same thing as the trait. If I’m blinded, and swap to my hydro sigil and if it procs, that will remove the blind. Meaning I’m free to land my burst. But you still need a bit of skill to make good use of it. For example stay in range and in the theorycrafting have it on the best weapon strategically.

I agree. Blinds are the main counter to warrior for the most part, and I feel like this would push warrior over the edge.

Saturn.6591:

Quakeman.9378:

This is what I currently use:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFQQJAoYhMMqc25wwBf0AdAB5xpvRBlzbnB-TlCFwANOgAOOBAsUPIjeiUq4Ub/hmKNIcgAlgKVmB4BAQGg8tA-w

You’re fairly tanky, but you still have loads of burst with the high power. Some scoff at the low crit damage, and I did too at first, but trust me, you have a do a lot more damage than you’d think.

That’s awesome to hear. Since, after all, it’s the build I’ve originally put together (except one trait that you’ve changed). Really awesome to see that someone is using it and has good results with it (that’s always better than just the theory). I myself am still leveling haha.

Yeah man I believe I got it from a forum post you made a while back. I changed one trait because I found that I really needed the extra condi cleanse on water attunement. I do sometimes change it back to the way you had it, but it all depends on what class I’m about to fight.

This is what I currently use:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFQQJAoYhMMqc25wwBf0AdAB5xpvRBlzbnB-TlCFwANOgAOOBAsUPIjeiUq4Ub/hmKNIcgAlgKVmB4BAQGg8tA-w

You’re fairly tanky, but you still have loads of burst with the high power. Some scoff at the low crit damage, and I did too at first, but trust me, you have a do a lot more damage than you’d think.

Amazing as always man. it’s thieves like you that inspire me to get better with D/D!

I mean, uplevels still offer CC. I made a new guardian just for the sake of knocking level 80s off eotm (10/10 would recommend). They do less damage though obviously. I personally only leveled 1 of my 5 80s through PvE because I find PvE boring. Don’t punish people like myself because of that.

I personally use runes of the pack on my D/D thief

Penguin.5197:

On karma days I love going to the entrance of blue keep in eb and ambushing people as a quaggan. Its hilarious to see warriors try to dodge my super splash attack then run away with gs5

Silly warriors scared of Quaggan’s water splash. Big Kitty cats don’t like water so they think we threaten them.

This is why I saved up my gold to transfer out of Kaineng. You do have a point though. It really is horrendous how unfair some of the matchups are, and Anet needs to address this issue. In the mean time, I suggest going to one of the less popular maps and roam there. That’s what I do when we’re always outnumbered. Gotta have fun someway right?

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Tell that to these guys.. http://youtu.be/kylf6ZHWDYY

This makes Quaggan sad. Mean thieves think we easy prey so they kill us. We mean know harm. Please don’t hurt us. Quaggans want peace.
Please help save Quaggans by spreading the word.

Wanderer.3248:

We all know you’re just a distraction for the engineer and thief behind us.

No Quaggan mean no harm. Quaggan is nice person. Quaggan want peace.

I am friendly Quaggan. Please don’t hurt me. Every year thousands of quaggans are killed because they try to be friendly but people kill them. Please don’t kill us. We are friendly.

Well, I had a guild mate before that used to run a tanky S/D build. Literally his only purpose was to kitten people off because it made him really hard to kill.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Check the southern sections of borderlands and the areas around sentries in EB. If you’re going to get any good small fights at all, you’ll likely find them there.

This.

I mean, you might get one-shotted by a moa, but your damage will be off the charts. Your power is a tad low though, I’d switch from assassins to zerker if you were to actually use this. You’re going to die VERY fast though.

style.6173:

DD is ok for WvW roaming and that is it. It is not viable in team PvP, and is one of the worst at PvE.

Worst at PvE? It’s the worst at dealing with trash, but it provides one of the highest single target dps, making it good for bosses.

makku.2508:

I’d swap some of that soldier’s gear for valkyrie/cavalier, maybe go for 2 air instead of 2 earth. As you’re already running pack runes I’d try to get the max out of that Fury.

Alternatively, if you got enough spare gold I’d switch pack runes for strength runes, on tanky builds they tend to work better than pack.

I was actually thinking about doing this. I think I’ll try a set of strength and see how I like it.

Fhi.1840:

Hi all!

I am new to the game, and have a level 50 warrior. I’d like to hear some opinions on leveling weapons that worked for you. Before that though, there are a few things I want to point out, firstly to anticipate common responses (“just GS your way to 80”) and secondly to show that I’ve done my homework and not merely asking someone to play the game for me.

I know that:
1) I can choose never to use anything other than GS, but I like variety.
2) Axe OH does less than auto attack unless 5+ mobs.
3) Axe/mace is a very potent combination.
4) Dodging wisely and playing tactically trumps gear, stats and weapon choices.
5) Most of the endgame build assume some sort of basic skills, which sadly I’m still learning as I go. They also assume a level 80 trait distribution, e.g don’t use F1 because 15% damage.

So far these are what I have tried out and rather enjoyed:
1) Greatsword. I love two-handed swords in any RPG I play. I use this when I’m up against veterans and above, where I find that the faster I kill, the more survivable I am. However, in solo leveling, lots of the time 100b doesn’t get fully channeled (either dead long before, or moved out of range). It gets “boring” after awhile.

2) Axe/mace. I like this as many 80 builds use this, but it lacks mobility. I also love the animation and sound of F1.

3) Sword MH. Leap is awesome.

4) Axe OH. #5 is the flashiest ability I’ve seen for warriors. I love it. I pair Sword MH with Axe OH for dynamic events where tagging mobs is more important.

5) Mace MH. Control is sort of nice for veterans, and there’s a nice-ish block too. I may pair this with shield for particularly hard mobs (although with champions it’s probably not worth it at all). This setup is good for learning the basics of active defense in GW2, something I’m still particularly bad at.

6) Longbow. Not a big fan, but I keep one if I really need ranged.

My traits are everywhere because I can’t decide which weapon sets are good for which situation — not that it matters now because I only have 4 points. I’d like opinions on which weapon set should make up the bulk of my leveling.

I think it really depends. It sounds like you’re doing solo pve content to level, in which it all comes down to personal preference. Yes GS axe/maxe gives you the highest dps, but if you don’t find that it “works” for you, then find something that does. Axe autoattack does high damage, but sword mh attack does fairly good damage too, ut also comes with some very nice mobility. I do highly recommend GS, but nonetheless, use what you like. We could get into what’s the theoretical best, but honestly? Do whatever makes the deathly boring solo pve content more fun for you man.

Omg yes. I’ve been getting this too, and it’s really bad. On my ele, I try to rtl and it doesn’t work- it lags me back and forth. Any movement based spells start glitching up, and then regular skills just lag too. I checked my internet, and it’s 100% fine. I don’t have lag issues whilst doing anything but guild wars. Please fix this; makes my ele unplayable :/.

Kibazuka.1390:

why does everyone want some autowin button against thieves?

Because thief takes a different mindset to play against. People don’t like things that are different.

For D/D the general build is as follows:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fZEQNAoYVlsMp0pVOx7J8PNBNBt9DGeI4uGrYGaFAA-TFCFwAAeAAXVCiU53J9ACOBA12fIjmAVq/EA4Agf/95f/93SBY1WA-w

RedSpectrum.1975:

Engineers are very anti thief

good engis and good necros really mess up CnD thieves. There’s a reason I mainly use d/p now. Luckily I don’t see too many necros or engis, but kudos to those few that I do find because they know very well how to deal with thieves.

Wyrden.4713:

uh well, dont ask me, i play a glassy s/d build in wvw :p

Oh haha a little biased towards damage then xD. I think I’ll swap some trinkets if I find I need more damage. Money isn’t an issue atm with the bb event so I think I’m going to try this build out and see how it goes.

Wyrden.4713:

u lack some crit dmg, but its a pretty fine bunker

Yeah this is my only concern. The crit dmg is low, but the power is fairly high. What do you suggest I swap to increase the crit dmg a worthwhile amount?

lordhidetora.3189:

So, after QQ-ing about a cnd thief for the longest time, I decided to roll one.

I, of course went cnd to be as annoying as possible ,and holy crap it is so fun!

I love basically not trying at all, and all I have to really do is get behind the person….which is extremely easy (especially with noobs), because once you go stealth they run around, and you just get behind them and backstab, and back you go to being invisible. rinse and repeat.

I love it, I can’t believe I didn’t roll a thief when I first got the game.

The only thing that sucks is that in PvE, I have to use either my ranger, or warrior, or elementalist, or mesmer, or necro, or my ele. But for annoying people by roaming in WvW, this is the best thing ever.

I cant believe I didn’t roll this earlier for all these easy badges! I sometimes ask myself if I’m cheating, but then I realize that I’m not because, honestly how can I be? This is allowed!!!

Yay stealth and yay backstab!!!

CnD thief is arguably the hardest playstyle for thief. It all revolves around landing your CnD, which can be hard at times. It has a fairly long cast time, so it’s not too hard to dodge if you’re paying attention, and if you miss a CnD, unless you quikcly stow your weapons which takes ton of practice to do in a fight, it really really messes you up. And if someone is smart, they don’t make their back easy to get to. If they stand still while your in stealth, they deserve to die.

254 views and no other thoughts?

Pepsi.8907:

I won’t, in term of practice I think that ele gave me the whole idea of “You can’t be good and win against real people as soon as you hit 80” and made me learn tolerance, patience and how to keep keyboards intact XD
thanks for the build I’ll try those out, might go for d/p though it seems fun.

Yup I started out as an ele main too xD. Thief is the same way. And yeah I find d/p really fun. Good luck!

For D/P I use the following:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZEQNAoaVlsMp0pVOx7J8PNxOBtdAq9E4+EXoEdtDA-T1BBwAYV+B4EAkSfQx9H0p+DkHAwZlgBAOA43ff+3f/tUAWtFA-w
For D/D I use this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZEQNAoYVlsMp0pVOx7J8PNBNBt9DGeI4uGrYGaFAA-TFCFwAAeAAXVCiU53J9ACOBA12fIjmAVq/EA4Agf/95f/93SBY1WA-w

I generally like D/P more because of the great utility it offers (I’ve killed an insane amount of thieves just from interrupting their heal with d/p 4. D/D is still fun though.
On further thought, do keep in mind that thief is not forgiving. It takes a lot pof practice to pick it up well, so don’t give up!

Is the following build a good setup to shoot for for roaming in WvW?
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fFQQJAoYhcMaZ25wwBf0AdAB5xzvRBlzbnB-TlCFwANOgAOOBAsUPIjeiUq4Ub/hmKNIcgAlgKVmB4BAQGg8tA-w

My advice is to adjust your build. If you need condi cleanse, then put 2 into SA for the condi cleanse on stealth. If you need to be able to dodge more, put 3 into acrobatics for the extra endurance on evade. Yes you lose out on dps, but you’re also alive. An alive person deals more dps than a dead one.