Guild Wars 2

I totally agree! I’ve been thinking about the exact same thing too, and there are times when I get something that just aren’t useful or good to use at a certain situation. Good suggestion!

I agree with you OP. It’s unfortunate really. A large portion of the threads seem to be created by people who bring a volatile attitude, and no intention of learning or respectful discussion. And in all honesty, it’s both other classes and Thieves making these threads. I think there needs to be some sort of moderation here, as it is getting a bit out of hand and frustrating to those who want to help further GW2 gameplay development. I hope this will change soon.

I run a condition control build. It eats any opponents I seem to encounter. Most people are too impatient for control builds it seems though.

I think you have a good point OP, about Thieves being VERY limited in their options, and it is one of the main reasons for it’s seemingly lack of builds. Personally, I think it’d be great to be able to use traps in someway, or to be able to use D/P’s blinds more effectively.

Though I disagree on some of your points on P/D. P/D excels in control and condition builds. If you remove or alter it’s current elements, you just limited condition builds to pretty much only D/D #3 spam. P/D as a whole, from personal usage, is quite good right now, and I’d be sad to see it be changed. Like I said previously, P/D is all about control and/or conditions, the only exception is Body Shot, which seems very out of place and is hardly used. Shadow Strike is very good, as it adds a good amount of damage to the opponent and keeps safe distance. This is ideal for a ranged class. It makes sense for a ranged class to want to keeps its distance. Cloak and Dagger has it’s place. When you see how many opponents and NPCs tend to be on the battlefield, it becomes easy to keep stealthing with it. In 1v1 situations, I use Sneak Attack as my main damage output, and it’s not hard to do with Cloak and Dagger. I use steal, scorpion wire, and immobilizations to allow me to Cloak and Dagger → Sneak Attack safely while doing raw damage and conditional damage.

You mention venoms as if you don’t like them being in the Deadly Arts branch. I think it makes sense, for venoms add conditions, Deadly Arts passively increases condition duration. I need clarification though on your points of venoms. I tend to be an advocate of the notion that venoms are very good and fun to use.

Scorpion Wire is of course, another skill I use. I think the recharge time is good right now. I use 20% reduction in trick recharge time, and it lowers it to 24 seconds, which is quite nice as it cycles back around the same time my venoms do.

I don’t want to come off as being against you OP, as I honestly do think you have some well thought out arguments regrading the limitation in builds for Thieves. I just want to preserve some of the lesser used builds such as P/D, that are very effective in their current state.

I did a lot of variations of the build and so far my thoughts are that to have a build around blinding the opponent is not so good. To be able to consistently keep an opponent blinded is next to impossible. All opponents wipe blind off with ease and it’s completely ineffective on all channeling attacks, which make up a large portion of attacks anyways. To keep the opponent blinded you have to sacrifice a lot to do so, such as using large amounts of initiative, utility slots and overall power in attacks. I’d really like to see this work somehow, but the mechanics seem so weak.

I’ve already tried everything said above, as my main goal is to be able to consistently blind the opponent, but it doesn’t seem viable at the moment. If I’m overlooking some major thing, I’d be happy to know!

I disagree, about changing shadow strike with shadow shot. The cohesion of shadow shot with melee based attacking makes needs to be there. As a melee person you don’t want to be trying to kill a person yet having to constantly run back to them. Shadow strike fits within it’s ranged based gameplay, keeping distance with P/D is important, even with Cloak and Dagger. On a personal level, my main build uses P/D and Short Bow. I’ve been saved many times by shadow strike, such as getting caught in a burst move, there’s usually just enough time and the end of the burst for which I can escape or die. At those points in time, shadow strike has allowed me to get enough distance to escape/survive. Also, in general it does a decent about of damage and is very good for control builds. But that’s just my personal testimony.

To OP, it’s more of a mechanic thing rather than a logic based. It’d be nice to be able to at least bounce away if blocked though. So yes, I agree.

Has anyone else tried this?

I made one but it’s very initiative costly using D/P. It was very hard do enough DPS to kill them, ever. I think the hardest part was keeping it on the opponent, as most opponents swing and shoot quickly for it to make a noticeable difference. I think the only success I had was against melee only classes. Although smoke screen was useful against ranged classes. If anyone has had success with a build that is based on blinding the opponents I think it’d be neat to try out.

You just need to figure out a path. Once you figure out a path you start to realize how much time you actually have. The hardest part is the beginning, so it’s important to figure out a safe and reliable path there. Not to brag, but to prove my point, I’ve literally made it 15 times in a row without failing, due to having a set path that is reliable.

A good counter to backstab Thief is actually Thief. So long as you get the first hit in.

However I moved away from the bursty Thief and instead enjoy condition damage along with venoms. Condition damage eats weak opponents and the venoms allow for immobilizations so they can’t strike back while I kill them. Most backstab Thieves I’ve killed, (a lot) have veeeeeery little improvisation abilities beyond the backstab. Killing them is easy as far as I’m concerned. Only two classes have ever given me trouble and out right destroyed me. That was an extremely good bunker Elementalist who could take on 4 people at once, and a condition Necromancer, who transferred all my bleeds and conditions onto me, haha. I was so surprised, by the time I realized it happened I was on the ground.

I honestly do not understand why people want to buff venoms so badly. They are very good at the moment.

I’ve been running a control build for a while, that I’m very happy with. It takes practice, and a bit of well timed shots to use well. It’s not a burst build, instead using bleeds and careful immobilizations with venoms. Pistol and Dagger, with Short Bow as a weapon switch.

Here’s a link of videos of my build along with advice if you’re interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7dqpQVfOhw

Hope this helps and good luck!

Cherry.5712:

Vile.5678:

Venoms are disappearing from charge when I use the trick caltrop. I don’t have this issue with scorpion wire, another type of trick. It has an odd delay for when it disappears, usually 2 seconds after I use caltrops. I haven’t started using caltrops with venoms until after the recent update, so I don’t know if it’s a persistent bug or not.

Venoms currently have an annoying feature where any sort of missed attack (missed, evaded, blocked, obstructed, out of range, etc.) will still use up a charge of your venoms. Caltrops will pulse every second once they’re dropped, and each of those pulses is considered an “attack”, which is probably why you’re seeing your venoms drop off prematurely.

That’s a good find though, and another reason why I think Thief venoms should just stay on until a successful hit is made.

Thanks for commenting.

I’m kinda an odd ball as in I’ve been using venoms for quite some time now and don’t mind how venoms currently are. My issue with the caltrops in conjunction with venoms specifically is that they disappear from charge without even applying the venom. Even if the opponent is on the caltrops, taking caltrop damage. I think caltrops should just not use venoms. But it’d be cool if you could have like a venom caltrop field, where the venoms could be applied with caltrops. But no doubt that would be complained about, considering many people see caltrops alone as OP.

I think it’s fair for channeling skills to hit after stealth.
On the other hand, I’ve been downed before by phantasmal duelists who have found me after I escape around a corner about to recover my health. I think don’t think NPCs should be able to track when you are out of sight, such as behind walls. But if it causes too many issues to address, then just leave it alone, I can cope.

If you give a skill too much utility it becomes spammed on Thief. It’s already enough in my opinion that PW evades, allowing it to move too would be too much like said above.

The other things you suggested are more debatable, and I am inclined to agree that some need adjusting. I like your suggestions specifically on Body Shot and Ricochet. Don’t really have an opinion on the others.

It is! Jon Peters stopped by himself and said so! Awesome.

I’m going to chime in and say I’ve noticed a longer “feeling” revealed debuff than before… I don’t know what to think of it honestly besides I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought so. I doubt we’ll get a confirmation about it though.

Venoms are disappearing from charge when I use the trick caltrop. I don’t have this issue with scorpion wire, another type of trick. It has an odd delay for when it disappears, usually 2 seconds after I use caltrops. I haven’t started using caltrops with venoms until after the recent update, so I don’t know if it’s a persistent bug or not.

Edit: I’ve done some testing, and it seems if you even have caltrops on the field/in-play, your venoms will completely disappear before you can use them. This is a pretty huge bug for people who use venoms and caltrops.

Yes, that’s a fair assessment. I need to learn to adapt! Still going to use it though, I love it too much to walk away from it.

From October 22nd patch:
“Basilisk Venom: This skill’s buff now applies for the appropriate duration of 30 seconds.”

I realize that this is a fix for what the text read on the skill, but I can’t help but feel that Basilisk Venom should have stayed at it’s longer duration of lasting 45 seconds instead of the “corrected” 30 seconds. I’m not sure how many Thieves preferred Basilisk Venom, but the more I use it and the more they change it, I don’t see it being an “Elite” skill. Personally I think the best part of it WAS that with the 45 seconds duration, I could always have Basilisk Venom ready just in case I get caught in a Warrior or Thief burst move, I could steal and interrupt it. I’ll need to wait a bit to do some judging of how it affects my gameplay, so I’ll reserve my final thoughts until later. These are just my initial thoughts, though.

Any comments?

When I was examining the professions before release, deciding which to main, I decided at some point it was between Thief and Elementalist. I picked Thief.

I leveled to 80, did a lot of PvP, and generally enjoyed playing Thief.

However, it wasn’t till recently I decided to actually try Elementalist, after getting bored with Thief, and hearing everyone cry “Elementalists are underpowered!”
I thought to myself, “pfff, how hard could it be?”

Well, it wasn’t TOO bad, but it definitely wasn’t easy. Beforehand, I watched a few videos of what are to be considered “good” Elementalists, and started to understand how the class works. I really liked the play style of Scepter/Dagger and basically copied someone’s build until I got a better understanding of the class. Also, being very tired of PvE, I went straight into PvP, that way I could use all the traits and such and not worry about leveling.

Anyways, I did a bunch of testing on Golems and tried my best to grasp some important combos that could be pulled off. The hardest part initially was remembering all the different skills and their function. It seemed a bit mind boggling at first, 20 skills to use, along with utilities. Something I bet many grasp just from playing PvE, but nonetheless it was pretty fun to have the variety. Coming from Thief, I was used to a much higher damage output for significantly less effort, and I was a condition/control Thief, not even high damage burst. While I kept telling myself, it’s most likely because of my lack of experience, I eventually felt comfortable enough to do some sPvP.

So I jumped into sPvP. The first match went ok. I struggled with switching attunements at the right time and trying not to get overwhelmed in the heat of combat. The second match I played went very well. I started to get the hang of how things worked, and I even killed someone 1v1. Though many of the problems from the first match still remained. I kept thinking, “What am I doing wrong that prevents me from doing significant amounts of damage?” So I went back to the training golems to see what I could do. I further experimented and tried many combos, eventually building a fairly long combo of damage dealing moves. Though, it wasn’t long before I realized how much work it required, just to do decent amount of damage, let alone pull off the combo. I reentered sPvP and really focused in. I soon realized the importance of well timed skill usage as well as attunement changes. Sometimes I would accidentally switch to the wrong attunement and the consequences were harsh, and it was difficult to recover from. The harder hitting moves had a long windup time, and were very easy for the opponent to avoid, so long as the kept moving, which they usually did. I was however thankful for how much longer I could last in battles openly thanks to water and earth, something not easily achieved as Thief.

After a few days of sPvP as Elementalist. I started getting better and better at switching attunements and getting the combos off successfully. I started to see smaller connections with combo fields that became useful, along with the synchronization of utilities. Unfortunately, I still had some issues, some I’m almost positive are bugs, and the timing on attunements definitely needs work on my end. Though in the long run, I couldn’t help but get the continous thought of “My Thief can do damage more efficiently in almost every way, or so it seems.” I want to believe I’m just awful at Elementalist, and with time and practice I’ll be able to say Thief and Elementalist in particular are on equal grounds, but I honestly cannot say it be. I’m going to keep working on Elementalist, and start doing more experimentations with other weapon sets. Hopefully I’ll get better, because Elementalist is a lot of fun to play, but it does get discouraging to lose in battles time again to other “easier” classes. I still feel as if there is hope though. I can somewhat see the high potential the class could have with someone who is very talented and dedicates a lot of time to get good. It’s a class with a fairly high skill cap, as well as high minimum to play effectively.

On a different note, I noticed that I became a magnet for melee classes. Many other classes would single me out in combat and focus fire on me. I thought it felt unusual as I don’t have as much issues when I play other classes. Perhaps people think Elementalists as easy targets, and seem to go for them first?

TL;DR: My impression of Elementalist goes simply as: It’s fun, but much harder than most of the classes I’ve played. The DPS seems weak even when pulling off larger combos successfully. This is especially so when comparing to my main, Thief.

Thanks for reading.

The NPCs and channeling attacks…So very much. Extremely frustrating when they continue to attack you even when stealthed.

Also if you hide around a corner… They will find you and chase you; across the map sometimes.

No, I disagree with this. Like said above, you can spec into venoms and get them at 36 second cooldowns which is significantly less time. You can apply the venoms preemptively to get a shorter cooldown and to have venoms ready. Venoms are very effective if you understand when and how to use them.

My personal change for immobilize would be so you can rotate in position when immobilized. As of now, when immobilized you are stuck facing one direction for the entire duration. If the opponent is smart enough to get to the side or behind you, then you most likely cannot fight back at all, which is frustrating especially for ranged classes who could fight back at the very least. A lot of classes have mass condition removals, or at least ways to deal with immobilize right now, so nerfing it too hard might be a bad idea imo. I also have builds in various classes that use immobilization, and other techniques, so seeing it get nerfed would make me sad, as I would be forced into a play style I don’t like if I wanted to remain effective.

DreamOfACure.4382:

Vile, I can see you’re not using Venomous Aura (which is the only viable reason I’ve found to using it and that’s only for PvP), so why don’t you use Dagger Storm instead?

From what I’ve seen, Basilisk Venom is only superior in two aspects.

1. It can interrupt casts.
2. It can be used underwater.

Interrupting isn’t something people can do often, and underwater fighting makes a mess of everyone’s build (since no one thinks much about underwater combat. :P)

- So in both cases, Basilisk Venom is highly situational.

Dagger Storm is a much more impacting skill, both in fighting against single OR multiple targets (whether PvP or PvE), even when accounting for cooldown.
And the synergy it has with the Lyssa Rune is much more potent.

---

Is this build supposed to be for PvE or PvP?

If it’s purely for PvE, I’d recommend using Ice Drake Venom instead. Poison Venom is more suited to people building DPS who want to make sure their damage sticks.

You claim this is a “Control” thief build, but from what I can tell, there’s more control effects to be utilized.

I did run Venomous Aura for a while actually, and the problem I ran into was how close you had to be with allies. You have to literally be standing right next to them for it to work, which is a pain and usually means you can’t share it effectively. Also, usually I played it with sPvP, which means there’s a lack of coordination, and most of the time people don’t know that they have venoms even applied, and completely waste them by auto-attacking into nothing the venom disappeared before they could use it. I often found it too impractical. The only thing I could imagine it being useful is a coordinated team, but even then it wouldn’t be as useful because unless ran to 2 or more people to give it to them, you could have the additional venom strike due to Residual Venom, which is the equivalence of having an extra person using venom from Venomous Aura.

Regarding Basilisk Venom: To me, the ability the interrupt an enemy is extremely powerful. When well timed, it can completely turn the tide of the battle, whether it be a well timed prevention of a heal, preventing the opponent from finishing off an ally, or even stopping burst attacks like Bull Rush and such (which it can). The ability to do interrupt 3 times, twice with Basilisk Venom and once with Scorpion Wire is huge. I’ve found it to be effective against high healing classes like Guardian, as you can severally hurt their ability to heal correctly. Dagger Storm is effective, but you do lose control of the opponents, as they often dodge away, get out of range and escape. The longer 90 second cooldown doesn’t make me want to use it either when I can get all boons and remove conditions in half that time. Also, I tested the Rune of Lyssa, and it’s every 45 seconds you can activate it, which is very frequently, and the Venom actually applies for an entire 45 seconds, so you can constantly have Basilisk Venom and get the boons and removing conditions whenever you apply it. For me it’s proved to be a very powerful tool, in controlling my opponents.

I did also use Ice Drake Venom, but I didn’t like the very short duration of chill. Chill is veeeeeery good, but I feel like if I steal from an Elementalist, I can get a much more powerful chill attack. I prefer Scorpion Wire over it because it brings the opponent to me, can take them off high grounds, and interrupts. When they are brought to me, I use Cloak and Dagger, then sneak attack, thus throwing them into the heat of battle whether they are ready or not. From there I can control them with my other venoms and abilities. I’ve used it in PvE, but I almost exclusively play sPvP as I got bored with the campaign and PvE in general. Most of my friends have moved on from GW2 for the time being anyways, so it’s hard to get a group together. Thanks for commenting.

I’ve made a diagram linking the build and it’s relationship to what I consider the most important aspects: Condition Damage, Stealth, Mobility, and Immobilization.

Condition Damage: This links to many aspects of the build, specifically the bleeds and venoms. Bleeds are applied almost solely through the pistol. When stealthed, you have the opportunity to apply 5 stacks of bleed to the target opponent along with a decent amount of damage. Also, the application of poison with Spider Venom can have devastating effects on the opponents ability to heal as well as doing large amounts of damage over a long period of time. Minor traits such as Serpent’s Touch, Lotus Poison, and Exposed Weakness all have a powerful ability to enhance your opportunity to apply large amounts of damage to the opponent if they are unable to remove them. By specifying in both Deadly Arts and Trickery you increase condition duration and condition damage.

Stealth: A distinguishing ability of the profession, it is extremely effective at keeping you alive as well as applying damage. Abilities such as Cloak and Dagger are extremely useful, keeping you consistently stealth so long as you have the initiative. Cloak and Dagger can often be used on non-important targets such as NPCs so that you may remained stealth without getting close to the opponent or to escape. Traits such as Last Refuge and Meld with Shadows are extremely useful in keeping you alive as well as prolonging the battle. It is significant especially in Meld with Shadows, as every extra second stealthed means that you are another second closer to using your next immobilization ability as soon as it comes off cooldown. And of course, the ability Hide in Shadows (heal), is extremely versatile as it serves many purposes for the Thief and his ability to outperform other classes. If you use the trait Hidden Thief, stealing can also be an effective tool to not only shadowstep and stealth to an opponent to finish them off quickly but also to escape; it is a powerful trait to utilize.

Mobility: The ability to shadowstep towards or away from a target opponent is of great importance for a Thief. Abilities like Shadow Strike allow you to bounce away from an oncoming melee class very effectively. Using traits such as Thrill of the Crime which gives you swiftness is when stealing is an effective way to either escape or travel quickly across the map. I’ve also used Basilisk Venom as a type of mobility. When I use The Rune of Lyssa, casting an elite skill gives me all boons and removes all conditions. This is extremely effective for many reasons, as it obviously gives swiftness, and removes all movement impairing conditions, but, coupled with the 20% reduction of venom (Quick Venoms) AND the 45 second application of Basilisk Venom with a 36 second cooldown means that you can always have Basilisk Venom ready while getting all boons almost every 36 seconds. HOWEVER, there is an unseen cooldown on this ability despite the lack of it in the description of Rune of Lyssa. I believe the cooldown for that to work is about 60 seconds, so theoretically get all boons ever 60 seconds, which is still pretty amazing. It is also of great importance to mention the mobility offered by the Shortbow. Infiltrator’s Arrow allows you to travel an extra 900 distance for the cost of 6 initiative. You can even travel up slopes in many areas, giving you a great advantage of mobility.

Immobilization: The ability to lock the opponent in place is the backbone of this build. Devourer Venom, Basilisk Venom and Scorpion Wire are what do this. With the Grandmaster trait in Deadly Arts, Residual Venom, you can greatly increase the duration for which you can lock an opponent. With Devourer Venom alone, you can hit the opponent for 3 strikes, each immobilizing for 2.5 seconds each for a total of 7.5 seconds. This is huge, as it literally gives you 7.5 seconds of soaking of condition damage, usually the prevention of damage, and the chance to apply additional damage. Basilisk Venom gets 2 strikes, each for 1 second. This is great to completely prevent an chance of the opponent casting while you can perform and setup the entire battle from that alone. Scorpion Wire is great as it can pull opponents from high ground, pull them from escaping, or just to interrupt them and allow you to perform Cloak and Daggers. Scorpion has a short coodown duration of only 24 seconds if you have the trait Trickster, which is very useful.

These are the main synergetic ideas that this build is based off. Hopefully the diagram isn’t too confusing. The lines are meant to indicate that they have a direct relationship to one or more of the main aspects of the build: Condition Damage, Stealth, Mobility, and Immobilization. Thanks for reading, and commenting on this thread, there are some really good ideas posted above for builds. I felt it was important to share my experience with thief as well, as best I can.

Snuff.4172:

Similar to the build I run sometimes. Been around a while However you seem to be getting additional initiative, I personally think the back bone of any pistol dagger build is 30 in shadow arts for the heal. That heal makes a huge difference in pvp.

Do you know of any videos of other thieves doing this? I’ve looked around on youtube, and such but I haven’t found anything similar yet. I’m curious to know what other people have done besides the same old, BS, HS, PW, and TG play. I noticed that P/P is gaining popularity but it hasn’t been something that appealed to me due to skills that I find uninteresting.

Also, I’ve tried 30 in Shadow Arts (currently 20) and I couldn’t justify the trait that would synergize with my build, that adds venom to nearby allies. You have to be fairly close for it to trigger and even then most don’t realize that they have received the venom to be able to use it in an efficient way. Of course in a coordinated team, I could see that it could be useful, however I find many tradeoffs too detrimental on myself as a thief and ability to perform. Thank you for a response.

I have constructed to what I believe is a “Control Thief” due to it’s intentional design to control the pace of the battle and prolong to a degree. This concept is rather successful in the sense that players generally don’t have a long term battle plan, and ultimately fall short after the first initial burst. It utilizes the idea of condition damages, mobility, and control, into one. I have a few videos about it.

Demonstration of it working on Svanir and The Chieftain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSJK6mOiJFI&feature=channel&list=UL

Me talking about it working and how it was derived from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6iQidXKsd4&feature=channel&list=UL

Hopefully people will start to split into different types of thief, instead of the very common burst damage type that is usually complained about on the forums.

Thanks for reading.