Guild Wars 2

Hey!

I’m just dabbling with the idea, since cele engi and ele is a “thing” nowadays.

I know AikijinX once had a build which focused on life steals

Link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Aikijinx-s-Life-Absorb-Build-Pictures/first

build link: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vYAQNAqYVlsMp7plOxoJ8PRRw9wpQtpeKK7Y1KQzuCRF-zUCBIgBCXEkiIQEFgJqFRjtMsIasKZCp6aYaYROAACghO0he0je0IFg5CjA-w

Has celestial been boosted since that build was first showed?

Check out www.gw2style.com – here you can search race, type of armor etc etc.

I got a good idea for my thief there, and the preview codes are also there so can see for your self in-game.

I want to dual wield hammers.

No, but seriously, rifle, i don’t know.. We don’t have a 1200 range weapon, but I think a-net want us to have good mobility instead.

Offhand sword, maybe. A blade dancer!

Melee staff, yes, even though I doubt that will happen.

symke.3105:

mompen.7952:

Hi! Welcome to the shadows.

Warrior is indeed a more static class, and Thief is just so much more fun!
So if you like that playstyle, don’t shelve him/her because you feel it’s challenging.

As for AOE’s, it all comes down to move outside that big red circle. Warrior’s probably could stand in them and like “is something touching me?”… A Thief can’t do that. Unfair, right? :-P

As a Thief you have to be more aware of your surroundings, and act fast.

What traits and gear are you using?

I just turned 80, so most of my gear, while being lvl 75-80, is there mostly because it looked better than what I had before. I usually prefer increase in power, precision or ferocity over toughness, vitality and condition damage.
I got most of it while fighting world bosses and my decision to change it based mostly on it’s color . I know it’s not the most practical way of doing it, but yellow or gold does look better .
The same goes for traits. I have whatever I got while leveling. I recently made a list of traits I would like to get, so my next priority is to find zones I need to uncover or activities I need to do in order to get them.

Is it better to make the necessary gear myself, buy it from others, or continue doing bosses and PVE and wait for something good to drop into my lap?

I see! (note that you can also buy the traits for skill points, but if you don’t mind exploring, go ahead).

You can make your own armor, but it requires you too level your crafting, and it’s quite expensive and time consuming. I would recommend just buying the armor you want off the Trade Post.
You are focusing on the right stats for your armor, but since you are new to the Thief, starting out with only berserker gear (power, precision ferocity) can be a pain in the kittttten. So changing out a few of the armors with Valkyrie armor (some more health) or Cavalier/Knights armor (power, thoughness and ferocity/precision) can be a good idea. And then changing out pieces with berserker gear as you get more comfortable with the class.

Hi! Welcome to the shadows.

Warrior is indeed a more static class, and Thief is just so much more fun!
So if you like that playstyle, don’t shelve him/her because you feel it’s challenging.

As for AOE’s, it all comes down to move outside that big red circle. Warrior’s probably could stand in them and like “is something touching me?”… A Thief can’t do that. Unfair, right? :-P

As a Thief you have to be more aware of your surroundings, and act fast.

What traits and gear are you using?

Do you play the 0/6/6/2/0 build?

And what type of armor/sigils/trinkets you have?

Sagat.3285:

Sagat.3285:

Melee rifle ftw!!

I quote the quote!

Yeah, I also duo with a thief, and it’s much-o funny-o.
We also sit on teamspeak the entire time, and we are starting to get pretty coordinated. We both play D/P, so we take advantage of each others black powders, shadow refuges etc.
We can engage and disengage as we want.

You can achieve backstappphs that scare people today if you spec right, but that affects your survivability by heaps.
I tried DecieverX’ yolo assassin build a few nights ago, and I had to double take a look at the damage log. I did 10k cloak and dagger, and 17k backstabs on crits (on squishies tho). That was fun :-) not a serious setup, but instagibs is still a possibility.

necroed!

I use improv in sPVP sometimes, and it works just fine for me.
It’s a little random, but hey. Turns the fight in my favor more then it doesn’t most of the times.

But no, it’s still in the same state as it where in the Alpha/Beta.
Useless for anything else then the random reset-er, and I guess people would debate it’s usefulness even for the reset function being as random as it is.

WvWvW roaming? _______

Zero.6592:

Sagat.3285:

Melee rifle FTW!!!

I sincerely hope the thief specialization won’t be rifle. I can accept the pistols as it is the pirate style, but rifle is really going too far.

They make noise, are not stealthy at all, and most importantly friggin lame.
Give us a ninja asssassin style longbow instead!

If it is to be a melee weapon, GS may be cool. But dual swords makes a bit more sense perhaps. Either way, I am curious as to what kind of skills/mechanics a melee weapon could bring that’s worthy of specialization.

Although I agree that would be cool, keep in mind that the “Thief” is not an “Assassin”, even tho I wish it was.

The Thief is stealthy tho, so I hope they don’t break that archetype somehow.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-is-NOT-a-Rogue

No, it’s not a Rogue.

What level are you now? It’s been a while since I leveled mine, but Thief gets more funny when you reach lvl 80, just stick with him/her.

That being said, Thief has been nerfed several times, but is still very playable in most modes, especially in WvW as a solo roamer.

What modes would you play your Thief?

YuiRS.8129:

mompen.7952:

YuiRS.8129:

Um, D/D isn’t ranged.

Visit metabattle.com. Do be warned that Thief is probably the worst solo PvE profession in the game.

You really mean that? When (not that often) I play PvE with my thief, I find it a blast.
Just equip Sword/Pistol, and PvE is easymode really.

Have you played Warrior or Guardian? Thief is like an anemic kitten compared to those classes when it comes to soloing.

But yeah, S/P is the best set for soloing, that’s for sure.

Yeah, it’s of course easier on those classes :-) And more boring IMO :-P

YuiRS.8129:

Um, D/D isn’t ranged.

Visit metabattle.com. Do be warned that Thief is probably the worst solo PvE profession in the game.

You really mean that? When (not that often) I play PvE with my thief, I find it a blast.
Just equip Sword/Pistol, and PvE is easymode really.

make sure you hit then ;-)

practice makes perfect.

You can’t lower the initiative on the cloak and dagger skill it self, but you have ways to regenerate initiative faster and have more initiative at your disposal tho.

mango.9267:

I play 20606 with d/d. 40-50% crit chance, pack runes, thrill of the crime, and fire/air sigils means you’ll still do very solid damage, with good sustain and team utility.

And d/d still does well against rangers (as all teefs do). Pets make for a very easy CnD target, and you have a ton of gap closers.

However, I think the meta is at a point where there are certain builds you just won’t be able to kill running the standard x66xx Yishis build (various guardian builds, d/d ele, condi warrior, etc.). If you want to play d/d teef, I highly suggest investing 6 into trickery.

What is your opinion on Bountiful Theft (BT) vs Flanking strikes?

Vigor and boon is nice, but so is also 5% dmg on the back/sides of the enemy.

Thinking I will try BT as one will get a nice fury from TotC which will get my critical chance up to 66% with my current setup 2/0/6/0/6 (rune of the pack).

What about fury runes tho (superior rune of rage)? One doesn’t have the best critical strikes with this kind of setup, and will make almost 1/2 of your backstabs dealing lower damage, so why not “abuse” that fury we get from TotC? You get +30% fury duration, a 25% chance of getting fury (30 sec CD) and +5% dmg while under the effect of fury.

I got called EU’s worst thief yesterday because I used HS as a gapcloser when the Ele was running away. He called me 521 521 521 noob.

And I replied, “you got downed by the worst thief EU, how does it feel?”

More tears for my little bucket of cries. Not by far full, but we’re getting there!

Make your own thread Nephrite

Nightstinger, my man. I like it

We roamed together last night with this setup, and it worked out quite nice.
Especially in small group fights where ricochet bounces to targets. 1on1 it’s a little lackluster, and can be changed out for bountiful theft or something.

<3

So backstab was always a backstab?

You are new, stick to Sword Pistol with Signet of Malice (SoM).

Nice blinds, evades and cleave paired with heal (SoM).

As someone has mentioned, D/D cleave is weaker then Sword cleave.

Shortbow offhand.

When I see a ranger I equip Smoke Screen, it blocks their first burst (usually rapid fire) and since they now feel invincible, they are all usually glassy now. So if you manage to survive that first burst, they are not really a threat.

But yeah, it’s bound to be nerfed. I wonder if A-net really test things before hitting live? Sometimes it doesn’t seem like that to me…

I tried this the other night, was quite fun! A different approach on the thief.
And people don’t really expect you having traps in your kitten nal.

One of the fights I had with this build, I was against 4 thieves. Although I didn’t manage to kill anyone of them, I held my ground pretty good for a while thanks to the stealth procc on traps, and dat superspeed! 100% speedboost is really nice.

Will try more later on tonight :-)

Veyld.2407:

Geiir.7603:

I run travelers, not altruism.

I figured that had to be an accident lol. I ran runes of Speed for awhile for the extra Vitality, but Travelers aren’t a bad choice either. I know plenty of good thieves that run those.

Geiir.7603:

Ah, pack runes should work great too!

I ran these for awhile too. While they are a solid choice, I figured since I’m already getting 100% crit chance on my Backstabs, and I’ve got Fury when they’re below 50%, that the extra prec bonus was kind of a waste. Entirely up to you though.

What are your experience with assassin armor? I see you gain a few more points here and there:

Assassins: critical chance 50
vs 46 on ’serker

Assassins: 1893 precision
vs 1802 on ’serker.

’Serker gives you 2461 power tho,
vs 2370 on assassins (ferocity stays the same).

Well, I got to fight the high wizard now. But maybe some other people wonder about the same thing :P

So as the title says.

I have been playing many hundreds hours on my thief, but now they want me to gain more experience before unlocking my grandmaster trait “revealed training”.
(or kill Risen High Wizard, but there’s no timer on him, etc etc).
What do I have to do to “gain more experience”? Finish my personal story? Cause I haven’t, found it boring :P

Thanks in advance…

I think you screwed up the runes xD Runes of Altruism. Just so you know.

Will try it out, I have a mix of valk and zerker tho, and pack runes.

I’m giving this a bump, since it deserves it.

Mod: sticky this

flavor of the month

Check what Hunter wrote here, pretty much sums up a standard D/P build with good sustain through shadow arts:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/HunterXIV-s-Thief-Build

Enriquejzee.5281:

AyuReady.3952:

Well I wouldn’t bother making a thief at all with the way anet has been treating us thief players. But if you want to torture yourself like the rest of us, CONDI is probably the way to go seeing as anything zerker has been, will be, nerfed into oblivion.

Yeah i’m not sure why the other professions got a paragraph full of changes and thief get like…one strip of toiler paper lol. So im guessing Pistol/Dagger for my weap set and D/D or Short bow?. Wouldn’t have mind but the leveling system is so crap, Can’t even choose when i want to do story missions lol.

I feel ya. I got many hundreds hours on my thief, and was about to unlock the “confusion on steal trait”, but the trainer told me I was not experienced enough, lol (I haven’t bothered doing the story done.. Guess I have to now).

P/D for easy condi build, full dire armor, and you will be un-killable. I just purchased a full dire armor for funsies with krait runes (they are WAY to cheap to be that good, haha. Guess it’s the drop rate that does it). Anyways, I can charge in on a group of 3-6 people going HAM, and if things don’t go my way, I have enough toughness and if you feel really cheesy, spec in shadowarts for another 300 toughness, I can escape without any problems.
People will hate you for this, but who cares? It’s in the game, so use whatever you want.
Cheese will be cheese, and it tastes DELICIOUSSSSSSssssssss

I appreciate you taking the time to write this up, but yeah, it’s just a standard D/P build.

I don’t mean to be offensive or anything, but this build has been out since the thief has been out.

Depends… PvE, of course.

vincecontix.1264:

CJay.4067:

very underwhelming buff in my opinion:

skill #1:
-damage still pretty bad
-still misses half of the time without a reason
-retilation almost throws back as much dmg as you deal

skill #2:
- still misses half of the time

skill #3:
- way too slow now, pretty much rendered useless

so faaaaaaaaaar away from beeing viable

Depends what game mode you are talking about but I am running some builds with FT atm that are working very well. Will uploads vids shortly.

You know vince, you can’t just say stuff like that and not do it! Lol, I’m just kidding, but I always like your videos and I check this thread often to see if you have some cool footage presented.
I’m still waiting

“When you use a trap skill, gain 3 seconds of super speed.”

“….super speed”.

kitten?

Underwater buffs, awesome

So these are the changes we got, thoughts?

Thief

Panic Strike:
Reduced the immobilized duration from 4 seconds to 2.5 seconds. Reduced the cooldown of this trait from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.

Invigorating Precision:
Increased life steal from 5% to 8%.

Ricochet:
This trait now increases the range of all pistol skills by 150 in addition to giving bullets a chance to bounce to another target.
Fixed an issue that caused tertiary bounces to travel a much shorter distance than intended. These will now travel the full distance.

Assassin’s Equilibrium:
Increased the stability duration from 1 second to 1.5 seconds.

Venomous Aura:
This trait now maintains condition ownership when venoms are shared, using the thief’s condition damage and condition duration attributes instead of the condition damage and attributes of the player that poisoned the creature.
The thief may trigger secondary effects off of these condition applications, such as weakening an enemy with Lotus Poison when an ally poisons an enemy with a shared Spider Venom.
Healing effects, such as those from Skelk Venom or the Leeching Venoms trait, will use the thief’s healing power and power attributes but will continue to recognize the attacking player as both the healing source and healing target.
Basilisk Venom still treats the attacking player as the source. This was done to maintain the ability for other classes to activate on-control and on-interrupt effects such as Halting Strike when using a thief’s Basilisk Venom.

Instinctual Response:
Fixed a bug that caused this trait to grant fury and vigor when triggered on cooldown.

Whirling Axe:
Fixed a bug that caused this skill to continue to channel while dodging.

Double Strike, Wild Strike, Lotus Strike:
This attack chain now hits up to 2 enemies.

Black Powder:
Increased the interval between pulses to 2 seconds. Reduced the duration of blind to 2 seconds.

Unload:
Increased the speed of this skill by 20%.

Signet of Malice:
Fixed a bug that caused the passive healing amount displayed on the skill fact to be lower than the actual healing amount.

Choking Gas:
This skill now deals a small amount of damage on the initial impact.

Flanking Strike:

This skill now must successfully hit a target before giving the thief access to Larcenous Strike. Initiative cost has been increased to 4.

Larcenous Strike:
Initiative cost of this skill has been reduced to 1.

The Ripper:
This skill now pierces. Increased the damage of this skill by 40%. Increased the speed of this skill by 50%.

Deadly Strike:
This skill now cleaves, hitting up to 3 targets. Increased the speed of this skill by 33%.

Needle Trap:
Increased the damage of this trap by 10%. Added 3 stacks of bleeding for 3 seconds on hit.

Ambush:
Increased the speed of the ranged thief’s unload skill by 20%.

Thieves Guild:
Increased the speed of the ranged thief’s unload skill by 20%.

Hidden Thief:
Fixed a bug that caused the stealth from this trait to be applied before the attack from Mug, causing this trait combination to always reveal the thief.

Also some “interesting” runes and sigils:

New Runes and Sigils in PvE and WvW

Superior Sigil of Cleansing:
Remove 1 condition when you swap to this weapon while in combat.

Superior Sigil of Cruelty:
Gain a charge of +10 ferocity each time you kill a foe—five if you kill an enemy player.

Superior Rune of Evasion:
+25 Ferocity
When executing a dodge roll, you gain 3 seconds of swiftness.
+50 Ferocity
When executing a dodge roll, you gain 3 seconds of fury.
+100 Ferocity
When executing a dodge roll, deal a crippling strike to nearby enemies.

Superior Rune of the Trapper:
+25 Condition Damage
The duration of conditions you apply last 10% longer.
+50 Condition Damage
When you use a trap skill, gain 3 seconds of super speed.
+100 Condition Damage
Gain 3 seconds of stealth when using a trap skill.

Superior Rune of Radiance:
+25 Vitality
When you receive an aura, you gain 5 seconds of swiftness.
+50 Vitality
When you use a heal skill, you gain 4 seconds of light aura.
+100 Vitality
The duration of auras you apply are increased by 33%.

Maybe rune of evasion good for S/D acro build?

I just copy/pasted what he wrote, but you are welcome :-D

@FinalPatriot

Here’s what he posted in another thread:

Valk/zerker mix, HiS heal, infil signet + assassin’s signet + signet of shadows + BV.
Traits are:
DA: Mug/Dagger Training;
CS: Signets of Power, Signet Use, HK;
0
0
TR: ToTC

Anyone can play D/D burst.
But a mastered D/P their is unstoppable and crazy. In the link what if you took 6/6/0/0/2, would that work also?

D/D requires “actually” more skill then D/P , as D/P is very noob friendly with easy access to stealth. So I don’t know, “anyone can play D/D burst” is a weird statement IMO.
But yes, a good D/P thief is harder to take down thanks to the utilities and stealth access.

As to your question, everything works, it just depends on your playstyle.
What a trickery build offers you tho is more initiative, vigor when you steal (more dodges), boon ripping and interrupt on steal (which also in on a lower CD).
A lot more utilities.

If you want a YOLOPANIC-build, try 6/6/0/0/2

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVl0Mp8plOxyJ8PNRLBtd03wH86Na/gAcAA-TlyCwAAOQAJOBAgVCGd/R53iHAQM1fEpNQuOGEHCgCHhgAAIAczbe0be0bWKgBWAA-w

Less survivable, less initiative and a tad more dmg.

I have both a Charr and a human thief. I play both pretty much the same, but tend to play my human more since I feel charr feels so “chunky” and slow (but I like the charr better as a race.. Ash Legion spy, ready to strike your enemies with your spiky claws!)

nacario.9417:

Hey fellow theives and cutthroats!

…

Im wondering if I could make a D/D or D/P build work that is pure glass, hit hard and get out to regain iniaitive. Like with pure zerk? We dont relay that much on armor/hp anyway.. Will I have enough upkeep or is there a meta build for such a play? I may end up going for a different set involving a dagger since Im a bit tired of the traditional D/P BS with HS “spam/mechanic”.

Anyway I appreciate all feedback I can get as pockets needs to be emptied.

Hey! Welcome back to the shadows.

If you want highest possible burst, dagger is the way to go.

D/D is (arguably) the best damage set we have, but it lacks some utilities our D/P build has (interrupts etc), and death blossom (#3 on D/D) is nearly or never used.

I play D/D, because I like that playstyle, but sometimes it comes out short.

You have this D/P build which is a good all-rounder (carpboy posted it one time ago, but it’s really a standard “meta” build):

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fZEQNAoaVlsMp0pdOx7J8PNBNBtdFGeI4uGlYGaFAA-TFCFABCcKAeU9HkU+Vy+DZoJYD9AA8EAuSJYAAEAuZYzyAovFA-w

OK sustain, good damage. Cavaliers because of guard buffs.
Change out signet of shadows for infiltrators signet when you engage enemies (it’s for running around in WvW).

D/P is a heavy initiative build, so you I’ve fixed this for you:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVl0MpypdPx0J8PNBNRs9UXI31lzaFA-T1RBABBY/xVK/wTfzCnBAAeAAUq+jZKBJFQEjBA-w

What I did is basically remove all points from trickery to shadow arts for infusion of shadow, so you gain 2 initiative every time you gain stealth.

For more damage, and shutdown options (lotus poison) you could go:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVl0MpypdPx0J8PRRLhsdoVv4aoXx18RAA-T1RBABBY/xVK/wTfzCnBAAeAAUq+jZKBJFQEjBA-w

Or take two in trickery for Thrill of the crime:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVl0MpypdPx0J8PRBNhs9kOh4sWJvCrVAA-T1RBABBY/xVK/wTfzCnBAAeAAUq+jZKBJFQEjBA-w

If you are inexperienced as a thief, the heal in stealth (first build) is a good way to go.

And as you have experienced your self, even with infusion of shadow, you can’t really spam 5+2 all the time. Watch your initiative, and always have a plan for your next move.

My two(three) cents, good luck :-)

(also, I doubt you got ascended armor with ruby orbs xD) I could also suggest you changing those out to a runeset, more beneficial for you. Rune of the Pack or Rune of the Ogre are two good choices, and are not that expensive.

thanks flow :-)

I’ve done some of the changes you proposed:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBmODbkjmib7rx2G2bTULUQXnBwMEVJQdbcHVLA-T1SDABUpkQENCMqCyTKneR9DoUiEimgd2fYBlggoDAATQBAQA4m78o7coJFQELjA-w

(I posted the wrong build the first time btw, I had a build which used well’s, and I forgot to change those traits :P)

Hey ya’ll!

Been a while since I’ve logged into my necro (been on my engi and thief).
All the time I have for playing GW2 goes to roaming in WvW.

I know necroes aren’t that good at mobility, but I was thinking of using spectral walk and flesh worm for some teleports and jukes.

But skills aside, I’m wondering about my traits.

I have a dire and rabid set, one soldier and one full zerker. Was thinking about full zerker, since most of the time I will be duo-ing with a thief-friend of mine, and want to nuke people down fast (if I have the life force :P)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBmODbkjmib7rx3G2bToLUQvmBQKE1FQ9YUGLLA-T1SDABUpkQENCMqCyTKneR9DoUiEimgd2fYBlggoDAATQBAQA4m78o7coJFQELjA-w

what can be improved with this one?

Thanks in advance

I also think sigil of energy is a nice choice, i also use D/D with fire and air sigils, and bloodlust sigil and energy on my shortbow. it’s nice with some extra dodges, and it has saved me more then one time.

but yeah, a build would be nice

“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” – Stephen Hawking

“Enjoying success requires the ability to adapt. Only by being open to change will you have a true opportunity to get the most from your talent.” – Nolan Ryan

Major change is triggered when people face a significant discrepancy between what they expected and what actually happens during change. People adjust to change, not by learning to like what is taking place, but by forming new expectations that can lead to success under the new conditions.

So let us not dig our own graves, even so before the actual changes are made.
On the other hand, discussions of what we can do to counter these changes I support (if they even hit live).

I know we get nerfed all the time, but some changes were, and will be, needed – even if we don’t like the changes. We adapt. Human nature. That’s why we live and not the neanderthals.

What server are you on? A good way to get better is fighting more experienced thieves, and, if they are nice, they can provide you with some tips on how and what to improve.

As hihey said, people nowadays know, or are more experienced, in fighting thieves. And that’s a good thing IMO!

Dahkeus.8243:

…but that got nerfed.

Story of our lives?

“This is the story of our lives
Come and take a look at my eyes
Keep it real and tell me no lies
We’ve been waiting for you
Here we go
This is the story of our lives
Come and take a look at my eyes
Keep it real and tell me no lies
We’ve been waiting for you”
/(nerf)

You can actually use S/D in a normal D/D trait setup, like 2/6/6/0/0. Search for Harley Quinn on YouTube.

You could also go 2/0/2/4/6 for condi cleanse when stealthing.

Or standard 2/0/0/6/6 for evade spam (soon to be slightly nerfed).

I my self pigeonhole my self to D/D, and depending if the target is squishy or not I can land some decent backstabs (ranging from 5-9k, whereas the lowest beeing on higher toughness opponents)