Guild Wars 2 - Thief Build Part Two

Stick 'em with the pointy end!

So far, I haven’t been a fan of condition damage based builds. They function well, but the counter of condition clears seems to be something I run into frequently. Most likely because of how deadly condition damage builds are for most classes, especially in the smaller SPvP setting rather than WvW.

For a Thief, going for direct damage by way of Berserker gear is as viable as bleeding someone out, and personally I find it more fun. The forced movement attached to Heartseeker is slightly less annoying than the flip with Death Blossom, which is a relief when running down ranged classes.

But let’s get stuck in.

The Build at GW2Skills.net

Traits

Deadly Arts, 25 Points. Sundering Strikes for frequent Vulnerability, Dagger Training for damage.

Critical Strikes, 30 Points. Side Strike for extra critical chance, Executioner to add burst for finishing, Practiced Tolerance because little else is directly useful in the line and this build is squishy enough that an extra thousand HP is helpful, though not greatly.

Trickery, 15 Points. This is primarily for the extra 3 Initiative at the 15 point mark. Playing with 30 Deadly Arts instead I found the lack of Initiative at the beginning of a fight unhelpful. Thrill of the Crime for the helpful buffs on stealing.

Weapons

Dual Daggers is primary, as seems common for the class. Secondary, I use a bow largely for the button 5 teleport shot for mobility.

Armour          

Berserker’s gear is a must for the Power, Precision and Critical Damage the build relies on. This will leave you with lower than average HP, so you will die quickly, but that’s the price for the damage output and the reason for stealth skills.

Slot Skills

Again, focus on stealth and movement. Hide in Shadows for the heal, Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder for the slotted stealth skills, and Shadowstep for mobility and a stun break. Unlike with the condition damage build, Dagger Storm makes for a better elite here as the direct damage is higher than the bleed.

General Playstyle

If you’re fighting a pet class, particularly Illusion-dependant Mesmer’s, Dancing Dagger is very good. It has high damage as long as it can bounce between two or more targets, but against a single target Heartseeker is generally better. From behind, the last strike in the button one chain can hit significantly hard too, for no Initiative cost.

Shadowstep to close gaps, or against certain classes remove conditions. Steal is a good use to start a fight if you keep the buffs on stealing trait in Trickery. Use Dancing Dagger to keep a solo runner in range. Double Strike to wear them down, Heartseeker for burst. Heartseeker can hit extremely hard against someone with lower HP and functions well as an execute, especially with the short leap built in to catch someone fleeing.

The stealth skills are primarily to keep you alive. As an alternative to extra base Initiative, it’s possible to run the same build but swap the Trickery points 10 in Shadow Arts for the Initiative gain on stealth, and the extra 5 most likely back into Deadly Arts for the power.

There is room here for personal preference and finding out what works best for your playstyle. A bow certainly isn’t necessary off hand as you primarily use daggers. If it’s possible at all, this would be close to a build you could perhaps fit a main hand sword into, but it’s hard to justify against the solid attacks from daggers. It’s still something I’m working on figuring out, however.

If you plan on testing out a variety of changes to this, keep one thing in mind; Power, Critical Chance, and Critical Damage are the most important stats to keep your damage high enough to justify having a low tolerance for being clubbed. A little can be sacrificed for utility or something that gives play a better flow (in this case, the extra Initiative), but not much before you simply don’t kill people fast enough to survive.

- ED

Guild Wars 2 - Thief Build Guide Part One

First Build - Watch ‘em Bleed

So far, I’ve come to like two distinctive builds focusing on different aspects of dealing damage. I’m still out for a third; I’d really like to work out a build that utilizes a sword without giving anything up, but so far daggers hold too much utility and damage in a single set of weapons. Bows and pistols seem to function far better as secondary weapons, especially with this build.

The Build at GW2Skills.net

In Brief

The use of daggers and pistols here is primary. It’s possible to use a bow instead of dual pistols, but pistols are ideal given the bleed on the button one attack. The short version of the build is get up as many bleed stacks as quickly as possible then hide in stealth while they work down your opponent.

Weapon Skills

The primary ability to be concerned with in the daggers line is Death Blossom in the number three slot. It does an average amount of direct damage if you land all of the strikes or have multiple targets to hit, but the main factor is the bleed it causes on every hit. If each strike lands, it’s a three stack of bleeds on every target. 

The other abilities in the dagger line are primarily for utility. Dancing Dagger has a cripple attached for slowing the enemy, as well as fairly good damage if targets are close enough together for it to bounce. Cloak and dagger has a stealth component, but a high initiative cost. Heartseeker can be good for finishing someone off quickly if the initiative is available. The button one attack chain has fair damage and a poison component on the third strike, which helps deal with heavier healing.

Switching to pistols, and the uses drop off somewhat. The primary purpose of using pistols as a secondary weapon set is for the bleeds on the button one attack, so even if someone runs you can keep up the bleed stacks and keep their health moving in the right direction. The other attacks have some utility but it’s not too useful an initiative sink one on one, and in a group situation it’s likely other classes will bring vulnerability and daze to the mix anyway.

Slot Skills

 

The heal is Hide in Shadows, no question. The high heal compared to the others available mixed with the stealth component make it the only real option. Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder are also a must. The ability to avoid attacks by hiding in stealth after stacking bleeds is paramount. For the third slot skill I never really settled on anything. I tried Spider Venom for damage, Needle Trap for utility, and Caltrops for a final bleed, but eventually settled on Shadowstep. The targeting took a little getting used to as the max range is fairly high at 1200, but the condition removal on returning helps against any class building similarly condition damage heavy.

For the elite skill, I settled on Thieves Guild. The single charge on Basilisk Venom while potentially useful seems too weak comparatively. Dagger Storm was a tougher call. The trade off is a solid 8 seconds of stability against 8 seconds of essentially being stuck flailing around. The bleed and cripple components up the value of it somewhat, but ranged classes can take it as an opportunity to burn you down. With Thieves Guild, you throw harassment into the mix along with damage at the cost of a fairly long cooldown timer, plus something to keep people busy and put out more damage while you hide in stealth.  

Traits

 

Full power, full condition damage, and the ten points in the toughness line primarily for Infusion of Shadow, the initiative gain on stealth. This will leave you at enough initiative to finish someone off after the initial bleed and vanish. For this build, in the power line Mug, Dagger Training and Panic Strike were the most useful. The extra damage on damage on Death Blossom from Combined Training is also a possibility, and would replace Panic Strike. 

The Trickery line took some messing around with to iron out in a way I liked. Purely with the intent to function solo, Flank Strikes for the extra 5% when at the side or behind an opponent was the first choice. My second was Initial Strike for the extra Initiative Gain, but it’s slow enough that on occasion I’ve swapped out to Instinctual Response to deal with heavy hitters. The last was Hastened Replenishment, to make absolutely sure I have a lot of initiative after burning through all stealth causing skills.

This is changeable based on the situation for larger scale PvP, like WvW, or tournament groups in which you might need to bring buffs to the table to help the group. With Thrill of the Crime in Trickery you can provide short term group buffs at a relatively low cost.

The two biggest issues I’ve found with it so far involve how horrible it can be facing a class/build with a lot of condition removal and the lack of control of Death Blossom. In regards to the first it’s self-explanatory. For the second, it could just be that I haven’t sunk enough time into this build to adjust to the constant directional flipping of Death Blossom. I find it’s very easy to only land one or two of the hits when your target is strafing excessively or otherwise very mobile. 

For personalization, parts of the build are more interchangeable than others. Some of it can be switched around for personal preference, as long as the main focus is kept in mind. That is to say, stack bleeds and disappear then repeat if necessary.

In addition to this condition damage based build I’ve tried another focused more on direct damage. So far I prefer it. While this build functions well, I somewhat dislike how it plays and how Death Blossom functions. This could partly be because of latency in SPvP the last few days while I’ve been build testing, but I do dislike being stuck in movement as Death Blossom causes you to be for even just a moment. It’s also partly that I’ve had the misfortune, perhaps, to constantly find myself up against Guardians with a lot of condition removal and such. 

If you’re looking for a solid build, I’d suggest trying it, but it may take several matches to adjust to the timing and bleed stacking.

- ED

Guild Wars 2 - The Trouble With World vs World

World vs World is fun, but I’m finding that the more I do it, the more I find certain aspects of it wearing on me. I think the biggest of all the issues is that it’s never a balanced fight, at least in an overall sense. I was wary of this at first, but figured eventually the population imbalance would sort itself out, or realms would be matched up via some sort of hidden ladder system. As it turns out, that hasn’t been the case. Not even remotely. I have never once been in a situation that within a few hours of a World vs World reset, one realm wasn’t clearly ahead. Never once has each realm managed to hold even close to a third of the map each.

The Problems with Guild Wars 2 World vs World

This boils down to flaws within the system. The rewards you get out of winning, the boosts off the orbs and such, basically make it easier to keep winning when you’re already ahead. It has a sort of snowball effect on how well your realm does. I wonder a little if that initial push is what wins the entire battle for that reset; that being the first to win a keep, grab an edge, deny your opponents orbs and supply. But I think it really boils down to a mix of population and interest; the more people that hop into World vs World soon after a reset, the more people that stay, the better the chances.

Isn’t it population capped though? I’ve certainly seen queues for the WvW battlegrounds. So maybe it’s a lack of focus and too many people off killing mobs or exploring. And that segues into one of the other issues. There’s no good way to really organize in WvW. The groups are small, the coordination mostly spur of the moment or guild based. I’m aware there’s a book that lets one person form a raid, for 100 gold, which is no insignificant amount of coin. If we look at the current gold to gems conversion and the monetary cost of gems, that’s almost USD$470. Or several expensive exotic weapons, sets of armour, and so forth. 

All this just to form a larger group, which is virtually a given mechanic in every other game. And it’s a given for a reason. Putting a price on coordination is one thing, but being lumped into a group on entry lets you see who’s off on their own and where the fight is. But more importantly, it brings new players immediately into the fold, gives them directions and something to pay mind to so they can learn and figure out where to go and what to do.

Solutions?

 

In order to fix this, they need to alter things somewhat. Either give people an option to auto-form groups or reduce the cost of the raid-forming book significantly. Or even just have the map give more information out on allies. Something to at least allow for slightly better rudimentary organization.

And give the underdogs a bone. Being overrun shouldn’t make things any harder than the fact you’ve already been overrun. If a realm is stomping others, they don’t need extra buffs. Giving the downtrodden realms a leg up would make things more interesting for everyone. I mean really, how many people on those high-pop, winning by miles every time realms really enjoy it? The times my primary realm has been in that position, it’s been dreadfully boring. You basically just run around checking on all the crossed swords, hoping that maybe they scraped together enough people to assault a keep. It almost always isn’t the case. 

But if it was a back and forward fight, if it was harder to hold everything the more you held, easier to rush a tower when you have nothing, the battles would last a lot longer and be more engaging, at least in my opinion.

Don’t misunderstand, I like the World vs World PVP in Guild Wars 2. It’s open enough to be fun screwing around in by yourself, and has clear enough goals to be fun in a group. But it could be so much more epic if the battles were harder fought and more constant.

- ED

Guild Wars 2 - Exploring Orr

I’ve reached 80 on my Mesmer now, and things have been going well. The story I’m almost done with, and it has been a fun ride, with two exceptions. One, if a choice leads to underwater battle, I managed to pick it. Every time. I hate underwater combat. And two, sometimes it’s been a real pain to actually get to the quest entry points, especially in later levels.

Which brings me to the Ruins of Orr.

The three areas surrounding the Ruins are zones for levels 70 to 75, 75 to 80, and 80. For me, all of the points in Orr have been a mission to get to solo. There’s a possibility it’s simply because my realm is under-populated or too few have levelled to 80 yet, or even that everyone’s just busy with WvW while we actually own the place for once.

But you can’t take three steps in the Straits of Devastation, Malchor’s Leap, or the Cursed Shore without running face first into usually more than one mob, and usually Risen. I’ve picked up easily five times more high level bones for crafting than any other crafting ingredient, just in trying to make my way around Orr. 

And it gets worse. Because of this lack of people fighting in these near max level zones, events regularly fail. Most of the waypoints are located in hubs that can be attacked and taken over by the Risen. I hope the full degree of tedious horror is starting to become obvious, now. 

It’s almost a shame. The ruins are beautifully designed and they’ve done a very good job of corrupting and wrecking what was clearly once a beautiful place. I understand these issues will get better, and rapidly so. Eventually I imagine people will hang out in Orr to grind karma or skill points for the Mystic Forging of those oh-so-tempting legendaries, and everything will be fine. The waypoint invasions will be dealt with, and the group boss-like mobs wandering around will be a rare sight.

But for now, while I love the design of Orr and see the potential, I despise going there.



- ED