Antiquary - Power DPS

This is a test build. You may comment and rate it.

Focused on: Direct damage

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Hard

This build was last updated on May 17, 2026.

Overview

The power DPS raid build for Antiquary. Learning all of the possible artifacts will improve the DPS of this build considerably.

Skill Bar

Staff

Dagger/Pistol

Utility

Weapon Variants

Power Antiquary can use a wide variety of weapons, and mix and match between them as desired. In general, you will have a main weapon set that you camp and the second weapon set is either for ranged damage or burst damage. The Metal Legion Guitar artifact allows for a period where you have access to your stealth attack even when not stealthed (up to three uses), and you can maximise your damage by having a second weapon set with a very strong stealth attack to switch to whenever you use this artifact.

Main weapon options:

• Staff has the highest sustained damage but its stealth attack is a DPS loss, so it benefits a lot from having a second set to swap to.
• Spear is the highest sustained damage option for players that own Janthir Wilds, but it is the most complicated weapon.
• Rifle is the best sustained ranged option.
• If you don't intend to use the second set for damage, Shortbow can be taken for mobility such as getting to green circles on Dhuum, and for various skips in fractals.

Burst weapon options:

• Dagger/Pistol has almost as high sustained damage as Staff, but more of its damage is gated behind Metal Legion Guitar so the variability is higher. Be aware that the teleport on this set can be very annoying on large hitboxes. The best option for players that don't own Secrets of the Obscure.
• Axe/Pistol is another good burst option. Slightly less damage than Dagger, but has the benefit of range.
  • For players that don't own Secrets of the Obscure, Pistol/Pistol does a similar job.

The most common pairings are Staff & Dagger/Pistol, and Spear & Axe/Pistol, but you can run whatever you prefer.

Skill Variants

Healing

• Signet of Malice for a relatively weak but continuous healing effect. Good if you do not plan on using your heal skill.
• Withdraw if you need an extra evade, or for fights that have a lot of movement impairing conditions.

Elite

• Basilisk Venom for breakbar damage. This is a significant DPS loss.

Template Code

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Specializations

Trait Variants

• Use Invigorating Precision if you're having trouble surviving.

Equipment

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Assassin

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Staff
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Dagger
Berserker

Pistol
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x11

Infusion
x7

Relic

• The DPS difference when using Rune of Superior Rune of the Scholar is negligible.
• If using Spear, the frequent Daze from Distracting Throw makes Relic of the Claw a stronger option.
• If you do not have stat infusions, swap one accessory to Assassin stats.
• If you regularly swap between using Signet of Agility or not, a much simpler gear setup involves using full Berserker stats gear (and full Mighty infusions) and an Assassin stats Amulet. Swap it to Berserker stats if taking Signet of Agility.
  • Otherwise, you want to aim for ~2008 precision if not using Signet of Agility.

Consumables

Food

• or ascended versions

Utility

Usage

Key to Antiquary is the random artifacts that it steals with Skritt Swipe. Thanks to Prolific Plunderer, each time there are three artifacts to choose from and you can use two of them. The first slot is an offensive artifact, the second is defensive, and the third is random.

When using Skritt Scuffle, every three seconds a new set of artifacts will appear, and you can only use one artifact from each set. Additionally, there is a chance that one artifact will be replaced by an Unstable Skritt Bomb, which deals significant damage to you if used. You have to remain in the radius of this skill to continue receiving the artifacts.

This means that Antiquary's effectiveness has a high degree of randomness, and learning to recognise the different artifacts is necessary for optimal play. It should come as no surprise that in general the offensive artifacts are more worthwhile than the defensive ones, but it is a bit more complicated than that. Consider the following guidance:

Offensive Artifacts

• Forged Surfer Dash - In addition to the initial damage, this gives you a buff that continues to drop bombs at your location for some time. One of the strongest artifacts if you don't have the buff, but the duration doesn't stack so the effectiveness is reduced if the buff is still active.
• Summon Kryptis Turret - Good damage, and provides a buff to strike damage for a duration. The duration doesn't stack, so ideally you'd want to spread out uses of this to cover as much time as possible.
• Mistburn Mortar - Ok damage, and the buff stacks so it's always fine to use.
• Metal Legion Guitar - Not amazing damage, and the cast time is long, but unless you're camping Staff, it's fundamental to your rotation.

Defensive Artifacts

• Holo-Dancer Decoy - The damage is irrelevant, but it causes the next utility skill's cooldown to be reduced by 80%. Use on Assassin's Signet and the passive will reactivate before the active effect expires! Ideally you can build up a bit of initiative before using so that you can minimise autoattacks during the active duration.
• Chak Shield - The damage is ok, but the real value is in the initiative refund that allows you to spam more skills.
• Zephyrite Sun Crystal - Worth it to extend the buff from Exhilarating Ephemera, but otherwise avoid.
• Exalted Hammer - A DPS loss to cast, so there shouldn't be any reason to use this.

Assassin's Signet can be activated for additional burst damage, but due to the different timings on your major skills, keeping it passive is practically the same damage as using it outside of the opening burst.

If a boss becomes Exposed (or otherwise takes increased damage for a time), using Assassin's Signet at this time will be advantageous, as will using it just before your target phases/dies.

Rotation

All Double Edge skills except for Skritt Scuffle can be reactivated while cooldown down, but they have a chance to backfire when doing so, with the chance increasing the more cooldown is remaining.

In the case of Stone Summit Cannon, the backfire damage is higher than the regular skill damage, so you want to use it rapidly to trigger the backfire. By immediately using it again you are almost guaranteed to get the backfire on the second use, but if you are slow there's a small chance you will get an extra use so just keep using until it backfires. There is a small delay on being able to activate the skill again, so intersperse each use of Stone Summit Cannon with another skill. The damage on the backfire is quite significant so you may wish to move out of the AoE, but make sure to keep attacking to not lose DPS.

Once the backfire is triggered, you must wait for the full cooldown before using again.

Opener
With the exception of Spear, the opener is the same regardless of weapon.

You can use Skritt Swipe without a target, allowing you to start with artifacts ready. This can be particularly valuable if you are able to start with a Metal Legion Guitar as it means you can start on your burst weapon and swap back as soon as you've used the three stealth attacks.

1. Stone Summit Cannon
2. Skritt Swipe, or an Artifact if you have some prepared
3. Stone Summit Cannon
4. Artifact ⇒ Skritt Swipe if you prepared them
5. Stone Summit Cannon if it still hasn't backfired
6. Any remaining Artifacts
7. Skritt Scuffle
8. Twilight Combo
9. Continue using Artifacts and spamming your best weapon skill as much as you can. Remember that you must remain within the AoE of Skritt Scuffle to keep receiving artifacts.
10. Once you've used your last artifact from Skritt Scuffle, you can immediately use Skritt Swipe again.

On Spear, you can precast Mantis Sting ⇒ Vampiric Slash ⇒ Falling Spider without a target to start with a Distracting Throw - use it at step 4. Otherwise use the same opener as other weapons.

Rest of the rotation
The core principals of the rotation remain the same regardless of weapon:

• Use Skritt Scuffle off cooldown.
• Use Skritt Swipe off cooldown, only delay it when it lines up with Skritt Scuffle.
• Use good Artifacts (see guidance above).
• Use Stone Summit Cannon off cooldown (see above for notes on use).
• After the opener, use Canach-Coin Toss off cooldown - wait for it to fully recharge as the risk of losing crucial boons is too great.
• Use all adrenaline on your best weapon skill. These are:
  • Whirling Wrath on Staff
  • Three Round Burst on Rifle
  • Shadow Shot on Dagger/Pistol - when your target is below 50% health, use Heartseeker instead
  • Spear works differently due to its chain skills, so use the loop below
• Fill remaining time with autoattacks - try to complete auto chains if your weapon has them.

Spear loop

Spear is more complicated than other thief weapons as it employed a combo system where skills 2 and 3 each have three sub-skills that are classified as Lead Attacks, Follow Ups or Finishers. These flow together in order, with the active skills changing depending on where you are in the chain, and you can switch between 2 and 3 for different effects.

Additional complexity is added by your stealth attack, and skills 4 and 5, all gaining bonuses if they are used after a Finisher:

• Malicious Ashen Assault regenerates 4 initiative
• Distracting Throw grants a 10-second damage buff
• Shadow Veil blocks additional attacks

If this isn't enough, Distracting Throw will also count as a Lead Attack in this case, which means the next combo will skip Mantis Sting.

On the very first loop, you need to open with a lead attack:

Mantis Sting ⇒ Vampiric Slash ⇒ Falling Spider

On subsequent loops, Distracting Throw replaces the lead attack:

Distracting Throw ⇒ Vampiric Slash ⇒ Falling Spider

When you find yourself running low on initiative, you will need to refill it with your stealth attack. You can enter stealth with Shattering Assault so that your loop is now:

Distracting Throw ⇒ Vampiric Slash ⇒ Shattering Assault ⇒ Ashen Assault

After this you'll need to repeat a loop with Mantis Sting before continuing as normal.

In general you want to delay using skills with cast times until after Mantis Sting, but it's not essential as long as the cast time is not too long.

Guitar burst
You follow this rotation until you steal a Metal Legion Guitar:

• If you're camping Staff, you want to ignore this artifact.

1. If there is another good artifact, use that first.
2. Swap to your burst weapon (Dagger/Pistol, Axe/Pistol or Rifle) if you're not already on it. If your main weapon is Spear, wait until after you've used Distracting Throw to swap.
3. Metal Legion Guitar
4. You want to use your stealth attack three times, with one or two skills in between.
   • Axe/Pistol is slightly more complicated: Venomous Volley ⇒ Cunning Salvo ⇒ Orchestrated Assault (repeat three times)
5. Follow the core rotation principals until you can swap back to your main weapon.
   • On Axe/Pistol, you want to use Venomous Volley one more time, then autoattack and use one final Orchestrated Assault before swapping.

General Tips

• Use Basilisk Venom with nearby allies to break defiance bars.
• Cluster Bomb can be used to blast for Might or Stealth - particularly useful in dungeons or fractals. Make sure not to double tap it as only the first skill counts as a blast finisher.
• Infiltrator's Arrow can be used to skip parts of certain fractals such as the lasers in Aetherblade and the scaffolding in Cliffside.

Group Stealth

Thief's unique support in groups is long-lasting group-wide Stealth, which lets you run past trash without having to fight it. This lets you skip large sections of dungeons and certain fractals.

• Black Powder should be used as the primary smoke field due to lack of cooldown. Have party members chain blasts in this field with you, while you blast it with Cluster Bomb. The smoke field only lasts 4s so you need help from your party in order to stack a significant amount of stealth.
  • Use Smoke Screen in less organised groups since it gives a longer stealth field for easier blasting.
• Shadow Refuge gives a large amount of area stealth without needing to use blast finishers. This skill is useful when stealthing next to or on top of mobs since most blast finishers deal damage and thus break stealth. It can also be used to reapply stealth in the middle of a skip. When possible retrait for Shadow Arts before using it to get the benefit of Meld with Shadows and the cooldown reduction of Concealed Defeat.
• Blinding Powder gives 3s of stealth, is a blast finisher, and causes no damage making it very useful if you have to cover a long distance. It is often used in combination with Black Powder.

Pathing

Once you trigger certain mob groups while being in stealth they will follow you unless you "path" them. This is done by standing still until the Mobs reach you.

Pathing Tutorial by Vitarain

Skipping Ahead

After stealthing with your group you can use a lot of skills to skip ahead of your group to trigger bosses/events faster to save time. This requires you to be able to re-trait fast for full efficiency but isn't needed.

You should re-trait to Unhindered Combatant for extreme mobility. You could also trait Shadow Arts for Superspeed and initiative regeneration.

• Use Shadowstep to blink up ledges and for additional mobility.
• Use Infiltrator's Signet and/or Infiltrator's Strike to teleport to mobs (should be used out of range to not hit the mob).
• Use Hide in Shadows and/or Steal traited with Hidden Thief to gain stealth to not aggro mobs.