Thief - Power DPS

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The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good.

Focused on: Direct damage, Utility.

Designed for:

Fractals

Overview

The current strongest DPS build for core Thief in dungeons.

If you own Heart of Thorns or Path of Fire use Daredevil - Power DPS (Fractal) or Deadeye - Power DPS D/D (Fractal) instead.

Skill Bar

 

 

Dagger/DaggerHealingUtilityElite

Sword/Pistol

Weapon Variants

• You should have a Shortbow for stacking stealth, pulling enemies, and skipping ahead with Infiltrator's Arrow.
• Use Sword/Pistol instead of dagger/dagger when fighting groups of trash mobs.

Skill Variants

Healing Skills

• Withdraw or Hide in Shadows if conditions are a problem.

Utility Skills

• Infiltrator's Signet or Spider Venom is the highest damage option for the flex slot.
• Smoke Screen for a pulsing blind, projectile screen, and smoke field to blast stealth in.
• Shadow Refuge for stealth skips.
• Shadowstep can be used to teleport skip in certain places. Combine with Infiltrator's Arrow for extreme mobility.

Elite Skills

• Thieves Guild for more damage if you don't need the CC from Basilisk Venom.
• Dagger Storm for more projectile destruction.

Specializations

Variants

• Invigorating Precision if you're having trouble surviving. This is a ~10% DPS loss.

Equipment

6x

Superior Rune of the Scholar

48px18x

Mighty +5 Agony Infusion

Remember to also carry a Shortbow for out of combat utility.

Variants

• on night time encounters.
• Slaying sigils if applicable.

Consumables

Food

• Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup

  Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup

  Nourishment (1 h):

  +100 Power+70 Ferocity+10% Experience from Kills

  Consumable
  if partied with a Spotter Ranger.
• Plate of Truffle Steak

  Plate of Truffle Steak

  Nourishment (30m):

  +100 power+70 precision+10% Experience from kills

  Consumable
  if you don't have a Ranger with Spotter.

Utility

• Superior Sharpening Stone

  Superior Sharpening Stone

  Nourishment (30 m):

  Gain power equal to 3% of your precisionGain power equal to 6% of your ferocity+10 Experience from kills

  Consumable
  or slaying potions

Usage

DPS Rotation

Dagger/Dagger: Spam Cloak and Dagger into Backstab any time you have initiative and aren't revealed. Use your autoattack chain to fill in the gaps.

Sword/Pistol: Use Black Powder or Headshot to reach max stacks of Lead Attacks then autoattack.

• Never interrupt your autoattack chain as the third hit does the most damage.
• Activate Assassin's Signet at the start of the fight for more damage.
• Stay behind or to the side of your enemies to get the bonuses from 24px Twin Fangs and Backstab.
• Against enemies under 25% health, use Heartseeker instead of Cloak and Dagger.

General Tips

• Use Black Powder to blind trash.
• Cluster Bomb on Shortbow can be used to prestack might with fire fields, as it is a blast finisher.
• Infiltrator's Arrow on Shortbow can be used to skip parts of certain fractals such as the lasers in Aetherblade and the scaffolding in Cliffside.
• Use Basilisk Venom with nearby allies to break defiance bars.

Group Stealth

Thief's unique support in groups is group-wide stealth access through smoke fields, which can be used for skipping trash and parts of 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. 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 retrait fast for full efficiency but isn't needed.

Shadow Arts should be used instead of Deadly Arts to reduce the cooldowns of Deception skills and get longer stealth from your skills.

• Use Steal to port to mobs.
• Use Shadowstep to blink up ledges and as 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.