Thief - Core P/D Condition

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

Focused on: Condition damage

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on August 31, 2023 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A core condition damage Thief build for PvP, designed to roam the map and quickly overwhelm targets with a wide variety of conditions.

Skill Bar

Pistol/Dagger

Shortbow

Utility

Slot Changes

Utility

Viable choices for the optional slot:

• Shadow Portal - better map control.

• Blinding Powder - another stun break and easy stealth / Sneak Attack access.

• Skale Venom - a bursty option and a replacement for the nerfed Spider Venom.

• Prepare Thousand Needles - AoE burst damage that can cover an entire capture point on some maps.

• Signet of Shadows - passive mobility and the active adds a lot of cover conditions to burst combos. The passive makes it possible to drop Rune of Lynx and take a stronger rune like Rune of Orr or Rune of Trapper.

Elite

This slot largely depends on personal preferences, every skill is viable to some degree:

• Basilisk Venom makes it easier to land your burst and can be shared with your allies.

• Thieves Guild is a bit of a meme option, but if you share Skale Venom with them their combined burst could catch people offguard.

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Specializations

Variants

• For a less Poison focused build you could take Improvisation. This is going to cost you some damage but adds more utility to the build through CD resets and an additional charge of stolen skills.

Variants

• Take Shadow's Embrace if more condition cleansing is needed against the enemy comp.

Equipment

Pistol

Dagger

Sigil

Sigil

Shortbow

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Runes

If you don't need the passive mobility speed boost of Lynx, replace it with either one of the following runes:

• Rune of Trapper - higher burst damage.

• Rune of Orr - good stats and the the anti-condition aspect could help in mirror matchups, or against any other condi build in general.

Relics

• Relic of Peitha - damage proc whenever you use Shadow Strike, Steal or any Deception skills. The projectile however is rather slow and has a huge delay.

• Relic of the Fractal - extra damage and more condition variety on your Repeater spam, but has a 20s cooldown.

Usage

General

• Share your venom(s) with as many allies as possible, including pets and minions.

• Use Infiltrator's Arrow to move between capture points. Your job is to roam the map and +1 fights by bursting down targets who have no cleansing / no cooldowns left.

Stealing

• Steal is going to be used more freely here compared to other builds as it's not an interrupt in this build. Steal applies various cover conditions such as Vulnerability from Even the Odds or Bleeding from Deadly Ambush, fitting nicely into your burst combos.

Pistol/Dagger

• Most of the damage in this build comes from the Shadow Strike ⇒ Repeater chain and the occasional Sneak Attack. You should spend most of your initiative on these skills.
  • Once you have access to Repeater it's possible to spam this skill 2 times in a row without having to refresh with Shadow Strike.

• Body Shot is more of a niche skill. It could be useful for rooting targets in place, making it easier to land Shadow Strike, but you should try to do it without Bola Shot to save initiative whenever possible. Another thing you could do is root targets in place to make sure your brust doesn't miss, or that they don't catch up to you while spamming Repeater.

• Dancing Dagger is okay for some ranged poking vs multiple targets if you can't get in range for Shadow Strike and don't want to switch to bow just yet.

• Cloak and Dagger provides relatively easy stealth access which could be followed up with Sneak Attack. However doing Shadow Strike ⇒ Repeater is generally better as it's more damage and SS has a way shorter cast time than CnD, making it easier to pull off (especially under pressure). This is more of a niche defensive/utility skill, allowing you to catch a break while under attack or safestomp downed enemies.

Short bow

Utility weapon, secondary set

• Trick Shot is a bit of a weak filler skill in this build that you can spam when weapon swap is on CD and you're out of initiative.

• Cluster Bomb being a spammable blast finisher has high value for your team when it comes to blasting fields for AoE Stealth.
  • Its chain skill Detonate Cluster is a solid source of downed cleave.

• Disabling Shot (thief short bow) provides access to some evasion in case you're being focused by the enemy team and your defensive skills are on CD. Remains usable even while Immobilized, but it's somewhat expensive.

• Use Choking Gas on downed enemies especially if they are being revived - Poison decreases healing received by 33% which affects resurrecting speed and the initial strike interrupts foes.

• Infiltrator's Arrow is the #1 skill for moving around the map in general, cuts down on travel time between capture points drastically.

Related Builds

• Thief - Core P/D Roamer - WvW version.