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 June 07, 2025 and is up to date for the July 18, 2025 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

Dagger/Pistol

Utility

Slot Changes

Weapon(over dagger/pistol)

• Shortbow - higher damage/mobility in trade for survivability/cleanse.

Utility

Viable choices for the optional slot (or even over Signet of Shadows):

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

• Shadow Refuge - longer Stealth but on a higher cooldown.

• Scorpion Wire - adds much needed CC to the build and perfectly sets up melee skills like Shadow Strike or Cloak and Dagger.

• Skale Venom - a bursty option that could also be shared with allies (including pets).

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

• Shadow Portal - better map control.

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

• Hidden Thief trades condi cleansing for some defensive conditions, could be an option if you expect Power damage to be the bigger concern during a game.

Equipment

Pistol

Dagger

Sigil

Sigil

Dagger

Pistol

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Runes

• Rune of Trapper - optimial for damage. Can still rely on Signet of Shadows passive for mobility bonus.

• 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 the Blightbringer - a relic that frequently applies several different conditions at once to serve as covers for your more important ones, while also slightly improving your damage.

• Relic of the Demon Queen - the healing reduction could help you wear down the more tanky builds, but doesn't really add more raw damage to the build as the build only has 1 CC skill by default.

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. While this combo does less damage than the skill #3 spam, it costs next to nothing because of Shadow's Rejuvenation and could heal you for quite a significant amount through various Shadow Arts synergies.

• Using Steal in the middle of Shadow Strike or Cloak and Dagger makes these melee skills easier to land by improving their reach.

Burst combo example

1. Precast Cloak and Dagger
2. Steal just before CnD is about to go off
3. Sneak Attack
4. Shadow Strike
5. Repeater x2

Dagger/Pistol

Utility weapon, secondary set

• Double Stirke is a weak but fast condition damage option that can be used to finish of low health opponents.

• Heartseeker on it's own is a spammable small cost mobility option which makes it very valuable for rotating when stealthing/initative isn't an necessity.

• Shadow Shot great gap closer which combos perfectly into Shadow Strike. Will also apply Deathly Ambtion.

• Headshot - Short interruption shot which can used to prevent stops and revives when your team is around.

• Use Black Powder with Heartseeker to gain stealth, waiting untill the last moment to reactivate this stealth a 2nd time will reward you with another set of Leeching Venoms. This is the #1 skill for improving your survivabiliy. This allows you to move around the map and steathily capture points unseen.

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.