Thief - Core P/D Roamer

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

Focused on: Condition damage

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Difficulty:
Easy
This build was last updated on February 21, 2024 and is up to date for the January 30, 2024 patch.

Overview

A condition Thief build for WvW roaming with excellent single target burst damage and plenty of stealth. Also usable by F2P players.


Skill Bar

Pistol/Dagger
Shortbow
Utility


Skill Variants

Utility

Viable choices for the optional slot:

  • - great sustain tool that adds another Stealth Stealth access to the build. Lets you reset fights or heal yourself back up a bit, even has combo potential with for health siphoning.
  • - the active could either serve as an instant cast source of cover conditions for your burst or as a defensive skill with damage mitigation.
  • - stun break and initiative refill plus an evade frame.
  • - condition removal.
  • - strong burst skill but it could be difficult to make ranged enemies get in position for it. It's great at flipping camps however, if you can get all the NPCs to ball up.
  • - Sylvari players could also take this skill along with on Deadly Arts Deadly Arts to keep targets in place for burst combos while applying Poison Poison stacks via trait synergy.


Template Code

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Specializations

Variants

  • lowers your damage but adds an instant interrupt to the build that goes through Stability Stability. This could be a lifesaver in many situations.


Equipment

Head
Trailblazer
Shoulders
Trailblazer
Chest
Trailblazer
Hands
Trailblazer
Legs
Trailblazer
Feet
Trailblazer
Backpiece
Dire
Accessory
Dire
Accessory
Dire
Amulet
Dire
Ring
Dire
Ring
Trailblazer
Pistol
Trailblazer
Dagger
Trailblazer
Sigil
Sigil
Shortbow
Trailblazer
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x18
Relic


Equipment Variants

Stats

  • A full set of Celestial Celestial gear would also work, but it's not optimal.
  • Replacing a few Dire Dire pieces with Rabid Rabid to bump up your crit chance allows you to play with slightly better sigils but lowers your sustain.


Sigils

  • Replace the Pistol/Dagger sigils with and when playing with Celestial or Rabid stats. These could work with the current setup too to some extent, but their effectiveness would be tied to Fury Fury uptime and various map bonuses that are out of your control.


Runes

  • - easier to obtain than Trapper and retains all of the condition damage stats.
  • - worse damage but quite a large crit chance upgrade, much like Rabid gear this could also allow you to run better sigils.
  • - cheap option with great stats.


Relics

  • - better cleansing.


Consumables

Food

  • Optimal:
  • Budget:


Utility

  • Optimal:
  • Budget: (found in Canned Food Crates looted from WvW Skirmish Chests)


Usage

General

  • Swap to shortbow when you're about to finish off a downed target in order to build stacks. You could also just kill mobs during downtime to build some stacks.


Stealing

  • 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 Vulnerability from or Bleeding Bleeding from , fitting nicely into your burst combos.


Pistol/Dagger

  • Most of the damage in this build comes from the chain and the occasional . You should spend most of your initiative on these skills.
    • Once you have access to it's possible to use this skill twice in a row without having to refresh with Shadow Strike.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • provides relatively easy stealth access which could be followed up with . While this combo does less damage than the skill #3 spam, it costs next to nothing because of and could heal you for quite a significant amount through various Shadow Arts synergies.
  • Using in the middle of or makes these melee skills easier to land by improving their reach.


Short bow

Utility weapon, secondary set

  • This is generally the weapon you use for running away from fights or cleaving downed enemies if they are being revived. Otherwise just stay on Pistol/Dagger the whole fight.
  • 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.
  • being a spammable blast finisher has high value in group roaming when it comes to blasting fields.
    • Its chain skill is a solid source of downed cleave.
  • 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 Immobilize Immobilized, but it's somewhat expensive.
  • Use 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.
  • is the #1 skill for disengaging from a fight in case you start losing.


Related Builds

Thief - Core P/D Condition - sPvP version.


Ratings

This build has a rating of 4 stars based on 3 votes.
Log in or register to rate this build.
4 stars
Hanz gave this build 4 stars • September 2023
Not exactly OP now but it still gets the job done. Damage is quite good, sustain is decent but you need to play carefully against burst builds like Willbender.
2 stars
Varg gave this build 2 stars • May 2022
It's not bad but after the new classes this build survivability is very low. Deadeye have much better chance to leave and enter fights meanwhile this build just can't hold up. It's fun but I wouldn't waste my time on this. Play deadeye or s/d thief for roaming.
5 stars
Majki83 gave this build 5 stars • August 2020
Most meme-cancerous build for roamin rn... Playing thief never was so easy.

Comments

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