The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good
Focused on: Conditiondamage
Designed for: WvW Roaming
Difficulty:
Easy
This build was last updated on May 31, 2024 and is up to date for the May 21, 2024 patch.
Contents
- 1 Overview
- 2 Skill Bar
- 2.1 Skill Variants
- 3 Template Code
- 4 Specializations
- 5 Equipment
- 5.1 Equipment Variants
- 5.2 Consumables
- 6 Usage
- 7 Related Builds
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:
Shadow Refuge - great sustain tool that adds another
Stealth access to the build. Lets you reset fights or heal yourself back up a bit, even has combo potential with
Sneak Attack for health siphoning.
Signet of Shadows - the active could either serve as an instant cast source of cover conditions for your burst or as a defensive skill with damage mitigation.
Scorpion Wire - adds much needed CC to the build and perfectly sets up melee skills like
Shadow Strike or
Cloak and Dagger.
Prepare Thousand Needles - 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.
Grasping Vines - Sylvari players could also take this skill along with
Panic Strike on
Deadly Arts to keep targets in place for burst combos while applying
Poison stacks via trait synergy.
Template Code
[&DQUcFxQqLDcMAQoBNAEZAVgANAGJAFcBnwEOAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADNgAvAGsAAA==]
Copy Template Code
Specializations
Variants
Sleight of Hand lowers your damage but adds an instant interrupt to the build that goes through
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 gear would also work, but it's not optimal.
- Replacing a few
Dire pieces with
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
Sigil of Superior Sigil of Generosity and
Sigil of Superior Sigil of Torment 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 uptime and various map bonuses that are out of your control.
- Take
Sigil of Superior Sigil of Energy if you don't want to bother with building
Sigil of Superior Sigil of Corruption stacks.
Runes
Rune of Superior Rune of the Necromancer - easier to obtain than Trapper and retains all of the condition damage stats.
Rune of Superior Rune of the Thief - worse damage but quite a large crit chance upgrade, much like Rabid gear this could also allow you to run better sigils.
Rune of Superior Rune of the Sunless - cheap option with great stats.
Relics
Relic of the Wayfinder - better mobility.
Relic of the Demon Queen - the extra healing reduction could help you wear down tanky Celestial specs.
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
Sigil of Superior Sigil of Corruption stacks. You could also just kill mobs during downtime to build some stacks.
- Use shortbow when taking camps, not just because of the Corruption sigil but also due to the AoE skills. Try to ball up enemies behind a pillar and spam
Choking Gas +
Cluster Bomb ⇒
Detonate Cluster.
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 use this skill twice in a row without having to refresh with Shadow Strike.
- Once you have access to
Bola Shot is more of a niche skill. It could be useful for rooting targets in place, making it easier to land important skills or kite enemies, but it costs too much for what it does so usually your initiative is better spent on other skills.
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
- Precast
Cloak and Dagger
Steal just before CnD is about to go off
Sneak Attack
Shadow Strike
Repeater x2
- Precast
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.
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 in group roaming when it comes to blasting fields.
- Its chain skill
Detonate Cluster is a solid source of downed cleave.
- Its chain skill
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 disengaging from a fight in case you start losing.
Related Builds
Thief - Core P/D Condition - sPvP version.