20 replies to this topic

[Necrojection]

What would be the best choice for a Thief regarding:

- Traits

- Weapons

- Stats

- Race (Race doesn't really matter but which racial skills are the most useful to a Thief)

[Jaehan]

Necrojection, on 05 May 2012 - 08:04 AM, said:

What would be the best choice for a Thief regarding:

- Traits

- Weapons

- Stats

- Race (Race doesn't really matter but which racial skills are the most useful to a Thief)

This is all extremely subjective, sir!

You have to be a little more specific. There are certain niches for certain things -- for example, if you want pure damage? Dagger / Dagger is good for that -- but if you want RANGED pure damage, Pistol / Pistol is king there.

Do you want a condition build?
High-mobility build?
Trap Build?
Offensive Build?
Defensive Build?

Edit: Also, welcome to the Thief forums, and congratulations on your first post.

Edited by Jaehan, 05 May 2012 - 08:52 AM.

[LethalConcept]

You need to define your preferred method of playing thief, because traits are all about enhancing your playstyle i.e venom type builds, stealth type builds, crit type builds etc

ill also add that sword/pistol, dagger/pistol, pistol/dagger all seem weak in comparison to sword/dagger, dagger/dagger, pistol/pistol and shortbow

try not to dump too many stat points in one area, if you do you will find some alarming lackness of another, race really doesnt have an effect, honestly i find them more as an aesthetic reason

[Garethh]

Do you plan on duo'ing??
That's actually one of the bigger questions.

Thieves have a fair number of fantastic things when it comes to duo'ing

Edited by Garethh, 05 May 2012 - 09:24 AM.

[Alexandriea]

There is no best and racial skills can't be used in sPvP.

Thieves can be built in many ways - spike damage, control, split, support, deception. So what do YOU want?

[Darkuso]

What kind of build could be deception?

[Alexandriea]

Darkuso, on 05 May 2012 - 11:18 AM, said:

What kind of build could be deception?

Self-stealth, area stealth, stealth your friends. Stealth everybody all the time!

[Necrojection]

Jaehan: Thank you

But I would like to have an offensive build (preferably melee) with lots of damage.
I would like to know which traits and and which stats I need to be a good Thief!

[c0c0c0]

If the designers built the game they intended to, that is an impossible question to answer.  The goal here was to make all logical (non-self-defeating) builds viable, rendering PvX-like "meta" builds pointless. It all depends on play style, and there is quite a few ways to skin that dolyak.

[Fatalis]

There's no best build.

Almost everything is certainly viable, and you just have to experiment what works for you.

[Necrojection]

Okay but which stat better suits the thief:

- Precision

- Might

Edited by Necrojection, 05 May 2012 - 01:49 PM.

[Alexandriea]

Once again that is dependant on what kind of thief you're playing. Precision is for critical thieves and arguably power is useful to all thieves.

[LethalConcept]

Necrojection, on 05 May 2012 - 01:49 PM, said:

Okay but which stat better suits the thief:

- Precision

- Might

this is my preferred style, abit of both, i would slightly lean more towards might (by might do you mean power!?!?)
this is the reason why, with might(power?) you would hit harder, adding precision would make you crit do hit 150% of your damage, but the thing is if you pour more into precision, you would hit so low that critting wouldnt help, and if you did vice versa, you would deal decent damage, but not get any consistent great spike damage

getting a bit more of ... im gonna say power this time, than precision is because in pvp, teammates can give certain buffs that increase precision so that you get quite a nice chunk, like if you trait steal you get a 10s fury might and swiftness, fury which increases crit chance by 20%, which is alot, on average ur AVERAGE thief (not speccing into anything specific, just average) would yield around 20%-30% crit chance, with fury it would be around 40%-50%, which allows for a nice consistant spiking and still dealing noticeable amounts of damage without crit

Edited by LethalConcept, 05 May 2012 - 02:11 PM.

[Necrojection]

.

LethalConcept, on 05 May 2012 - 02:08 PM, said:

this is my preferred style, abit of both, i would slightly lean more towards might (by might do you mean power!?!?)
this is the reason why, with might(power?) you would hit harder, adding precision would make you crit do hit 150% of your damage, but the thing is if you pour more into precision, you would hit so low that critting wouldnt help, and if you did vice versa, you would deal decent damage, but not get any consistent great spike damage getting a bit more of ... im gonna say power this time, than precision is because in pvp, teammates can give certain buffs that increase precision so that you get quite a nice chunk, like if you trait steal you get a 10s fury might and swiftness, fury which increases crit chance by 20%, which is alot, on average ur AVERAGE thief (not speccing into anything specific, just average) would yield around 20%-30% crit chance, with fury it would be around 40%-50%, which allows for a nice consistant spiking and still dealing noticeable amounts of damage without crit

Alexandriea, on 05 May 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

Once again that is dependant on what kind of thief you're playing. Precision is for critical thieves and arguably power is useful to all thieves.

Okay. I think i'll make a mix of 'Precision' and 'Power' (I meant Power).
But I looked at the traits and which trait lines are the best for a combination of D/D and an offensive build.

[LethalConcept]

Necrojection, on 05 May 2012 - 02:13 PM, said:

Okay. I think i'll make a mix of 'Precision' and 'Power' (I meant Power).
But I looked at the traits and which trait lines are the best for a combination of D/D and an offensive build.

really, traits are just there to enhance your style of play, so ill give you pointers, but you are REALLY better of choosing your own traits so that you can make your own thief which fits you
1. Compare traits, alot of times some traits are glaringly stronger than others, like "Thrill of Crime" which gives you and all allies might fury and swiftness when you steal compared to "Bountiful thief" which when you steal you get either might fury OR swiftness, its obvious thrill of crime is better
2. Find traits which are more suited to your playstyle/weapon set, like if you are using sword/dagger (which focuses on flanking attacks) you would be more often going for the flanking traits

If you find you are still unsure of what to choose, go to http://www.guildwars...ild-discussion/ and check out the builds there, then see if you like what they have done, if not modify and suite yourself
also the wiki is great for checking traits as a whole http://wiki.guildwar...of_thief_traits

[Arngrim Einheri]

Necrojection, on 05 May 2012 - 08:04 AM, said:

What would be the best choice for a Thief regarding:

- Traits

- Weapons

- Stats

- Race (Race doesn't really matter but which racial skills are the most useful to a Thief)

It depends. You mean for PvE or PvP?

[Necrojection]

Arngrim Einheri, on 05 May 2012 - 02:44 PM, said:

It depends. You mean for PvE or PvP?

I would like to have a 'build' for both, but if that isn't possible I would prefer PvE

[kash]

Go to the builds thread Lethal posted and play around with one of the building sites. The only real way to get a grasp on our traits, skills, and stats is to read over them all and see how each things connects to another. I like http://www.gw2builds.org since you can ctrl left click on something to open it up in the wiki and get a broader sense of how a stat, condition, boon, or skill fits into the bigger picture. You want to understand how conditions and boons work, if they're a duration or intensity stack and decide on which skills will over the best output of either of those. Then, decide which traits and their base stats from that trait line can enhance your weapon sets and movement style.

[Alexandriea]

Additionally, not all traits and utilities work for all situations and you should ideally be changing them to suit your needs at the given situation.

[Emtiarbi]

Necrojection, on 05 May 2012 - 03:13 PM, said:

I would like to have a 'build' for both, but if that isn't possible I would prefer PvE

try to not look for "Best build in x", the best build is the build that suit your playstyle.

[TiffyMissWiffy]

I am playing thief right now and I am finding it hard to decide what is the right combo for Strength yet defensive. I find one-one play is strong but once I get multiple enemies against me a lvl or two above I am toast.  Right now I am playing Main Pistol Off Dagger. I find "slipping off into the shadows" helpful when I am being ambushed.

Perhaps it is the close-ranged battles that are getting me, I will play with it more tonight.