4 replies to this topic

[jrwspace]

Greetings! Below you will find some of the theorycrafting I've been doing for a possible mobility/stealth build. I intended to put this in the "Thiefcrafting" thread, but it was locked.

Disclaimer: this is a concept I have been working on and is largely untested. I am *completely* open to suggestions! Even if the whole thing sucks, that's cool too! Let me know what your thoughts are. I will test some more during the stress test tomorrow.

Here goes: the basic concept of this build is to pool initiative, avoid attacks, shadowstep all over the place, and make very patient, precise strikes.

http://gw2skills.net...qUk69gsj1saFoJA

Sorry, I didn't add any armor, as I am not really sure yet what I'm doing there.

Here's a basic combat flow (obviously, in the heat of battle, things rarely go as planned, but this is the initial idea):

Black powder -- applies AOE blind/combo field -- 7/13 inititative
Steal -- damage (mug), poison (11s), daze(1s), +5 init, 3s stealth, fury/might/swiftness(10s)/vigor(15s) for allies, might (15s) for self, rip two boons and give to allies -- 12/13 initiative
Sneak attack -- 4xBleeding(5s) -- 12/13 initiative
Spam whatever skill you "stole"
Body shot -- 5xVuln(6s) -- 10/13 initiative
Allow auto-attack (more bleeding) while strafing/dodging as required until "revealed" buff is nearly gone (shouldn't be too much longer)
Infiltrator's Strike (as appropriate based on distance) -- rumor is that it now has a 1s immob and costs 3 init -- 9/13 inititative
Cloak and Dagger (note that the immobilize is important for this) -- 2xVuln(5s), stealth(4s) -- 5 (10-6+2) /13 initiative
Do your best to maneuver behind target (if not, no big deal)
Tactical strike -- Blind/daze -- 5/13 initiative
Flanking strike -- Evade/damage -- 1/13 initiative

Hopefully mob/player is dead by now. OK, so here is what you did: you blinded everyone, then dazed and poisoned your target (and gave boons), then bled, then applied vulnerability, then rooted, then applied more vulnerability and stealthed, then blinded/dazed again. Keep in mind that the poison and bleed conditions deal +300 damage, and all condition durations are increased by 10%.

I said before you wanted to pool initiative -- that's because you get bonus damage with more initiative. Keep the initiative just below full (not full because you don't want to waste regeneration). That's why you follow a high-cost skill with steal, which restores 5 initiative. When the enemy is near death, it is advantageous to finally spend your remaining initiative.

Utilities are left for emergencies.

Advantages:
Conditions matched with condition-enhancing traits
Maximum effectiveness of steal skill
Maximum effectiveness of stealth
Three methods of condition removal -- shadow return, hide in shadows, shadowstep
Stun break -- shadowstep
Decent control
Excellent mobility (steal, infiltrator's strike, shadowstep, signet of shadows)

Disadvantages:
Could use more damage, specifically, conditional damage
Traits may be spread a little too thin -- build is trying to do too many things at once (steals, stealth, condition damage)
No dodge/evade (acrobatics) line -- requires player to be very mobile and careful
Steal still has a long cooldown (34.5 seconds), and the traits focus so much around it

Ideas for improvement:
Take 10 points out of trickery, put into deadly arts for weakness on poison (minor) and +33% poison duration (major); replace shadowstep with spider venom (or maybe devourer venom?). This way one wouldn't need to worry as much about pooling initiative. You'd lose that bonus damage and the daze from stealing.

Please let me know what you think!

Edited by jrwspace, 12 August 2012 - 06:51 AM.

[Feyted]

Does the damage from mug drop you out of stealth hence mug itself can't stealth?

Also 300 damage on a bleed is really really high... Unless you meant over the entire duration, which is eh.

Edited by Feyted, 12 August 2012 - 06:55 AM.

[jrwspace]

Feyted, on 12 August 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

Does the damage from mug drop you out of stealth hence mug itself can't stealth?

That's a good and VERY important question. I will test tomorrow.

[Zordon]

As of last stress test no it does not unstealth you. You can shadowstep in and you will both mug the opponent and stealth. As for the build I see what you are trying to do but a couple of thoughts:

Opening with black powder then going with steal next kind of renders your powder useless. Personally I've found the real advantage of spending all the points to get Hidden Theif is that it is a great opener because it puts you right next to your target stealthed. If you go steal then sneak attack then black powder you have a longer period where your attacker cannot hurt you. (i know this means you lose out on the inititative you gain from the steal but i think its worth it because the blind from the black powder actually will protect you). I was using a similar trait line except i was running d/d and just trying to spam backstab/heartseaker. You may find your way to work best but just what I noticed from playing a similar build.

[Faded913]

Feyted, on 12 August 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

Does the damage from mug drop you out of stealth hence mug itself can't stealth?

Also 300 damage on a bleed is really really high... Unless you meant over the entire duration, which is eh.

it does not but make sure you turn off your auto-attack because as soon as you land your mug, you auto-attack and it pops u out.