9 replies to this topic

[mofogie]

i've been experimenting more with shortbow, and got inspired by a vid i saw that does not carry hide in shadows.  That made me think more

http://gw2skills.net...heqzgm2s7BXtq8B

i would say i've been doing well with this in spvp, (not tested yet for wvw).  Typically 15+kills or more per match, and i priotize 'real fighting' as opposed to just following the zerg and picking off easy targets.   They're all hard earned kills.

FIGHTING STYLE:
this build has almost no way of stealthing, other than second set CnD.  It relies entirely on managing distance, and evades, but you get ALOT of evades.  I have gotten more pissed off responses playing this build than i do on my 2 shotting dagger build.  Seems like thief haters have something to hate bout no matter what...

now onto explanation of TRAITS:
Vigorous Recovery and Withdraw and Superior RUne of Lyssa are key to this survival.  Recovery has a short cooldown, thus giving you vigor frequently, which means 2x the dodges.  Rune of Lyssa gives you a boon each time you heal .

the other way is using lots of Disabling shots.   Thus high iniative is in order.  

SLOTS
These are stil up for changing, but i've found Ambush trap to be great.  Venoms are very buggy when applied to range weapons, so i scrapped devourer venom.  Other traps can get activated by minions and pets.  Ambush trap is great because the thief minions are incredibly useful for a shortbower.  The female thief can scorpion wire enemies away from you, the male thief can constantly blind for you, giving you a break.

Basilisk Venom is key with Superior Rune of LYssa, especially after the patch.  It removes ALL conditions.  this is key to survival against any condition class.  With this rune, and constant evading, survivability is very high on this build.  

LAST WORDS
i find shortbow to be the most intense kind of weapon for thief, especially this build which relies on little stealth.  It's constant on your toes, evading, and timing cluster bombs.  This is for the twitchy high reflex player type.


a work in  progress.  maybe i shouldn't say 'no stealth,' but there's much less stealth than other builds.

Edited by mofogie, 19 December 2012 - 04:30 AM.

[Scarnah]

Interesting idea.  I was thinking about ways to focus on shortbow from another thread, and I think you may be on to something with ditching stealth for maximizing evades.  I think the #3 skill is underutilized by a lot of people and enemies freaking hate it when you just keep evading.

Where do your heals come from?  As you mentioned, you have quite a few things that proc on heals, but I don't see a high uptime heal.  Would Assassin's Reward work well for this?  I could see that taking the place of Quick Recovery, and then maybe shifting the 15 points in Critical Strikes to Trickery in order to up your initiative.  

How are you using steal?  Are you using it every time it's up, then evading away?

[JVista]

I only WvW and love using the shortbow. Just wondering, what armor stats would you recommend?

[crowsnest bomber]

Do u get many solo kills or are u getting high numbers from just tagging everyone with trick shot.

[mofogie]

i've never been one to just farm.  i never saw the point.  it's always in my interest to improve my skills, whether it's individual skills, or group/squad tactical skills.  I frequently challenge myself by engaging in  2 or 3v1.  Yes i get alot of solo kills on this.  It's not as easy as some other builds, but i think it has potential, and working on it more.

About  Steal, for this build i use steal sparingly, usually for bursting with mug, or if i want a certain item from that class to combo with .  

i've also thought bout the +3 iniative, but it's a huge waste in stats. It's not a condition build, and you'll be missing 150 precision if you changed the traits to there.  

as for healing, there's quite a bit of healing already from frequent withdraws, which has a higher hps than shadow refuge.  Also acrobatics gives +300 vit, and with rune of lyssa, you are getting frequent boons, which could mean protection, vigor, or regen.  

for armor, i always work with glass cannon armor in spvp, the one that's crit, crit %, and power.  crit is usually around 40% with traits.  Mostly because i'm too lazy to change it, but also because i believe that thief should put out good damage no matter what build.

Edited by mofogie, 19 December 2012 - 04:30 AM.

[mofogie]

JVista, for WvW i still recommend this:
http://gw2skills.net...uTe6VgsaPopNbJA

largely based on Jinzu's Burst build.  
this build is for most WvW situations, it does so much damage both for shortbowing, and for assassinating a target.  You use Cooldowns to assasinate someone, either ganking, or killing someone in their zerg pack, then switch to shortbow for farming mass kills, and doing lots of AoE damage to the opposing team.

the other build i recommend for WvW is the Longevity Build  i posted
http://www.guildwars...ng-thief-build/

the longevity build is best for soloing 2-3 v 1, and also infliltrating and taking out siege weaponry. (on that build you can CnD almost forever, thus the enemy not able to stop you from repeatedly hitting their siege).

Edited by mofogie, 19 December 2012 - 04:36 AM.

[Korra]

<sub>Honestly, the build is terrible.

This is a good WvW/spvp SB build</sub>

http://en.gw2skills....heqzgm2s7BXtq8B

_{or even}

http://gw2skills.net...no6y0lwLbMOvkxA

[Psikerlord]

I imagine the OP build will have trouble against those with high boons - dd eles and bunker guards, that sort of thing. There is no boon stripping in the build. Otherwise though i can see it working well enough. I play dodgy SB main myself but i find 2 main problems with it - never found it to do enough burst to finish folks, even with mug, so you rely on your second weaponset for that, and (2) all the dodging takes you off point a lot - so you arent a good point taker/defender. Still it is damn fun.

[mofogie]

korra you do make a point by putting less in acrobatics.   however i disagree with you alot on the other traits.
you dumped a ton of traits into recharge steal and condition damage, neither which are that useful to a shortbower.  The bleeds on cluster bombs are too short.   Yes you get fury, but at such a high cost to power.  Your crits wont even hit that hard.

i'm a huge fan of mug.  It does so much damage off your skill recharge, which if you factor that in, does even more damage.   My lowest mugs are 2k+  and can crit for 5k.   Why would you not want such an early trait for such great burst damage?  That's a ton of damage you'd have to make up for if you chose another damage trait.  

I will move some traits aroudn though, see what comes up.

vanguard, i agree with you on quite a bit on that, but i dont think any one build of most classes can 100% use just 1 weapon set.  A dagger thief is still going to use sb or something else.   With SB, i switch to daggers as well, for some burst or to occasionally stealth.

the eles and guards you   speak of, they do take awhile to take down, but i havent found them to be too bad, because they're easy to kite and don't do much damage.  I suppose you could sigil boon stripping then.  I generally take fire, for wvw, where aoe can be a big deal.  thanks for the suggestion though, i'm going to try sigiling that in spvp.

edit:  been playing with slot skills as well.  blinding powder vs ambush trap, been a hard toss up.  Both will give a moment where you can unleash a gauranteed cluster bomb, (immob vs scorpion wire).  The thieves on ambush trap do alot of damage though, and you can have up to 2 out.   Blinding powder of course gives means of escape.

Edited by mofogie, 20 December 2012 - 10:30 AM.

[mofogie]

piskerlord just added sigilof null, tested it out tonight with the build, it worked EXCELLENt.  thanks for the insipration.  

i'm still standing by my traits though, there is a lot of harmony between them and the superior rune of lyssa.