Viable builds without trickery

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Is there any? LolInky ask cuz alot of the time when theory crafting potential builds the the reliance I have on preparedness really bottlenecks a huge amount of potential build diversity. It wouldn't be so bad if there were a trait in a few other lines that actually recovered ini at a significant rate to substitute the 3 extra ini reliably but there isn't. I get that this is my issue but was wondering if others had same issue or not.

[Lonewolf Kai.3682]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Is there any? Lol

i would run a DE thief with rifle and SA and X, where X is whatever you want, like such as DA or CD. Trickery isn’t really needed with it. I actually used to run DE, DA, CS on an all out glass rifle build in WvW. Was fun, does a ton of damage.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Lonewolf Kai.3682 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Is there any? Lol

i would run a DE thief with rifle and SA and X, where X is whatever you want, like such as DA or CD. Trickery isn’t really needed with it. I actually used to run DE, DA, CS on an all out glass rifle build in WvW. Was fun, does a ton of damage.

Nice! I'll try er out :)

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

The only reason I ever use Trickery is because of Trickster adding cleanse to my Withdraw. Now that I can do the same with Shadow Arts' Shadow Embrace, I've replaced Trickery ever since. However, I do miss the 14s CD Withdraw though.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:The only reason I ever use Trickery is because of Trickster adding cleanse to my Withdraw. Now that I can do the same with Shadow Arts' Shadow Embrace, I've replaced Trickery ever since. However, I do miss the 14s CD Withdraw though.

Do u feel the -3 ini?That's my main concern replacing trickery with DDNon DE build obviously lol

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:The only reason I ever use Trickery is because of Trickster adding cleanse to my Withdraw. Now that I can do the same with Shadow Arts' Shadow Embrace, I've replaced Trickery ever since. However, I do miss the 14s CD Withdraw though.

Do u feel the -3 ini?That's my main concern replacing trickery with DDNon DE build obviously lol

No I don't, since I use my skill methodically instead of busting. However, in my Assassin Thief, Preparedness is necessary in order to deliver the burst, but I don't need it for my main Thief. If you use skills divisible by 3, for example Skimisher's Shot, you won't even notice it.

As for my DD Thief it's the same for me, I use Weakening Charge instead of Vault since Bound is cheaper, so I don't notice the extra 3 init. Besides, Hidden Thief, Flickering Shadow, and Rending Shade are really hard to pass when using Staff. Stealth on Channeled Vigor, 20s CD Smokescreen (stealth on leap), 40s CD Shadowstep...it's a very active DD build with a lot of boon strip. One time something unexpected happened that Rending Shade actually interrupted a heal...who would have thunk?

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@Lonewolf Kai.3682 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Is there any? Lol

i would run a DE thief with rifle and SA and X, where X is whatever you want, like such as DA or CD. Trickery isn’t really needed with it. I actually used to run DE, DA, CS on an all out glass rifle build in WvW. Was fun, does a ton of damage.

This is a good comment, I have 4 DE builds in regular use and they all follow this logic. That said, the main reason I don't struggle with ini is because of M7 and cheap to cast skills like shadow strike into repeater or skirmishers shot, low costs plus the extra ini on full malice goes a long way. I only take trickery on my boon tank build, diviner armor and dura runes for 40% duration with S/D coupled with the boonsteal from bountiful theft, rending shade and absorption sigil plus the boons from lesser haste, rage/celerity sigils and M7 gives you a pretty solid answer to boon beasts and warriors, as well as anything that relies heavily on protection like holo and firebrand. It's not meta by any stretch but its a fun 1v1 build if you're looking for something other that the usual burst or go home type builds.

[saerni.2584]

I don’t use Trickery. You may lose a bit of initiative but you gain a lot of utility and damage elsewhere.

I’ve gotten used to the limits I guess.

[Fat Disgrace.4275]

I mostly take trickery for either ToTc/heist, Bt, and slight of hand. 3 ini is great but I never took trickery for that.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

Trickery is good for the boon strip and utility. There's no real reason to pass up on boon strip atm.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

This is just my opinion but for my playstyle every build without preparedness feels clunky and basically handicapped.I'm glad others are comfortable without it though, I'm jealous lol.

[kash.9213]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:This is just my opinion but for my playstyle every build without preparedness feels clunky and basically handicapped.I'm glad others are comfortable without it though, I'm jealous lol.

Muscle memory feels it out soon enough and you'll check yourself a bit when you're positioning into or out of something, I don't remember it being too restricting unless I tried to reach too many steps ahead of what I could mitigate or ease out of. Right now both of my builds are kind of generic though, I'm too lazy or distracted to specialize too much and everything about Trickery is good for a floater.

[SoulSin.5682]

The whole trickery or no trickery heavily depends on weapon set.Some weapon sets are initiative hungry and it's near impossible to play properly without trickery.D/P for example, can't be used for stealth stacking without the extra initiative.

Rifle, on the other hand, is not that initiative heavy. It's totally viable to play non-trickery-DE builds.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@SoulSin.5682 said:The whole trickery or no trickery heavily depends on weapon set.Some weapon sets are initiative hungry and it's near impossible to play properly without trickery.D/P for example, can't be used for stealth stacking without the extra initiative.

Rifle, on the other hand, is not that initiative heavy. It's totally viable to play non-trickery-DE builds.

This. I wouldn't consider playing daredevil or core without trickery, because they tend to focus on burst and retreat playstyles with D/P and S/D, both sets that really need the extra ini to work well. Rifle and P/D don't really need it though, because they either hit hard enough to not need a followup attack or the boost from M7 keeps them able to sustain an attack indefinitely with proper malice management.

[babazhook.6805]

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@SoulSin.5682 said:The whole trickery or no trickery heavily depends on weapon set.Some weapon sets are initiative hungry and it's near impossible to play properly without trickery.D/P for example, can't be used for stealth stacking without the extra initiative.

Rifle, on the other hand, is not that initiative heavy. It's totally viable to play non-trickery-DE builds.

This. I wouldn't consider playing daredevil or core without trickery, because they tend to focus on burst and retreat playstyles with D/P and S/D, both sets that really need the extra ini to work well. Rifle and P/D don't really need it though, because they either hit hard enough to not need a followup attack or the boost from M7 keeps them able to sustain an attack indefinitely with proper malice management.

A lot depends of course on what #1 does on any given set.P/D is good because in a condition build that attack loads bleeds. You can do without trickery in Core but you have to get other sources of INI in there such as weaving stealth with Rejuv or Using the one out of Acro and perhaps supplement with infiltrators signet , but this giving up a whole lot for that extra INI while at the same time not gaining enough to in other traits that it that much better then just taking trickery. That said CORE p/d does not need trickery. Weave stealth with Rejuv, use a Condition build (or even hybrid) and make a lot of use of pistol 1. Traiting something like DA/CS/SA in a p/d hybrid can work very well.

[Straegen.2938]

Condi with DA (3-2-1), Acro (1-3-3) and DD (2-3-1) works well. It won't win any OP prizes but I run the build in WvW effectively. It gets obscene when players don't move out of Choking Gas.

[rowdy.5107]

I haven't used trickery for almost a year. I use DrD, DA, SA. If you play condi you get quite a bit more damage with the venom stacks while invisible and it gives you more options to get out of a fight if things get hairy.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

1 black powder and 1 heart seeker uses 9 of 12 ini the thief's global resource effecting both weapon sets skills. Does that sound right? U have 3 ini left for any skill that uses 3 or less ini across all thief weapons. The ini return via traits are trivial mid fight at least imo. As far as I'm concerned preparedness should be baseline ir ini costs of some skills lower like black powder coating 4 or 5 ini instead of 6 as a example.

[kash.9213]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:1 black powder and 1 heart seeker uses 9 of 12 ini the thief's global resource effecting both weapon sets skills. Does that sound right? U have 3 ini left for any skill that uses 3 or less ini across all thief weapons. The ini return via traits are trivial mid fight at least imo. As far as I'm concerned preparedness should be baseline ir ini costs of some skills lower like black powder coating 4 or 5 ini instead of 6 as a example.

It would sound right if we had a proper closer that didn't take an entire build of traits, kit, and stats to be a threat, maybe Malicious backstab would have the payoff for committing so much into a closer.

[Ruufio.1496]

Ive been using daredevil with bounding dodger for low mans in WvW and I use acrobatics/shadow arts. I wanted the ability to easily stealth over the stuff that comes with trickery, basically. However, I find I do have to use both grandmaster traits for acro/SA that grant initiative and must use roll for initiative.

It's a lot funner than just doing the staff/staff spam evade build. I use staff and sword/pistol. More survivable too IMO because stealth and dropping target. And I have 3k+ power, so.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

If u have to use utility skills to compensate for resource issues than there is in fact a issue. In my post above regarding black powder and heartseeker it basically means as a thief to compensate for being able to do same skills consecutively not only have anet made the damage lower to compensate but also the fact u can at most use 3 skills in a row and that's only if 2 of the skills are 3 or less and not 6 ini like black powder which 2 in a row uses all 6 ini. The fact that ini is a global resource spanning across both weapons and what I just stated combined makes trickery needed for optimal builds which isn't right.Yes u can make builds work without preparedness but not having that 3 ini is handicapping the build more than it should due to high cost of some skills,damage lowered due to ini mechanics and lastly because it's a global resource.Those builds that thieves use without trickery have to utilize traits and utility skills to compensate for a shortcoming that shouldn't be present therefore builds suffer.Fact anet can't see this after all these yrs is astounding but not surprising.No other class has to go thru such lengths to make the classes base resource mechanic not clunky within any build not utilizing one traitline.

[Ruufio.1496]

Yeah at the very least amount of effort they could make base initiative 13 and have trickery add 2.Some of my friends said they should make it 15 base but then nerf trickery.