Which Builds Fulfill The Thief's Purpose? (PvP)

[Kageseigi.2150]

So I'm trying to figure out exactly what the purpose of the Thief is in PvP and why certain weapon sets are currently favored.

If it's true that the Thief's viability is solely about decapping and +1, then why build for anything other than those specifically?

---

DECAP:It's all about speed, speed, and more speed. At least, for the physical build (not taking map awareness/decision making into account). Power and defense matters absolutely zilch in this, technically. Swiftness, movement speed boosts, free-aim shadowsteps. Misdirection (Stealth) can also aid in this.

+1:Once more, this is about speed. But it's also about power and control. The goal is to jump the target and get the kill as quickly as possible, or to set your teammate up for the quick kill by disabling the target.

---

So if the above is accurate, then what does each traitline/weapon set bring to make the Thief the most efficient and effective in each/both "roles?"

Shortbow is, of course, the king of mobility, and virtually required for both, especially decapping.But what do the other weapon sets bring to the table?Mainhand Dagger and Pistol/Pistol used to bring damage for the +1, but what about now?What does Sword/X bring specifically to decapping or +1?The Staff and Rifle?

Deadly Arts brings some damage.Critical Strikes brings damage.Shadow Arts does have a movement speed boost, but not much else.Acrobatics brings Swiftness.Trickery brings damage and initiative for Shortbow.Daredevil brings mobility.Deadeye brings damage.

Berserker amulet brings the most damage.Scholar's runes bring a lot of damage.Lynx runes bring damage and faster movement speed.

Why build any other way than pure "Glass Lightening"?You're literally supposed to go from empty point to empty point, and from an empty point to smash a half-dead squishy back to an empty point.

Anything that takes away from mobility degrades your primary purpose. Anything that takes away from your damage output degrades your secondary purpose.

Sure, you can attempt to build for other purposes (dueling, side-node capping/bunkering, team-fighting, etc.), but you're not going to be nearly as effective as other professions.

[NuhDah.9812]

@"Kageseigi.2150" said:So I'm trying to figure out exactly what the purpose of the Thief is in PvP and why certain weapon sets are currently favored.

If it's true that the Thief's viability is solely about decapping and +1, then why build for anything other than those specifically?

---

DECAP:It's all about speed, speed, and more speed. At least, for the physical build (not taking map awareness/decision making into account). Power and defense matters absolutely zilch in this, technically. Swiftness, movement speed boosts, free-aim shadowsteps. Misdirection (Stealth) can also aid in this.

+1:Once more, this is about speed. But it's also about power and control. The goal is to jump the target and get the kill as quickly as possible, or to set your teammate up for the quick kill by disabling the target.

---

So if the above is accurate, then what does each traitline/weapon set bring to make the Thief the most efficient and effective in each/both "roles?"

Shortbow is, of course, the king of mobility, and virtually required for both, especially decapping.But what do the other weapon sets bring to the table?Mainhand Dagger and Pistol/Pistol used to bring damage for the +1, but what about now?What does Sword/X bring specifically to decapping or +1?The Staff and Rifle?

Deadly Arts brings some damage.Critical Strikes brings damage.Shadow Arts does have a movement speed boost, but not much else.Acrobatics brings Swiftness.Trickery brings damage and initiative for Shortbow.Daredevil brings mobility.Deadeye brings damage.

Berserker amulet brings the most damage.Scholar's runes bring a lot of damage.Lynx runes bring damage and faster movement speed.

Why build any other way than pure "Glass Lightening"?You're literally supposed to go from empty point to empty point, and from an empty point to smash a half-dead squishy back to an empty point.

Anything that takes away from mobility degrades your primary purpose. Anything that takes away from your damage output degrades your secondary purpose.

Sure, you can attempt to build for other purposes (dueling, side-node capping/bunkering, team-fighting, etc.), but you're not going to be nearly as effective as other professions.

One thing abour going 100% glass for thief is that you will die... a lot, whenever you enter a cluster of aoe spam in team fights where you +1, or even against a brawler class that can usually survive your burst even if you're pure glass and +1. Also just avoiding every fight on the map to keep alive would make you take longer paths on the map increasing your overall time to go from point to point - if you don't perma stealth at least, otherwise you will die fairly easy an dying is the archnemesies to the thief's role. And also, keep in mind your decap and +1 functions can be very easily shut down by just having a brawler class protecting the node. It is wiser to trait some skirmish potential into your build so you won't have to be usless most of the time. I mean your theory might work when you play against disorganised groups with less experienced players, but it's not working where it actually counts.

[NuhDah.9812]

@NuhDah.9812 said:

@"Kageseigi.2150" said:So I'm trying to figure out exactly what the purpose of the Thief is in PvP and why certain weapon sets are currently favored.

If it's true that the Thief's viability is solely about decapping and +1, then why build for anything other than those specifically?

---

DECAP:

It's all about speed, speed, and more speed. At least, for the physical build (not taking map awareness/decision making into account). Power and defense matters absolutely zilch in this, technically. Swiftness, movement speed boosts, free-aim shadowsteps. Misdirection (Stealth) can also aid in this.

+1:

Once more, this is about speed. But it's also about power and control. The goal is to jump the target and get the kill as quickly as possible, or to set your teammate up for the quick kill by disabling the target.

---

So if the above is accurate, then what does each traitline/weapon set bring to make the Thief the most efficient and effective in each/both "roles?"

Shortbow is, of course, the king of mobility, and virtually required for both, especially decapping.But what do the other weapon sets bring to the table?Mainhand Dagger and Pistol/Pistol used to bring damage for the +1, but what about now?What does Sword/X bring specifically to decapping or +1?The Staff and Rifle?

Deadly Arts brings some damage.Critical Strikes brings damage.Shadow Arts does have a movement speed boost, but not much else.Acrobatics brings Swiftness.Trickery brings damage and initiative for Shortbow.Daredevil brings mobility.Deadeye brings damage.

Berserker amulet brings the most damage.Scholar's runes bring a lot of damage.Lynx runes bring damage and faster movement speed.

Why build any other way than pure "Glass Lightening"?You're literally supposed to go from empty point to empty point, and from an empty point to smash a half-dead squishy back to an empty point.

Anything that takes away from mobility degrades your primary purpose. Anything that takes away from your damage output degrades your secondary purpose.

Sure, you can attempt to build for other purposes (dueling, side-node capping/bunkering, team-fighting, etc.), but you're not going to be nearly as effective as other professions.

One thing abour going 100% glass for thief is that you will die... a lot, whenever you enter a cluster of aoe spam in team fights where you +1, or even against a brawler class that can usually survive your burst even if you're pure glass and +1. Also just avoiding every fight on the map to keep alive would make you take longer paths on the map increasing your overall time to go from point to point - if you don't perma stealth at least, otherwise you will die fairly easy an dying is the archnemesies to the thief's role. And also, keep in mind your decap and +1 functions can be very easily shut down by just having a brawler class protecting the node. It is wiser to trait some skirmish potential into your build so you won't have to be usless most of the time. I mean your theory might work when you play against disorganised groups with less experienced players, but it's not working where it actually counts.

Also there is the problem with the fact that the enemy team as a thief too. They will 1shot you every time if you are 100% glass 11k hp. While other classes might be able to survive in this sort of scenarios, glass thief is one that doesn't.

[saerni.2584]

The thing is, if the enemy team is competent you can’t simply build for “pure glass lightning” to jump between relatively empty points.

1. The glass thief rarely puts out enough damage against competent players for the relative risk a glass thief build presents. You don’t have enough health and if the enemy is paying attention they will focus you quickly. A retreating thief isn’t doing damage.
2. More defensive builds can stick around a team fight for longer. This does mean they do less spike damage but you don’t need to spike a proper plus 1. If you can do 65% of the enemies health then a competent other player (or two) should be able to secure the kill. That staying power means you can keep fighting in there and help secure the kill. Downed state changes the game significantly here.
3. On mobility many builds have comparable mobility. Building for more speed will get you a tiny advantage but cut into either sustain or damage in a way that undermines your plus one role.

In my opinion, the ideal thief helps the team scout, pick targets, down those targets and finish them. If the thief has time the secondary role is decap (which may come along with scouting to see where priority targets are rotating. A third role may be to hit one enemy of a group on respawn and try to stagger out the enemies so they can be killed one at a time rather than risking a team fight.

[Jack Redline.5379]

@saerni.2584 said:

In my opinion, the ideal thief helps the team scout, pick targets, down those targets and finish them. If the thief has time the secondary role is decap (which may come along with scouting to see where priority targets are rotating. A third role may be to hit one enemy of a group on respawn and try to stagger out the enemies so they can be killed one at a time rather than risking a team fight.

You know what is funny. If a Thief works as a scout and picks out targets that are downed or alone or weak (marks them) That sort of makes him a team leader doesnt it? xD

unlocks seat belt as the vehicle leans forward down the salt hill lol-ing

[Carnifex.3275]

U know.. u made me wonder actually. Mainly Thieves r rly in a terrible spot and all we can do is decap. Even +1 sometimes isnt worth it... So...... with that said. Let's all just take SB with Daredevil/Acro/Trickery with some tanky amulet like soldiers and just let's do what Anet forced us to do. Lets just decap and SB#5 over the map. Even salty players are saying "u r supposed to decap nuuub". So let's do that then. Why even fight if we die in that idiotic spam of aoes and blocks and reflects and reveals?

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

The Thief's primary role is to apply pressure to any support role profession. This was fulfilled by boon strip, high crits, and stealth attacks. Prior to the Elite Specialization, this was the role of the Thief. It was before Mug was nerfed and wasn't able to crit. Thief was really effective at pressuring the supports. This is not exclusive in PvP since this is also the case in WvW. Thieves will infiltrate the back line and take out the supports.

This whole Decap/+1 mentality is something an anti-Thief will think about so that they can kill Thieves rather easily.

One important aspect of the Thief is it's ability to mitigate 100% of the damage through evasion and Blind. Because of this ability, a Staff Daredevil can keep a node from being captured by staying there without dying -- like forever. Obviously ArenaNet do not like the fact that a Daredevil has better staying power than a Warrior, so they went on a quest to severely nerf the Daredevil.

Before the Daredevil, it was possible to build a unlimited evasion thanks to Feline Grace. This build was revived after the Daredevil. The sole purpose of this build is to prevent enemies from capturing a node and the Daredevil has a lot of staying power in a team fight. Staff Daredevil was dominating a node fight in both 1v1 and team fights. ArenaNet decided that we can't have that, they want to force Thief back to Decap/+1, far away from any team fights and the spot light. So they did, now we got the Deadeye.

Of course, keeping the Thief away from the node didn't work out either since Deadeye has been sniping node defenders without any chance of counter play. So what did ArenaNet do next? Nerf Deadeye. ArenaNet has been on a quest to remove all other options that the Thief player has, so to either Decap/+1 or not play the profession at all, that's the only choice now.

So here we are talking about Decap/+1 as if it's the only build that we can effectively use in PvP. It is not a good role, nor you can create an effective build, rather it is the only choice out there.

Any build with Decap/+1 in mind will never work. It was designed to fail. Anyone who claim that they made it in top rank using such build owe it to their team, not on the build. Without a good team composition, a Thief Decap/+1 build will never work. You will not be given opportunity to decap or +1 if the rest of your team fail.

[Kageseigi.2150]

@NuhDah.9812 said:keep in mind your decap and +1 functions can be very easily shut down by just having a brawler class protecting the node. It is wiser to trait some skirmish potential into your build so you won't have to be usless most of the time.@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:Any build with Decap/+1 in mind will never work. It was designed to fail. Anyone who claim that they made it in top rank using such build owe it to their team, not on the build. Without a good team composition, a Thief Decap/+1 build will never work. You will not be given opportunity to decap or +1 if the rest of your team fail.

Indeed, this is what I've been wondering about for years. A team with a Thief is always at a disadvantage. It's not a true 5v5, it's more of a 4.5v5 just due to the Thief's inherent weakness. It's fast, yes, but not fast enough.

Even to start a match, if you send the Thief to get Home, it has to abort as soon as it sees an enemy coming, meaning you're at a point disadvantage already. If the Thief goes to contest far, you're outnumbered at Mid, so you'll lose Far soon enough. If you send the Thief to the initial Mid fight, you're looking at a possible 4v4 there... and the Thief can hardly make that balanced.

I've had bunkers just sit on Far the whole match. That leaves Mid a 5v4 AoE-fest, and I can't do anything except ping away with Shortbow from the perimeter. Other times, on maps like Legacy of the Foefire, I've had opposing builds like Dragonhunters and Rangers provide ranged support on Mid, but had enough reach/mobility to keep me from decapping Far. If their Longbows aren't enough, their traps also take up the entire point, meaning I have to blow dodges just to avoid initial damage/stuns.

@NuhDah.9812 said:Also there is the problem with the fact that the enemy team as a thief too. They will 1shot you every time if you are 100% glass 11k hp. While other classes might be able to survive in this sort of scenarios, glass thief is one that doesn't.

I think that begs the question "Why can a non-glass Thief kill a glass Thief, but not vice versa?" It seems the one thing a normal Thief build can kill is a worse Thief build... and the worse build was actually built to kill.

@"saerni.2584" said:

1. The glass thief rarely puts out enough damage against competent players for the relative risk a glass thief build presents. You don’t have enough health and if the enemy is paying attention they will focus you quickly. A retreating thief isn’t doing damage.

Indeed, I used to play Berserker/Assassin builds. I felt like a football quarterback in the sense that I had an internal clock counting down in my head. Get in, do what I could for 2-3 seconds, then get out before I bit the big one. It was decently fun, and really upped my Thief reflexes, but it didn't kill as easily or quickly as it should have.

2. More defensive builds can stick around a team fight for longer. This does mean they do less spike damage but you don’t need to spike a proper plus 1. If you can do 65% of the enemies health then a competent other player (or two) should be able to secure the kill. That staying power means you can keep fighting in there and help secure the kill. Downed state changes the game significantly here.

So I guess the new question is "What Thief build is enough to take down 65% of an enemy's health?" And how long of a time is acceptable for taking 65% of the enemy's health take? That is, where is the balance between sustainability and lethality? And, even more importantly, why not just take another profession that can do more quicker?

Alas, it seems like we're getting to the point where we can ask ,"Does it really even matter anymore how a Thief builds as long as they take Shortbow?" Because the Shortbow alone is so strong of a mobility tool, it is like the Great Equalizer.

Last year sometime, I was playing around with different builds on a quest to reach Platinum. While I'm primarily a Dagger/Pistol Thief (that was the rage when I started several years back), I eventually settled into Pistol/Pistol and Shortbow that season. At first, I tried a build based around Poison, and I could eat away at most opponents I faced... even able to duel and overcome Warriors on point. Unfortunately, it was just too slow and cumbersome. So I went for pure power, and found it much, much more effective. While it may be seen as a "cheese" build, I found Pistol/Pistol to be so refreshing compared to the Dagger/Pistol that I had been playing for so long before.

Oddly enough, I played P/P almost identically to how I play D/P. The difference came from it being MUCH more complementary to the Thief's playstyle... at least how I play Thief. The Shortbow still got me around the map to where I needed to go at whatever time. But P/P allowed me to engage and focus down a target with several benefits that D/P didn't offer. For one, at the time, it just had so much damage output. Secondly, it allowed me to stay at range, which meant I didn't have to kamikaze my way into AoE or melee. Thirdly, also because it was ranged, I could literally engage on the move, coming from one side of the map and not having to stop while on the way to the other side. Basically, by the time I circled from the Home-side of Mid to the Far-side, the target was, in many cases, already down.

Yeah, P/P wouldn't always work when facing someone like Vallun (how I got matched against him when I wasn't even Platinum yet, I do not know), it was extremely effective as a "Thief's tool" in the sense that it allowed me to decap/+1 extremely well. And while I don't like that a ranged weapon could so easily do more damage than a melee weapon, I think Anet fixed it in a backwards manner. P/P's lethality may have needed to be toned down, but they really should have upped the effectiveness of melee (Dagger and Sword) to make up for it. Instead, they just nerf everything the Thief has without discrimination. There's no incentive to get into melee as a Thief, and that's very, very sad.

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

@"Kageseigi.2150" said:So I'm trying to figure out exactly what the purpose of the Thief is in PvP and why certain weapon sets are currently favored.

If it's true that the Thief's viability is solely about decapping and +1, then why build for anything other than those specifically?

---

DECAP:It's all about speed, speed, and more speed. At least, for the physical build (not taking map awareness/decision making into account). Power and defense matters absolutely zilch in this, technically. Swiftness, movement speed boosts, free-aim shadowsteps. Misdirection (Stealth) can also aid in this.

+1:Once more, this is about speed. But it's also about power and control. The goal is to jump the target and get the kill as quickly as possible, or to set your teammate up for the quick kill by disabling the target.

---

So if the above is accurate, then what does each traitline/weapon set bring to make the Thief the most efficient and effective in each/both "roles?"

Shortbow is, of course, the king of mobility, and virtually required for both, especially decapping.But what do the other weapon sets bring to the table?Mainhand Dagger and Pistol/Pistol used to bring damage for the +1, but what about now?What does Sword/X bring specifically to decapping or +1?The Staff and Rifle?

Deadly Arts brings some damage.Critical Strikes brings damage.Shadow Arts does have a movement speed boost, but not much else.Acrobatics brings Swiftness.Trickery brings damage and initiative for Shortbow.Daredevil brings mobility.Deadeye brings damage.

Berserker amulet brings the most damage.Scholar's runes bring a lot of damage.Lynx runes bring damage and faster movement speed.

Why build any other way than pure "Glass Lightening"?You're literally supposed to go from empty point to empty point, and from an empty point to smash a half-dead squishy back to an empty point.

Anything that takes away from mobility degrades your primary purpose. Anything that takes away from your damage output degrades your secondary purpose.

Sure, you can attempt to build for other purposes (dueling, side-node capping/bunkering, team-fighting, etc.), but you're not going to be nearly as effective as other professions.

Thief's role is to Decap and +1, but no thief likes doing this every friggen game. Its boring and unfulfilling. Worse, repeat nonsensical nerfs and absolutely LAUGHABLE buffs that do absolutely nothing for the profession, makes the profession one of the WORST in pvp. I'm guessing this is due to Thief's ability to run away from a bad fight, which is a non thief complaint, without actually considering the classes inherent flaws and weaknesses that creates this behavior. And instead of encouraging the thief to stay and fight, they try to force the thief while taking away his weapons and replace them with sock-em-boopers in a fighting ring where everyone else has a fully automatic rifle, iron-man suits, and a riot shield. (The day I see thief get some actual tender love and care, is the day I will contemplate respecting the balance team).

Anyways, the largest problem here, is a lot of people misunderstand how big of a target you have on your back when you play a thief. YOU ARE NOT IGNORED. And everyone knows how much easier it is to kill a thief, than an elementalist, guardian, mesmer, or what ever else is not a thief. If you run through a fight, and someone sees you, they will turn on you immediately. If someone see's a thief running by, and nothing is taking their immediate attention, you will be chased. If you run into another thief, that thief will come after you.

You can outrun them with shortbow and Unhindered Combatant, sure. But anyone with a brain can figure out what your next move will be. Misdirection helps.... but if they have good map awareness and knowledge, they can figure out what your target is, and can meet you there before the damage is done.

Decapping does nothing, if you are chased off the point immediately before you can flip it into an uncontested state. It does very little if you DID decap it, and it's immediately flipped over, as the lasp in point generation is very very small. And even worse, if you die - then you've basically lost a lot of time and got nothing done. And as a glassy thief, you will die. A LOT.

If you +1 as a thief. A newer player will either ignore you, or panic. A more experience or higher ranked player will immediately turn on you and destroy you as quickly as possible. Why is this?

Thief is the only profession without reliable access to any means to sustain themselves outside of dodge and stealth. You have no blocks, unless you are a DD which you have ONE. You rarely have healing power, since so little of your kit actually benefits from stat selections that features it. You rarely have defenses, because your damage values are garbage if you start taking tanky stats. If you miss your burst, you can't just swap weapons and be on the defensive - and continued harassment will leave you stuck in the mud. And you're knocked over pretty easily with an Auto. Your current utilities are easily guessed, as only three are commonly selected and worth anything to thief mains. And what ever playstyle Anet is trying to force us into, is also punishing us for playing into that playstyle.

What reason would someone have to prioritize you over the one that's currently half health? Simple... Reduce a 2v1 back to a 1v1. That extra body is extra damage. You don't have a high damage output. And your burst varies from weapon to weapon. But you are an extra body, and frail. You can even be safely bled, as you are not as dangerous as a Necro on your back, nor are you as hard to track down as an Ele or Mesmer. And the common strategy is to eliminate the weaker enemies first before you hit the stronger ones. Because you're trying to reduce the incoming damage.

We're stuck in a +1 role because it quite literally takes us too long to kill anyone. Which is weird, because we're the ones with the ability called BACKSTAB, and moveset designed for bursts. In fact, you'll be hard pressed to kill anyone on your own now, because it's a battle of attrition. And you don't have the proper tools to deal with half the crap they have. Either by just general lack of ability, unresolved and unnecessary limitations caused by a slot being eatten up by trickery, boon strips on timer or resource intensive. Or certain tools that could do it, are woefully underpowered and a death trap to use.

That being said... unless you are a god, and even if you are one... you will need more than godly ability to stay alive as a thief in PvP in full glass.

[Jack Redline.5379]

@"Kageseigi.2150" said:

I think that begs the question "Why can a non-glass Thief kill a glass Thief, but not vice versa?" It seems the one thing a normal Thief build can kill is a worse Thief build... and the worse build was actually built to kill.

@"saerni.2584" said:

1. The glass thief rarely puts out enough damage against competent players for the relative risk a glass thief build presents. You don’t have enough health and if the enemy is paying attention they will focus you quickly. A retreating thief isn’t doing damage.

Indeed, I used to play Berserker/Assassin builds. I felt like a football quarterback in the sense that I had an internal clock counting down in my head. Get in, do what I could for 2-3 seconds, then get out before I bit the big one. It was decently fun, and really upped my Thief reflexes, but it didn't kill as easily or quickly as it should have.

2. More defensive builds can stick around a team fight for longer. This does mean they do less spike damage but you don’t need to spike a proper plus 1. If you can do 65% of the enemies health then a competent other player (or two) should be able to secure the kill. That staying power means you can keep fighting in there and help secure the kill. Downed state changes the game significantly here.

So I guess the new question is "What Thief build is enough to take down 65% of an enemy's health?" And how long of a time is acceptable for taking 65% of the enemy's health take? That is, where is the balance between sustainability and lethality? And, even more importantly, why not just take another profession that can do more quicker?

Isnt it funny xD i have been saying this the whole time on these forums nobody would agree with me and now ppl start figuring out i was right xDYea glass cannon will not make enough of a dull on a non glass thiefAs far as your 65% chip on enemy class goes I have pointed out milion times there are ways of doing it. (Tactical dot when bluri appears)Stop going glass or power stuff and start going condi. Condi builds are able to do dmg to enemies since the condi keeps ticking even if you have to reset. It is maybe dirty play but we are Thieves for a reason.So if you want to become more usefull in mid and more useful on node holding so you dont have to run asap if you see inc Sb or another Thief just pick a build that can withstand that and can hold a pointWe have dmging AoE's working on condi base. DUH Wanna hold point? Do it like everyone does. GET AOE. Other Aoe works on power better our works better on condiI am not going to put numbers here so someone wouldnt start whining it is too much dpsBut i can assure you a condi dps based Thief can drop a watter based weaver if you unload all on him.nothing survives 40 stacks of poisonNOTHING

[NuhDah.9812]

@"NuhDah.9812" said:Also there is the problem with the fact that the enemy team as a thief too. They will 1shot you every time if you are 100% glass 11k hp. While other classes might be able to survive in this sort of scenarios, glass thief is one that doesn't.

I think that begs the question "Why can a non-glass Thief kill a glass Thief, but not vice versa?" It seems the one thing a normal Thief build can kill is a worse Thief build... and the worse build was actually built to kill.

Answering just this one question, it is not that you can't kill another thief when engaging with a glass thief, it's just that you are way more vulnerable to stealth burst engagement than a "normal" thief build is. You are actually vulnerable to any sort of focus. And for the purpose the thief burst is supposed to work, glass thief burst is rarely better, since the "normal" thief burst if enough to finish or too pressure an enemy in +1 situations if used correctly or against the right targets. The bonus burst you have as a glass thief is offset by the survivability loss in most cases. Let's say the bonus damage works with diminishing returns.

[saerni.2584]

@Jack Redline.5379

I run a hybrid build so I don’t disagree with taking some condi to round out your damage. I’d also like to remind everyone that in PvP you don’t need to run full glass PvE buildouts because player HP isn’t the same as NPCs in PvE. You can still “burst” without hitting a 30k combo. In most cases a 20k combo will still do the same thing and not require as much commitment.

As to ways to get to that 65% (etc):

1. Quickness is a huge help no matter your build for doing damage. You get the advantage of also going into stealth faster which is a big boon for your survivability. You don’t have to hit as hard per strike if you can get all your attacks off quickly.
2. You can also help shut down the enemy mobility. A well timed Immobilize means your allies won’t miss their big hits and you have to do less work. Help your ranger land worldly impact.
3. Aim to do about 50% of their HP in roughly 0-2 seconds. Any longer might not work as well. Most opponents will blow several defensive cooldowns after that and you can play defensively and prepare to re-engage once their defensives are blown.

[Zacchary.6183]

@"Sir Vincent III.1286" said:This whole Decap/+1 mentality is something an anti-Thief will think about so that they can kill Thieves rather easily.

Bingo! Ding ding ding!Thief has ALWAYS been a salt mine. Stealth spam and initiative have ALWAYS been the culprits. But to remove these, Anet would have to redesign and rebalance the entire profession. So to placate the salty players they simply make them easier to kill. But wait, do it too much and thief players will simply shelve it like they once did. They'll drop thief for warrior or Firebrand or Soulbeast. That is the whole reason why they balance Thief with watchmaker tools in the first place.

On top of that, you have self-proclaimed thief players saying it's "too easy" or something and that whatever it is they are talking about needs a nerf. Meanwhile, thief is kept in a Decap/+1 role with many saying "Thief's Role is Decap/+1!". When this started, I was feeling a mixture of being taken-aback and furious considering that the only thing you need for this is speed. Something most professions now have greater access to. But this truly makes Decap/+1 into the non-role it is. That said, why in the ever living kitten would anyone want to play a pure non-role profession?

Why not something with a bit more staying power, that could possibly tackle multiple players at once? Like a hybrid Deathblossom build somewhat around this?http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVn8lCdmiFOBGmCkmilWCTLAEiWAzjwV4Lc7QFdGRA-jJRAQB9Y/BDcGAAwDAwolBAANah, "It's a gimmick build". "P/d is better for conditions" even though the bleeds and poison stack high and never really go away, constantly dealing AT MINIMUM 4-6k a second on bleeds alone (And it's AoE). Just enjoy being a detriment to your team.

[Crab Fear.1624]

Decap and +1 are not roles, they are tasks that anyone can do.

[Sindrener.1592]

Ye just play condi trapper and ez gold tier LUL