Advice for Dungeons/Fractals - Love the Class - dying to fast

[Kaldon.8347]

Hi Guys

 

New player here, levelled the thief to lv 80 all solo, doing open world exploration and events.  Really enjoy the teleport abilities, blinding and poisoning etc, the cool look of duel pistols and daggers etc.

Now I'm at lv 80 I'm enjoying joining groups for dungeons and fractals and I'm having a horrible time, so I've come here for some advice.  I've tried to follow a build as best I can, I'm into the deadeye spec but I've not been able to unlock all amities.  I mainly use d/d and p/p and when in a group I'm spamming blinds but I just get killed so fast, its just not fun anymore.

 

Can you help me out guys? I really want to keep on playing the class but my poor playstyle or gear has made it suddenly not fun in groups.  As a side note, I'm levelling a warrior (lv 55) and in the dungeons I can join he stays alive much easier and seems to chew through mobs, but I'd prefer to keep playing thief.

 

Thanks for your help

[kash.9213]

Maybe use this Build Editor and try to be pretty accurate so people can see your stats, traits, and everything else. 

[Kaldon.8347]

Hi

Does this work?http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaABgiprlZwuYYMR2IO6LbvMA-e

 

 

Edited August 31, 2021 by Kaldon.8347

[shrew.3059]

My suggestion would be to use something like metabattle.com to get a good baseline, and then customise to your preferences. This is not to say “meta” builds are the be-all-end-all, but leaning on the collective wisdom of the community is a good way to avoid reinventing the wheel. Once you have your options more clearly defined, choose whatever suits your play style, tweaking where necessary; you’ll perform better on a suboptimal build you understand than one that is technically better.

[Xukavi.4320]

2 hours ago, Kaldon.8347 said:

Hi

Does this work?http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaABgiprlZwuYYMR2IO6LbvMA-e

 

 

Well its not really showing what gear you're using whether its power (Berserker's) vs condi (Viper's) but given the weapon choices and traits I'm gonna guess power.

There are a few things that come to mind here. First off, D/D with deadeye imo is not a really good choice and if you want to stick with daggers I'd day at least go D/P main set and switch double pistols to Rifle on swap.

The reason why I'm saying D/D as a set isn't so good for power deadeye is really to do with malice. You gian malice on your marked target by spending your initiative and frankly with D/D there's nothing really worth spending your initiative on except skill 2 Heartseeker. That in of itself even isn't so good as you'd normally only spam it when the target is below 50% HP.

Deadeye revolves around getting malice as fast as possible then using it on an empowered stealth attack. Running Maleficent Seven in theory is nice (buffs at 7 stacks of malice + extra dmg on empowered stealth attacks), however again you don't have much to spend initiative on to gain malice let alone 7 stacks to make use of it. In that case I'd use Be Quick or Be Killed instead.

As for traits I'd change No Quarter to Invigorating Precision if you're having a hard time surviving. The amount of healing you get from it is insane. Most people will say run No Quarter for more damage but at least at the start its better to survive and deal dmg than to be constantly downed. I'd also change Payback to either Premeditation or Silent Scope. Payback is good in open world when you're chain killing mobs to constantly refresh your cd on utilities which isn't normally the case in fractals/dungeons.

If you're going to use Rifle, then stick with Maleficent Seven but also take Silent Scope for easier stealth access.

I'd also change out your elite skill to Basilisk Venom at least in Fractals. Breaking the breakbar of bosses quickly is super important and Basilsk Venom is great for that. Remember that if you use it while your party is grouped up its shared with the rest of them so it does a huge amount of breakbar damage.

Hope this helps a bit and let me know if you need me to explain anything else.

 

[kash.9213]

I 2nd checking out metabattle.com, taking into account all of the gear and traits the descriptions will talk about. I would have some extra gear to adjust if you need to for awhile though, I could get by with full zerk but I'm always half watching tv or something so I'm normally around 20k health after thinking about crit chance and all that. Also maybe think about conditioning yourself with a few builds so you're not limited, even if you'll play DE most of the time. I do think you should take Rifle instead and think about the utility or stopping power you'll need in your weapon kits and for budgeting Initiative but also for the encounters themselves, which those build descriptions should cover at least basically. 

 

DE movement and positioning can be awkward, especially with Death's Retreat. I untarget so that I can pan camera at max speed and land it where I need to but sometimes I failed to untarget and launch myself right into an enemy zerg. I also toggle action camera a lot which will let you direct DR while still targeted, but it helps to pan camera top down to stay tight but then level on skills that need to clear terrain or walls. Try to remember what badguys will give which Stolen Skills also so you can fish for what you need in the moment, that goes for Core Steal also. 

[Nezekan.2671]

If you play a condi thief with trailblazer gear in dungeons and fractals, you will do around 20% less dps compared to Viper build. But you will be much harder to kill. You can also balance your gear with some Viper and some Trailblazer to reach the spot you are most comfortable with. But don't take trailblazer to raids. This is for open world, dungeons and fractals only.

[Chrysaliss.8720]

11 hours ago, Xukavi.4320 said:

Well its not really showing what gear you're using whether its power (Berserker's) vs condi (Viper's) but given the weapon choices and traits I'm gonna guess power.

There are a few things that come to mind here. First off, D/D with deadeye imo is not a really good choice and if you want to stick with daggers I'd day at least go D/P main set and switch double pistols to Rifle on swap.

The reason why I'm saying D/D as a set isn't so good for power deadeye is really to do with malice. You gian malice on your marked target by spending your initiative and frankly with D/D there's nothing really worth spending your initiative on except skill 2 Heartseeker. That in of itself even isn't so good as you'd normally only spam it when the target is below 50% HP.

Ok this is just wrong. Like all of it. 

 

D/D is best PvE setup for Deadeye. For Fractals your best choice is D/D + Rifle. Use mainly D/D. Rifle is good on some specific encounters, like the last boss in Chaos fractal.  

In your deadeye traitline switch Payback for Silent scope. Overall best performance would be to choose Premeditation for D/D, but that would make rifle useless so its better to go middle ground with Silent scope. Switch Maleficent seven for Be quick or be killed. With D/D you will never have full stacks of malice. You will always have a maximum of 3. And that is ok, because D/D rotation consists of only using Autoattack -> Cloak and Dagger -> Backstab -> Autoattack until Revealed drops off -> Cloack and Dagger -> Backstab aaaaaaand repeat. Everytime you use Cloak and dagger, you will gain 2 stacks of malice + 1 stack from applying malice, then Backstab will spend those stacks for increased damage (You will be doing anywhere between 35-60k per backstab depending on your group composition). 

Advantage of this rotation is, that you are going to stealth every 3 to 4 seconds and every time you go to stealth you loose all agro. So only thing you have to worry about is AoE on the ground. And because the rotation is so simple, it is easy to focus on not standing in anything.

Next change your Blinding powder utility for Shadowstep and when you are feeling confident enough, switch Shadowstep for Shadow Flare. Change your elite skill to Basilisk Venom. Basilisk Venom is the best Break Bar damaging ability in the game. Use Daggerstorm instead on last boss of Volcanic fractal when the adds come every 25% of the boss HP.

I would suggest changing healing skill to Hide in Shadows, but this one is more of a personal preference. On paper Signet has higher healing output, but I just prefer the high burst heal.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Chrysaliss.8720

[Xukavi.4320]

9 minutes ago, Chrysaliss.8720 said:

Ok this is just wrong. Like all of it. 

 

D/D is best PvE setup for Deadeye. For Fractals your best choice is D/D + Rifle. Use mainly D/D. Rifle is good on some specific encounters, like the last boss in Chaos fractal.

Let me preface this by saying that I was talking about my own opinion, maybe I should have made that more clear. I'm well aware that D/D + Rifle is the meta choice of weapons for DE, however looking at any of the rotations you'll know that you don't camp D/D you do your full rotations in Rifle and switch to D/D after you've done all your burst rotations and out of cooldowns. If we're being honest then, DE is sub par to Daredevil in Fractals so might as well tell him to just change to that.

 

12 minutes ago, Chrysaliss.8720 said:

In your deadeye traitline switch Payback for Silent scope. Overall best performance would be to choose Premeditation for D/D, but that would make rifle useless so its better to go middle ground with Silent scope. Switch Maleficent seven for Be quick or be killed. With D/D you will never have full stacks of malice. You will always have a maximum of 3. And that is ok, because D/D rotation consists of only using Autoattack -> Cloak and Dagger -> Backstab -> Autoattack until Revealed drops off -> Cloack and Dagger -> Backstab aaaaaaand repeat. Everytime you use Cloak and dagger, you will gain 2 stacks of malice + 1 stack from applying malice, then Backstab will spend those stacks for increased damage (You will be doing anywhere between 35-60k per backstab depending on your group composition).

You're literally explaining why I dislike D/D as a main weapon set for DE. You'll never reliably hit 5 malice stacks let alone 7 from M7 as OP had posted in his build. Ideally you want to be using rifle to maximize the benefit of Malicious Stealth Attacks from Malice. Unless you're going condi then you're playing P/D again maximizing the benefit from Malicious Stealth Attacks, ideally traiting M7.

Premeditation if he's not going Rifle, Silent Scope if he is going Rile.

Be Quick or Be Killed if he isn't going Rifle. Maleficent Seven if he's going Rifle.

[Kaldon.8347]

Hi Guys

 

Thanks for all your suggestions and advice on how I can live longer in PVE dungeons/fractals.  I'll certainly make those changes to the abilities and try out your advice, thanks guys, its given me some heart to keep on going whilst I'm getting flattened:).

 

[ASP.8093]

If you're playing with a pick-up group and learning your way through the content, there's really no shame in using Invigorating Precision for sustain.

[Tails.9372]

If survivability is an issue you might also want to prioritize getting the Infinite Mist Defensive Potion. It reduces all incoming damage by 25% and you don't need to do anything to unlock it for purchase. You can just play some easy low level fractals until you can afford it.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Tails.9372

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

Condi builds have higher survivability on thief than power ones, but fractals and dungeons mainly see power daredevil in action, because it has superior burst for the burst phases as well as solid sustained damage. Condi daredevil / deadeye is better for open world boss soloing, though.

You can drop some of the damage found in the metabattle meta build of staff daredevil by picking Trickery over Critical Strikes. This gives you access to Bountiful Theft's vigor which makes staying alive easier as the baseline duration is as high as 10 seconds. You'll also be dealing some break bar damage with Steal.

Condi daredevil and deadeye's sustain comes from the mobility, and evade frames or stealth, as well as Rune of Tormenting. Thief is one of the classes with great access to torment, so it offers a great mix of damage and durability. For gear, you'll either be running Viper's or Trailblazer's. The former is burstier and used in higher tier content such as raids and CMs, whereas the latter is better for open world content as Viper gear has you potentially being one-shotted by stray attacks.

As for the rotations, staff thief uses the infamous 2 spam combined with auto attacks, after emptying your endurance. For open world content and CERTAIN bosses, I'd recommend Staff Master over Havoc, because you'll be needing those extra dodges. The basic burst rotation is Bound (dodge roll) slightly to the side of the enemy (for flank bonus) into staff 2 + staff 2, activating Signet of the Assassin mid-cast (1st cast), then using Fist Flurry into another staff 2 (you should have 3 initiative again) + Palm Strike.  If you're expecting a counter attack, you can use staff 4 with the blind before Palm Strike, instead.

This is actually deceptively difficult to play if the enemy in question lacks a large hitbox, as you'll be losing a fair bit of DPS for each Bound that misses. You also want to try and maintain your trait line flank bonuses (if you're using Critical Strikes). Since Weakening Strikes animation locks you, there are times you're better off using only a single cast instead of two, replacing the 2nd cast with autos or even Vault.

 

Quote

I'm into the deadeye spec but I've not been able to unlock all amities. 

Unlike daredevil, this severely hurts deadeye as Shadow Meld is one of the key skills in a lot of builds and rotations, providing on-demand stealth attacks, soft resets and added utility in the form of Binding Shadow.

 

Quote

when in a group I'm spamming blinds but I just get killed so fast, its just not fun anymore.

Blinds do not work on champion and up -level enemies, and plenty of instanced mobs use skills that don't care about blinds (i.e. AoEs).

TL;DR: deadeye is worse than daredevil for most fractals, strikes and raids. Your main survivability tool is your understanding of the encounter / instance; knowing when and where to dodge or move. Of course, a good support / healer is oftentimes able to bypass this entirely.

Make sure you have the appropriate gear for whatever build you're playing at the time. Open world and instanced content are different beasts entirely, with different gear reigning better.
Generally speaking:
- Marauder gear for open world - power builds.
- Trailblazer gear for open world - condition builds.
- Berserker gear for instances - power builds.
- Viper gear for instances - condition builds.
As for optimal weapons:
- Power builds: staff.
- Condi builds: pistol / dagger or dagger / dagger. Varies based on encounters.

Small tips on the side:
- Always finish your auto attack chain: dagger's 3rd attack, Lotus Strike, refills endurance, applies poison and deals the most damage out of the autos.
- Keep on the move, constantly. Learn 24/7 strafing while attacking. 
- Master one build before moving onto another.

 

Edited September 2, 2021 by NorthernRedStar.3054

[Sifu.9745]

Power or condition? If you prefer Power, spec Daredevil Staff with Marauder gear = very good survivability and dmg with right traits. Top tier for raids and fractals.

If you prefer double daggers go Daredevil condition  with Celestial gear and you will become unkilllable. Viper gear is more dmg but much lower survivability. You can mix Celestial trinkets with Viper's armor. Avoid Trailblazer because too much Toughness = aggro!

Avoid Deadeye until you get more familiar with Thief's mechanics. Also double daggers are more condi oriented weapons, while double Pistols are pure power, so it's not a good idea playing with both. Also P/P has no place in dungeons and fractals.

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

I have a feeling we're missing the full story. If you are new to level 80, and are getting ruined in fractals, this tells me that you might be going into fractals that are currently too difficult for your equipment. And yes, it matters a bit if someone drags you into T3 or T4 and you aren't carrying agony resistance. There's nothing you can do at that point.

Otherwise, what generally works for me is most of my equipment is Marauders, my trinkets are calvs on Daredevil with staff. The primary reason why is I'm too lazy to change off my WvW gear set. The secondary reason... is while you will do 20% less damage than a pure berserker build, you have significantly more survivability. This won't matter in Raids, but in Fractals it can mean a lot as a dead DPS is a useless dps. A pure zerk usually gets annihilated in a few seconds. Where someone with some extra health and a little bit of toughness can usually eat around 3x more damage.

Additionally,  I'm usually the last person alive, and can generally clutch T4 fractal runs by picking people up in the middle of hard fights because I can tank a bit of damage. And while people will argue with you that having a higher DPS means that you can get through it faster and with less chances for failure. My argument is Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497

[shrew.3059]

15 minutes ago, Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

I have a feeling we're missing the full story. If you are new to level 80, and are getting ruined in fractals, this tells me that you might be going into fractals that are currently too difficult for your equipment. And yes, it matters a bit if someone drags you into T3 or T4 and you aren't carrying agony resistance. There's nothing you can do at that point.

Otherwise, what generally works for me is most of my equipment is Marauders, my trinkets are calvs on Daredevil with staff. The primary reason why is I'm too lazy to change off my WvW gear set. The secondary reason... is while you will do 20% less damage than a pure berserker build, you have significantly more survivability. This won't matter in Raids, but in Fractals it can mean a lot as a dead DPS is a useless dps. A pure zerk usually gets annihilated in a few seconds. Where someone with some extra health and a little bit of toughness can usually eat around 3x more damage.

Additionally,  I'm usually the last person alive, and can generally clutch T4 fractal runs by picking people up in the middle of hard fights because I can tank a bit of damage. And while people will argue with you that having a higher DPS means that you can get through it faster and with less chances for failure. My argument is Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast.

 

To add to this: if you prioritise survivability when you’re learning, you’ll be able to start trading off that survivability for damage as you become more familiar with the encounters. This works by offloading your survivability to knowledge of the mechanics (e.g., knowing when to dodge) rather than relying on stats to carry you through.

[Kaldon.8347]

Hi Guys

 

Thanks again for taking the time to post, I appreciate the efforts as we are all bust these days.

 

I've seen some good points about gear sets, weapons and elite choice.  To answer a previous question, what's my preference, condi or power I've got to be honest and say I actually don't know.  When I hit lv 80 I had 6gold, so I was looking at builds on metabattle but also trying to balance upgrades I could afford.   I was able to buy a set called Nika which was power/preci/ferocity and a few berserker jewel items.  I had enough laurels to buy two rings which are celestial with +power etc.  I cant stand the staff, its personal choice, so sword/pistol or dagger/dagger are all fun and for second set I use pistol/pistol but I did read a comment they have no place in a fractal, so I'm guessing that means I should have short bow?.

 

For the elites, I maybe misread but I went deadeye as I thought daredevil was for the staff which I hate with a passion, so I went into Deadeye, so again I've no real preference but more what's effective.    I dont have the money to buy new armour for condi and new jewellery so maybe that is something I save for and then try playing  condi, but I've not tried it yet.

 

Thanks again for the ideas and suggestions, lots to try and in many ways I feel a a new lv 80 I've only just started playing the class.

[SoftPup.3048]

Invigorating Precision, Signet of Malice, Scoop of Mintberry Swirl Ice Cream, and Marauder stats make my thief feel extremely tanky. Don't forget Signet of Agility can be used to clear conditions and regain endurance for dodging! It's not just a damage passive.

[ASP.8093]

5 hours ago, Emilie.8193 said:

Invigorating Precision, Signet of Malice, Scoop of Mintberry Swirl Ice Cream, and Marauder stats make my thief feel extremely tanky. Don't forget Signet of Agility can be used to clear conditions and regain endurance for dodging! It's not just a damage passive.

Be wary of putting all your eggs in one basket with this strat. Invigorating Precision on its own can greatly out-heal Signet of Malice; so I don't run Signet of Malice, I run a heal skill that will give me maximum value when I can't just punch a boss in the face to get back 5k+ health instantly.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

7 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

Be wary of putting all your eggs in one basket with this strat. Invigorating Precision on its own can greatly out-heal Signet of Malice; so I don't run Signet of Malice, I run a heal skill that will give me maximum value when I can't just punch a boss in the face to get back 5k+ health instantly.

If you're not running Signet of Malice, you should be running Hide in Shadows for the revealed +power bonus, access to stealth attack and CC (breakbar damage) and condi cleanse.

You lose a fair bit of damage not taking No Quarter, so that'll also help make up for it. Even if your damage in longer encounters is notably lower due to notably less fury uptime. To offset this, you should use Signet of Agility as well. In instanced content, if you have Spotter druid or similar, you're free to run another DPS utility instead.