Any True Solo Builds for Thief?

[Mhina.1827]

Essentially as the title says. Have you guys found success with any builds as far as soloing champion/legendary mobs or even some dungeon paths? While I typically prefer power builds, I know that these builds on other classes are typically celestial or something, so I'd love to hear about any style of build you've got. 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Perhaps Celestial/condi deadeye pistol/dagger. But soloing champions/bounties with thief gonna be painful.

[SlayerXX.7138]

Celestial is indeed the answer. The only problem you really have is a lot of sustain comes from being aggressive. Makes for fun gameplay, but some bounty anomaly can be a pain in the kitten.

Deatheye Celestial Something like this should help kill you almost everything. You camp Pistol and Dagger for solo targets. You use Dagger/Dagger for Aoe and opponents with projectile reflect. In both cases you mostly use weapon skill 3 for damage. For even more sustain you can swap trickery or deathly arts for shadow arts so each stealth cleanses damaging conditions and heals for 3k. Superspeed and even more initiative is nice to have at the cost of damage of course.

Core celestial build if you need to hunt down those Hero points. Critical Strikes trait line is mostly for might generation. Camp Dagger/Dagger Auto attack, Dagger 5 for stealth und dump extra initiative into Dagger 3.

Specter should be good too.

Edited May 27, 2023 by SlayerXX.7138

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

3 hours ago, Mhina.1827 said:

Essentially as the title says. Have you guys found success with any builds as far as soloing champion/legendary mobs or even some dungeon paths? While I typically prefer power builds, I know that these builds on other classes are typically celestial or something, so I'd love to hear about any style of build you've got. 

I have found that full berserker Malificant 7 deadeye rifle builds can solo pretty much anything in Open World (gold and under, even underwater)... Although, part of that is probably because I have lots of experience in raids and also in a number of CMs.

I used a variation of the link below. I used Silent scope instead of Premeditation and 
Shadow Flare instead of shadow gust. Also I sometimes swapped out no quarter for invigorating precision for more sustain.

https://snowcrows.com/en/builds/thief/deadeye/power-deadeye

Another build I've been having fun with in Open world with is ALAC specter. Make sure sprinkle shadow sap in your attack pattern to get to 25 might. This build works great if you have 1 other with you as well since it gives them might too if shadow sap is used on a enemy (skill 2 scepter).

[Mhina.1827]

Thanks for all of the awesome answers! Looking forward to trying some of these suggestions. I have solo'd a few champs on the core map and in silverwastes with D/D Daredevil and rifle deadeye, which I recalled after reading some of your posts. 

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

1 hour ago, Mhina.1827 said:

Thanks for all of the awesome answers! Looking forward to trying some of these suggestions. I have solo'd a few champs on the core map and in silverwastes with D/D Daredevil and rifle deadeye, which I recalled after reading some of your posts. 

Staff power daredevil works great on silverwastes farm IMO. Although if you are having difficulty with sustain I suggest switching to Invigorating Precision and Signet of Malice (both heal on your attack output, one heals on crit output). It used to be able to better solo stuff, but since the Invigorating Precision nerf patch pre EOD things became harder. When I was learning things and first exploring, both of those traits helped me in LWS areas like Lake Doric where clearing things out as a thief may become tougher. Of course it would be better for me now, but when I was learning I had not done any raids yet.

[&DQUcPSMbBzmFAIUAMwEzAVcBWgGwEj4BDgEOAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]

Edit: for clarity my above was just a comment about silverwastes XD.  For soloing champions I would not suggest power Daredevil atm.

Edited May 27, 2023 by ZeroTheRuler.7415

[Xoranium.6481]

Don't roll a thief... its the shitest class by the hugest of colossal margins :😜 

[xellink.7568]

10 hours ago, Mhina.1827 said:

Essentially as the title says. Have you guys found success with any builds as far as soloing champion/legendary mobs or even some dungeon paths? While I typically prefer power builds, I know that these builds on other classes are typically celestial or something, so I'd love to hear about any style of build you've got. 

Full Ritualist Condi Alac Spectre with Thieves Guild work well.

You have 2 health bars and swap for more celestial only if you really need it. You don't need full alac uptime during solo but you need at least 2 wells to recharge your lifeforce, so bring stun breaks etc as needed. 

I have soloed a few champs before. your shroud rotation always hit 3 for barrier. so it should be 23452. For solo you need might, so use 233233 as your rotation. use siphon on cooldown.  

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Deadeye trivializes almost all ranged bosses..  Combine this with high mobility kiting against melee bosses, and you'll find Deadeye is capable of soloing most of the game.  I've even solo'd a few dungeons with it, in full berserker gear.

For something less simple, know that Daredevil can also solo most bosses.  Daredevil, if given the right utilities, is capable of dodging everything. So, if you're good, you'll be able to dodge nearly every attack an enemy throws at you, with the only exceptions being channel attacks longer than a dodge and wide area attacks too large to dodge out of.  When I used to get bored, I'd tank the Sand Giant in drytop using a full berserker daredevil build.  

[Pirogen.9561]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c9K0mU1E7o

[Stx.4857]

11 hours ago, Pirogen.9561 said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c9K0mU1E7o

This video has very good spectre and deadeye solo builds that can easily solo champions and legendary bounties.  Thief is still the lowest dps class while solo, but it can be done. 

[Dante.1508]

Celestial specter is by far the best solo thief.

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

On 5/27/2023 at 5:14 PM, xellink.7568 said:

Full Ritualist Condi Alac Spectre with Thieves Guild work well.

You have 2 health bars and swap for more celestial only if you really need it. You don't need full alac uptime during solo but you need at least 2 wells to recharge your lifeforce, so bring stun breaks etc as needed. 

I have soloed a few champs before. your shroud rotation always hit 3 for barrier. so it should be 23452. For solo you need might, so use 233233 as your rotation. use siphon on cooldown.  

Yeah, also been running this. Two things I might add... (1) make sure to stand in wells, especially understanding the healing well heals (well of gloom) a TON (5 pulses of 3.5k of self heal... the group heal sucks, but this is about a solo build). (2) if you are low on life force in shroud and need more heal, use steal if it is off cooldown right before you swap out of shroud. You will get more life force and will recover more HP.

[Mhina.1827]

Hey guys I just wanted to check back in to let you know that Cele Specter with Aristocracy runes and Shadow Arts > Deadly Arts > Specter has been absolutely insane for soloing. I've solo'd several bounties and several HoT hero points (including champion of balthazar).  I've been so invested in Specter ever since that I've even started playing it with success in WvW, and I've built Meteorlogicus, my second legendary. Thanks for all the advice!

[FrancisN.9276]

On 5/27/2023 at 10:09 PM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Deadeye trivializes almost all ranged bosses..  Combine this with high mobility kiting against melee bosses, and you'll find Deadeye is capable of soloing most of the game.  I've even solo'd a few dungeons with it, in full berserker gear.

For something less simple, know that Daredevil can also solo most bosses.  Daredevil, if given the right utilities, is capable of dodging everything. So, if you're good, you'll be able to dodge nearly every attack an enemy throws at you, with the only exceptions being channel attacks longer than a dodge and wide area attacks too large to dodge out of.  When I used to get bored, I'd tank the Sand Giant in drytop using a full berserker daredevil build.  

While I agree on the DE part, the DD part about being capable of dodging everything is too far-fetched. Even if you run Acrobatics to have 100% Vigor uptime at 75% effectiveness, coupled with dual dagger 3, a boss with 3-4 adds will definitely land hits inbetween your dodge frame. The iframe duration is only 2/3 of the dodge animation and dual dagger 3 is even worse because it locks you till the end the animation - when you finish spinning your daggers and land on the ground is also when you get hits. Staff DD has even fewer dodges than dual dagger DD, because it has to prioritize staff 2. Even if you run full Trailblazer with Undead runes, there will still be some open world fights that you can't solo.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

1 hour ago, FrancisN.9276 said:

While I agree on the DE part, the DD part about being capable of dodging everything is too far-fetched. Even if you run Acrobatics to have 100% Vigor uptime at 75% effectiveness, coupled with dual dagger 3, a boss with 3-4 adds will definitely land hits inbetween your dodge frame. The iframe duration is only 2/3 of the dodge animation and dual dagger 3 is even worse because it locks you till the end the animation - when you finish spinning your daggers and land on the ground is also when you get hits. Staff DD has even fewer dodges than dual dagger DD, because it has to prioritize staff 2. Even if you run full Trailblazer with Undead runes, there will still be some open world fights that you can't solo.

You took the one line that wasn't meant to be taken literally as such and proceeded to ignore everything else said in that same paragraph.  

On 5/27/2023 at 10:09 PM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

For something less simple, know that Daredevil can also solo most bosses.  Daredevil, if given the right utilities, is capable of dodging everything. So, if you're good, you'll be able to dodge nearly every attack an enemy throws at you, with the only exceptions being channel attacks longer than a dodge and wide area attacks too large to dodge out of.  When I used to get bored, I'd tank the Sand Giant in drytop using a full berserker daredevil build.  

[Joxer.6024]

On 6/5/2023 at 3:04 AM, Mhina.1827 said:

Hey guys I just wanted to check back in to let you know that Cele Specter with Aristocracy runes and Shadow Arts > Deadly Arts > Specter has been absolutely insane for soloing. I've solo'd several bounties and several HoT hero points (including champion of balthazar).  I've been so invested in Specter ever since that I've even started playing it with success in WvW, and I've built Meteorlogicus, my second legendary. Thanks for all the advice!

can you link build as I too want to give it a go? Cheers!

[LyraOrpheo.8450]

Lord Hizen has Deadeye and Specter solo builds

[Mhina.1827]

On 6/6/2023 at 6:43 AM, Joxer.6024 said:

can you link build as I too want to give it a go? Cheers!

Absolutely! The build I have been using for PvE comes directly from this video that someone linked earlier! Cheers!

 

[Joxer.6024]

6 hours ago, Mhina.1827 said:

Absolutely! The build I have been using for PvE comes directly from this video that someone linked earlier! Cheers!

 

LOL!! Yup, I knew it. Have it already to go!! Cheers.  😉