Could use some help understanding Thief sustain in more challenging PvE situations

[Ganogati.8963]

Hey folks. So first off, disclaimer: Thief is not my main. I have an 80 thief that I've dabbled with over the years, mostly just bumped up using tomes of knowledge and then doing some hero point hunting to unlock daredevil and deadeye. But I love the aesthetic, so I'd like to put more time into the class.

The problem I've run into is that I'm terribad at it. I've been playing this game on and off for a long time, across many classes, and thought that I was pretty decent at it but playing this thief in PvE has cured me of that misconception. In particular, I have this one champion NPC that I fight to test out my builds- the Champion Mushroom King in the Tarnished Treetop. On any of my other classes, I can take him down without too much trouble with most of my builds, but on Thief he's absolutely mopping the floor with me. The best I accomplished was my rifle deadeye, getting him to 40% before I slipped up and got hit/killed, and my worst attempts have been with staff daredevil, where I've barely gotten him below 90%.

Note- I've now unlocked weaponmaster, so I can do better combinations. I do NOT have the sceptor class unlocked yet though.

Anyhow- I'm trying to understand the sustain of this class. I've tried 3 different builds in an attempt to squeeze more healing out, but honestly the healing he does is so inconsequential that I don't notice it. First I tried running a mostly 'zerker build, since Invigorating Precision is all about crits and damage. With the build I had, I should be getting healed on crits, healed on steal, get some heal on stealth (I think that was it... not at my comp atm), and heal on evasion. And I tried to focus on doing all those things as much as humanly possible... but it really didn't make a difference in my health. One hit from this guy would knock me down over 60%, and it wasn't filling up fast enough to make up for that. I had my heal skill but it's not exactly spammable. I dodged the best that I could, and none of my dodges were necessarily wasted, but I ran out of stamina pretty quick. I definitely have room for improvement on picking and choosing which hits to take and which to dodge through, but unlike other classes I feel like once I lose health on this thief I'm not getting that health back

I tried two other armor builds, trading off an increasing amount of power/precision/ferocity with vitality/toughness to try to survive longer, but I think it had the opposite effect lol. Those builds did worse against him.

Anyhow, ideally I'd love to run a staff or rifle, one of those two and not necessarily together. Does anyone have any pointers on how thief sustain works that might assist me in this fight? Especially someone who can solo that champ on their thief.

Thanks!

[Antrix.4512]

Actually it's pretty hard to die being a Cele D/D Deadeye. Have you tried Lord Hizen's build? I use this build for Legendaries and other challenging solo content, and to be honest, I don't know how one can die there with this or similar builds. Well, except for those cases if you make too many mistakes or walk away to have a phone conversation.

Edited August 25, 2023 by Antrix.4512

[kash.9213]

Might want to post your build for people to see if you're missing out on some kind of sequence. I'm not a good build crafter but someone might have an idea.

All of the Elites are designed for a kind of feedback loop that might include Initiative use to Endurance, Malice, or Shadow Force. Aside from knowing where your stats should hover around, you might just be a trait or two off of connecting resource pools into a sequence that should burn through their health bar with consistent or staggered mitigation for your own.

[irishking.8956]

https://guildjen.com/deadeye-open-world-build/ i love this site for builds they give good options for switching stuff out to suite your playstyle! up top it says build just hover over it and choose whether you want to check out PvP builds PvE WvW they have a little bit of everything

[Ganogati.8963]

Thank you so much for the responses everyone!

 

1 hour ago, Antrix.4512 said:

Actually it's pretty hard to die being a Cele D/D Deadeye. Have you tried Lord Hizen's build? I use this build for Legendaries and other challenging solo content, and to be honest, I don't know how one can die there with this or similar builds. Well, except for those cases if you make too many mistakes or walk away to have a phone conversation.

Ahhh, yea D/D is definitely very popular for builds, and I can see why. I was really hoping to find a way to make it work with staff or rifle, but its hard to ignore those results.

 

 

39 minutes ago, kash.9213 said:

Might want to post your build for people to see if you're missing out on some kind of sequence. I'm not a good build crafter but someone might have an idea.

All of the Elites are designed for a kind of feedback loop that might include Initiative use to Endurance, Malice, or Shadow Force. Aside from knowing where your stats should hover around, you might just be a trait or two off of connecting resource pools into a sequence that should burn through their health bar with consistent or staggered mitigation for your own.

So the traits I ended up going for were 2 builds:

Deadeye Build
---------------------

Critical Strikes: Middle Bottom Bottom
Trickery: Bottom Top Middle
Deadeye: TopTop Top

Gear: I started in Zerker with Ruby (Power Precision Ferocity) gear, but then I swapped to Valkyrie with the same accessories. Similar results in both armor sets; did fairly well, but eventually I ran out of endurance and got killed by the Mushroom King

Weapons: Rifle and Pistol/Pistol (cause pew pews are cool)


Daredevil Build
----------------------
Critical Strikes: Middle Top Bottom
Deadly Arts: Middle Top Bottom
Daredevil: Middle Top Top

Gear: I started out in the zerker gear for this, but kept swapping out for more toughness and vitality. In the end, I was wearing Knight Equipment with Power/Precision/Vitality/Ferocity accessories

Weapons were Staff and Sword/Pistol

 

24 minutes ago, irishking.8956 said:

https://guildjen.com/deadeye-open-world-build/ i love this site for builds they give good options for switching stuff out to suite your playstyle! up top it says build just hover over it and choose whether you want to check out PvP builds PvE WvW they have a little bit of everything

This is a great site! I'll definitely dig through these; thank you so much!

[Antrix.4512]

1 minute ago, Ganogati.8963 said:

This is a great site! I'll definitely dig through these; thank you so much!

Keep in mind that many builds could be outdated, so check last update timestamp.

[kash.9213]

I feel like your gear should be passable and your build is pretty baseline. I'd probably take a melee set that has evade that is part of its offense or creates distance or Death's Retreat is going to have to work overtime. 

Guildjen and Snowcrows are pretty good sites for baseline builds except I don't think Snowcrows has a Deadeye build. They should have a walk through for sequences. I would want a feedback loop of your "pew pews" working towards some blam blams with your blam blams replenishing something in return or allowing something to replenish. And it's easier when even your defensive or mitigating actions still simmer down their health pool, like with leaches or lifesteal on interrupts or whatever.

Especially in open world or WvW you're thinking about kill rate so you don't get in a rut to travel across a map so it's helpful to play thorns at least a little and try to make them punish themselves for every action. 

Edited August 25, 2023 by kash.9213

[Ganogati.8963]

The big issues I run into with this Mushroom King fight that get me killed are kind of per weapon, but I can't find work arounds. And it isn't like I NEED to beat this guy alone with my thief, but more just really want to because its what I always aim to beat with builds.

Deadeye Rifle: He has a move that pulls me, and he also has a gap closer where he belly flops onto me. He uses both of those just a tad faster than my endurance can recharge, by around 50% health or so I end up in a scenario where I'm just a second or two shy of having the endurance I need to dodge his attack and get killed. Its enough that I end each fight going "I can do it if I just try a little harder...".

Daredevil Staff: Getting close to him with staff was a misery. He does this rotation where he will pull you in, belly flop, and charge (not necessarily consecutively), along with other attacks. I can simply move out of the other attacks but those 3 require dodges because their range is bigger than I can actually run out, and I run out of stamina too fast. I would die with him at like 85-90% because I would simply run out of endurance to keep dodging by that point.

But I think what bothered me about thief in both scenarios was less those things, but rather getting my health back after I got hit. Even though passive heals from traits were ticking, they felt insubstantial enough that it seemed like once I lost health it was just gone, and what I had left is all I had to work with. On other classes I usually could build my health back up pretty quickly through some combination of heals or simply mitigating the damage enough that minor heal traits/weapon skills did the trick, but my thief definitely felt like he took more damage per hit and passively returned far less via weapons or traits. That's what got me wondering if I had overlooked something.

I'll definitely look over both of those, and maybe watch a few more videos, to see if my problem really is just coming down to just needing to play better.  It may be there isn't a build answer as much as a player answer lol

[kash.9213]

If you've learned how to land Death's Retreat instinctively exactly where you want without having to use stuff like About Face or whatever, then would that give you enough distance to post up and shoot for a few seconds? You can hit Rifle 5 mid air and land in stance to cut some time, or at least it feels like it, or you can kite and shoot more. 

If my Staff wasn't happening then I'd kite with Shortbow auto and Choking Gas. SB auto is better against multiple targets but is underrated given some momentum. Shortbow 5 is expensive but is a very crisp skill that just works like it should like Cloak and Dagger. You can also combo dodge, jump+dodge, or Bound into SB 5 for a long range roll. 

I would have to go check that mushroom out, but I think reading body language and tuning into the very subtle intent cue's (like when your peripheral eye catches another thief moving down a lane and about to stealth, or that slight blur when they come out of stealth) would help you get ahead of the actions. 

Sorry, I'm mostly a vibe player and mostly in WvW. Wish I could be more precise help.

[Ganogati.8963]

13 minutes ago, kash.9213 said:

If you've learned how to land Death's Retreat instinctively exactly where you want without having to use stuff like About Face or whatever, then would that give you enough distance to post up and shoot for a few seconds? You can hit Rifle 5 mid air and land in stance to cut some time, or at least it feels like it, or you can kite and shoot more. 

If my Staff wasn't happening then I'd kite with Shortbow auto and Choking Gas. SB auto is better against multiple targets but is underrated given some momentum. Shortbow 5 is expensive but is a very crisp skill that just works like it should like Cloak and Dagger. You can also combo dodge, jump+dodge, or Bound into SB 5 for a long range roll. 

I would have to go check that mushroom out, but I think reading body language and tuning into the very subtle intent cue's (like when your peripheral eye catches another thief moving down a lane and about to stealth, or that slight blur when they come out of stealth) would help you get ahead of the actions. 

Sorry, I'm mostly a vibe player and mostly in WvW. Wish I could be more precise help.

No no, this was helpful. I need to look more into Death's Retreat. I'm not using it instinctively since I don't play thief a lot, but I am trying to rely on it as much as I can. But the big thing that I need to do better with is what you mentioned about having it send me where I want to go. I actually just realized I saw someone doing that in a video, using it to go forward so they can "blink" ahead like a WoW mage, and it just dawned on me that I have never tried that before. Learning that would be very useful.

I'll try out shortbow on this guy; that sounds like a great idea.

"Bound into SB 5 for a long range roll."

I need to learn a bit about that as well.

Thanks for the response! This gives me a bit of stuff to try out. =D

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

Learning to play thief basically feels like this: 

On a more constructive note: learning what skills counter what things is a big part of thief sustain. So for instance, using sniper's cover on rifle (kneeling rifle 4) is really important against enemies with both ranged and melee attacks (think the hylek HP in verdant brink) as it lets you block the ranged attacks at a distance using initiative and saves your endurance for the melee attacks. If that pull attack on the mushroom king HP you mentioned is a projectile, the smoke field should block it. Juking melee attacks with movement skills works in a similar way: depending on the range of the AoE Shadow strike (P/D 3) should avoid that belly flop attack if you use it just after he leaps so he flops in place instead of tracking you. Death's retreat can be used in a similar way. In general, the learning curve is steep but more used to the thief kit you are, and the better you know the encounter, the better you'll do. 

As for builds, your deadeye build probably doesn't need trickery if you're not using it for boon rip (even then, having S/D offhand might be a better choice). If the aim of the game is solo'ing harder HP's, I'd try taking shadow arts (mid, mid, mid) instead. You'll get some more sustain through life steal and sneak attacks which can greatly help over the course of a fight. 

Edit: I just saw your deadeye build is rifle and P/P. Most people tend to focus on one over the other, as both sets tend to focus on different encounter types and need different traits in order to shine. You could pretty easily set up each build on a separate build template and swap to whichever one is more appropriate for the situation. 

Rifle tends to build for taking on big single targets, so focussing on rifle I'd personally take P/D offhand (spamming 3 still gives you the pew pew feel) with crit strikes (bot mid top) shadow arts (mid bot mid) and deadeye (top top top). Those crit strikes traits give you the best damage with rifle, the shadow arts gives you sustain through sneak attacks and an AoE blind when you stealth, and the shadow arts grandmaster gives you some initiative back which means between that and M7 you should never run out of initiative. The P/D doesn't need much initiative, and can be more useful if the enemy is a very aggressive melee type. This build also works on celestial gear if you replace crit strikes with deadly arts (bot mid top), but then it's more focussed on using P/D with rifle as a supportive set. 

P/P tends to be built to take on large groups of trash mobs, focussing on the quickness from bqobk (deadeye mid grandmaster choice). Focussing on P/P I'd take only P/P (so one pistol in the main hand of one set, and the other in the offhand of the other set, this way on swap sigils/effects work but you stay on P/P) with crit strikes (bot bot bot), trickery (mid or bot, top top) and deadeye (mid mid mid). This build gives pistols pierce, and makes enemies blow up and spam AoE blind when they die, so you get frequent marks for more quickness and extra stats. You'd want to attack the weakest enemy in a group each mark while positioning yourself so it's at the back of the pack so your bullets pierce multiple enemies, letting the piercing bullets and the AoE weaken the group as a whole. You have the advantage of being able to use thieve's guild (elite) on this spec, as payback (deadeye middle choice) reduces the cooldowns of your skills per kill so you'll often find that you can keep your thieves out indefinitely as long as you keep killing. This build used to work really, really well with vampirism runes (gain 10% of your health on a kill) so if the relic gives you that effect when it comes out then definitely take it, and consider using energy and stamina sigils for maximum dodges. 

Edited August 26, 2023 by Jugglemonkey.8741
More thoughts

[Zacchary.6183]

I'm sure it's been said already but thief sustain is active. It has terrible access to defensive/survival boons and its heal scaling is so bad that healing power is a wasted stat across the entire profession, so the only thing you can do is slap on Signet of Malice (for the passive) a/o Invigorating Precision and dodge. Each weaponset has an evasion attack or something to increase the distance between you and your target and these will ultimately be used as part of your sustain. Signet of Agility is a staple signet since it provides a passive precision boost and AoE condi cleanse/endurance on a short cooldown. Other than that, keep yourself in a good position and don't get hit.

[Ganogati.8963]

Thank you everyone for responding!

So, thanks to all of your help and especially after an in-depth study of the fantastic strategy video about dodging that @Jugglemonkey.8741 posted, I can say that I finally beat the mushroom king! =D

I wasn't super keen on going with d/d, so I became stubborn and tried to do it using shortbow and staff. I ended up running a similar build to the Daredevil open world build, and this time it went really well. The key, as many of you pointed out, as learning a much better understanding of the skills I was using than what I had. The sustain is indeed very active on the thief, and I was underestimating how much effort I needed to put into keeping pulsing damage going, like Choking Gas, or making sure to keep up my trap like Thousand Needles. Healing that more freely flows on any other class is something you have to put some effort into on this one. Additionally, I wasn't spending enough time focusing on keeping track of ALL the evades I had available to me, and using them appropriately.

Today's attempt went much better. It took a little while to bring him down (I still don't kill as quickly as folks in videos, and me stubbornly using staff rather than DD is a big part of that I bet), but in my last attempt it got to the point where I was really in no danger of dying unless I just straight up made a stupid mistake. I was very comfortable through most of that fight. I imagine that right now I'm fighting very defensively, and hope that with time I'll be able to become a bit more offensive and kill stuff faster.

Having played most of the classes other than thief up until this point, I can definitely say that this is the most challenging class I've messed with by far; it's a night and day difference in the skill curve to be effective with a thief vs other classes, so I'm looking forward to maining this one for a bit.

Thanks again for your help =D

[Antrix.4512]

3 hours ago, Ganogati.8963 said:

Having played most of the classes other than thief up until this point, I can definitely say that this is the most challenging class I've messed with by far; it's a night and day difference in the skill curve to be effective with a thief vs other classes, so I'm looking forward to maining this one for a bit.

You know, you've captured the essence of the class quite well. I can add that I switch between builds constantly, literally. Whether it's open world or fractals, I always switch (hotkeyed numpad) to the build that's best suited for the next encounter between fights. At least if the event is predictable (there are also some pretty unexpected situations). In an average fractal, for example, I use at least 3 builds - DE Rifle (single-target survival), DD Staff (AoE glass cannon) power, DE D/D (single-target unkillable survival) condi, and as a backup - Specter Alac Healer.

It's great to see that our ranks have gained another exterminator. I hope you'll enjoy the class as much as I/we do and that it brings you truly world-class enjoyment (and may any unpleasant moments serve merely to balance the universe) 😉

Edited August 27, 2023 by Antrix.4512

[Tails.9372]

One thing to note is that right before the launch of EoD they nerfed one of the main sources of sustain for power based builds into the ground. To this day we have yet to get any explanation for this but this nerf was directly going against their stated "balance manifesto" so if you feel like that some builds are lacking in sustain then there is a good chance that a certain level of arbitrariness form the devs is at play here.

Edited August 27, 2023 by Tails.9372

[MrAmputatoes.6031]

Thief sustain is pretty much all avoidance. Dodging attacks, kiting, ccing, blinding ect. Thief doesnt have the greatest heals/ recovery/ regen to takes lots of hit and keep chugging on. You could spec into Shadow Arts and use Stealth to get some time/ CDs back, but in Open World thats pretty much a waste of time. For everything but bosses, the best defense is a good offence, kill it before it kills you. For bosses, Condi Sp/D specter is the way to go just due to the fact that Deadeye's Mark has MAJOR LOS issues and if you cant build reliable mallice, your playing a worse core Thief.

[Brandolf.6048]

On 8/25/2023 at 9:14 AM, Ganogati.8963 said:

Hey folks. So first off, disclaimer: Thief is not my main. I have an 80 thief that I've dabbled with over the years, mostly just bumped up using tomes of knowledge and then doing some hero point hunting to unlock daredevil and deadeye. But I love the aesthetic, so I'd like to put more time into the class.

The problem I've run into is that I'm terribad at it. I've been playing this game on and off for a long time, across many classes, and thought that I was pretty decent at it but playing this thief in PvE has cured me of that misconception. In particular, I have this one champion NPC that I fight to test out my builds- the Champion Mushroom King in the Tarnished Treetop. On any of my other classes, I can take him down without too much trouble with most of my builds, but on Thief he's absolutely mopping the floor with me. The best I accomplished was my rifle deadeye, getting him to 40% before I slipped up and got hit/killed, and my worst attempts have been with staff daredevil, where I've barely gotten him below 90%.

Note- I've now unlocked weaponmaster, so I can do better combinations. I do NOT have the sceptor class unlocked yet though.

Anyhow- I'm trying to understand the sustain of this class. I've tried 3 different builds in an attempt to squeeze more healing out, but honestly the healing he does is so inconsequential that I don't notice it. First I tried running a mostly 'zerker build, since Invigorating Precision is all about crits and damage. With the build I had, I should be getting healed on crits, healed on steal, get some heal on stealth (I think that was it... not at my comp atm), and heal on evasion. And I tried to focus on doing all those things as much as humanly possible... but it really didn't make a difference in my health. One hit from this guy would knock me down over 60%, and it wasn't filling up fast enough to make up for that. I had my heal skill but it's not exactly spammable. I dodged the best that I could, and none of my dodges were necessarily wasted, but I ran out of stamina pretty quick. I definitely have room for improvement on picking and choosing which hits to take and which to dodge through, but unlike other classes I feel like once I lose health on this thief I'm not getting that health back

I tried two other armor builds, trading off an increasing amount of power/precision/ferocity with vitality/toughness to try to survive longer, but I think it had the opposite effect lol. Those builds did worse against him.

Anyhow, ideally I'd love to run a staff or rifle, one of those two and not necessarily together. Does anyone have any pointers on how thief sustain works that might assist me in this fight? Especially someone who can solo that champ on their thief.

Thanks!

Daredevil to me is one of the most underrated PvE builds in the game. I believe I have a build close to what you'd find on build sites like Snow Crows however, I am travelling for work right now so I don't have link to my build. 

At any rate it is a very simple rotation for staff... Dodge and leap, dodge and leap, then auto attack when you can't do dodge and leap. Shadow step if you need to bail out of clear conditions. Hard for something to damage you when you evade everything. 

Second weapon set is either shortbow or pistol/pistol. 

CC can be a challenge solo but in a group I will argue that Basilisk Venom is one of the best CCs. 

This build can play open world, fractals, strikes, and even some WvW in the right hands. (I've raided with it but most groups will yell and I don't play PvP)

So, my advice is to approach it again because you shouldn't be having problems with this build. 

Edited August 27, 2023 by Brandolf.6048

[Dadnir.5038]

If you want to play power consider using marauder gear (Power/Precision/Vitality/Ferocity). This unsung hero offer you high critical chance and a nice cushion of health point.

You also have a lot of weapon skills that grant you evade frame, with proper initiative management you shouldn't ever lack endurance.

Against normal foes (without defiance), just use blind. I've gone through most of the PvE content as a thief by just using black powder and auto-attacking with either dagger or pistol.

[Stx.4857]

Staff and rifle are both good for chain killing lots of weak enemies, but you will struggle with champions or tough boss mobs.  
 

For champs I would recommend a condi build with shadow arts for the venom procs on stealth which heals for quite a lot.  Spectre and deadeye both make good solo condi builds.  Daredevil is weak in this area because it cannot generate its own boons.  
 

If you are dead set on using a power build, then I would recommend Deadeye with rifle.  Critical strikes 1/2/1  Shadow arts 2/2/2  Deadeye 1/1/1.  You can proc all the juicy stealth traits in shadow arts just by dodging with rifle.  This will regenerate health, remove conditions, and regenerate initiative.  

[Dagger.2035]

Have you've tried using short bow?  It's fairly easy to kite around using auto attacks and repositioning with skill 3 and 5.  Nothing fancy.  I didn't know how difficult it was to defeat the Champion Mushroom King, so I tried it out on my WvW S/D build.  This build accomplished it on my first try, but there are probably more optimal open world builds.  This is a pet S/D build which I use for WvW roaming and soloing towers and keeps.  Celestial or condition builds will work much better than this one.