Looking for a high survivability high damage world-PVE build

[trianglecubed.3750]

It's taken me years to come anywhere close to liking the thief. Compared to every other class I always felt like I did far too little damage for how impossibly squishy it was regardless of what I ran. This has caused me to try and delete the thief for another character numerous times through my GW2 life, that is until I finally had at least one of each class. At that point I decided "Eh, may as well" and slogged through leveling it primarily with dual dagger. And I died. A lot. Way more than I ever have on any other class.

I tried PvE builds from meta battle but can't seem to quite do the stats correctly as I'm just buying Exotics from the TP for the most part instead of going full ascended and in such they don't seem to offer quite what I need, not to mention they're all specifically focused on damage, leaving me rather vulnerable, as they're raid builds and that's the only PVE that sort of site really cares about.

I made this character specifically in anticipation of the Deadeye. so I saved up hero points and fully unlocked it day one. Unfortunately, I've found the same problems I had before have carried over. I don't do enough damage to most Veterans or higher and can't avoid getting hit enough to stay up long enough to kill them without some delaying tactics to allow for heals.

Not all Veterans are this way, mind, just most I've run into in POF.

So with all that in mind I'm looking for a build that has a lot of survivability and does a lot of damage. I'm not talking top of the charts, but enough to generally solo veterans, elites, and maybe even champs with the adds they often come with/spawn. This means, in general, I'm going to need AOE and a fair deal of it, something I find the thief lacks in spades. Yet with enough single target damage and re-targeting I can see it being viable against small groups of four or less, though I fully admit to not knowing at all as my expertise, despite lots of reading and looking at builds on metabattle, is highly lacking.

I've found or figured out great builds that generally suit my needs for most of the other classes, yet thief still feels so impossibly lacking. Rifle feels like it attacks too slow and it feels really restricted with having to kneel to put out the best damage and d/d, while better feeling, generally still tends to get two shot by things like those veteran+ awakened canids due to having to be in melee range and me not being able to take a hit.

So, again, not looking for super DPS, but respectable damage combined with respectable survivability. If needed I'll even grind to get Daredevil, though I'm really going to miss the mark from Deadeye, yet if it means I might actually get some damaging aoe attacks it may be worth it.

Thanks for your time and patience for reading this and thanks for any suggestions you put my way that aren't "Just do X class, instead" because that is not an answer.

[TwiceDead.1963]

Zerker Armor with Marauder Trinkets and scholar runes should get you what you're looking for in terms of survivability and damage.

If you have to run Deadeye, try out S/P for cleave and survivability. Pistol Whip and Black Powder should cover most AoE encounters with ease. Critical Strikes traitline for Invigorating Precision should make you near invincible. If you find you have no troubles surviving, just grab No Quarter instead of Invigorating Precision.

Run whatever else you want for single-target damage. D/D, D/P, P/P, even Rifle, it all works in PvE. D/D is actually quite good for Deadeye if you want to trigger One in the Chamber early in a fight, along with might thanks to Revealed Malice. You'll be giving up on Black Powder from Pistol though...

Something like this for instance:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAsa4Yn0MBFOhNGDGPBUGjFyCj/LmGfjbZoxStxLAkAKAA-jhBXABPrEUYlf9o+DA7PEi2BR1BAA-e

There's no "Tanking" with thief. You take a hit and you'll feel it. All of thiefs defenses are active (aside from one in the Acrobatics tree), and will require more from you compared to other classes.

[Aplier.7829]

Thief by nature of Invigorating Precision from the critical strikes trait line means that any power build with high dps also has high healing. The main issue we face is that with our low healthpool, medium armor, and relative lack of passive defenses we can go pop in an instant and not have a chance to capitalize on all of that sustain. For open-world, marauder armor (power/precision+vitality/ferocity) is absolutely amazing, giving us ~50% more hp while still maintaining healthy amounts of damage stats.

Unfortunately, D/D and rifle deadeye in open world feels like it's still plagued with all of core thief's problems, where you're basically just sniping off single targets and running away if anything gets too close. Try out double P/P deadeye instead (save money by putting one pistol in mainhand first set and the second in offhand second set). The damage is all single target, but you have enough burst to take down normal/vet mobs so fast you'll be constantly recharging mark and switching to the next target, and complete freedom of mobility within your 900 range for kiting around champions.

For this deadeye build, you'll want: Deadeye (Iron Sight, Unforgiving, Be Quick or Be Killed), Critical Strikes (Twin Fangs, Practiced Tolerance, Invigorating Precision), and Trickery (Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft, Quick Pockets). Deadeye's Unforgiving and Be Quick or Be Killed let you take down most normal/vet mobs before they even have a chance to respond, while Iron Sight offers some extra damage reduction against hardier targets like champions. The malice effect from marking a target is only secondary, you don't need to bother waiting for it to stack up unlike with rifle (most of the time you won't even reach all 5 stacks anyway). Critical Strikes is straightforward damage bonuses plus Invigorating Precision for all the sustain you could ever ask for. Trickery offers a number of useful boons with how often your steal (now deadeye's mark) recharges, while also pairing nicely with Deadeye's Perfectionist trait for prolonged fights. Giving you a second wind of boons just as the initial ones wear off, ensuring pretty much 100% uptime on fury, swiftness, might, and vigor regardless of what you're fighting. Plus Trickery comes with kleptomaniac, preparedness, and quick pockets offering extra initiative to help sustain your Unload spam, and Lead attacks as a solid 15% damage boost that is incredibly easy to maintain.

On the other hand, daredevil's staff is an absolutely amazing weapon for open world pve. For starters it has 3-5 target cleave on everything, and a lot of built in defenses considering that the autoattack dps alone is strong enough that you can save all initiative for defensive utility if you really want. And in that vein, you have on demand weakness, blinds, immobilize break, and evades. Additionally, bounding dodge+vault x2/x3 basically deletes most groups of normal mobs while also evading almost the whole time and with invigorating precision pretty much heals you to full if you do it in a group of enemies. (Literally as I'm writing this, I alt-tabbed back into game to find I was under attack from a vet and 2 normal mobs and down to 1k hp, I dodged+2 vaults+weakening charge and I was back up to 10k hp now fighting just a half health vet with weakness on it, another dodge and few more AA chains and it was dead while i was back to almost full). Daredevil comes with so many dodges (which now do damage too!) that if your twitch reactions are good enough you can space them out and mix in a few vaults to evade just about all of an enemy veteran or champion's attacks.

As for the daredevil build I'd suggest you try: Daredevil (Havoc Mastery, Staff Master, Bound), and Critical Strikes (Twin Fangs, Practiced Tolerance, Invigorating Precision) of course. Then for open world I particularly like Trickery again (Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft, Sleight of Hand). The extra max initiative lets you add a 3rd vault to your initial burst (or 4th if you mix in a steal), and if anything survives that you now have +15% damage boost, plus it lowers the CD on steal to 20 seconds and adds in a daze and the same set of helpful set of boons to help to make engaging fights much easier. Staff main weapon naturally, and for the off-weapon I swear by P/P. Staff already comes with all of the dps, cleave, defenses, and utility you could possibly need, the only thing that it lacks is a way to do damage when you don't want to stand in melee range. P/P's might be a bit of a one trick pony in that it's only good for spamming Unload, but with Staff to cover everything else that's all you really need it to do, plus unload spam synergizes with Trickery's extra initiative and Lead attacks damage bonus, while also leaving you with a full set of might stacks for a short time when you switch back into staff.

For utilities you'll want Channeled Vigor on daredevil as a low CD burst heal for times when Invigorating Precision isn't quite enough to sustain you, or if you need extra endurance to keep dodging. For the deadeye double P/P variant, Signet of Malice will return tons of extra healing due to Unload's high quantity of hits per second. Next up, Signet of Agility is absolutely amazing, functioning as a passive dps boost that doubles as a "get out of jail free card" with it's condi cleanse and extra endurance if you ever find yourself in a sticky situation. Assassin's Signet is another solid dps boost if you don't find yourself needing any other utility skills for the situation. As for third I like Haste as a general purpose CD that can line up with Assassin's Signet for more burst or with Signet of Agility to stunbreak then dodge far far away from the danger.

Aim for Marauders stats as mentioned above, it's a fairly small dps loss for a full set (~10%) while providing enough extra hp to be able to take a bit of punishment. You can get a free ascended marauder's amulet from HoT story achievements, and can make your free daredevil Bo have marauder stats, so those two slots are easy, and you can craft marauder's armor as well without any hard grinding. Rings/Accessories/Back can be trickier to get in Marauder, so if you don't want to put in the effort then you can just use berserker or valk stats for these slots depending on if you feel the need for more crit chance or more hp (pro tip, more crit chance=more damage=more healing). Scholar rune is still the best dps option especially if you wanna try any instanced PVE content, or Rune of Strength/Pack as budget options. For Sigils I'd suggest Force+Accuracy for the solid passive dps gains. And if you can, really try to get at least ascended weapons, since for all other slots it's just relatively minor stat increases but weapons gain that 5% extra base damage that all the rest of your dps will scale off of as well.

Also as a disclaimer, it's worth pointing out that Thief just isn't a class that will have the tank gear, damage reduction, and self healing to carry itself through any content. Regardless of what build you go for, your survival relies on staying active, using smart positioning, movement, and evades to avoid taking as much damage as possible. And since killing things faster means more healing for you and less damage you have to take, the marauder gear isn't even really necessary, I run only marauder weapon+amulet and all the rest zerker in open world and have almost no trouble surviving.

Let us know how either of these build suggestions work out for you and if you have any questions!

[Zacchary.6183]

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQFAUnkFD9OhFOBOGDUGjFaCTLAMhmN8/yiZ00LMkGKDA-j1BFQBXUJ4hU/BAPAgSs/gAuAAqTHgCV+BA-wMy build has 19k hp, hits constant 5 digit DJs.

[fixit.7189]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAW6an8lCFOhdPBmOBkmiFfCzrJsEiCbBgXTAaOAmAjgA-jBSBQBXR5nZUCmPdDP4hAkQ1fM4+D4RDDAuCAAA-e

Been using this to solo and in large zergs for years now, works great imo.

edit. i missed some things like trinkets so remade it, also use scholar runes instead if you want more dps.

[Zacchary.6183]

@"fixit.7189" said:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAW6an8lCFOhdPBmOBkmildCbLAUbOQeThowVYOB+AvgA-jhRBQB4RDzDeAAJU9n8pbAAXFADu/AA-e

Been using this to solo and in large zergs for years now, works great imo.

I second that.

[trianglecubed.3750]

Just wanted to drop by and say thanks to everyone! You all clearly know what you're talking about and I've learned a lot from both the explanations as well as just the linked builds. You've all helped immensely, thanks again! <3

[Echo XIII.5672]

I'll be dead honest with you. Thief I've tried all methods of tanking, lifesteal, evasion, dodging builds you can think of. I came to the conclusion that, if you want to take on mobs head on and take damage while doing damage, you're better off playing something like a necromancer or so. Reapers can handle that very well while still being somewhat tanky (due to their blood magic trait line)

For thieves, you're pretty much going to want to burst and out in any situation. Relatively almost impossible to fight champions anywhere outside Core Tyria. Some other classes can solo champion bounties and some in HoT Expansion, but thieves just don't have the level of damage and survivability to handle them. It's best played as a Lead DPS class for more team-oriented PvE such as Fractals and Raids.

I played Thief since the start of the game release up until 2019, I've decided that my necromancer can sustain fights, solo Bounties, and tank solo HP in HoT (Tank Scourge). I prefer having the ability to do these more than team-oriented gameplay.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

You can't really get "high damage" and "high survivabilty" at the same time with the Thief. It's just not possible.

Either you go with high damage build, like what fixit posted;

@"fixit.7189" said:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAW6an8lCFOhdPBmOBkmiFfCzrJsEiCbBgXTAaOAmAjgA-jBSBQBXR5nZUCmPdDP4hAkQ1fM4+D4RDDAuCAAA-e

Been using this to solo and in large zergs for years now, works great imo.

edit. i missed some things like trinkets so remade it, also use scholar runes instead if you want more dps.

Or go with a high survivability build, like my build;http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaRAYlNw4YTsFGJm6XrNTA-zRhYBJBzQSBCVNcUwBNcMghQbSQUoAqWJQ6KAHeBCClAA-e

You can tweak either to find that "high damage, high survivability" you're looking for. I have mulitiple Thief builds and I have not found this holy grail.

[Zoid.2568]

Look at this build I made.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/92424/condi-thief-deadeye#latest

[Black Frog.9274]

@"fixit.7189" said:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAW6an8lCFOhdPBmOBkmiFfCzrJsEiCbBgXTAaOAmAjgA-jBSBQBXR5nZUCmPdDP4hAkQ1fM4+D4RDDAuCAAA-e

Been using this to solo and in large zergs for years now, works great imo.

edit. i missed some things like trinkets so remade it, also use scholar runes instead if you want more dps.

This is very close to my build. I use SB instead of staff and my trinkets/armor are all marauder. For skills I use SoM, SoA, Blinding Power, and RFI. I do a tweak for WvW roaming with no specialties and SA line. I use life steal food. In PvE, I only die under the most extraordinary circumstances. I fight and kill almost everything I engage except world bosses, with or without assistance. WvW is a whole different thing though. But I'll never give up my P/P.

[Jackson.9307]

This is what I run. Exotics with ascended trinkets and a affordable setup.http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaxAQhrlFw2YYMPmJWyPrvSA-zRZYBJmoSNgyMCysMysCqIFUbA-e

Vets are basically trash mobs and most mobs can't react to you in the open world because you basically have perma stealth. You can also solo champions with this build without any problems including the HoT hero points (except that one Vampire Queen up north in Verdant Brink, cause this build has no CC). Yes, you can solo Mushroom Queen with this with some hard work (replace Assassin signet with Smokescreen, and go Rifle/Rifle if you're gonna do this), but doable.You can replace D/P with S/P or D/D, up to your playstyle really as most of the time you'll be in Rifle and only swap weapons for dodge regeneration and I usually just poke mobs with dagger stealth skill from behind for dat oommph juicy hit, black powder for basically free 4 sec face tanking and emergency stealth reapply in the case my utilities are all on CD (which doesn't happen very often, I always have Shadow Meld up as an oh kitten button) while I wait for weapon swap CD. Heck you can run rifle/rifle if you want. 2 stun breaks, 1 being on a relatively low CD which you'll be spamming anyway (haste, for burst dmg), and shadow step pretty much counts as 2 in 1 stun break. You have increased boon uptime to easily stack your mights with rifle 3 and you'll have high fury uptime, sitting at 96% crit chance.You sacrifice quite a bit of damage, (ferocity could be higher) but you will still be critting for 16k consistently. The extra health and toughness will prevent you from getting one shot so you'll be able to react from your mistakes and since you have a lot of stealth uptime, you have high relief time periods. You also lifesteal on crit AND regen in stealth so sustain is no problem. Biggest problem with this build is lack of CC, so any mob that has breakbar mechanic will be your bane as you won't have the tools to deal with that. Anything with retaliation and reflect will also be a huge pain for you such as Champ Chak Blitzers (you'll kill yourself as you pew pew them). In those cases just stealth up and walk past those enemies.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@"Jackson.9307" said:This is what I run. Exotics with ascended trinkets and a affordable setup.http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaxAQhrlFw2YYMPmJWyPrvSA-zRZYBJmoSNgyMCysMysCqIFUbA-e

Knight and Marauder, huh? That's an impressive combination. I like your build. Very affordable indeed.

[Dawdler.8521]

@"Sir Vincent III.1286" said:You can't really get "high damage" and "high survivabilty" at the same time with the Thief. It's just not possible.WvW thieves seem to disagree with that. I've seen staff DD stomping for 10-15k and they are nearly impossible to hit in return. I've seen a permastealth rifle DE easily solo bay lord on DBL. PvE mobs should be childs play. On us he did ~20k killshots (vs 2000 toughness and protection).

PvE should be childs play in comparison?

[LadyKitty.6120]

"high survivability high damage world-PVE build"? Kitty knows one: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaEBoqxrlZwwYXsImJW+XnvPA-zRQYR0zmgLkoShAjgIKATmFWNjA-eIt does slightly weaker damage than pure berserker's build, but it has 50% more HP and it retains the high crit rate to get heals with from critting.For cleaving large amounts of mobs, mobility and CC/evading while hitting, this build uses sword+pistol. You can use Infiltrator's Strike to engage and disengage to combat. For cleaving stuff, spamming auto-attack is the best option though you can use Pistol Whip to do decent cleave damage while evading attacks about 50% of time while at it (due to Pistol Whip's unmentioned functionality of doing attack similar to mesmer's Blurred Frenzy after initial hit). Invigorating Precision keeps you healed as long as you're hitting stuff. This type of build is what Kitty usually uses for doing the story due to how immortal it is usually.For bosses, champs and otherwise tanky single targets, this build uses pistol+pistol as you can just kite around the target while getting pretty much perma-boons (except quickness and alacrity). In these cases, you engage the target with F1 Mark and start spamming Unload 'til you're at full 7 malice. Then you use the F2 stolen skill to enter stealth and press 1 to stealth attack to reset malice stacks. Then you can use Shadow Flare to get another stolen skill and spam Unload 'til you're again at full malice stacks. Then you can just keep on Unloading 'til you can Mark again. If you don't have stolen skill by the time you hit full malice, you can use Shadow Meld to enter stealth and stealth attack to reset malice. It also gives another stolen skill so you can delay Mark a bit 'til you've got that stolen skill used.And here's an example of how to play it and how tanky this type of build is(though the build Kitty used on the video isn't as optimized as in gw2skills as Kitty didn't buy new armors and weapons, except new pistol, just for demonstration and thus the gw2skills-build does more dps and has better self-sustain):

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

If you're not bothered about having the absolute max kill speed and just want an easy time vs champions and veterans (single target), try this;http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAQxrlNwAZbsO2JW2P/vKA-zVRYDBZIG1c5nSTSgwEBZqAaZI4nDQA7h3SVmRA-w

Rotation; mark > rifle2 x4 > dodge > death's judgement > repeat. In more detail, you use spotter's shot/skirmisher's shot (rifle 2) to build malice to full which gives boons and ini back (maleficent seven, deadeye grandmaster trait), stealth with either dodge roll, mark (the shadow arts trait hidden thief gives stealth on mark), withdraw (the shadow arts trait concealing restoration gives stealth on heal) or stolen skill (the stolen skill grants stealth as long as you have 5 or more malice) and use death's judgement to dump malice and do damage.

Healing; Invigorating precision (critical grandmaster trait) heals you for 20% of your crit damage as long as you have fury, which you will from spotter's shot (kneeling rifle 2) and as long as you keep building and spending malice properly as described above. Vampirism runes heal you whenever you kill something, useful if that champ has trash mobs you need to deal with. I also like scholar runes and adventurer runes but vampirism is probably the easiest to use effectively if you're learning the class.

Breakbars; Rending shade (shadow arts grandmaster, applies fear around your char when hitting a stealth attack vs a foe with no boons, requires short range tho), smoke screen (utility, applies blind on AoE) combined with pistol whip (sword pistol 3), headshot (pistol 4), basilisk venom (elite, can be shared to allies if you have them) and malicious tactical strike (sword sneak attack) give you loads of ways to break a breakbar when you need it, while also keeping protection off your target (rending shade).

Cleansing; death's retreat (standing rifle 4), the return on sword 2 and the return on shadowstep all clear conditions, and are excellent kiting tools. If you find conditions are still an issue, swap hidden thief for shadow's embrace in shadow arts. You lose the stealth on mark and have a longer cooldown on smoke screen and shadowstep, but you get condis cleansed every time you enter stealth. Antitoxin runes also work nicely with this setup, but honestly are a bit overkill if you try not to get hit with condis in the first place.

Damage reduction; you have 33% reduced damage while revealed, which when you get comfortable with the build is basically all the time you're revealed using rifle 2. You also get 5s of protection from getting full malice; this is one of the reasons it's important to keep dumping malice efficiently. You can extend that duration to near permanent by changing your rings to diviner stats, your runes to fireworks and by taking a sigil of bounty over a sigil of bloodlust; this makes you more squishy in terms of actual health, but gives you 7 seconds of protection per malice buildup, so you might find managing boons easier this way.

Damage avoidance; you have 1500 range on rifle, plus permanent projectile block from sniper's cover (kneeling rifle 4) and smoke screen. Smoke screen is also a pulsing smoke field, so between that and the smoke field from black powder (pistol 5) you have a ton of blind vs enemies without break bars. You have built in evades from withdraw and roll for initiative (heal and utility skills), plus pistol whip (sword pistol 3) is also an evade despite the tooltop not listing it; the initial stun does not evade, but the flurry does. Adventurer runes work nicely with withdraw for an extra evade's worth of endurance on your heal, but you can also regenerate your endurance quickly with malicious tactical strike (sword sneak attack) so you may find them redundant. Play with both, they're not expensive compared to scholar although that is obviously the best DPS choice.

^ copied from another topic. If you prefer condi, this is my current roaming build for WvW;http://gw2skills.net/editor/?Pa1AQpjlFwAZbsOmJO2OrvKA-zVZYMhJGEIZUj+KlMLgcjgeTgiDBvPAirHu/BJAuRVA-wI can pretty comfortably solo anything with this, and can 1vX pretty well. The combination of tormenting runes, leeching venoms and shadow siphoning means even if you only use stealth to dump malice you're going to be healing around 2k health per sneak attack, which with the toughness and additional regen in stealth plus the regen boon from M7 is pretty sweet. For breakbars just swap shadow's rejuvenation to rending shade, that plus the blinds will drop a break bar while solo pretty much by itself if you focus on using malice efficiently. If you like hybrid, swap the trailblazer for viper and the rabid for carrion, you'll be much squishier but you'll get pretty good power damage in return.

[Lunaka.1367]

The frustration you are currently experiencing is familiar to me as I had the same problem when I was going through the Heart of Thrones expansion. I spent months experimenting with meta builds in the Maguum Jungle trying to find a build that would work for me (i.e., survivability without sacrificing much damage output). The build that I settled on is modified off a Meta-battle build and is such:

Link: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PalAYVlRkxwCbXdtmc2ZnO8L7taA-zRRYBREWMKenRbShKUBu8hIGr+nMFAA-e

What worked for me in regards to this build is the synergy between Daredevil runes and Invigorating Precision. Every time I dodge roll in combat (i.e., recall that Daredevils get three dodges) I get an automatic crit which allows me to essentially automatically heal. There is some loss in damage (i.e., not running Scholar runes and Berserker armor) and you can easily get overwhelmed with condition damage (i.e., as Signet of Agility is the only condition purge) but some tweaking with some skills you might be able to work around that.

[babazhook.6805]

In open world PVE taking s/p along with Invigorating Precision (staff also works but I found s/p better) is fine. You do not need a lot of toughness or health. Pistol whips will fill up your heath bar against multiple enemies In fact the more the merrier. Added benefit of PW are the interrupts and evade. Couple with severance/draining and you are hard to kill.

I prefer s/p over staff because you can go DE and get those added boons be it the quickness out of BqoBk or the mali 7 adds.

[JonnyForgotten.4276]

Know, OP, you weren't really looking for a Daredevil build, but here is one anyway. :)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAUhjlRwuYOsFWJOuWnNXA-zRRYLRNjN4CpvMIzCojQwzZ5RzK-e

A hybrid build I have been running with lately. Good survivability (mostly based on kiting and evades) mixed with solid if not absolutely stellar damage. Use shortbow 4 and AA's to trigger interrupts for those sweet Pulmonary Impact procs, especially against larger groups of mobs. Switch to d/d for more burst damage against big/single targets, although the daggers also work just fine with groups for me. On daggers, generally mixing skill 3, skill 5 to backstab (usually around 6k damage per backstab), and auto attacks in between.

The big thing that makes this build work to me is it's mobility- if things go south, simply dodge out to shortbow range and lay down some sb4 fields or just kite until you can heal up a bit. Along with Bandit's Defense, I find that I almost never get locked down into a situation I can't escape. The constant poison damage this build puts out also means that even when you have to be kiting away, your damage is still ticking, meaning it gives you some breathing room that I feel makes up for the loss in straight power damage.

Edit: credit to Saerni for the carrion/grieving mix of gear. He pointed it out to me originally.

[Mouse.7382]

@"LadyKitty.6120" said:"high survivability high damage world-PVE build"? Kitty knows one: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaEBoqxrlZwwYXsImJW+XnvPA-zRQYR0zmgLkoShAjgIKATmFWNjA-eIt does slightly weaker damage than pure berserker's build, but it has 50% more HP and it retains the high crit rate to get heals with from critting.For cleaving large amounts of mobs, mobility and CC/evading while hitting, this build uses sword+pistol. You can use Infiltrator's Strike to engage and disengage to combat. For cleaving stuff, spamming auto-attack is the best option though you can use Pistol Whip to do decent cleave damage while evading attacks about 50% of time while at it (due to Pistol Whip's unmentioned functionality of doing attack similar to mesmer's Blurred Frenzy after initial hit). Invigorating Precision keeps you healed as long as you're hitting stuff. This type of build is what Kitty usually uses for doing the story due to how immortal it is usually.For bosses, champs and otherwise tanky single targets, this build uses pistol+pistol as you can just kite around the target while getting pretty much perma-boons (except quickness and alacrity). In these cases, you engage the target with F1 Mark and start spamming Unload 'til you're at full 7 malice. Then you use the F2 stolen skill to enter stealth and press 1 to stealth attack to reset malice stacks. Then you can use Shadow Flare to get another stolen skill and spam Unload 'til you're again at full malice stacks. Then you can just keep on Unloading 'til you can Mark again. If you don't have stolen skill by the time you hit full malice, you can use Shadow Meld to enter stealth and stealth attack to reset malice. It also gives another stolen skill so you can delay Mark a bit 'til you've got that stolen skill used.And here's an example of how to play it and how tanky this type of build is(though the build Kitty used on the video isn't as optimized as in gw2skills as Kitty didn't buy new armors and weapons, except new pistol, just for demonstration and thus the gw2skills-build does more dps and has better self-sustain):

I was bored on day and tried this build in PvP, just to clown around. I died, A LOT, as to be expected (poor movement/condi clear/melee negation). But when I was not being focused in a big fight, it MELTED ppl. Was fun for a couple of hours in pvp, and even with a few utility skills swaps (for my survivability), it just cant be played anywhere but unranked.

Thanks for keeping me entertained for an evening, Kitty !

[VydoLL.8714]

Thief profession: "Looking for a high survivability high damage build"

Try Revenant.

You're welcome :blush:

[Junkpile.7439]

Play deadeye. +20k backstabs all day and you really never die.

[reddie.5861]

@"trianglecubed.3750" said:It's taken me years to come anywhere close to liking the thief. Compared to every other class I always felt like I did far too little damage for how impossibly squishy it was regardless of what I ran. This has caused me to try and delete the thief for another character numerous times through my GW2 life, that is until I finally had at least one of each class. At that point I decided "Eh, may as well" and slogged through leveling it primarily with dual dagger. And I died. A lot. Way more than I ever have on any other class.

I tried PvE builds from meta battle but can't seem to quite do the stats correctly as I'm just buying Exotics from the TP for the most part instead of going full ascended and in such they don't seem to offer quite what I need, not to mention they're all specifically focused on damage, leaving me rather vulnerable, as they're raid builds and that's the only PVE that sort of site really cares about.

I made this character specifically in anticipation of the Deadeye. so I saved up hero points and fully unlocked it day one. Unfortunately, I've found the same problems I had before have carried over. I don't do enough damage to most Veterans or higher and can't avoid getting hit enough to stay up long enough to kill them without some delaying tactics to allow for heals.

Not all Veterans are this way, mind, just most I've run into in POF.

So with all that in mind I'm looking for a build that has a lot of survivability and does a lot of damage. I'm not talking top of the charts, but enough to generally solo veterans, elites, and maybe even champs with the adds they often come with/spawn. This means, in general, I'm going to need AOE and a fair deal of it, something I find the thief lacks in spades. Yet with enough single target damage and re-targeting I can see it being viable against small groups of four or less, though I fully admit to not knowing at all as my expertise, despite lots of reading and looking at builds on metabattle, is highly lacking.

I've found or figured out great builds that generally suit my needs for most of the other classes, yet thief still feels so impossibly lacking. Rifle feels like it attacks too slow and it feels really restricted with having to kneel to put out the best damage and d/d, while better feeling, generally still tends to get two shot by things like those veteran+ awakened canids due to having to be in melee range and me not being able to take a hit.

So, again, not looking for super DPS, but respectable damage combined with respectable survivability. If needed I'll even grind to get Daredevil, though I'm really going to miss the mark from Deadeye, yet if it means I might actually get some damaging aoe attacks it may be worth it.

Thanks for your time and patience for reading this and thanks for any suggestions you put my way that aren't "Just do X class, instead" because that is not an answer.

easy

take crit strikes with healing trait and signet for heals and enjoy ur go in pve u can even take food which restore HP on crit

then daredevil + trickery on staff build.

and ur good to go, i havent played gw2 for sometime but i believecrit strikes is 3 2 3 trickery is same crap as always been 3 1 2? even tho i use 2 1 2 i believe and daredevil with new changes i cant remember believe i used 2 1 3

well u can so much evade frames on daredevil like that impossible to die to veterans even champs u can take on with taking bit more care

if u really wanna stay deadeye well then i guess for simple mobs take the DA trait with mug to simply 1 bang mobs or kill them fast and constantly reuse mark to heal ur self fast would still use signet for heals tho since normal mobs die quite fast.

tho im not king of pve cus GW2 pve for me is to stupid and useless (talking about pure grind normal mobs in open world) as u gain nothing good in there.

[Axl.8924]

I was just messing aroudn with P/P have a feeling not viable for core or daredevil.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I don't remember what gear I run specifically but I think its Berserker armor & weapons with Soldier's trinkets, because with the Critical Strikes tree you can easily reach 100% critical rate on Thief without having Precision on all your gear, so some PVT is ideal.

I don't think Marauders is as good idea, it overstacks Precision on levels that Thief doesn't need, and Thief's low health can be turned into an advantage by stacking alot of Toughness and getting a huge return on healing.

There's certain builds that take some Toughness+Healing Power and regen all your HP in stealth in seconds.