Critique my dagger/dagger-pistol/pistol thief? :3

[Fluffball]

Well there is no need for a temper tantrum. I agree with you in that I built my thief in a similar fashion. However using different traits and play styles across your different characters is what makes the game fun. My warrior is 100% glass cannon with over 100 critical damage. Yesterday I hit someone in WvW for 18k (they were not wearing armor and were upleveled, but whatever , I still hit level 80 warriors for 10k). That's fun... for that character. I don't want every single character to be the same, so I'm crafting a condition damage mesmer utilizing confusion. Entirely different play style, and that's ok.

If she wants a condition based thief, why not try to help her create a good one rather than raging at her for not being the most effective possible thief that is useful in level 40 FoM. She clearly is aware of what she's doing since she doesn't want to use a SB.

[Alaris]

Xunlai, I have to agree with you and Fluff for different reasons.

I think it's great that you tell people what works great, and please, don't stop. In fact, feel free to tell me why my builds are terrible and how to fix them. In this case, I have to admit that both strategies seem to accomplish essentially the same thing, might as well take the best one.

In some cases though, it's like Fluffball mentions, it's to add diversity to gameplay, or to actually engage in different roles. For example, I'm trying to get a good minion-mancer necro that can swap to wells for dungeons, because if I had to play it otherwise, I probably would play one of my many alts instead.

[Xunlai Agent]

Well there is no need for a temper tantrum.

At no point in my entire post was there anything resembling a temper tantrum. What is it with this forum being unable to handle factual points and outright disagreement? Whenever somebody disagrees with the users on this forum people nearly break down in tears over it. Are all of you suffering some kind of post-traumatic stress or something? In all seriousness where in my post do you see anything like a temper tantrum. I find it hilarious that I post critique with your non-arguments and you resort to calling it raging and a temper tantrum. Do you have a tough time handling disagreements or differing points of view or why is it you are attempting to derail the thread? Maybe you would like to re-read my post because this is simply embarrassing.

I agree with you in that I built my thief in a similar fashion. However using different traits and play styles across your different characters is what makes the game fun. My warrior is 100% glass cannon with over 100 critical damage. Yesterday I hit someone in WvW for 18k (they were not wearing armor and were upleveled, but whatever , I still hit level 80 warriors for 10k). That's fun... for that character. I don't want every single character to be the same, so I'm crafting a condition damage mesmer utilizing confusion. Entirely different play style, and that's ok.

She is asking for feedback which suggests she care whether the builds is viable, not running 30 points in Critical Strikes given the current state of the game is not viable. You can run a warrior running a longbow with everything in defense and tactics, it's not viable or helpful but at least it's not the same playstyle?! I do fondly remember this forum defending the viability of pets in Guild Wars 1 or insisting Mesmers were simply amazing in PvE long before ArenaNet heavily balanced the class and gave it overpowered PvE skills. What you are saying is simply not true. ANet needs to introduce DPS meters and other ways of measuring damage output to end this type of attitude. Yes, anything can be played but that never meant everything should be played. It's like playing a flare elementalist in Guild Wars 1, you don't do that to the other party members.

If she wants a condition based thief, why not try to help her create a good one rather than raging at her for not being the most effective possible thief that is useful in level 40 FoM.

At no point am I raging at her. Like Shawn I pointed out that you need 30 CS and unlike Shawn I documented why this is the case. Instead of crying because I disagreed with you how about you start adding value to the thread instead of this laughable strawmanning. Explain to me why a condition based thief should pass off the executioner trait to gain 4 initiative everytime they use a heal, just explain it and let's see what your reasoning is instead of crying about temper tantrums. The Fractal thing makes me laugh, I guess most of the people on this forum must detest fractals, yourself included, because it demands you hone your gameplay and bring the best build and habits possible...

It's ironic how you insist on helping her yet provide little to no feedback and then attempt to derail the thread.

[Fluffball]

The only thing I agree with in your rant is that the final trait in trickery is a really bad call. Generally I don't use healing skills in PvE, especially with all the active defenses of a thief.

[Xunlai Agent]

The only thing I agree with in your rant is that the final trait in trickery is a really bad call. Generally I don't use healing skills in PvE, especially with all the active defenses of a thief.

Extraordinary, you agree with the main point I have made repeatedly in this thread. However you have chosen to resort to flame-baiting despite agreeing with the gist of what you are attacking? Stay classy San Diego.

As for the build I would not run a P/P set if you want to run a condition damage set because it can only inflict bleeding which is kinda inefficient if conditions are going to be your main source of damage. It's weird how both Shawn and myself suggest 30 Critical Strikes and I get flame-baited for it because well it's a condition build (how that works is beyond me) yet choosing a ranged set with only one condition is fine because well it's a snowflake. If you are going to run P/P I wouldn't go with condition damage gear and regardless of what you play I would run 30 points in Critical Strikes. The only responses thus far which have detailed traits have put 30 points in CS unless somebody steps up and explains to me why this staple no longer applies I fail to see what you are hollering about.

If it's all about what Raye wants to play then my guess is Raye wouldn't have made this thread (just a guess) because it defeats the point, so I cannot for the life of me understand the motive behind your rebuttals. I have helped her improve the build by pointing out that taking 30 CS is vital irrespective of her gear or gamplay choices, you in turn have done nothing except criticise me for offering her honest feedback. What exactly you are trying to achieve here is beyond me but I suspect it is likely to be fittingly absurd for GWO.

The daggers are good if you want to focus on upping condition damage because they offer poison and bleed but overall I would argue that other classes to condition damage better - you can only inflict two DoTs on your melee set and only a single one on your ranged set which seems slightly lackluster to me. Furthermore I fail to see how realigning 10 trait points is going to break her game play. If I had come in and insisted she change her utility skills or weapon selection I would understand the snowflake argument but why you are losing your cool over the suggestion that 30 points in CS is better than 30 points in Trickery is absolutely beyond me.

Raye if you want anymore advice let us know what you think of the suggestion that Shawn and myself posted regarding your traits. I also have a few builds I run on my thief that aren't condition-based but that all play completely differently which I will post if you're interested.

[Fluffball]

Extraordinary, you agree with the main point I have made repeatedly in this thread.

Not really. I would still keep 30 in that line to up the condition damage. (Not me personally, I use a backstab thief so you can refrain from more comments about how GWO sucks at GW2)

I would switch to Initial Strike since DB is the main source of damage and it's initiative hungry.

Edit: Ah ha, found it. This may be relevant. It's one of the dev PvP guys talking about his dodge thief that he bleeds people out with. It's obviously PvP oriented but he has some really nice ideas. He goes 30/30/20 in the last three lines and gets bleed duration by mixing and matching runes.

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/325629647

[Sir Jack]

The Caltrops on Dodge trait is pretty bad. They only last about a second, so if you dodge the attack, the caltrops tend to be gone by the time the foe starts chasing you.

[Fluffball]

They last four seconds, as has already been mentioned. Also the post directly above yours shows a dev slaughtering groups of people in PvP using only caltrops. Wake up.

[Raye]

Okay... you guys seriously took my build and started arguing over it like crazy o__O. Not sure if proud or afraid lol. I am not on my computer, so i haven't made changes yet. Thank you all for your contributions (though both attitudes could be turned down a notch, just sayin')

One of the things I said in the OP is that i find thieves counter intuitive, hence why I asked for help. I actually was gonna do 30 on critical and 30 on trickery but change my mind at some point for a reason I don't remember :3 so ill definitely re-consider.

Secondly, never did I say I would be using this in pve. It was actually my intention to get into wvw with her. And conditions tend to win in pvp more often (according to m my personal observations anyway) I am however, willing to take advice, since I asked for it.

Thirdly, I asked for help on runes and sigils =( but no one said anything about it.

Lastly, I'm likely to make critical strikes 30... not sure which of the two lines ill lower yet. :3

[Fluffball]

Check out the video of the dev, that will be a lot more relevant if you want to do mostly PvP with it. He shows all of his traits and equipment and explains why he takes everything. The runes are 2 of krait, centuar and whatever the other is that give +15% bleed duration. Caltrops are especially good in WvW; it's hysterical to watch zergs run over them.

Personally I wouldn't mix and match a power build with a condition build especially on a thief since they do very low damage when not specced to do things like backstab. You wind up not doing either well. If you're going all in on conditions, I would definitely consider going zero in crit because you aren't going to be doing any power damage at all.