[Thief] How to be an adequate thief.

Hey guys, my name is Swiftsoul and today I will be showing you the way I play my thief, and the decisions I took in traits etc..

I have focused my build on precision and power, mainly aimed to get crits.

Weapons: As main weapons I use dagger and dagger, mainly because I like them and was too lazy to try other weapons. Just spam auto attack and skill number 2, Heartseeker.

For secondary weapons, I switch between both a short bow and dual pistols, the reason being that short bows have good aoe skills and damage, though there will be situations where you would not like to agro a whole group of npc, and since the short bow's auto attacks bounce between enemies it would not be wise to use it, that is were dual pistols come into play. Dual pistols offer good dps using skill 3, Unload.

In short:
Short Bow - good aoe skills
Moving onto Utility Skills:

I do not really like to click alot of buttons while playing so i opted my build around signets. I run Signet of Shadows and Signet of Agility, always. As for the last utility spell I run Assassin's Signet or Shadow's Refuge, depending on the situation.

S.o.S - increases movement speed (passive) and aoe blind around a target (active).
S.o.A - increased precision (passive) and removes a conditon on you and nearby allies (active).
A.S - increased power (passive) and +15% more damage on next 5 attacks (active).
Shadow Refuge - Aoe stealth for whole party (used to revive downed team members/lose agro/skip parts of dungeons xD)

For Healing skills, I use Signet of Malice, its like a Life steal type heal, were for every hit on an emeny you "steal" health from them. This is to my liking since it also works for every condition you inflict on your target, so the more bleed (using short bow skill 2, or dual pistol auto attack) you stack up, the more it heals you + you can also activate it to heal, for when you are running low on health and wont manage to life steal alot. I do not find the healing skill that effective when using dagger/dagger especially if you are faced with an npc that deals a high amount of damage.

Elite Skills : Thieves Guild (when focusing a single target mainly a boss etc..)
Dagger Storm (to dive in a large mob and reflect projectiles etc..)

These are my preferred elite skills, the rest are shit! (except for basilisk venom, I use that underwater

Trait Page :



Deadly Arts = more power
Critical Strike = presicion and crits!
Acrobatics = swiftness every time i dodge = good to run away xD
Trickery = some ally support and more skill spam!

Although I focus around precision more, I felt that I would not benefit from obtaining the Grand Master of Critical Strike, I saw that I would benefit more from getting an extra 5 points in Trickery(stealing gives 3 initiative - boons to yourself and allies - extra 3 initiative) and in Acrobatics(speed). Since thief skills run on initiative I found it more useful to get as many of it as possible

Combos: When facing a single target, i go dagger/dagger start off with spamming heartseeker to get close to the target, when you run out of initiative, use steal giving you 3 more initiative + might, fury and swiftness. If he isn't dead yet, just keep spamming heartseeker, and auto attack when you run out of initiative lol.

When going in a large mob, switch to short bow, auto attack and spam skill number 2 to stack up bleed. What i find useful is, kiting the mobs around and dropping skills 2 and 4 (bleed and poison) behind you, occasionally turning around to auto attack. This works well with the healing skill chosen.

That is basically how I play my thief, feel free to give me your suggestions and make any changes. Thank you!

Quality Swift.. I will put this on the site

Looks awesome, GJ

i run a very similar build because you advised me early on :p

only real difference is utilities. i use withdraw as a heal/dodge but i do see the benefit of signet of malice, especially when grouped up.

smoke screen i use as projectiles passing through it gain blindness, which helps peeps out sometimes, admittedley wasted on solo outings :/

signet of shadows becasue i like pouncing around really quickly as a charr