Condition Build Thoughts?

[Arktek]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAV...5XrAGHcKYHwrAA

The idea is to apply as much poison (via Steal/Choking Gas/Spider Venom) and bleed (via Death Blossom/Cluster Bomb/Caltrops/Dodge) as possible while being somewhat hard to kill through high Vitality/healing via Signet of Malice/Assassin’s Reward and lots of dodging/Disabling Shot and Infiltrator’s Arrow.

Downside is a lack of condition removal (which I could help a bit by swapping Quick Recovery with Pain Response), and very few blinds/stealth.

My computer is currently busted so I can’t try the build out myself, so I just wanted to get some opinions

P.S. I should also mention that this would be primarily a PvE Dungeon build, but I think with some minor tweaks it could be ok for WvW as well.

[bokiz333]

Since nobody has responded to this, I will. I am not a thief so I held off, but some response is better than non I hope.

Generally from what I have heard and seen, conditions are not the greatest way to do damage to mobs/bosses in dungeons...so I've heard that condition builds are suboptional (though perfectly doable) if that is your focus. Generally speaking power and DPS is the way to go for dungeons from what I have read around forums and the like. Again, take this with a grain of salt because I am neither a thief, nor somebody who runs dungeons alot.

For WvW its not a bad build, but due to culling, stealth is just more effective right now. (and annoying) Also, certain classes, like DD eles, can clear conditions faster than you can throw them down, so you'll have trouble with anyone that stacks condition removal. But generally bad and average players don't consider condition removal enough and you should be able to get plenty of kills that way. It's just if you run into a skilled DD ele, stealth and run.

[Zorac]

Condition build is excellent for PvE. Be it a thief, guardian, ele, engineer, ranger or any other profession. But for PvP (sPvP or WvW) and dungeons it loses its punch. Conditions in WvW can bring people down sure, but even if you just are fighting small group tactics conditions are only a minor thing to deal with as a person can clean them or have them cleaned easily by a squad mate.

On my thief I use an unsual build, because I don't stealth much lol, I do make use of my condition skills, but I don't focus on them, I use them as more of a distraction than anything else.

In PvE conditions can bring down mobs quickly and effectively, but in PvP or even large PvE meta events they aren't nearly as useful as unless you have the highest damage and longest duration of anyone else there your conditions can easliy be overridden, which is true in WvW as well, but not as much of an issue there since in zergs its easy for nearby allies to pop a condition remover like Null field on a mesmer.

[Arktek]

Thank you for the replies, I hoped that for thief condition builds would be more effective even when enemies have condition removal because we can reapply much easier than others due to no cooldown on our weapon skills. But anyone would know better than me because I have never run a condition build before hehe.

I guess the IDEA behind my build interests me more than it's effectiveness haha...the thought of pulling with choking gas and cluster bomb, stealing to get init back/add more poison then switching to daggers popping poison venom and death blossoming a couple times...dropping caltrops, cloak and dagger or shadow refuge to stealth and dodge away.

that process seems like it would be awesome lol.

[Lion Nightstalker]

awesome to set it out like that, yeah. BUT you'd only get off a rotation like that if you managed to avoid being hit/stunned/knocked back etc. There is next to no survivability there and while shadow refuge can be oh so helpful with allies around... having it as the ONLY stealth in your arsenal isn't very helpful at all.

Also, signet of Malice with no added healing power = a wasted skill slot.
From what I have found while working out my own PERSONAL optimal condition build, it is better to go either ALL venom or ALL bleed, don't try to mix and match, it mucks things up.

Another big problem is a lack of break stun... you NEED one as a thief... we're squishy remember one knockdown and you're dead if you can't get out of it fast enough.

That being said, the basis looks pretty good, just needs some vital tweaks, and if you're going to use Signet of Malice, invest in some, much needed, Healing power, or the skill won't keep you alive nearly as long as you could survive.

Damage-wise, solid bleeding is the way to go for condi thieves. we can keep 20-25 stacks of bleed up 24/7 whether we use d/d with sb or p/p or even d/p. coupled with a rune of the UNDEAD (revise your rune choices, while they promote your condi damage, they don't do anything for your survivabilty), then you can pretty much stay alove where even a guardian will die, and it also makes the build more than viable for WvW and PvP too.

I know it's a late, long response, but hopefully it was helpful.