Time for Thief!

[PillowWizard]

Hello there! long short of it, I just finished my spellblade White Mage Valkyrie build (Charge Weapon, Celestial Form, Whirlwind, Lunar Aegis, Aurora of Valor with Str, Wil and Agi fully invested), and I'm looking for something different... a Thief with a more neutral outlook. Where my Valk was in it to do the "right thing", ending the demons by any and ALL means necessary, killing them to a one and ending the scourge, even genuinely harmless and repentant ones. Did the entire storyline up until the end of Act 2!

So now I want to try something different. Edelweiss the Valkyrie was a generally Lawful Good Paladin type that traded the expected defense for incredibly strong hybrid attacks to generally deal with everything that didn't immediately click Dragon Breath for 400+ damage. Not shaming. Not naming names. I'm not petty.

My thief (currently unnamed) will be more chaotic good, with some neutral leanings. She'll be interested in filling her pockets and keeping her soul bound only to herself, generally distrusting of nobility and royalty (unless they actively improve the lives of their subjects), and having a big heart towards commoners and other smallfolk... but also not afraid to do a little graverobbing. I mean, hey, those guys are already dead, right? It's practically not a crime! But enough about her personality, I'm looking for how to make her effective.

What does a Thief want stats-wise? Background and race wise? What skills should I take as I level, what weapons and equipment should I seek out to 'come online'? And which allies should I bring with me? Hexblade Cait AGAIN or should I... diversify this time around?

 

[SeveringCrisis]

Cun/Agi/Str
Dual wield with a light throwable weapon like chrys petal or kunai allows you to use triple threat and eviscerate . Onslaught (lvl 8 power) + Eviscerate deals a lot of damage.
I think there are clubs or hammers you can dual wield at starting game from a vendor?
Coastlands there's a weapon from maidensbane (twin swords, fire and fury) that increases the power of eviscerate.

Equipment should focus on armor penetration, accuracy and crit, stuff like Giant's Gloves and the White blossom ring.

Thieves benefit from negative debuffs on enemies, and get a perk later that doubles the duration of their applied debuffs, glacial guard etheryn is good for this as she's pretty much a constant source of debuffs although you'll need a debuff yourself for the perk, probably just use the kunai and swap after a hit.

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Anyway, suggested late game powers are Whirlwind, Onslaught, Eviscerate, Shadow Stance
Not sure about early game powers unless you want to spellblade, but Triple Threat for sure.

recommended party is healer ryn and gladiator brint/brienne or warhides arona
alternatively, glacial guard ryn and cantrix/elementalist viviane or kiyoko (Although you'll not have any healing support if it's not cantrix viv)
I suppose you can use tank Cait instead if you want her in your party, but she'll be annoying to manage aggro with until level 9

Recommended Weapons are chrys petal/cassia's gladius/kunai/dawnsword(either)/fire and fury (I don't think you actually need to equip this more than once for the eviscerate update) or famine and pestilence

Rings white blossom ring and rogue's ring

Dunno about Armor except what you get from defeating Alissa

Hands are Giant's gloves.

Feet are Winged Sabatons

 

[PillowWizard]

PERFECT, thank you for that very detailed reply, ServingCrisis. To clarify - I want to hit Onslaught First (at least in boss fights) and then go into Eviscerate? Looking into it, Onslaught looks permanent unless I miss or get knocked prone, which should keep a reliable proc for Thief's extra damage passive, especially when Eviscerate is coming out six times with no Accuracy Drop. My thief girl probably won't be spellblading early on, I kind of want to try the 1 - 9 Pure Thief Experience.

Looking into Cassia's Gladius, would it be worth it to drop the Royal Leather Armor for the chestpiece for the +1 bump to Agility? It's a shame the head, legs and arms are heavy, otherwise that would be a BEEFY bonus for the whole set.

Eth has pretty much the best healing spec, I think. In my personal (limited) experience. With Shadow Stance and Eviscerate's secondary effect, I'm not really worried about anything hitting me until I try to take Alante on in the arena... or my clone in Vision Quest. Yikes. Regardless, it looks like it'll be similar to spellblade in terms of nuking things, but less likely to get brained by a lucky smack.

 

[Lostname475]

be aware that evasion is not the stat used to dode every attack. there are 4 "dodge" stats so to speak so having high evasion doesn't necessarily protect you from everything.

 

[SeveringCrisis]

Looking into Cassia's Gladius, would it be worth it to drop the Royal Leather Armor for the chestpiece for the +1 bump to Agility? It's a shame the head, legs and arms are heavy, otherwise that would be a BEEFY bonus for the whole set.

Gladius doesn't count for set, it's fine if you're ok with the -10 initiative loss though that'll be mitigated a bit by the agility boost.
As Lostname said above, there's 4 "Defense" stats but Evasion is usually used for single-target physical attacks unless stated otherwise. Phys defense for AOE attacks which you'll probably want as a common stun in the game are physical aoe. Thief has a perk that assists with this and Steadfast Tonic can be used as well.