Initiative is unique to the Thief class and is an energy system that is spent when using weapon skills.

All weapon skills cost Initiative except for your auto attacks. You have 12 Initiative and it recharges at one per second.

With the Boon Thief build you will be spending all of your Initiative on to Evade attacks rather than Dodging.

Detonate Plasma

Detonate Plasma is an amazing Stolen Skill that provides all boons to your entire squad except for Alacrity. You gain 10 seconds of each boon except for:

• Retaliation = five seconds.
• Stability = eight seconds.
• Resistance = three seconds.
• Quickness = four seconds.
• Alacrity = zero seconds :(

Detonate Plasma

• Matthias.
• The end boss at Escort.
• The phantasms at Keep Construct.
• Mursaat Overseer.
• Broken King, Eater of Souls and the two Eyes.
• Kenut.
• Hydra, Matriarch and Pyres at Qadim.
• Cardinal Adina.

The durations of these boons are subject to Boon Duration.

Venoms are one of the core skill types for Thieves. When you use a venom, they will apply a certain number of stacks to you and your subgroup.

These stacks, or charges, will be used when you strike an enemy. Please note that these can be wasted on trash mobs and not the raid boss. The other thing to note is that venoms can be wasted if you are Blinded, or an enemy blocks, evades or Dodges you attack.

With the Boon Thief build, you will only come into contact with two venoms:

deals 150 Breakbar damage once consumed. When you use , you and everyone in your subgroup will gain one charge of .

Preparations are unique to Thieves and can be considered very similar to traps.

All preparations are two part skills that have a placement, or charging part, and then a detonation or activation part.

With the Boon Thief build, you will only come into contact with one preparation:

pulses damage over three seconds, applies Vulnerability and causes 300 Breakbar damage.

This build is used exclusively at Matthias, Keep Construct, Mursaat Overseer and Adina due to the Stolen Skill; Detonate Plasma. Outside of these encounters, this build will not see the light of day.

There are two key traits that make these builds work:

will grant you two Detonate Plasmas when you and will reset a random utility skill when you . This trait comes with a 20 second Cooldown. This Cooldown is only associated with the skill Recharge part and not the double . If resets , leave it on passive for free extra Power until your next signet burst.

will reduce the Recharge on your by 50% when you Dodge or Evade an attack while wielding a Sword. This comes with a 10 second Cooldown.

is taken to help your Condition Mirages apply more Confusion. is a Smoke field that will inflict Blind when Whirl finishers are used e.g. . Due to the trait , Blind will inflict Confusion.

can also be frequently used to provide another Smoke field for the Condition Mirages.

causes you and four allies to heal yourselves with your next five attacks. Make sure you have four other people inside the relatively small AoE before using this skill.

grants you + 180 Precision. You can also use the active of to cleanse three conditions, only do this if you know you will die.

grants you + 180 Power. The active of this skill will grant you + 540 Power for five seconds.

pulses damage over three seconds, applies Vulnerability and causes 300 Breakbar damage.

provides you with some DPS but you should only take this utility when there are no Breakbars in the encounter. This is only useful at Keep Construct, Mursaat Overseer and Cardinal Adina, you should never take this at Matthias.

is a Smoke field that will benefit your Condition Mirages. You will need to take care when you use this at Matthias and Adina as it also blocks projectiles.

causes you and four allies to deal 150 Breakbar damage on your next attack. Make sure you have four other people inside the relatively small AoE before using this skill. This is only useful at Matthias, you should never take this at Mursaat Overseer or Cardinal Adina.

causes your to apply Poison.

causes you to gain + 160 Power on this build.

will cause you to gain + 120 Power when you are Revealed and it will always grant you + 80 Power.

causes you to do 2% more damage per unique condition on your target. Typically, you will have between 10 - 11 conditions on a target. This only applies to physical damage.

will grant you two Detonate Plasmas when you and will reset a random utility skill when you . This trait comes with a 20 second Cooldown. This Cooldown is only associated with the skill Recharge part and not the double .

grants a two second Evade when your health drops below 50%. This comes with a 40 second Cooldown.

grants you Vigor when you successfully Evade an attack. This is fairly redundant as you will have permanent Vigor from Detonate Plasma.

will reduce the Recharge on your by 50% when you Dodge or Evade an attack while wielding a Sword. This comes with a 10 second Cooldown.

improves the effects of Vigor by 50%. It will also grant you + 240 Concentration.

will heal you for each point of Initiative spent.

gives you an additional 5% Critical Chance when your health is above 90%.

gives you an additional 7% Critical Chance when you hit your target from the side or behind. You also gain 7% Critical Damage when your health is above 90%.

causes you to deal 5% more damage to enemies suffering from Cripple. This should be a permanent bonus. You also gain an additional 5% damage as you have a Pistol equipped

causes you to deal 10% additional damage when your target is above 50% health.

causes Fury to give you + 250 Ferocity on top of the native 20% Critical Chance.

• = 100 Breakbar damage.
• = 100 Breakbar damage.
• = 300 Breakbar damage.
• = 150 Breakbar damage per person, up to five people. These squad members must be in range when you use .

If you can, ask your squad to let you use and then reset the encounter. This will allow you to immediately pop boons at the start of the encounter and again.

There are a wide range of attacks that you can Evade with :

Evade

Don't at the 40% phase change. Matthias is Invulnerable and your will not work!

Use to help provide your Condition Mirages with a Smoke field for additional Blinds. Don't use it when Matthias uses or you will block the projectiles.

Use , and to help CC.

If you can, ask your squad to let you use and then reset the encounter. This will allow you to immediately pop boons at the start of the encounter and again. You need to from the Phantasms which is why you should and then reset the encounter.

Always hold onto one Detonate Plasma after the initial two. This is so you can instantly pop it for the burn phases.

You can use the Phantasms to Evade their attacks to trigger your .

If you can, ask your squad to let you use and then reset the encounter. This will allow you to immediately pop boons at the start of the encounter and again.

You can Evade or Dodge the yellow, unclaimed tiles at Mursaat Overseer. This will help reset your Cooldown due to .

You can use to Evade.

Ask your team to let you at the beginning of the encounter and then reset the fight so you can start with two Detonate Plasmas.

As Boon Thief, you can tank Adina very comfortably with one if you watch out for a few things:

• - Adina's cone AoE does decent damage and knocks you back, potentialy off the platform, so you should always avoid it with Dodge or .
• The stalagmites explode in a deceptively large AoE when Adina uses at 75%, 50% and 25%. As Boon Thief, you go Down to them instantly. This can cause you to die to , so it is very important to Dodge them or be far enough away that they dont hit you.

Always keep an eye on Adina's health. This is for two reasons:

• Don't if she's about to go Invulnerable as you might waste the skill.
• Always save one Detonate Plasma for the first split phase. Try to save two Detonate Plasmas for the second and third split phases.

Use during the split phase to block , the Knockback attack from the Hands.