Burglar Basics

[Merowin]

Quiet Knife:

Traiting five deep in the Quiet Knife and equipping the legendary trait Practiced Bluff will increase your positional damage by 20%, increase your normal non-positional damage and upgrade Feint Attack to Improved Feint Attack. It will remove the requirement for Double-edged Strike to be used before Improved Feint Attack, and will, with the major weapon legacy Feint Attack Cooldown, reduce the cooldown of Improved Feint Attack to 15 seconds.

The benefit of the increase in positional damage is straight forward. All burglars have a base positional damage bonus of 15% which, with the major class item legacy Positional Damage, can be increased to 30%. Traiting Quiet will increase this positional bonus to 50%, assuming the devastating critical hit buff is active. Surprise Strike and Burglar’s Advantage have additional positional damage bonuses on top of this, but I don’t know the numbers.

Improved Feint Attack is probably one of the best burglar skills. It will allow the next Surprise Strike, Cunning Attack, Provoke or Trip to act as if it was executed from Stealth, although without the 100% critical hit chance from stealth. Combine it with Surprise Strike for pure damage, with Cunning Attack to be able to stack two Cunning Attack dots; the from stealth version of Cunning Attack, Improved Cunning Attack, will stack with the normal version of Cunning Attack. Combine it with Provoke to generate extra threat, or with Provoke and the Gambler trait Leaf-Walker to apply a disabling gamble (a Riddle-like effect) every 15 seconds, or combine it with Trip to start fellowship maneuvers without using Hide in Plain Sight. For the new Draigoch raid this is required, since Hide in Plain Sight is disabled in Draigoch’s Lair. Improved Feint Attack will also apply a 10 second long +7.5% melee damage buff, which is pretty nice considering you can re-apply the buff every 15 seconds.

Conclusion: Quiet Knife is the damage build, especially in fights where you’re able to get the positional bonus, but Improved Feint Attack also adds a lot of versatility, and with the Leaf-Walker trait a Quiet Knife burglar is able to apply disabling gambles more often than a burglar traited the Gambler.

If you’re not traited Quiet Knife, but are still looking to equip one or two traits from this line, I would recommend Sharp Wit, Sharp Blade to increase the damage and threat generated by Provoke, or Ambidextrous to increase your off-hand damage.

[Merowin]

The Gambler:

Traiting five deep in the Gambler and equipping the legendary trait Dealings Done will allow the burglar to apply debuffing, damaging and disabling gambles. It will upgrade Lucky Strike to Gambler’s Strike, remove the requirement for Double-edged Strike to be used before Gambler’s Strike, and, with the minor weapon legacy Lucky Strike Cooldown, reduce the cooldown of Gambler’s Strike to 15 seconds.

Gambles come in three versions: debuffing, damaging and disabling. A debuffing gamble lasts for 15 seconds and will decrease the damage and hit chance and slow the attack speed of an enemy, a damaging gamble is a 15 second long damage-over-time effect, and a disabling gamble is a 15 - 60 second long Riddle-like effect. They are called gambles because the strengths of the effects are determined by chance. Clever Retort will apply a debuffing gamble and Startling Twist a damaging gamble. I assume that Advanced Startling Twist will apply a damaging gamble to three targets if all targets have an active trick, but I don’t know for sure. Mischievous Glee will apply a disabling gamble. With the Footpad trait Burgle will apply a debuffing gamble, and with the Leaf-Walker trait Provoke from stealth will apply a disabling gamble. Gambler’s Strike is special. If the target has no active gambles, Gambler’s Strike will apply a damaging gamble. If the target has an active gamble, Gambler’s Strike will upgrade the gamble to the highest tier. I will not go into more detail here. If you’re interested there are plenty of Gambler guides to be found.

Conclusion: Because of the Gambler’s Strike, the Gambler traited burglar will do more damage than a burglar traited Mischief-Maker, but less damage than a burglar traited Quiet Knife, especially if the Quiet Knife Burglar has positional bonus. But the difference in damage between the three trait lines is in my opinion underwhelming. The real gem in the Gambler lineup is the debuffing gamble which will significantly reduce the damage done by an enemy for as long as 30 seconds if used in combination with Gambler’s Strike.

If you’re not traited the Gambler, but are looking to equip one or two traits from the Gambler trait line, I would recommend Swift and Subtle to increase the damage of Subtle Stab, or, if you’re traited Quiet Knife, Leaf-Walker to be able to apply disabling gambles with Improved Feint Attack and Provoke.

[Golbo]

Great summaries! I've had a lot of fun the last couple of days with Golbo again, so I think I'll be picking him up and finishing off his leveling. Thanks for the rundown to get me back up to speed, Merowin!

[Daefarod]

I'm in the process of leveling up my burg to raider status and did a quick google search for burglar virtues that led me back to this thread.

Merowin, your write-ups are the best I've found. Clear and concise. Thank you for making the info available. It's given me a lot to think about and a new direction to take my burg.

[Merowin]

Just to ruin the clear and concise image: I actually switched out my virtues recently. At the moment I am using Zeal and Valour (for morale), Fidelity and Tolerance (for tactical mitigation) and Honour (for resistance and a bit more tactical mitigation).

I changed things around because the damage in the tough end game raids (Orthanc) is mostly tactical, non-common damage. I therefore benefit more from tactical mitigaton than I do from armour value and physical mitigation.

[Merowin]

Burglar Legacies:

There are a lot of legacies to choose from, but the legacies I recommend are:

Critical Response Skill Damage (Weapon, Major)
DPS is extremely important as a burglar, and almost 50% of my damage comes from my critical response skill chain: Burglar's Advantage, Double-edged Strike, Flashing Blades, Exposed Throat, (Improved) Feint Attack, Lucky/Gambler's Strike, and Small/Quite a Snag.

Subtle Stab Damage Multiplier (Weapon, Major)
Subtle Stab is not a big hitting attack, but it has a short animation and a short cooldown. Most burglars will therefore use it very often, and this legacy will be worth having. Subtle Stab is responsible for 20% of my damage.

Feint Attack Cooldown (Weapon, Major) (If you are traited Quiet Knife)
Improved Feint Attack will allow the next Surprise Strike, Cunning Attack, Provoke or Trip to act as if it was executed from Stealth, although without the 100% critical hit chance from stealth. With this legacy you can reduce the cooldown of Improved Feint Attack to just 15 seconds.

Small Snag Cooldown (Weapon, Major) (If you are traited Mischief Maker)
Quite a Snag is the Mischief Maker capstone and can be used to root and debuff enemies, increasing incoming damage by 3% and slowing their attack speed by 10%. It's not a fantastic skill, but if you're traited Mischief Maker you should really get it, and this legacy will reduce the cooldown of Quite a Snag to 15 seconds.

Lucky Strike Cooldown (Weapon, Minor) (If you are traited the Gambler)
This will reduce the cooldown of Lucky/Gambler's Strike to just 15 seconds. Gambler’s Strike will either apply a damaging gamble or if the target already has an active gamble, Gambler’s Strike will upgrade the gamble to the highest tier. Since it's a minor legacy, you could have both Lucky Strike Cooldown and Feint Attack Cooldown on the same weapon, which would be very convienient if you like to retrait between Gambler and Quiet Knife.

Riddle Range (Weapon, Minor) (Optional)
This can be very convienient in raids. It will allow you to riddle mobs before they get to the group without having to run into the room. This could also be on a swap in weapon used only for the initial riddle.

Positional Damage (Bag, Major)
All burglars get a 15% positional damage bonus. With this legacy you can increase that to 30%. Since this affects all your skills, it is a very significant bonus.

Skills Critical Multiplier (Bag, Major)
Will increase the damage done when you score a critical hit.

Addle Cooldown (Bag, Major)
This will reduce the cooldown of Addle to 5 seconds. Addle is important to interrupt inductions, but will also to cut the animation of Flashing Blades short, which will increase your DPS.

Increased Healing from Mischievous Glee (Bag, Major) (Optional)
Increases the healing done by Mischievious Glee/Delight. Can be very convienient when soloing tough monsters.