Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

I’m a relatively new 80, I mostly roam solo/havoc on a S/P Thief. Incorporating predictive evades/interrupts has greatly improved my results (duh). However, I still have very little knowledge of other classes, so I’m in the process of reading up on the meta-builds to try and gain an understanding.

Does a primer already exist for basic match-up strategies with more information on key cooldowns/animations to look out for, whether they can be reactively/predictably interrupted/dodged, & timers/CDs on any invulnerability/godmode abilities.

If not, I’d be happy to compile any advice y’all can contribute and put something together myself.

Honestly, the best way to learn to fight against other professions is by playing them.

Why don’t u go to pvp. The people there use builds specifically for 1v1 or few v few. Plus u get to choose your runes and builds For Free. U don’t even have to spend so much time running back after u die too. U can also try all the classes with minimal effort. The list goes on and on.

Jeknar.6184:

Honestly, the best way to learn to fight against other professions is by playing them.

You are 100% right. However, this is also the method that takes the most time. It’s something I’ll be working on ASAP – however, with all the classes & the variety of builds, that’s going to take quite a bit of time.

In the near-term, I’ve been picking up bits and pieces of quick-hit advice that have made a huge impact on my play. Like specific ele animations to watch for and get easy interrupts on.

Unfortunately, there is no such a thing.

I think the best way to learn is to duel skilled people on their main class and understand why you die to them (in other words, which skills you don’t dodge/evade so they do big damage/cc) or why you can’t kill them (in other words, they heal too much so you have to itterupt or apply poison in specific moments, or they block too much so you have to use unblockable attacks in right moments, or they have protection/stability up and you should steal/corrupt/wait for it, or they just passively regen too much so you have to play perfectly in both offence and defence to kill them over time). Then you ask them to link skill you want to evade/itterupt and show animation of it. Then you theorycraft how you can impove matchup with new knowledge.

Unfortunately, thief has bad matchups against almost every class, except necro, invo rev, zerker druid and power mesmer. So learning can be painful if you fight good players.

go to metabattle.com. Get what’s considered your main meta builds there and tweak them to suit your play style.

Blaqatak.1395:

Jeknar.6184:

Honestly, the best way to learn to fight against other professions is by playing them.

You are 100% right. However, this is also the method that takes the most time. It’s something I’ll be working on ASAP – however, with all the classes & the variety of builds, that’s going to take quite a bit of time.

In the near-term, I’ve been picking up bits and pieces of quick-hit advice that have made a huge impact on my play. Like specific ele animations to watch for and get easy interrupts on.

To be good at something you have to put time into it, if you’re looking for short cuts you’ll probably end up ok but get destroyed by people who know their classes unless you are a very hard counter.

I don’t think too many people use meta builds for WvW roaming. There’s a handful of builds that are fairly meta (condi chrono, or bunker druid as examples), but those classes are built with either low mobility (as in the case with chrono) or low damage (as in the chase with druid). A druid will never win a 1v1 unless they’re up against a noob (or maybe someone lagging). A chrono will never chase someone down due to having such little mobility. A scrapper or warrior will never die in a 1v1 due to their ridiculous self sustain.

If you want to win as a thief in wvw, just group up with another 2-3 thiefs and an engi or ele and jump people 3-4 v 1 as they try and return to the battle.

If you want to fight 1v1 against roamers you will need to learn how to counter them, and the best way of doing that is play each class (preferably in spvp). Certain classes you will not beat 1v1 unless they are terribad.

Of course, learn to use macros so you can hit from stealth and mash 6-8 skills in 0.01 seconds and hope they aren’t a tank, otherwise you’ll have to reset the fight and try again until they run out of heals/counters.

And use a high dodge build so when people try and hit you you can just keep dodging and dodging whilst your skills come off cooldown.

You could of course choose to play a less cheese class.

Instead of looking out for certain skills for each class, as a beginner I would recommend looking out for certain cathegories for all classes, such as; stun breakers, evades, invulns etc.

Those skills has fairly high cd in any rotation.

First – you want to 1 v 1 in WvW? You will get run over and deservedly so…

S/P is a highly underrated weaponset that uses a very specific attack method unlike any other class/build combination I am aware of.

On the plus side, its method of carnage is basically applied the same way across all builds: BV, PW, Steal, allow PW to finish. PW again if they don’t have a stun/immob break. Keep Shadow Step, Bandits Defense, SoA up as much as possible for escape and condi removal. We have a guy in our guild who is running better than 100/1 KDR using that build while roaming and very few builds can counter it.

When mastered the build has a few weaknesses including other power thieves able to close gaps and builds with a near constant condi application. Even then its defense is difficult to breach.

Roxanne.6140:

Why don’t u go to pvp. The people there use builds specifically for 1v1 or few v few. Plus u get to choose your runes and builds For Free. U don’t even have to spend so much time running back after u die too. U can also try all the classes with minimal effort. The list goes on and on.

Because PVP is player vs point. WVW has better actual PVP.

Straegen.2938:

S/P is a highly underrated weaponset that uses a very specific attack method unlike any other class/build combination I am aware of.

On the plus side, its method of carnage is basically applied the same way across all builds: BV, PW, Steal, allow PW to finish. PW again if they don’t have a stun/immob break. Keep Shadow Step, Bandits Defense, SoA up as much as possible for escape and condi removal. We have a guy in our guild who is running better than 100/1 KDR using that build while roaming and very few builds can counter it.

When mastered the build has a few weaknesses including other power thieves able to close gaps and builds with a near constant condi application. Even then its defense is difficult to breach.

Would you mind posting his build?

Don’t use someone else’s build. What works for them, may not work for you. Learn your class by doing. There are plenty of roamers out there that will give you fights. Dying is not a big deal if you learn each time, adjust, then find what fits you.

Jayne.9251:

There are plenty of roamers out there that will give you fights.

Lately, not so much… The run-away meta is strong these days…