Guild Wars 2

I am utterly fascinated by WvW because it’s the only experience I’ve had in gaming where I really feel like “I’m there”… really gets the heart pumping. (I know, you don’t lose much if you die, but I still hate dying!)

Anyway, I’ve done the “run in a zerg” thing and it doesn’t interest me. I decided to make a character just for doing stuff in WvW either solo or maybe in a small group. I’m still very new to WvW (and the game as a whole).

I made a thief because I like the idea of a sneaky, stealthy, spy-type character. I’ve still got a long way to go on the learning curve there, though, as I’m finding it difficult to nail down all the skills and the right build. So as of now I’m not really in a good position to be a raider who can do a lot of damage, I’d probably be really looking more at the sneaky role.

Anyway.. what are some things I can do that would help my team?

Upgrade the things you hold, refresh siege, kill yaks or escort your servers yaks, stomp people when your server has bloodlust, rather than DPS them down, as it adds 1 point for every stomp. Scout, keep the map updated to zergs moving around the map you might see, or find out your servers teamspeak and join in, that way you can hear where zergs are going and help scout. Run supply to places, people who run in zergs will often not stay behind to repair walls/gates etc after attack, so run supply from close camps etc to repair so you don’t drain the supply from the tower/keep for siege etc when it comes under attack again.

Also, when you are running with a zerg, learn how they work, a thief in a zerg, who like you is a glass build, is nothing more than a rally bot for the other server. something you can do is notice where their casters/healers etc are, they are often behind the zerg, or running around the outside, find them and take them out, you can run around the outside without much problem and they are often so focused on spamming 1 at the zerg they never see it coming.

focus on learning how to solo flip camps, tapping those waypointed keeps and getting away alive, and killing yaks and sentries, that will help teach you how to quickly move around the maps while avoiding the zergs who like nothing more than running over solo players

next focus on repairing keeps and building and maintaining siege, so if the call to defend a keep or tower goes out you know just where to go to help wipe those pesky invaders

once you have settled on a build run around the ruins and help your server get those bloodlust buffs, its a great place to find small group fights and the occasional 1v1 fight, but note some servers will send their zerg in if you get too annoying :P

there are a number of very strong WvW theif builds out there I would look at some videos of some small man groups like oPP or RIOT for example who run some solid solo and roaming builds without being too glassy, they have some good information to get you a base build which you can then alter to suit your playstyle

best of luck and have fun

Laundry list of items to do if you don’t want to be in the zerg:

Scout. Perfect for thieves. Keep watching the enemy movements with stealth, or watch key locations like stone must, report things out to map chat. Invaluable for commanders.

Capture supply camps. You can solo supply camps with the right character. This is something every commander needs: dolyaks bringing supplies to their towers and keeps

Hunt Yaks. Enemy commanders hate not having supply.

Capture ruins: can solo too. Bloodlust is nothing to sneeze at.

Capture towers: getting keeps with a small band is tough, but routers with a 3 to 5 man group is easy.

Upgrade your keeps. Thankless job. But someone has to do it. That waypoint in the keep can make the difference in getting reinforcements to your zerg fighting for that last ppt.