Guild Wars 2

Hello all,

I know this is asked commonly, but I’ve had trouble finding the exact information I’m looking for. I am solely interested in roaming solo [and sometimes with 2-3 friends max] in WvWvW. I am looking for a profession with great 1v1 and 1v2 capability. I’m also interested in high mobility outside of fights – I like getting from place to place quickly.

Here is the important part: I do NOT want to pick my main profession based on some overpowered fotm build – when researching, I saw suggestions for perma-stealth thief, warrior, dhuumfire necro, etc. I want something that may not be THE best, but will more than likely guarantee my style of play for a long time to come [avoid the nerfbat].

So what would you recommend?

Warrior
Sword/shield, longbow
Celestial gear with soldiers runes, leeching sigil on both sets with corruption sigil on shield or sword. Precision based infusions. I have guard leech.
30 arms, deep cuts, opportunist, blade master
30 tactics, leg specialist, stronger bowstrings (or lung capacity), vigorous shouts
10 discipline, warriors sprint

Mild power, good crit chance ~70%, mild crit dmg ~70%, ~100 tick bleeds, ~600 tick burn, 2k healing shouts, only 2700 armor ;-(, ~28k hp (I’m aiming for guard HP buff for 30k).

Healing signet, fgj!, SiO!, fear me!, any Sumon like mistfire wolf, hounds of balthy, charr ones, syvari hound but I use snow leopard for that stealthy escape ;-) if its dead map certainly a summon though and mistfire wolf has great cool down that will let you cast it at each camp.

I’m mild at dueling but I’ve had some good success with the build. Even bronze thieves get killed or have to flee. Gl & HF, the most important part of roaming ;-)

If your an aggressive player who goes for the nearest kill and fight to the death, try Warrior. If you are a cautious player who never wants to die and don’t mind retreating from fights, try Thief. Both are good solo roamers, good in 1v1 fighting. Thief brings more utility to roaming with stealth mechanic, but Warrior has better group/zerg utility.

For scouting, hunting yaks, and taking camps, I love my shortbow + sword/dagger thief. It doesn’t have the burst damage of some other thief builds, but it has really good sustained damage, surprising durability and a lot of useful tools.

The fighting style’s fun, with a lot of movement, dodging and crowd control (mostly slows and blinds with the occasional weakness or daze). You can fight’n’kite at range or mix it up in melee. And you can do some fun “thiefy” things, like shadow-stepping and stealthing without resorting to the burst>retreat>reset sequence that’s so popular right now.

If I’m running around with a few friends, I also really enjoy my spirits + shortbow + sword/dagger ranger. She has most of the same benefits as my thief, plus a larger toolbox and some great buffs for my friends.

Engineer. Swift kits for moving about with constant swiftness (other ways to get a solid amount of swiftness, too). Can be kitted for burst damage, condition pressure, or group support, or somewhere in between.

The engineer getaway power is not great. I kinda laughed at somebody’s description of a Warrior staying to the death since I constantly see Warrior’s running with all their weapon and utility skill “rush” abilities. If being able to get away is something you value, I’d suggest Thief or Warrior, maybe a Mesmer with Stealth though they struggle with Swiftness for moving about. Eles aren’t bad at it, either. Don’t play a Necro if you want to be able to run.

Thank you for all the great write-ups. I’m deciding between warrior and thief based on the replies. I’m partial to stealthy gameplay, but I’m a bit worried about their incoming nerfs. Does everyone see the thief as solo viable after December 10th? Or would I do better rolling a warrior?

sKILLziGnite.2756:

Thank you for all the great write-ups. I’m deciding between warrior and thief based on the replies. I’m partial to stealthy gameplay, but I’m a bit worried about their incoming nerfs. Does everyone see the thief as solo viable after December 10th? Or would I better rolling a warrior?

I don’t think that shortbow + sword/dagger thieves (or at least the kind that I play) will be affected at all. Not sure about other builds, but I suspect thieves will still be very effective.

As a thief since beta I would say thief. I’m still having tons of fun with mine! We have a ton of in- and out of combat mobility, great burst damage and amazing survivability (if played right). The idea with thief is to choose your own fights and not charge in head first. Take your time and wait for the right moment.

When grouping up with friends I live to be the one that’s not there. I’ll stray away from my friends and strike when they’re in the middle of a fight. The element of surprise is awesome and it usually catches my foes off-guard.

So if you’re in for some sneaky business which will sometimes have you fight cowardly, leaving battle and sometimes even leave your friends to die, then the thief is for you.

sKILLziGnite.2756:

Thank you for all the great write-ups. I’m deciding between warrior and thief based on the replies. I’m partial to stealthy gameplay, but I’m a bit worried about their incoming nerfs. Does everyone see the thief as solo viable after December 10th? Or would I better rolling a warrior?

It’s hard to say exactly where the thief will be with the initiative changes, but I don’t think there will really be an issue.

One of the best roaming thief builds is a D/D build like Yishis uses and while it will have an initiative regen reduction from two talents being nerfed (Opportunist and Infusion of Shadow), overall initiative regen is being increased, so we’ll have to play a bit to see if it’s really a noticeable increase or decrease.

Personally, I think we’ll be fine since the Opportunist nerf hits PvE thieves more as you don’t land as many attacks against a moving target in PvP like you do against a boss in PvE. Even then, the build is far from initiative starved and would need to be hit really hard before that became an issue.

There will be less viable builds as the sword builds are getting hit hard (especially S/D) as is D/P builds that use Shadow Arts talents to have high stealth uptime, but I wouldn’t consider those optimal builds for WvW anyways.

Btw, if you want to get a taste for good WvW roaming, check out Yishis’ latest vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8Lh8Oogl6Y

I’m not an expert on warriors by any stretch, but they look to be taking a hit on the dec 10th patch with the Unsuspecting Foe change if nothing else.

Many of the nerfs being cried about in the thief forums are hyperboles based on the fact that they’re changing and fixing exploitations of broken traits before they can buff the thief, period. From history, you can see that every major nerf to the thief has been followed up by both minor and major buffs which allow for more build diversity and variety. Gotta break ’em down before you can build ’em up, I always say.

Any medium armour class is a good bet, as well as mesmer and warrior.

Thank you everyone. I’ve decided to roll a thief based on the input here. It matches my personal play style and it seems the forum posts I’ve been reading in their sub-forum are mainly targeting their desire to run broken builds.