Guild Wars 2

Hello,

being almost exclusively an spvp player, I have only a few hours (10-15) of experience on my thief in WvW roaming. And I was wondering how the usual course of an encounter goes down. What I mean by that: is it more important to be able to reset as often as possible/needed, or is it more important to hit like a truck?

And why I’m asking this is because I want to pick out the proper build for myself from my two candidates. I’m a D/P fan so the options that come into my head are either 2/6/0/0/6 or 2/0/6/0/6. I refuse to not use trickery, I like it too much and I’m used to it too much. However I’d love to see some suggestions maybe that try to talk me into using 2/6/6/0/0 or 0/6/6/2/0.

Back on topic: the SA version lets you reset almost endlessly but that also means that your opponent will have time as well to heal/wait for CDs/etc. Which brings the question: will I benefit more from the reset cycles or will my opponent benefit more? (Eles spamming air autoattack to heal, blasting water fields. Warrior signet/trait regen ticking, etc.) While the Crit Strikes version allows you to land a much bigger burst and also more sustained damage, you have less options to retreat/reset if SHTF. Its a fair deal btw imho, but I’m not experienced enough in WvW combat to know which will bottleneck me less than the other.

ty

I was a pretty bad Thief but I’ve always been a creative roamer. I found the best way to initiate fights was by making sure you always see your opponent before they see you. I actually had someone party me once that I had fought about a dozen times and he complimented me on how well I was able to catch him off guard every time we fought.

Always use your “look behind” key, don’t be super aggressive when engaging people, never spam skills because initiative is important, even if it regenerates quickly, and before attacking someone try to be sure they haven’t seen you first. Even if they’re not stopped and waiting for you to attack, if they see you they still might have their finger on a button just incase. If they have no idea you’re coming, you can start the fight by cutting their health in half before they have time to react.

To answer your question though; I think it’s best to make people panic. Hitting like a truck is a good way to do that but resetting can have the same effect if you time your resets properly.

As a side note; maybe I’m just a sadist.. But I always had fun playing with people’s minds. Strike them from out of nowhere, run off leaving them feeling vulnerable, stalk them for a bit, strike again, then commit to the fight when they think I’ll just be running away again. Great way to cut someones health in half, let them think they’re safe because you’re just doing hit and runs, then actually finishing the job :P.