Guild Wars 2

o/

First time posting a topic in the Guild Wars 2 Thread so I’ll keep it short.

I main thief and have been playing him for almost all of the entirety of the days of the wardrobe system introduction. I recently picked up pvp and is sitting (at the moment of this post) Bear ranking. But after enough spvp and tpvp, I started to get more into the dueling servers over the conquests.

What I’ve been seeing in this subforum are a majority of “acro dead” “SE nerfed too hard” or even worse “my thief is now a bank tab.”

But let’s face it, I’ve yet seen or read actual positive reads here aside from PvE specialization speculations.

So let’s get back on track from our detour.

PvP Dueling builds and/counters against other professions. I’m wanting to have fun 1v1 players in those popular dueling servers in spvp server lists.

Please keep it civil.

Dueling builds are completely worthless because they aren’t viable in ANY aspect of GW2.

So unless you are dueling with a meta build or something viable its pointless.

T raw.4658:

Dueling builds are completely worthless because they aren’t viable in ANY aspect of GW2.

So unless you are dueling with a meta build or something viable its pointless.

There’s actually a large community that regularly plays in ‘dueling’ servers. So if this is what a player wants to do, it’s perfectly reasonable to look for a dueling build. Furthermore, duels happen on a regular basis on / off points of spvp and with the introduction of Guild Hall, there will be plenty more opportunities for dueling. It’s far from ‘worthless’.

As for OP, look into metabattle and you’ll find some builds there.

Dueling? go full condi-win

Honestly just run a meta build and see if you can beat people with that instead of using some special dueling build. Will help you become a better player much quicker than you’d expect. And you get the added benefit that you most likely flat out outplayed the people on those special dueling builds if you beat them.

Anyways if you really want to have a dueling spec, probably d/p DA/SA/Trick with offhand s/d or sb depending on the matchup.

So, as someone who frequents dueling rooms myself.

It’s somewhat wrong to assume that dueling builds and meta PvP builds are in two completely different classes. What a lot of people do in dueling rooms is practice 1v1’ing with meta builds. That being said, whenever you go to a dueling room you typically see a lot of meta builds. So if you want to make a good dueling build you probably want something that works well in the current meta (IE meta/anti-meta builds).

Put in another way. You will need at least 2-3 condi clear’s in your build in the current meta so you don’t get cheesed out by burn guardians (Not trying to say this in a derogatory manner for you burn guardians out there). Those burn guardians don’t suddenly disappear whenever you go to dueling rooms. So likewise whenever you’re making your dueling build you want at least 2-3 condi clear’s so you don’t get instant downed by every burn guardian you see. But then you also want stunbreaks for thieves/mesmers in your build just as you would in PvP. The list goes on and in the end if you find a good dueling build chances are you’ve found a build that’s pretty good for PvP aswell (Inverse of this isn’t true, there are good PvP builds out there that are bad for dueling. Venomshare, Traps, and Improvision/Thieves Guild builds come to mind).

But ye, with that being said d/p, s/d, and p/d condi with sb are all builds a see a lot in dueling rooms. I also used to see a lot of p/d condi with d/p offhand, but I don’t see them as often nowadays. d/d is very hard to play so you don’t see a lot of folks using it, it’s also a bit lacking in the mobility/gapcloser department.

As far as countering other professions go. Looking for builds to counter a single opponent isn’t really the right way to go about dueling imo (Whenever we get sanctioned duels for gold this might become a thing). Being able to beat an opponent after changing your build specifically to beat them doesn’t really improve your skill as a player. In fact it’d be pretty sad if you couldn’t beat someone after learning their build and respec’ing specifically to beat them. Instead I think a better approach is learning how to counter people with your current build. Or, thinking about how your current build needs to be changed because it’s being countered too hard or is ineffective against those you’ve fought (With the realization that changing your build to be better in one matchup has a chance of making it worser in another).

For instance, this is the build I use for PvP and dueling: [Link] (Very meta I know >_> I did a lot of variations before I settled on this particular variant though). Instead of changing it every fight to get a better matchup advantage. I used dueling to learn things like when to poke with sb instead of going all-in, stalling out invulns, and tricks like using whirling axe in BP for perma blinds or like using Bountiful Theft to interrupt bunker guardians.

But ye. I’d say making your own build when it comes to dueling is the best way to go. If you want to start with a condi build, I’d suggest looking at this thread from the leader of Teef to get started: [Link].

Is it just me or is dueling as a thief mostly pointless? If they are squishy, you can burst them down in 2 seconds, but if they have any decent survivability, bursting becomes ineffective. We can’t really build bruiser either as we still die too fast. Basically, if I know my enemy is even a bit tanky, regardless of class, it’s not worth engaging by myself. I can only +1 and decap/cap. Unless I’m fighting another thief, in which case it’s usually easy prey.

Haze.9075:

T raw.4658:

Dueling builds are completely worthless because they aren’t viable in ANY aspect of GW2.

So unless you are dueling with a meta build or something viable its pointless.

There’s actually a large community that regularly plays in ‘dueling’ servers. So if this is what a player wants to do, it’s perfectly reasonable to look for a dueling build. Furthermore, duels happen on a regular basis on / off points of spvp and with the introduction of Guild Hall, there will be plenty more opportunities for dueling. It’s far from ‘worthless’.

As for OP, look into metabattle and you’ll find some builds there.

You’ve missed the point entirely.

Haze.9075:

T raw.4658:

Dueling builds are completely worthless because they aren’t viable in ANY aspect of GW2.

So unless you are dueling with a meta build or something viable its pointless.

There’s actually a large community that regularly plays in ‘dueling’ servers. So if this is what a player wants to do, it’s perfectly reasonable to look for a dueling build. Furthermore, duels happen on a regular basis on / off points of spvp and with the introduction of Guild Hall, there will be plenty more opportunities for dueling. It’s far from ‘worthless’.

As for OP, look into metabattle and you’ll find some builds there.

Ppl go there to hone their skills on their conquest builds. Dueling is a fun way to practice but when you go there with a cheesy 1v1 build it loses its purpose.

So yeah you missed the point entirely

You need to keep in mind that it all comes down to match ups if both players are experienced. For instance, it’s nearly impossible to beat a good cele engi or ele if you’re running a marauder d/p build (try it), of course provided that you’re both good players or evenly skilled. A good example of a fair match up would be let’s say going against a fresh air ele, static discharge, power necro, pew pew ranger (easiest to beat in my opinion) and etc. Basically squishes cause it doesn’t take you long to down them once they’ve made a mistake. Like what that’s been stated in meta battle, a well played thief’s prey will always be squishes unless if it’s a medi guard. Medi guards aren’t impossible to beat but it’s just almost impossible to bring em down if they’re good (very tough).