Guild Wars 2

Question is in the title. Wondering if anybody is having moderate success with sword-builds when compared to the D/P dominance. Getting kind of bored of it and I want to try something new when roaming or sPvP’ing.

What’s the reason swords are so underutilized anyway? They seem to have decent damage per hit, and the cripple/weakness is kinda nice isn’t !t? Maybe not so much on the DPS department though..

I haven’t been playing a PvP thief for long, though.. Just a couple of months.

i have seen a lot of thieves running with sword in WvW since patch, but they were not really a threat for my thief, maybe they do well against other classes / builds tho.

D/P is superior to Sword builds for many reasons. Out of Combat access to Stealth, relatively instant interrupts, amazing blinds and just more general use for yourself and/or any team you might have with you. It’s also much better able to keep up pressure on characters that have high mobility and/or strong healing (Poison on AA, high damage Gap Closer with Shadow Shot etc).
That said, Sword builds can do quite well in WvW (and moderate success in low-profile PvP) due to the way damage scales with the higher power/precision/ferocity and things like that.
As I’ve seen and tried with some S/D builds, there’s 2 ways to go about it in terms of Traitlines 1) Deadly Arts, Trickery & Daredevil, or 2) Acrobatics, Trickery & Daredevil.
The first having a whole lot more pressure and burst available to it and the second being very kitten sustainable (and rather amazing against condi pressure at that).
For gear you’ll be looking at Marauder, Berserker, Valkyrie or Berserker/Valkyrie. Mix-and-Match to your own liking, though I’d recommend to have around 17K Health.

Other than that… There’s really a lot of personal flavour to it. I personally take either Channeled Vigour or Withdraw depending on PvP or WvW respectively, then Shadowstep and Signet of Agility. The last utility slot and the Elite I constantly mess around with myself and swap it a lot for different situations.
I’d reckon the same works for S/P, but I haven’t tried that too much myself yet as I’m not big of a fan of how the set feels to me.
Hope it helps a bit

Here’s what I currently run:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYVl0MhKnYhTw3JQ/EL+E28AMBGB3CAvmAkXToK8CA-T1BFABXpEUf1fK4UKgkyP113AwTKok9HCAgAcz2sNvZ28m38mPv5Nv5Nv55m38m38m3sQAlHDA-wo

It’s more focused on moving about the map quickly and soloing upgraded camps and lords. I choose Quick Pockets to avoid steal damage for more mobility and Roll for Initiative to have nearly unlimited dodges. Both signets provide 5 might and I’m running Runes of Strength so I usually have 3000+ power.

Although it isn’t optimal for dueling, it can usually wear down other players. I tried to strike a balance between PVP and PVE since I don’t like swapping skills. You could always switch to Slight of Hand and Impact Strike if you prefer to duel.

For WvW.

I am trying a s/p build using SA DD and trickery. It heavy on Condition cleanses and
out of SA uses Rending shade (I liked it so much on P/d I had to try and find a way to make it work in power). Rather then take SE , I took the trait that lowers deception cooldowns so as to use BP and HIS on toolbar. (The lower cooldown on HIS makes to more competive with withdraw and CV given I tend to avoid the heal being interupted by porting away before the heal.)

HIS works so well on those damaging conditions and can be more efficient at remving them than the two you get cleansed off stealth via SE.

It not great as a 1v1 dueling build but does very well in small groups in WvW as I will cycle through the enemies that are using a lot of boons and target them. In essence the theory is what lost in damage by not taking DA or CS is made up for by stealing stacks of boons and in particular might protection and stability.

I tried the same concept with the s/d version and larcenous strike but really missed the interrupts and blinds OH pistol offers.

The set works good at flipping camps as well using PW albeit you are not stealing much in the way of boons there and do not therefore have the damage output of a more traditional build using DA and CS.

The timing of your boon rips is important as while BT does not steal stacks, RS does so if the enemy has Might up at 25 stacks you have to be sure you use the RS then. It still a work in progress as I toy with using PI over EA and Bounding over UC , but it certainly a different style and there some amount of saisfaction in seeing a guy loading up boons and you just tear them all away .

As to its effectiveness overall , it works for me but may not be everyones cup of tea. A lot of the effectivness of a given build depends on the given player in question. While I do not consider myself as “highly skilled” I am certain that those that fall into that category can make most any build work. My own preferences for gaming has always been the experimenting with different builds and trying to make them work rather then just use what is defined as META at the time.

My build is in my sig, works pretty well for duels and general roaming tbh.

I swap between EA and PI, pain response and auto evade, and staff/shortbow offhand quite a lot depending on what I’m fighting. S/P works as a boonstrip cc set for me, it reliably removes protection and stab for a spike vs ele and druid while staff lets me deal with warriors and DH much more easily, and with shortbow you can permastealth out of combat by blasting smoke fields and bounding. The 2100 range on infiltrator’s and steal combined makes it pretty good for +1 as well, it benefits massively from quickness access if you want to gank tho.

I mostly WvW so I’ve not had to adapt this specific build for the endurance changes yet, but it works for most 1v1’s at present. D/P is a better set but S/P is still dangerous in the right hands.

Edit: just be aware that you have very little room for error vs other thieves, esp if you’re not running don’t stop. That’s part of the fun though

This is what I run in Ranked PvP and WvW

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYVn0MBlOhFOBGmC8Phlria+5v+uv7mmuAwbDygPA-TZBFABiXGQgDBQN7PQwJAAgnAAA

Deals lots of nice consistent damage and gives you amazing condi cleanse and survivability. Not as hard hitting as D/P or Staff but it is strong enough to kill every bunker in the game as the combination of immobs, dazes, and unblockable hits will allow you to stop bunkers from recovering safely. It does take quite a bit of skill to play this build effectively though so don’t expect it to be easy but you can expect it to be fun and viable if you know how to use it.

Optional: You can swap out Basilisk Venom for Impact Strike to secure stomps better in group fights but you won’t be able to interrupt blocks.

S/P is a strong weapon set IF you have solid timing and patience. Other blow up thieves can present a problem but S/P handles other classes very well.

I’ve been having some fun running this build. I’m normally able to instakill anyone that triggers the shadowtrap.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsaWn8lCFOhNOB+NBsPhFYCbrDscGUzdwT4KULBEAyAA-TJBBwAY3fAwpAgxTAocZAA