Guild Wars 2

My thief is almost 80 and I’m looking for some information from some experienced players with this class. I want to run either S/D or D/D and am looking for build advice. Any advice anyone can offer, would be of great help. Thanks in advance.

82 views and 0 advice. Do any thieves that browse these forums have any advice on build ideas for S/D or D/D. Traits, Armor, Runes anything?

Assuming you mean wvw

For thief in general everyone has different views on how to gear a thief to give it the most optimal survival as well as burst damage. Me personally I like running Valk armor, zerk weapons and trinkets. There will be some people who will say run full zerks, or run zerks and splash a little soilders armor in, and those are all viable set ups as well.

Now as far as runes go I would say get two sets of armor and have one set running lyssa runes, and the other set using Divinity runes. I would suggest getting the Lyssa runes first though since they are cheaper, offer a nice condi cleanse and buff, and we also don’t know how the chance of crit damage to ferocity might effect divinity runes.

for weapon sigils I would suggest off hand dagger with a sigil of force and then your main hand whether its dagger or sword should have a sigil of fire. And for your other weapon slot I would carry a short bow with a sigil of fire on it as well.

as far as traits go it really depends on what weapon set you want to focus with, d/d or s/d.

D/D you can run a 10/30/30/0/0 or 0/30/30/10/0 (which is what I run).
In either build I would always take 4,5, and 11 from shadow arts line. and hidden killer from critical strikes line.
utility skills I take are hide in shadows, blinding powder, shadow step, shadow refuge, and basilisk

S/D you can run 10/0/30/0/30 or 0/30/0/20/20
for the first build take the same traits shadow arts as line as i said before, and in trickery take 5,7,12 and take mug from deadly arts. (this build will probably be the easier of the two to use.
utilities will be same as above

for the second build take executioner from critical strikes that will help put your damage over the edge and take 8 for the lower cooldown on signets.
Then take 5 and 7 from trickery and 3 and 8 from acrobatics.
your utilities will very depending on your experience but I suggest Withdraw as your heal by the way you should be using lyssa runes for this build signet of agility, shadowstep, shadow refuge, and basilisk.

I’m sure some other thieves would like to chime in and give some advice, I know this is a lot of information to take in all in one go i suggest going to spvp and seeing what you find more fun to run in their before investing in all the stuff. If you have any questions shoot me a mail in game (see tag to the side) and I will get back to you there.
(and where I left trait fields blank on what to use I am leaving that up to your own discretion).

That sums it up pretty well, although I’d like to say some things I think are important. First, about the S/D builds he suggested, you’ll choose which one you’ll use based on whether or not you are going to use stealth. If yes, then go with SA, it gives your stealth too much utility (condi cleanse, higher stealth uptime, blind, might and regen) to be ignored.

However, if you’re not going to rely that much on stealth, go with the second one, because it will give you a lot of mobility (swiftness on dodge, 3 dodges, and vigor on heal, which means more dodges) and access to group support and boon strip via bountiful theft. And you have 3 more ini, which is always nice. But, another option would be 30 in acro and 10 points wherever you want (with the basic 30 in crit strikes). This allows you to use full zerker armor and still have above average hp pool. I’ve used this build and it’s really fun, but a little hard to get used to.

And one more thing, regarding runes. If you’re on a low budget, you can use orbs. They don’t give much utility, but are pretty cheap and have really good stats, so check it out.

Well, hope this helped in anyway and good luck!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/My-sPvP-WvW-S-D-P-D-thief-build

Just wrote a guide on my S/D thief

I don’t really use S/D but I main D/D thief. I run a Berserkers set with a Valk body, ruby orbs cause they’re cheap.all ascended: Berserk/Valk mixed rings, a Cav back piece soldiers earrings and a berserker amulet.

I run 20/30/0/20/0 with vigor on heal combining with withdrawal, not heavy into stealth in my play style.

For some reason, giving S/D builds points into SA has been all the rage recently. I’m not convinced that doing so is actually useful (read: putting points into SA is an absolutely horrid idea), so I’ll just give you three trait sets you can mess around with, and you can see which one you like the most. These are all sPvP-oriented in origin, but they’re perfectly viable S/D + SB builds for WvW.

10 30 0 30 0
10 30 0 0 30
10 0 0 30 30

As for D/D, a setup of 25 30 0 0 15 or 10 30 0 0 30 are probably fine as far as high-damage builds go, and then there’s a ton of more defensive builds running SA out there as well.

Thanks everyone who contributed to this thread. There is a lot of information here to digest and I have already been testing out the different builds, to see what one is right for me.
Also after running through some build ideas I came up with this.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlYmiP3eS4E/5Ey2jKUo4JvHk1YZWaFoJA-jUyAYLBRySgoCgpvioxWFLiGraBTVCoMXUt3oIa1yAkPBA-w
Does anyone have any critiques or anything advice they might give on this build?

Dravic.5241:

Thanks everyone who contributed to this thread. There is a lot of information here to digest and I have already been testing out the different builds, to see what one is right for me.
Also after running through some build ideas I came up with this.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlYmiP3eS4E/5Ey2jKUo4JvHk1YZWaFoJA-jUyAYLBRySgoCgpvioxWFLiGraBTVCoMXUt3oIa1yAkPBA-w
Does anyone have any critiques or anything advice they might give on this build?

I’d suggest a stun breaker. Can replace the sig for shadow step. That will remove some condies and it’s 2 stun breakers in one. If you do that replace the trait for sigs as well.

My own twist: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlYmiP3eS6E/5Ey2jKUn4JvHk1YZWaFoJA-j0xAYLBRySgoCgpvioxWFLiGruGT5SEVLFQEDjA-w

Dravic.5241:

Thanks everyone who contributed to this thread. There is a lot of information here to digest and I have already been testing out the different builds, to see what one is right for me.
Also after running through some build ideas I came up with this.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlYmiP3eS4E/5Ey2jKUo4JvHk1YZWaFoJA-jUyAYLBRySgoCgpvioxWFLiGraBTVCoMXUt3oIa1yAkPBA-w
Does anyone have any critiques or anything advice they might give on this build?

Replace Blinding Powder with Roll For Initiative or Shadowstep, and consider replacing Signet of Agility as well. Otherwise a fairly solid build; you’re able to take Valkyrie (which tends not to be as good as Zerker) because you don’t get any extra vitality from Acrobatics. Looks good.