Basic S/D setup?
I can’t comment in gear placement because that’s no my forte, but I think that the 30 in Acro is a waste. You don’t have any healing power and the healing you’re going to get from AR is not worth the 10 points. You would be better off putting 10 more into Trickery for Bountiful Theft.
Also, since you’re in WvW where the revealed duration is still 3 seconds and stealth isn’t counterintuitive, you can actually utilise a CnD > AA chain > TS combo to keep your opponent dazed for a large portion of the fight. The build you have is more of an Acrobatic stealthless Thief, but if you do something like 0/30/20/20/0 or x/30/30/x/x where the last 10 is up to you, you can very easily use a stealth build with S/D.
thiefhitfor2kbetternerf
all is vain
all is vain
What I was using before this patch:
Sort of similar to what you’re going for with a little more group focus. Used it in fractals 30+ as well. For personal use, you can swap out blinding powder for shadow refuge.
What i came up with after some min-maxing. 25 in Accrobatics provides a lot more damage at the cost of infusion of shadow (i honestly dont see myself stealthing that often except with utilities, or if im fighting a condition build to remove conditions and daze to prevent them from reapplying..) stealthing doesnt feel as good without 30 in SA anyway.
Any thoughts?
What i came up with after some min-maxing. 25 in Accrobatics provides a lot more damage at the cost of infusion of shadow (i honestly dont see myself stealthing that often except with utilities, or if im fighting a condition build to remove conditions and daze to prevent them from reapplying..) stealthing doesnt feel as good without 30 in SA anyway.
Any thoughts?
s/d is all about mobility. forget trying to work stealth in there. utility skills should be shadow step (it trumps roll for ini in the vast majority of scenarios), infiltrators signet for passive ini feed and active blink (again, mobility here), and signet of agility for passive precision boost and active endurance fill/condition removal; but if you want you could swap it for roll for initiative.
that 15 in SA should be going into trickery, it’ll give you better initiative management and will add to your mobility given you choose long reach as your adept trait- and trust me I suggest you do for WvW.
nothing quite like blinking over ridiculous ranges to your enemies with that infiltrators strike + steal combo (2100 range, 3000 if you work infiltrators signet into the combo).
I find Runes of Lyssa essential for S/D, you will often these days have every condition in the game on you. And without a single point in SA I find Shadow Step essential for additional condition removal, and solo I find a well used Shadow Trap way much better than Shadow Refuge. Signet of Shadows, only if you can’t live without the run speed, otherwise Infiltrators Signet, Blinding Powder, Roll For Initiative or Signet of Agility.
Personally I use this one in PvE, WvW and sPvP.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYMQNAsYVlYm6NncS6E/5Ey2jean4JvHO4YZWaFoJA-jQDBofCiYLJjgAioAgKAM5RZN7RQsKqIas6aYKXER12bKamzAG0pGA-e
Instinctual Response for solo, Thrill for team.
Shadow Trap for solo, Shadow Refuge for team.
Thief, Engineer, Mesmer – Seafarer’s Rest (EU)
Has anyone ever tried a heavy stealth build with S/D? With Mesmer runes, we can bring the daze on tactical strike up to 2.66 seconds. ( Correct me if im wrong) Then you could either precast CnD or use flanking strike to evade. Could keep them from ever hitting you. I did go 30 in SA with this one.
Feels risky without shadows embrace, but that blind will be just another way they can’t hit you. With basilisk, you could literally stun/daze lock people to death.
(edited by Carpboy.7145)
Has anyone ever tried a heavy stealth build with S/D? With Mesmer runes, we can bring the daze on tactical strike up to 2.66 seconds. ( Correct me if im wrong) Then you could either precast CnD or use flanking strike to evade. Could keep them from ever hitting you. I did go 30 in SA with this one.
Feels risky without shadows embrace, but that blind will be just another way they can’t hit you. With basilisk, you could literally stun/daze lock people to death.
I think stealth-heavy stun/dazelock builds for S/D are unpopular not because it’s bad, but because it’s inherently more evasive as a set with the 2 and 3 skills. And frankly, S/P can do it better.
Well, it could before the patch. They said they’re looking into a fix, though.
#ELEtism
By Ogden’s hammer, what savings!
By Ogden’s hammer, what savings!
Has anyone ever tried a heavy stealth build with S/D? With Mesmer runes, we can bring the daze on tactical strike up to 2.66 seconds. ( Correct me if im wrong) Then you could either precast CnD or use flanking strike to evade. Could keep them from ever hitting you. I did go 30 in SA with this one.
Feels risky without shadows embrace, but that blind will be just another way they can’t hit you. With basilisk, you could literally stun/daze lock people to death.
I think stealth-heavy stun/dazelock builds for S/D are unpopular not because it’s bad, but because it’s inherently more evasive as a set with the 2 and 3 skills. And frankly, S/P can do it better.
Well, it could before the patch. They said they’re looking into a fix, though.
I see what you mean. But if you COMBINE the daze lock with the mobility and evade, i think thats extremely powerful.
As for S/P being superior, Mesmer runes dont affect stun. So you could get like a
25% uptime on stun, compared to a near 100% uptime on daze.
(edited by Carpboy.7145)
Has anyone ever tried a heavy stealth build with S/D? With Mesmer runes, we can bring the daze on tactical strike up to 2.66 seconds. ( Correct me if im wrong) Then you could either precast CnD or use flanking strike to evade. Could keep them from ever hitting you. I did go 30 in SA with this one.
Feels risky without shadows embrace, but that blind will be just another way they can’t hit you. With basilisk, you could literally stun/daze lock people to death.
I think stealth-heavy stun/dazelock builds for S/D are unpopular not because it’s bad, but because it’s inherently more evasive as a set with the 2 and 3 skills. And frankly, S/P can do it better.
Im trying to find videos of a daze lock one, and it seems everyone just uses it for evades. Thats great, but this daze thing does sound really cool to me, effectively locking them out of being able to heal or do dmg. Evade does the same thing, but they can still heal and dodge. I also understand a daze lock is easier said then done, what with people moving everywhere, but then i think if you can just evade until you get another opening for a TS, it could be a really fun and unexplored option for S/D thieves.
Has anyone ever tried a heavy stealth build with S/D? With Mesmer runes, we can bring the daze on tactical strike up to 2.66 seconds. ( Correct me if im wrong) Then you could either precast CnD or use flanking strike to evade. Could keep them from ever hitting you. I did go 30 in SA with this one.
Feels risky without shadows embrace, but that blind will be just another way they can’t hit you. With basilisk, you could literally stun/daze lock people to death.
I think stealth-heavy stun/dazelock builds for S/D are unpopular not because it’s bad, but because it’s inherently more evasive as a set with the 2 and 3 skills. And frankly, S/P can do it better.
Im trying to find videos of a daze lock one, and it seems everyone just uses it for evades. Thats great, but this daze thing does sound really cool to me, effectively locking them out of being able to heal or do dmg. Evade does the same thing, but they can still heal and dodge. I also understand a daze lock is easier said then done, what with people moving everywhere, but then i think if you can just evade until you get another opening for a TS, it could be a really fun and unexplored option for S/D thieves.
I have an armor set with runes of the mesmer on it but haven’t tried it out after the changes to how stuns and dazes work. It was a lot of fun before this change and its certainly a different playstyle. You end up using your entire skillbar. The power/precision boost of the runes is decent on its own as well. I actually stopped playing with this set though once the traveler runes came out though as they fit my S/D setup better.
Has anyone ever tried a heavy stealth build with S/D? With Mesmer runes, we can bring the daze on tactical strike up to 2.66 seconds. ( Correct me if im wrong) Then you could either precast CnD or use flanking strike to evade. Could keep them from ever hitting you. I did go 30 in SA with this one.
Feels risky without shadows embrace, but that blind will be just another way they can’t hit you. With basilisk, you could literally stun/daze lock people to death.
I think stealth-heavy stun/dazelock builds for S/D are unpopular not because it’s bad, but because it’s inherently more evasive as a set with the 2 and 3 skills. And frankly, S/P can do it better.
Im trying to find videos of a daze lock one, and it seems everyone just uses it for evades. Thats great, but this daze thing does sound really cool to me, effectively locking them out of being able to heal or do dmg. Evade does the same thing, but they can still heal and dodge. I also understand a daze lock is easier said then done, what with people moving everywhere, but then i think if you can just evade until you get another opening for a TS, it could be a really fun and unexplored option for S/D thieves.
I have an armor set with runes of the mesmer on it but haven’t tried it out after the changes to how stuns and dazes work. It was a lot of fun before this change and its certainly a different playstyle. You end up using your entire skillbar. The power/precision boost of the runes is decent on its own as well. I actually stopped playing with this set though once the traveler runes came out though as they fit my S/D setup better.
Would you still say its viable after the patch? I think its only .36 seconds less daze and CnD has a 1/2 sec cast time. I think something like 0 30 20 20 0 would work best, since like you said, your using every skill on your bar, and the triple dodge and initiative regen from Accro is nice. I just dont like traveler much, if i want to run faster ill get oic and swap to SoS.
Well you might as well try them out. Runes were only 72s as of when I was writing this. It was a lot of fun. The only real big problem I have with the nerfs this round was that they nerfed the utility on S/D. They should have nerfed the damage on LS if it was really over the top. For now I’m running S/D + D/P on that build I posted to get some of the utility back (interrupts/blinds). I won’t discourage you from giving it a try, I just get tired of nerfs when thieves feel about midrange when everyone else gets buffs (even if they weren’t the buffs they wanted). S/D + D/P pairs well for chasing also cause you can use IS + ShadowStrike to close decent gaps (it also pairs well with the mesmer runes).
The main s/d build is s/d + sb 10/30/0/30/0. Acro doesn’t give you a lot of damage but you do get crazy dodges and decent health gains from it. Plus s/d is a very heavy initiative user so you need the +2/10sec and infi signet’s passive. If you keep your endurance below 100% you get the +10% damage boost from 25 in acro and if you auto attack smartly rather than spamming 3 you’ll stay over 6 initiative which is another 10% boost. Stealth isn’t useful for the set (except as an escape method) because tactical strike is underwhelming. TS needs something more to motivate s/x thieves to use stealth; I doubt it needs more damage because that’s what mainhand dagger is for but I don’t think a 4 second chill would be unfair to add to it.
Tualek & F I Monk / Thief —-- Tk E / Engineer
Highest Solo Queue Rank Achieved: 40
Highest solo-join Team Queue Rank Achieved: 198
Highest Solo Queue Rank Achieved: 40
Highest solo-join Team Queue Rank Achieved: 198