Guild Wars 2

I am now approaching level 80 which means I’ll soon be trying out PvP and WvW games (I know your stats get kicked up to 80 automatically, but your gear doesn’t).

So I’m wondering is my build ready for prime time?

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMkzzc0M0MnFvMMMxvM0xGG0caqVRos

And what kind of strategy would I be best at using? And lastly, would I make for decent support in dungeons?

For SPvP i would recommend these changes:
1.Lose Critical Haste for VI
2.Lose Hidden Thief for either III,IV,or VI.Start combat with precast C&D+Steal instead
3.You have NO Stunbreaker

Well,

You probably have a different play style than I do.

I personally love Dagger Storm too much to use anything else. It’s a wonderful oh kitten button for those times where you just need a few extra seconds before your heal comes up and it can do insane damage to groups.

I also love Shadow Refuge. I’d keep that.

I’m big on the Signets as well. I like things that benefit me passively, and provide good utility. I can’t play without the Signet of Shadows. That’s a must have IMO.

That said, I like the extra power from the Assassin Signet, and the hail Mary rectal discombobulating power it gives you in a pinch. As wonderful as another stealth would be, I know myself, I’d never remember to use it, and when I did want it, it’d be on CD and I’d be sad. I hate things with long CD’s.

Traits.

Okay first off, if you’re going to put points into Acrobatics you better be taking things that give you boons. Boon Duration is wonderful. I don’t see much in the way of self buffing here. I understand you want some vitality / evasive utility. I get that, but you have no real damage output.

Granted Damage isn’t that important to some people.

I’m one of those people that wants to be squishy. I want to get in, deal crazy damage and get out. I go in knowing if anyone gets ahold of me I’m going to get wrecked. I find that to be exciting to see what I can get away with before getting caught out of position.

I was big on FPS’s as a kid, and when I play MMO’s I like that same fast paced, high risk high reward style gameplay. Most MMO’ers like it slow, long and drawn out so they have time to react to the situation though. Nothing wrong with that, everyone has their own taste.

Nice thing is that you can go either way in this game.

Not really knowing how you like to play, it’s kinda hard to really give advice.

Your best bet is to figure out what you like to do, and wrap your build around it.

The signet of agility breaks stun when activated, but I know I should have more than just one. What other abilities work?

This build is more damage than support.

There is only 2 skills in there for support which is Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder.

The only support it will give is stealth, which will dump their aggro is they stay cloaked.

Let me suggest a different set up for support:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMkMMc0M0MnFCMMMxvM9MxGGzcqosVk

I am walking around in cleric gear. (healing)

The whole concept of this is heal your party, you will not dps a lot.

With around 850 healing, cloaking will heal your buddies for around 500 a tick. You can cloak them in many different ways. For example, you can use Shadow Refuge (which is awesome btw) That will heal them for a ton and if they happen to be ranged, they will combo it with physical projectiles which will give them life leech.

Blinding powder cloaks them, Smoke screen comboed with cluster bomb will cloak them, black powder comboed with cluster bomb will cloak them. All these lovely heals will help a ton.

The reason why i do not use a melee weapon is simple because usually, i have to stand around my ranged in order to help them our with smoke screens and smoke bomb.

Smoke bomb will blind your foes and basicaly allow you to become invulnerable as long as it’s up.

I mostly use my thieves guild when i need diversion. For example; ressing 2 dumb kitten melees who tried to do an hero. Ill summon my thives and shadow refuge the dead to rez them.

I use my bow 90% of the time in order to blast combo fields. Ethereal fiel will give everyone Chaos armor, water field will blast heals, freeze will chill the enemies.

Try this one out and I promise you, you will feel a lot more usefull in dungeons.

Alright, guess I have to respec every time I do a dungeon because focusing on one thing means you’re terrible at all others. What a bad joke AreaNet played on thieves.

In PvP and WvW I want to be able to survive a fight with more than just one enemy in (no glass cannon), but also drop them quickly. What skills should I be looking for and why?

Are either of these two builds ideal for anything?

Signet of Shadows is cool for running around or exploring, but people get attached to it while leveling up and refuse to ever let it leave their bar. You’ve got swiftness-on-dodge and you don’t have a signet-heavy build, get rid of SoS. You’ll have to work a little harder to get around, but the in-combat advantage of SoS, especially when it does nothing for you after you dodge, isn’t worth the utility slot. The sooner you break the habit, the better.

As far as engaging multiple targets and killing them without dying, that is more on them than you. Two equally geared/skilled players should never lose to one in an open field. You might be able to get one of them downed, but the other’s failure to interrupt your finisher is just that, a failure on their part, either in action or in not bringing tools to cover their buddy.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMkzz9mMaLFMMaLFM0xfafoaqVoc

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMkzz9mMaLFMMaLFM0GxVfoaVRbc

Is Executioner a big enough help to sacrifice an extra dodge for? Or will I be powerful enough to not need it? I don’t touch the power area because I hear equipment gives you enough boosts there you don’t need it.

I don’t want a glass cannon, I want a reasonably powerful killer who doesn’t drop dead if you look at it funny.

Right now in PvE I’m absolutely loving critical haste, because it means an entire attack chain in a single second and it activates fairly often. But is that not effective in PvP?

I’m also hoping to bring my thief to dungeons and general-issue PvE so I’d like to be able to just change my utilities around to fit the situation.

Executioner is nice, but the real reason I push to 30 in Critical Strikes is that both the stats it offers scale off of eachother. If you don’t put heavy points into both, you weaken them both as a whole.

Critical Haste is awesome, but completely unreliable. In PvE you can figure out how often it goes off and, over time, how many more mobs it helps you kill in a given time period, but in PvP fights are much more short and brutal where you either come out on top quickly or end up dead. In these situations if it doesn’t proc it is completely wasted and if it does it could win the fight for you. Personally, I’d take something more reliable.

What about Feline Grace? Is it worth forgoing that to max out the Critical Stikes path?

And what’s better? Quick recovery or Preparedness?