Guild Wars 2

I wanted to know if I could please get some help with my build and / or strategies.

Basically I wanted to make a build with SB + S/P that is very mobile and dodge based. I wanted to be able to dodge around and plink away with the Shortbow, then, if needed or faced with a 1v1, have the secondary weaponset be something I can switch to for a quick burst of damage as Shortbow seems to be lacking in burst.

Here is my build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAV8alsMp7plOxzJ0PNhOBt9ACQB4KFdXk4GEA-TlhFwAAuIAG3fU+ZS9nL6GE8EAqqEMAACAX3mH9mH9mBA-w

I seem to do pretty well in sPvP, but whenever I step foot into WvW it always seems like P/D thieves shadowshot up to me for 1k, mug for 1K, heartseeker stealth, then backstab me for 6k, doing over half of my health in damage in literally a matter of seconds. Any attempt to fight back fails due to being blinded and the stealth causing my attack to target a different nearby enemy. By the time I can retarget I am faced with another backstab or a few heartseekers which destroy my remaining health in a matter of seconds as well.

I intended this build to be fairly defensive and I do not seem to have problems with any other class. However, D/P thieves literally kill me in a matter of seconds with me being unable to retaliate in any meaningful manner.

I chose S/P as my off-hand set in my build to switch and pistol whip for sudden burst when needed, but would S/D be better as the dual skill adds more evades? It just seems like it wouldn’t matter because of the black powder field + blind.

Any advice / help is appreciated!

You need to use pistol whip defensively aswell as offensively, pistol wip has a very long passive evade you can not be hit while it is active. You also can use teleports while pistol whip is active without it getting cancled (this includes steal and infiltrator signet). Use head shot more, try to interrupt the heartseeker.

D/P is by far the best weapon combo for thieves (well after short bow that is), the only reason it is not used in spvp is that it can not stay on point but in any movement based fight it is by far superior.

Good playing is not a series of tricks, it is not about he does that you do that to counter and so on, it is about methodically closing of the most likely kind of attack and about positioning.
Be conservative with your initiative pool it then hit,use steal more, get stuff from the critters in wvw and use that.

(edit) Your build is not defensive at all, you are glass and glas breaks fast. 2 sec without evading will kill you against anyone with half a clue, any condition build of any proffession will shred you. You have a lot of orange gear, with that kind of equipment you will lose to players with full ascended gear if you try to beat them in a damage race, the stat difference is tremendous.

The build is very very glassy to start, if your just basing it off how youd gear in Spvp zerk has vitality there which probably helps you survive better. WvW you want zerk peices but since they dont have vitality or toughness you want to mix in some other to get a happy medium. As far as the fight goes Bazzoong did really well explaining that, but try to swap out some rings or weapons for something with some more defensive stats.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAV8al0Mp7plOxyJ8PNBNBt9wbQE8OMfpMaFAA-TZRBwAReAAD3fQzFAAwBB4xRAAA

Here is / was the meta Pistol Whip build for sPvP.

A lot of WvW thieves seem to run Signet of Shadows. That’s fine for long distance running, but you will get a lot more mileage out of the other signets while actually in combat. It’s not that difficult to swap signets out before a fight either.

A big part of using S/P is learning to pre-cast Pistol Whip and Stealing/Infiltrator Signeting to your target to get that instant stun and follow up damage. It is very hard to avoid when used this way. Its the same concept as doing a mug/back stab.

D/P thieves have a natural advantage over really any other kind of thief, which means you have to out play them. Staying mobile with sword #2 and your Steal/Signet/Shadowstep plays a big part in avoiding a lot of back stabs. Dodging at the right times is important too. Really though, any Thief vs Thief fight comes down to reaction time and mechanics. If you have played D/P enough, you should be able to anticipate the stealths and back stabs and react accordingly.

I really recommend switching your traits up, you aren’t taking advantage of most of them with your weapons. Your 2 points in SA are wasted on a build that doesn’t stealth often. Vigorous Recovery is better when used with Withdraw, and Assassin’s Reward is overall a bad trait. If you want to run S/D, Acrobatics is a great trait line to complement it. For S/P however, I really recommend a Trickery build.

Also, use your Short Bow liberally. Too many thieves use it only for mobility or zerg fighting. It does good ranged dps, initiative free, and Cluster Bomb does REALLY good dps if you land them regularly. Especially at melee range.

In WvW, I run S/P nearly full zerker, with only my helm/chest/legs being soldier pieces.

Glass S/P builds will get outplayed by D/P. Mostly because at the heart of it, it’s glass. D/P running the standard 0/6/6/2/0 can just enter stealth and heal up while still has the potential to maintain pressure with sb. The uncertainty of when D/P will pop up will also be a problem with S/P. I really don’t recommend S/P unless you’re very experienced.

A valid tactic could also be: Find a wall, turn your back to it and use black powder.
Either they’ll have to re-stealth or do a frontstab there. I wouldn’t recommend it over a well timed pw or dodge but sometimes you have to use your environment to your advantage.

Use 30 trickery and mug and use S/P not Shortbow. Use steal when you see them heartseeker meanin they wasted 9 initiative and you can burst. Use pistol whip to evade whilst they stealth or you can just stand in a black powder field. Also you can use your evade and if you see the words Evade then use pistol whip backwards to stun. If they decide to sit in their black powder fields your sword range can reach them but their dagger range can’t hit you.

You should usually be able to beat d/p with s/p good luck.

One of the biggest keys to beating a D/P thief is being able to stand just far enough outside blind fields to avoid the blind, while still being able to reach your target.

High OP in this video I duel 3 differen’t thief specs the first being dp while I am running SP/PD watch carefully there are certain rotations that most thiefs follow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRif5d7jU8w

To beat d/P be ready to interrupt after you see a smoke field.

If you interrupt heart seeker they don’t stealth and use 9 initiative. That is d/p’s weakness

Few things with the build.

1. Scholar is a bad rune choice for thieves, especially mixed with zerker. Maintaining over 90% health is near impossible because, in your case, that’s only 1390 health before you lose that bonus damage.

2. Basically you have full glass gear with mostly glass traits. Also you have side strike with little stealth, meaning getting on their back is not going to be common since they will always see where you’re at. You’d be better off with furious retaliation or practiced tolerance. Also since you have limited stealth access, I would take the points from shadow arts and put them towards deadly arts for mug or even sundering strikes to bump your pw damage. Unless you have some way of entering stealth in quick ways it doesn’t do you much good to spec into SA. You already have pain response and Hide in shadows with sword, condition clearing is fairly set there vs using up 2 traits up on something you can do only every 30+ seconds.

3. In wvw, expect glass vs glass fights to end abruptly. Unless you use stealth yourself or are good with vantage points you’re in the jungle. On my roaming build I can teleport over 3k units in the blink of an eye and burst them down in many cases. It’s risky, but it certainly puts them on the defensive which works in my favor.

4. You don’t need full glass stats/runes/sigils to pull off damage. Timing your burst and staying out of their burst is what it comes down to. You can always test this in pvp, where stats aren’t so ridiculous and you can learn a lot about various builds without spending a fortune (because it’s free).

First of all, thank you all for the great responses and criticisms!

To clarify what I meant by ‘defensive’ build in my first post, I meant having active defense through multiple dodges and passive heals from signet of blood / assassin’s reward. The rest of the build is indeed glassy with some good damage. This explains part of the reason I have difficulty with D/P thieves — if I dodge skillfully I have no problem with defense against every other class in the game. But with thieves, especially D/P thieves, it is much more difficult to avoid attacks with active defense due to stealth and not knowing when an attack is coming. This makes them very frustrating to play against.

I did also want to mention that utilizing black powder and pistol whip’s evade are great ideas as well. I haven’t been utilizing black powder much with my build and often do not think to rely on pistol whip for a defensive evade.

I am not necessarily going for a full on roaming build. I do a lot of siege attack / defense in large groups, and I primarily use shortbow as I have fun playing with it. I only really switch to my secondary set if in a 1v1 situation or when burst is needed. This is also why I have hide in shadows over withdraw because while although I really like withdraw it can be difficult to position myself and use it in a pinch on keep walls and make sure I don’t fall off the side. The stealth from HiS seems really good when in a circumstance when needing to retreat from a zerg as well.

Thank you Vince for posting that video! It was very useful to watch a good dueling video to see some effective tactics. I did not think of using cloak and dagger defensively against a thief that was already stealthed. Do you think if I switched from S/P to S/D this would be an effective tactic to use as well? I like S/D’s gameplay style better as it seems to synergize very well with the evasive maneuvering on the shortbow.

Honestly in a roaming perspective I would favour S/D over S/P. It’s true you can utilize pistol whip as a defensive move, but you can do that with S/D’s #3 with less init cost and the benefit of not rooting you while you use it. CnD’s stealth can indeed be used for great effect. It’s still not as great as the classic D/P build that pretty much guarantees you getting out of sticky situations and chasing down weakened enemies, but it has better staying power and mobility/survivability than S/P, certainly.