Guild Wars 2

I have been playing thief for little over a year now. In that time I have also leveled a guardian, necromancer, and warrior to 80. Over half of my total time in WvW and all my time in SPvP have been on my thief. And I’ve done just about every possible combination with thief builds at one time or another, so I’m well versed on the ins and outs of thief traits.

I’ve tried to give roaming a try in WvW as I’m not used to 1v1+, and it seems I just get stomped by everything in a 1v1 except for vs. other thieves and anyone who tries to break commitment to our fight. I’ve had best luck with playing the zerker build, d/p and d/d, and having blackpowder, shadowstep or roll for initiative, and assassin’s signet with thieves guild elite.

My gear is all exotic except for ascended dagger, rings, trinket, and earrings.

If anyone can give me suggestions on how to roam better, or link videos that could help, or critique my choice in equipment I would be greatly appreciative.

If you purely like the initiative system, then just try to do with the new s/p meta or d/d. Otherwise, you are better off with something else.

Having the same dilemma here, get smashed by like every class 1v1 even with all exos/few ascended items. & that’s a clever way to put it ^^^ lol

Look up “Yishis” and “Mugi” on YouTube. Yishis has excellent commentary on his target choices and playstyle.

As for build, this is my current favorite:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlYmiOHfy4E/5Ey2jdqCJKeGOVS1f4qA-jkCBYfAYLRksAiIAkKAI5RZN7RQsMsIas6aYKXER1A-w

Definitely google up Yishis.

The hardest thing for me to learn was patience. It’s ok to stay in stealth a bit. It’s ok to let stealth wear off, then re-stealth without backstabbing. Most people blow all their cooldowns as fast as they can push buttons in a 1v1, so a little patience can put you into an advantageous position.

The biggest thing, though, is to play other classes. I have the easiest time with the classes I have also leveled to 80 and at least fiddled around with in WvW, as I have some idea what to expect from them. I also know what classes and specs to just not bother. Pick your fights!

I roam in WvW with my p/p thief and have reasonable success in 1v1 fights. I run a full berseker build with 25/30/0/15/0 traits, exotic weapon and armors and ascended trinkets. I find that as long as I can start the fight, and I have the patience to maintain control of it, I have a good chance of winning.

My routine is to kite them at range with 3/4 attacks of unload, close in with steal, roll for initiative and then 2/3 more unload. This routine can hit for 30-50k total damage and I have signet of shadows on to keep my movement speed up. In addition, I have shadow refuge to provide extra healing, stealth or escape and dagger storm to finish them off or reduce incoming range damage.

I find this build very effective against other thieves, rangers and necros. It is less effective against eles and warriors but I still have a decent success rate with gfood evade and combat management.

I find that guards still have a lot of health left at the end of my routine and I either have to escape or use SoR (make them think Ive run) and then attack again. Mesmers on the other hand seem to overpower this build and rarely do I win (although I can usually survive) – I hate fighting mesmers.

I will post my full build later for any who are interested although I a sure there are any flaws to it. I am often surprised that more thieves don’t run the p/p build. In fact this build benefits from the Dec update due to the faster ini regen giving an extra burst of unload in the cycle.

I’m also P/P, and it’s very effective for most situations in WvW — whether 1v1, 5v5, or 50v50.

10(Mug)/30/0/0/30(Sleight), Valk Armor & rest Berserker, Withdraw/Roll/Shadow Step/SoS/Basilisk (Lyssa runes).

Basilisk w/ Lyssa counters condition-spam (and sets-up for opening burst), and Withdraw/Roll/Step counters melee gap-closers (or offensively, more ini or my own gap-closers). Most professions cannot soak-up the unload-spam, and if they can (for a little while), they’re blowing their CDs just to survive.

I run a full berseker build with 25/30/0/15/0

I’m always tempted to go further into DA, but cannot imagine losing 30 in Trickery.
Bountiful Theft + Sleight alone, for example, provides a direct counter to Dagger Storm (strips stability, and then interrupts). That’s so fun to lose! :-)

In fact this build benefits from the Dec update

P/P has been buffed nicely in some of the last updates (e.g., Roll, Body Shot, and at some point, Ricochet).