Guild Wars 2

Hello fellow thieves

I am a inexperienced thief trying to get into pvp and would like to know if you guys/gals would be willing to help a newbie understand this class a little better. First let me state that I’m not looking for fotm builds and I know pvp takes a lot of practice before I will become somewhat decent lol. I’m looking for any tips you can spare that will help ease the frustration a bit and hopefully in the near future I’ll become a pain in the kitten for the opposition :-)

I plan on using d/d as main and maybe p/p as my secondary weapon set (hate shortbow). For traits i intend to go with DA/SA/Tric. The problem for me is idk if i wanna make my thief a trickster, trapper, deception or venom thief.

Are their any synergies with these utility skills and the weapons/traits i plan on using or any tips i should be aware of? Also I haven’t read anybody talk about tricks or venom skills lately (maybe never) and was wondering is something wrong with them or people just don/t use them that often.

If you want to be decent in PvP, let alone any particular class, you have to know the strengths and purposes for each class.

Right off the bat, not considering shortbow cripples your potential as a thief who wants to be decent. Why? Because you’re refusing to use a weapon set which makes you the #1 reason any PvP team utilizes a thief. Vertical + horizontal mobility.

Secondly, you want to use yet another inferior weapon set D/D, instead of D/P and further gut your own potential to be a decent thief in PvP.

I know its harsh, being pigeonholed into same utilities and weapon sets to be somewhat decent… but on the case of thief and thief alone, going anything but optimal will make your experience in pvp frustrating.

Alright once thats clarified, lets move on.

Common misconception with the Thief class for new players is often the play style of the class. While most assassin classes in other MMOs are feared and very deadly against other players in a 1v1 situation, the thief class in gw2 is definitely not up to par. You are as defensive as a mashed potato and your attacks are instant spikes of mediocre pokage.

So you have to realize you dont have a sustained presence in any fight. Your job is to use your godlike mobility (shortbow) to create imbalance in the field in your team’s favor. You dont go all in, you go in and out like a bee and if you managed to end the 1v2 fast, good job little potato. You’ve done well. Move on to next area and create imbalance. This is called +1ing and thieves excel at it.

Second imbalance you create is utilizing on demand stealth (D/P) and decap unprotected objectives. Most people find it unfun waiting on 1 objective and keeping it for the whole fight…. nobody is that patient and takes 1 for the team. You exploit that weakness by sneaking on the uncontested nodes and Decap them. You dont even have to fully cap them… decap is just enough to distract opponents and throw them off their game.

Third and sadly your last use to PvP matches: Stealth ressing. This is not always successful as PuGs tend to break stealths and make you want to smash your head to the keyboard… but a stealth ress is very hard to cleave and a great counter to safe stomp. If you can be there at the right time (cause you’re busy doing the first 2 things) you can ress people back up and tilt the odds to your team’s favor.

Aaand thats thief… right setup, right mindset and attitude… you’ll do fine and be an asset. Anything different than whats written… you’ll remain a useless mashed potato.

Good luck! Thief is very unforgiving and difficult but it makes the class all the more rewarding and appealing
…for some.

Call me odd but I play games for fun and won’t be forced into a play style I do not like. D/P is a play style i do not enjoy, in any rpg I’ve played I always make a duel dagger rogue (if the game allows it). I do not care if it’s considered viable or not I know it will be a challenge but I figure at least if i practice with it I can become decent enough in my mind.

I don’t wanna use a shortbow because I don’t wanna pew pew if i wanted to do that i would just roll a ranger. I might not use p/p as my sec set, i might use s/x depending on my mood but i know those other 2 sets wont be getting used. I was just looking for any tips about the weapon sets and the utilities i mentioned that can help me out a little.

Also I don’t play a sneaky char like a warrior. I use hit and run tactics because stealth chars are usually glass cannons.

that’s a great attitude, and I’d agree with you on most fronts.

but if you want to have fun with that mindset, then GW2 PvP isn’t the gamemode for you. you can play it that way if you like, and if you honestly enjoy it, good for you, but I don’t really see it working out that way.

but you will die, a lot.

you won’t be a match for any class – even other thieves. you get into a fight, you’re gonna lose 9 times out of 10.

and you won’t excel at anything. your survivability will be the lowest in the game, your damage will be mediocre at best, and your mobility negligible.

I’m not saying you should change your playstyle, and I’m not saying this is fair, but this is what you’ll experience, so you’d best make peace with it.

also, you don’t pew-pew with shortbow. you only use the 5 – the shadowstep. it’s the only decent skill on shortbow, and it’s the skill that makes it mandatory. you get in a fight, shortbow only comes out as an escape tool.

Hannibal.5739:

Call me odd but I play games for fun and won’t be forced into a play style I do not like. D/P is a play style i do not enjoy, in any rpg I’ve played I always make a duel dagger rogue (if the game allows it). I do not care if it’s considered viable or not I know it will be a challenge but I figure at least if i practice with it I can become decent enough in my mind.

I don’t wanna use a shortbow because I don’t wanna pew pew if i wanted to do that i would just roll a ranger. I might not use p/p as my sec set, i might use s/x depending on my mood but i know those other 2 sets wont be getting used. I was just looking for any tips about the weapon sets and the utilities i mentioned that can help me out a little.

Also I don’t play a sneaky char like a warrior. I use hit and run tactics because stealth chars are usually glass cannons.

Sorry I thought you wanted to be a decent thief, hence my suggestions.

Of course if you play it for fun and don’t aim for being exceptionally useful, you can get by playing D/D. Also Shortbow suggestion wasn’t for ranged damage dealing, rather #5 skill on Shortbow is an on-demand shadowstep which lets you travel across the map faster than any other means.

Also, warriors are not sneaky. Thieves are.

Sneak: to go in a stealthy or furtive manner; slink; skulk.

Hope you become a decent enough thief the way you want to be. It’ll be fun but not nearly enough competitive, don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

Good luck and have fun

Hey! I don’t want to create a new threat so i will write down here. I’ve played thief for around 150 hours or so fully pve. Some time ago i decided to try out this gw2 (preiously g1 pvp and wow) but before I wanted to figure out how the game works. Thief class of course fits me very good and after playing 10 matches of conquest pvp (S/D build) i really liked training this class. Here is my question what build would you recommend for me D/P + shortbow (DA, Trick and SA) or S/D + shortbow(DA, Trick and acro) What should I focus first? I found these build in metabattle. Im too new in gw2 to try pvp for myself and i didn’t want to ruin matches for others by my uselessness… that much.

Serind.4390:

Hey! I don’t want to create a new threat so i will write down here. I’ve played thief for around 150 hours or so fully pve. Some time ago i decided to try out this gw2 (preiously g1 pvp and wow) but before I wanted to figure out how the game works. Thief class of course fits me very good and after playing 10 matches of conquest pvp (S/D build) i really liked training this class. Here is my question what build would you recommend for me D/P + shortbow (DA, Trick and SA) or S/D + shortbow(DA, Trick and acro) What should I focus first? I found these build in metabattle. Im too new in gw2 to try pvp for myself and i didn’t want to ruin matches for others by my uselessness… that much.

D/P + shortbow with DA+Tr+SA is definitely the superior build at this moment. With Daredevil traitline there are a lot more possibilities with weapon sets like S/D, S/P and P/P… but for now, with Thief D/P + shortbow is the strongest option.

S/D is alright and it will work… but not nearly as good as D/P simply because you have to rely on your utilities to clear condi’s and have to dodge things very precisely. The effort is not nearly as rewarding.

Serind.4390:

Hey! I don’t want to create a new threat so i will write down here. I’ve played thief for around 150 hours or so fully pve. Some time ago i decided to try out this gw2 (preiously g1 pvp and wow) but before I wanted to figure out how the game works. Thief class of course fits me very good and after playing 10 matches of conquest pvp (S/D build) i really liked training this class. Here is my question what build would you recommend for me D/P + shortbow (DA, Trick and SA) or S/D + shortbow(DA, Trick and acro) What should I focus first? I found these build in metabattle. Im too new in gw2 to try pvp for myself and i didn’t want to ruin matches for others by my uselessness… that much.

Both builds are very good, and if you practice enough with them you won’t be useless.
Also you should adapt your build to your own playstyle, I think this will give you the most of the class. Some very good thieves swap acro for critical strikes on S/D just because they feel all the evades + utilities give you more then enough survivability, thats not a suggestion for you but a way to say that if you feel you can play better on a different way then by all means do it.

Some thieves like to play a bursty p/p too, for me its not as good as d/p or s/d as of now but it is a fun build and you can try it as well, with upcoming daredevil traitline p/p could be better and even a good competitive alternative.

To your original question, If you are only interested in those specific builds,
I would say go with d/p first as I feel it’s an easier to learn build.

@Gray.9041 If I do win 1/10 as a inexperienced player playing a class u can’t just faceroll with than I would say thats something to build upon

@bliss.4305 When i said “I don’t play sneaky chars like a warrior” I meant i don’t treat them like a brawler. Rogues always seem to be a class that is built around offense. I’m sure some of you heard of the saying “the best defense is a great offense” and this is the way i approach this class.

Aside from the opinions on weap sets can we discuss utilities?
I’ve noticed both of you mention sb #5 but am i wrong in saying shadowstep does the same thing? Can I use deception skills to help me disengage or help me with my lack of defense?

Can venoms help me keep pressure on my opponent(s)?
What about traps and tricks, is it possible to make a build for both?

Hannibal.5739:

Call me odd but I play games for fun and won’t be forced into a play style I do not like. D/P is a play style i do not enjoy, in any rpg I’ve played I always make a duel dagger rogue (if the game allows it). I do not care if it’s considered viable or not I know it will be a challenge but I figure at least if i practice with it I can become decent enough in my mind.

I don’t wanna use a shortbow because I don’t wanna pew pew if i wanted to do that i would just roll a ranger. I might not use p/p as my sec set, i might use s/x depending on my mood but i know those other 2 sets wont be getting used. I was just looking for any tips about the weapon sets and the utilities i mentioned that can help me out a little.

Also I don’t play a sneaky char like a warrior. I use hit and run tactics because stealth chars are usually glass cannons.

If part of how you have fun involves a degree of winning against comparably skilled players, D/P is currently the way to go. You asked for tips. Informing you of the currently most optimal weapon-set for winning is one of the most potentially helpful places we can start. If our current limitations on strong weapon-sets bothers you, welcome to the club. Direct your objections about what is fun or not toward the game’s developers and not a player who has taken time out of his or her day to attempt to help you. You were not being odd. You were being rude.

Thanks for your responses. I will try D/P + Bow and see what differences in playstyle are between these 2 specs. In future I will test more but for now I just wanted to get use to gw2 pvp with highest possible effectiveness

@rennlc.7346 Sorry but I wasn’t trying to sound rude all I was saying is that I play games for fun and i didn’t enjoy the play style of certain weap sets if that came off as rude well im guilty as charged. But if s/he didn’t feel i was being rude why do you feel as though you to be the one to tell me?

I also don’t have a problem with other players saying certain weapons or skills are strong/weak. It’s all a matter of opinion

Thief with a few thousand hours and one year of maining d/d in WvW here.

If you are looking to bring d/d and p/p into PvP, just a heads up you will get flamed for using the two least viable thief sets. Our job in PvP right now is not full on bombing targets to 100 – 0 them in a burst. In fact, that is very hard to so and will most likely result in you dying each time, even if you play perfectly. We used to have two viable builds with d/p and s/d, but since acro line getting destroyed we only have d/p SA. We cannot get into the mindset of defense through offense anymore. We need to take max survivability options to survive (SA and rune of vampirism) in order to have any impact. And please don’t say that you’ll get better or find a way to make your idea work. Sorry, but I am trying to do a kindness to people you are queuing with. Better and more experienced thieves than you have tried and realized how much easier the current meta build is. It sucks and d/p is a boring and mechanical feeling set (BTW I main s/d in WvW), but for the sake of your team, use every advantage you have and try out the meta d/p build. It is far better at fulfilling our role right now, which seems to be ganking fair fights and stealthing to run and decap points. It has on demand stealth with d/p and sb 5 which is what keeps us meta as we are too weak to contest points or 1 v 1. We aren’t capable or built to do anything else in a match until future patches hopefully.

Unfortunately, running Shortbow is non-negotiable. Thief as a profession has a multitude of serious issues even WITH Shortbow. Without it, Thief brings literally nothing to the table that you couldn’t get far better from another profession.

You can try to be a beautiful, unique, meta-defying snowflake all you want, but certain things are meta for a reason. Despite Thief having what is probably the lowest build diversity in the game right now, you can still play some fun oddball stuff that no one else is… but you’re still going to want Shortbow for those builds, trust me. It’s just that essential. I’m not a fan of it either but until ArenaNet revamps Thief, it is what it is.

bliss.4305:

You are as defensive as a mashed potato and your attacks are instant spikes of mediocre pokage.

That is poetic! I especially love “mediocre pokage”.
Yo, anet update our wiki, pls!

Hannibal.5739:

@rennlc.7346 Sorry but I wasn’t trying to sound rude all I was saying is that I play games for fun and i didn’t enjoy the play style of certain weap sets if that came off as rude well im guilty as charged. But if s/he didn’t feel i was being rude why do you feel as though you to be the one to tell me?

I also don’t have a problem with other players saying certain weapons or skills are strong/weak. It’s all a matter of opinion

I imagine your response did bother bliss. It may not have been enough to warrant a more defensive reaction from him or her than the slight poke at how you probably won’t become a decent Thief with D/D. Nonetheless, in the future you should still thank someone for taking the time to attempt to help you, even if the the advice isn’t consistent with your personal preferences.

Most Thief players don’t use venoms or traps because they’re very easy to avoid being hit by and you have to give up a defensive utility to have them. Venom-share builds can be good when there are enough people around to receive the venom charges, but that doesn’t happen much in sPvP and when it does happen it WvW there is often too much AoE for a thief to handle.. Most players don’t use tricks because Haste and RFI have too long of a CD, Scorpion Wire is easily avoided/misses/hits wrong target, and Caltrops is only good for condition builds (which are weak at the moment). The best utilities are shadow refuge, shadow step, blinding powder, and signet of agility. These are currently the best in large part because they add many defensive tricks necessary for surviving prolonged fights and escaping unwinnable situations.

I hope this has been helpful. I hope that even if it isn’t, you will still say “Thank you” so I may say “It’s my pleasure” and we may then complete this experience in a virtuous manner.

Amante.8109
Unfortunately, running Shortbow is non-negotiable. Thief as a profession has a multitude of serious issues even WITH Shortbow. Without it, Thief brings literally nothing to the table that you couldn’t get far better from another profession.
You can try to be a beautiful, unique, meta-defying snowflake all you want, but certain things are meta for a reason. Despite Thief having what is probably the lowest build diversity in the game right now, you can still play some fun oddball stuff that no one else is… but you’re still going to want Shortbow for those builds, trust me. It’s just that essential. I’m not a fan of it either but until ArenaNet revamps Thief, it is what it is.

Here’s the thing, i’m not tryin to defy the meta because i don’t know or care what the meta is i just play but i see this was a bad move on my part to ask such questions so i will leave it be

@rennlc.7346 First let me say thank you for the break down on the utilities this is the advice i was hoping to receive when i started the thread. And to your point about saying thank you, I had every intentions on saying it but got caught up responding to replies that basically told me d/p-sb is thiefs only option.

But to all that replied thank you

Mmm d/d it wouldn’t be that bad if CiS wasn’t competing with SRej. I don’t understand the SB hate a range weapon for rogues is usually a SB in RPG’s and with the initiative system double melee isn’t good. I like your attitude on your playstyle but personally I’ve met my limit with the lack of it.

@Hannibal.

Yes SB 5 and Shadowstep are both “Teleports” but Shadowstep has a long CD while SB 5 does not it relies on initiative to use, the Thiefs biggest and best defense and arguably their offense is their potential for mobility, no other class can match Thief Mobility, it is very rare if you ever use SB for dps, maybe for quick Aoe bursts when +1ing and for combo fields but you initiative is better used else where in those situations due to all of Thieves defense reliable on their weapons sets and requiring active play vs passive bonus. If a class cannot pin you down they can’t kill you that easily.

I just have a vision of how i wanna play thief & that doesn’t include sb not to mention when thieves talk about the weapon they never mention 1-4 skills it’s always sb #5 why is that?

So there is no d/d thieves running around in pvp?

@ BlaqueFyre

Ok now i see what others have been trying to say about sb…ty

Hannibal.5739:

I just have a vision of how i wanna play thief & that doesn’t include sb not to mention when thieves talk about the weapon they never mention 1-4 skills it’s always sb #5 why is that?

So there is no d/d thieves running around in pvp?

Not any that want to be effective.

Your topics asks for help understanding the class. If you simply just want to play D/D, you should create a new topic titled: ‘Help me make the most effective D/D thief in the meta’

And even then, most people will suggest you use SB as your second weapon.

You’ve got the right mindset hannibal, but as others have said, the shortbow swap isn’t really a case of “weapon you use” as the thief doesn’t use swaps to fight with, but for utility.

I’m not trying to tell you how to play here, I’m explaining the logic behind why people say pretty much every build take shortbow. You of course don’t have to, but let me attempt to tell you why.

Unlike every other class in GW2m swapping weapons doesn’t generally give you access to more attacks. When a warrior, ranger, or anyone else swaps, they have a fresh set of cooldowns, meaning that in a fight they are expected and generally encouraged to use both weapon sets in combat.

Thief, however, is different. Since our abilities use initiative rather than cooldown, swapping weapons doesn’t really come in to play in fights because if you’re out of init, and you swap weapons, you’re still out of init and can’t use any abilities on the second set.

Because of the initiative mechanic, thieves are designed primarily around sticking with a single weapon set for the duration of most fights.

So, the reason most people take shortbow as a swap is because it is the only thief weapon that lets you do something useful with that initiative outside of combat, shortbow 5 is a spammable, ground targeted, short range shadowstep.

This allows you to get to fights faster, escape situations that you don’t think you can stand up to, and generally increases your mobility and survivability.

Now, next week when HoT hits you might find p/p is a decent utility swap from d/d as if you take bound you can use the leap combo on dodge to stealth with, while maintaining a kind of okay ranged burst from unload. You’d lose the shortbow mobility, but you’d have a way to stealth on demand without having to land a melee strike.

Since it’s offhand pistol, you could also go d/p or s/p in your offhand for the same utility.

D/D can be somewhat viable for +1s, but in order to really pull it off you’ve got to be willing to go pretty glassy. I’d reccommend dropping DA and in stead going for CS for a D/D build if you’re looking to do a stealth backstab style build. DA is really a more condition oriented line better suited for “unicorn” D/D builds that don’t build for direct damage, but in stead focus on conditions and evasion by using death blossom and staying visible in stead of using the majority of initiative on cloak&dagger>backstab chains. Since the evasion playstyle doesn’t seem like what you’re after, the Critical Strikes tree is much better suited for the stealth d/d thief. You could also look in to daredevil on friday, as some of the physical skills (bandit’s defense, distracting daggers, palm strike) synergize well with the stealth backstab style, and the two of the dodges will help you. Bound lets you deal some damage on dodge, as well as permanently increasing your damage by 10% giving you more burst in your gank, and dash makes you basically immune to CCs, incrases your dodge distance, lets you stack basically perma-swiftness and gives you damage resistance, increasing your survivability by a flat 10% which might be a better option if you are really hardcore about not taking a shortbow for escapes.

Normally not so many D/D thieves, the reason why Thieves don’t talk about SB 1-4 is they are underwhelming compared to SB 5 since Thieves use an Initiative system instead of a CD system for weapon skills allows more for having two weapon sets for damage, we mainly use the SB 5 for mobility, like I said earlier Thieves best defense and offense is their mobility not passive defenses or huge numbers from burst damage, being able to quickly engage/disengage is what makes thieves good in the current iteration of nerfs the Thief received. Having 2 melee weapon sets will limit your offensive and defensive capabilities, there was a time a few years back where it was viable and somewhat rewarding to use two melee sets, the SB was still king, but since all your skills are tied to the same resource pool having two melee sets limits what you can and cannot do, if you empty your ini pool swapping weapons won’t change anything like it does on other classes. It leaves you with a CD on weapon swap and no attacks other than AA till you build Ini.

Pope you stated more elegantly what I stated at the same time…….. :/

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Pope you stated more elegantly what I stated at the same time…….. :/

+1 the +1?

Also, come HoT shortbow might not be the ONLY way. If you bought HoT, taking Daredevil over…say…Shadow Arts (don’t even try without trickery, preparedness needs to be baseline but developers refuse. so people like me are forced to Rant rant rant) would be feasible because you could take Dash. Then build like Dag/Dag, the ones that need incredibly good positioning, would be viable. My suggestion to you op, is find two lines that you think you NEED and stick with those. Find a way to stall yourself til next friday, then when HoT releases get DD. You’d be able to land your CnD (instead of 9 init (or 10, I forget- I use a build I posted)) for 6 init+ a dodge. Anywho, good luck.

Oh and ye- Shortbow required until Dev’s give us shadowstep (same sb5 setup) on a 3 sec cd as our F3 then give us a new SB5. Until then, Trickery for preparedness and shortbow for 5… yay…

Yea Im just waiting for S/D to get even a sliver of its former glory, I never stopped using it and DD is a slap to the face but it’s something for now to help with my desires

Thank you guys for the advice and i do realize not taking sb can hinder my potential. When i was typing i can honestly say i totally forgot about the initiative system and i’m glad ya’ll pointed it out.

I was wondering can venom skills be used with the sb skills?

Don’t use venoms, they offer no survivability.

SB is more than 5. 4 is a godsend vs high healing builds, and always use it on downed enemies.

3 is an on demand evade better than the one on d/d 3.

2 is an AoE backstab. I kittening love clusterbomb, so much damage.

1 is AoE ranged pressure that with multiple targets can hit for 3k per shot on your original target, and the stealth attack is an immobilize that is perfect for securing team bursts or your own bursts (esp clusterbomb!).

Honestly thieves that only use SB to port around confuse me, it is one of the most effective ranged weapons in a team fight.

It’d not that SB skills are not good it’s that they are overshadowed by SB 5 and most times using a Melee weapon is better in most situations, in Wvw I use SB to allow me and my 2 Mesmer buddies catch anyone while we Roam, cause being immob’d and having six shatters hit at once just nukes people.

shortbow is probably a must have cause of its versatility..but d/p isn’t.
granted, i did win some matches without shortbow before by using s/p p/p zerker, but i think if you are new to thief then you need shortbow.

Hannibal.5739:

Thank you guys for the advice and i do realize not taking sb can hinder my potential. When i was typing i can honestly say i totally forgot about the initiative system and i’m glad ya’ll pointed it out.

I was wondering can venom skills be used with the sb skills?

Venoms work with any attack, yes.

Generally though, venoms are underwhelming because they’re balanced around venomshare. basically, venoms are really good team support of venomshare builds, and generally not enough charges/too long cooldowns if you’re just running them for individual use.

Maybe you’ll find a use for them, but they’re generally not favored unless you are specifically building a venomshare build for team support.

Man IDK about yall, but I’m having some great success using DA/TR/Acro (YEP ACROBATICS). I decided to sPvP, so I went to the mists. I havent been there since Feb this year, and I pretty much just used what was already preset.

Running D/P – SB, with Withdraw, Roll for Initiatiave, Infil Signet, and Shadowstep, with basi venom for the elite. Using sigil of Force/Air on both swaps.

I use basi venom, puts it on CD, and I stay buffed with it until 10 sec left on the CD. Open up with shadow shot, hit hit (most stunbreak at this point lol), roll into attack chain, shadow shot again, steal (they’ve put up some kinda boon by now), and at this point they’re sub 50% easily, and burnt 1 or 2 stunbreaks. If done right, I’m full health or >90%. I use shadow shot offensively, as well as BP if I see them not moving around a lot, and if i get the chance to use BP, it’s HS>Backstab combo time.

The reason why this is relevant is: I’ve gone against a few D/D thieves, they were doing the whole +1 bit (which I find repulsive and dont commit to that), and they simply cant hold a candle to me, it’s sad. Don’t be like them.

I’ve downed, and finished: Burn Guards, Some GS/Rifle warr, D/D Thieves, Staff Ele’s, Wellomancers, LB Rangers… I only really have a problem with Condi shatter Mezmers. It’s stupid I have to burn a stunbreak+teleport to clear condi’s. Edit and condi Engi’s, F those dudes. Anything with lots of condi & utility/support, which I guess is meant to be the weakness of thief.

As anyone can see, this build isn’t strong counter-condi, then again nothing with the thief is. If you’re on key with your shadow shot spam, you’ll blind them enough to not get condi’s in the first place.

What happens when you add Fiery Greatsword and Basilisk Venom? Hilarity ensues.
Edit I mostly do Unranked Arenas, idk WTF that is really, but I like it.

@Hannibal.5739

skills wise, shadowstep does do the same thing as SB#5, except it has a 50s cooldown, while SB#5 has no cooldown – it depends on initiative. as such, SB#5 is much more frequently available.

utilities wise, it depends on your build. I run a condition D/D build, so I’m usually running Spider and Skale Venoms – which provide a decent chunk of my conditions.

Shadow Refuge is quite important, as the stealth (and therefore healing/condi cleanse) it provides are important, but it is visible, and you’re very vulnerable to AoEs while in it.

@Gray.9041

those were the two venom skills i was looking at so it’s good to see someone uses them
sense thief has a trait that increase the dmg of poison & spider venom + dagger aa inflicts poison i thought this would be a good start. I was gonna use scale venom for the vuln & torm condi & shadow refuge for the heal & stealth. And i think i saw a trait that cleanses conditions while in stealth but not sure.

@Khazik
atm i’m sure i can’t hold a candle to you until i have practiced a lot & figure out what works for me. i wanna try the acro line but it just doesn’t look all that enticing to me. maybe because i’m just trying to learn how to pvp with this class but the line seems to be about more active defense and i’m not up to par in that area just yet.

Hannibal.5739:

@Gray.9041 If I do win 1/10 as a inexperienced player playing a class u can’t just faceroll with than I would say thats something to build upon

@bliss.4305 When i said “I don’t play sneaky chars like a warrior” I meant i don’t treat them like a brawler. Rogues always seem to be a class that is built around offense. I’m sure some of you heard of the saying “the best defense is a great offense” and this is the way i approach this class.

Aside from the opinions on weap sets can we discuss utilities?
I’ve noticed both of you mention sb #5 but am i wrong in saying shadowstep does the same thing? Can I use deception skills to help me disengage or help me with my lack of defense?

Can venoms help me keep pressure on my opponent(s)?
What about traps and tricks, is it possible to make a build for both?

We are in the same boat, OP, or at least the same body of water. I like to play my own builds and have fun. My experience is also fairly limited in sPvP at 105 matches or so. But I play my own builds, I have fun (usually), and I contribute just fine to the team effort; often I contribute more than the other guys. I stick to unranked.

Shortbow meta:
Short bow #5 is not nearly as important as people say it is, in my experience. The idea that you can shave a few seconds off of your travel time only matters in a highly competitive (i.e., close) match. Most matches are not going to be that close and I assume you will spend most of your time in PUGS playing unranked, like I do. Also, using short bow #5 to escape a fight seems silly because a) you need the initiative to use it, and b) it teleports you about 2 inches away from your enemy. Yes you can use it to teleport vertically in some cases but anyone with ranged weapons will just kill you as you run away. So stay and fight and die and respawn.

Venoms:
Load up on your selected venoms as soon as you see the enemy approaching. You can stack as many as you want on yourself. I assure you that simultaneously inflicting immobilize, poison and torment on your enemy (while you whack away with sword or dagger) will put them on the defensive. Nobody runs venoms and nobody expects you to use them. And skelk venom is a very good heal skill as long as you can keep attacking. I’ll typically open with Basilisk and Spider venoms for the opening flurry, then follow up with Torment venom and Immobilize (devourer?) venom after the first two venoms have run their course or been cleansed. The venoms on your 7,8, and 9 keys are instant-cast and so you can literally activate these in mid-swing with no penalty.

Throw in venom sharing traits (only works when you are close to your teammates), might and life siphoning, and venoms are a lot of fun in my experience. But venoms really shine in WvW when you can consistantly use the venom share trait with 5 teammates.

Traps:
Sorry, traps are pretty weak and always have been. Anet really needs to rework these skills. Still, there is some utility there so feel free to play around with them for yourself. I believe runes of the trapper grant you stealth when you set a trap, so there may be some kind of build in that. Not sure Trapper runes are currently allowed in PvP; you’d have to check.

Tricks:
Tricks are ok. When traited they cleanse a condi on use, which I found useful since Thief has little enough cleansing. Quickness + Fury is always good for bursting, even with auto-attacks when you are out of initiative.

Signets:
I’ve been running all signets for a while now and I really like it. It is VERY challenging to play a signet thief in PvP, but when you look at the signet skill set you realize it has just about everything you need (except stealth, obviously): AoE blindness, refill endurance, more precision, shadow step, and so on. I use runes of resistance for the aegis effect when activating signets. I personally think that stealth-oriented builds are pure cheese, so I’m fine with the lack of stealth in the signet set. I still have access to a little stealth via stealing (from other thieves) and dagger 5.

Bottom line: if you play non-meta thief you will lose more fights than you win, but the same can be said of any class. And PvP is not all about winning fights anyway, it’s about capping points, decapping, assisting your teammates, and so on. If you like your original build and practice with it you will get good enough to be respectable eventually. I’m only rank 24 or so, but I can already win fights that seemed hopeless when I was rank 10. And I often lead my team in points captured/decapped without using short bow #5 to teleport for anything.

You’re not the only guy who wants to have fun in PvP and play an original build, but we certainly are a minority.

Hannibal.5739:

Hello fellow thieves

I am a inexperienced thief trying to get into pvp and would like to know if you guys/gals would be willing to help a newbie understand this class a little better. First let me state that I’m not looking for fotm builds and I know pvp takes a lot of practice before I will become somewhat decent lol. I’m looking for any tips you can spare that will help ease the frustration a bit and hopefully in the near future I’ll become a pain in the kitten for the opposition :-)

I plan on using d/d as main and maybe p/p as my secondary weapon set (hate shortbow). For traits i intend to go with DA/SA/Tric. The problem for me is idk if i wanna make my thief a trickster, trapper, deception or venom thief.

Are their any synergies with these utility skills and the weapons/traits i plan on using or any tips i should be aware of? Also I haven’t read anybody talk about tricks or venom skills lately (maybe never) and was wondering is something wrong with them or people just don/t use them that often.

If you insist on playing d/d then get ready for a VERY rough ride. It’s what I run since I can’t stand d/p and since I feel s/d to have terrible damage output compared to survivability, butby running d/d you’re gutting yourself so bad you have no idea. D/p can easily handle 1v1s you won’t even stand a chance in and is much better in practically every other way, from CC, to stealth uptime (on demand stealth is something d/d does NOT have, having to use cloak and dagger for a stealth is extremely punishing in some cases, like vs good warriors), to shadowstepping to your foe, to damage mitigation, to practically everything. I also don’t recommend p/p as a second weapon set. Shortbow is godly in that it allows you to disengage somewhat well on a build with terrible disengage potential on its main weapon set (d/d). If you insist on running d/d + p/p then you WILL die nearly for sure the moment you’re caught with your pants down or outnumbered; situations Shortbow will allow you to escape, sometimes with relative ease. Shortbow is also not a weapon set you camp, you don’t pew pew with it, only reason you use it is for the mobility #5, The poison to counter rezzing #4, the evade shot #3 and the nice burst #2 can provide but standing far away and pew pewing is NOT what a shortbow teef does.

For D/d I run DA,SA and CS for maximum damage potential, as that’s the only good thing you can do. Get in there crit a lot, crit hard and get out before a Mesmer or nearly any other burst class decides to sneeze at you because you’ll realize it’s too late by the time they do since you can’t disengage.

My apologies if I came out as rude, that wasn’t my intention I’m just a bit exasperated with the state of d/d and s/d right now ><

Rekt.5360:

Hannibal.5739:

Hello fellow thieves

I am a inexperienced thief trying to get into pvp and would like to know if you guys/gals would be willing to help a newbie understand this class a little better. First let me state that I’m not looking for fotm builds and I know pvp takes a lot of practice before I will become somewhat decent lol. I’m looking for any tips you can spare that will help ease the frustration a bit and hopefully in the near future I’ll become a pain in the kitten for the opposition :-)

I plan on using d/d as main and maybe p/p as my secondary weapon set (hate shortbow). For traits i intend to go with DA/SA/Tric. The problem for me is idk if i wanna make my thief a trickster, trapper, deception or venom thief.

Are their any synergies with these utility skills and the weapons/traits i plan on using or any tips i should be aware of? Also I haven’t read anybody talk about tricks or venom skills lately (maybe never) and was wondering is something wrong with them or people just don/t use them that often.

If you insist on playing d/d then get ready for a VERY rough ride. It’s what I run since I can’t stand d/p and since I feel s/d to have terrible damage output compared to survivability, butby running d/d you’re gutting yourself so bad you have no idea. D/p can easily handle 1v1s you won’t even stand a chance in and is much better in practically every other way, from CC, to stealth uptime (on demand stealth is something d/d does NOT have, having to use cloak and dagger for a stealth is extremely punishing in some cases, like vs good warriors), to shadowstepping to your foe, to damage mitigation, to practically everything. I also don’t recommend p/p as a second weapon set. Shortbow is godly in that it allows you to disengage somewhat well on a build with terrible disengage potential on its main weapon set (d/d). If you insist on running d/d + p/p then you WILL die nearly for sure the moment you’re caught with your pants down or outnumbered; situations Shortbow will allow you to escape, sometimes with relative ease. Shortbow is also not a weapon set you camp, you don’t pew pew with it, only reason you use it is for the mobility #5, The poison to counter rezzing #4, the evade shot #3 and the nice burst #2 can provide but standing far away and pew pewing is NOT what a shortbow teef does.

For D/d I run DA,SA and CS for maximum damage potential, as that’s the only good thing you can do. Get in there crit a lot, crit hard and get out before a Mesmer or nearly any other burst class decides to sneeze at you because you’ll realize it’s too late by the time they do since you can’t disengage.

My apologies if I came out as rude, that wasn’t my intention I’m just a bit exasperated with the state of d/d and s/d right now ><

Man I used to roll d/d-p/p only in dungeons after launch, it was a good gig. Now we’re the expected stealth bot to rez our downed party members.

As others have mentioned, D/D is a pretty bad set relative to D/P. Shadow Shot and the stealth uptime from Black Powder are why the set is considered so well; you need the stealth from BP + Heartseeker because you don’t want to be seen traversing the map, whereas D/D needs to be in combat and land a hit with CnD to get it, and getting that close in anything but a + 1 is pretty much asking to die because of how fragile you’re going to be, even when building tankier. Shadow Shot is just a blatantly overpowered skill for the initiative system; sorry for any D/P players out there, but this skill is just too good to make D/D ever viable, even if Death Blossom and Dancing Dagger get reworked. Unblockable blinding high-damage teleport on 4 initiative is so ungodly strong for skirmishing that there’s no reason to ever really even waste the initiative for CnD or BP+HS when instead you get the same damage out of spamming 3 twice with free gap closes, blinds/safety from a next hit or for your ally, and a very powerful attack.

D/D has one benefit; you’ll be a better thief, given the time and effort to become better. If you play to even make someone even slightly afraid of you or kill some D/P thieves, you know you’ve got a skill leg-up on them. Every time I’ve been called out by another thief for losing as D/D against D/P and they’ve been willing to fight again with me as D/P, I’ve won. Messing around with some guild-members, I stayed in the middle of our “thief list” as D/D, and when one got arrogant after beating me a few times, I fought him as D/P around twenty times and he never even landed a hit against me in any of the games, while I continued to play DA/CS/Trickery signets. D/D might suck, but learning to do remotely well will teach you how to play the class and use your resources.

My advice? If you want to learn how to play the class well, play D/D for a while in hotjoin, and ignore the flaming from people telling you to play another set/calling you bad/names, etc., then if you want to get competitive or just slightly bolster your chances of winning, play D/P and press 3 to victory whenever you get in a fight because Shadow Shot is literally the only skill you should ever need if you use your dodges and utilities properly, and you may never get hit.

As a side note, while I am not much of a shortbow fan (I play D/D and S/D in WvW), it is pretty much a requirement for sPvP. The vertical mobility is just way too important for escapes.

Source: ~2.5k hours of D/D thief near-exclusively since launch.

DeceiverX.8361:

As others have mentioned, D/D is a pretty bad set relative to D/P. Shadow Shot and the stealth uptime from Black Powder are why the set is considered so well; you need the stealth from BP + Heartseeker because you don’t want to be seen traversing the map, whereas D/D needs to be in combat and land a hit with CnD to get it, and getting that close in anything but a + 1 is pretty much asking to die because of how fragile you’re going to be, even when building tankier. Shadow Shot is just a blatantly overpowered skill for the initiative system; sorry for any D/P players out there, but this skill is just too good to make D/D ever viable, even if Death Blossom and Dancing Dagger get reworked. Unblockable blinding high-damage teleport on 4 initiative is so ungodly strong for skirmishing that there’s no reason to ever really even waste the initiative for CnD or BP+HS when instead you get the same damage out of spamming 3 twice with free gap closes, blinds/safety from a next hit or for your ally, and a very powerful attack.

D/D has one benefit; you’ll be a better thief, given the time and effort to become better. If you play to even make someone even slightly afraid of you or kill some D/P thieves, you know you’ve got a skill leg-up on them. Every time I’ve been called out by another thief for losing as D/D against D/P and they’ve been willing to fight again with me as D/P, I’ve won. Messing around with some guild-members, I stayed in the middle of our “thief list” as D/D, and when one got arrogant after beating me a few times, I fought him as D/P around twenty times and he never even landed a hit against me in any of the games, while I continued to play DA/CS/Trickery signets. D/D might suck, but learning to do remotely well will teach you how to play the class and use your resources.

My advice? If you want to learn how to play the class well, play D/D for a while in hotjoin, and ignore the flaming from people telling you to play another set/calling you bad/names, etc., then if you want to get competitive or just slightly bolster your chances of winning, play D/P and press 3 to victory whenever you get in a fight because Shadow Shot is literally the only skill you should ever need if you use your dodges and utilities properly, and you may never get hit.

As a side note, while I am not much of a shortbow fan (I play D/D and S/D in WvW), it is pretty much a requirement for sPvP. The vertical mobility is just way too important for escapes.

Source: ~2.5k hours of D/D thief near-exclusively since launch.

Tbh, I feel like s/d is even worse off than d/d. The dmg is sooo low for the survivability that it’s hilarious. At least im happy daredevil will fix A LOT of the problems with s/d and essentially give you the choice of either having a stupid amount of dodging with lower dmg output but better survivability than currently with DD/Acro/Trick or it will allow you to have better dmg output while still maintaining good survivability by running DD/DA/Trick or DD/CS/Trick.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAoY6Kl0MhenYxTg/JOoJKfYkGlx+Bug9UHATYEA-TJBBAByXGAgnAwV7PsxJBAA

this build is what i would do in your position

its d/d and p/p with a good balance in survivability and damage; if you need more survivablity then replace the runes with some dolyak runes or something

Rekt.5360:

DeceiverX.8361:

As others have mentioned, D/D is a pretty bad set relative to D/P. Shadow Shot and the stealth uptime from Black Powder are why the set is considered so well; you need the stealth from BP + Heartseeker because you don’t want to be seen traversing the map, whereas D/D needs to be in combat and land a hit with CnD to get it, and getting that close in anything but a + 1 is pretty much asking to die because of how fragile you’re going to be, even when building tankier. Shadow Shot is just a blatantly overpowered skill for the initiative system; sorry for any D/P players out there, but this skill is just too good to make D/D ever viable, even if Death Blossom and Dancing Dagger get reworked. Unblockable blinding high-damage teleport on 4 initiative is so ungodly strong for skirmishing that there’s no reason to ever really even waste the initiative for CnD or BP+HS when instead you get the same damage out of spamming 3 twice with free gap closes, blinds/safety from a next hit or for your ally, and a very powerful attack.

D/D has one benefit; you’ll be a better thief, given the time and effort to become better. If you play to even make someone even slightly afraid of you or kill some D/P thieves, you know you’ve got a skill leg-up on them. Every time I’ve been called out by another thief for losing as D/D against D/P and they’ve been willing to fight again with me as D/P, I’ve won. Messing around with some guild-members, I stayed in the middle of our “thief list” as D/D, and when one got arrogant after beating me a few times, I fought him as D/P around twenty times and he never even landed a hit against me in any of the games, while I continued to play DA/CS/Trickery signets. D/D might suck, but learning to do remotely well will teach you how to play the class and use your resources.

My advice? If you want to learn how to play the class well, play D/D for a while in hotjoin, and ignore the flaming from people telling you to play another set/calling you bad/names, etc., then if you want to get competitive or just slightly bolster your chances of winning, play D/P and press 3 to victory whenever you get in a fight because Shadow Shot is literally the only skill you should ever need if you use your dodges and utilities properly, and you may never get hit.

As a side note, while I am not much of a shortbow fan (I play D/D and S/D in WvW), it is pretty much a requirement for sPvP. The vertical mobility is just way too important for escapes.

Source: ~2.5k hours of D/D thief near-exclusively since launch.

Tbh, I feel like s/d is even worse off than d/d. The dmg is sooo low for the survivability that it’s hilarious. At least im happy daredevil will fix A LOT of the problems with s/d and essentially give you the choice of either having a stupid amount of dodging with lower dmg output but better survivability than currently with DD/Acro/Trick or it will allow you to have better dmg output while still maintaining good survivability by running DD/DA/Trick or DD/CS/Trick.

Aside from PvE heartseeker spam on a boss, the DPS from S/D’s auto is actually quite competitive to D/D, and offers similar burst with much better utility. FS+LS deals similar damage to backstab, and the set offers much better evasion, utility (and cleansing), reliability, CC, and mobility.

S/D was gutted from being a very strong set because of its synergy with Acrobatics/evasion (and thus nerfing) into not being very viable, but I would still argue D/D is worse off through its sheer lack of anything other than damage which is ultimately similar or worse to D/P and S/D.