Guild Wars 2

So, I stopped playing back in August because life got busy.

Just came back and I’m at a loss on how I’m supposed to play thief. I read the patch notes and noticed the tweaks to initiative gain and some of the nerfs to curb perma-stealth.

It really seems like ANET wants thieves to adopt more durable, sustained dps builds that rely less on stealth and mobility. It seems anathema to the concept of the class. If I wanted to fight extended engagements out in the open, I’d play warrior or guardian or any of the other professions better suited for that.

Is p/p and s/p with points in DA and Acro the way to go now? How are thieves finding success in sPvP or WvW?

Honestly i went on trying out a 10/0/30/0/30 condi thief p/d and its pretty fun, nasty sustain 3k armor, 18k-ish hp. About 1.8k condi damage is doable without stacking corruption
Con- nothing dies like in a few back-stabs, but you can apply constant presure.

I like my damage backstabber too, but really having a hard time balancing stats to make it work equally well in most scenarios and the amount of time/resource investment it needs in gear is too kitten high!

From a WvW perspective…

D/D power builds are slightly better off than before. D/P builds still work fine, too, if you don’t rely on chaining stealth. P/D condition works very well — if you have never tried it, and you can afford a second set of gear, give it a shot.

Sword mainhand ate a significant nerf. P/P remains a one-trick pony, and probably has less initiative to fuel that trick now.

Shortbow remains awesome and underrated.

Oghier.7419:

From a WvW perspective…

D/D power builds are slightly better off than before. D/P builds still work fine, too, if you don’t rely on chaining stealth. P/D condition works very well — if you have never tried it, and you can afford a second set of gear, give it a shot.

Sword mainhand ate a significant nerf. P/P remains a one-trick pony, and probably has less initiative to fuel that trick now.

Shortbow remains awesome and underrated.

Pretty much this ^.