Guild Wars 2

This is a post regarding god dueling thief mode in pvp. I never understand how s/d thief rotation works. Enlighten me if you could please. I have tried to learn from other as a spectator but having 300+ ping means I wouldn’t be able to observe the very fine detail of it.

Assuming a thief running standard 10/x/x/x/30 (mug,Thrill of the Crime,Bountiful Theft,Sleight of Hand on steal) with slot skills: Shadowstep, Infiltrator’s Signet, Shadow Refuge, elite Basilisk Venom. Weapon set: sword(air)/dagger(fire)+shortbow(air&fire).

This is my make up on the rotation, please correct me if I am wrong. Number is the step counter. alphabet a,b,c,d is the actual attack (dps) counter.

FIRST sequence: 1)precast elite BV + 2)sword#2 tele and root + 3a)dagger#5 stealth (stun now activates?) + 4b)sword#1 attack from stealth + 5c)few more sword#1 auto + 6)sword#2 port back.

SECOND sequence: 1a)steal for mug, daze, swiftness, fury boons, rip boons + 2b)dagger#5 stealth + 3c)precast sword#1 + 4)Infiltrator’s Signet for landing + 5d)few more sword#1 auto

THIRD sequence: situational

PS: just come back from ESO. It sucks I regret much about it. Should have spent my AUD $160 on GW2 instead. Sorry anet for not being faithful.

There are no rotations, for any build or class, except on PVE. Combat in this game is reactive and as long as your enemy isn’t a target dummy you won’t land half of your carefully thought out “combo”

I’ve never really paid attention to strict rotations as I feel it relies too much on you getting every hit off to be effective cause most people just panic if it doesn’t work. I have a opening combo that gets me in a great position (meaning I start with the advantage) for fighting.

The combo I use is 1) precast elite 2) sword #2 once to get to foe 3) use #3 for both it’s skills (meaning the evade and Ls) 4) steal and pop stolen skill (works really well on guards as the stolen ability is another cc) 5) AA to get hp low and keep pressure saving evades for when the enemy attacks and improvise everything else.

Exactly, theres an opening combo you use to start off with an advantage, but after that its all based on how the enemy reacts. For example my starting combo is 1. Precast basi venom. 2. Cast CnD while using infil sig then daze with sword stealth attack. Get some autos in until daze wears off or they stunbreak. 3. Use #3 to evade any counterattack and then infil strike followed by a larcenous strike they can’t dodge since theyre immobed. From there it should be pretty easy as theyre at half health and you still have steal available for a finishing burst (Steal while using CnD, swap to SB to immob and cluster bomb spam)

@Carpboy look I just want to improve my thief skill. they are not really a combo. rather I view them as efficient reactive skills openers. this is one thing if the opponent breaks the sequences. But having a poor sequence will definitely put me in a bad position and requires me to react harder. So what skill do you usually use? sword#1? sword#3? when to use dagger#5? why am i always defeated by other s/d thief? how should I react to them?

Practice. Watch streams of other thieves (sizer and caed). Watch youtube videos posted here on the forums.

Cool trick when fighting another s/d thief, when they go for a flanking strike activate yours right after they use theirs as you’ll avoid their damage and instead out yours into them. Like I said earlier, if you use an opening combo (mine for example) Then because you have gone through a burst (effectiveness depends on what the enemy did, most just end up taking it completely cause they have no stun breaks or if they do you can immediately steal to them to interrupt whatever actions they are doing and gain the upper hand again)

I tend to avoid using the #5 as stealth doesn’t really fit into an s/d build unless you spec for it (my spread is normally 2/0/2/4/6 so I get lots of condi removal and still keep all my benefits) I would say generally you want to be auto attacking until your enemy goes for a burst (you’ll pick up more of what that looks like with experience) then you can dodge or pop #3 to evade their attack.

Now another awesome tip: When facing any build that stacks might, use boon strips as much as possible without spamming 3 (so what that means is pop the #3 twice to get a boon strip off and then dance around a bit while auto attacking for a bit then go for a strip again. (also remember to be using steal as much as possible for more boon strips) What generally happens is you’ll rip off their 20+ might stacks and then be able to burst them down in a few seconds when you follow that approach.

Is there’s anything else I can do to help let me know!

If you want to improve, start doing 1v1s using ONLY sword, without offhand weapon.

There is no rotation, on any class, especially not Thief. When you get to a certain level, people will try to predict your movements and skills, and sticking to a rotation makes you predictable and weak vs high tier players. Some classes may have a “rotation”, like for example when I was a nub ele I used to do RtL, Updraft, Burning Speed, Fire Grab every single time, but the second I faced a good player they would completely counter everything I did.

-Teef Teef Teef Teef

Zord.6130:

If you want to improve, start doing 1v1s using ONLY sword, without offhand weapon.

Then he won’t learn to cnd well, which is important even for S/D.

Or, you know, flanking strike/LS, which is extremely important.

I play wvw and not pvp but

You have completely excluded flanking/lacernous from your rotations which is the bread&butter of S/D playing. c&d should be very situational, i almost never use it and i don’t use basilisk either, the main thing you have to do is time your dodge and use flanking strike smartly. The main rotation should be FS → LS → AA → dodge

After the nerf to paralyzation signet and tactical strike the daze on 1 is not actually so great to be spammed

Hint

Press 3 a lot

Delta Blues.8507:

I play wvw and not pvp but

You have completely excluded flanking/lacernous from your rotations which is the bread&butter of S/D playing. c&d should be very situational, i almost never use it and i don’t use basilisk either, the main thing you have to do is time your dodge and use flanking strike smartly. The main rotation should be FS -> LS -> AA -> dodge

After the nerf to paralyzation signet and tactical strike the daze on 1 is not actually so great to be spammed

Disagree to a certain extent. If you are traited into shadow arts and roaming in WvW with S/D then CnD is highly effective. Also the daze may not be OP anymore but it still allows you a few auto attacks and it is highly useful IMO. Also spamming LS after FS tends to be ineffective. I see lots of good S/D thieves use FS far away from the opponent not looking to hit them to then set up a Mug + LS or Inf Sig + LS

Also its a bad idea in general to use LS right after FS because you know, then its predictable. You have the occasional blocking opponent running in circles, then 2-3 FS->LS chains are in the right place, but otherwise i´d use LS when the enemy does not see it coming and use FS as a gap closer, repositioner or simply as a timed evade (if the game lets you activate it, that is. Aftercast animations and the not interruptable nature of running casts by FS want to say hi). While i´m not that experienced with thief since i´m just a WvW solo roamer and duelist, part of being successfull with S/D relies on not being predictable. If your opponent moans that “S/D is so kitten random” you definitely did it right.

Spamming #3 may be sufficient vs inexperienced players just like dagger #2 spam is, but vs more experienced players you need to play the mindgame.

Oh, and even without Shadow Arts some CnD can be pretty effective. Repositioning without beeing seen is valuable, and especially useful vs stealthy opponents like mesmers and othe rthieves or whenever you need to vanish for three seconds of breathing time, or to setup a nice immobilized burst with Shortbow.

Oh right i don’t have SA so i didn’t consider that

On the LS thing it’s ofcourse situational but actually most times you land it better after a flanking than not, you should keep track of your enemy’s endurance. Also keeping LS ready on your bar means you won’t have an on-demand evade which you need many times

But yeah it all comes down to individual playstyle, i wasn’t saying that cnd is useless, just saying that i wouldn’t “spam” it.

But don’t get me wrong i see your point and I do agree, but “unpredictability” (if that’s a word) comes with practice and you can’t really teach it, OP was asking for rotations and I told him one that i think can be effective

But i guess that’s the beauty of the sword/dagger thief, pretty much every skill is situational