Guild Wars 2

Hello guys! I’m a thief from Far Shiverpeaks [EU]. I got roughly about 4600 hours over 600 days, with about 3800 on thief. I spent most my time roaming on my D/D thief, i even managed 1v7 some times. I’m a Dungeon/PvE hater so i didn’t have much money to experiment and such but i watched some videos online and decided to have my thief like that.

And then a year later ferocity hit, my thief’s now unplayable with his current spec- I’ve noticed there is some thieves with a new spec (For WvW be it) with short bow and S/D.
It’s quite strong but i have no idea what spec they run- it can’t be the standard TPvP S/D spec as that is not viable for WvW at all.

I don’t have the money to regear more than once so i can’t experiment with that therefore my question is; What is the strongest spec for thief playing alone right now in WvW?

Thank you in advance :’)

Thief is no longer strong in a power build. I would go condition damage and you can go back to your 1v7’s.

if you wanna roam alone on WvW, P/D condi might be the way to go. i personally like 4/0/4/0/6 for the extra power, duration, and weakness on poison as a cover condition, but you can go for 2/0/6/0/6, which is what i imagine most people run for that shadow rejuvenation.

I don’t see 1v7s happen anymore. Those were based on burst damage and stealth. Now our bursts have been nerfed and are continuing to be nerfed I don’t see it happening anymore. Currently I run p/p with some immense spikes in it but I don’t see myself pulling a 1v7 unless they are incredibly bad warriors.

Thanks guys, but is there no real other options than condi or P/P? They both have slightly too low skillfloor- i’ve fought decent evadeish shortbow + S/D thieves what kind of build do they use in WvW?

You can actually use S/D in a normal D/D trait setup, like 2/6/6/0/0. Search for Harley Quinn on YouTube.

You could also go 2/0/2/4/6 for condi cleanse when stealthing.

Or standard 2/0/0/6/6 for evade spam (soon to be slightly nerfed).

I my self pigeonhole my self to D/D, and depending if the target is squishy or not I can land some decent backstabs (ranging from 5-9k, whereas the lowest beeing on higher toughness opponents)

2/6/0/0/6 D/P is similar to D/D for bursting, and still meta. it’s more glassy though and focuses on killing stuff faster than it can kill you, and moving around really fast.

That same philosophy applies to p/p s/d except you use utilities for the correct positioning rather than stealth to avoid damage. The difference is d/d has a greater spike but it can’t keep the damage output up constantly without being exposed. Also stealth can protect you from whole flocks of player whereas positioning can not.

The problem with a dropping dps is that your opponents heal. Your effective damage starts where it out-damages their healing capabilities. A 10% drop in raw dps can mean an effective drop in DPS up to anything as high as 90% depending on the opponent. This is where spike damage suffers more than a constantly sustainable high dps. Burst damage suffers more from an effective DPS drop than a constant flow of dps because a constant flow has a higher output damage. Spike damage is effective because it evades the healing of your opponent so you increase your effective damage by going ‘around’ the limiting factor.

This is why p/p is so effective after the recent DPS nerf. It was less effected by the recent drop in DPS because the damage you put on your opponent is maintainable over a longer period of time. This damage will only increase when unload gets a 20% buff, given you can keep your initiative rolling.

I use 2/0/2/4/6 S/D with shortbow in WvW, it works pretty well. I’ve also used 2/0/0/6/6, 5/0/0/3/6 and 2/6/6/0/0, they all work provided you know your limits. You can’t get away with fighting as outnumbered as a shadow arts build can, but as others have said the days of 7v1’s on a power build are likely behind us. Warriors can be a pain to down without CS, oddly enough just kiting them through poison fields with shortbow seems to work wonders. This is my build, if it helps:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZUQNAsYVl0Mp0plPx3J8PRBNBxVN8OMfpMaFgOjSfB-T1CBABVqqyZKBl4UAglyLvUiAwDAwS1KyTTQR7PkieAGOCABAQACJOxADdiDdiDdiNxJOxJOxJWKgn2CA-w