Guild Wars 2

First and foremost, I play mostly PvE. So the advice I’m looking for needs to be relevant for PvE/dungeons.

1. D/D or S/P? I’ve tried both combinations for about 35 levels each, and I still can’t make up my mind. Are there any good reasons for/against D/D or S/P in PvE?

2. What stats should I stack on my armour? I’ve heard that stacking Power/precision isn’t quite as beneficial because survival is very important in Orr. In that case, should I drop power and precision altogether in favour or vitality and toughness?

3. I’m also looking for a decent PvE build which would work both in Orr and in dungeons.

Thanks.

you need defensive stats only if you are lazy and want to just autoattack everything to death in orr. Otherwise pure damage/condition damage.
Both S/P and D/D are nice in pve.
For dungeons id say few defensive traits (lose condition or regen or stealth, dodges) and everything else is pure damage and your awareness in fights

I use S/P for PvE (with D/D as my second weapon set)

I trait 5/30/0/30/5 for Executioner, Signets of Power, Signet Use, Power of Inertia. Quick Recovery and Assassin’s Reward.

The 5 in Trickery and Deadly Arts can be allocated anywhere you want.

My Utility skills are

Signet of Malice, Assassin’s Signet, Infiltrator’s Signet/Signet of Shadows (depending on what you’re doing), Haste and Dagger Storm.

My armor sucks…typical green/blue lvl 80 trash. My S/P are both rare traveler’s/Orrian of Air and my accessories are all Emerald Orichalcum Earring(s)/Ring(s)/Amulet of the Berserker (exotics with lots of toughness and power, socketed with exquisite ruby for more power and crit damage.

Typically I can solo just about anything in Orr. 5 mobs? No problem, pop Haste and Pistol Whip. Let SoM heal you, running low on Initiative? use a Signet, gain initiative and might, continue your pistol whip spam.

Are you in CS farming events and a good 10-15 Risen are nearby? pop haste, dagger storm and lol…you just tagged every mob in sight, you’re unkillable while DS is active (you gain that much health) and at the very least each mob now has 1/2 health, just be careful not to end DS in the middle of them because you just collected all the Agro.

S/P in terms of PvE is incredibly broken…even in dungeons I tend to tank better then bunker guardians as long as I don’t run out of Initiative.

What about Magic Find? I must have read dozens of threads where about 50% people claimed it does work, whereas the other 50% claimed that it doesn’t.

Would I be better off buying ordinary exotic power/precision/crit damage armour instead of the minuscule extra % to find stuff with MF?

Put it this way…arah is the “toughest” dungeon out so far…

You will need to tailor your stats to fit the playstyle that your skill level and traits allow

Let me give you an example of what i mean by this.

Arah is all i do. Log in, arah, chill, arah, log out. Rinse repeat.

Gear Wise

I started off Running Full Valkyrie (Power/Vit/Crit) gear with soldier runes. Basically, i was geared for vitality and toughness, leaning more towards toughness. I had 22k hp. I would run dungeons. In Arah, just starting out, i was making ALOT of mistakes, but i was pretty much safe. The gear i was running covered up most of my mistakes. As i got better and better, i started a transition from my valk gear to full berserkers (power/prec/crit). The reason? My skill level had increased and so i was finding myself in a situation in which i didn’t need all of that vitality and toughness.

I then started running Berserkers (arah armour) with soldier runes. My skill level went up even more as time went by. I then switched the soldier runes for Divinity runes (+60 all stats, 2% crit damage). I completed my exotic accessories, and popped beryl jewels on them (Power/vit/ crit %) since i was used to having at least bit of vitality. so i have gone from 22k hp to 14k hp. The benefit of this transition is that i now contribute alot more to my team. The most vitality you need if you are good in arah is 12-13k to take 1 shot from giganticus lupicus.

Trait wise.

There are so many variations. But 2 suggestions i recommend are:

15 Acrobatics – Feline Grace. MVP trait. Returns energy whenever you dodge. Pretty much means you have 3 standard dodges if you time it right.
Expeditious dodger – Another great skill. Swiftness on dodge. Great mobility and kiting which you will need a lot of.
15 Trickery – Kleptomaniac = initiative on steal, preparedness = 3 extra initiative..timed right, that is an extra pistol whip etc.

You can do whatever you want with the rest. This too can evolve as your skill level increases.

Last thing. Any decent Thief…no, player, will have every weapon available on hand for the many different situations that can arise.

However that said, the main sets i find myself using are:

s/p: Too strong in dungeons if you know what you are doing. Black powder…sword auto attack…the blind tanking you can do on mobs is ridiculous. Definitely a staple pick in dungeons where melee is permitted. Thieves Do not have the durability to be up close with d/d. And in a decent party, you will be at the max bleed limit of 25 all the time. I welcome arguments against this.
sb: Self explanatory.
p/p: Offers decent enough 1vs 1 range damage for fights where melee is not advisable
p/d: Haven’t used this recently, but on hard hitting “warrior” mobs, i like having the pistol auto and the ability to constantly cripple with dancing dagger to keep my team safe along with caltrops.

Hope this helps a little.

EDIT Magic find is said not to work because people are too unrealistic with expectations. People need to realise that if the chance of item X dropping is 0.008…then even with the max amount of MF allowed, the chance of finding it has gone up, but it will still be small because it was hard to find from the start with.

But with that said, yes, definitely invest in a cheap set of MF gear, If you are short on cash, Rare of even Masterwork with the odd omnomberry bars (30% mf) will be fine for farming orr.