Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been messing with S/P a lot in duels recently, and a few things have become abundantly clear:

1) Assuming you take DA and Trickery, SA is still the strongest choice for the third line even for S/P due to the condi clean and target drop. CS and Acro don’t offer enough damage, cleanse or general survivability to compete.
2) It’s actually possible to perma stealth with S/P and shortbow (running SA whilst out of combat), and in some duels I could wait out the stealth of a meta D/P player before bursting.

Considering thief is getting more and more boxed in to stealth to the point where stealthless weapons benefit more from stealth traits than the other lines, I really hope that whatever this elite specialisation is it breaks our dependancy on stealth and gives us some real defence. Our build variety is currently appalling, frankly.

well, you’re not wrong

I’m just glad someone said they used sp. Used to be my baby… But yeah, I’m with you.

I’m going to disagree with you on the CS part not being worth it (from an sPvP perspective). At my crit chance, when making the choice between SA and CS, SA is a moderate increase in utility (not bad, but not great for my playstyle) while CS represents a 25% increase in outgoing damage (total damage when weighing the likelihood of crits). I definitely agree that Acro is mediocre and contains a bunch of auto procs that may or may not help.

completely agree

Maugetarr.6823:

I’m going to disagree with you on the CS part not being worth it (from an sPvP perspective). At my crit chance, when making the choice between SA and CS, SA is a moderate increase in utility (not bad, but not great for my playstyle) while CS represents a 25% increase in outgoing damage (total damage when weighing the likelihood of crits). I definitely agree that Acro is mediocre and contains a bunch of auto procs that may or may not help.

I played with CS for a while and the extra damage is very nice, although I feel like condi rips me apart if they can tank a hit then burst (Necros for example). Admittedly I roam WvW and duel more than I PvP, so for me SA has more benefits in those circumstances, but for +1’ing a fight on point you’re definitely not wrong.

I guess what’s bugging me is that CS only really offers more damage, acro is mostly passive as you say, and with DA/TR being almost mandatory SA is the only appealing choice if you don’t want to go full glass.

I might be limiting myself by playing S/P but it’s more fun than D/P imo. Like I say, a lot rides on how good this new spec is. I realise i’m preaching to the choir at this point :/

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Maugetarr.6823:

I’m going to disagree with you on the CS part not being worth it (from an sPvP perspective). At my crit chance, when making the choice between SA and CS, SA is a moderate increase in utility (not bad, but not great for my playstyle) while CS represents a 25% increase in outgoing damage (total damage when weighing the likelihood of crits). I definitely agree that Acro is mediocre and contains a bunch of auto procs that may or may not help.

I played with CS for a while and the extra damage is very nice, although I feel like condi rips me apart if they can tank a hit then burst (Necros for example). Admittedly I roam WvW and duel more than I PvP, so for me SA has more benefits in those circumstances, but for +1’ing a fight on point you’re definitely not wrong.

I guess what’s bugging me is that CS only really offers more damage, acro is mostly passive as you say, and with DA/TR being almost mandatory SA is the only appealing choice if you don’t want to go full glass.

I might be limiting myself by playing S/P but it’s more fun than D/P imo. Like I say, a lot rides on how good this new spec is. I realise i’m preaching to the choir at this point :/

I’m playing on S/D right now for the same reasons you play S/P, so I depend on the sword for low condi variety and Signet of Agility and Shadowstep for more. Most of the time the big thing I try to clear is poison and I treat other conditions like physical damage. This sort of depends on you killing stuff fast though so I guess the CS/SA tradeoff is really just playstyle preference.

me too, have been trying combine among traitline just to find build that not depend on stealth. currently im running CS, DA, & TR trait with d/p marauder… im focusing on critical and attack speed. so i took haste and flanking strike that gave superfast attack. then, in order to increase suvivability i took invogerating precision that gave 15% of healing from critical damage.
with superspeed attack and huge crit damage, i felt it gave me super speed healing every time im attacking enemy, healing signet could increase the healing of course.
now, i stealth less than before.
idk it will work for everyone. but for me its better, coz i didnt need to use p/d krait bleed anymore. many players dislike it…