Guild Wars 2

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAV8an0MBlOhFOBGmCkmiFqiqrnCgDYu6/+x3LEShSA-TZBEABIcUAYa/BAuAAmXGIiHAAA

Give it a go, I know some traits look icky but I swear this has more damage and troll potential than d/p imo due to the evade (not stated in the tooltip) on 3 and sword 2

We run a similar build but with Air/Force, Energy/Hydro, Exuberance and Deadly Arts.

Interesting build! Can you go over some of the points on how to use it? I’m a big sucker for sword on Thief so I would love to find a build using it that works. One question though… sure, sword 3 gives evade (though there is that initial delay where you’re vulnerable), but what about rooting opponents in place? This was always the difficulty with this setup for me when I was experimenting with it a year ago or so. How do you deal with this using this build?

Another idea (Straegen already hinted at in a way) is using Deadly Arts but with Mug, Panic Strike, and Executioner. That way if you can get them down to 50%, it will root them and you could then burst with sword 3 and then followup with steal or sword 2/cleave to close the gap again and finish with impact strike. But it seems vulnerable to stun breaks and general kittenery of opponents who (gasp) refuse to stay in one spot.

Basically I can’t help but feel extremely pessimistic about the viability of pistol whip, so any hints on your end are appreciated.

What I do is I use 2 right before their evade frame ends on the dodge (give time for the anim to cast) and then I use a pistol whip. If they try anything I steal to 1) Interrupt and get a pulm proc, and 2) get my pistol whip off. After that I consider phasing back out with 2 again to avoid them retaliating.

Since you can move while casting it (when the cast time Icon shows up before the stun) you can follow the target around so it hits them, causing them to be stunned for the duration of the skill (or at least part of it)

As for the trait choice of acro over DA, the evade frames on pw procs Feline Grace (for vigor), Upper Hand for regen, and Driven Fortitude for a small heal.

If you haven’t given it a go in a match I think you should give it a shot and see how it plays. Using it I can get anything to almost half health pretty quickly ( I guess that is a case for using DA over Acro)

This isn’t far off my duelling build, only I run absorption and draining sigils for WvW. You trade the easier burst of D/P for more survivability but opponents with stab will counter you far easier, especially when you give up bountiful theft.

It’s got the same downsides as the acro staff build tho: better duelling capacity at the cost of less mobility than dash, and still gets eaten alive by a meta D/P thief of equal skill due to the longer casts on sword giving more interrupt chances.

It’s a fun build, but I’d say it would fare better in WvW duelling than in sPvP.

two sigils of blood

Little bit late to the party,

but this is what I run when I do run S/P.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAV8al0MhSnYhTw4Jw/ELXF18zf9df3AMdBg3GMCfAA-TpBEwATOIAZLDE5BAcc/BAXAACHBAA

It’s high burst, good disengage and forgiving.

PI is a matter of preference. Honestly I see it as uneeded as most things melt from a single pw.