Guild Wars 2

I am working on creating a Thief for WvW since I tend to roam alot, my Thief is currently lv44, planning on 80 at the end of the week.

What jobs can I do in WvW to aid in the effort?

From playing some PvP and running into WvW for some practice. My main weapons are Dagger/Dagger. For alternative weapons I don’t have any particular preference.

For quite some time now I’ve been looking around on the Wiki, and in the Black Lion Trade, for potential equipment once I reach level 80.

I notice equipment sets/accessories/weapons have:

+Condition Damage, Precision, Power
+Crit Damage, Precision, Toughness
+Power, Vitality, Precision

I am looking for stats that will provide me the most survivability in drawn out fights, I am not particularly looking for condition damage, as I want to deal immediate damage per hit in order to spend the least amount of time in disposing of someone, so I can get back into the action.

As such, I have been searching for items that offer Precision, Power, Toughness. I am looking for suggestions on what to look for, I do not have a firm grasp how stats work, this is merely me going based off of what I learned after getting my Necromancer to lv80.

My traits are set up:

25/30/0/0/15

Deadly Arts: Sundering Strikes, Dagger Training, Panic Strike
Critical Strikes: Practiced Tolerance, Critical Haste, Executioner
Trickery: Thrill of the Crime

There is essentially nothing you can’t do to help as a thief. You can effortlessly kill yaks/sentries and with some practice you can solo camps.

When running with a group/zerg you can also do huge damage and disruption, as well as take out priority targets such as those attacking your siege.

As far as my equipment, I run a mixture trying to approach what I use in PvP (Soldiers/Berserker). My typical build is 25/30/0/15/0 or 10/30/0/30/0. I run soldier’s backpack with valk jewel, soldier’s rings with zerk jewels, and rest accessories zerk. I run some soldier’s/invaders eq until I feel like I can survive enough, and then fill out the rest with zerker.

My survivability in fights doesn’t come from traits, as I don’t run any Shadow Arts. I rely on Acrobatics. My prime set is S/P or S/D, so there’s way more survivability in that set. You may want to consider trying it – perhaps go to a pvp hotjoin and mess around with the set a bit to see if it meets your playstyle.

If I’m using 25 in DA, I take Mug and Sundering Strikes/Combined Training. If I switch to D/D or D/P, I switch the second to Dagger Training. You definitely want to take Mug, the damage is too insane to pass up.
In Crit Strikes I always take Furious Retal, Practiced Tolerance, and Executioner.
In Acro I take Fleet Shadow if I’m using D/D or D/P. Otherwise I take either Power of Inertia (if using sig of malice or hide in shadows) or the one that gives Vigor on heal if I’m using Withdraw.

Using 30 in Acro instead of 25 in DA is a tradeoff and depends on how comfortable you are with surviving based on evades. Since I run S/x usually, I have Infiltrator’s Strike and I always have Shadow Step, so I’ve grown used to these for evasion.

Also – since you were asking what eq sets to look for, let me clarify my post.

Zerk – Power/Prec/Crit Dmg. These scale very well in accessory slots as the Crit Dmg boost is huge. There’s lots of info in threads about the math behind it.

Soldier/Invader – Power/Vit/Tough.

Valk is pretty good P/V/Crit damage

ok, a few things. first, thief and drawn out fights dont get along. at all. you pretty much have to be survivability focused to stay in a fight long term, so condition builds are the main option for just staying in the fight. as a burst thief you run in, burst someone down then make like a tree and get the crap out. you then recover initiative and hp and do so again. the longer a fight lasts, the less likely a thief is going to win.

something else to take into account is that vitality is better for thieves than toughness in most situations. this is due to the thief’s low base hp.

your current build is effectively the instagib back stab build, good against other GCs, the unaware, and the less skilled. it does have a higher learning curve against more durable targets. you may want to switch out sundering strikes with mug if you stick to that build. if you want survivability mixed into your build, you could take 15 out of deadly arts, and put it into acrobatics. you will gain some hp and be able to dodge more often. you could also put points into shadow arts to improve your stealth abilities and gain a bit of toughness. I can’t personally make myself put points into it unless I go a full 30 for healing while in stealth though.

as far as a second weapon, shortbow gives you much improved mobility, and AoE, dual pistols give you black powder and ranged burst, and sword/x gives you infiltrators strike and an auto attack that can hit more than one target, in addition to the off hand’s abilities. short bow is generally the favored second weapon for it’s AoE and massive mobility.

as far as the jobs you can do, roam and take supply camps, use caltrops, dagger storm, and signet of malice together to put a lot of pressure on zergs and then stealth/shadow step out. find weakened targets and rezzers and burst them down. stealth out to enemy siege and take it out. you can use shadow refuge to allow 4 other people to sneak up to the siege equipment with you. stealth rez downed players, and stealth stomp enemies.

the thief plays a lot differently than the necro, so it may take some getting used to. have fun, and just ask if you have any questions.

:Edit for over zealous censor