Guild Wars 2

It’s hard for me to go with builds I see on youtube because some look very outdated and Im not exactly what was buffed or changed ect since then. I was wondering if a few of you can recommend what you feel is the more effective thief to play. People have told me S/D is the way to go and maybe I don’t have the correct stats or maybe I just don’t know how to play it but I found them terrible in general. Any help or direction would be appreciated. I’ve played P/D most of the time and do the best with it, but I feel like I might be missing something valuable to S/D. Thanks guys!

Firstly: sPvP? WvW zerging or roaming? PvE?

I play S/D + SB currently because it’s the most fun weapon set, not because I find it more effective than the others. Sure, it’s the only set left you can go pure glass and deal great sustained damage and stay in fights for long, your only limits is your own skill, S/D requires great positioning and great reaction time. To push S/D to its limits, you can go with 10/30/0/0/30 with steal buffs in trickery line and mug from deadly arts.
Lyssa Runes + Basilisk venom for condition removal, or Runes of Melandru + -cond food, Shadowstep for removing 3 conditions, and infiltrators strike>shadow return for sustained condition removal. Withdraw to remove additional movement imparing effects. Your source of damage will be mug and auto attack mainly, infiltrators strike or basilisk venom to lock people in place and position yourself behind, always position yourself behind. Throw in a CnD and TS when needed, or FS>LS for extra evasion and dmg. If traited, steal will give you 75% vigor uptime which makes up a bit for leaving out acrobatics traitline while giving you awesome utility from steal.

0/30/0/25/15, x/30/x/30/x and 0/30/20/20/0 are some decent builds as well with their own pros and cons.

Other viable options for WvW is D/P with x/30/30/x/x or 0/20/30/20/0.
It’s a relatively easy set to learn, BP>HS and backstab from behind, Shadow Shot to close gaps. Requires a lot of experience to master too, and people will hate you for “cheap mechanics” like perma stealth from BP>HSx3 or HSx4 depending on initiative regen. Against npcs and players worse than npc, you can also drop blackpowder and melee-autoattack from inside and keep them perma blinded.

It’s like you entered a restaurant and asked what is better – a spoon or a fork.

Helpful analogy dude!! With that said I appreciate the lengthy helpful response Ghostwolf. I am referring to sPvP at the moment. I don’t understand where people get great damage coming out of S/D. Basically from what I have watched and done its me spamming 1 over and over again hitting for 1300 and them laughing at me. Meanwhile when I use D/D I can hit 1 over and over again and actually kill someone. I’m having a hard time understanding where this “damage” is coming from in a S/D build. Out of all the builds I found it the most boring because well one, I do no damage, two I kill nobody unless I get help, three I am spamming 1 over and over, and four when I do get someone low they just easily run away until they can heal. I clearly must not be doing it right. Thanks for the help if possible maybe you can link me to a youtube video that is still relevant today?