Guild Wars 2

Hi guys!
Been reading about S/D build for wvw roaming/small group fights for a while, after trying many builds,decided to go for a 2-0-6-0-6 build,with valky set and zerk trinkets

Testing rune of the pack after the patch,for the extra power+precision from them,and the swift/fury buffs almost 100% uptime (with thrill of the crime trait)

what do you guys think?

this is the build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQJAsYl0Mp0plPx7J8PNBNhwdtVz8O83yaFA-TVRSwATU+JV9Ha6BAs/gIlgkCwchRA-w

also what sigils do you recommend? fire/air+force looks good,but I also like blood or purity

Thanks in advance!

Shadow Arts – Defence
Trickery – Support
Yoursave skill only cloack and dagger!
You will have long battle and dont have burst, low armor low health,low healing power! Stelath doesnt help you!
S/D need evades!
Not good build!

it doesnt seem to me low armor and low damage honestly,being a S/D build,but Ill take your advice

didnt want to use the standard 30 points on acrobatics,since the regen and condi remove from SA are too good to get rid of,this game became all condition based with the last patch

thx for the answer ^^

edit: you can switch life steal food with power/prec food or ferocity food to compensate the lack of damage your talking about tho

What are you going to use for a swapping weapon?

I think if you’re running Shadow Arts over Acrobatics Hide in Shadows would be a better choice. The heal will blind your opponent + heal another condition other than poison/bleed/burning + 4 seconds of healing from the GM trait. Due to that I’d replace blinding powder with roll for initiative for the immob/cripple removal.

I think I’ll need to test this out to see if it’s better than 30 in Acrobatics. The 30%+ in boon duration is the one that’s making rune of the pack work with almost 100% upkeep.

Interesting food choice though. Although I think I’d still favor power over precision.

as for swapping weapons,Im still thinking about it
been trying SB and pistol/dagger,which isnt that bad in a 1v1

as for the boon duration on acro line,it is a good thing,but not really needed.
You get 10 secs of fury+13 of swift using steal and 10s+10s when struck by enemies. It means you basically have only 1/1.5 secs without fury and swift is always up

power food over precision could be a good choice actually,the loss of crit chance would be a roughly 5% in exchance of 100 power..need to test it out

Nah. The pack boon shouldn’t be dependable. I’d say it’s at least 3-5 seconds without fury. Playing with S/D, the goal is not to get struck as much as possible, so the rune boons are a bonus, but not relied upon. With the boon duration though it’s pretty much 100% upkeep. The 30% duration also benefits #3 boon steal as well as Steal’s own boon steal ability.

The other useful point is you basically have 100% swiftness upkeep outside of combat with Acrobatics as well, since you gain 3 seconds of swiftness with a dodge. Coupled with Steal + Rune of the Pack, 2 dodges and steal gives perma-swiftness.

but the condi remove from stealth is a thing a wouldnt give up

a solution would be going for 2 0 2 4 6,with Vigorous recovery and pain response,but that would mean a loss of blind and might on stealth (I know S/D isnt really about going stealth,but Im trying to play it in a different way)

going for 4 in SA will also means the loss of regen while stealthed,but the Pain response regen and the life steal food would do the job

what do you think?

I think you just need to try it out. But usually people pick one over the other. The thing is in either Shadow Arts or Acrobatics, the GM trait provide passive healing which increase your sustainability + a passive trait that increases your damage. Not getting those really loses out on damage and heals.

If going full Acrobatics, there is quite a lot of cleansing options. Basically all your utilities will cure some conditions: Roll for Initiative, Evade/Hide in Shadows, Shadowstep, and either the break stun signet or precision signet. You then have Pain Response that triggers every 30 seconds below 75% health that removes poison/burning/bleeding.

When you invest in full Shadow Arts, you’re relying on stealth for mostly sustainability and condi removal, whereas D/D or D/P utilize stealth by also optimizing damage (backstab). I think personally a Sword user gets more by investing full in Acrobatics, and it’s really just a different playstyle than the Dagger user that relies on stealth. Instead it really challenges the player to time dodges, use the right condi removal, and apply pressure without a safety net.

so basically

-shadow’s embrace from SA is replaced with pain response (even if less effective)
-Shadow’s rejunevation from SA is replaced with assassin’s reward
-the blind on stealth is replaced with the extra dodge due to the less endurance consumed and the vigor on healing skill
-the extra damage from the might on stealth is replaced with the 10% more damage when endurance isnt full
-and the extra amor from SA is replaced with the extra HP from acro

the only thing Im not sure about is: is it worth it to drop 300 Armor/Healing power for 300 Vitality/Boon duration?

I know it depends on play style,but since Im roaming,I like to fight again 2-3 players at the time

and also,with the acro trait line,I’ll need to use withdraw,means Ill lose the poison/bleed/burning remove from HiS

don’t listen to exe, trickery is most certainly not support. Lead strikes gives you a significant dps boost if you can manage initiative well, and thrill of the crime gives you ~50% uptime on fury with sleight of hand. 2/0/6/0/6 is easily one of the best small scale builds there is.

using the rune of the pack makes the fury+swift duration almost 100% uptime

plus,they gives alot of power+prec,so I can use more valky pieces instead of zerk,which means more hp and survivability

switched the 30 points in SA for 30 in Acro and replaced blinding powder with roll for initiative,like Tachii said and works good too..my damage looks higher and I got alot more mobility

had to get a sigil of purity on sword tho,to get rid of 1 more condition every 10 secs

Ianne.7496:

so basically

-shadow’s embrace from SA is replaced with pain response (even if less effective)
-Shadow’s rejunevation from SA is replaced with assassin’s reward
-the blind on stealth is replaced with the extra dodge due to the less endurance consumed and the vigor on healing skill
-the extra damage from the might on stealth is replaced with the 10% more damage when endurance isnt full
-and the extra amor from SA is replaced with the extra HP from acro

the only thing Im not sure about is: is it worth it to drop 300 Armor/Healing power for 300 Vitality/Boon duration?

I know it depends on play style,but since Im roaming,I like to fight again 2-3 players at the time

and also,with the acro trait line,I’ll need to use withdraw,means Ill lose the poison/bleed/burning remove from HiS

I’m personally still using HiS. And it’s good to have at least one stealth move in my opinion for disengagement purposes. But then again if you’re traited for vigor Withdraw pretty much gives you perma-vigor with the 30% boon duration + steal’s vigor, lol. There’s also the food that gives 40% endurance regeneration and might on dodge, which works pretty well with this build, too.

Updated the build after reading all the answers and the suggestions i got in this post and via pm

this is the build Im currently running

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVlsMp3pdPx0J8PNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdHl+2EA-TlBEABMp8bR1faTfQO7PAwRAYLlgkCwclRA-w

pros:
perma fury (in combat)
perma swift (in and out of combat)
almost perma vigor,even if using HiS instead of Withdraw (heal skill can be replaced tho,just trying this for now)

Heal on initiative consumed is almost as good as the Sahadow’s rejuvenation,just a bit harder to manage (which Im not really good at,that’s why I got the heal on crit food :P)

had to remove an attack sigil in order to get the sigil of purity,just get rid of another condition every 10 secs

if you guys got other tips or criticisms or even insults please post a reply here or pm me in game (IGN: Thats All Folks)

thank you

It’s a decent build. Personally, I’d choose full zerk, as you’re running a physical damage build (for the most part), and with all that acro you do not need more HP.

I’ve tried that build, and I may try it a bit more, but the GM acro trait alone doesnt give much healing at all (though the minor trait of +10% damage while endur is not full is a great boost). I’d personally take 10-15 from acro and put it into SA. OR, if you are really liking that combo, I’d replace SR with signet of agility. SR is good, but you have heals from mug, pain response, withdraw, and GM acro at this point.

I also find SR to be of little use for a sword build outside of team situations (spvp/tpvp people seem to get mad if you don’t throw an SR over their corpse).

not getting fluid strikes minor trait would be a loss of dps

thought about the 2-0-2-4-6 build,to get the condi remove,but the loss of dps isnt worth it

having 30 in Acro instead of 30 in SA gives me a bit more dps,maybe cos I dont stealth enough to get the might from the 25 in SA

SR is just another way to escape from fight

the heal from the GM trait isnt really bad,even if low,since u can heal urself while evading with flanking strikes

as for vitality,tried to replace it with though,but it’s less effective against conditions imo and armor is still low even with 300 more though

the reason I got 30 points in Acro is for the boon duration as Tachii. suggested,to maximize the bonus from boon steal and rune of the pack
as for the zerk gears,I dont need all that precision (even tho having more crit chance is always good),since I have perma fury with steal/runes,and power/ferocity is the same using valky

Yes you seem to know what you want out of the build so that is good, and you understand the tradeoffs, so just chalk it up to preference. I like talking S/D so wanted to weigh in.

My main observation (spending most of my time as S/D & SB in trickery, with Zerker gear), is that you need all the precision you can get. It’s about consistent and high damage.

At the moment, you’re running 38% critical chance, with fury that’s 58, even keeping 58 up all the time, I’d rather have 49% resting crit chance with 69% chance in fury. Then again I don’t mind sitting at 13.8k HP. I don’t find the few extra 2.2k HP is enough to warrant the decrease in damage.

That being said, I’m only just getting back in to the game, perhaps the overall “balancing” of the zerker damage curve in recent patches opens more options for gearing.

I also feel like 10 into SA is great as S/D because you spend a lot of time cloak&dagger+tactical strike, and adding a condi clear to that combo is just the balls.

I may try switching some valky gear for zerk gear one day,when Ill be good at managing the S/D play style

but as Tachii told me,ppl tend to use 30 in SA or 30 in Acro,mixing them would mean giving up the 25 in acro or the 25 in SA,meaning the loss of dps (10% flat damage or might on stealth)

as I wrote few posts ago,traits in acro can replace traits in SA with more or less efficiency

Hmm. I’m running Valkyrie atm too only because I couldn’t be kitten d making an ascended set for D/P as well as S/D.

But I am using Signet of Agility over SR. The signet provides essentially 3 more dodges (Feline Grace) as well as a condi removal. Keep in mind 3 more dodges is also 9s of swiftness with the runes + 6 in Acrobatics. The passive precision also improves your crit % by 8%, which is why I’m using it over SR.