Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone.
Came here to ask for your help/opinion.
I’ll start of by saying that thief used to be my main, but around 4 months ago. In last 2-3 months spent WvWing on him probably less than an hour. Chose other proffessions to play on, but since I like diversity and good ‘ol thief is getting rusty, I’d like to regear him to suit our guild’s play style and log him once a week when I get bored of other proffessions (solo ranger and for group higly supportive ele).

What I’m looking for?
We’re 4 roamer guys, each of us with highly deffensive stats and some little burst once a time (20-30% c. damage and stuff). I’d like now to get more out of thief by using S/D set instead of D/D as it used to be (which is considered as highly bursty), still without loosing good potential damage thief have.

Here’s the build I came out with:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|c.1g.h17.8.1g.h8|5.1g.h17|1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7|1c.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1c.67|a3.u36c.u45b.0.0|54.7|57.5h.5a.5b.0|e

(could change to 0-30-30-0-10 and trait in Critical Strikes to maintain 50% fury up time).
I would like to sneak and disturb enemies while rest of group is defending themselves (and with thief’s ability, grant us escape by stealthing us).
SB is for mobility, blasts and in general AoE.

And here are the questions:
Are those stats good enough for S/D thief (mainly talking here about critical damage)? What could I possibly change still dealing 1.7-3k damage under critical by #1 skill?

PS: I chose items with lowest stats to critical damage ratio beside weapons. So eg. berserker pauldron of armor or exotic trinkets are rather poor option to increase it.

PS 2: It’s not meant to be for 1vs1 or solo roaming. I won’t do it on thief.

I actually use a S/D, SB build on my thief for solo roaming. Difference is I use full berserker’s gear and weapons. It’s great for getting in and out and shadow stepping out of your opponent’s line of sight then seeming coming out of nowhere to muder them.

I would rather go a little more into valkyrietrinkets and get hp rather than knight.
You will live longer AND hit harder. You trade a tiny bit of critchance for high amount of damage and more survivability
As you should have a lot of uptime on fury. Any roaming team has an auramancer nowadays anyway. 95% critchance (fury and stacks included) in my opinion is a little too much.
Paired with the anytimer free stunbreaks and conditionremoves from sword, more hp could let you tank a bit more in a skirmish with a small zerg having wellnecros and staff eles. With 15k hp they are going to murder you just by spamming their aoes on the floor. Or just a backstabnab or zephyrranger adding into the fight.

jm2c

You might want to take into account runes and sigils that get you longer stuns. Almost 2 sec stun feels like forever. Also with offhand dagger you can spam stuns like autoattacks.
I know blindingpowder is a free stealth for your team, but f.g. for kiting id rather get cantrips or shadowstep to get into the backlines even further.

With a sword I would always use executioner (XI) in critical strikes. Again: you have 95% critical chance, what do you need the other 5% for, wasting 20% dps on your job (finishing off low hp targets)?
Even with less critical chance. You dont need to crit out of stealth. Your win is the stun/daze, not a 10k backstab.

The flamblast on the Sb is nice to have. Often you will use SB to get out of a fight as fast as possibru if sword two would teleport you back into the zerg even deeper. I like to have hydromancer for aoe chill in it.

I am working on a groupviable build with s/d too and would appreciate if you shared your exp.

10/30/30/0/0 however is great for roaming solo or in duo, but I dont think I will stick to it when roaming with BNF. Less dps and more escape would be more rewarding, I guess. You dont need mug as opening burst and will get might buffed all the time anyway.

Thanks for advices.
I’ve got experience with D/D thief and some S/D thief and here are my thoughts about the build above:
The changed trait to 20% more damage to half-hp target might be really nice, since at least 3/4 hits will come from me, not being in stealth.
The 100% crit while in stealth was meant for burst (tho damage shouldn’t be higher than 2k from sword), but also something I could count on. With Sigil of fire, it’d be additional 1k damage from it once every 5-10seconds and 330health every 2nd time from omnomberry food.
Valkirie items aren’t an options. Ratio stats:critcal damage is simply too high, but I could use some different orbs and jewel to trinkets. Then I’m not losing anything (5-7stats = 1 critical damage).
It’s not really meant to be D/D build. 70 critical damage for it is way too low.

PS: With our 4 people group (including me) we can’t stack fury on each others really that way. So counting 25 stacks and perma fury is rather paradise situation. Therefore critical chance would stay tad over 55 probably (not including additional 12% chance from traits – 5% while health above 90% and 7% from side/back).
And it’s just meant to be for fun, for any serious fight or if I actually wanted to do something, I’d log class I’ve got experience on – ele.

Yes, thats my situation too. For serious fights, ele is just more competitive, rewarding and benificent for the group. What is really sad, as it is also utterly OP and can get boring very fast on d/d.

On solobuild with 106% crittdamage I crit for 4-8k with sword. Depending on might, target hp and what builld I run. As the basedamage from out of stealth is pretty low I’d really change it for executioner.

Still I see a rather high crit chance, even without permafury it is around 70% with full perception stacks. If you dont want to trade it for critdamage, what is right on s/d as you dont profit as much from it as with a dagger, I would still try to trade at least 100 precision for 100 vitality. Maybe through soldierstats. 15k hp seems to be pretty few for a groupfight, as you will take much more AoE damage than as a roamer.

I run around 50% critchance and the critrate is just fine for me. Around 60 with stacks.
The sword hits pretty hard with a full AA-chain, even without critting and your target will be permacrippled so it is not so bad if you dont burst to fast.

Looking forward to meet you guys next week again so I can see how it goes on fridays event behind the mill.

Cheers.

Interesting.
With around 100-110 critical damage and base attack 3100 my highest sword critical was for 4.7k to some underleveled mesmer (he probably didn’t even have 1500 armor).
Talking about Elementalist… I don’t think they are THAT overpowered. Most of us (including me) are running highly deffensive builds, so we choose survivability over damage. But D/D thieves and mesmers are running highly cannon builds still having great survivability and much much much higher damage. And I simply love playing part role of supporter.
I’m still wondering about the critical damage (critical chance will stay as it is, since it will be higher profit with that build) to not drop it by maybe 10 (put some runes instead).
About health – it should be base 15k and 2.8k (or more) armor. Health will get around 1-1.5k boost after 2-3days since WvW reset, so just by changing little thing I’d end up with 17k health. And health regen should stay pretty high from stealth, life steal food and most likely perma regen from group.

PS: What proffession will you participate at “duel evening” in 2 weeks?

After shadow Refuge you have 10 stacks might and with executioner and vulnerability from mates you get 45% extra dps. Flanking Strike can hit even harder. I will join with thief or ele. Probably both.

Cheers!

I use S/D + SB with Berserker gear, Mesmer Runes(Daze), +Stun% sigils on the S and D(Fire on my Shortbow), and Celestial Amulet and rings with berserker earrings(Will change earrings to celestial when I get them ascended).

My traits are 15/0/10/15/30. Mug, weaken with poison(Shortbow and steal, dagger if I mainhand it), init back on stealth, stealth on fall damage(with reduction, else it’s might on dodge) end returned on dodge, and tricks is might, swiftness, and fury for myself and allies in an aoe, vigor for myself and 2 boons stolen from the enemy, and daze. All when I steal(plus the passives).

My steal determines the fight, more or less. And with the ability to steal boons, I can control the flow of battle as I see fit. With fury granted, I can live without anything in the precision line, and with points everywhere else and the celestial accessories, I have great survivability for one who should be a glass cannon. Add this on top of S/D stunlocking people all day with extra daze and you have one scary single target lockdown adversary. Shortbow weakening enemies in an aoe with choking gas is also very beneficial in pve and wvw.

I’d go into the build more, but I don’t have time. I’ve used this build with very little variation for as long as I can remember though.

PS: You work best with others, preferably other thieves and mesmers who can stealth. Your control just makes them better. S/D is a beautiful playmaker. A LeBron James of the thief world.

Lert.6287:

Interesting.
With around 100-110 critical damage and base attack 3100 my highest sword critical was for 4.7k to some underleveled mesmer (he probably didn’t even have 1500 armor).

Ok, I tested today. It is 3-5k without buffs or debuffs.

Could anyone link the build on a site that is readable?

So, after one day in a 5 man skirmish with s/d and 10/30/30/0/0 I will share my thoughts.
50% critchance was enough in my eyes, but having 60% or 70% might be better.
Also 15.5k hp was ok if I did not overextend and watch my HP.
Taking blinding powder for target reset on groupmates I highly recommend.
2500 Armor feels very low and I will trade armor for critdamage (currently 106%)
What I will do first is swap ruby orbs for more defensive runes and look how that works. Also some valkyrie jewels for knight.
Maybe I could take divinity runes though. Could work.
When focussed, I did not find omnomberry ghosts very helpful. I will try mango pies. So I will need to trade even more valkyrie for knight, to get the precision back.

I guess in the end I will have gear similar to what Lert posted, with more defensive runes and maybe a little more critical damage and less critchance.

I will try 0/25/30/15/0 and 0/30/30/10/0 these days and say how it felt and how the dps and survivability changed.
I will miss mug very much though. With executioner, using mug and CnD you can burst down overextenders or people that stop for ressing very very fast. That is why I might stay on 10/30/30/0/0 and around 80% critdamage. Afterall survivability comes from smart shadostepping in this build and blind on stealth.
The dps and blast potential of SB at 900 feet should not be forgotten neither.

Cheers!

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|c.1p.h17.8.1p.h8|5.1g.h17|1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j|1g.67.2t.0.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1c.67|a3.u36b.u46b.0.0|15.7|57.5h.5c.5b.5v|e

This is my final answer. Either d/d or s/d, it works great and I can facetank a lot.