Guild Wars 2

Tankish/medium dps build, with some offensive support

I started from the runes of Lyssa, because I wanted to use a precision rune with some unique propetiers, plus what I wanted to try out a thief that did not die as soon as I got distracted from the game for half a second. This build has some tanking, and lots of dodges.

Shortbow, self explainatory. S/P, because I think skill 2 is very fun, and 3 and 5 are lovely in pve and (maybe?) good in messy wvw situations.
Edit: better link/build site
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.5|c.1g.h1.8.1g.h15|5.1g.h1|1n.7i.1n.7i.1n.7i.1n.7i.1n.7i.1n.7i|1g.67.1n.67.1n.67.1g.67.1g.67.cg.67|f6.u18b.0.p32.0|0.0|58.5o.5h.5b.5v|e

Full Knight ( tou/pow/prec) armor of Lyssa, knight rings, berserker amulet/accessories (all 5 have the exotic ruby jewel inside, 3% crit damage in excange of a 15 stat is a good bargain).

Assasin signet has to be activated as often as possible. With this skill/equips it gives:
healing (of course)
vigor
another random buff (lyssa 4)
2 initiative
has a cooldown of 12

Signet of shadows is a must out of combat since you have almost no access to swiftness. In combat, +2 initiative + blind + no casting time every 24 seconds, not terrible.

Roll for initiative: awesome to get out of trouble (and bursts) fast

Shadow refuge is situational, “get over here!” hook might be more interesting.

Dagger storm… I just like it for a number of reason, plus at the end you lose all coditions and gain ALL buffs for 6 seconds (lyssa 6)… every 90 seconds.

Can (and should) dodge about 3x times than a normal character due to acrobatics and almost constant vigor (getting 6-7 constant stacks of might in the process, and + 10% damage from acrobatics), support the team with full time poison + weakness + a bit of vulnerability.

About 60% crit chance + 20% fury uptime, 13k hp, 2400 armor, +70% crit damage (so actually +120%). Sigils of +5% crit chance and sigil of blood on the pistol for extra melee staying power.

Now, how does this rate in the pve and wvw metagame, compared to the more classical builds?
What do you think about it in general?

For PvE anything is fine. That being said

-25 into acrobatics isn’t all that great. You don’t have many abilities that provide boons outside of lyssa (which is only every 90 seconds). You can easily compensate for 100 vitality if you desired. I would suggest going no more than 15 into acrobatics. That will provide all the evades you need.

Move 10 points into first line. 10% dmg from having conditon on target is much better, namely because making sure your endurance isn’t full is both hurting your dps and forcing you to waste defense to maximize offense even when not necessary. There is no reason for you to take vigorous recovery either since you hardly ever want to activate signet of malice. The only situation to take vigorous recovery is when you take withdraw. Also, you can get 5% from dual skill instead.

-PvE all builds work. For WvW, you lacks enough burst to be scary. The extra rolls you get are also not that great since you are not going to be dodging everything since attack density is usually too thick.

Roll for initiative is useful in PvE since you can use it both as burst and as stun breaker. WvW, however, detarget is always the best (not to mention added culling. Since you are not going caltrop tank thief (which you wouldnt in WvW anyways), I would highly suggest against both signet of malice and roll for initiative, and instead opt for more stealth. If that’s too cookie cutter for you, take withdraw to go with blinding powder and you can play with some flash when synergizing with infiltrator strike.

Signet of shadow is fine, but honestly, have a skill in mind to swap in. I generally only have signet of shadow on when going from place to place, but immediately switch to a combat utility when I feel like I’m approaching a location where a fight may occur.

What do you consider necessary in terms of utility and traits in your build? Obviously you want to deviate from the norm, but a certain level of synergy would still be necessary, especially since you are a thief and there are certain things that you can’t live without.

I think thieves guild would be better I am not sure how it works with lyssa runes though. My guess is on cast as that is how mad king runes work with thieves guild. Your still getting stability from lyssa and the thieves provide good distraction and blinds. Maybe swap out the shortbow for something/offhand dagger.

This is really ini heavy with sb and s/p. Other wise it looks good in a group setting if its solo roam don’t know how well this would work.

I can see this working decent without haste to land pistol whips if your enemy has blow dodges and stun breaks etc. 13k hp is to low for me though I know you have the extra tough from knights but I have 2.4k armor and almost 16,995 hp with my setup. I don’t run S/P though.

Runes eagle, ogre, scholar, pack looks like they would be better. Unless you really want the condition duration for your infiltrator strike from sword 2. Runes of the pack are very good now that they have been fixed. 165 power and 100 precision and 5% chance to get fury might and swiftness for 5 secs when struck. The swiftness will last about 8 secs. It procs very often there is a 10 sec cooldown but if you think about it that you get those boons for at least 5 secs it isnt very long and fury stacks duration anyway. I have had it proc immediately after the swiftness wears off.