Guild Wars 2

So, some more well deserved tlc for S/P.
I’ve been on the thief for quite a while now, but I also have a guard and mesmer. I love the mobility and the in-and-out. I’ve been growing it (and at it) slowly and now it feels it needs something more.
This is the build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAsa6al0MpzpNOxwJ0PNhOBt9BCQB8sKTpziEXA-TFDBABf8AA0SJRXKn6TrQDHBAsUiAwJBwS1f0QJYR7PknmA90BQKgqEGB-w

I can say I am succesfully runnning in zergs and small groups. Boutiful Theft, Dagger Storm and overall blindness are quite good if well placed. The burst with pw is awesome. And the dodges… All and all I think it is a good asset to the group: you can easily buff from the enemy(stability and protection), good damage with sword 1 (with quickness is awesome), ranged protection with Dagger Storm and the eventual Smoke Screen plus crazy kitten damage if you steal from a warrior.
Sometimes I change signet of shadows for shadowstep (in case i don’t really have access to stability) or scorpion wire (to pick people of the walls or in 1v1 for starting the fight).
Any ideas on improving? It seems a bit squishy in 1v1, and there’s no way of 1v2 regardless the class.

My thoughts:

Maybe change out your second weaponset for sword dagger? With felince grace you already get a lot of dodges, and #3 on your S/D set also makes you evade attacks. And also cloak and dagger for some stealth, which also improves your survivability. It’s not easy to survive in WvW without shadowarts, but S/D will help you a little at least.

You have a lot of (only) soldier armor, how do you experience your damage?

I was thinking of going s/d instead of p/p, but i will be lacking in range quite a lot, and for those runaway eles it comes in handy. Nevertheless I’ll give it a try.
Normally I can take quite some damage, just that I need to be careful not to withdraw off a cliff or in the middle of the enemy zerg. Conditions aren’t a problem, and the aoe…just dodge away. So, for direct damage, I don’t really feel squishy but if I get stuck somehow, I do melt fast.
As for the damage output, it’s decent at the least. With 20% quickness chance on crit, I burst down light and medium armor quite fast, but for heavy, it becomes a pain. Usually when dealing with guards or warriors, I wait for them to buff up, steal the buffs and then pounce on them. They do come down, but it’s slow.
Usually I run with the front of the zerg and I can easily hold my own.
The bags don’t come as they do for a staff guard, but I get quite a decent amount.

was thinking of going s/d instead of p/p, but i will be lacking in range quite a lot, and for those runaway eles it comes in handy. Nevertheless I’ll give it a try.

You need a stunbreaker imo. And you don’t really need signet of shadows when running with a zerg, do you? You have a lot of swiftness from the warriors/guardians anyways. So Shadow Step would be nice here.

For 1v1s I wouldnt use more then 1 signet, infiltrators signet, for another shadowstep/stunbreaker.

Normally I can take quite some damage, just that I need to be careful not to withdraw off a cliff or in the middle of the enemy zerg. Conditions aren’t a problem, and the aoe…just dodge away. So, for direct damage, I don’t really feel squishy but if I get stuck somehow, I do melt fast.

Again, stunbreak :-) Shadowstep and/or infiltrators signet.

As for the damage output, it’s decent at the least. With 20% quickness chance on crit, I burst down light and medium armor quite fast, but for heavy, it becomes a pain. Usually when dealing with guards or warriors, I wait for them to buff up, steal the buffs and then pounce on them. They do come down, but it’s slow.

I feel that #3 on sword/dagger will help you here, by stealing the buffs of your enemies, in addition to thrill of the crime :-)

mompen.7952:

You need a stunbreaker imo. And you don’t really need signet of shadows when running with a zerg, do you? You have a lot of swiftness from the warriors/guardians anyways. So Shadow Step would be nice here.

I usually use signet of shadows for blinding at a distance. It allows me to escape the first contact. But I guess I can live without it.

mompen.7952:

For 1v1s I wouldnt use more then 1 signet, infiltrators signet, for another shadowstep/stunbreaker.

But I kinda need my crits from signet of agility: more crits, more quickness, more damage.

mompen.7952:

Normally I can take quite some damage, just that I need to be careful not to withdraw off a cliff or in the middle of the enemy zerg. Conditions aren’t a problem, and the aoe…just dodge away. So, for direct damage, I don’t really feel squishy but if I get stuck somehow, I do melt fast.

Again, stunbreak :-) Shadowstep and/or infiltrators signet.

Yeah…you’re right. Shadowstep would be the best option because quite often I get stuck between 2 wards.

As for the damage output, it’s decent at the least. With 20% quickness chance on crit, I burst down light and medium armor quite fast, but for heavy, it becomes a pain. Usually when dealing with guards or warriors, I wait for them to buff up, steal the buffs and then pounce on them. They do come down, but it’s slow.

I feel that #3 on sword/dagger will help you here, by stealing the buffs of your enemies, in addition to thrill of the crime :-)

I agree.

I will give it a try and let you know how it goes. Thanks for the input!

I’ve been playing around with S/D and S/P builds a lot lately,i ended up running a 2/0/0/6/6 build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZEQNAsaVl0MpwplOx7J0PNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdHl+2EA-ThDBwAGVypVZgkTAAWlCAeCA4U/Jl+GNKBLu/AlDUAjDBQCTOBOgCtNBRIAdbBA-e

which works fairly good.
I’ve found out that (for myself) S/P works great in small scale fights (i usually duo roam with an awesome d/d ele) as with 6 points in trickery, the AoE of the sword and the MANY interrupts it just brings so much utility.
I still run signet of agility for the precision and the endurance regeneration that does come handy. Also shadowstep is needed to escape ganks (you do need a stunbreaker that puts some gap between you and who’s chasing you) and refuge because it can be invaluable to your allies.

The downside is that you will still be very squishy, having pretty much no access to stealth means that if 2-3 good players focus you you will have to pretty much blow everything to stay alive and maybe earn some distance, hoping that your allies will do something with the time you give them.

Also it DOES work in 1v1 and occasionally 1v2 BUT i’ve found out a good warrior pretty much annihilates you as you won’t be dealing enough dmg while if they get you in a stunlock after you blow your ss it’s going to hurt A LOT. Also other glass thieves can be quite painful. But on the other side for my short testing i’ve been doing surprisingly well against necros, engies and mesmers. You just have to play with your infiltrator’s return right and time your dodges.

I still swap for S/D when i run solo, because even while against bad players S/P is just pure pwnage, against good players flanking strike is a more functional dodge than the one of PW, and you won’t be hitting them with your full dmg anyway.

Also i sometimes switch assassin’s reward for hard to catch but it still feels too unpredictable and disfunctional to be 100% reliable, even if it does help a bit against CC heavy classes.

Remember that a whirl finisher (mostly dagger storm or the axe you steal from warriors) on a blinding powder shoots awesome blinding projectiles that are just really great if you can safely pull them in the middle of a teamfight.

So the one above here is a pretty standard build, nothing new, but I just hope you could take some help from my experiences from these last days.