Guild Wars 2

Alright thief wizards I need some help. I normally play a d/d condition build and have no problem in PVE killing swarms of enemies or killing other players in wvwvw/spvp. But I wanted to try something else, especially something that didn’t rely on bleed stacking. I was looking for more of an overall skirmishing build thinking that power gear might be the way to go. I’m not a pro and enjoy having a little survivability by having some toughness and and vitality, so I didn’t go for precision and crit gear. But I am having a way harder time killing enemies in both PVE and wvwvw 1vs1. I feel like it takes just as long if not longer than my d/d condition build and I lose far more times than I would like to. Below is my gear and traits. Please somebody tell me a way to improve the S/D or S/P playstyle so I can be a little more successful at striking enemies down. I’m willing to change any traits or maybe some gear, I just want to use sword/X.

Gear is all PVT with with some runes of Dwayna
Trinkets are traited for precision and crit

Traits are 0/30/25/15/0
Critical strikes- furious retaliation, practiced tolerance, and executioner
Shadow Arts- Slowed pulse and infusion of shadow
Acrobatics- Power of Inertia

Utilities – hide in shadows, blinding powder, ambush, shadow refuge and thieves guild.

sword/X was actually never that good in WvW for a main weapon. if specced for “perma evades” it’s good against elementalist and mesmer in their usual PvP builds but actually the mesmer can also spec to counter it and ever since larcenous strike shave, eles also have fair chance against it.

It’s about to get a huge to nerf to utterly obliterate the weapon. I wouldn’t advise trying to learn the set right now it’s pointless.

but just curious, i hope your trinkets are zerk right? cuz I don’t know if you can have just precision and crit, but no power.

20 in shadow arts but not choosing shadow embrace is kind of weird to me.

Other than that, in general your traits and utilities don’t really flow so well for sword thief, and actually seems more suited for a stealth build…

Overall I just kinda see alot of weaknesses to your build. Like I doubt you can catch a warrior, and I kind of doubt if you can outdps warrior regen, and condition removal is also a problem.

Roll a warrior.

Yeah trinkets are all zerk. And my build probably is more of a stealth build. Part of that is that is what i’m used to having with my d/d condition build, another part of that really is just that I don’t have any idea which utilities would flow better with s/x. So I stuck with what I know with my traits and utilities being centered around stealth. Which utilites would you recommend, or traits even. Like I said, I kinda took this build and made it inside my comfort zone, but I am definitely willing to step out of that, just not sure which traits and utilties really maximize the s/x potential.

I guess i’m really just looking for a type of build where I can skirmish for a while against other players doing decent enough dps. I don’t care if I don’t burst them down in 2 seconds, I also don’t want to be able to be bursted down in 2 seconds. I just want to be able to hold my own and withstand fights they may last for a little while while doing enough damage to hurt/kill the other players.

I have personally found success in wvw with a sword dagger build that runs 25/30/0/0/15. I have full zerk and can kill effectively though I may be a bit squishy, I have found ways to use shadowstep to my advantage so I rarely die. However, this build will not be quite so effective as the dec. 10th patch puts a cast time on infiltrators return, making the way to safely fight multiple enemies and not be come absolutely destroyed by stuns when running my build nearly impossible, unless you have a lot of skill. This may not be for sure, as no one knows how much the patch will truly change, but by the sounds of it, my build is going to need to be changed.

My build may be what you want, I rarely die with the awesome ability to shadow step, and can crit around 7k, as well as the dodge on lancerous strike being EXTREMELY helpful. I can 1v3 in wvw pretty effectively, however, I am full zerk.