Guild Wars 2

I want to learn about sword dagger thief (pvp), so I try the 2 0 0 6 6 build. I am confused about how to play this build. What are some important rotations and pvp tips for S/D thief?

When I check online guides, it seems there are two styles: one relies on auto chain for damage, for example they would do the stealth auto combo, the other one relies on LS, the play style is more like weaving in and out dodging and do various LS shadowstep combo. I tried both and could not get them to work well, even against the AI in mist. I can kill them, but in such a painful manner. If I try the first method, I will be heavily injured after kill the AI; if I try the second method, it takes a long time to kill them. I remember when I see other more skilled S/D thief fight the AI, they kill them so fast and lose almost no health because they constantly evading in and out. I just don’t get how they do it.

Ty

this kind of build has probably a higher skill cap than most others, you need to time you dodge very well (not just random rolls). Make a good use of your steal skill / interrupt as traited is very powerful with a good burst/heal on a small cd.
As for the playstyle it’s pretty much about timing your dodges, remember the 3rd strike of the AA chain does a lot of damage, if you are at it try to land it (if you use another skill the AA chain will reset). Remember that if you use flanking/lacernous you can wait a fraction of a second to land an autoattack.
Other than that is just timing and positioning.

As said before it does have a higher skill ceiling than most other builds as you’ll be very squishy and pretty much always visible, so you have to make up in consistent evades and shadowsteps.

Also remember to use 2 properly to jump in and making sure you can safely use a return if you get some nasty condition or things get bad.

you can check out this guide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZnlRlkC50s

It’s old and a different build and things have changed, but just run through it and most of the basic playstyle mechanics/combos are still the same

Did you put fire/air sigils on your weps and strength runes in armour? That build doesn’t hit that hard without these sigils/runes. If that doesn’t help or you already had those in your build, you just need to practise more. The current meta build is easier to play than other sword builds, as it has extra HP, lots of dodges and all the control of trickery line coupled with decent dmg.

I agree with the above that this build requires higher skill cap and precise dodge. Is there any tip for dodging in melee range? Do I stay really close to opponent before dodge? Do I always dodge behind the opponent?

I can dodge in mid range by reading the animation, but it seems this method does not work well in melee range, in which prediction is more important.

Just keep moving, dodging is also a way to constantly reposition yourself, so depending on the situation you might want to get some distance between you and your enemy while sometimes you want to get closer. If you’re going to use flanking strike after a dodge you might as well try to move out a bit out of enemy’s range (if he’s melee) as FS works as a gap closer too. Against melee you have to be ahead of your opponent and maybe abuse your many dodges. In the video I linked above after maybe 10-15mins it explains how to FS→LS→AA→ dodge to be quicky in dishing heavy damage while evading for as long as possible

But all of these will come with practice, check out some video to get an idea and just try it out. use the sentries to practice your timing, try to get everything perfect even against NPC so you won’t get into bad habits.

Also as jayden was saying is important to maximize damage, i’m running runes of the pack as i don’t have money for strength rune and they do fine. I’d say if you want to go cheap you can get pack/privateer runes. Keep your crit chance definitely over 40 with good fury uptime, depending on what you get you can swap one major trickery trait between assassin’s reward for extra healing with power of inertia.

(I’m currently running 2/0/0/6/6 full zerk with cavalier amulet, runes of the pack and assassin’s signet and i do fine, even though some more dmg would help against burst classes)

Also I might take advantage of this discussion to ask people who they find more annoying to fight against? cause i have to say my toughest opponents are usually burst thieves (d/d or mainly d/p for the blind abuse) and good d/d eles that can just heal/disrupt through the damage while keeping costant pressure

Delta Blues.8507:

Also I might take advantage of this discussion to ask people who they find more annoying to fight against? cause i have to say my toughest opponents are usually burst thieves (d/d or mainly d/p for the blind abuse) and good d/d eles that can just heal/disrupt through the damage while keeping costant pressure

^ pretty much, they’re both hard to land damage on and both can get some nasty damage in if they catch you out.

To the OP: Practice evades and shadowstep combos, basically. The advice that’s already been given is good, and tbh you get miles better when you don’t really think about what combo to use and just make stuff up as you go along, makes you less predictable. That’s just experience though.

Don’t give up though: it took me ages to work out how to get the damage in instead of just buzzing around annoying everyone, but it’s so much fun when it starts to come together ^^