Guild Wars 2

… is the one you end up playing.

In WvW my build has changed a dozen times, slightly tweaking it here and there depending on where I see weaknesses and where I can give up some strength. I’d love to say I’m settled on a single best build for my play style, but I know I can tweak it even more. I haven’t ever fully changed it, but I constantly find new ways to use traits in certain situations which benefit me most. Another Thief I know has a completely different dodge and condition damage build, and he’s just as effective. So it comes down to how you want to play and constantly refining your play style. For those looking for a direct build answer, I promise it’s better just to go with what looks good to you, and start developing from there.

I somewhat agree. While your build depends on your play style, there are definitely plenty of thief builds out there that are complete garbage, made by people who have a skewed view of how thief should work. I have perfected my tournament build since BWE3 to my play style, but more importantly to the thief itself and what it will need when encountering other professions (dot removal, blinds, stealth). There’s loads of different ways you could make a thief build that would dominate tourney, all being unique trait sets, but realistically most PvPers can’t theorycraft properly. You either need to figure out how the class works and constantly adjust your traits to minimize your characters weaknesses without sacrificing damage output, or just use my meticulously designed spec which I’ve already adjusted dozens of times. This spec counters everything but guardians and bunker elementalists/engineers. Use cloak and dagger as much as possible in 1v1s, and AOE in teamfights. Keep the utilities the exact same as I have listed, and you will be mobile, able to resurrect teamates, and break stun/dodge out of any CC. If you have any questions let me know. Also, I’ll make a video soon that explains the build in more detail, as well as how to use it against each profession.

Use my build from this site:
http://pveistoohard.com/traits

^ May I just ask… Why get Mug? Why not just put 10/5 more in acrobatics and possibly get Fleet of Foot or some other survivability spell?

Why Mug? 5k steals + free and easy poisoning are nice to have I cannot live without it myself…