Guild Wars 2

I am used to and comfortable having a dagger or a pistol offhand or main hand. The oddball is the sword main hand.

It has tremendous potential I think, I absolutely love IS/SS, but for the life of me I can’t really figure out where the damage output comes from in a S/P set or a S/D set. Is the main damage coming just from the auto attack?

Attacking off of stealth seems to not do much damage, pistol whip is ok-ish esp the interrupt but I think it does less damage than an autoattack would in that time. The 3 attack on a S/D set is a nice evade but is defn not a heavy damage dealer.

For the players running primarily the sword main hand, would you mind educating me =)

Yep, auto-attack. S/P’s burst used to be the hasted pistol-whip, but that’s no longer an option, so auto-attack’s your best bet. Sword/dagger with the 25/30/0/0/15 utilizes flanking strike for the bulk of its damage (which can hit quite a lot) whereas the 10/30/30 build barely ever FS.

if you want high burst dmg, don’t use sword. Sword does deal high damage but it’s a control weapon, not a damage weapon. you use it for the aoe cripples, the immobilizes, stuns, blinds (stealth attack or pistol 5), and dazes. The best part of this weapon is that it doesn’t matter which off hand you use, you will be getting more utility and control.

I think sword is better going 15/30/0/0/25. Yah i know condition damage is wasted kinda . But you do get passive that incises damage dependent on how much initief you have.

Swords for pve and daggers for pvp imo.

Rafahil.2857:

Swords for pve and daggers for pvp imo.

I hope you mean group pve. Daggers are much easier to use in the open world/events /farming (with SB for aoe)

I use it with 10/30/30, or 10/30/0/0/30.

Its in the autoattack. Seen individual cleaves on 3rd strike 6-8k with full ini.

Edit: crit. Also s/d 3 hits HARD. just have to land both (6-9kish)

So here’s the story:

Im actually running 10/30/30/0/0, but kind of an oddball build recommended by a guildy who has a ton of success PvPing (which I don’t do) and running dungeons and fractals (which I do!)

Rather than going full zerker, which seems to be the more common option, he for some reason goes almost full soldier gear (with hands and leggings being valkyrie) all slotted with Beryl orbs, all his trinkets are cavalier trinkets with exquisite beryl jewel, only his weapons are full zerker. It’s a really cool concept I thought.

Basically he has comparable power and crit damage to most zerker thieves but crit percentage is like 30%. He runs S/P or S/D depending on the situation with SB offhand.

I’m trying to run this build, I’m getting the appropriate gear now, and I notice I can run D/P with this build if I slot hidden killer and do a pretty nice 4k ish damage (with crap gear, I’m running all masterwork currently). When I run S/P or S/D I don’t do anywhere near as much damage so I was wondering if I was playing this correctly.

@randomfightfan, can u elaborate a bit more about how you would control a fight while avoiding damage? I’m defn taking too much hits with sword mainhand.

Silver.4798:

@randomfightfan, can u elaborate a bit more about how you would control a fight while avoiding damage? I’m defn taking too much hits with sword mainhand.

Know when and how to use Infiltrator’s Strike or bring an offhand pistol for Black Powder.

I posted a video a bit back with some s/d damage in WvW. Don’t neglect Flanking Strike. It can give you 9k damage for just 4 initiative.

Stick them with the pointy end! (grin) That all up be the damage there.

I’m not sure what that even means, but try it.

Silver.4798:

It has tremendous potential I think, I absolutely love IS/SS, but for the life of me I can’t really figure out where the damage output comes from in a S/P set or a S/D set. Is the main damage coming just from the auto attack?

Attacking off of stealth seems to not do much damage, pistol whip is ok-ish esp the interrupt but I think it does less damage than an autoattack would in that time. The 3 attack on a S/D set is a nice evade but is defn not a heavy damage dealer.

For the players running primarily the sword main hand, would you mind educating me =)

Flanking strike can hit for 5-7k or more (given boosts). Total damage is about 7% less than what a Backstab will do given the same spec. It completes faster than the Sword auto attack chain as well.

However yes the auto-attack is a big part of the Sword.

Fairly sure PW > Auto-attack however it’s got 100 blades syndrome where getting all the hits to connect isn’t highly likely and because of having so many hits the damage fluctuates greatly going from 4k dmg to 7k is not uncommon in the slightest as well due to weakness it’s common that “something” is going to glance.

Silver.4798:

@randomfightfan, can u elaborate a bit more about how you would control a fight while avoiding damage? I’m defn taking too much hits with sword mainhand.

pistol 5 to blind groups, kite around melee so you can always be hitting them but they never touch you (due to perma cripple), clever use of sword 2 (if you want to see what I mean by that then watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye85Ad4LJqY ). If you can stand the horrible feel of s/d 3, you can do pretty decent dmg with it in a spike… although you actually lose out on dps when you use it b/c the disgusting cast time, it’s main use is for the dodge and boon strip. Sword pistol 3 can also keep a target nearly perma stunned while also evading during the entire dmg portion of the ability. If you’re using dagger off-hand, the stealth attack strike blinds if u hit from the front and dazes from behind.

If you’re in a dungeon, there’s no better class than thief (finish reading the line) and no better weapon combo that sword pistol for defiance stripping or sword dagger for boon stripping.

Thanks everyone this has been really helpful! I spent quite a bit of time testing this out and overall I’m pleased with the results! There are still a couple of things I am unsure of.

IS —> BP —> sword autoattack:
I’m still taking damage when doing this every now and again, I’m assuming because I’m probably getting ranged by some target on the side. No units within my BP AoE should be able to hit me right?

The idea of constantly doing damage while avoiding taking any damage:
IS—→BP—> sword autoattack —> SS back to --→ ummm… uhh… weapon switch to SB!!! (I guess? I only do this if I’m dry on initiative) Once I disengage from the mob by shadow stepping back I generally don’t know what to do besides IS again and starting the above combo again initiative permitting. Defensively this is excellent I can run away or pop my stealth utilities if needed, offensively I’m… clumsy. Ideas?

Same problem applies with S/D, once I shadow step back I have no idea what to do next besides either running away if the situation is too dangerous or starting the chain over again.

The defense:
It’s slow going but I’m learning to play an offensive thief. Running 10/30/30/0/0 Im still not used to not having more dodges or swiftness on dodge (from acro). Judicious use of IS/SS and BP or stealth is the main means of defense for this build right?

@JakobGW I actually DID see your video, it was very helpful! I had no idea how much range you could cover by shadow stepping offensively and then infiltrator striking, I do this all the time now if I see a single target running away in wvw haha!

@randomfightfan, I see what you mean in that video. It’s interesting you went full acrobatics and trickery rather than DA and SA. I hardly ever use mug so I was actually considering going 0/30/30/10/0 instead, I was afraid I’d lose out on the damage output but seeing your video I think I’ll be ok. One thing though, how important is it to have 50% critical chance? With the gear I have in mind I’ll probably only have 30% crit chance, maybe 35 ish with food and buffs

blind will only pulse once per second, so, if they attack faster, or they have an attack that acts like 100b/PW/(multi-hitting skill here) it’s only going to blind once per sec. Also, I can’t stress enough the terribleness that is PW’s evade, it’s only saving grace is the stun frontloaded, as terrible as IT is, it can interrupt things.

after gaining distance through shadow return or what not, switch to shortbow. can plink from a distance til you have some more melee juice.

‘weaving’ between mobs/players and such is your offensive playing. making them waste cd’s on air. only disengage when it’s tactically sound (you gain more from distance). otherwise, returning just because shadow return is about to drop (if you still want your ‘safe spot’), and IS’ing again is about it.

your mug-less build runs well, with the +crit stuff from crit strikes line, 30-40 is an acceptable crit chance, especially if you aren’t relying on backstabs.

Add in steal with SS/IS trick and it becomes even farther.

Silver.4798:

@randomfightfan, I see what you mean in that video. It’s interesting you went full acrobatics and trickery rather than DA and SA. I hardly ever use mug so I was actually considering going 0/30/30/10/0 instead, I was afraid I’d lose out on the damage output but seeing your video I think I’ll be ok. One thing though, how important is it to have 50% critical chance? With the gear I have in mind I’ll probably only have 30% crit chance, maybe 35 ish with food and buffs

Going 30 into acro was a mistake, should have only went 15. General pve build is 10-30-20-0-10 (wish I could have 15 into acro there but everything else is just too kitten good to give up) for the insane ini recovery, damage, condi removal, and b/c of how well it synchronises with my play-style.

General pvp is 10-30-10-15-5 when I’m going power… it’s also amazing.

Gear wise, thief is amazing at using offence as their defence so if you can play the class well then you should be going zerker. If you can’t take advantage of their skills and traits to the fullest then you might want to go soldier. Thief can go in, burst something really low, really fast, finish it, then get out. If they don’t finish it then they have enough defensive abilities to keep them safe in the fight for a very long time. If they run out of defensive abilities then the target is either really low or else you messed up. Either way, you can either finish them fast or get out with a good stealth. Also, if you use an aggressive stealth, odds are it will win you the fight here.

Another big thing to take into account is if you only have 30% crit chance, you won’t be proc’ing all those amazing on crit things that thief loves using. Flame blast aoe won’t go every 10s, life steal on crit won’t be all the time, any on-crit traits won’t be going off as often as usual. It’s up to you though. Different play-styles for different people.

If you want high burst, don’t use sword. If you’re in pve and want high sustain, I suggest you use a backstab, might stacking build. If you want an easy, cripple with weakness, lots of crit procs, or more condition removal, sword is your choice.

Yes, as immrsion breaking as this is, sword is a wet noodle in gw2.

Edit: if you can believe me, all sword damage was actually nerfed to 50% of what it once was due to PvP burst. Quickness used to also be double attack speed in that version of the game.

Got a lot of practice in today in gw2 (rather than studying, oh man I better be hitting the books HARD on sunday!!!) loving the sword main hand more and more!

It has his limitations but after I got a feel for it, it’s quite fun!

I have to say I prefer S/D over S/P, BP is just too unpredictable for me to use, 8/10 times I end up getting hit anyway and I do more damage off of autoattack rather than PW (granted I do enjoy the evades and interrupts). That being said I’m stubborn, so likely I’ll keep playing around with BP until I figure out what I’m doing wrong. With the 10/30/30/0/0 build I feel like I can easily switch from S/P to S/D to D/P to D/D on the fly and still be quite effective (just have to switch to hidden killer with dagger main and executioner for sword main).

I’m defn not at the point where I can confidently go full zerker and not die. That being said, I’m only 24% crit 82% crit damage. PERHAPS!!! I should consider going zerker trinkets (I’m still working on the trinkets i only have masterwork currently) with exquisite beryl to bring the crit % up?

Anyone know the math about how much precision u need to increase crit % up by 1?

Nvm found my own answer haha
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Precision

21 precision to raise crit by 1% at level 80… goodlord so to go from 24 to 50 percent I need 546 points added to precision….

… That’s not going to happen. Even if I go full zerker trinkets with exquisite ruby orb thats 346 prec which is going to bump me from 24% prec to 40%. I don’t know if that is worth giving up 900 vitality and 336 armor (I’m thinking no)…

im doin sPvP mostly with S/D , 0/30/20/0/20 the main purpose isnt the damage, but for crowd controls. It does descent damage with good control , esp the daze, i love dazing peeps with Tactical Strike. S/D #3 is very good when you are fighting in a crowd, because it does an evasive-descent-damage + boon strip, but yes, the animation is a bit ridiculous, but if you already got the grip, #3 helps alot.

Sword does pretty good damage. I find it the most fun to play.

I made this video to test out some editing software and Youtube with clips from two days so it’s not the best video or fights but you can see its style (or my style) of fighting and the damage sword does. I use myself as bait to get people in a position to burst them down.

I use sword primarily to whittle people down with hit and run (sword 2) then burst with DD however, most people don’t know how to handle being dazed and it’s possible to get in a complete sword 1 rotation sometimes taking them completely out with just sword.

Build is 10/30/30/0/0 SD\DD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At1pXOIjOuQ

I now have more better clips post Mar 26 patch and will probably make a better video soon. I just don’t have much patience for that stuff.

Primary food is Bowl of Curry Butternut Squash Soup.