Guild Wars 2

Hey all, so a number of my friends recently bought GW2 with the intention of getting into WvW, and among them, several decided to play Thieves. As the one who’s been playing the longest, I’d like to be able to help them with their builds and tactics, but I have relatively little experience with the Thief class, and most of the WvW resources I’ve found so far for Thieves are either for solo roaming or several months old. I thought I’d turn to the Thief community here to see if I can get some more relevant information.

My group is mostly likely going to be concerned with taking supply camps, killing Dolyaks, and killing small enemy groups. If we can get the numbers for it, we’d also like to be able to disrupt/kill disorganized enemy zergs. Our group composition is probably going to vary depending on the availability of members and which ones decide to actually commit to WvW, so I’m afraid the information I can give about that is limited (I can probably confirm an aggressive Guardian, a Warrior, and a Mesmer, but the rest is up in the air). The group will probably be 5-10 people, and we could have anywhere from 1-3 Thieves in the group.

I would think that the Shortbow would be useful for most of what I listed above, and that Shadow Refuge would be a good utility for moving the group around in stealth, but besides that, I’m a little lost. What secondary weapon set and utilities would be most effective? What might trait distributions look like? What role are they best going to fill in group engagements?

Thanks in advance for the help!

So…i always play with 2 friends of mine in wvw. We usually roam as a 3-man team. Our setup is guardian/thief/bunker ele (or shatter mesmer). As a guardian i play a balanced shout based build to support my team and help with dps as well. Our thief is basically the main dps, is really useful to take down hard targets. He usually plays a backstab build d/d (or d/p) with shortbow as secondary weapon. As utility b powder, the refuge and ofc shadow step. Venom as elite (or d storm). I’m not totally sure about his traits. 30 in shadow arts for sure (and i suppose 30 in the crit tree as well). As gear a mix of valk and bers. It works very well but ofc he’s a really good player with lots of experience in spvp and 1v1. In a full party i’d probably use at least 2 thieves.

Look into the Venom-Sharing Build (30/x/30/x/x where x is the remaining 10 traits) for group play. It relegates the thief to a consistent DPS/Support Role due to the fact that their Venom Skills are shared across their allies (Immobilize, Weakness, Vulnerability, Stone, Chill). This isn’t a very tanky build, though, and the main weapon to use would be Shortbow (due to the Venom’s Extra Strike trait). You will also get stuck with the base Initiative Pool, which demands a bit more awareness on managing your initiative.

You would have to play with gear stats to find something balanced between DPS and Survivability. I go Carrion Armor w/ Rabid Accessories.

If your friends want to play the medic/stealthy/condition build, going (x/x/30/20/20) is also viable. This build is what most P/D thieves tend to use, normally making sure they have Caltrops and Shadow Refuge or Blinding Powder.

Finally, there’s the High Burst class, which I do not have any experience with, but it’s generally (30/30/10/x/x) and includes the Venom ultimate and Shadowstep.

Fjandi.2516:

So…i always play with 2 friends of mine in wvw. We usually roam as a 3-man team. Our setup is guardian/thief/bunker ele (or shatter mesmer). As a guardian i play a balanced shout based build to support my team and help with dps as well. Our thief is basically the main dps, is really useful to take down hard targets. He usually plays a backstab build d/d (or d/p) with shortbow as secondary weapon. As utility b powder, the refuge and ofc shadow step. Venom as elite (or d storm). I’m not totally sure about his traits. 30 in shadow arts for sure (and i suppose 30 in the crit tree as well). As gear a mix of valk and bers. It works very well but ofc he’s a really good player with lots of experience in spvp and 1v1. In a full party i’d probably use at least 2 thieves.

Thanks for the feedback! I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of our potential Thieves would be interested in a Backstab/DPS role, so I definitely appreciate the information about the utilities, gear, and general trait spreads. A couple follow-up questions, for anyone who can answer:

-In a WvW setting, what might be the differences between a D/D and D/P Backstab build?

-Would D/P be preferable for team play, with its single-target Daze and its Blind/Smoke field?

-With D/P, how do you manage initiative with BP+HS costing 9? There’s the 15 point Trickery trait for a larger pool, but you’d have to sacrifice something else to take that. What’s the trick here?

-For gear, about how much HP does the average Thief have (i.e. how much Valk gear to mix with the Berserker’s)? Is there any toughness investment in a normal build besides what comes from Shadow Arts?

Suralin.3947:

Look into the Venom-Sharing Build (30/x/30/x/x where x is the remaining 10 traits) for group play. It relegates the thief to a consistent DPS/Support Role due to the fact that their Venom Skills are shared across their allies (Immobilize, Weakness, Vulnerability, Stone, Chill). This isn’t a very tanky build, though, and the main weapon to use would be Shortbow (due to the Venom’s Extra Strike trait). You will also get stuck with the base Initiative Pool, which demands a bit more awareness on managing your initiative.

You would have to play with gear stats to find something balanced between DPS and Survivability. I go Carrion Armor w/ Rabid Accessories.

If your friends want to play the medic/stealthy/condition build, going (x/x/30/20/20) is also viable. This build is what most P/D thieves tend to use, normally making sure they have Caltrops and Shadow Refuge or Blinding Powder.

Finally, there’s the High Burst class, which I do not have any experience with, but it’s generally (30/30/10/x/x) and includes the Venom ultimate and Shadowstep.

One of my friends is used to support classes from other games, so a Venom Share build might definitely appeal to him, and I’ll be sure to suggest it. A few more follow-up questions here:

-I can definitely understand the desire to balance DPS and survivability, but why do you use condition damage gear? The Shortbow has some Bleeding on it, but it can deal lots of direct damage too, and most of the Venoms rely on control conditions, rather than damaging ones. Wouldn’t a mix of Berserker/Knight/Valk be more effective for keeping pressure high on groups of enemies?

-What secondary weapon set would a WvW venom share most likely use?

-Which/how many venoms should a Venom Share build take? I assume you would want at least Basilisk Venom and one of the others, but you probably also want room in your utilities for stealth skills and stun breakers, right? If you’re only taking 1-2 Venoms besides Basilisk, which ones get priority?

Much thanks! Any input anyone has about other builds or potential group tactics is very much appreciated.

Soryuju.8164:

Suralin.3947:

Look into the Venom-Sharing Build (30/x/30/x/x where x is the remaining 10 traits) for group play. It relegates the thief to a consistent DPS/Support Role due to the fact that their Venom Skills are shared across their allies (Immobilize, Weakness, Vulnerability, Stone, Chill). This isn’t a very tanky build, though, and the main weapon to use would be Shortbow (due to the Venom’s Extra Strike trait). You will also get stuck with the base Initiative Pool, which demands a bit more awareness on managing your initiative.

You would have to play with gear stats to find something balanced between DPS and Survivability. I go Carrion Armor w/ Rabid Accessories.

If your friends want to play the medic/stealthy/condition build, going (x/x/30/20/20) is also viable. This build is what most P/D thieves tend to use, normally making sure they have Caltrops and Shadow Refuge or Blinding Powder.

Finally, there’s the High Burst class, which I do not have any experience with, but it’s generally (30/30/10/x/x) and includes the Venom ultimate and Shadowstep.

One of my friends is used to support classes from other games, so a Venom Share build might definitely appeal to him, and I’ll be sure to suggest it. A few more follow-up questions here:

-I can definitely understand the desire to balance DPS and survivability, but why do you use condition damage gear? The Shortbow has some Bleeding on it, but it can deal lots of direct damage too, and most of the Venoms rely on control conditions, rather than damaging ones. Wouldn’t a mix of Berserker/Knight/Valk be more effective for keeping pressure high on groups of enemies?

-What secondary weapon set would a WvW venom share most likely use?

-Which/how many venoms should a Venom Share build take? I assume you would want at least Basilisk Venom and one of the others, but you probably also want room in your utilities for stealth skills and stun breakers, right? If you’re only taking 1-2 Venoms besides Basilisk, which ones get priority?

Much thanks! Any input anyone has about other builds or potential group tactics is very much appreciated.

- I run my Venom Share build for WvW and it’s been a recent thing with my guild for most of the thieves to run the build. I was originally a D/D & SB Condition Thief, hence the Conditions. However, I play as SB // P/D thief, having the Pistol helps me stack bleeds. I also continuously drop poison fields, and my Weapon Sigils are meant to deal more conditions. With my current stats, I can still do 100 base bleeds, which come in handy when the enemy can’t remove all of the conditions I stack.

- My recommendation for Secondary is P/D, but it is purely up to the play style of the player. I know some Venom-Builds utilize S/D, but S/P and D/P are also good options.

- For me, I like to live so my utilities are generally Hide in Shadows, Blinding Powder, and for Venoms: Devourer (Immobilize), Skale (Weakness/Vulnerability), and Basilisk (Stone). However, since your traited for decent healing, I can see the use of Signet of Malice in place of HiS. I am still messing around with situational utilities, so sometimes I’ll swap out Blinding Powder for Caltrops (since I’m still geared for decent bleed damage).

Be careful of using Devourer and Basilisk at the same time. They do the same thing, but popping Devourer/Skale first and then Basilisk after immobilize wears off tends to work best. Ice Drake and Spider are kinda wasted since the thief can pop AoE poison and Chill will only slow down your opponent.