Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

I have been gone for about 5 months and now I am back. I require assistance about the current meta, builds, strategies for a thief in WvW. I enjoy solo and small group roaming and point capping. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

FYI – My thief is a d/p with Knights armor.

I would say, re-roll warrior/gaurdian…
But you’re timing couldn’t be more prefect, after tomorrow, this coming Tuesday, is the “balance” patch. So yeah see for youself, there’s some patch notes up (stickied in general).

Oh wow, why would you say that? What has happened since I’ve been gone!? I noticed that shortbow is now 900 range max for everything.

i think the meta build for solo rooaming or small groups is either d/p or d/d back stab. an example of a meta d/d backstab build looks something like this :http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAoYVlUmiP3eS6E+5Ex2jd2Tiy9woJtpdFiKA-jUDB4fAYLLaksYIaUBgJPQpPEZslhFRjVXDT5SIS7CWFD1gjRr2mDQIABbBA-w

ps, i did not make this. this was made by a youtuber who plays competitive wvw for riot, you can find him here http://www.youtube.com/user/bemeric1?feature=watch
he has videos of this build, you can check his outnumbered 6 and 7 to see it.

EpicSuperFail.9518:

Oh wow, why would you say that? What has happened since I’ve been gone!? I noticed that shortbow is now 900 range max for everything.

Tomorrows’ upcoming changes:

Passive regen boosted to 1 ini/sec vs .75 ini/sec (yay)
Opportunist nerfed (boo)
Vigorous Recovery nerfed (boo)
Quick Recovery nerfed (boo)
Bountiful Theft nerfed (boo)
Assassin’s Reward buffed, moved up to grandmaster trait (……yay?)
Hard to Catch moved to master trait (………)
Sword 2, added cast time on return (can no longer be used when stunned) (BOO)
Infusion of Shadow changed to only work upon entering stealth (no more chaining BPS) (needed-ish)

And those are just the (proposed) changes coming tomorrow…

It’s been a long 5 months…. Welcome back (?)

Oh. Well crap. I guess the real question is, are thieves still one of the best roamers, or do the other classes surpass them.

Thieves are still one of the best roamers, we’re still the fastest. The game has had some pretty big power creep while you’ve been gone but thieves have only gotten weaker. It’s more challenging for us than it’s ever been.

agreed, thieves are are still great roamers, atm i solo roam with my thief and mesmer

Hype.8032:

Thieves are still one of the best roamers, we’re still the fastest. The game has had some pretty big power creep while you’ve been gone but thieves have only gotten weaker. It’s more challenging for us than it’s ever been.

we are the fastest sprinters. from point a to point b in short distance. anything over 3k range is warrior and other classes territory.

Spec D/D and don’t listen to the negative nancies. the class is great in wvw and going to get better in a week. if you rely on cheesy perma stealth builds too bad though.

Sanduskel.1850:

Spec D/D and don’t listen to the negative nancies. the class is great in wvw and going to get better in a week. if you rely on cheesy perma stealth builds too bad though.

…or swords, or vigor. You know, those other things I provided in a list directly from the balance patch preview notes. If you were low crit chance+low hit rate you’ll see a minor buff to initiative regen. If you were medium crit rate+medium hit rate, you’ll see a neutral effect, and high crit rate + high hit rates (S/P and P/P) will see a net loss. The other areas were straight up nerfs. Explain how things are going to get better in a week?

Maugetarr.6823:

Sanduskel.1850:

Spec D/D and don’t listen to the negative nancies. the class is great in wvw and going to get better in a week. if you rely on cheesy perma stealth builds too bad though.

…or swords, or vigor. You know, those other things I provided in a list directly from the balance patch preview notes. If you were low crit chance+low hit rate you’ll see a minor buff to initiative regen. If you were medium crit rate+medium hit rate, you’ll see a neutral effect, and high crit rate + high hit rates (S/P and P/P) will see a net loss. The other areas were straight up nerfs. Explain how things are going to get better in a week?

He can’t and won’t because he has never played a thief and knows that this forum will rip him apart if he does.

other classes have close to perma or perma….

protection
fury
(50% aegis)
vigor
regen
swiftness

thief cant even have invul/aegis/block/protection AT ALL….yet its bad if we have close to perma vigor.

yeah only thief cant have nice things. so sad. he wont explain why other classes can have it tho.

he will probably say bc thieves have stealth…but so do mesmers and they have invul/blocks/aegis/protection and super high uptime too.

but but thieves have high dmg….not even top 2 anymore (unless spec’d for 0 defense) …..then again warriors have all that jazz.

theres no reason thief shouldnt have perma vigor. period.

I never really relied on the perma stealth aspect of d/p. I enjoyed the versatility of bp. I’m gathering d/d is viable, what about s/d and s/p?

EpicSuperFail.9518:

I never really relied on the perma stealth aspect of d/p. I enjoyed the versatility of bp. I’m gathering d/d is viable, what about s/d and s/p?

D/D (& D/P depending on your playstyle) is(are) going to be the most viable spec(s) after the patch. You weren’t here for the fixing of how stuns work either, so currently the stun from pistol whip wears off before the first hit from the flurry lands and the buff that FS/LS saw (don’t know if you were here for that) got changed to 1 boon steal on LS and LS got increased by 1 initiative (making the entire split skill cost 5 total and only steal 1 boon). I can’t remember when they changed what exactly, but Shadow return (on sword 2) is no longer a true stunbreak, and they fixed the range to match the tooltip. As it is, this will be further changed tomorrow to have a cast time as well.

Maugetarr.6823:

EpicSuperFail.9518:

Oh wow, why would you say that? What has happened since I’ve been gone!? I noticed that shortbow is now 900 range max for everything.

Tomorrows’ upcoming changes:

Passive regen boosted to 1 ini/sec vs .75 ini/sec (yay)
Opportunist nerfed (boo)
Vigorous Recovery nerfed (boo)
Quick Recovery nerfed (boo)
Bountiful Theft nerfed (boo)
Assassin’s Reward buffed, moved up to grandmaster trait (……yay?)
Hard to Catch moved to master trait (………)
Sword 2, added cast time on return (can no longer be used when stunned) (BOO)
Infusion of Shadow changed to only work upon entering stealth (no more chaining BPS) (needed-ish)

And those are just the (proposed) changes coming tomorrow…

It’s been a long 5 months…. Welcome back (?)

dont forget the flanking strikes moving to master.

i am not sure, what the thief class will look in the future but it is being nerfed to the ground. i mean every other class can do better than what us.

ii only suggest:
daze on basilisk, more damage i guess. since the meta these days are pvt.

more damage!

Zeke Azul Falcon.5176:

Maugetarr.6823:

EpicSuperFail.9518:

Oh wow, why would you say that? What has happened since I’ve been gone!? I noticed that shortbow is now 900 range max for everything.

Tomorrows’ upcoming changes:

Passive regen boosted to 1 ini/sec vs .75 ini/sec (yay)
Opportunist nerfed (boo)
Vigorous Recovery nerfed (boo)
Quick Recovery nerfed (boo)
Bountiful Theft nerfed (boo)
Assassin’s Reward buffed, moved up to grandmaster trait (……yay?)
Hard to Catch moved to master trait (………)
Sword 2, added cast time on return (can no longer be used when stunned) (BOO)
Infusion of Shadow changed to only work upon entering stealth (no more chaining BPS) (needed-ish)

And those are just the (proposed) changes coming tomorrow…

It’s been a long 5 months…. Welcome back (?)

dont forget the flanking strikes moving to master.

i am not sure, what the thief class will look in the future but it is being nerfed to the ground. i mean every other class can do better than what us.

ii only suggest:
daze on basilisk, more damage i guess. since the meta these days are pvt.

more damage!

They mentioned not going through with the flanking strikes change which is why I didn’t mention it. They also said instead of nerfing our vigor access by 50% they were considering only nerfing it by 25% (Yay! …../sarcasm)

Maugetarr.6823:

Zeke Azul Falcon.5176:

Maugetarr.6823:

EpicSuperFail.9518:

Oh wow, why would you say that? What has happened since I’ve been gone!? I noticed that shortbow is now 900 range max for everything.

Tomorrows’ upcoming changes:

Passive regen boosted to 1 ini/sec vs .75 ini/sec (yay)
Opportunist nerfed (boo)
Vigorous Recovery nerfed (boo)
Quick Recovery nerfed (boo)
Bountiful Theft nerfed (boo)
Assassin’s Reward buffed, moved up to grandmaster trait (……yay?)
Hard to Catch moved to master trait (………)
Sword 2, added cast time on return (can no longer be used when stunned) (BOO)
Infusion of Shadow changed to only work upon entering stealth (no more chaining BPS) (needed-ish)

And those are just the (proposed) changes coming tomorrow…

It’s been a long 5 months…. Welcome back (?)

dont forget the flanking strikes moving to master.

i am not sure, what the thief class will look in the future but it is being nerfed to the ground. i mean every other class can do better than what us.

ii only suggest:
daze on basilisk, more damage i guess. since the meta these days are pvt.

more damage!

They mentioned not going through with the flanking strikes change which is why I didn’t mention it. They also said instead of nerfing our vigor access by 50% they were considering only nerfing it by 25% (Yay! …../sarcasm)

lol would prefer 10 stacks of might for 10 secs.

reroll warrior or mesmer

D/D looks to be the only physical damage build not getting obliterated.

D/P perma-stealth is out because of the initiative gain changes, which is cool by me.

S/x has been pummeled to the floor, so that dynamic mobility playstyle is out the window. It’s backstabs or bust, looks like.

Unless of course you want to mainhand a pistol, in which case A-net would give you a cookie to munch on while you have no fun. Heh.

Sanduskel.1850:

Spec D/D and don’t listen to the negative nancies. the class is great in wvw and going to get better in a week. if you rely on cheesy perma stealth builds too bad though.

So according to you it’s fine that we have less and less usefuly builds? That we are forced into speccing D/D?

And please… PLEASE, understand AT LAST, that most rogues are completely fine with nerfing perma stealth! You don’t seem to get it! You keep repeating perma stealth over and over again, while you don’t see that nobody complains about permastealth nerf, but about S/x nerf and active init skills/traits nerf (while Anet says he wants us to be more active in battle…).

Strayhand.8216:

Sanduskel.1850:

….

So according to you it’s fine that we have less and less usefuly builds?

You’re understanding him just fine.

Mirror Owl.7204:

S/x has been pummeled to the floor, so that dynamic mobility playstyle is out the window. It’s backstabs or bust, looks like.

I don’t play enough S/D to be an expert on it, so I have a question: How critical is that pseudo-stunbreak on IR when fighting any class that isn’t a stun-spamming warrior? I know it’s always useful, but I wonder how often it’s flat-out necessary to compete in a one-vs-one?

Oghier.7419:

Mirror Owl.7204:

S/x has been pummeled to the floor, so that dynamic mobility playstyle is out the window. It’s backstabs or bust, looks like.

I don’t play enough S/D to be an expert on it, so I have a question: How critical is that pseudo-stunbreak on IR when fighting any class that isn’t a stun-spamming warrior? I know it’s always useful, but I wonder how often it’s flat-out necessary to compete in a one-vs-one?

In my opinion, it’s just going to be super annoying to the point where it’s not worth it anymore. I never thought I’d do it as I hate stealth but since Anet is intent on absolutely destroying every fun aspect of the sword they possibly can I went D/D and have not looked back. The only use I get out of sword now is for soloing camps with S/P and PW spamming in dungeons.

Oghier.7419:

Mirror Owl.7204:

S/x has been pummeled to the floor, so that dynamic mobility playstyle is out the window. It’s backstabs or bust, looks like.

I don’t play enough S/D to be an expert on it, so I have a question: How critical is that pseudo-stunbreak on IR when fighting any class that isn’t a stun-spamming warrior? I know it’s always useful, but I wonder how often it’s flat-out necessary to compete in a one-vs-one?

It can’t really be used as a juke anymore in close combat. I believe the number they said for the cast time was going to be a total of 320 or 360 ms meaning that with included ping (mine was 21 ms as of last night) you probably don’t have the reaction time to use it to dodge a 1/2 second skill using it and have a pretty narrow window for a 3/4 second skill (although 3/4 is manageable) also with the cast time I suspect you’ll be able to dodge cancel it now and you won’t be able to cast it at the end of say pistol whip, to get you out of where it rooted you meaning you have to soak damage or rely on dodging. It really just changes the dynamic of S/X playstyles.

Edit: I played S/D for quite a while in WvW where CnD and TS weren’t nerfed like in SPvP. The set played really well using every ability on the bar, but after the 3rd fix/nerf to it’s functionality (LS) I saw the direction it was going and also went to D/D.

So from what I’m gathering…. D/D burst seems to be the most viable option. Do bleed builds still exist, D/D or P/D?

This is my p/d build (or at least found it from someone…):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqYVlUmCN3aS3E95EB3jk60mqp4m2sTBWlPA-TsAgyCuIgRNjbGDMSfs+MCY9xcBA
I use it in sPvP, for me it works :P . Pretty basic too.

Yeah, bleeds builds will be around of course. D/D and P/D should be fine.

As for physical builds, D/D looks like the only thing, alas. Man, I really don’t want to have to sit around and C&D into backstab rinse repeat to get by. Bleh.

Mirror Owl.7204:

Mirror Owl.7204:

S/x has been pummeled to the floor, so that dynamic mobility playstyle is out the window. It’s backstabs or bust, looks like.

I don’t play enough S/D to be an expert on it, so I have a question: How critical is that pseudo-stunbreak on IR when fighting any class that isn’t a stun-spamming warrior? I know it’s always useful, but I wonder how often it’s flat-out necessary to compete in a one-vs-one?

I agree with the other guys. It hurts enough to bone us out of much of the weapons’ flexibility. It could be used in loads of situations to dodge chunky hits, AOEs, etc. It was one of the elements that let your play skill and experience out-maneuver easily-anticipated opponents. Since sword had a lower damage output than mainhand dagger, I really don’t see why a relatively niche weapon set is being so utterly destroyed.

I’m definitely disappointed at the current state of thief. I may look into p/d bleed or just go d/d backstab.

One last question. Are there any hybrid damage builds for thief? Remember a few odd ones popping up.

All other classes have received major buffs recently whilst we got nerfs, or we got buffs to broken/underplayed skills that don’t really help that much. So, we’ve been left behind by the meta somewhat. That’s not to say we’re not viable, just that our margin for error during a fight has never been smaller.

D/D and D/P are still very strong for WvW. An earlier poster linked Yishis’ youtube channel, his builds are pretty much the WvW meta atm and he explains his tactics too, a very valuable resource right there. Check out outnumbered 6 for D/P, D/D for the others in that series.

P/D is pretty strong if you want to go the condi route, although this is less common for roaming since it’s a DoT thing. I do think that with the S/D changes it’s going to be the most viable juke friendly build post patch, so if that playstyle appeals to you then give it a whirl.

Other sets can be used too, but most of the other options are limited when fighting more than one opponent. Since being a thief seems to make you an aggro magnet, it limits their use somewhat.

Mirror Owl.7204:

I really don’t see why a relatively niche weapon set is being so utterly destroyed.

Its probably because if you ran D/D + S/D or D/P + S/D you could fight and kill anyone who was at a lower skill level than you, and stand a good chance against anyone at your skill level. Oh wait, isnt that suppose to be a good thing and how games are designed?

EpicSuperFail.9518:

Oh. Well crap. I guess the real question is, are thieves still one of the best roamers, or do the other classes surpass them.

Surpassed by miles and miles.

Well, thank you everyone for the help. I’m still going to stick with thief. Looks like I’m going for the old standby d/d build.

wish.1027:

Mirror Owl.7204:

I really don’t see why a relatively niche weapon set is being so utterly destroyed.

Its probably because if you ran D/D + S/D or D/P + S/D you could fight and kill anyone who was at a lower skill level than you, and stand a good chance against anyone at your skill level. Oh wait, isnt that suppose to be a good thing and how games are designed?

^ This.

EpicSuperFail.9518:

Well, thank you everyone for the help. I’m still going to stick with thief. Looks like I’m going for the old standby d/d build.

Good to hear, thief is still an amazing class if you’re willing to put the time in