Guild Wars 2

I understand there was a thread about this about a month back, but as I was replying to it, I felt my question warranted its own thread.

I’m working on building up my Thief for WvW, both roaming and small group combat. I currently run a 0/30/30/10/0 (anticipated build, not final)

I’m very comfortable with my traits and the D/D gameplay in PvP (though I know P/D is all the rage).

My first concern is keeping up with targets on the move. I feel like I can’t stick to a target without Swiftness or Signet of Shadows, especially more mobile builds.

My second concern with is whether the drop in 6% crit damage and -60 total stats (Divinity Runes) worth getting the Traveler’s set (Note: I’m currently using Ruby Orbs until I finalize my decision).

Any suggestions and explainations would be appreciated. Thank you!

Traveler runes are worth every penny. They basicly replace SoS, freeing up utility slot for whatever you prefer.

You are right about the problem of keeping up with certain classes/builds if you’re not using SoS/trav runes/reliable source of swiftness. IMO traveler runes are the best and most flexible solution to this.

As for your traits, they look quite solid. 10/30/30/0/0 works too if you feel you need some extra dps (mug). 0/30/30/0/10 also works if you want to apply cripple to your foe (uncatchable).

For your armor, weapon & trinket stat setup, you may want to check out Wish’s builds. They are basically made for maximizing damage output while still keeping comfortable EHP to withstand sudden burst dmg from the enemy without going down in less than a second (GC thiefs, mesmers, warriors).

Your input is much appreciated, Sneek. Thank you.

I’ll look into Wish’s builds (I see there’s a huge discussion in a thread about Valkyrie armor). Not that I’m a proponent of cookie-cutter builds, but if there’s one in particular you think I might be interested in looking that it’d be greatly appreciated.

Thank you again!

As for whether or not to switch to travelers runes, I wouldnt even think twice about it, travelers and smoke bomb or roll for ini is better than the 3%~ damage and 2%~ defense you give up.

If you already have the divinity runes, I’d probably just wait for ascended armor to come out to switch over to travelers, so you can get your money back out of those divinity runes by salvaging your gear and selling them. They said ascended armor would be out by the end of the year, so it shouldnt be to long.

Also, I dont argue about builds so much, I could care less what people want to trait or use, unless youre doing it just for DPS, as theres a right and wrong way to do that. Builds and picking traits should be just whatever you like that matches your play style. I only argue about gear sets, because you do it for the purpose of damage and defense, which means you can break it down into math, which means theres a right and wrong way to do it.

I never used or had any care towards Divinity Runes, so I have no idea about that.
I have Traveler Runes though and I absolutely adore them. Having 3 utility slots is just awesome, and if you use signets you pretty much get a chunk of lost stats back.

Getting rid of SoS opens so many fun doors up.

I feel like I can’t stick to a target without Swiftness or Signet of Shadows, especially more mobile builds.

(#1) Is there a utility you’d prefer over the benefits of SoS?

My second concern with is whether the drop in 6% crit damage and -60 total stats (Divinity Runes) worth getting the Traveler’s set

(#2) Is that utility (from #1) worth losing those stats?

It might just be a matter of answering those questions in that order. I dropped my Ruby Orbs some time ago for Lyssa Runes for the utility — never regretted it. I almost always use SoS, and using the Traveler runes would free that utility-slot, but there’s no utility that can provide what Lyssa runes do. :-)

or you can simply use fleet shadow.

if you only need swiftness just to be fast roamer so use traveler rune but if you wanna catch ppl fast enough the runes itself wont help you much if you play it wrong

if you play x/d use dancing dagger to cripple
if you using s/x use infiltrator to immobilized
use infiltrator signet , shadow step, steal, etc to catch your enemy
use fleet shadow trait as d/d or d/p

you mention you are playing in small group so ppl can stack swiftness on you
with rune of centaure you can be perma swiftness

so imo to take traveler rune only of the 25% movement is not so usefull but its nice

With swiftness on dodge you can keep close enough to keep the enemy in combat, use shadowstep, sword #2, dagger #2, D/P #3 and steal to close the gap. Infiltrator’s signet if you have it. pistol #4 if your enemy uses a gap creating skill (it stops them from getting far). Scorpion wire if you have it.

Having perma speed boost ofc helps a lot but just using your skills will get you near him already. This ofc requires a heavy ini regenerating build cause you’ll be low on ini when you catch him.

So depending on your build, you could take traveler runes to compensate what you lose.

For virtually any weapon set, I’d say the answer is yes. You do mention P/D though. That’s the one exception right now. For a condi spec, torment or perplexity (the first 4) would be more helpful.

I use travaler runes and man i really enjoy them, i switched 50% speed trait in acro tree to vigor on heal (III) it gives me 10 seconds of vigor on a 15 second cool down since i use withdraw XD oh and utility slots are so much more important then a few stats i believe

It really depends on how much you value that utility slot. If you look at it from just a statistical point of view… it would be 6% crit damage, and 30 power, prec, vit, and toughness vs. 180 power or 8% crit from the utility signets. I am not really sure that is worth it.

But when you compare those stats to an extra skill like a stunbreak, extra stealth, or teleport… travelers could be well worth it.

Personally I am keeping divinity because they were super expensive. I pretty much always have shadow/step/refuge equipped so not sure I would need much else… infiltrators or blinding powder would be nice, but I am not sure how much damage I would be willing to lose for them.