Guild Wars 2

I used to do high level fractals where I seriously had to prove my worth as a thief, or else I’d get kicked instantly.

No problem requiring a lot of skill, but it was still annoying being kicked from groups just for being a thief due to the general perception of the class.

Anyways, I came back to the game after a while and see a lot has changed. I’ve looked around, but it would be easier to just ask.

What Power/Crit type builds are still viable in dungeons? Are any even more viable now due to patches? I used to just run a general signet/crit type build, using Dagger/Dagger when I knew I’d be able to survive and not bite the dust, sword/pistol for the perma/blind in AoE groups, and general decent damage, survivability, etc… Pistol/Pistol for ranged fights in which it was stupid to get up close, and short bow for long ranged AoE.

I’m running crit gear with some other pieces to interchange for vitality and such in case I need it; though generally I’m good at dodging and staying out of combat.

I don’t have the gold to get different gear atm, so I’m hoping to hear about what I could do with my current gear set. Thanks a lot!

don’t know how a thief gets through that harpy fractal. I imagine the rest are still fairly do-able with a zerky thief. I have full zerker armor on my thief and have done most of the regular dungeons and a few fractals (though nothing high level). As far as builds…not sure there, stealing’s gotten better, shortbow’s a tiny bit worse, but nothing that’ll affect dungeons. S/D is pretty solid all-around. Good auto-attack damage, and there are builds on here that will give you loads of dodges and evades.

bobross.5034:

don’t know how a thief gets through that harpy fractal. I imagine the rest are still fairly do-able with a zerky thief. I have full zerker armor on my thief and have done most of the regular dungeons and a few fractals (though nothing high level). As far as builds…not sure there, stealing’s gotten better, shortbow’s a tiny bit worse, but nothing that’ll affect dungeons. S/D is pretty solid all-around. Good auto-attack damage, and there are builds on here that will give you loads of dodges and evades.

Well, like I said, I have some valk gear and some others I can switch out to get some more survivability, so living isn’t an issue. I was just wondering what builds were still running crit/pow as opposed to like… Condition damage.

I’ve never done S/D how does that work?

Also, I’ve never had issues with the Harpy fractal. Can dagger storm to reflect, use P/P for range and such.

s/d gives a lot of really nice tools for pve and pvp/wvw. You can use 2 to get in, spam 3 a bit for a bit of a damage boost/boon ripping and your auto-attacks are pretty solid. If things get too hot, hit 2 again to get out.

The builds can vary a bunch, but it’s possible to make a build that is nearly constantly evading if you invest enough in acrobatics and/or trickery. Alternately you can do a hybrid that uses some stealth for survivability. Either way it’s a fun, very mobile playstyle.

one more thing – with the may patch, s/d got a major buff with skill 3 (flanking strike) where the pathing was fixed, and it got split into two great skills. They also nerfed it a bit in this latest patch (upped it’s initiative cost). On the plus side, the autoattack got a buff – because weakness now affects every attack, including crits. So by autoattacking you can help reduce damage by about 12.5 %.