Guild Wars 2

Hello, I am trying to learn thief . Atm i play S/D thief and want to know what are the best runes for me or what are the best runes in WvW as a thief in your opinion?

Pack

hey man thx for the answer. But, can you explain why it is better then traveler or Scholar?

Pack cause it’s more diverse. Depends on one’s perspective honestly. Oh with a few extra seconds of swiftness you’ll be able to land more hits within melee range

hmm ok i see.

Savage.8741:

hey man thx for the answer. But, can you explain why it is better then traveler or Scholar?

While it depends mostly on the build, you will never be wrong with Pack.
The added Precision helps a lot. Plus, if you have Thrill of the Crime (which you should) it will guarantee basically a 100% Fury uptime.
I’d say, try getting at least 50% Critical Chance (base), then invest the rest gear in some PVT or Cavalier stats. And, for doing this, Pack are the best choice around.
Scholar are ok but only for 1shotting people… and in a prolonged fight, you will easily lose the 10% damage bonus.
As for Traveler, sure it will make it easier to move around but you can always take Signet of Shadows if you’re lazy and then swap it out just before engaging an enemy. However, the damage with Traveler is definitely lackluster.

Other good choices are Strength and Ogre… but for Price, Utility and stats, I would go Pack with every Power Based build I’d play on thief.

thx for the detailed answer. I will look more into pack

I’d take air or rage for more ferocity let’s say if I went with invigorating precision and I need more heal from crit damage(ferocity) then it just makes sense to take more ferocity based runes. Like what zord stated, depends on build you’re running. So yeah… That sums up everything gl with your rune of choice. Eagle packs sweet dps too

I use travelor because I find that if you know what you’re doing, the loss of damage isn’t too severe, and the added speed moving across the maps and even just chasing or retreating from an opponent can be very valuable. Plus I run P/D condi cheese aids build so the extra condi duration is great

I like to use hoelbrak rune + lemongrass for group play, works well solo roaming too…
hate them condis
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0Mp0pdPxyJ8PNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdfko0XA-TFCEABEcCASU9ntUCykyPDeCAtpPAgDBQM7PQGAmFA-w

I have traveler’s for reasons.
I have pack for cheaper than strength and I like the precision it gives me (and allows perma fury/swiftness with my build I normally use)
I have altruism for another build that this allows perma fury and swiftness for teammates as well as myself
I recently salvaged my perplexity set I had for the keks

I almost never use the traveler’s anymore. shortbow, and various melee options, along with the other rune bonuses make it a moot point. I am just reluctant to salvage them because yeah. PvE is boring and completion is painful for me, so I use it to keep more useful utilities.

Traveler or pack. I prefer pack because it plays nicely with Thrill of the Crime. The power and precision it gives are nice bonuses as well.

Pack for the power.

Traveler for the permanent speed bonus

Centaur runes IMO are better than Traveler if you use Withdraw as your heal.

Pack for any build.
Traveler only if you prefer 25% speed more than extra dmg.
Strength for x/6/6/x/x/ stabby builds.

I use Eagle for p/p s/d IP build. Against light armor unloads hit for over 8k. That gets you 1200+ life. I use assassins retreat for my speed. This translates to perma swiftness in wvw.

Since mine a high crit build I really do not need more fury. Switfness comes from the trait and the 5 percent more damage from eagles 6th bonus a nice substitute for the power loss giving up Pack.

I stuck with Melandru. Helps with condition issues, especially since I mainline P/P stealthless.

I used travelers for a long time, then They lost almost all their stats.
Then i used pack, nice ones. But since roaming is 90% walking around and lookin for ppl u can fight, i got mad about being so slow (i do Not always want to switch an utility for runspeed…im lazy).
So i Made myself a full ascended zerker Set and use runes of speed.
Works very well for me.
(2/0/6/0/6 s/d d/p)

traveler – p/d thief – roaming, havoc, and zerg busting.

Rune of the air gives swiftness on heal. Combine this with withdraw and 3 points into vitality line and you have permanent swiftness. The added ferocity on crit builds is also nice, but power would have been preferable.

Franke.8147:

Rune of the air gives swiftness on heal. Combine this with withdraw and 3 points into vitality line and you have permanent swiftness. The added ferocity on crit builds is also nice, but power would have been preferable.

Air runes can reveal you at bad times with the sixth proc, especially if you run a stealth heavy set up. Not saying one shouldn’t use them if they want to (though I personally think there are better options), but I feel like that’s something that should be mentioned as they can potentially screw you over. If you want something like that I think Centaur runes are better. They also add power and reduce the duration of those pesky cripples.

I personally use pack for almost everything. I use speed on my old D/D SA build (which I rarely play anymore).

Pack
- D/P 60206
- S/D 20066
- S/D 20606
- D/D 06620 (full Berserker)

Centaur
- D/D 06620 (you know the one with Valkryie/Berserker Mix? well added some Knights)

dont use the last three builds anymore, 6 in SA is too passive and therefore boring imo

Problem about centaurs is that you are forced to waste a heal for swiftness sake.

Keeping your heal always on cooldown is a terribad idea.
In the end I changed from centaur to traveler.

Full Bersek with runes of speed is also a great combination, and cheaper.
Almost permanent swiftness and a good speed bonus to boot.

SoulSin.5682:

Problem about centaurs is that you are forced to waste a heal for swiftness sake.

Keeping your heal always on cooldown is a terribad idea.
In the end I changed from centaur to traveler.

Full Bersek with runes of speed is also a great combination, and cheaper.
Almost permanent swiftness and a good speed bonus to boot.

I don´t no if the “idea” of using for example a quaggan-tonic to trigger the effect still works though. And come on, we are talking about wvw, you can run across half the map until encounter an enemy. I almost always use forward withdraw to gain vigor for more dodges. Together with pack/acro- and sharpeningstone-boon duration i gain like 4sec with ONE dodge. Do that in aregular way together with using steal without target to gain 18sec swiftness and you can stack around 30-40sec.
And then you get the nice power/precision/fury (and even more swiftnes.
Pack all the way