Guild Wars 2

messiah.1908:

Full zerk or mix with valk
You don’t need toughness if ppl can’t hit you

That’s true…but I’d prefer it if I didn’t drop in one hit if I make one mistake or if I run out of evades/dodges. But thank you for your input.

Evalia.7103:

916/1216
in WvW add 250-310 to vit and 30-90 to toughness coz infusions bl bloodlust and applied fortitude… Aside from that full berserker of course.4
Can you even solo a camp with your build? No Refuge? Double sigils(sharing cooldowns over swaps)? Whatever…
I have 18k HP and 2.1k toughness in WvW while running full berserker. Ascended, infusions, counted in guard leech +30/30 from bloodlust and 5%(average, 0-10% depending on points) bonus HP.
I’m in top 500 pvp(both queues) as a S/D thief. But lately more and more often I find myself leaning towards D/P to own groups of enemies, something I can’t really do on S/D(anything more than 3 80(upleveled are helping you more by rallying) is death!)

For what it’s worth, I dislike how stealth functions in this game, so I wanted to make a thief that relied on stealth as little as possible, hence the lack of shadow refuge. Since you appear to be so knowledgeable about thieves, would you mind telling me what sigil set up you would use on your weapons?

Hi guys,

I’m really new to thieves in general, so I’m not entirely sure what an ideal amount of toughness/vitality would be for a S/D thief in WvW (solo roam mostly).

Right now I’m running Soldier armor (PVT), but my Ferocity/Crit. Dmg is rather low, so I’m not sure if I should swap it for Valkyrie armor or use a mix of both.

If anyone could point me in the right direction, I would really appreciate it.

For the record, this is what my build looks like atm:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0Mp0pVOxwJ8PNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdHl+eEA-TFCFwACeEAIVekUJWG9BpU/p2+DLOCAAOBAkC4pFAA-w

Thanks for the help you guys!

Decklan.7540:

Also, like I said, before you invest in anything gear related, experiment in sPvP with a SHAMANS amulet and Signet of the Wild to see if you enjoy the passive healing playstyle.

Nothing is worse then buying/crafting all your gear only to realize you can’t stand playing the build or setup behind it.

I will say this though, experimenting with the Shamans trinket in spvp has made me want to slowly work towards a full set of Apocthecary gear for WvW (already have half of it crafted yes I’m one of those types with all 8 crafting professions maxed )

Hmm, yea I guess I’ll try messing around with it to see whether or not I’d like it.

Decklan.7540:

Also, I hate to say it, but I’m really not liking the Dire stat combination so far. I think it’s like P/V/T gear. It’s great for zerging but I truly feel having passive regen helps more for small roaming. This is just my opinion though.

Fair enough. Like I said, my entire build (except for shortbow) is open to criticism. It’s not like it’d be difficult to get full Rabid gear anyways, although I might leave a piece or two just for the Vitality.

Also, I’m not sure if you saw my previous post where I replied to you, but since you mentioned Spirit ranger, do you have any idea what I should be aiming for in terms of equipment/skills/traits?

cyborG.3026:

Before you fight try switching SoH for Renewal.

Yea, if I know a fight is about to happen I try to swap out SoH for another trap (Viper Pit usually) or Signet of Renewal.

Chopps.5047:

Take muddy terrain and wilderness knowledge, you’ll thank me later also strongly consider keen edge and sharpened edges

Interesting suggestion! Although, some people have been telling me that they’re not particularly fond of Muddy Terrain? Do you have any idea why that may be? Also, what would you recommend I give up for both Muddy Terrain and Wilderness Knowledge?

cyborG.3026:

Although your setup is good and all, you won’t last much against other condi builds, esp necros w/o a sufficient condi removal, aside from emphatic bond.

I have yet to face a Necro yet, believe it or not (the one I faced thus far was obviously new, so that doesn’t count). I definitely notice the lack of condi removal though…I’m just not sure what to give up instead.

nagymbear.5280:

I play full rabid trapper, but I only run the grandmaster trait for traps. I sometimes miss ground targeting when assulting towers/keeps, but I’ve made the experience that melee classes will come to you anyway, and those that kite you, you won’t hit with traps at 600 range. I run a very similar build. I’d say you have to be a bit of a psycho to run this build in solo roaming. Even with dagger offhand it lacks in defensive utility. You’re best bet is to condi burst people before they can kill you. You can reach pertty high condition damage with rabid gear. I would switch out the geomancy runes for earth as well though. In my experience they bug out sometimes and don’t prokittenil I restart the game, and there go my corruption stacks. Also if you proc the earth sigil, thats a 9 seconds cooldown on your geomancy sigil. I have fun playing this build, when it works it melts people, when it doesn’t you die. High risk high reward (unlike most thieves lol).

Edit: My stats (with two stacks of bloodlust, 25 stacks of corruption, and consumables) as reference. 1 ascended amulet, rest is all exotics, with crest in trinkets.

Oh wow, I did not know that the Earth and Geomancy sigils shared a cooldown. That seems lame…I’m not sure about switching to another Earth sigil though, since I’m not attacking with my Sword/Dagger all that much; it’s mostly for the evades and the disengage. Maybe something that increases the poison/cripple duration?

Decklan.7540:

Rabid gear isn’t bad, in fact it’s pretty decent, but most roaming rangers I’ve encountered lately are running some sort of passive regen with healing power. Would you be willing to switch from rabid to apoc?

A lot of times in wvw it’s about outlasting and capitalizing on whoever makes the first mistake. I have seen a few successful full zerk rangers out there however, but if they don’t kill someone in their initial salvo I usually see them swooping away with their greatsword.

IMO, if you like traps and you like the shortbow, you should really try out some build variations with the Shamans Trinket in sPvP. The traditional apoc build is still sword/dagger/axe/torch as your four weapons, but I don’t want to tell you to not use the shortbow if you are having fun with it.

Also, I know you are committed to shortbow, but how committed are you to traps? I’ve seen a few spirit rangers in WvW utilizing the shortbow to great effect as it attacks are quite fast and can more easily proc the protection boon and burn condition with the sun and earth spirit.

With all that said, I know of one ranger who is a trapper who switched from rabid to apoc and got 6 travellers runes, then got rid of his signet of the hunt and slotted in signet of the wild. He enjoys it right now.

Apoc is interesting, but it would take me a lot of time to get Apoc gear, since AFAIK there are no dungeons with Apoc gear; I’d have to craft everything myself.

Shaman’s is an interesting suggestion; I thought the general consensus was that Toughness > Vitality?

Lastly, I’m not entirely opposed to making a spirit ranger, but I’m very apprehensive. Spirit rangers have both a wind-up and cooldown time where they’re extremely vulnerable, the latter of which happening only recently due to the recent Spirits nerf. But I mean, there’s a bare minimum of 4.5 seconds where all you’re doing is casting your spirits; in reality that number’s closer to 5 or even 6 seconds of nothing but channeling. If that doesn’t scream “interrupt bait,” then I don’t know what does. Still, it seems interesting. Do you have any recommendations as to what I should do for a Spirit build?

Traveler runes seem very compelling, but they’re ATM very pricey and I’m not sure how I’d feel losing out on my Undead runes. Still though, being able to drop Signet of the Hunt and pick up another trap, a different signet, or a stunbreaker seems very enticing. I’ll have to think about that.

First off, here’s my current build: link

Rabid gear mixed with Dire for some additional survivability (please note that the build calculator does not give me a ‘Dire’ option set. All of my armor except for my head and shoulders are Dire.) The missing amulet, accessories, and infusions are intentional (I haven’t gotten those yet, and I’m not sure which infusions to get).

Here’s an in-game screenshot that provides a better representation of my stats (sans food/nourishment): link

I’m open to all build criticisms, save for the short bow. I realize the short bow is kitten , especially with the 900 range nerf, but the concept of my ranger using a shortbow is so engrained into my head that using any other weapon would severely hinder my enjoyment of the game.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now that that’s out of the way, can you guys give me a hand with solo WvW? It seems like no matter what, who I’m up against, etc, I always get thrashed. I realize a lot of this boils down to inexperience, but it gets really frustrating when it seems like I am simply unable to win. It seems like I either undercommit and my opponent heals back to full and tears me apart, or I overcommit and I end up paying for it.

I mean, I seem to manage my pets well and make use of my evades and dodges (although I definitely need to learn some of the animations for the other professions).

Can anyone give me some general tips as a solo roamer? Maybe things that gave you trouble when you were against a trap ranger? Or perhaps you’re a trap ranger yourself and could offer some advice? Suggestions on which infusions and which ascended amulet to get would also be nice. In any case, I’d really appreciate any help that I could get.