Guild Wars 2

I can finally log in now I guess it really was a server issue and not an issue on my end!

I have not been able to log in the entire day today. Did the server really crash for the entire day or is there something else going on?

My mistake I didn’t know this was the proper thread to post, thank you for relocating it =).

In any case, ideas anyone?

I’ve taken a break from GW2 for several months (since around August, last time I logged in for a bit was around Halloween). Just today I decided to log back into GW2 and see what’s new (I hear there were a ton of changes). For whatever reason it isn’t letting me log in, the error messege I get isL

“The game client is unable to gain access to the log-in server at this time. This is most commonly caused by firewall or router settings, security applications or connecting through a campus network.”

I’m at home using the same computer that I used to play GW2 back then, I haven’t changed anything in my firewalls and am using the same router. What’s going on here?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Guide-to-Thief-Guides/first

That thread is the amalgamation of a lot of the popular thief builds in PvE PvP and WvW. D/D is still viable btw but the burst has been nerfed quite a bit (since mug no longer crits, it does the solid damage and heals for a good amount too).

Superior rune of perplexity (a new rune thats out) will probably get nerfed in the next patch to include internal cool downs, but until then going d/p and 30 into trickery and taking the GM trait for daze when you steal is absurdly good. You can basically perma daze/confusion stack. Enjoy it while you can.

Stooperdale.3560:

You might want to use orbs in your first set of armor rather than superior runes. It’s cheap and you can put a couple of new ones in to rebalance your build later as needed.

Absolutely agree. A lot of the builds you will see have superior runes of divinity which last I checked will cost you about 65g to have 6 pieces. Another popular rune is scholar runes, 6 of those will cost you around 17g, whereas if you run ruby orbs you will get almost as much DPS as scholar runes (and more dps if you do not manage to keep your health over 90% most of the time).

In terms of trinkets, I do not recommend buying them from the TP either craft them yourself or use the cavalier ones from the balthazar temple (if you’re running a burst dps build) or carrion ones if you’re running a condi based build (I think that’s from Lyssa’s temple but I could be wrong) until you can get your ascended trinkets. Get the ascended pendant with laurels, the 2 ascended accessories using 12 guild commendations + 5 gold each, and the rings will drop randomly on fractals lvl 10+.

In terms of acquiring gear for PvE or WvW

• Since you are new I am assuming you don’t have a lot of achievement points yet, so the easiest way would be to farm CoF, within a week you will have all 6 pieces if you do all 3 paths.
• If you do have a lot of achievement points chances are you got a ton of badges of honor as well. You can use those badges of honor to purchase every gear available in the game from the WvW vendors, this is technically the easiest way of all.
• Karma gear is very iffy, first of all it doesnt have all the stat combinations (no zerker armor) but it has soldier’s and cavalier’s. Secondly you need to finish temples in arah to access the vendors, (or you can guest in servers that has the temples open. Check www.gw2state.com to see which temples are open on what servers)

WvW Thief builds
See Arganthiums collection of “Guide to thief’s guides” on the top of the thief forums it has a collection of a bunch of different wvw builds. Running full zerker for any class in WvW is generally frowned upon because you will most likely die often even if you are quite skilled. Instead people often take cavalier’s, knights, or valkyrie, sometimes mix soldier’s with zerkers, it really depends.

I would suggest going to wvw with whatever gear and build you have right now and see how it feels. Just don’t be discouraged if you die a few times, your main objective is for you to do what you do and see if it works, and if it doesn’t check out some other wvw builds (there are tons) and get gear accordingly.

Offhand, the 2 most popular builds for thieves in wvw is the burst d/p or d/d build, which can range from your standard 10/30/30/0/0 to 0/30/30/0/10 to 15/30/0/10/15 to many others. Also, the attrition P/D build which is generally something like 0/0/30/20/20 or come combination of the last 3 traits.

PvP stuff
In terms of PvP all the gear is free unless you want specific looks (for that you will get skins for doing your PvP dailies and such, or you can purchase them using glory points – you get those by winning in PvP). PvP is a “balanced” environment so you don’t even need a level 80 all characters are level 80 in the mist by default. None of your armors or weapons will have stats, all your stats will come from the amulet you choose (which is the only trinket you will have) and the runes and sigils you put in your gear. PvP is a totally different beast from PvE and even WvW with different objectives, so I recommend looking up guides for that (there is a lot of stuff going on besides the obvious “kill everyone!”)

Again, check Arganthium’s guide in the top that is the “Guide to the thieve’s guides” you will find all sorts of builds.

As it was said above none of the current legendaries really fits the necro, the closest will be frostfang but an ice breathing dragon thing for a necro seems… odd… On a giant norn warrior makes perfect sense though (raging viking warrior and whatnot). Honestly rather than a legendary there are several other options you can look at in terms of crafting and buying that is more in line with the “necro look.”

• The focus “anomaly” (because who doesn’t like having their hand look like a purple hadouken?!) Really cool looking but very expensive.
• Alternatively there are 2 focuses (one is glowing purple and will cost your left kidney, the other is glowing blue, will cost half of your left kidney) that looks like a piece of a chain dangling from your fist (the name escapes me at the moment
• Yet another focus choice is a shrunken head skull I believe, again the name escapes me but maybe others in this thread will fill it in.
• There is no point in getting a more appropriate staff for the necro because by default the necro staff turns into a scythe, which is as necro as it gets. My guard has the final rest because it is the next closest staff that looks like the death scythe (aside from the halloween scythe skin).
• There is a mace that is literally a femur, which would’ve gone great with a necro but sadly… we can’t use a mace…

colesy.8490:

Reflecting his knockback attack deals him about 40k+ damage.

I did not know that, guess i’ll try wall of reflect next time im in CoF with my guard! Thanks

@ Colesy, we will agree to disagree I guess, I don’t think anything you said is wrong its just a difference in preference/style, which is cool.

(Btw why are you bothering with feedback and reflects with the effigy? Just dodge it, he telegraphs everything. I have literally been the only melee toon with 4 ranged guys 2 of which are CoF virgins, didn’t get hit once… the fight ofc took like 6 mins but that’s another story… I honestly have more trouble with slave driver in pugs who are doing CoF their first time than with effigy).

@ Sutcliffe, you’re right I am retraiting 5 from zeal to 30 in radiance, it makes the most sense for this build. Updated the build links to reflect that, thank you!

I’m still having trouble using sword MH esp with the GS synergy… if anyone uses a sword MH would you mind telling me how to best use it (besides spamming auto attack, which is basically what I do at this pt lol)

If you finish something faster it doesn’t equate to being better dude… what you enjoy doesn’t mean everyone else has to as well, its the quality of play that matters. I enjoy finishing dungeons without getting downed even once. This isn’t too difficult in tried and true dungeons like CoF and SE, etc, but for dungeons like arah and high level fractals GC toons get punished very hard for mistakes. Sacrificing some DPS to widen the margin of error is worth it in my eyes, and you will probably finish a dungeon faster if you have less downs…

UPDATED THE BUILD!
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR8dlUgyCHEyKEf4Eh1DAeQ/VVIeYPwI87IA-jwBBYLCyE1wUBBK5pIasFXFRjVVjIqWXDDA-e

Based on some field testing and the suggestions posted on this tread (thank you everyone for your critique!) I tweaked the build to the above.

The synergy of the build, (in theory anyway)
I guess the idea is to always stay above 90% health and make sure there is a condition on opponents at all times. This way:

• 10% damage inc from scholar rune kicks in when my health is above 90% health, which should be do-able with my defensive boons from shouts.
• 10% increased damage from fiery wrath when target is burning
• 10% increased damage from radiant power, deal more damage to foes that have a condition.
• The allstat trinkets are there instead of zerker for increased condition damage from my burns, increased defense and healing power so that it’s easier to stay above 90% health.

Stuff That I tweaked

• Got rid of divinity runes. If I did run divinity my attack would decrease slightly (~60 pts or so) but my crit damage would increase 4%, as would my healing, condition damage, vit/tough. However, 6 scholar runes cost ~17 gold, with the added 10% damage. 6 divinity runes will cost ~65 last I checked. I think divinity works better with this build but is divinity worth almost 50 gold better than scholar? Too rich for me sadly…
• Took 5 away from valor, 1 stack of might doesn’t make sense when I can have radiant power instead from radiance.
• Went with zerker gear rather than knight, although losing 100 power isn’t that big a deal, the crit damage loss from knight is pretty severe (I’d be at 51% crit damage rather than 67) at the expense of ~300 toughness. Zerker in this case is better, I have to say.

How is this version? Better?

I’m still skeptical about the sword MH I don’t really know how to use it properly, if you guys can give me some advice how I can use it in this build I’d appreciate it very much!

And again, thank you for your feedback!

Well the GS/Axe/Mace for a warrior is very seamless because of fast hands, by the time you’re done with HB → WW → Weapon swap → axe 2 → mace 4 → one axe auto attack chain → weapon swap, HB and WW are off cooldown.

This isn’t the same with the guard since there is no fast hands, thus weapon swap is 10s as opposed to 5. Also, suppose I’m done with my GS burst and swap to sword, now what do I do while I wait for GS to cool down?

@ Colesy, you’re right I messed up I didn’t say what I meant to say, my fault. Let me try that again.

Protection will reduce damage 33% regardless of your toughness, but I meant that if your toughness/vitality are low to begin with the 33% reduction won’t really help too much, i.e. if you’re HP is 10k and your toughness is 2k a big hit will bring you to really low health if not kill you, 33% reduction or not. Retal hits back damage based on your power. So if you’re in PVT gear it maximizes the effectiveness of protection and retal, is what I should’ve said.

In regards to your argument of dungeons and such with GC, basically running GC allows you to kill things faster assuming you make very few mistakes and you’re in a team that knows what they are doing and knows what to avoid, we agree there. What I disagree with is killing things faster is necessarily better, especially since I run dungeons with pugs so there is a high degree of variance in skill level. Very tough for GC’s to be effective when other members arent pulling their weight.

And really, is it that big a deal finishing CoF in 8 mins vs 18? If PvE is all about zerker DPS then everyone is making a mistake if they arent playing GC warrior/thief/ranger/mesmer

@Haviz, the GC builds that I am familiar with will want to stay with sword as long as possible (wouldn’t make sense otherwise when you’re buffing sword damage and crit % in the radiance traitline). Please let me know if it is possible to swap back and forth between sword/GS seamlessly in a combo or something, because I would be REALLLLLLYYYY interested in that!

@ Sutcliffe, that’s a very interesting point, I’ll give it a shot! My only hesitation is what major trait do I take if I take another 10 in zeal? I don’t use a signet in this build so the 20% signet cooldown seems pointless… unless I take signet of resolve as my heal, that still brings my cooldown to 32s (to 30s of shelter – and shelter procs almost immediately and blocks everything while it is casting, this saved my butt so many times I lost count).

Admittedly with zealous blade I’ve been really reckless, I literally jumped into 1 v 10+ aetherblade mob situations in the clockwork chaos just to see if I can (and until they start spamming CCs and control effects on me I do fine, but once my shouts are on cooldown that was a little too much for me to handle). I didn’t REALLY see too much of the healing proc from zealous blade even though I’m sure I’m hitting at least 3+ mobs at all times, but then again I don’t have all of the gear I want either (missing the ascended allstat rings and backpiece, using exotic zerker instead, missing divinity runes because those things cost as much as my kidney and half my liver, so using scholar instead)

@ Haviz, the short answer to your question of why I think my build has the extra support over a DPS GC build is that most of the GC builds uses a1H sword mainhand, mine uses GS, which has built in support capabilities lacking in 1H sword. Below is a more long winded explanation:

GS has built in symbol in the 4 skill to give AoE retal, AoE condi cleanse if u activate WW or BB on the symbol (although this can be a hit or miss if allies are too far away). Lastly, WW’s AoE has a high chance of hitting multiple opponents, thus a higher chance to crit and higher chance to trigger the on crit buffs guards have like empowering might, vigor on crit, etc – this is a relative advantage, 1H sword builds have very high crit % as well so they should crit quite often. However, they can’t hit as many opponents at once, so more enemies hit means more chances to proc a crit, although empowering might has a 1s internal cool down I believe so meh.

There are certain DPS builds that actually has very similar support utility like the one I have. For example, the 0/30/0/30/10 build, the 30 in honor is exactly like my setup. The issue is going 30 in radiance focuses on sword damage – sword damage increase 5%, critical hit chance increases 15% with 1H weapon. As stated above, I really don’t like the sword cleave range and AoE capabilities, even though the 2 skill is an AoE blind and the third hit in autoattack is a 3 way cone attack. It doesn’t compare with GS AoE where every skill has a wide AoE cleave, and the 5,5,4,2 GS combo a very potent melee AoE combo, probably one of the best in the guard’s arsenal.

@ Colesy, if you’re more skilled this also means you know when to hit your blocks, blinds, dodges, proc protection/retal/reflect, meaning if you’re using a build that gives you more of these things you will be even more effective. Protection/retal/regen aren’t very effective if your base stats in toughness are poor to begin with. We are speaking in terms of PvE so there’s the “pssh protect/retal/reflect/regen? You don’t need skills for that crap!” mentality. To this I say check out the top PvP guardian rankings and their builds, you’ll see skills!

I made this build in my quest for finding a guardian build thats a happy blend of pretty respectable DPS (higher than anchor guard but not as high as a full GC) while having pretty good group utility and survivability

@ Devils, nah dude you had it right I was speaking mostly in terms of PvE I’m just learning the ropes of WvW, I just cited an example of owning people without attacking. I do know what you mean (I don’t think there’s anyone who will disagree that seeing giant bright red numbers flashing and things dying left and right isn’t fun. Comeon now that’s the epitome of screaming I am MAN hear me ROARRRRRR!!!!) I disagree that full GC is the best way to play PvE, is all, especially when you have a class as well designed as a guard who can be so effective in so many ways.

People will jump on me for saying this I think but I really believe a guard DPS can’t compare with a warrior or thief, and if they could then the designers messed up, those 2 classes were meant to have unrivaled DPS. A guard on the other hand can have pretty high DPS WHILE being able to survive longer AND supporting teammates increase their DPS/survivability. I think going full GC on guard sacrifices too much survivability and support utility and basically I’m trying to play like a warrior. That hurts my soul, know what I mean?

@Dav, I swap to 2H mastery when I am solo-ing (no point in being generous when there’s only me!), and I have empowered when I’m in a group setting. To be honest, the 2H mastery is more in line with the build and feels a little better to play when things cool down faster, but even without 2H mastery (by taking empowering might) it doesn’t feel too clunky and works fine.

@ Devils, I understand the full zerker GC eliticism but it doesn’t necessarily make GC more “correct” or better suited for more skilled players. When I was running the anchor AH build, I took immense joy jumping in the middle of a full mob and tanking everything, watching people die from my retal (check thief forums, dealing with retal when running full GC thief is a total kitten). There is “fun” in this kind of build too, it is just a different playstyle.

My personal reasoning for not going GC on a guard is that I already have a zerker warrior and thief, what’s the point of making a third GC character? It is my personal opinion that I can rack up an insane amount of DPS on my warrior and thief, much more so than a full GC guard, but my guard can do things that a thief and warrior simply cant (spam boons, support party without sacrificing DPS – which to be fair my warr can do just as well – and tank like a mofo while outhealing damage that I take. Very different to any of my other toons and quite fun!

This was very helpful thank you!

Haha I have the opposite problem I can’t stand the 1H sword, I am an AoE freak I love my AoEs, GS for life!!!! (Unless I’m on my mesmer I hate GS on mesmer but thats another story lol)

I just tried out the 20/15/0/30/5 build today, in a mass mob situation like the clockwork chaos my God it is OP… only reason why I died a few times was because I got too reckless and literally went 1 on 20 with the aetherblades (and did not die easy!)

Damage tick weren’t as high as I’d like though WW only saw about 1200-1500, the trade off though was I rarely got condi-ed or CC-ed, I feel more tanky now than in the AH build for some reason…

@Devils, main reason why I didn’t go full zerker is because I happen to have all the knights gear and I’m too lazy to do CoF another 20 times for the zerker stuff haha!

But on a theorycrafting standpoint, guards have a really low health pool to begin with and to compound that with absolutely no toughness feels very unstable. I main a thief so I’m comfortable with timely dodging and using blinds but even then toughness so low feels… finicky…

@ Wukunlin, I don’t really like the 5 in virtues either, but since I’ll be popping VoJ every time I kill an enemy anyway, might as well get something out of it right? It’s an interesting idea though, I take it you want 25 in virtues for power of the virtuous. If I pop all my boons thats about 8% damage increase for 5s or so, that’s fairly significant. The main issue I have is, how do you deal with conditions though? Taking Absolute resolution removes 3 conditions on VoR activation but it’ll be on a 48s cooldown… The reason why I went into the PoV traits is because of the condi cleanse basically on demand with hold the line on 28s cooldown and stand your ground on a 24s cooldown.

Also lose selfless daring from the honor traitline, which is a significant amount of heal per dodge roll, and given i proc vigor on crit that’s a LOT of dodges and healing I’m missing out on

EDIT: I’m sure there are guys that run very low toughness/vit but I don’t know if you guys also run zealous blade. This is a very skill dependent question, but for you guys who run low tough/vit and rely on dodging and blinds, do you feel you have enough survivability to roll through fractals and such?

For comparison’s sake, if I take all zerker gear with the same traits, and swap to a DPS oriented runes like scholar, my build is this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlUgyCHEyKEfIFRuA7DAsSR8uH2DMC/OC-jwxAYLAMGERAiKAk8KiGbxtIasKXioaA-e

I gain about 500 attack, 22% more crit damage, but loose 500 in toughness, 300 in healing, 2k in vitality, basically I become extremely glassy at the expense of some hefty DPS… I don’t know is this a better idea?

Here’s the build I am thinking of:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR8dlUgyCHEyKEf4Eh1DAeQ/VVIeYPwI87IA-jwBBYLCyE1wUBBK5pIasFXFRjVVjIqWXDDA-e

UPDATED based on feedback!
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR8dlUgyCHEyKEf4EhNDAew6DxD7BGhfHB-jwBBYLCyE1wUBBK5pIasFXFRjVVjIqWXDDA-e

I’ve been running the anchor build (0/10/30/30/0) for a while now and it got a little stale, I wanted to try something different. I already had all the knight’s stuff and most of the celestial stuff, and since the guard (and maybe ele) are the 2 classes that literally uses every stat in the game, I wanted to see if I can put something around it.

Reason why I made my decisions

The Gunglai and Brazil high DPS guard build seems to be the rage these days but I really really REALLY hate the sword mainhand for the guard. The auto attack cleave feels too restricted in terms of range and the entire gameplay felt clunky to me, and not my style.

I get the argument, in PvE have just enough defense to survive and then go balls to the wall in DPS, I respect this mentality but I don’t agree with it. Every class has their “thing” that is unique about them, and I feel like the ability to heal and proc boons/support is the guards specialty. Going that DPS route feels like I’m trying to play my warrior or thief (both of who I feel does a lot better job at DPS).

The AH build was a little too much defense though and not enough DPS, and mostly I’ve been playing that build too long. I wanted to keep my healing and proc boons, but up my DPS a bit.

So I took 20 in zeal mainly for zealous blade, this will be my main “healing” source since I’m giving up AH, and of course increase my power/vuln/burn duration. 15 in Radiance to stack vuln/blind/renew VoJ (also 5 in virtues to proc might on VoJ), and the entire honor tree for the shout buffs.

Issues with Optimization
I think my trait choices make sense but there is a very valid argument about my gear choices, mainly, why not all berserker trinkets. I do think that will be the more optimal choice but I spent a lot of money getting the celestial ascended pieces, I want to use them =D. I’m also hoping the healing power and condition damage in celestial pieces make up for the DPS loss…

But in any case, feel free to fire away at this build and be as harsh as you like (I’m always responsive to creative criticism!) I’m posting this build to see if I can get some new ideas afterall!

@ Incurafy, I just looked up the Arganthium build (it’s in the guides to thief guides pin up thread), I think this is the one you meant:
http://intothemists.com/guides/293-sd_heavy_boonsteal_harassment_thief_by_arga

It’s a PvP build though, I was speaking more in terms of PvE, which is an entirely different ballgame.

I’m of the opinion that the thief traits, minor and major, are all over the place and not cohesive. Prime example is the trickery traits.

This line give condition damage/steal buffs and recharge rate, and the minor/major traits generally give steal buffs and initiative regen. But then there are two very powerful burst type traits in this line, for example, Flanking strike (5% increased damage when hitting target anywhere but the front) and Lead attacks (1% increased damage per initiative).

DoT builds need to invest in this tree, but so do builds that need initiative regen. You can invest 15 in trickery for a burst build to take flanking strike and the preparedness minor trait (+3 initiative), but now you have 150 condition damage which is worthless in a burst build. Lead attacks seem great but that will require going 25 into trickery and 250 worthless condition damage…

Contrast, minor traits in deadly arts… the “burst” traitline. Stealing applies poison for 10s? Poison applies weakness? How is this helping burst?!

In any case rather than complaining about how these traits are in the wrong locations, I’m wondering if anyone can cook up a strong burst build that invests heavily in trickery, and somehow makes the condi damage work.

Ideas anyone?

What Sir Vincent said.

If you have experience playing other classes and know a dungeon, bosses, things to avoid, etc, zerker is great.

You need to be a little more specific when you say “highest DPS” because technically speaking that would be full zerker going dagger/dagger 25/30/0/0/15. See Brazil’s DPS thief if that’s what you’re interested in, that is pretty much going balls to the wall on DPS. If you run this build you’re basically saying you like to live on the edge and have balls of titanium (or, you bit of a hell of a lot more than you can chew). No survivability, no condi cleanse, etc etc, DPS through the roof.

I much prefer to have at least SOME semblance of defense in case I mess up or something unexpected happens. 15/30/10/0/15, D/P and SB, all zerker gear, ruby orbs (because I’m poor). Still do plenty of DPS. Has excellent performance in PvE. I substitute in some soldier/cavalier gear with zerker coat and leggings in WvW.

EDIT: The classic DPS build with high survivability I believe is 10/30/30/0/0, very versatile.

@ Lopez, I don’t mean to single you out or anything but, to your point of any build succeeding in a AoE PvE setting because build doesn’t matter – have you played with a thief before the increased radius of clusterbomb was implemented? AoE was a huuuuuuuuge pain in the kitten before the radius buff even though single target DPS was through the roof. I mean no offense but I think you’ve become a bit too spoiled playing a class that has access to a ton of AoEs, and thats just the thing: everything has a role, AoE on mobs is invaluable.

I do like your suggestion of going into well support over life siphon, in terms of personal preference I don’t like how siphon health works – even though in practice it works fine with this build, its a matter of personal preference. I’m generally not worried about trying to keep my health topped off to tank minor hits in PvE, im more concerned about the big hits for which I want burst heals, siphoning is of minor use there.

These runes will defn get nerfed, so don’t fret =D

@Vince, you do realize P/D build in general uses 2 buttons, sometimes 3, right? CnD, 1, 1, 1, 3! 1, 1, CnD, 1, 1, 1… etc. Why no massive outrage over the OP-ness of this!

In other news, I love threads like this, it actually informs me about thing I didn’t even consider! Now I must try it

I really enjoyed watching the theory behind this build and then trying it out myself, it’s really fun to play, thank you for taking the time to make this, I can’t wait for the WvW build!

It’s just a little disappointing reading through all this “PvE content is easy” and “just go power build in PvE and ROFLstomp everything why are you bothering with taking extra survival” and “this build is not as good as build x y and z.” Sounds like a lot of people have an inward desire to play every class like Warriors or Thieves (and I wont lie, they are extremely fun to play. I would recommend rolling those classes to everyone).

Necros aren’t warriors or thieves though, and to not exploit their amazing AoE condi abilities is depriving ourselves of a fun and alternate way to play GW2.

I don’t think nemesis ever claimed that this is the best build ever created for the necro, it is just “one build.” Nemesis says early on in his video that he’s working under the assumption that condition damage is a form of damage over time, so you need both a damage source and ability to stay engaged in a fight and survive. He uses Curses for all the damage, and blood magic to stay alive longer so conditions have time to do their thing. Very simple and clean plan, I don’t understand this blood magic hate. It is definitely consistant with the theory of this build.

After looking around a bit it seems like power builds seem to be more popular in WvW, particularly in big zerg v zerg fights (this is contrary to what I thought, I thought condi necro and terror necro were the more popular option). And yes, ofc I should “play the way I am the best at” and all that jazz, but I’d like something solid to start with and tweak to my preference, if that makes sense.

When looking around everyone has their own thing going on so its hard for me to try to find a focused power necro build in WvW, so I’ll ask some specific questions and hopefully you guys can help me figure this out.

• Wtf exactly is the power build trait allocation? I’ve seen everything from 30/20/0/0/20 to 20/20/10/20/0 to something in between that.
• Is this a full power build or is it more of a hybrid thing?
• Condi builds are so fun to play because of crazy AoE’s control, by far the most AoE’s out of every character I played. Does the power build also have reliable AoEs?
• What, exactly, are the weaponset for a powerbuild? I think it uses the staff but I have seen axe/focus, axe/warhorn, etc etc.
• What’s the gear of choice? I have a feeling its not full zerker…

Mostly I’m not just looking for a link to a build or anything, I’m looking for a theme of “this is how you play power necro in wvw. In an ideal world open with this and do this when you need to hit the oh crap button” etc. Thank you all in advance for any advice!

ArtemusHunter.9521:

Hmm.. Well with that in mind, that would then put condition users closer to to being on par with melee bursters right?

… Umm I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic, but no the entire point of what I said is that melee bursters do significantly more single target DPS than condi. In a multiple mob fight is where the AoE conditions really shine but in terms of single target DPS it’s not even close

For the D/D build:
End goal: Some combination of Shadow arts, acrobatics and trickery, this varies by preference. I personally recommend 0/0/30/20/20.

• First 10: Invest in trickery, take uncatchable for the caltrops.
• Next 10: Shadow arts, Shadow’s embrace, and then invest in trickery until level 40
• Lv 40: 15 in trickery, 10 in shadow arts, 5 in acrobatics.
• Lv 50: 15 in trickery, 20 in shadow arts (infusion of shadows + Shadow’s embrace), 5 acrobatics.
• Lv 60: 15 in trickery, 30 in shadow arts (Shadow rejuvination), 5 acrobatics.
  *Lv 70 onwards: Round out your traits, 0/0/30/20/20, you want thrill of the crime for trickery, power of inertia and quick recovery from acrobatics.

Slot skills: Heal (Hide in Shadows), Shadow Refuge, Caltrops, Shadow Step, elite is Dagger Storm.

What I recommend in terms of specifics for the S/P build:
End goal: 10/30/0/30/0, for a balanced offense/defense build.

• First 10 traits, you’re level 20, spend on deadly arts, get “mug.” The reason for this is that up to level 20 you can easily DPS things down, so more power the better. Mug adds some nice damage and healing, nothing major but useful.
• Next 10 traits, you’re level 30, in acrobatics, take “Power of Inertia.” This will give you some vitality but more importantly might and swiftness (from minor trait) on evade. Invest in critical strikes after this until level 40.
• Next 10 traits, your level 40, unlock the master tier. Invest 20 in acrobatics (take power of inertia and quick recovery) and 10 in critical strikes (Take “side strikes.”).

Once you get to level 40 and the master tier is unlocked you can pretty much play it by the ear. The traits you want are:

• Mug from deadly arts.
• Side strikes, Practiced tolerance, Executioner from Critical Strikes
• Power of Inertia, Quick Recovery, Assasin’s reward from Acrobatics.

Alternate S/P trait allocations:
10/30/0/0/30, for a more bursty build with less defense.

• First 10 spend on trickery, get flanking strike.
• Second 10 spend on critical strike, get side strikes. Invest in power after that up to level 40.
• Once you reach level 40 and unlock master tier, invest 20 into trickery, take flanking strike and thrill of the crime, side strikes from critical strike. Invest in power after that up to level 50.
• Lv 50, take mug, invest in critical strikes after that.
• Lv 60, unlock grandmaster, 20 in trickery (flanking strikes and thrill of the crime), 20 in critical strikes (side strikes and practiced tolerance) and 10 in deadly arts (mug). From this point on invest in critical strikes first to get executioner by Lv 70, and round it out with taking slight of hand from trickery at Lv 80

Slot skills:
Heal (Either Hide in Shadows or Withdraw), Shadow Refuge, Assasin’s Signet, Shadow Step.

See this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Guide-to-Thief-Leveling/first#post2673271

The Condition Dagger/Dagger Build
Unlike the burst variant of this build, you do not use stealth offensively and you do not care about back stabs in d/d condi at all. The one reason why you are in stealth is to avoid aggro and to reposition yourself defensively. All your gear should have condition damage (and up to you for the other stats, i recommend power). Invest early in trickery (particularly “uncatchable” trait that drops caltrops every time you roll) and acrobatics (particularly, “power of inertia” which gives you a might stack per evade. Might increases condition damage).

Prominent skills of this weaponset:
The 3 and the 5 skill, basically. Heartseeker (2) and dancing dagger (4) have no use in this build.
Death Blossom, 3 skill: The core of d/d condi build. Leap and hit all targets in an AoE while evading all damage while in the leap animation. Each targets get 3 stacks of bleeds per death blossom. Spam this until you run out of initiative and watch things die.
Cloak and Dagger, 5 skill: Use this defensively when you are in trouble and need to stealth. It costs 5 initiative which is quite expensive, so use it wisely. Stealth in this build is only meant to allow you to deaggro and gain your stealth buffs from the shadow arts tree. You are not looking to backstab in a d/d condi build, although you could if some moderate damage. There are, however, 2 offensive uses of stealth in this build: Dropping caltrops (utility skill) and dropping the choking gas (short bow 4 skill). More on this later.
Caltrops, utility skill: Along with death blossom, caltrops is your other bread and butter of this build. Toss caltrops in an AoE that applies 2 stacks of bleeds every second for 10 seconds that lasts for 3 seconds.

Playstyle:
Since this is a rather initiative heavy build, managing your initiative is very important. Likewise, investing in initiative recovery is highly recommended, such as “quick recovery” in the acrobatics trait (2 initiative every 10s), or the slot skill infiltrator’s signet (1 initiative every 10s). Since you will need to invest at least 20 into trickery (this trait line has the condition damage) you will also get some steal and initiative recharge buffs, such as kleptomaniac (recover 3 initiative when you steal) and preparedness (+3 initiative so you have 15 initiative rather than 12).

In a mob, start with DB, drop caltrops, DB 3 more times, steal, DB once more, evade and run around to avoid damage and watch things die. Very fun way to play.

Pros/Cons:

• DB can be very funky in terms of where you land. I have DB-ed off of a cliff and/or got myself stuck somewhere that I couldn’t climb out of more times than I care to count. Be careful in uneven or narrow terrain.
• The curse of all condi toons is the lack of single target DPS. It is great for AoE but against bosses you will kill things a lot slower. The tradeoff is a lot higher survivability.
• Don’t get end gear for the d/d condi thief, they do not perform well in dungeons where it is all about boss fights. See above about single target DPS. Also, because of the bleed mechanic of GW2, 2 condi characters will cancel one another out since the max bleed stack is 25.

Closing Thoughts
This is the first guide attempt I ever made so I’m sure I completely messed up several times, I apologize. I personally used both these builds when leveling my thief. Both are very effective although I grew bored of the sword/pistol build quickly. I enjoyed the d/d a lot more due to the more active playstyle. But in terms of validity both these builds are solid. I hope this answered some questions for new thieves and was helpful!

This topic came up several times within the past month and I know I personally posted on 4 different threads on the “how to level a thief” topic alone. I figure if we experienced thieves can all weigh in, this will be helpful to all. Hopefully enough people contribute for this to become a post it

I’ll try to be organized in this “mini guide” of sorts

First Impressions
When someone first rolls a thief, there are several things some people notice immediately (I know I have):
*This isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I wanted to play a ninja class…
*I think that centaur just gave me a love tap and found out that my muscles are SQUISHY!!! This must be why I just got downed.
*I keep dying so much that I’m getting frustrated, how am I supposed to level to 80 when I can’t even level past my 30s?!
And last but not least
*This class is actually really quite fun!

General Things to Avoid
To begin with, it is very important to establish that end game thief playstyle is REALLY different from beginner thief. I cannot stress that enough. Most of our end game builds are extremely gear dependent. With proper gear getting a 5-7k backstab off in wvw for example is expected. Without the proper gear but the same exact build, you’ll be lucky to do 2k. This applies to PvE as well.

Said another way, trying to go burst dagger/x (particularly d/d) for a thief under level 40 is going to be an exercise in frustration. Not only are the gear not adequate at that level to support a backstab with decent damage, the stealth buffs that we rely on to help with survivability aren’t available yet.

Two Most Effective Ways to Level
The burst Sword/Pistol method
Pretty straight forward way to play. Equip a sword main hand, a pistol off hand, all gear should be power/precision and (when level 60+) crit damage. Invest in acrobatics, critical strikes and a little bit in power in terms of traits. Remember to turn off auto targetting sometimes you want to drop black powder just to create a combo field – more on this later.

The prominent skills of this weapon set are:

• Autoattack, 1 skill: I’m not kidding this is generally where most of your DPS is coming from.
• Infiltrator strike, 2 skill: The bread and butter of the sword main hand. Target an enemy and press it once and you will teleport to target, hitting and immobilizing him. Press it again and you will teleport back to where you originally were, and as an added bonus, cleanse a condition on you. Both an excellent offensive and defensive tool.
• Pistol whip: Used to be an amazing skill, now the damage has been nerfed so hard that it’s ehhh given how much initiative it costs. First hit will daze targets in line of sight, then you will be rooted in place as you unleash a flurry of hits. During this time you will evade everything as you are hitting things. Should be used situationally given its heavy initiative cost.
• Head shot, 4 skill: Situational use in PvE, very useful in PvP and WvW. Basically shoot a target to interrupt, this is unnecessary in PvE – you can just dodge the big hits rather than having to interrupt. But vs human targets it’s awesome.
• Black Powder, 5 skill: This is an amazing AoE skill. Drop a smoke combo field around you where all foes within the radius becomes blinded! This is one answer to the AoE issue that plagues thieves. Just blind everything and hit them while they cannot hit you. Also of note, the smoke combo field has some special utility for thieves. For example, a leap finisher (such as heart seeker, #2 skill in dagger) through the smoke field will stealth you, leap through the field several times to stack stealth duration. Blast finisher (cluster bomb, #2 skill of shortbow) on the smoke filed will give AoE stealth to all your allies.

Playstyle:
The idea of this build is to dart in with infiltrator strike (sword #2 attack), drop black powder (pistol #5), autoattack. At this point it is up to you if you want to drop another black powder and keep auto attacking (if the mob is about to die) or shadow return back (sword #2 again) if you want some distance or want to cleanse a condition. Simple as that.

Pros/Cons:

• Main pro is that you’re going to pretty much be able to avoid most damage while you dish out some hefty DPS between your black powder and evades from pistol whip. Of course if you are facing dredge who are immune to blind… things get a little dicey and you basically have to abandon using black powder on them.
• You aren’t exactly invincible in this playstyle even if you’re not facing dredge. Black powder pulses once per second to blind targets. This means that if a target is hitting you more than once per second, you will take some hits.
• AoE is still somewhat of a problem, while all sword hits do cleave damage it’s not adequate to deal with crazy amounts of mobs coming your way. For this, have the shortbow as your alternate weaponset, cluster bomb is excellent for AoE!

Youtube Yishis outnumbered wvw D/P thief, it will give you a very good idea how to play D/P thief. Granted he plays extremely well but it gives you an idea of what a D/P can do and etc.

Pretty much what Infantrydiv said about necros. That being said I get pwn-ed by necros quite a lot, they are tough buggers especially if they know how thieves work…

With respect to other thieves running D/D, one absolute advantage you have going D/P is on demand stealth. For the other thief to get off a stealth he needs to land CnD which has a very predictable animation and you should make all efforts to avoid it via dodge or blind – more in this in a bit.

(Exception to what I said above: If he sneaks up on you, has the trait “mug” and pulls the basilik venom → assasin’s signet → CnD → steal → backstab —> HS spam combo. If you do not see this coming and you get ambushed, there is a very strong possibility you’re dead very very quickly).

The D/D builds can vary, they can run the standard 10/30/30/0/0, or take a more balls to the wall offense approach (25/30/0/0/15) and various others. Whatever the case may be, the linchpin of d/d strategy is going to stealth to backstab you. The most reliable way to do that is CnD, which has a very long and noticeable animation (unless he is pre-casting CnD and then stealing, this is very difficult to avoid). This is a very big problem for D/D thieves and something D/P can exploit hard, dropping black powder, or using shadow shot, or interrupting them with pistol 4.

As someone stated above, your 0/30/15/25/0 build is a bit of an anomaly for D/P, because D/P builds especially like to take advantage of shadow arts due to the on demand stealth. Taking shadow rejuvenation for a D/P build is especially powerful as you can basically reset any fight you want.

I don’t think I’m THAT terrible but it’s defn an anomaly for me to be above 90% health for more than half the fight in a general PUG. Maybe this calculation was done by a dedicated group that had someone providing constant regen or something…

There are elitists out there that swears by scholar runes to be out and out the best for DPS and you’re stupid if you don’t agree or don’t understand. Count me among those who feel stupid, why is this considered the best without question? You guys can probably explain this to me because there are a lot of choices that seem viable.

I run a 30/0/0/10/30 full zerker warrior, and I’m poor so I have all ruby orbs. Given that I run a zerker character that goes front line to melee things, I’ll be honest. I’m rarely (if ever) 90% or above in health, if I were to average a general boss fight my health will be above 90% maybe 10-20% of the entire duration of the fight.

Ruby orbs are what they are, uninteresting but brute force. 120 power +8% crit damage +84 prec (4% crit chance).

Scholar runes: 165 power, 8% crit damage, and an additional 10% damage if over 90% health.

Then there are various others like Pack, Wurm, Divinity, etc. I’ve been also wondering about Superior rune of Rage. While under the effects of fury (which is fairly easy to keep up between for great justice and signet of rage) that’s 15% crit damage (as opposed to 12% with 6 ruby and 8% with scholar).

I don’t know what the right answer is, or if there is a right answer. I just came into some gold recently but I’d rather not waste like 20+ gold for no reason. What are your opinions on this matter?

I was wondering, what about superior rune of Rage? 10% crit damage at all times, 15% crit damage under fury?

I guess this is more viable with warriors who have easy access to fury, but we do have thrill of the crime, kinda sorta fury…

The problem with this build that I am experimenting with is the superior rune of tormenting… it extends my torment duration by 45% but doesn’t really do much for my bleeds. That combined with going 0/0/20/20/30 or any combination of 0/0/x/x/x doesn’t give any condi duration, and it makes no sense to invest in deadly arts at the expense of shadow arts or acrobatics/trickery. Outside of venoms deadly arts doesn’t really offer much condi support or survivability.

I don’t think we have the tools yet to stack a significant amount of torment alone yet, whereas we can stack 20 bleeds with ease. I don’t think I managed to stack 10 torment yet on my own =(. I therefore sadly conclude that I am unable to create a satisfactory torment thief at the moment, and that bleed p/d thief is the superior condi thief at the moment. Sigh.

There are 2 ways to level with the thief that is considered “the best.”

1. Going Sword/Pistol with shortbow off hand, use black powder (pistol 5, AoE blind that pulses) and then cleave with sword auto attack. Basically massacres all melee mobs. Just focus on power and prec/crit damage for this. When dealing with a lot of mobs or ranged mobs, swap to shortbow and spam cluster bomb. Effective, although I didn’t particularly enjoy it.

2. Going Dagger/Dagger condi bleed thief. Focus on condition damage and survivability (specifically invest in trickery, acrobatics, shadow arts). Drop caltrops from your utility slots, spam leaping death blossom (D/D 3 skill) and watch things die. Very fun build and this is what I personally used when leveling. Downside to this is that it’s not the best build to use when doing dungeons or fractals, but you can worry about that when you get to level 80,

@Qultera: Only reason I can think of why no one replied to your thread is that this particular issue has been brought up many times before so maybe they didnt want to reply again. The general consensus for leveling is using sword/pistol or d/d condi thief. Also remember to do all 5 starter maps to level to 35 ish, faster you get to 40 the better. Playing thief is so much easier once you unlock the grandmaster traits.

I leveled my thief as my first gw2 toon as a condi bleed thief, then specced it out with appropriate gear and good looks, nearly 20 gold (which was a lot for a first timer) was spent on this toon. It was near and dear to my heart.

Then I went to do dungeons and fractals, found out how friggin useless it was. Swapped to burst thief. I fly, things die, all I can say is “oh my.” All my previous gear was deleted.

I also have a fully exotic geared condi necromancer now, so my need for condi damage has been assuaged. But torment… and new runes to support torment… and P/D having torment… it got me wondering again.

Can a bleed + torment P/D thief be viable? Perhaps not so much in PvE, but in wvw and PvP?

I’m thinking of something like this in WvW. This build editor didn’t update yet so the new runes arent available, but I want superior sigil of bursting (not superior sigil of agony) and I want superior rune of tormenting (not afflicted).
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqYVlUmaPXaS6E+5EB3Dni0m694rj1sdFuKA-jwxA4MBRKAItAiVAkCLiGbBrIas6YioaA-e

I never played a P/D thief, but the general idea seems interesting. I’ll be focusing on stealing a lot and this gives me my stealth without use of CnD, sneak attack and try to land the 3 skill as much as possible.

Thoughts on this build?

EDIT: Rotation that I was thinking of:
Shadow Strike —> activate skale venom —> steal —> sneak attack —> shadow strike —> kite and spam 1 until steal is off cooldown (which is about 20 secs) and do it again, OR get close enough to CnD to get off more sneak attacks.

What I had in mind was stacking more torment rather than bleed since the P/D seems to excel at kiting, and torment does more damage when target is moving…

I was on the same boat as you a couple weeks ago. I had 3 level 80s already the necro was the 4th, and I decided to go with what’s unique among each of my characters. For example my thief and my warrior are both glass cannon zerkers, as DPS is their best attribute. My guard is an AH based anchor guard with high survivability. Thus I went with a condi necro since none of my other toons are condi based, and necros do condi better than any other class.

This is not to say any other necro builds aren’t as strong or stronger, I just picked it because none of my other characters can do it as well!

Another plus was that a condi necro gear is pretty cheap, most of the gear you can get from temples (except chest and boots) and those you can get from TA or CM or Badges of Honor, etc.

The gear is all rabid, including weapons and trinkets. 3 superior runes of krait and 3 afflicted. Superior sigil of earth and corruption on sceptor/dagger, superior sigil of whatever you want on staff.

Slot skills: Blood is power, Epidemic, and whatever you want.

Traits: 30 into curses is a necessity, the rest is up to you. (For example you can go 0/30/20/20/0 for the “Fearmancer” build in wvw, you can opt to go 10/30/0/30/0 instead for the “classic” condimancer build with high survivability instead).

EDIT: There is the “hybrid” build that nemesis has a tutorial on which is also quite popular – incidentally he also has a condimancer build if you want to take a look. I used the hybrid to level up but I found that I rarely used the single target DPS much and most of the time I used my necro for AoE, world completion, etc. The gear for the nemesis hybrid is a bit more expensive since it requires a lot of allstat gear.

ArtemusHunter.9521:

There is a problem with this set up that rises then. If we all had our own personal bleed cap of 25, think of how many people are applying bleeding to that boss. Five people could run a bleed build, get to 25 stacks each, thus making the boss bleed 125 times a second. If everyone, and most likely they will be, was running with exotic condi-gear, we’re looking at a large, REALLY large number of bleeding damage being done. and thats just 5 people.

Zergs tend to be 40+ people. Even with the compensation events do to scale enemies up for multiple people, 125 bleeding a second from 5 fully decked out guys is a lot and would probably wreck most legendary bosses. I know my condition damage can do anywhere from 130-170 depending on the location buffs, so if say we had 5 people doing 125 bleed a second at ~150 a tick per stack.. You’re looking at 18,750 damage a second. From 5 people. let that sink in.

My original reply was a lot longer, so to not write an essay I’ll try to be concise.

Ok lets work with those numbers. If geared and traited a necro can get to 25 stacks of bleed on his own, but most other classes can’t, and even then it is hard to maintain a constant 25 stacks of bleed. So lets take a reasonable route and say 20 stacks of bleed for these 5 people, at 150 ticks a second. This is 20 × 150 = 3000 DPS, and 5 people are doing this so 15,000 DPS. In theory if all 5 guys can have 25 stacks of bleeding uptime – unlikely but let’s consider it – thats 3750 per person, 18.750 per 5 people.

Let’s take 5 melee characters, say 3 warriors (30/0/0/10/30) and 2 thieves (25/30/0/0/15). I originally listed all the traits and skills warriors and thieves would use but those details aren’t relavent to my argument. It boils down to basically:

1. 100% fury uptime
2. 100% uptime of 25 stacks vulnarability
3. Let’s say about 10 stacks of might.
4. 100% fury uptime + Banner of discipline + generally high crit % of the above builds = pretty much EVERY HIT CRITS, and these builds give them about 110% CRIT DAMAGE.
5. Banner of strength + empower allies gives +320 power to all.
6. Can immediately reach max damage output, dont need time to build up 20 stacks of bleeds and whatnot.
7. Things get 20% more interesting when boss is under 50% health as thieves’ executioner trait kicks in and deals 20% more damage.

Melee DPS is a kitten to try to figure out as it takes into account the armor and skill coefficient, and the range of damage it can do, also 4 or 5 different skills, not to mention the buffs I just talked about above. I’m going to save myself a massive headache and avoid doing the math and just look at the tooltip for 100 blades alone, which for my warrior (no exotic trinkets besides amulet) says it does ~4k damage for 8 hits 1k for last hit, so ~5000 damage in 3.5 seconds, round down to 1400 DPS, raw. No food, no stacks of bloodlust, no adrenaline, no boons.

Now enter complications:
1. As stated above, the fury uptime + Banner of discipline + my own traits and gear gives my warrior something close to 85-90% crit chance, and my warrior has 110% crit damage. THIS ALONE PUTS MY DPS TO 2940.
2. The 1400 raw DPS above also doesn’t count in Berserker’s Power (which gives 15% damage at full adrenaline).
3. Add in the +320 power from banner of strength and empower allies.
4. Add in 25 stacks of vuln, 10 stacks of might, another 35% damage.

Do you think it is reasonable to conclude, therefore, my DPS will be a lot higher than 3750 when I’ll do almost 3k dps just on a critical hit from one slash of Hundred Blades, stripping off all boons and support buffs? 5 condi toons with ideal 25 stacks of bleeding and 150 ticks per second would do ~19k DPS. Given that I can do 3k on a crit cold turkey, let’s agree that my 1 warrior alone can top 4k DPS with all the buffs mentioned with absolute ease. (In reality I think his DPS is a lot more than that under those ideal circumstances).

Lowballing then, 5 melee toons therefore would have 20k DPS to 19K from 5 condi toons. A zerg of 40 condimancers would do 152k DPS, whereas a zerg of 40 melee toons would do 160k DPS. Now, yes 5 melee toons will need to move and dodge whereas the condimancer will have an easier time staying at range and keep up the DPS. However my calculation is severely underestimating the actual melee dps, it still doesn’t add up.

The thing with the bleed caps is I’m still not sure how it works. Say I (a necro) have 1500 condition damage and a ranger has 1200 and a thief has 1400, and the three of us capped bleeds at 25, I’m responsible for 12, ranger 8 and thief 5.

It makes the most sense that my 12 ticks does my condi damage and the thief’s 5 gets his condi and ranger his, but there’s no real way of knowing how many ticks each person is responsible for.

Also if I’m on my zerk warrior or thief and doing 3-4k damage per autoattack, I don’t really care if the guy next to me is doing 1k damage or 7k, it doesn’t affect my damage output at all. If I’m with another condi necro now its like “hey do you have more condi damage than I do? You do? Well kitten , I guess I’ll try to get out of your way then…”

There needs to be a better solution to bleeds. Perhaps leave the cap at 25 but make it 25 per person so each person gets their own bleed ticks and they feel less useless

I agree with option 1, swap it with a major trait that people use and leave it there for those who favor it so that it doesn’t bone the rest of us.

That being said it cannot be one of the “good” major traits like cloaked in shadow or shadows embrace, that might be a little overbuffed.

(But seriously, if last refuge minor trait was swapped out for “Hidden thief” – stealing grants 2 seconds of stealth – burst thieves would air hump the computer screen in appreciation. Think about it Anet!) Although that might be overbuffed quite a bit.

I main a thief so my WvW experience is mainly roaming and 1v1 situations. I’m branching out and trying a few of my alts in WvW. I finally got my necro to level 80 and geared him for the condimancer spec in PvE, but I realized things like Blood is Power (a staple in PvE) doesn’t have a lot of utility in WvW. Also, I didn’t worry too much about stun breaks and cc’s in PvE, in wvw its another story.

I really like how my necromancer plays in wvw and I especially enjoy zerg vs zerg fights (where the necro AoE’s own so many people, especially fun when my intended targets get out of the way but other people just walk into the AoE’s randomly!) I’m not sure what the meta “build” for necro wvw is though.

From what I read, the “Fearmancer” seems to be quite popular, I don’t know too much about how it is run but I imagine it is something along the lines of this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNArYWjMat7xbea07JAJFX/c0DiDOZKFqnOA-jgyAINioRKAIVBg8AlDLiGbBTIq8pxqZwUpER1ekioVDA-e

(The gear is what I currently have, obviously not optimized)

Is that about right? And if it is, how do necros deal with CC’s and speed issues (I’m used to flying all over the map with my thief, the necro in comparison seems reeeeeeeally slow which is why I guess running in a zerg is a necessity)

Any hints on how to play the necro in WvW would be very welcome! Currently I just throw down as many AoE’s as I can and things tend to work out somehow (i.e. sceptor 2 to dagger 5 to weapon swap to staff 2, 3, 4, 5, epidemic if i can, etc).

As you can see I don’t really have a clue what I’m doing, so please let me know how to be a better necro in wvw!