Guild Wars 2

Every build can work in PvE, just that we do the best damage with S/P and D/D depending on the situation.

That said you can certainly use it for PvE and practice timing #3 and try to maintain 90%HP as much as possible with the build. The right timing and usage can be transferred to PvP/WvW situations.

Meh. 1v1-wise condi will eat non-condi heavy players, generally speaking.

Roaming-wise though I prefer D/P or S/D currently. P/D is a tad slow and your runes are either krait or perplexity atm, which means you’re pretty slow.

sPvP-wise I’d pick S/D or S/P to hold a node or something.

I dunno about D/P winning over S/D though. Especially after the crit damage “balance”.

Ianne.7496:

so basically

-shadow’s embrace from SA is replaced with pain response (even if less effective)
-Shadow’s rejunevation from SA is replaced with assassin’s reward
-the blind on stealth is replaced with the extra dodge due to the less endurance consumed and the vigor on healing skill
-the extra damage from the might on stealth is replaced with the 10% more damage when endurance isnt full
-and the extra amor from SA is replaced with the extra HP from acro

the only thing Im not sure about is: is it worth it to drop 300 Armor/Healing power for 300 Vitality/Boon duration?

I know it depends on play style,but since Im roaming,I like to fight again 2-3 players at the time

and also,with the acro trait line,I’ll need to use withdraw,means Ill lose the poison/bleed/burning remove from HiS

I’m personally still using HiS. And it’s good to have at least one stealth move in my opinion for disengagement purposes. But then again if you’re traited for vigor Withdraw pretty much gives you perma-vigor with the 30% boon duration + steal’s vigor, lol. There’s also the food that gives 40% endurance regeneration and might on dodge, which works pretty well with this build, too.

I think you just need to try it out. But usually people pick one over the other. The thing is in either Shadow Arts or Acrobatics, the GM trait provide passive healing which increase your sustainability + a passive trait that increases your damage. Not getting those really loses out on damage and heals.

If going full Acrobatics, there is quite a lot of cleansing options. Basically all your utilities will cure some conditions: Roll for Initiative, Evade/Hide in Shadows, Shadowstep, and either the break stun signet or precision signet. You then have Pain Response that triggers every 30 seconds below 75% health that removes poison/burning/bleeding.

When you invest in full Shadow Arts, you’re relying on stealth for mostly sustainability and condi removal, whereas D/D or D/P utilize stealth by also optimizing damage (backstab). I think personally a Sword user gets more by investing full in Acrobatics, and it’s really just a different playstyle than the Dagger user that relies on stealth. Instead it really challenges the player to time dodges, use the right condi removal, and apply pressure without a safety net.

Nah. The pack boon shouldn’t be dependable. I’d say it’s at least 3-5 seconds without fury. Playing with S/D, the goal is not to get struck as much as possible, so the rune boons are a bonus, but not relied upon. With the boon duration though it’s pretty much 100% upkeep. The 30% duration also benefits #3 boon steal as well as Steal’s own boon steal ability.

The other useful point is you basically have 100% swiftness upkeep outside of combat with Acrobatics as well, since you gain 3 seconds of swiftness with a dodge. Coupled with Steal + Rune of the Pack, 2 dodges and steal gives perma-swiftness.

What are you going to use for a swapping weapon?

I think if you’re running Shadow Arts over Acrobatics Hide in Shadows would be a better choice. The heal will blind your opponent + heal another condition other than poison/bleed/burning + 4 seconds of healing from the GM trait. Due to that I’d replace blinding powder with roll for initiative for the immob/cripple removal.

I think I’ll need to test this out to see if it’s better than 30 in Acrobatics. The 30%+ in boon duration is the one that’s making rune of the pack work with almost 100% upkeep.

Interesting food choice though. Although I think I’d still favor power over precision.

Not enough survivability. Glass cannon builds is reserved to D/D and to a lesser extent, D/P. Sword users lack a burst move like backstab so with sustained damage, what you want is survivability over damage.

I find the initiative trait to be more abysmal than the heal GM trait.

Personally I find the Superior Rune of the Pack to be the go-to roaming set now. It grants perma-swiftness, and a really good fury upkeep.

I also tend to like shortbow better. With the GM heal trait + perma-swiftness, disengaging is effective. Although I’m still practicing from 1vX disengagements.

Honestly in a roaming perspective I would favour S/D over S/P. It’s true you can utilize pistol whip as a defensive move, but you can do that with S/D’s #3 with less init cost and the benefit of not rooting you while you use it. CnD’s stealth can indeed be used for great effect. It’s still not as great as the classic D/P build that pretty much guarantees you getting out of sticky situations and chasing down weakened enemies, but it has better staying power and mobility/survivability than S/P, certainly.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/balanced-d-d-build

Pretty much just going to link this to whoever brings up D/D or backstab in general at this point.

We’ll probably see that signet might trait being used more often now rather than furious retaliation.

When you look down on a P/P thief in a CoF run.

When you expect black powder from another thief in dungeon runs against facing trash mobs but more often they not they end up disappointing you by spamming pistol whip.

In all honesty for PvE I don’t see the point of spending over 70g just to replace scholar runes. If you’re going to use the runes for other situation as well then there’s some mileage.

I’d wait for the runes to at least be cheaper before getting rid of scholar. Right now the increase in DPS probably isn’t worth the gold spent to replace scholar runes.

I remember getting blues from this chest, which I thought all fractal chests dropped green or higher. zzzz.

I’d say with pugs in mind, CoE can be a disaster for them if they’re not familiar with Subject Alpha AoE moves. I wouldn’t put it as one of the easiest paths. cof1/se13/ac13 are the easiest and fastest.

TA/CM/HOTW are easy but not the easiest/fastest compared to the above. TA I’ve seen pugs getting wipe running or dying to the vine champ. CM can get awkward if nobody blocks/reflect projectiles and needs a thief to really speed it up. HOTWp1 is a bit time consuming and I’ve always seen someone die from the running knockback part. Either way to experienced players this would still be the fastest/easiest on their daily tours but to a full pug team, there might be problems.

Nick.6972:

What I’d love to know is how come AC p1 (10 minutes) gives you more gold than COE p1/p3?

CoE has dungeon chests that can drop charged core, which is going 1g a pop right now. It’s also a lv80 dungeon where the rare dungeon armor can be bought with tokens for salvaging. Financially-wise CoE should actually net more gold than AC.

That said, they should totally keep everything consistent though. I’d love to see CM and TA get 1.55g per path as well.

Glass S/P builds will get outplayed by D/P. Mostly because at the heart of it, it’s glass. D/P running the standard 0/6/6/2/0 can just enter stealth and heal up while still has the potential to maintain pressure with sb. The uncertainty of when D/P will pop up will also be a problem with S/P. I really don’t recommend S/P unless you’re very experienced.

What makes a good WvW roamer is their ability to disengage and getting to places fast while have DPS to make up for it.

Right now D/P still does this best. Your S/P is too squishy and has no extra evades or stealth to compensate for it. (While you may have pistol whip or stealth utilities, they’re lackluster since they aren’t traited for it.) Not only would would conditions be a problem, even a few ranged hits and your health will drop fast. Comparatively-wise it’s also poor at disengaging and chasing. It’s okay in sPvP I suppose but as a roamer, there’s better options.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/balanaced-d-d-build/first

It’s the easiest class to deal damage and survive in such a PvE situation. Better than staff guards, bearbow rangers, condi necros, D/D thieves that don’t backstab, etc.

Pug teams goes with the assumption that you will get crappy players. With that assumption some people takes it far enough that they’d only want warriors since even if they’re bad, they can still survive and do some damage.

I personally could care less since with the recent update lowlevel dungeons had become a joke, but old habits die hard I guess.

Ugh, I think everyone wants this to happen with the big sigil/rune update. It’s a clear oversight to introduce the wardrobe system and reinvent runes/sigils yet not have an effective way to move them from one armor/weapon to another. I simply wish I could use transmutation crystals to move sigils/runes, and now it’s forced to use that utterly expensive extractor which frankly doesn’t appeal to any sigil/rune except for generosity sigil.

UUUUUUUGHHH.

Is the pistol whip balance to 6 init in sPvP noticeable?

S/D and D/P is still a solid choice, I guess. I no longer see D/D on par with these two though. Well in general I no longer see glass cannon builds to be viable anywhere. The risk is just too great now as opposed to the reward with the crit damage nerf.

I really can’t see D/D being commonly used now with the 30% crit damage nerf. Just the other day some guy opened with Steal/CnD/Backstab and I was on full zerk gear and it didn’t even one-shot me. Whereas surely before the update I would’ve been toast.

Against condi bunker builds especially, you’d really need to be experienced and knowledgable of your opponent to win. PU mesmers, hambow warriors, necros, engineers, it seems there really isn’t that much D/D can pull off if all else equal. If you didn’t catch them by surprise, you’re up for a prolong fight.

That said, shortbow is usually helpful in getting rid of illusions while being safe yourself.

How good is this without the runes though? The runes right now are ridiculously expensive and I just don’t see it getting used for PvE specific situations.

[Olaf] transfered to Maguuma from SBI.

Not very useful after the Dec10 update, where you gained initiative while doing it. Now most of the time you only hs once in the field and go straight for the backstab, or switch to sb to immobilize/kite.

Didn’t feel it in CoE or CoF. I think I did one Arah p3 and didn’t feel a dip either. Then again, I really don’t time how long it takes to do dungeons. Sadly my guild which was PvX split sometime ago so now I just do pug groups for the majority of my runs. Pretty casual now and even accepted 2 rangers in a CoF p2 run (which was a mistake, because both just hid on the higher platforms with longbow bears).

I will now be doing CM and ACp2 on a daily basis though, so that’s good.

Also, do anyone know how people do the HotW troll fight now? I just came back and didn’t want to lfg an entire group for a run I’m not familiar with after the update.

ANet need to buff the rewards. Aetherblade is more or less as difficult as Arah, and it makes no sense AC gets 1.5g while this one only gets 2g, while you can do all AC paths in less times than you’d do one Aetherblade path. Actually, you can probably do Arah in less time and get 3g then Aetherblade, assuming all party members are experienced in both.

The only thing that hit me hard was lyssa runes. I used to use it for PvE and WvW and not I can’t use it for either of them. I mean, it’s still decent in PvP, but it’s a major nerf in potential with what it could do as a thief in the other 2 scenarios. Can no longer rely on a proper timed Basilisk to get me out of trouble.

Now I’m probably going to use Travelers for WvW (which I got already) and something for PvE, which I’m leaning toward Strength but its like 7g a pop right now. ;_;

Time to play a different class then. I honestly don’t see how you’ll get more fun for dealing less damage in PvE, lol.

Naice. Unfortunately I can’t be on the weekends reliably so I’ll PM you guys on Monday or something. :>

Warrior:
GS + axe/mace with 30/x/x/x/20 hurts like a truck in PVE. Nevermind the banners + fury upkeep.

Ele:
Might stacks abuse. Overall abuse with conjured weapons.

I like to put Thief as a third since they have the highest against single boss targets. But they don’t really have decent party support aside from smoke fields and blast finishers.

I like the idea. But perhaps make EBG the same and only lower cap for borderlands. It would definitely decrease stacked servers.

Thanks everyone. I also think the grandmaster traits right now is a bit lackluster. And Fleet of Foot (or whatever one it was that remove immob on dodge) certainly should remove the internal cooldown at least. That’d give a dilemna decision for Pain Response, since it seems it’s the typical favourite for the master trait.

It just doesn’t seem like 30 in acrobatics is the style for me.

In PvP/WvW.

I think I recall using 30 in Acrobatics and 30 in Trickery as a viable S/P or S/D build, but how good is it really?

I imagine the 30 in Acrobatics is spread to the vigor trait upon heal, pain response, and quick pockets. I’m just unsure how much of DPS loss it is when you no longer have 30 in Critical Strikes.

Speaking of Acrobatics, does anyone actually use Hard to Catch? (Shadowsteps away if dazed/stunned/etc) Wouldn’t this trait be so much more useful if it simply break stun instead of teleporting?

It’s pretty much all over on youtube and google. But yeah, experiencing it is a must. Just search “wvw guide” or something. Maybe specify a class and the role you want to play: commander, roaming, zerging, class responsibilities, etc.

That one thief can’t do anything, lol. If he tries to stomp he’s practically dead. And he’s only able to utilize that stealth if he has 30 in Shadow Arts. If he’s pure glass canon, there’s no way he can troll around 6 people and live, unless by trolling he’s just using DP 5->2 repeatedly for laughs.

The thief’s “role” here is to fool people dumb enough to chase a thief that’s obviously traited for this precise task of diverting the group’s attention. Actually, I recall Sir Vincent developing a shortbow troll build with like 30 in Acrobatics that had high evades and mobility which can fulfill a similar task. There’s no way either of these builds can destroy 6 people. They’re simply the best to grab a group dumb enough to chase the thief. I say it’s a pretty defined role.

Actually, the mobility warrior does this pretty well too. GS/sword+warhorn traited for mobility and can consistently engage/disengage for groups dumb enough to chase it.

The defined role of the 0/30/30/10/0 thief is arguably the best scout/solo roamer in WvW. Capable of disengaging from zergs, troll small groups, destroy inexperienced solo/duo roamers, and quick enough to get around places. Outside of that, other classes and builds does it better.

Welp, NA. Edited, thanks!

(Not sure if it’s possible to be in Fractals with EU servers? :x)

Long reach is pretty underwhelming in my opinion. You’d only do it when you’re chasing someone and heartseeker is pretty good at gap closing already. The only ones who can outrun a thief is probably another thief, an engineer, and those troll warriors who can’t kill anybody anyways. Thrill of the crime on the other hand is very useful since the boons trigger even if the Steal has no target.

0/30/30/10/0 is a staple DD or DP build (the one Carpboy provided). Much more survivability. Although I usually have the 50% movement speed in stealth instead for maneuverability. Even so a pure glass cannon would invest 25/30/0/0/15 instead. Conditions will kill you regardless if you have that Shadow Arts adept trait or not (plus Last Refuge sucks). Replace Furious Retaliation with Signet Recharge and Executioner for Hidden Killer and Long Reach for Thrill of the Crime.

Around 6AM-1PM NA server time!

Just came back to GW2 and no idea where to make this. I don’t find LFG to be reliable when I’m alone plus I want to find some consistent players to do it with. Considering my guild also recently split, I’m kind of out of sources at the moment. Plus, I’m limited within that time period (has to end before 1PM server time) and I can’t play on the weekends.

I mostly do 38 or 49 and had been doing it consistently before I left the game. Please leave an in-game message or just PM me around that time or I dunno, leave your character names here. (I think I have one spot open for a guild invite, too)

I got a thief + guardian + warrior with 55+ AR.

Thanks!

The most versatile is D/P build with 0/30/30/10/0 with Valkyrie Armor, Zerk trinkets, Hidden Killer trait, 50% speed in stealth. Roaming wise it has the potential to escape a zerg, which is one of the few builds in the game capable of pulling such a feat, yet still has the potential to 1v2 due to stealth spam.

Usually all you do is start off with 5 -> 2 -> land the backstab. If successful, autoattack, then use 2 if below 30~health. If backstab is not successful, you’d need to start over. Or switch to shortbow depending on what opponent you’re facing. 4 is good if you can time it properly when you see them trying to heal. 3 is good for chasing.

Traits are pretty much the same as the other 2 builds suggested.
Skills you’re almost always running are Hide in Shadows, Shadow Step, Shadow Refuge, and the movement speed sigil. With either thief guild or dagger storm.

I myself use Lyssa runes, but since that’s getting nerfed, I’m not actually sure what the next go-to runes are, probably Travelers, allowing you to take out the movement sigil for Blinding Powder or Smoke Screen.

I knew I was not the only this who liked Aether.

People keep telling me it’s a waste of time to get Aether when I already have the fractal shortbow but kitten, dat aura looks sexy.

25/30/0/15/0 is what I use. The extra dodge is invaluable imo. Even if you’re well experienced in fractals, there’s times where the extra dodge comes in handy.

I don’t really like Shadow Arts in PvE content since stealth is mostly unnecessary. I myself run with Valkyrie armor set + zerk trinkets + practiced tolerance which is enough to tank a big hit. Your survivability comes from mobility and aoe blinds (if dredge fractal, you’ll need a mix of shortbow + S/P evasion + smoke screen to live).

I find S/P Pistol Whip with the typical 10/30/0/0/30 focus fire on the necro can catch them unaware with enough damage to melt them (the evade is great in mitigating damage from the minions). Any of them familiar with S/P thieves can probably adjust accordingly though.

0/30/30/10/0 is usually what people classify as the “meta” build for WvW roaming. Lots of stealth, packs a punch still, and pretty good mobility/vigor depending on what you put in acrobatics.

10/30/0/0/30 still works, but you’re pretty much outmatched in 1vX scenarios because it has like no sustainability and is inferior at disengaging.

PPT is mostly about coverage. If the losing server guilds aren’t playing for fights, they’d just be masochistic in playing PPT knowing they’ll lose.

Without tweaks regarding PPT, the dichotomy will continue to be a normal sight during WvW.

I do agree intentionally running around randomly seeking for fights is a pretty dumb motive to play WvW. Usually guilds will take towers and stuff to encourage the overwhelming server leading in PPT to come to them. Running around randomly not taking anything to get a fight sounds pretty boring and random to me.

Other classes are superior in terms of maximizing DPS and supporting party members (guardians, warriors, eles, mesmers), so necros are often an inferior choice unless you absolutely have no other class.

Good necros will be better than terribad players in those “superior” classes, however. But if you lfg as usual as the normal dungeon runners do, you will assume everyone are just bad players and you’ll rather take bad players with “superior” classes than take bad necros.

There isn’t a “cap” per se, just that we have very limited methods to increase in speed. The acrobatic trait to run 50% faster in stealth is our fastest option. And yes, it’s definitely faster than the Swiftness buff, which makes you run 33% faster. Just pop stealth while Swiftness is on and you’ll see a very obvious increase in running speed.

To the discussion about the signet vs traveler runes: the dilemna comes from whether you want other runes such as lyssa runes instead. I have both set with lyssa runes and traveler runes, and still dunno which is more optimal for myself.

I think for Traveler runes, it’s optimal if you are running 30 in Shadow Arts since you have an additional method of condition cleanse. But if you have no other forms of condition cleanse, Lyssa Runes is often invaluable just as a surprise factor against condition heavy users and getting out of a pinch (immob alone can often kill you, and lyssa runes + basilisk can turn the table almost immediately). Then again, thieves aren’t exactly the best against the condition meta, so perhaps having lyssa runes will only prolong the inevitable. :/

Pretty sure the cap is around 80-90 like someone else said. Not 150.

In terms of running away from zergs, isn’t running the same way they come from better than running in the same direction of where they’re heading?