Guild Wars 2

Hi Grimezy, sounds like you guys have a lot of fun together!

Thief is easy to learn, hard to master, so she should be fine to start her journey! Just keep in mind:
*Initiative Management
*Patience in Stealth (if stealth)
*Timing for Dodges

Our survival traits are in the Shadow Arts and Acrobatics line. People generally pick one or the other. The new grandmaster in SA may be a great group utility to help your whole group survive (or she can do venom share to make the group do more damage).

For maximum group utility, she should spend 6 in SA, and at least 2 in Trickery (thrill of the crime, or 4 points and also pick up bountiful theft). If she dipped 3 into trickery, she’d start with a larger initiative pool, as well.

Survivability is fine. Like any other class, pick either condi or physical damage and gear around that. As a new thief, start with more defense stats and slowly find your “sweet spot” of damage/protection. Survivability becomes an issue when you go Zerker before mastering thief.

Good luck!

If you guys want to spvp duel look me up in game and I’ll give some more pointers.

We have access to: Daze, Pull, Knockdown, Stun, Immobilize, Chilled, Weakness, Cripple, and Blind, as what I’d consider “control”. (not to mention interrupt as a side effect)

My standard 2/0/3/3/6 has access to Daze, Stun, Immobilize, Chill, Blind, Cripple, and Weakness (s/d, p/d). This seems like ample control in my opinion, and it seems like most thief builds can obtain control skills without much effort.

edit: Though I see that you propose more AOE control effects. I certainly wouldn’t say no to more control, but we have access to AOE immob, AOE blind, AOE weakness, and AOE cripple, off the top of my head.

For AOE weakness (and blind from blast finishers), we do require our AOE weapon set, SB, and being very close to the field we want to “blast” if we want to SB blast more than once, but this seems fine to me.

Practice shadow stepping all the time.

As you’re leveling, just load up with shadow steps (since it’s so easy to pve in the open world anyhow).

Play around with steal a lot (build towards its use, then build away from it’s use, see the difference).

Practice quickly closing on a target from across the map using shadow step+sword2 OR dagger2+steal, and various other combos.

Aggro as many mobs as possible, practicing kiting with shortbow and cluster bombing your targets down, etc. (also get used to NPC’s resetting all the time because they can’t hit you, practice letting them hit you “just enough” to stay on you, this will help with flipping camps in wvw)

Basically, practice thief mobility.

Shemsu.8721:

Woaden.9425:

You could pick up +2 ini on stealth from 4 in SA, which serves to cheapen cloak and dagger cost.

Also, with sword 2, you don’t need infil sig much (unless you’re taking it as a concept to your build). Roll for Ini would give you a stun break as well, and I find having a “battery” of 6 ini is more valuable to me than 1 ini per 10 secs.

rfi is 1 per 10 secs also, it comes down to do you want the extra evade or the extra shadowstep. they both provide the same increase to ini (assuming you use rfi on cooldown, if you dont then rfi can be LESS than 1 per 10s)

Yup, and I prefer the “battery” of ini. If you tend to “burst” your ini usage (FS/LS on a Guardian, for example), the “quick recovery” of instant ini is the prefered utility, for me.

edit: I also like to evade backwards on my stunbreaks (because these are usually “OH CRAP!” moments), as opposed to shadowstep forwards (steal+sword2 are enough “forward” movement for me). So it’s all preference, but I feel that RFI is more forgiving for people who are having ini management troubles.

You could pick up +2 ini on stealth from 4 in SA, which serves to cheapen cloak and dagger cost.

Also, with sword 2, you don’t need infil sig much (unless you’re taking it as a concept to your build). Roll for Ini would give you a stun break as well, and I find having a “battery” of 6 ini is more valuable to me than 1 ini per 10 secs.

“nice glitch”

They’re shadowsteps but whatever.

Yes you seem to know what you want out of the build so that is good, and you understand the tradeoffs, so just chalk it up to preference. I like talking S/D so wanted to weigh in.

My main observation (spending most of my time as S/D & SB in trickery, with Zerker gear), is that you need all the precision you can get. It’s about consistent and high damage.

At the moment, you’re running 38% critical chance, with fury that’s 58, even keeping 58 up all the time, I’d rather have 49% resting crit chance with 69% chance in fury. Then again I don’t mind sitting at 13.8k HP. I don’t find the few extra 2.2k HP is enough to warrant the decrease in damage.

That being said, I’m only just getting back in to the game, perhaps the overall “balancing” of the zerker damage curve in recent patches opens more options for gearing.

I also feel like 10 into SA is great as S/D because you spend a lot of time cloak&dagger+tactical strike, and adding a condi clear to that combo is just the balls.

It’s a decent build. Personally, I’d choose full zerk, as you’re running a physical damage build (for the most part), and with all that acro you do not need more HP.

I’ve tried that build, and I may try it a bit more, but the GM acro trait alone doesnt give much healing at all (though the minor trait of +10% damage while endur is not full is a great boost). I’d personally take 10-15 from acro and put it into SA. OR, if you are really liking that combo, I’d replace SR with signet of agility. SR is good, but you have heals from mug, pain response, withdraw, and GM acro at this point.

I also find SR to be of little use for a sword build outside of team situations (spvp/tpvp people seem to get mad if you don’t throw an SR over their corpse).

You can use d/p p/d, d/x for mobility and poison application (take at least 3 points into DA line and use it to keep weakness up, which is good damage mitigation as well as a good cover condi)

edit: You also still have access to pistol#4, along with mobility and poison app to replace those functions with SB. Other than pistol #4, you have sleight of hand obviously, for interrupts, if you’re going perplex.

3/0/3/2/6. Or even 3/0/5/0/6 for might stacks.

This bug has existed since the runeset was created.

I do wish it was fixed, especially since the set was recently balanced to reduce it’s effectiveness.

Dee Jay.2460:

Black Powder also hard-counters pretty much all Thief builds that rely on Cloak and Dagger if you don’t allow them to cloak of NPCs or critters. I know there are a few tricks to get past Black Powder but they require immaculate timing and cooldowns.

Travlane.5948:

so CND does like 5x more dmg atleast and costs 50% less init. yet you say BPS bypasses the need for CND even tho CND is not a prereq to enter stealth.

Trav I believe what he is saying is that in a thief vs thief fight, Black Powder counters the ability for the opposing thief to C&D.

Cool thanks for your input! I’ll take what you said into account when I make my next vid.

I don’t really fight in zergs that often (though I can and do), but I do the occasional WvW guild raid and GvG (20vs20) with [EP].

The thief group utilities (aoe condi cleans from agil sig, aoe swiftness from thrill of the crime, aoe boon share from bountiful theft, aoe stealth, aoe venom share, etc) are most useful in small group scenarios (2-5).

However, in large groups, our most potent ability is countering those classes who really do add a lot to large groups (Ele & Mes mainly, though others can do it) through their fire/static/water fields. Because large group fights generally revolve around heavies leaping and blasting inside of these fields.

Generally speaking, the Ele’s, Mes, Necro, Engis, and Rangers are on what many people call the “periphery” of a large group. Our job is to stalk that periph and down anyone who resides there.

When not actually in combat (in the “STACK!!!! BLAST!!!” phase) we are a great addition due to cluster bomb, but IMO we should quickly separate from the “front line” and take our place in the periph.

Devon Banks doing karate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLeTbKDLj0s

The precast is Kaaaaaaa, the stun and attack is RATTEEEEE.

Spoiler alert: shorty robe

Nice video. You’ve got some C&D skills. Was an enjoyable watch.

Are you “type scouting” or voice/mumble/teamspeak.

With type scouting you may need a good amount of stealth in order to be able to stand still long enough (12 secs) to type your message.

With voice scouting, all you really need is mobility with some limited stealth.

Basically, though, I believe you should take SB + D/P. As for point spread, this isnt a good build for dueling/fighting at all (though you can certainly yak slap with it), but..

15 acro +15 trickery gives you all the mobility you will ever need. Perma swiftness (swift on dodge + withdraw vigor + thrill of the crime) and a great amount of ini (for the shortbow mobility and d/p stealth).

So x/x/30/15/15 will get you everything you wanted, spend the last 10 points where ever you want (more HP from 10 CS or 10 Acro would be my suggestion).

panicbutton.1053:

Arkadius,

You’re my favorite thief! Why? Because your build takes so much skill and precision to execute. I have tried and failed so many times to run this successfully. IMO, this is the hardest build to play, and you execute it beautifully.

Wow thanks man that means a lot and it is very encouraging. Lemme ask you, what should I include in my next vid, content wise? It seems like people really like /bow /bow duels, as well as uncut roaming.

What would be the most entertaining for you, and what would be the most educational? Only thing is, I want to keep the vid length at around 10 mins, no more than 15. I know I should probably give more commentary but I just dont like to ;p

Asudementio.8526:

+1, yep!

Raven.9603:

always good to see an arkadius video.

Thanks Raven! Hey SBI, nice, I recently switched to SoS and since we’re in our second matchup, we should hit up OS sometime for some duels!

Hi Rogue, I hope I can be helpful for you.

The Rogue.1328:

a build that uses conditions a bit while still dealing decent damage without it.

Typically this is an either/or scenario, but there are such things as “hybrids”. Generally, however, hybrids are lampooned for not being great enough at anything in particular. That said, you can only really find out for sure by doing it yourself.

The Rogue.1328:

I am going to use d/d and s/p for the weapons and my skills

That’s a decent pairing. For condi’s, though, you’re missing out by not having pistol/dagger, since the torment there can be applied more often than skale venom (and frees up a util slot). Also, pistol is a nice ‘hybrid’ main attack, some physical, some condition. For this reason, many players call for it to be better at one or the other, because like I said many players dislike the hybrid approach or philosophy.

The Rogue.1328:

my skills while be hide in shadows, smokescreen, needle trap, scale venom and thieves guild.

Take anything anyone says (myself included) with a grain of salt, and find out what works best for you, but my suggestion here would be to drop needle trap for caltrops. There are plenty of other sources for poison, and needle trap doesnt actually affect multiple people unless they happen to trigger the trap in unison.

Smoke screen is great, especially in pve. For pvp/wvw, just make sure you leap combo inside of it for stealth. Many would argue there are better things to put in this slot which accomplish the same thing, but i have seen Smoke screen used to great effect so I dont knock it.

Skale venom is fine, if you went for p/d it would be less required, but still decent. Generally speaking, venoms are on too long of a CD for most people to stomach, and they are easily countered by dodges. For PvE, however, its fine.

If you are doing to pvp any, slotting one more stealth util would be helpful.

On to your real question, what point spread to use?

Well, for your theme of “decent with both condi and physical” I would say 10 into DA is a perfect start. Take mug.

That way, you get a nice heal, a lil damage, and poison applied with each steal.

Next is the hard part. CS is for physical, SA is for stealths (which you lack, for the most part), acro is for avoidance (which you did not mention a desire to have) and trickery is for condi damage and steal reduction. So.. I would say, out of those listed, trickery is a great place for you.

So 10 DA, 30 Trick, only 30 points to go! I personally take 10/0/10/20/30, then again I’m pretty dumb (ask the trolls on this forum!). I could see you doing something like 10/30/0/0/30 for pve, or 10/15/0/15/30.

The most acceptable answer to your question, by the community at large, might be 10/30/30/0/0, and just slot condi gear, or 0/30/30/10/0 with the same. But in that case, they’d want you to reslot your utils. As it stands, you don’t have enough stealth to go very far into SA, but it’s widely held that SA and CS are our best lines.

shinta.8906:

only one question, y bp instead of sr?
any classes u feel unconfortable with?

I dont like the idea of using Basil/Lyssa to stay inside of SR when needed, because that would mean I’ve used two condi clears on long CD, when I only needed one.

I like BP because it isnt a giant “place aoe here” symbol, and I also use BP because of the AOE blind, since I’m not using blind on stealth within SA. If I went 20 into SA, I might take SR over BP, or I might take them both!

Another reason I use BP over SR in my play style is that I like to use BP and then infil return, to misdirect. However, with SR im forced to stay put.

Finally, BP is instant cast, where SR is not. So BP can be used in response to a lockdown.

The hardest opponents for me are knockdown/pull engis, and condi burst necro.

KillerJacket.9735:

This is a funny surprise. That obnoxiously colored P/D Fort Aspenwood char thief you kept tagging in the video is me.

Haha, thanks for the fun time. Looked like you were trying out a condi build, how did that work out? I’m guessing with everyone stacked to the gill with condi removals it is a challenge?

Docherty.8372:

OP, you’re on Mag?
If it wasn’t you, I’d like a duel anyway!

Wasn’t me, I am on SoS. I was previously on TC but transferred when [Grim] transferred with [EP] over to SoS. Would be fun to duel, just hit me up!

Jayden Ennok.3687:

…S/D is playable even with lower dmg, although it is not the most efficient option.
…10pts in SA is almost mandatory for condi removal.
…Trickery line is amazing with sword if your playstyle is based on positioning and confusing the opponent.

Thanks Jayden! You say it exactly right.

Traps are great, though situational.

In my opinion, the biggest drawback is that they can be dodge over to clear. It means you really need to hide that you plant them, by dodging as you place them to hide the animation.

Trip Wire is very reliable, but requires an opponent that wants to come towards you (so in PvP/WvW, it does less well against mesmer, necro, or engi).

Shadow Trap is great, but the cast time to kill the trap is an issue.

In the right venom share build, you can make good use of ambush trap.

Needle Trap doesn’t remove stealth, great paired with caltrops to do damage while within stealth.

All very situational, but not bad.

Thanks Excalibur.

Hey Shadowskill, I recognize that thief name, good to see you here! We’ll have to fight to a draw again next time we meet ;p

Hi all,

Some WvW roaming footage and light commentary featuring the Trickery, Sword/Dagger, Shortbow, evasion build that I call “The Mirage”, for no particular reason.

Build:
http://tinyurl.com/mirage28

Video:
http://tinyurl.com/mirage28vid

All post Dec 10 footage of course, and from three play sessions.

Been itching to get something together for post patch, haven’t had a lot of time to play (like everyone else, I imagine!). Hope you enjoy.

*Scorpion Wire should work more reliably
*Shortbow/Dodge root fix
*Improvisation should count Steal bundles for +10%
*Basilisk should be affected by +stun duration
*Lower cast time and aftercast on intil return
*Hard to catch should break stun, grant stability, leap you backwards, and be moved back to Grand Master — defining the acro tree as an avoidance and mitigation trait line
*Assassins reward base healing value increased, heal power scaling reverted if necessary, reverted to Master
*Bountiful theft should give all stacks and duration of ripped boons
*Larcenous Strike reverted to steal 2 boons, increase cost if necessary

That’s off the top of my head for a wish list!

Hello warriors!

A friend of mine finally convinced me to roll another character (I’m fairly casual, only 1 lvl 80 and I’ve played since launch).

Warriors are right up my alley (lots of control, good mobility).

I’m not concerned at all about what is “best”, but I have a few caveats and I’m hoping that, with these in mind, I could get some helpful tips and ideas from the warrior community.

I play wvw almost exclusively (some spvp). I’m not worried about a “zerging” build, because frankly I’ll just run whatever setup my guild wants for large encounters.

I’m looking for a good havok/dueling/roaming setup with three key elements in order of importance:

1. Least Telegraphed/Readable Skills (as in, low cast times, short/discreet animations)
2. Control
3. Mobility (in and out of combat)

I look forward to hearing your opinions, thank you!

We also need our condi removals on Pain Response and Hide in Shadows to also remove torment.

Our only way to remove torment right now is 10 into SA (every 3 secs in stealth, which really forces you to go even deeper into SA to be effective) or lucky sig of agility, or lucky shadow return.

I feel that to catch up with all of the condi meta, we need HiS and PR to remove torment, and we need condis to be removed on the first half of Shadow Step, not the second.

Forcing us to go SA for reliable condi removal, and/or to go lyssa is redonk. We don’t have the HP pool to muck about.

I’ve always day dreamed that scorpion wire would be awesome if it ripped a boon and/or transferred a condi. Leeching venoms is another good candidate for a buff, making it transfer a condi on strike.

Any update on this?

When looking at new build options for post dec 10 patch, this + the 25 point minor skill make taking 30 DA over 30 CS ALMOST worth it, since CS will no longer be the ini powerhouse it once was (but still retains all its great DPS). Any reason to go more than 10 into DA would be greatly appreciated, and a situational +10% damage while conserving your steal bundle would go a long way towards that.

Considering someone just getting back in to the game, and specifically looking to zerg, I’d recommend these things:

Access to Stability (through lyssa runes and basilisk venom, or through dagger storm)
High Evades (you will spend a lot of time “dodging through” chokepoints)
High Ini pool and regen (you’ll spend a lot of time exploding clusterbombs for aoe damage)

I would recommend, specifically for zerging, a combo of sb & p/p, to finish off single targets with p/p (can burst them,, can daze lock them.

Do keep in mind that this build is specifically for zerging, it will not be nearly as effective in small groups, or solo roaming.

http://tinyurl.com/zergzoneout

0/30/0/20/20

Utilities are: Withdraw, Roll for Initiative, Shadow Refuge, and Shadow Step. These are all “oh crap!” buttons, and SR can be used for a burst heal, if you do a pistol unload from within the dark field (life steal).

Gear should be zerk, with valk or pvt mixed in for survivability, plenty of threads on gearing, featuring passionate people with lots of maths so I’ll leave that alone.

Hope this helps, good luck and have fun!

Imagi.4561:

JonPeters.5630:

You can still avoid follow ups with this. 360 milliseconds is faster than almost any attack and certainly faster than almost all dangerous ones. The only loss here is using this while stunned and using it to teleport finish an opponent.

Would you be able to tell us how it was being used to teleport finish? I’ve played S/D since betas and I never used it this way, so clearly I was missing something.

Yes I keep seeing this referenced as a reason for the change, but I have no idea how it’s done? I think you may be referring to Shadow Step/Shadow Return. However, I don’t feel Shadow Step is OP at all, we have to burn our long CD stunbreaker (usually the only stun break we run on our utils) to accomplish this stomp.

First, thank you and the rest of the anet team for having this level of interaction and transparency.

Initiative changes
Totally agree, glad to see that initiative is being tweaked.

Infiltrator’s Return
S/D for life. S/D is about mobility, utility, and control. I live in the Acro and Trickery tree. It seems to me like Acro is perfectly suited to S/D play, however, all user controlled stun-breaks are Deceptions, Signets, and Tricks, which have more synergy with other trees.

Hard To Catch
S/D lives and dies by positioning, it’s what makes 2 skill so great. HTC is not controllable, if it moved you straight backwards, or was in some way predictable it would be more useful to those who play S/D with a “positioning control” mindset.

Infusion of Shadow
Can’t agree more.

Vigorous Recovery & Bountiful Theft
Using both of these (and having 15+ in acro), I currently have more vigor than I know what to do with in most situations.

Bountiful Theft/Boon Ripping
With the reduction in effectiveness of Larcenous Strike, I feel Bountiful Theft must have it’s Boon ripping enhanced in some way.

Closing remarks
As it stands, there is simply no way for a S/D thief to stand up against either a condi necro or a boon drenched guardian. Which I feel is counter to the style. S/D doesnt have the burst of other thief specs, it’s about outplaying the opponent (remove condi on Infil Return, rip boons with LS) yet we are not effective a that currently. I feel that lessening mobility is fine, because I already have way more of that than I need, however, we need something. Either more damage or more control. I’d vote control.

Thief Feedback:

I have had a thief as my main since release, and have been a fan of S/D in all it’s various incarnations.

These Dec 10th balance concepts have actually left me quite optimistic.

I think S/D should live in acro, and you have opened up a lot of good options. I am looking forward to Assassins Reward at GM, and I look forward to replacing Quick Recovery with Pain Response.

I do wish, however, that there were more options outside of Shadow Arts to remove condi’s on demand as a trait. Other than Infil Return, we lack a viable way to remove Confusion and Torment (Shadow Step being a poor choice for condi removal in large groups or against necro). I always feel forced to dip into SA for condi removal, and forced to dip into CS for damage. There is still very little reason to go past 10 in DA because focusing too much on applying condi’s means you wont be able to remove many. Most other classes seem to be able to have it both ways in their condi trait trees.

Perhaps you’ve made it difficult for us to remove Confusion/Torment on purpose, and it is a good hard counter to a mobile, high skill usage class, but I do wish there were more ways to remove these condi’s that didnt: a-cause damage to do, and b-force us into specific trait lines.

Hey sorry, old vid had that part cut off at the end, but you can’t overwrite videos on youtube, so I had to create another vid. I went ahead and added a few more fights too!
http://tinyurl.com/kolemirage-thevideo

origano.5912:

have you tryed with “Rune of the Mesmer” ?

Yes! It works very well. As does, surprisingly, svanir, if you want to go more troll. I used the Rune of Mesmer back a few patches ago though. Anet’s always tinkering with daze duration so I don’t know what state it’s in now.

Ya I’m not actually sure why intothemists keeps putting all my gear to Valk.

http://tinyurl.com/kolemirage2

Try this one. That being said, yes, my gear is still not the “best” mix. I figure I’d go Soldier/Zerk/Soldier/Zerk/Soldier/Zerk with divinity for best total stats.

Looking at the vid again, I do wish I had compressed the middle of that opening thief fight, I could have fit in a few more fights! Work has been crazy and I haven’t had a lot of time, but I have been wanting to do a vid, just didn’t want to take the time to do much editing! Anyhow.

Carpboy.7145:

Could you please make it available to watch on mobile?

Sorry Carpboy, because of the music I use, the youtube licensing doesnt allow me to make the vid available for mobile.

messiah.1908:

i would drop the 10 in SA and put them in acro for more 10% dmg as u dodge alot

Thanks for the tip, I actually don’t take SA for the toughness, but for the condi cleanse on stealth. Lots of condi builds out there and having a condi cleanse on every BP and CnD helps tremendously. My focus is on utility.

messiah.1908:

i think your dmg is bit low … take bloodlust on SB to stack it as its nice 250 more power and sigil of air as it does more single target dmg than fire sigil .

True about Air, I do want to put Air back on my sword. Just lazy.
Regarding bloodlust or precision stacks, I don’t run them on purpose. Yes I’m gimping myself. For more power/prec, use one of them for sure! And yes, my damage is somewhat low against medium toughness or greater targets. I can typically fashion a stun/burst combo that kills them dead, but high toughness fights last a while (see my last vid vs the guardian)

messiah.1908:

try out 0,30,0,20,20 which keeps the dodges and give you more power

10/x/x/20/30 is the core of this build. Move the other 10 around as you please, but this is a mug/sleight of hand build at it’s core.

messiah.1908:

nice played

Thanks!

Walker.3056:

Another thing Have u dueled any regen condition ranger?

I’m not sure, I’ll have to look through my raw vid archives. I will say, though, that having played this char for a year now, I have never met a ranger that gave me much issue. That being said, any time I meet someone with a regen heavy build, it’s usually a stalemate in a 1v1 situation.

Thanks Walker! I like that name by the way.

Yes as a playstyle it’s a change from the “slow burn” of a condi thief, or the “insta gib” of a backstab thief.

I’ve been running this style now for quite a while, and the greatest thing about it is the utility and flexibility. You don’t excel against any one type of opponent, but you do well against most all of them.

A guild mate of mine runs a similar build, and after he went back into an “insta gib” build, he said it best. The most fun part of this build is knowing that when you win a fight, it’s because you outplayed the opponent.

As far as the content of this video. Problem is I can’t please everyone all the time, you know? I absolutely want to stay in a 15 min vid format, that’s very limiting.

I got a lot of criticism for my vids all just being “win clips” of me killing people in 10 secs, so I’ve been very mindful of taking notes of “good fights”, even fights that are a draw or end in my defeat, so i’ve included those. Also, i think any fight where the other guy runs away or waypoints away, I win So in that case, I won that thief fight many times hah!

My next 15 min vid i can’t decide if it should be uninterrupted solo roaming (which might be like an hour of roaming, where I fastforward through the travel parts), or if i should be just me vs 1 guy… doing duels over and over. I have 10 duels with me vs another good thief I know from another server (I won 6, him 5, i think).

Anyhow, I appreciate that you told me the things you like as well as the things you didn’t! What would you want to see in the future?

[Edit: Old video was cut off and corrupt in areas, posted new vid at link below. Also includes more fights!]
Build: 10/0/10/20/30
http://tinyurl.com/kolemirage-thebuild
http://tinyurl.com/kolemirage-thevideo

The idea with this build is mobility, healing/condi cleanse, and initiative.

The core of the build is 10/x/x/20/30 and Lyssa/Basilisk. Daze, Heal, Damage, Apply Poison, Gain Initiative, Steal a Boon, Gain Vigor, Fury, Might, and Swiftness on a short cooldown steal.

Sword/Shortbow enables mobility through initiative, Withdraw, Roll for Initiative, and Shadow Step gain mobility and condi cleans through cooldown. Cleanse condi’s on stealth with 10 in SA, making cloak and dagger a condi cleanse, along with blinding powder as a blind/stealth/condi cleanse that turns into a daze with Tactical Strike.

Relatively low damage and light access to condition damage force you to spend a lot of gear/food on power, precision, and critical damage. This build does not enable you to min/max for best possible stats, as large points in Acro and Trickery dump many stat points into condi damage and health (you can achieve similar health gains while also getting crit/damage with 20 in crit strikes). So some tradeoff must be taken in stats to achieve decent damage. As a result, toughness, (and to a lesser extent vitality) is used somewhat lightly since its absence is lessened with the ready access to evades and mobility.

The worst enemy is to this build d/p SR thief, or a burst condi necro, since there is a lack of good ranged damage and necro punisheing you for getting near them. Keeping Infiltrators Strike down helps in all situations, as there is more than enough Initiative. Certain bunker builds can’t be busted with this build unless they make serious mistakes or you get lucky with a stunlock combo.

fyi- I don’t use power/precision stacks anymore, because I’m lazy.

same here, cant log in to wvw

SD isn’t as bad off as it sounds, sword 2 is still an instant cast, so it will teleport you away when you’re stunned, yes the stun duration persists but generally speaking you’re still in a better spot.

If you like SD keep playing SD, if you want to use another set go for that too.

If you’re using SD DD, might go for SD DP, similar style, but people have gotten way better at denying you your cloak and dagger, so DP helps give you access to backstab, and also goes well with the Daze/Blind theme of Sword.

Raven.9603:

Question: You mention travel capability in your vid (during guardian standoff), but I’m not seeing where you get it. You get ~7sec swiftness from Lyssa+Elite, ~12 from stealing, ~2 from dodging, can dodge x3. Thats not really good swiftness uptime for traveling unless you get really lucky and get swiftness off a heal.

Suggestion: Steal more buffs with sword3! One fight near NW camp, the enemy (Engi?) had 10-21 stacks of might.

Thanks for the tip, I agree. I’m definitely still mastering a delayed application of Larcenous Strike.

To your question on what I mean by mobility, I put this up as some recent examples. Hope you enjoy

http://tinyurl.com/koletroll

I can always do better for sure, posting these videos (which I view several times myself of course, learning from my many mistakes), being self critical, and listening to critical advice definitely helps all of that.

I like to have a “hook” with my videos, that hook happens to be that they all correspond to what I believe is a different build or style for me, from my perspective.

I have toyed with the idea of posting raw roaming footage, but the issue is two fold, length of the video, and entertaining moments. Though maybe me kiting a group of enemies around the map is more entertaining to others than I give it credit for. It’s certainly hard to find a “raw” 15 mins of game footage to simply post up as say “this is a build”, but maybe I will. What would you do? It seems like the general rule is 15 min length. Otherwise aint no body got time for that.

I’m thinking what you want to see is a video with both wins and losses, are the losses fun for others to see? Maybe they would be, I don’t know I haven’t heard that from anyone until now.

I have to say, if my “wins” illicit so many negative responses aimed directly at how I’m clearly not as good as I think I am, (which is a projection… since I don’t claim anywhere to be any kind of “good”), imagine what my “losses” would generate!

Sir Vincent III.1286:

And if you want to make relevant videos, you should transfer server to either one of the top 4. It will also make you a better player after playing against those servers.

Sir Vincent buddy I’m on your server (top 4 yay!), lets run some time and be friends. I’m in EB now in fact.

wish.1027:

I got the same when I offered helpful advice and tried to be nice. Some people just cant take being told things they could do better.

Actually if you recall above, the one piece of advice you gave me, I simply said thank you.

You see I think a major divide here is that you guys are thinking that I must think I’m just the best thing ever, and "where do I get off posting this or that, or something. “He ain’t all that”.

Well I think we finally agree on something. I absolutely don’t think I’m the best. And if having a snarky attitude is part of the price of entry, I’ll stay here in baddie land, posting videos of me doing what I enjoy.

I learn from every video posted and every duel, won and lost. I don’t claim any grand skill in any of these. I post my wins because it takes hours to put together footage and that’s the footage I like. I’m not trying to argue this build is the best, where do I do that?

I posted a build, I posted a video. The rest is just conjecture.

wish.1027:

You stealth a lot for a ‘stealthless thief.’

Thats because I’m not a ‘stealthless thief’. As I said: I have run with a lot of stealthless things, but I’m now using more heavy stealth.

wish.1027:

There’s no armor in your linked build showing us what you use, which is odd.

You’d like the armor? All you need to do is ask.

wish.1027:

You fail to use the Sword daze at the best time, when someone is trying to raise someone you downed. You daze them and they stop, and then you punish the both of them with sword auto attacks for a few seconds.

Thanks for the tip.

wish.1027:

I’m sure you’ll get better as you play it more, so keep up the effort and killin them bads.

Hey thanks for the backhanded compliment. What are you, my mother in law?

By the way, thanks for stopping by to troll this thread since I’m not taking part in that other S/D thread any more. Be sure to keep replying here so we can keep as many hits on my video as possible. Thanks!

I’m going to duck out of this thread because what I’m trying to do is have a discussion, but instead any response is simply name calling.

The OP did not say he wanted the best gear formula for highest overall DPS/Defense, he asked for builds. To me, builds are a combination of traits, gear, and style (what skills to utilize, and when).

To the OP: Listen to everyone and form your own opinion on what BUILD works best for you. There are stat min/maxers and stat analysts in every game and they contribute a lot to the meta. But keep in mind that even the loudest and most insulting don’t have all the answers.

But I don’t take advantage of toughness, I hardly get hit, and when I do I have a low cooldown heal/evade to top me off. So in that case, I have to disagree. I would rather have more crit damage from my gear than more toughness. I do still highly value HP though, as a buffer for condition damage. I have tried it with the “correct” gear and it is not as effective.

Not that soldiers is bad, in fact, nothing is “wrong” really. I run a mathematically silly build to great effect, “wasting” many points in Trickery, and so having a lot of +condi damage which isn’t very useful for a S/D weapon set.

But S/D has so much to gain from the “stickyness” that steal provides, and Steal + Cloak & Dagger + Tactical Strike are as potent for S/D control as they are for D/D instagib. Combine that with the extra daze on steal and steal cooldown reduction and you get a lot of great synergy.

However, going down Trickery meant lots of damaged stats missed from Critical Strikes line, so for decent damage output, in the case of my ‘wrong’ build I had stats sunk into +condi damage, but used physical damage, so boosted that back to an acceptable range via zerk/valk. With this ‘wrong’ build, I gained daze duration, but sacrificed both condi damage AND toughness, when mathematically I “should” have had a gear/trait combo that only sacrificed either condi OR tough.

To ramble a bit, I also want to say that — of course — math can explain everything in the universe. The issue with anyone simply doing the numbers on stats and their effect on damage mitigation, and damage output, might miss other critical “maths” of duration a foe can be dazed, etc.

I’m not saying such a formula doesnt exist ( factoring in things like daze on gear, cooldown on steal, initiative needed for CnD+Tacstrike, condi duration, etc ), my point is that, generally speaking, no one who makes builds or plays builds (ie all of us) takes every single mathematical formula for effectiveness in to account. Not even that one website that really tries to, I forget the name.
/ramble

With a typical S/D build you have high evades and high regen, so toughness isn’t necessary. I agree, go Valk, unless you REALLY want to be bunker, but in that case good luck killing people! :p In my latest vid, I face a guardian with my PVT trinks on (I had just logged in and forget to change them out from a dungeon run), and that fight took FOREVER.

Video: http://tinyurl.com/kolemirage
Build: http://tinyurl.com/kolemiragebuild
Armor: http://tinyurl.com/kolemiragelook
Bonus Video: http://tinyurl.com/koletroll
(*edit: added mobility vid)

Theme: High Daze, High Blind, High Condition Removal, Medium HP, Low Toughness

I’ve been “stealthless” for a while, decided to bring some heavier stealth back into the build, especially with the new Shadow Trap. There are also two passive stealths, the much maligned Last Refuge, and the new and improved Instinctual Response.

I feel like there are a lot more conditions floating out there since the balance patch, and so dipped 10 points into SA to cleanse on stealth. Lyssa Runes are good for condi’s as always.

Let me know what you think!

Wearing medium boots and legs, both have the same issue. They were transmuted long ago onto berserker gear. HALP, looking cool is my favorite part of the game!

Harper.4173:

I want and still be effective and not have people tell me " noob – reroll to this or that " .

Any time someone tells you that stuff… man… do what you want to do even HARDER! That goes for life too. Haters to the left.

Dahkeus.8243:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqaVlUmSO3eS+E/5Ex2DgmTe6zgsit/wVB-jAyAYLioRySEpCCZJviox2GKiGruGT5SEVbvLiWtMAVLA-e

This guy made a good build, try it out!