Guild Wars 2

Bottom line:

The game is a slide show. PvE and WvW; haven’t bothered to try PvP.
Slower than when the game released.
The sound is amazing tho!

Late 2013 iMac
2.9 Ghz intel core i5
8 GB DDR3
GeForce GT 750M 1024 MB

Really wish performance was getting gradually better, not gradually worse. Willing to buy gems if you make it so.

Dingo.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Curious on everyone’s view on the amount of CC (and stability) currently in the game. Is it too much, is it fine?

Imo it feels like it’s way too much as you can spam CC and don’t really have any meaningful negative impact if you miss one or two/target gets stability, at the same time there’s things like stability on dodge (scrapper, rev) which are apparently ANet’s way to counter the immense amounts of CC in the game.

IMO both CC and stability should be something that’s not handed out left and right, but instead be tools you have (rather) infrequent access to, being required to use them just in the right moment to secure a kill/rezz/not die/etc., instead of just throwing it around like it’s nothing.

Does anyone feel the same or am I just being “weird” here?

Yes, there is too much CC. Too much AoE. Too much of everything. The game was in a much better state about 18 months ago. But nothing will change, except when they release the next expansion that features even more CC.

1. WvW if there is a good sized population playing.
2. Play something else.
3. Craft.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

Purchase your exotic Zerker armor (not trinkets or weapons) from this guy at the Temple of Grenth in the Cursed Shore, once you’re level 80: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Keeper_Jonez_Deadrun

Sorry, this is bad advice. Because you cannot salvage the temple armor to get back those hella-expensive Runes of Strength when you don’t need/want them in that armor set. Temple armor is fine when you don’t need to slot expensive runes into it…. this is not the case for a PS Warrior.

~EW

Good point Wallaby, I hadn’t thought of that.

Depends on several factors I suppose, like whether the OP plans to eventually craft ascended armor (and will want those runes back), the price of Zerk armor on the TP vs. the price of the runes, etc.

So yes, OP, think hard about whether you will want to eventually salvage those expensive runes at some point.

Mapisto.2154:

There are no traits that buff shortbow, the attacks are really slow – even with quickness (compared to ranger’s SB skills), and it is a two handed weapon – which I use only for the fifth skill.
I don’t get why would I need a two handed “utility” weapon.
Is it viable in some way for dps?

Auto attack is very good in WvW zerg fights. You don’t even have to aim or pick a target.

Auto attack is also good for clearing out Mesmer clones.

Choking gas is useful at all times for nerfing the enemy’s healing.

But as a primary damage weapon, no. Mostly for softening up enemies when your gap closers are on cool down, or if there is too much AOE in a group fight and you want to plink from range a bit to soften them up.

Slytren.9236:

Hi guys. I am a returning player. Stopped playing sometime before HoT, because of college, and now I finally have time to play again. Since I don’t have the expansion, I was wondering if vanilla warrior is still viable in PvP. I know that hammer/gs is still somewhat viable, but I was wondering about other builds.

In Unranked? Sure. Vanillla warrior is viable. Take your pick of builds, power or condi even. Practice.

In Ranked? I couldn’t tell you.

GNARSTACHE.3681:

I am fortunate enough to get a lot of gold from some old friends.
I wanted to know what gear specifically to buy for a PvE dps berserker
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Berserker_-_Phalanx_Strength
is the build I’m doing
I wanted to know how much it would cost to gear it. I don’t need the super end game gear but I was told around 500 gold could gear my char for fractals and dungeons etc

Can someone tell me the stats I look for or if the gear names are static, what gear to buy from the TP?

Purchase your exotic Zerker armor (not trinkets or weapons) from this guy at the Temple of Grenth in the Cursed Shore, once you’re level 80: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Keeper_Jonez_Deadrun

Use your charges to reskin it as you see fit.

As Gnar says, save your laurels to purchase ascenended Zerker trinkets from any laurel merchant.

Save your gold for exotic Zerk weapons on the TP

I hate facing Mesmers in PvP. Stealth, clones, phantasms, condis, boons, CC, ranged. Pain in the butt. I run thief and warrior.

I don’t know how they fare in other game modes.

I would play new game plus for general, open world PvE if it were offered. I don’t play the 5-man stuff like dungeons because 1) it ties me down to my computer for a set period of time, and 2) it’s hard to get a decent, like-minded group unless you’re in a guild, and sometimes even then.

Setting up another server for new-game plus (starting off fresh with an empty map at level 80, where everything is tougher/hits harder) however, I would play. Just up the rewards a bit to compensate for the extra effort it takes to kill that pack of Skritt now.

I’d like to see Anet make a decision on whether P/P is a condi set or a power set. Sneak attack is bleeding based, Unload is pure power. The auto is whatever. Pistol 2 is horrible. Pistol 4 is expensive (initiative wise) for what it does. Pistol 5 is fine I guess? Aside from unload I don’t get this set.

The only trait available for pistols is garbage.

IMO short bow should be a slightly better condi weapon, while retaining its utility, and PP should be a power set with more to offer than Unload.

Wargameur.6950:

Hey Dragon hunters,

I’m a pvp player and obviously DH is in a good spot this season ( at least below diamond ). The goal of this post is not to complain about traps, but to understand the weakness of the current meta DH.

I have little knowledge of playing the class ( maybe ~10-20 games playing burn guardian and bunker ), so I wanted to ask to people used to play the class, because you get more knowledge from someone playing ~1k games.

I know, as a thief I should avoid fights involving a DH. Sometimes I don’t have a choice and I need to face one ( delay a cap / temporize / no other choice in rotations ). So my question is how can I pressure a DH at best with a thief ? is there a window where they are more vulnerable ?

I often try to start the fight using a daze ( head shot ) to proc the passive auto-trap ( it’s a heal If I’m right ).

I doubt there is a good answer for you, Wargamuer. I have mained thief for about two years now. I can beat guardians, but not dragon hunters. not ever, really.

Recently I rolled up a DH for PvP, just to try it out. I won every fight by pushing buttons. I should mention that my experience with guardian is practically nil, and my experience with DH is actually zero. I literally just rolled up a guardian, went straight to PvP, picked weapons and traits that made sense to me, selected all traps for utility skills, and pushed buttons. This class is broken, and thieves have no chance until I see it on video.

Malpractice.7850:

I enjoy playing WvW but previously I have really only played engineer. I have dabbled a bit with all the classes, and curious how each Fairs in WvW/battles… If theyre useful, take some skill, have varied builds..etc

Engineer -> Are they as useless as they once were? Did scrapper help em a bit?

Warrior -> I havent seen more than a handful in about 2 weeks..

Revenant -> Where do they fit in?

Mesmers -> I’m sure theyre still useful for Veil, and somewhat portal. DId the wells help them secure more bags/tag more enemies? :p

Not really interested in the other classes much
Thanks for any info :-)

TBH you can take your pick, unless you are solo roaming?

I play non-meta thief and can push next to the commander with a short bow, using my dodges well. With warrior I can push in front of commander, using shield and stances. Ultimately it is your understanding of the flow of battle (when to rez, when to fall back, etc.) more than class that wins WvW.

Engis are far from useless these days.

Revs are the expansion class, enough said.

In my experience Warrior has the best build diversity, and is more viable non-HoT. Warrior’s stances, in particular, are just as effective as always. Try glass gear (Zerk or Rampager, depending on your style) with stances, and whatever weapons you enjoy. The Defense Trait line is pretty awesome, although they recently nerfed the passive heal.

Thief Dagger/Pistol may also be viable non-HoT, as others have mentioned.

good luck, you’re not alone.

This is turning into a thing.

orenwolf.1953:

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

It is indeed slightly P2W, but not for the reasons you describe.

You need to buy HoT to run the current meta on most classes, if not all. This was of course by design, as Anet needed to provide incentive to purchase the expansion beyond new maps, new skins, etc.

To win the meta maybe, not the game. You can certainly play without having to play the meta config in anything but what, raids? Which are HoT anyway?

That’s a little disingenuous, Orenwolf.

You need meta builds to play at the highest level in any game mode, be it PvE, WvW, or PvP. Playing anything less than the meta results in fewer rewards over time. It also results in salt from teammates who only want other meta players on their team.

Yes you can play non-meta builds in any game mode. That is, in fact, what I do. And I own HoT. But it’s a joke to suggest that the playing field is level when going up against (or playing along side) HoT builds that dish out more damage, soak more damage, have more defensive procs, etc.

Skill and experience can overcome this handicap only to a certain extent.

Again, the game is P2W just a little, not a lot. The OP is right, just for the wrong reasons.

Thanks for the update Mike.

I would also like to know what time the game will be rolled back to.

GBEW.5947:

In the past few days i have had quite a few arguments with people about this topic, now i could sit here and just force my beliefs down your throat but i would rather have a healthy discussion and get down to it as i would like to know your thoughts.

When i first bought this game i was kind of shocked that i was able to buy gold with gems, it screams p2w. I ended up looking past it as Guild Wars 2 has been a game i was looking forward to playing since the first game, i just ended up getting into it a bit late.
Anyways as i said, i ended up looking past this and just played and for the most part i ignored the gem store. However lately now that i am on the grind for a legendary and my ascended armors, gold seems to be my only issue, and the fact that if i so chose, i could very well just skip the entire process has started to get on my nerves a bit.

Anyways i probably seem like i am rambling so i’ll finish by asking what you all think of this.

It is indeed slightly P2W, but not for the reasons you describe.

You need to buy HoT to run the current meta on most classes, if not all. This was of course by design, as Anet needed to provide incentive to purchase the expansion beyond new maps, new skins, etc.

Hitch.7295:

So what should I do?
Go outside for awhile?

This is dangerous, and should not be attempted until you’ve consulted with your primary care physician.

I recommend playing something on your console until this issue has been resolved.

MSGhero.9023:

I just played my 100th game of PvP, so I’m still pretty new.

I usually engage doing Basi->3+Steal->3 autos->2 to apply stun->3. At this point, either A) enemy is almost dead and panic strike stuns them, enemy is at 90% health, C) enemy’s passive stopped me upon stealing, D) steal didn’t actually teleport me.

I feel like A only happens when the enemy is bad and has 0 defensive spells, and D feels like steal is bugged sometimes. My question is for B and C: what do I do next?

Chasing feels weird. Unhindered moves me too far past the enemy, a followup 3 doesn’t move me far enough and wastes ini, and I would miss or miss out using larcenous strike had I not blown 2 earlier. I recently learned about right clicking to change your direction (like I said I’m new), so reorienting the camera during a fight is not comfortable/natural for me yet. Should I disengage at this point? Should I keep auto attacking and hitting 3 as if I know how to dodge spells? If I disengage when I’m on a point, they can progress toward taking my point, which is usually why I end up continuing to fight unless they’re a guardian at which point I just let them have it.

I know it’s a super situational question, but I’m really just asking how to efficiently chase people as S/D when steal is on cd. D/P can hit 2 or 3 to catch up. Staff has 5 which hurts like hell. Shortbow has 5 but does negative damage. S/D can 2 once and move a few inches forward with 3.

My build:
DA 222
Trick 312
DrD 222
Marauder amulet, Pack rune, air/fire sigils (not sure if these are good, please advise)
Channeled vigor, SoA, BD, Shadowstep, Basi
Shortbow as alt weapon set

I second everything Ensign said above. Especially save your Steal until after you’ve already landed your initial few hits, at least.

Also, Dagger 4 really does have a use here: use it to cripple fleeing enemies. By this point you should have both swiftness and vigor, so you can run/dodge your way to close the gap. It’s pretty important to pursue IMO once they start running, because as a S/D dagger thief you’ll only get one shot to finish them off before they heal/reset or their friends show up.

S/D is the toughest set up to play, as others have noted. Frankly I’ve abandoned it in PvP, but I still enjoy it in other game modes. Doesn’t mean YOU can’t get pretty good at it though, if you practice. GL.

Zero. Playing quite a bit the last 3 years, all game modes. I have not spent much gold trying the mystic toilet. Having said that, I’ve earned enough coin over those years to buy many of the precursors on the TP.

The Gearhead.2301:

Well, bring the hate then, I suppose. It’s so odd that people hate this profession so much. When I played at the launch of the game, thieves seemed unstoppable 1v1 if you knew what you were doing and had a decent build. Hopefully ANet finds a way to balance the professions out one of these days. Either way, thief is kitten and so much fun to play. I’ll enjoy it regardless.

FYI Thief was way out of balance at launch. They were the troll class. The playing field is much, much changed since then.

The Gearhead.2301:

Well I’m glad to finally see some positive words about the thief. I was beginning to think it was pointless to level him. I think I’ll stick with it, then. Worst case scenario, I hit 80 and wait for a buff from ANet and level my ranger in the meantime.

How are thieves 1v1? I know when I first bought the game and started playing, all I did was PvP and I felt unstoppable against any profession with my thief in a single target combat situation. Get into a group fight, however, and it almost always spelled disaster for me. Is this still the case, or have we gotten weaker 1v1?

My advice is to start playing a thief in sPvP right now. Spend the next month or so focussing on PvP (everyone is automatically leveled to 80 in PvP, and gear is standardized for all players) and see how it goes.

You will get a broad spectrum of opinion here; what matters is how well you can play it, not how well someone else can play it. Good thief players can still wreck the enemy, but average thief players (i count myself among these) are a casualty waiting to happen.

RedSpectrum.1975:

About 80% of my fights were: Invulnerable, invulnerable, invulnerable, block, blockittenk, block, block, invulnerable, evade, 3k, block, block, invulnerable.

In the calmest way possible, what the hell happened to the meta? This was every class except thief minus Bandits defense and the amount of dodging but I was already used to that BS. Warriors I used to be able to take on if I needed, but I have to avoid them now unless one is weak. They can take a lot of damage, neglect a metric kitten ton of damage and deal back the same if not more damage than I can. Guardians are also up there but maybe they’ve always been that way, I forget. It basically seems the only classes I can actually duel are necromancers (still risky), elementalists, and other thieves (still risky if equal or greater experience). Literally everything else either mitigates and bursts you out out sustaines the hell out of you with the sheer amount of blocking and invulnerabilities. You can’t do anything as a thief now, you’re not the highest dps dealer, youre sure as hell not the tankier person on the field.Or maybe I’m just bad.

I feel your pain, but not so much since I switched to warrior about a month ago

After maining S/D for about a year and a half, I rolled up a sword/sword/shield warrior with stances. It’s like the difficulty slider went from 100% to 50%. The only class that consistently gives me problems now is mesmer and good DH’s.

When I get a matchup against a good thief in PvP, they can still give me a headache. But I do much better against every class in general. Like you said, I can block, block, block, ignore, ignore, ignore, etc. Meanwhile I burn foes when blocking, apply bleeds and vulnerability and cripple like crazy, and so on.

I have a better (more accurate) perspective on the game now. Thief still has a role, but it is easily the narrowest role in the game with the highest skill threshold. And the build diversity is nil for thief. Heck, my warrior isn’t even running anything resembling a meta build, it’s just something I cooked up for fun.

Fay.2357:

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

Ananeos.4587:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4v76gq/qt_updated_guides_and_dps_benchmarks_for_all/
44,320 dps divided by Mesmer’s 7,828 = 5.7 rounded up to 6

This has to stop. Even the second lowest class, the Ranger, manages do deal more than double the dps at 18,969. The Mesmer was in full Zerker.

But wait you ask, what about condi mesmer?
13.3k on a test golem (without confusion and torment’s added damage, but it wasn’t high enough anyway) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wC1NsFfVUc

Anet why do you torture us so?

/endrant

I won’t argue with your numbers, but decent Mesmers consistently give me a harder time than any other class in WvW or PvP. I run both thief and warrior. With thief I need to land that surprise attack burst or just run. With warrior I find that mesmers can out-sustain me by stealthing, cloning, etc. Good Mesmers toy with me on a regular basis, even if they don’t kill me outright.

-_-

PvP/WvW is…so so so far outside the scope of this thread…

So the OP is only complaining about PvE content? Yeah, sorry I stopped by. Also surprised this thread has a thousand posts.

Ananeos.4587:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4v76gq/qt_updated_guides_and_dps_benchmarks_for_all/
44,320 dps divided by Mesmer’s 7,828 = 5.7 rounded up to 6

This has to stop. Even the second lowest class, the Ranger, manages do deal more than double the dps at 18,969. The Mesmer was in full Zerker.

But wait you ask, what about condi mesmer?
13.3k on a test golem (without confusion and torment’s added damage, but it wasn’t high enough anyway) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wC1NsFfVUc

Anet why do you torture us so?

/endrant

I won’t argue with your numbers, but decent Mesmers consistently give me a harder time than any other class in WvW or PvP. I run both thief and warrior. With thief I need to land that surprise attack burst or just run. With warrior I find that mesmers can out-sustain me by stealthing, cloning, etc. Good Mesmers toy with me on a regular basis, even if they don’t kill me outright.

Sabtah.1704:

Recently, I have been having lots of troubles against DH in both pvp and wvw.

I play Gs/axe mostly, but switch to either gs/rifle or mace/rifle once I see DH.

Even with rifle, with signet of might, DH seem to have too many blocks for me to punch through. If I happen to land burst through that block, he just heals or use invuln and blocks again. Then I eventually get pulled into traps.

I would appreciate some detailed tips against DH as power warrior.

I use stances to rush them while ignoring their traps (for a while). But a good DH is still pretty cheesy. The cool down on their traps combined with all their survivability is tough to counter. Note however that Signet of Might (and/or Signet Mastery trait) is good for beating their blocks. I’ve found it mandatory, actually, the Signet Master on my condi warrior.

I’m using Rampager’s Amulet and Guardian Rune (with Sword/Sword/Shield). Proc on crit sigils. Use this set up in all game modes with Stances.

Only if they’re short-shorts and sparkly. Like silver lame.

Last year I saw a ranger and his devourer pet. The devourer’s name was “Juvenile Shark.” I chuckled pretty hard.

Randulf.7614:

A warrior with power, vit, tough stats can generally stand and swing very well. Works for me when I feel like playing in low maintenance mode. I use mace and shoeld a lot, but hammer or greatsword will work as well and with better dps

Ranger will allow u to stand at greater range though and have your pets take the brunt of it. Wont necs work in big fights, but most of the normal open world stuff will be doable.

This.

(Minimum characters)

Saiyan.1704:

Here’s my list in terms of class unhappiness in PvP according to forum complaints.
Top is worse
1. Ele
2. Thief

That ends my list. Anyone else uncontent with their class? Who should be 3rd & 4th picks?

I only play three classes these days: Thief, Warrior, Ranger.

I’m actually happy with vanilla warrior and vanilla ranger. (Although I’m still bitter that Anet nerfed the cool downs and radius of warrior’s banners.) Both classes have some build diversity and are durable enough to allow for a few mistakes in play now and then.

Thief is so specialized and so glassy that only really skilled players can make it effective. I’m also not happy with thief because sword dagger is still in a weird place with no true burst and no true sustain.

It’s good for thieves that are tired of getting one-shotted. Otherwise I’ll stick with Zerk. Enemies will burn through that passive health bonus pretty quickly anyways.

Blaqatak.1395:

Like most thieves, I run power D/P, SB: DA/TR/DD.

I’m wondering if kiting some melee-centric builds might be viable.

(This is all in the context of WvW roaming.)

You can kite a bit with it, sure. But that kind of goes against what the thief is supposed to do, which is hit hard and get out. You’ll just harass the opponent until their buddies show up, then you have to run or die.

I sometimes open with SB 4 to nerf the enemy’s healing, but immediately switch to my melee set after.

As a damage weapon, SB only shines in group fights in WvW, where even the auto attack deals good damage by bouncing between 3 enemies.

Stephen.4165:

Hi fellow Guild Wars 2 players!

I saw a similar threat above regarding choosing a warrior or revenant. I did not play the game for 1.5 years now and I wanted to start again.

I am interested in all aspects of the game, that is pve spvp and wvw. However I would like to use 1 character only for it and I love melee. The problem I had when I started was that warriors used very defensive builds in spvp. I am more like an offensive player.

My question is the following:
Which class (warrior guardian or thief) is viable in pve, spvp and wvw with an offensive play style? I understand it has to do with your personal skill level to make it viable, but apart from that, which one suits my needs the best?

Thank you for reading!

I recommend Warrior or Rev.

Thief requires a very, very specific play style because of how glassy it is. Getting one shotted and two shotted gets old pretty quick (I’ve been maining thief for about the last 18 months).

Warrior is plenty offensive these days, if you want it to be. I recently switched to Warrior and have more fun than playing a Thief.

Rev is the expansion pack class. Enough said.

For map completion and general PvE I like a dagger/dagger condi thief with Carrion gear. Once you unlock Daredevil stuff you can try the staff out.

Map completion means you’ll be fighting lots of mobs by yourself, including some veterans and champs. The evading, AoE and sustained condi damage that you get with dagger/dagger really helps here.

Here is just one build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVlsMhanYvTw5Jw+EHtElOAOgFovYNaV4fj7IFB-TJxCABAcCA0qMwxPAAU2fAA

The Caltrops along with Death Blossom give you good AoE. The Scorpion Wire helps you pull enemies to you one at time, without aggro-ing the whole mob. Thieves Guild gives you both offense and defense by way of creating two new targets for the enemy to pay attention to.

Whatever you do, equip either a sigil of Corruption or sigil of Bloodlust. These are cheap from level 1 and invaluable in general PvE.

Full glass (as PanZ suggests) is also viable for map completion, but takes more practice and skill, and attention to what you’re doing. I prefer to play open PvE with a drink in one hand, so….

On the topic of vanilla tanking.

I’ve had decent luck tanking with Mace/Mace + Mace/Shield. All Berserker gear, vanilla traits STR/DEF/DISC. All stances for utility and healing skills.

I started off using a mix of offensive and defensive gear, but eventually went all Zerk because of the effectiveness of all the blocks/dazes/stuns/stances. I rarely dodge because of all the crazy ways this build has to reflect, block or just ignore damage. Damage is respectable given the amount of Vulnerability you can inflict with just a couple of hits.

I can’t get used to the warrior’s great sword no matter how much I try. It’s a weird weapon. Obviously your build has better burst potential with main hand axe and GS second set. But I’ve found that Mace/Mace really punishes the aggressive players, which is most players

Step 1: Move the Venom traits to the Deadly Arts tree. I have no idea why we need to go down the stealth tree to unlock condi/venom traits.

Step 2: For the love of all that’s holy, buff Ice Drake venom. I don’t care how.

Step 3: Make venoms viable without the sharing trait (venomous aura). As Sir Vincent states, it is ridiculous that we need the sharing trait to make venoms decent. Since when is Thief a support class that always needs to be surrounded by allies? Add more strikes to each venom instead of making a “shared” thing. Or make each venom more powerful. Or add a secondary utility feature to each venom, like condi transfer on hit or something.

Basi is fine how it is, though.

I see a lot comments here that S/D is fine, but I never see anyone playing it. In the last 500+ PvP matches I’ve seen a total of 2 or 3 S/D thieves, whether on my team or the opponent’s team. WvW and PvE is not much different. If S/D was in a good spot, people would actually play it.

As someone who’s been maining S/D for a year plus:

The auto attack should apply cripple on strike #2, not strike #3

Flanking Strike should apply 1 second of cripple, to help land Larcenous Strike

Larcenous Strike should steal one boon and cost 1 initiative

Larcenous Strike should steal a small amount of life and have a slight damage boost

The Acrobatics tree should have a utility skill cool down trait. It’s the only tree that doesn’t, yet S/D players are obligated to take it because of Swindler’s Equilibrium

The Don’t Stop trait in the Acrobatics tree needs to be buffed in some way, any way to make it useful

My two cents.

Pretty much what Legenduu said. Dagger Storm is your anti-ranger skill.

I"ve played around with P/D because I also think it is fun. Terribly effective? Maybe not. But fun. My only suggestions are:

You need gap closers. This could be stealth (with Hidden Thief trait), Scorpion Wire, etc. The P/D thief is a close up class not a ranged class, owing to the fact that Shadow Strike is your best DPS.

Carrion is a good set. Sigils of Bursting and Whatever. You could run Dire obviously in PvE, but not PvP. Carrion probably better because white damage from Shadow Strike not bad.

Condition runes, take your pick. Runes of Torment, Krait, whatever.

Bewildering Ambush for confusion.

Short bow second weapon set because you need some AoE.

I have found both Spike Trap and Spider Venom to be great utilities for this play style.

I’m no expert. I’ve got about 600 matches in PvP and I run vanilla S/D. So take my advice for what it’s worth.

Being a good PvP Thief means understanding when to go far and when to go mid. Only the best thieves can consistently win 1v1 against good competition. A good PvP Thief decaps the empty node, and then caps it ONLY if he is not needed elsewhere.

I’ve played plenty of matches where I can’t even Plus1 that well. There are so many classes that can lay down mad AoE, heal over and over, block 3+ attacks, or simply ignore your damage.

Learn your short bow hops to decap fast. Don’t bother fighting Dragonhunters and their traps. Kill other thieves.

Also, experiment with full glass gear (for example, Berserker and Eagle runes) vs. Marauder gear. I wound up going full glass because the damage is more significant than the slight increase in survivability provided by Marauder.

Good luck.

Edit: In group fights, try to take out the ranged opponent (usually Ranger). This keeps you out of the AoE orgy in the middle of the fight.

Please no more. Thank you.

dannyteo.5864:

Never going to happen, the PVP player base is nowhere near large enough for that. you would have insanely long que times if they put that in place.

This. I would love to see a core-only queue (yes Anet would have to also roll back the pre-HoT update that started the power creep rolling), but the player base just isn’t big enough.

Yes, I bought HoT but I don’t run the specs because I just don’t care for them. More powerful? Obviously. More fun? Not for me. I also don’t care for the new PvE maps or gliders, so HoT was a seriously bad investment for me.

Sylent.3165:

On a power build wouldn’t a rifle be better? I don’t fully understand the benefits of a bow over the rifle?

On a power build? Yeah rifle is probably better. Honestly the bow is in a pretty good spot right now though. I think bow rules in WvW, you will get bags galore just from laying down the fire field, not to mention the might stacking, AoE blindness, etc.

I can’t say enough about the fire field on the Burst skill. It’s huge and lasts forever.

I run Settler on my Shortbow Ranger and love it. Alas, Anet would have to actually balance the classes for Settler to return. Since they can’t (or won’t) balance the actual classes, certain amulets will never see the light of day again.

Every time I try the wastes, I get ten minutes in and leave. This vertical platforming stuff is godawful. Back to Orr for me.

ByeByeDaddyCool.3680:

Ive been playing D/P since its been a new thing. Im looking to try SD as a viable build to have fun with my young son who is also playing a thief. We aren’t looking to win any tournaments or be in the top 1% of wvw. Just looking for a really strong build that we can Roam WVW and do some PvE. Thanks I appreciate it. I checked the stickies but all of the SD builds are old and outdated.

Best luck I’ve had in all game modes (WvW or otherwise) is pure glass as follows:

Traits/Specializations:
CS
AC
TR

Utility skills:
All tricks (withdraw, scorpion wire, RFI, Haste)

Gear: All Berzerker
Runes: Eagle
Sigils: Force, Bloodlust

Food:
Whatever you want to spend.

Detailed build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYVl0MhanYvTw4JQ/EH7EVfHWwcwPFbxVsDgarNB-TJRBwAkLDA4BAMb/hFnAAA

The DPS is real.

If you’ve purchased HoT and ground out the Daredevil spec, feel free to swap that out for another trait line. I find the HoT specs to be kinda cheesy and “mandatory” so I stick with vanilla.

My endgame is rolling a new character and leveling it to 80, to be honest.

Tealots.6095:

As a side question, I’ve typically played my thief with a Dagger-Pistol set, but I have been enjoying Sword-Dagger the past few days. I understand DP is preferred, but could anyone lay out the benefits of SD over DP? Or does that mainly come down to team composition? — mine and the opponent team.

S/D does not have any real advantages over D/P, to be honest. However I prefer the play style of S/D and that’s what I play. If you like the play style of S/D, then stick with it for a while, try a few different S/D builds, and see what you think. But D/P and Staff are overwhelmingly deemed to be better weapon sets.

Note: S/D recently got a “buff” so that Larcenous Strike steals an extra boon, with an extra cost of 1 more initiative. This theoretically means you could specialize in stealing from boon-heavy classes. However given that Bountiful Theft also received an extra boon stolen (with no increased cost of any kind), I argue that Larcenous Strike is still inferior. Also, the thief is about raw damage, and nobody ever won a match by simply stealing more boons.

If I had to play a ranked match (I always play unranked), I would still pick S/D simply because I am so accustomed to it.

+1

Minimum characters.