How to not totally suck at WvW with what I have?

[Shakkara.2641]

Hi all, I've been playing WvW for over a year, just capturing camps and banners and tagging along raids if I see them. Generally it is fun, however the PVP part of it totally isn't.

I am playing thief but no matter what build I try, I can't seem to do any damage and I die as soon as the dodges run out. I often don't even manage to take 10% off an enemy player's health, if I can hit them at all, because various classes just stunlock and instakill or outrange and kite me. The only thing I am remotely good at is stealthing and running away.

At this point I've totally had it with Thief and would consider playing another class.

Currently I have a Guardian and Revenant at 80 with a lot of their profession stuff unlocked.I also have a level 80 Mesmer, Warrior, Engineer and Elementalist, but they don't have much unlocked yet. Still have a level 80 token and an empty slot, so starting from scratch would be an option too.

For weapons I have an Ascended sword (zerker), pistol (power/precission/condition), shortbow (zerker), hammer(power/toughness/fero/healing), shield (power/healing/concentration).Regarding armor, I have Ascended medium berserker armor and an ascended celestial heavy breastplate and ascended leggings (power/toughness/vitality). Ascended wings with zerker and (power/precission/condition/expertise) stats.Have various ascended rings and trinkets and enough wvw currency to buy whatever. Still got an ascended necklace that I don't have stats selected on.

I would kind of like your advice on what I can play considering the gear and characters and gear I already have.

[Infusion.7149]

With what you have I'd definitely not play thief. With thief you really want to run marauder armor for the vitality otherwise classes with reveal + ranged weapons such as soulbeasts and dragonhunters will essentially one shot you. Couple that with the range of the marked debuff in WvW and it makes WvW really unfriendly to stealth near structures. If you want to give it a better chance swap in marauder trinkets and weapons and don't try to mix power and condition on thief. If you want condi go outright pistol+dagger dire build with shortbow as second weaponset (not berserker stat). You shouldn't have a stunlock issue especially if playing daredevil , neither should you have an issue catching people with sword immob and teleport.

Your best option is probably sword + shield holo for roaming with what you have. Assuming you don't need the shield in harrier stat , this can be mystic forged to berserker or marauder, but an exotic shield isn't that terrible as the shield isn't used for damage. Go to Bjora Marches and get some trinkets to augment your vitality to ~20K and toughness 2500+. In a zerg / squad just swap to DPS scrapper with medic gyro , stealth gyro to support with superspeed. You could probably use that crusader stat hammer as a stand in for cavalier trinkets.--- shield allows for reflect of rapid fire / true shot but the gap closer on holo leap is "free" per say unlike thief sword which needs initiative.--- worst matchup is a well played dagger pistol thief probably and trailblazer revs since they can outsustain you while punishing movement with torment

If you can get exotic armor to gear a revenant that would be decent as well but doesn't deal with stunlock as well due to the stunbreak situation. That's why the roaming revs typically are some tanky condi mallyx with mace even if zerg-oriented revs are running hammers and swords.

Guardian really isn't that great for roaming because unlike in PvP you can't really spam symbols on a point and sword of justice has trouble hitting anything moving. Even when contesting a camp or tower the space is too large. On top of that you have a mobility deficit out of combat if you don't use warclaw or are in combat , such that firework runes or similar along with greatsword would be wanted. If you encounter a high sustain necro with heavy boon rip it's especially bad. Running dragonhunter helps a bit with mobility but leaves you with the problem of needing marauder armor or honor traitline for vitality : defensively power dragonhunter is weaker than firebrand and even core. Running longbow has the same problem as rangers and rifle engineers in that the amount of projectile hate is high currently so it can only be used for roaming.

I wouldn't play spellbreaker while roaming either and berserker spec is a joke. The matchup is unfavorable against just about every class after the damage nerfs unless you manage to run into something that doesn't kite but uses barrier while traited with warrior's cunning (probably scourge necro , scrapper, or glassy fire weaver). You'd need to stat swap the armors using the mystic forge to berserker or marauder as well. You'd likely endure the same frustration of being kited or damaged a large amount while you try to attack.--- for example against a bunkery condi ranger of any kind, holos, revenants, burn guardians if you don't run discipline for condi clear on weaponswap, power soulbeasts with wilderness survival traited, core condi necro, power reaper with speed rune/firework rune, dagger pistol daredevils, etc

Mesmer isn't really a good option with what you have.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

mate u should have enough armor boxes yet to build exotic sets for every meta char?

thief is one of two classes to not play in wvw. try herald (rev), firebrand (guard), spellbreaker (warri), scrouge (necro)

thieves lack the aoe, same as rangers, for effective zergfights. you probs die from a ton of stuff that isn't even directed to you there.

u can even buy cheap exo weapons in wvw, and u find the sets on gw2mists.de;

exotic gear is pretty good overall for the start, u get better one by time anyways.

[Shroud.2307]

Just gear up a Trailblazer Herald with Tormenting runes and you don't have to be good.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

If it helps, here's the build I run on Thief (Daredevil):http://gw2skills.net/editor/?Pa1AgiVlNwcYHsOGJO2SeNLA-zxQY3gLJdvDJFpQOigiVAOdWqSaD-e

[ASP.8093]

@"Shakkara.2641" said:Currently I have a Guardian and Revenant at 80 with a lot of their profession stuff unlocked.I also have a level 80 Mesmer, Warrior, Engineer and Elementalist, but they don't have much unlocked yet. Still have a level 80 token and an empty slot, so starting from scratch would be an option too.

If you have some Heroics thingies in your wallet (you probably should, WvW gives you a bunch for doing barely anything, and you can get a ton more from Skirmish Chests), you can very quickly get elite specs for your characters by buying instant skill-point unlock scrolls form this guy: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heroics_Notary#Items_offered

Also, you should know that it's possible to swap ascended stats on armor and weapons using a moderately-cheap Mystic Forge recipe (costs about as much as making an exotic): https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stat_changing

[Talindra.4958]

@Shakkara.2641 said:

I would kind of like your advice on what I can play considering the gear and characters and gear I already have.create an engineerit is currently quite a meta for wvw.

[Shakkara.2641]

Thanks a lot for all the useful comments!

So I tried Engineer the holosmith (this build https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Holosmith_-_Explosive_Roamer ), but it didn't go very well. I found it impossible to singlehandedly clear camps (I have to get into close range, but am made of paper and I have no distraction like thieves guild, so the shooty NPCs just kill me in seconds) and there's just too many buttons to press.

Felt very frustrated, so went back to thief.

The plan right now is to farm some more of those wvw tickets and then forge a legendary wvw breastplate so I have the stat change option available, and give various Revenant builds a try. It'd also be useful to have that sort of kit for a guardian for raids later, as I'm not getting into any raids as Thief either.

[Luthan.5236]

Well ... if you play a thief and are good at stealthing and running away ... probably you are playing it correctly. Thieves are annoying by constantly running away (but only a bit) and appearing again at full health.

I personally like the small to mid scaled combat and not the huge zerging. Where it doesn't really matter too much. Huge zerg might require you som zerg build - which I find boring. Those 50 guys following lik some robot/AI the commander perfectly ... lol. Looks boring to me and I wouldn't be able to do it for more than 30 minutes. :D

I think every player has their own style and needs to find their own build. I like to CC guys in small scale to mid scale combad with pull (pulling the ones that try to run away) and doing single target damage (still easy to tag a lot to get tons of "participation" ... maybe less Wxp but fine for me I play for fun).

I play core engineer in WvW since I have only tried scrapper so far in PvE and don't like the scrapper weapon (hammer) in PvE environment and just starting with Holo in PvE and it feels too squishy (still need time to learn it there before considering it in PvE) compared to scrapper. But I like my invulnerabilit elixir in PvP and the toolkit for the pull from magnet and the other defensive skill (skill 4 from toolkit) and just the plain core rifle. (So I can switch between ranged and melee.) And trying to use sieges every now and then. Can't imagine any other style or giving up some of the other utilty skills that I got to like ... in favor of something else.

Maybe you could ask in thief forums - since you already know a lot about thief and played it for some thime - if it is possible to adapt it to a playstyle you like?

[KrHome.1920]

Regarding armor, I have Ascended medium berserker armorIf full (or mostly) zerk is the only option here then there is only one class that is still super easy to play with this gear and that is longbow GS owl soulbeast: just stay at range and if someone moves in your direction turn around and do a GS + owl double leap and run away (pick speed rune for maximum cheese). Once your target gave up chasing you, switch back to longbow and fire into his back. Hundreds of bad players in the game win their encounters with that strategy.

GS is a good weapon to clear camps and since ranger uses medium armor, this is the way you want to play.

[saerni.2584]

Don’t listen to bad advice about thief in the WvW forum.

Come to the Thief Profession sub forum and get bad advice from the source :-p

[Dawdler.8521]

@saerni.2584 said:Don’t listen to bad advice about thief in the WvW forum.

Come to the Thief Profession sub forum and get bad advice from the source :-pWhere everyone will pat their backs in agreement that the thief is the worst duelist, the worst roamer, the worst mobile class and has the lowest damage of all the classes.

[saerni.2584]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@saerni.2584 said:Don’t listen to bad advice about thief in the WvW forum.

Come to the Thief Profession sub forum and get bad advice from the source :-pWhere everyone will pat their backs in agreement that the thief is the worst duelist, the worst roamer, the worst mobile class and has the lowest damage of all the classes.

I should say, there are a few helpful people. Aikijinx posts frequently in his build threads and Babazhook and a couple of others always have some good build feedback (and experimental non-meta ideas).

But yeah...anyone saying thief can’t do damage or loses XYZ matchup in 1v1 is either mistaken or focusing on a specific meta build that will certainly lose a fight it isn’t designed to win (taking a high mobility +1 build into a duel with no kiting space for example).

[reddie.5861]

thief is easy, dont stay near your allies (cus enemies like to throw shit at where biggest hub of people are)get behind or on side of enemy blob (if u like ganking around blob) pick on strugglers who are falling away from group.dont stomp anything near a group

for roaming ur more or less the one who decide when to fight where to fight how to fight.the thing is u dont need start with full zerk ( i didnt read all ur gear) i know ur dmg goes down but u do get feel of the class and u can slowly pack more zerk or even marauder gear in there when u feel more comfy.

anyway99% of ur deads is because of greed. thief is more of a patience game then anything else. i know sometimes u see some1 with low hp and ur like 1 hit and hes dead.tru but can u stomp him? or is he near bunch of allies? or w/e sometimes its better to just stealth and lurk around him waiting for next move even if that means he will heal him self up. (ye i know this is hard it happends to all thiefs, thiefs who say they dont make this mistakes are filthy liars ;) )

anyway if u want to play solo i would just stick with thief/ranger <- ez classesif u want to play blob fights and be a part of the group

play scourge or revenant none of these 2 are really hard..

[Chichimec.9364]

@"Shakkara.2641" said:...The plan right now is to farm some more of those wvw tickets and then forge a legendary wvw breastplate so I have the stat change option available, and give various Revenant builds a try. It'd also be useful to have that sort of kit for a guardian for raids later, as I'm not getting into any raids as Thief either.

I'm an old, slow player who can't do a lot of fast, intricate combinations in battle. What works for me in WvW solo roaming is a Condi Herald using Trailblazer gear and following the other build recommendations at that link. With that build I can readily solo supply camps, shrines, veteran beasts, and the like. When I'm running with a zerg I'll switch to the Herald, Power Glint build, using the Jalis variant rather than Shiro as well as using two hammers instead of hammer/sword. For that build I use marauder gear and I generally range from the middle of the zerg or so. All of that usually enables me to stay alive and fighting in a zerg unless we get hit and overrun by a larger group. Oh, and I"m working on my legendary gear too. Got the breastplate and am almost ready to get the leggings. Good luck with yours.

[Strider.7849]

@Shakkara.2641 said:Hi all, I've been playing WvW for over a year, just capturing camps and banners and tagging along raids if I see them. Generally it is fun, however the PVP part of it totally isn't.

I am playing thief but no matter what build I try, I can't seem to do any damage and I die as soon as the dodges run out. I often don't even manage to take 10% off an enemy player's health, if I can hit them at all, because various classes just stunlock and instakill or outrange and kite me. The only thing I am remotely good at is stealthing and running away.

At this point I've totally had it with Thief and would consider playing another class.

Currently I have a Guardian and Revenant at 80 with a lot of their profession stuff unlocked.I also have a level 80 Mesmer, Warrior, Engineer and Elementalist, but they don't have much unlocked yet. Still have a level 80 token and an empty slot, so starting from scratch would be an option too.

For weapons I have an Ascended sword (zerker), pistol (power/precission/condition), shortbow (zerker), hammer(power/toughness/fero/healing), shield (power/healing/concentration).Regarding armor, I have Ascended medium berserker armor and an ascended celestial heavy breastplate and ascended leggings (power/toughness/vitality). Ascended wings with zerker and (power/precission/condition/expertise) stats.Have various ascended rings and trinkets and enough wvw currency to buy whatever. Still got an ascended necklace that I don't have stats selected on.

I would kind of like your advice on what I can play considering the gear and characters and gear I already have.

Can you link your current build and gear on thief using the build editor? I have experience PvP and WvW wise on all classes and can offer some suggestions on how to fix the issues you're having on thief - if you do want to continue with it. If you are completely done with thief and want something else I can offer suggestions as well. As for your current gear that you have collected it's too random and spread out to be effective on any class when combined, you will need to do some stat changing in order to fix this.

[Bigpapasmurf.5623]

If you can get DE, I can help you with a build that can def put pressure on and still give you some "GTFO" potential.

[sneakytails.5629]

Thief is one of the higher skill caps in the game. You have these little windows to apply your damage. If you pressure too long, or waste initiative you are done. You are also squishy, and prone to CC. Its really hard to learn WvW roaming on that.

You need something meta, and durable if you are roaming and new. Camping stealth, and running when things go bad teaches you nothing. You wont learn to heal at the right times, you wont be stomping key stomps, or interrupting key stomps on allies. You will be too busy trying not to die.

You also need to be collecting chests at a decent rate along with bags, you will need the resources contained in them to gear up. If you are chain dying/running from fights you are not going to be doing that.

The shortcut would be to buy the exotic gear for a solid build from the auction house and just run with that for a decent amount of time. The alternative to that would be to follow zergs around and tag as many as you can during a push, on active nights you will get lots of bags. It really does not matter what you are running build-wise, just tag the downs. This is how I accumulated gear and resources to get enough gear for a decent build for roaming.

It will take a long time even after you are geared on one character before you get the basics down and are not a free bag/rally during a fight.

If you are serious about roaming you HAVE to be able to get your heals off 7 out of 10 times while in combat, you HAVE to be able to secure key downs during a team-fight, You HAVE to be able to CC at the right times for a burst, or interrupt of a stomp on a ally. Those are BASIC levels of skill for roaming. The bare minimums.

Do not become that guy who can only run and camp stealth, and dies every time you are pressured.

I would just follow zergs and flip sentries/camps with help. Right now you are lean on resources/gear and skill. Its going to take time to claw your way out of that situation.

Avoid Deadeye.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

There are actually some massively busted thief builds that you can run in wvw. These builds are even extremely cheap to put together.

Condi Daredevil:

• Deadly Arts - Trickery - Daredevil "Impaling Lotus" and select all of the other obviously advantageous traits
• All Dire stats - Tormenting Runes - Imagine Impaling Lotus heal spam - run adventure runes if you want to go cheap
• Shortbow + w/e else you want, even double Shortbow
• Energy & Draining on both weapon sides - Read what this actually does and pay close attention to no CD on the effect and how if it hits 5 targets the effect triggers 5 times https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Draining and now imagine Choking Gas CC heal spam
• Make sure to blast Shortbow 2 on the poison field from time to time to create a perpetual AoE weakness spam
• Holographic Super Cake 30% endurance regen +90 health per second "yes the 30% does indeed stack with vigor and other latent passive trait effect" - w/e utility you want, I suggest Writ Of Masterful Malice +200 condi above 90%
• This build doesn't need stealth, it's a bunker brawler. Run utilities more like - Withdraw - Roll For Init - Sig Agi - Shadowstep - Daggerstorm

^ This build is busted. Don't believe me? Go try it out.

Will run you maybe 50g deep to get it running with adventure runes. Probably 120g to get it running with tormenting runes. And this is considering you are going full exotic.

[Straegen.2938]

Thief is absurdly difficult to play well in the current meta. Its best asset is essentially running away. Outside of the annoying Bound D/P build taking stealth on a thief is typically a nerf.

DH condi would be a decent choice. Lots of durability, some escape (not a lot) and melts camps as well as mediocre players. There are some interesting Rev builds as well. Classes I loath in small scale fights are typically elementalists, torment revs and Bound D/P thieves. I will sometimes simply avoid condi bunker Necros because the fights take ages. Holosmiths are making a comeback but I find them pretty easy kills aside from the time it takes to kill one.

BTW exotic armor and weapons is totally fine on Condi builds. You lose a bit but unlike power builds it isn't very noticeable since survival is much higher without the reliance on Precision and Ferocity for damage. Load up on some Dire armor and you will be good to go on a good variety of condi based builds.