How to roam in WvW as a non-deadeye?

[skyline.3286]

I decided to try my thief in WvW as a roamer, but I dislike the rifle and P/P builds that I've been seeing around. That left me with Staff, D/P, and S/D.

I tried staff first since that's what I use in PvE. I found that I was getting kited way too easily - after my opening basilisk > bound+steal > vault combo, I couldn't land anything. Bound and Vault are slow and obvious and I didn't have any more CC to set them up. Is this something that most people agree with, or am I playing staff DD wrong?

I tried D/P next. The mobility is fantastic and I loved running circles around enemies, but I felt like the damage was nonexistent. My Shadow Shots crit for ~2k. My backstabs only hit for a little over 4k, which seems pretty unimpressive considering the initiative and time it takes to Black Powder+Heartseeker+get behind them. If I stuck around after a Shadow Shot to get some extra autoattacks in, I'd often get killed or at least take more damage than it was worth. I'm running zerk rings+amulet and marauders everything else - do I need to be running more zerk to get more damage?

I haven't tried S/D in WvW, but I did tried it in sPvP. I really like the playstyle, but I didn't feel like it was especially good at dueling. Larcenous Strike is amazing, but it's locked behind Flanking Strike, so it's not like you can spam it to spike someone down. FS's evade frames+unblockable are also great, but it's 4 initiative, slow, and does autoattack damage. Overall I felt very slippery, but with little spike potential and still very squishy if you did get caught.

What builds have you all been finding success with roaming in WvW? What am I doing wrong?

[Faaris.8013]

Can you elaborate why you dislike rifle deadeye in WvW?

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

@Faaris.8013 said:Can you elaborate why you dislike rifle deadeye in WvW?

I'm more curious why he thinks rifle is the only way when most go Daredevil D/P

[Turk.5460]

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@Faaris.8013 said:Can you elaborate why you dislike rifle deadeye in WvW?

I'm more curious why he thinks rifle is the only way when most go Daredevil D/P

I mostly see the usual D/P Daredevil and now a whole bunch of FoTM Core S/D. The DE's I do see are far and few in between and are almost always heavily reliant on stealth.

[Faaris.8013]

I'm asking because I'm testing rifle deadeye since yesterday in WvW. Only spent an hour there (I'm not a fan of the game mode) but it was kind of fun. I didn't roam though, I stayed with the blob and sniped using it as barrier between me and the enemy. It was definitely more fun than using staff or pistols, because at melee range or even 900 with pistols, you are still an easy target with much less sustainability than other classes.

[czerwoni.9563]

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@Faaris.8013 said:Can you elaborate why you dislike rifle deadeye in WvW?

I'm more curious why he thinks rifle is the only way when most go Daredevil D/P

i go sb and just tag zergs and then gtfo asap, i just roam and collect data around the map with a few other thieves. we usually have most zergs located its a lot of fun.

[BeepBoopBop.5403]

D/P dash (even Bound sometimes) Daredevil, S/D core acro thief.

[DeceiverX.8361]

@"skyline.3286" said:I decided to try my thief in WvW as a roamer, but I dislike the rifle and P/P builds that I've been seeing around. That left me with Staff, D/P, and S/D.

I tried staff first since that's what I use in PvE. I found that I was getting kited way too easily - after my opening basilisk > bound+steal > vault combo, I couldn't land anything. Bound and Vault are slow and obvious and I didn't have any more CC to set them up. Is this something that most people agree with, or am I playing staff DD wrong?

I tried D/P next. The mobility is fantastic and I loved running circles around enemies, but I felt like the damage was nonexistent. My Shadow Shots crit for ~2k. My backstabs only hit for a little over 4k, which seems pretty unimpressive considering the initiative and time it takes to Black Powder+Heartseeker+get behind them. If I stuck around after a Shadow Shot to get some extra autoattacks in, I'd often get killed or at least take more damage than it was worth. I'm running zerk rings+amulet and marauders everything else - do I need to be running more zerk to get more damage?

I haven't tried S/D in WvW, but I did tried it in sPvP. I really like the playstyle, but I didn't feel like it was especially good at dueling. Larcenous Strike is amazing, but it's locked behind Flanking Strike, so it's not like you can spam it to spike someone down. FS's evade frames+unblockable are also great, but it's 4 initiative, slow, and does autoattack damage. Overall I felt very slippery, but with little spike potential and still very squishy if you did get caught.

What builds have you all been finding success with roaming in WvW? What am I doing wrong?

Specifying your build - stats and all - would be pretty important here because those numbers don't make a lot of sense and leave me questioning a lot as to how you're approaching things. Baseline marauder Shadow Shot should crit somewhere between 4 and 6k with baseline backstab hovering somewhere between 8 and 12k. D/P brings impressive damage but its problem right now is the amount of hit negation in the game which makes MH dagger in general artificially weak.

Meta S/D is insanely strong and generally pretty to play with solid burst potential into virtually everything except spellbreaker and holosmith. Did a few hours of dueling with a friend of mine last night (warrior) and on my normal D/D core build (which is pretty damned weak), my success rate into his off-meta rifle build is around 50%. Swapping to S/D meta my winrate boosted to at least 90% despite heavily misplaying it at times, and into meta spellbreaker (something I normally go around a 30% win rate with as D/D core), I started pushing about 50-60% while still making some pretty big mistakes at the high-level due to personal unfamiliarity with the build and trait timings.

It depends really on what you're trying to accomplish. Knowing how you want to play and what kind of results you want will allow for better suggestions. Some builds just "work better" for some people based on their style of play.

[Ghost.5637]

They're trying to force dagger thieves to use assassin signet for big backstabs, so you have to decide if you want damage or survival. A lot of perma protection and defenses plaguing wvw right now so naturally it is going to be hard to ever pull it off.

Deadeye is fun, but it's no dagger thief. Two completely different playstyles so i kinda get where OP is coming from. Sadly the range and damage of deadeye almost make it a necessity with all of the annoying aoe condi junk being flung around.

I promise you though, if you run full ascended berserkers, power infusions, scholar runes, writ of masterful strength, daredevil bound, crit strikes and activate assassin's signet, you'll get the backstab you're looking for :)(good luck surviving after tho)

[bq pd.2148]

@CreedOfGod.9764 said:Deadeye is fun, but it's no dagger thief. Two completely different playstyles so i kinda get where OP is coming from. Sadly the range and damage of deadeye almost make it a necessity with all of the annoying aoe condi junk being flung around.strange my deadeye got a dagger and made quite some kills with it today..

[JonnyForgotten.4276]

Don't give up on rifle too quick. It can be used as a skirmishing/movement weapon as well as the stealth sniper thing, and that 1200 range is nice when you want to contribute to a group fight (or range down a scourge). Paired with s/x it can keep you moving in and out at 1200 range pretty easily because of sword 2. Look at running the traits straight down the middle of Deadeye along with whatever looks good in Acro and Trickery. I'm running a sort of oddball stunlock skirmish build with s/p, but i think the basis of it would work with s/d as well.

Look into using food and utility items as well to pump your power/ferocity. It helps a lot, especially when you're running a good bit of marauder gear.

[kash.9213]

The standard conquest d/p daredevil build should be fine unless you're being trolled by a tanky Keep tapper or something. D/p with Dash and shortbow is great for traversing maps quickly and giving chat/voice com updates and should be able to at least finish a few downs along the way. Acro staff needs to evade to feed the beast but play all of shortbow more and you can keep pressure and kite on weapon switch, even if they out range you shortbow auto travels a bit and skill for skill it plays close to staff. It sounds like your trying to fill some dead space with initiative and other resource pools but most auto phases go from alright to awesome so don't feel lazy for not using something in a fight, it's enough to have it when it's needed.

You should mess around with rifle openers, it can create some quick downs for groups and squads to have to deal with and can mess with a driver or thin out warriors before they get bubble happy. DA/Trick/DE can have a strong single target opener or give decent sustain with some group pressure give or take a couple of traits and Deaths Retreat nice for bouncing out.

[KrHome.1920]

@skyline.3286 said:I decided to try my thief in WvW as a roamer, but I dislike the rifle and P/P builds that I've been seeing around. That left me with Staff, D/P, and S/D.

I tried staff first since that's what I use in PvE. I found that I was getting kited way too easily - after my opening basilisk > bound+steal > vault combo, I couldn't land anything. Bound and Vault are slow and obvious and I didn't have any more CC to set them up. Is this something that most people agree with, or am I playing staff DD wrong?You re playing it wrong.

You open with Basilisk > Staff2 into Steal > Staff4 > Staff auto > recover ...

Don't waste initiative for Vault. Your main skills are the autoattack, 2 and 4 and sometimes 3.

Use Full Marauder + Air/Fire + Scholar Runes to maximize the opening burst while still haing decent sustain.

And don't play Bound. Dash is superior.

[skyline.3286]

I specified non rifle or p/p because I don't really like ranged gameplay, not because I think it's ineffective or because I think it's the most popular.

This is the build I was using for D/P. It's clearly suboptimal since I don't have ascended armor or weapons and using cheap food. The runes are just what I had on there from my PvE build. Still, I figured it would be enough to get an idea of what thief roaming was like.

[kash.9213]

That's a pretty straight forward build and should be fine for the most part, you might want to use strength or scholar runes instead though. Mental note when they're bombing you after you closed distance and use one of your interrupts to trip them up so you can open another window for auto. Sindrener's (bluri or something like that on forums) videos are good for seeing a steady pace for d/p kit, he usually has an answer reserved for when the other players explode. AikijinX is an explosive player but his videos show the benefit of keeping other players out of a steady pace and they both have recent videos showing both d/p and some parts with other kits.

[bq pd.2148]

@KrHome.1920 said:And don't play Bound. Dash is superior.

that depends on the situation. in a 1 vs 1 against a good player sure, if you fight outnumbered against noobs bound is often better as they cant handle stealth, it interrupts their spamm :D

[Jinks.2057]

people dont understand how to play rifle DE

once you learn the secret a whole new world opens up to you

[Ghost.5637]

@MUDse.7623 said:

@CreedOfGod.9764 said:Deadeye is fun, but it's no dagger thief. Two completely different playstyles so i kinda get where OP is coming from. Sadly the range and damage of deadeye almost make it a necessity with all of the annoying aoe condi junk being flung around.strange my deadeye got a dagger and made quite some kills with it today..

You can equip as many daggers as you like you're not going to be as efficient without steal. That's my definition of dagger thief.

[Fat Disgrace.4275]

@CreedOfGod.9764 said:

@MUDse.7623 said:

@CreedOfGod.9764 said:Deadeye is fun, but it's no dagger thief. Two completely different playstyles so i kinda get where OP is coming from. Sadly the range and damage of deadeye almost make it a necessity with all of the annoying aoe condi junk being flung around.strange my deadeye got a dagger and made quite some kills with it today..

You can equip as many daggers as you like you're not going to be as efficient without steal. That's my definition of dagger thief.

Not really. Steal is just a port with no traited trickery at the end of the day. You still have shadow step and there is no hurry with shadow arts because you can be stealthed indefinitely so you could even do it the old fashioned way and just walk up the your target. Besides he can hit 17/18k With backstab.

[Ghost.5637]

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:Not really. Steal is just a port with no traited trickery at the end of the day. You still have shadow step and there is no hurry with shadow arts because you can be stealthed indefinitely so you could even do it the old fashioned way and just walk up the your target. Besides he can hit 17/18k With backstab.

I guess if you wanted to wait 30 seconds before max malice and waddle up to your target hoping to not smack an aegis, then sure. I get that steal is a just port, but very few run non trickery builds outside of deadeye and expects serious results. I'm sure it works, I just think deadeye is too slow for dagger gameplay.

[bq pd.2148]

@CreedOfGod.9764 said:

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:Not really. Steal is just a port with no traited trickery at the end of the day. You still have shadow step and there is no hurry with shadow arts because you can be stealthed indefinitely so you could even do it the old fashioned way and just walk up the your target. Besides he can hit 17/18k With backstab.

I guess if you wanted to wait 30 seconds before max malice and waddle up to your target hoping to not smack an aegis, then sure. I get that steal is a just port, but

very few

run non trickery builds outside of deadeye and expects serious results. I'm sure it works, I just think deadeye is too slow for dagger gameplay.

the bonus from trickery traits are also granted on mark.its really just 1 shadowstep less. but mark being slow compared to steal is sadly true, i wish it was instant cast aswell.i still dont understand what you dagger gameplay is, i equip a dagger and kill my opponents as deadeye so how is that not dagger gameplay?

and i do think my deadeye has way higher chance of success then a power d/d core or DD thief altho that would probably what you call dagger gameplay.

[Ghost.5637]

@"MUDse.7623" said:

the bonus from trickery traits are also granted on mark.I know.its really just 1 shadowstep less. but mark being slow compared to steal is sadly true, i wish it was instant cast aswell.the most important shadowstep for making melee builds worki still dont understand what you dagger gameplay is, i equip a dagger and kill my opponents as deadeye so how is that not dagger gameplay?

"dagger gameplay" was obviously a poor choice of words, but I didn't think i'd have to argue this much. I meant more in reference to a high speed melee assassin build like d/d daredevil with dash for visual reference, which behaves very differently from a shadowarts deadeye.and i do think my deadeye has way higher chance of success then a power d/d core or DD thief altho that would probably what you call dagger gameplay.Yes that is. Again i didn't say it wouldn't work it with daggers just doesn't have the traditional play style as core/dd. Deadeye may get big numbers but it doesn't have the same feel as other builds which is why i'm assuming OP asked for non deadeye.

[bq pd.2148]

dunno i feel more of an assassin sneaking up on my opponent then just jumping in their face with CnD ..i dont think speed is needed for that

[Ghost.5637]

@MUDse.7623 said:dunno i feel more of an assassin sneaking up on my opponent then just jumping in their face with CnD ..i dont think speed is needed for thatDo what works for you man. I tried d/x + shortbow deadeye and I couldn't get it to work that great. Always ended up switching back to rifle or pistols.

[bq pd.2148]

i also dont use shortbow as i do think i can use another weapon set better when running solo and i dont need that mobility as it is not spvp.only use the shortbow to clear siege on walls.