Thief WvW | Small Group Dagger/Pistol, Shortbow | Roamer Dagger/Pistol Backstab by Rand X Al Thor

Weapons: Dagger pistol is one of my favorite weaponsets for WVW. The weaponset and the traits discussed below synergize very well together and with the solo roaming/small group playstyle often seen in wvw.

Auto attack chain: The auto attack chain is very quick and is very high single target dps. The 3rd hit of the chain is the most important. It hits hard and applies a poison that will decrease your targets healing by 33%

Heartseeker: This skill is one of the most well known skills in the game. It hits exceptionally hard when your target is below 25% and has a 450 range leap to make it even easier! The most important part of this skills is its leap finisher.

Shadow shot: A great gap closer that blinds and counts as a projectile finisher! This skill teleports you 900 range and is a fantastic way of catching up to all of those enemies fleeing from you in terror.

Headshot: a .25 second daze doesnt sound like much, but its exremely important in clutch situations. This skill should be used to interrupt important, telegraphed, skills. I often use this skill to interrupt heals, skills like mass invisibility, meteor shower, earth shaker etc.

Blinding Powder: A pulsing smoke field. This skill is absolutely amazing! Drop it down and use heartseeker though it and have stealth without a target! This skill should be used to stomp almost any class. It will allow you an uninterrupted stomp on any class except for thief, mesmer, or elementalists. (For thief you can press steal or infiltrators signet to teleport to the thief mid stomp, and for mesmers you need to stealth to make their interrupt unusable).

Utilities

Heal: i chose hide in shadows for my heal. HIS will get rid of all damage over time conditions (except for the newly added torment) instantly and the condition removal in stealth will help remove chill, and cripple form you as well. This heal provides you with a very good heal, clears condi, synergises with our shadow arts traitline, and sets you up for a backstab.

The first utility slot has a couple of choices, but personally i use infiltrators signet more than any other choice. The passive on the signet gives you and extra initiative every 10 seconds (which doesn't sound like much, but it is still rather helpful). The active will teleport you 900 range to your target. The signet is very good for setting up a back stab combo and can be used mid stealth or before stealthing. To use the signet for its biggest burst drop blinding powder, press heartseeker, and as soon as you start the leap use the signet. The heartseeker will still hit your target and do damage, the stealth will be applied after the heartseeker damage and you can backstab with the added heartseeker damage as a nice bonus! This is also a stunbreak, however it may be a good idea to drop your target before you use it as a stunbreak if you are worried about being stunned a second time (against a hammer warrior for example). Finally this utility can be used to disengage. If you can target a mob in the distance (those skelk we see all over the wvw borderlands) you can teleport 900 range in their direction.

Shadow refuge: This utility gives a 12 second stealth and heals you as long as you stay in its range. The healing stacks with the healing gained in the shadow arts traitline for stealthing, and when your stealth expires you should have around 12 stacks of might.

Shadow step: This ability goes on the skill bar of every single thief build i use. Its a double stunbreak that clears conditions and allows you to teleport 1200 range. I cant live without this amazing trait.

The Elite: My elite changes a lot. If i'm just solo roaming i often take basilisks venom. Thieves guild is probably the best choice for a 1v1 situation and daggerstorm is amazing from escaping/harassing zergs. Daggerstorm can also be cast and then if you dodge to interrupt the skill, you will keep the 8 seconds of stability, which may help you when fleeing from a larger group of people. You are going to have to chose your elite situationally as they all have very good uses.

Passive Benefits:
You gain some pretty decent defensive passive bonuses from the traitlines. You have 300 toughness, 300 healingpower (works well with stealth), and 100 vitality. You also get 300 precision, 300 ferocity (previously known as critical damage and also very important to this build), and 10% boon duration (sorta helpful offensively and defensively).

Critical Strikes: Critical strikes provides some of the best traits a thief can use. The first trait gives you fury whenever your target reaches 50% health and will really help you land those clutch heartseekers when your enemy's health is low. Because this build has so much precision in it, practiced tolerance is a great trait that will provide you with 1.5-2k extra health (which is quite a boost when you're a thief). The grand master trait is a bit tricky. I debate with myself constantly over whether i like executioners extra 20% damage against targets with less than 50% health, or if i like hidden killer's ability to make all backstabs crit. I tend to run hidden killer because there is no worse feeling than seeing your backstab with 12 stacks of might only hit for a 2.5k non crit, but the choice is up to you and both options are very good traits.

Shadow Arts: Arguably the strongest traitline for WvW thieves.

Your minor traits will give you an extra second of stealth, and 15 seconds of might while you are stealth (also stacks). Last refuge is a minor trait that can be a life saver, or can screw you over pretty badly. It gives you a blinding powder at 25% health which is great.. unless you accidentally proc revealed by attacking when it procs.

The major traits allow you to remove 1 condition whenever you enter stealth and it removes another condition every 3 seconds you are in stealth. Every time you use any skill that puts you into stealth you will gave back 2 initiative (this trait now only works if you were not previously in stealth) and you will regenerate health while you are in stealth (one of the best traits for WvW).

Acrobatics:
Minor traits: you gain swiftness on dodge.

Major Traits: The 50% movement increase is very strong for either running away from a fight or for chasing people to land your backstab. Because combat lowers yoru overall combat speed, you will actually be able to outrun someone with swiftness if you are both in combat, but if you are out of combat you will be running the same speed as someone with swiftness.