Thief sPvP | Tournament Sword/Dagger, Sword/Dagger | Team fighter S/D- The Flanking Acrobat
Table of Contents
Summary
The Sword/Dagger weapon set is a kit designed around sustained fights, outlasting your opponent with dazes, evades, and boon steal (protection and regen are prioritized). To allow it to perform effectively in teamfights, Infiltrator's Strike (Sword#2) offers the thief the ability to teleport into and out of the fray at will.
My inspiration for this build came when I heard Flanking strike was being buffed on the April 30th patch. Up until three months after the game's launch, there was a thief who ran Shortbow/Shortbow and specced into acrobatics, trickery, and energy sigils. Basically, he would just spam Disabling Shot (Shortbow #3), dodges, and weapon swaps for initiative and endurance.
At first, everyone had thought I was crazy for trying such a thing. Teams wouldn't even consider grouping with me for upcoming tournaments because of the dominance of Mesmers and Elementalists over Thieves at the time. Opinions quickly changed from "useless/will never work" to "omg so overpowered" almost as if overnight after I carried my team through the Curse sponsored Masters of the Mist tournament.
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Pros and Cons of this build:
Pros
High evasion
Good single-target sustained damage
Easy re-engage and disengage access via Infiltrator's Strike
Permanent swiftness
Cons
Limited condition clear (Lyssa runes help alleviate)
Little/no access to poison
Hard-countered by blinds
No combo field/finishers
Vulnerable to burst damage between evades
Only 2 all-around viable skills in the kit to work with excluding the auto attack.
New/unskilled players will hate you because they don't understand the evasion frames
I. Weapons and Skills
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- Slash½Slash your foe again.Damage: 269Range: 130
- Crippling Strike½Cripple your foe with a final strike.Damage: 437Crippled: 2 sWeakness: 2 sRange: 130
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- Shadow Return2Return to your original location. Cure one condition.Range: 1,200
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- Larcenous Strike2Dual wield. Deliver a quick strike that steals up to two boons from an enemy.Damage: 504Range: 130
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Weapon and Skill Details
Weapon Skills
Slice-Slash-Crippling Strike
Slice is really good. You'll be critting for 1200 in a short aoe and it has near instant cast. The downfall here is that the after-cast is painfully long. Slash and crippling strike have reduced aftercasts in comparison but they each have 1/2 second casts. You will almost never want to be using Slash and CStrike unless you are using the aoe (body cleave). To fully utilize Slice, practice dodging immediately after it. This way you are cutting down on time you would be locked down due to the long aftercast. This is one of the main reasons Acrobatics synergizes so well with the Sword.
Infiltrator's Strike-Shadow Return
This skill is what allows you your positioning in a teamfight. Infiltrator Strike in, go hit that mesmer or necro for a little while, and teleport out. Rinse and repeat. Try to use it from somewhere out of line of sight from your enemy and try to stay within 1200 distance of it so you know you have a safe escape.
Flanking Strike-Larcenous Strike
Flanking Strike deals mediocre damage but offers a short evade and gap close. This skill has very little aftercast so if you think your opponent is about to dodge your upcoming Larcenous Strike, you can instead Slice and dodge immediately if you feel a burst coming from your opponent. If it hits, hey, 1200 free damage. If not, you still have your Larcenous strike available. Larcenous Strike also has a very short aftercast so you can utilize slice here as well. Make full use of the aftercasts whenever possible.
Dancing Dagger
This skill has seen better days. Right now it is only rarely used as a ranged applier of Basilisk Venom and a tool to help race enemies to their home node.
Cloak and Dagger
Toggles into your stealth attack, Tactical Strike. TS itself has a near instant cast, just like Slice. However, Cloak and Dagger's aftercast is painfully long. If you need to interrupt a Nature Spirit res or other res utility, Cloak-TS just won't cut it most of the time. For actual combat use, it is extremely situational. Using Cloak is a high risk-low reward action most times. It can be effective in certain situations for example in fights against D/P thieves if you manage to predict his black powder, get a cloak and interrupt his heartseeker leap finisher, you will have put yourself in a very good spot. You can also use this to help disengage. Other than this, you can rarely get much use out of this skill outside of stomps against warriors, engineers, and necromancers.
Shortbow
Playing without constant Quick Pocket and Energy Sigil procs will decrease your individual effectiveness quite noticeably especially in 1v1 scenarios. Taking shortbow however does offer your team additional corpse-cleave as well as poison and additional mobility. When combined with the permanent swiftness boost from Expeditious Dodger, you will be able to outspeed most backnode defenders if they attempt to engage in the midfight. No need to gimp yourself with 30 ShadowArts.
Utilities
Withdraw
The 15 second recharge is incredible when used with the trait Vigorous Recovery.
It is also the only heal in the game that is completely uninterruptable. It also breaks you out of immobs and evades while doing so!
Infiltrator's Signet
Has some initiative feed passively but the active works wonders with Signet Use. A 24 second stunbreak that doubles as a gap-closer. This is the only utility you can part with if necessary.
Signet of Agility
This thing scales incredibly well with the trait Feline Grace and works very well with what we're trying to do. It has the added bonus of removing a condition and refilling your allies' endurance as well. You also get a 8% Crit Chance passive which is pretty nice.
Shadow Refuge
This is a no-brainer. Especially since you can't offer your team stealth through black powders. Use this for stealth openers, stealth resses, and free backcaps (or force the enemy home defender back for 10 seconds). This skill has been a must-have in tournament play since day 1.
Basilisk Venom
The Venom isn't really what you're going for here. What we're looking at is a 45 second cooldown Lyssa Rune proc. The Basi Venom is an added bonus.
Alternatives
Shadow Trap
Shadow Trap will help keep the enemy on their home node. You really don't have much room for it though. I find STrap to be overkill and unnecessary in most cases. Plus, I'm losing my Infiltrator Signet which is essential for chasing down targets who teleport to hard to reach places such as enemy thieves, mesmers, and elementalists.
Shadowstep
Shadowstep can be taken in place of Infiltrator's Signet to gain a 3-condi cleanse at the expense of initiative and having a much higher cooldown. This is especially useful against teams with a Necromancer and should be considered.
Roll For Initiative
Similar, but vastly inferior to Infiltrator's Signet.
II. Traits
Deadly Arts
Critical Strikes
Shadow Arts
Acrobatics
Trait Details
Critical Strikes
This tree is a necessity for any thief that wants to deal any sort of damage. It was probably a bad idea for them to throw CritDMG and Precision in the same tree.
Keen Observer:
Nice small dps boost at full hp.
Side Strike
A good dps steroid that will stack on top Thrill and any other Fury you steal with Larcenous Strike.
Opportunist
This build runs extremely high crit chance and takes full advantage of this initiative feed
Signet Use
6 seconds off your signets! And initiative each time you use one! How can you not take this?
First Strikes
Very nice DPS steroid but hard to take advantage of. Always have at least 2 initiative ready to shadow return at any time, but try your best to stay above 6.
Executioner
Strongest steroid in the game other than the Backfighting traits. A must-have for most power dmg thieves.
Acrobatics
A good tree to use in tandem with the evades on Flanking Strike and fully utilize the aftercast of Slice.
Expeditious Dodger
You will have permanent swiftness up thanks to this.
Vigorous Recovery
When used with Withdraw, a 75% vigor uptime! The best vigor access across all classes.
Feline Grace
Makes that vigor, Signet of Agility, and Energy Sigils nearly 50% more useful.
Quick Recovery
Initiative feed. Trust me, you'll need it.
Fluid Strikes
Compared to First Strikes, this one should be procced 99% of the time. Extremely strong steroid trait.
Quick Pockets
The reasoning behind using two Swords and Daggers. Works very well with Energy Sigils. Very good initiative feed (3/9sec).
Trickery
...where Thrill of the Crime is kept.
Kleptomaniac
Yet another initiative feed. 1/10 isn't much (if used on cooldown), but it all adds up.
Thrill of the Crime
The thief's main source of fury. Furious retaliation is cool and all, but this one buffs your entire team. Or, at least, anyone who is within roughly 600 radius of where you stole from.
Alternatives
Mug
You can take this over Thrill. Unless your teammates do not benefit from fury in any way, it's up to preference.
Furious Retaliation
You can take this over Side Strikes. However, it will stack in duration with Thrill and any other Fury you might steal. A good choice if you're picking up Mug over Thrill.
Power of Inertia
Taking this over Quick recovery will result in a tiny bit more damage, but also result in less initiative which means its harder to benefit from the 10% boost from First Strikes. Also consider that every 20 seconds you're (nearly) losing a potential Flanking Strike>Larcenous Strike which offers not just more damage, but evasion and boonsteal as well.
Preparedness (Shortbow)
The +3 Initiative from preparedness helps alleviate the loss of Quick Pockets if you are running Shortbow. Most of the time, you should only be swapping to Shortbow when you get a target down and require body cleave or are leaving the fight. If you find yourself swapping more often than that due to being focused often or some other factor, consider keeping Quick Pockets.
III. Stat Specifics & Effects
Primary Stats
- Health 14645 (+3000)
- Vitality 1216 (+300)
- Armor 1980 (+0)
- Toughness 916 (+0)
- Attack 3257 (+1350)
- Power 2216 (+1300)
- Critical Hit 74% (+74%)
- Precision 2471 (+1555)
Secondary Stats
- Boon Duration 30% (+30%)
- Condition Duration 15% (+15%)
- Critical Damage 80% (+80%)
- Damage 1041 (+5%)
- Defense 1064 (+0)
- Ferocity 1200 (+1200)
Boons
Conditions
Control
Fields & Finishers
Stat and Effect Details
Some may argue to run more toughness for stronger 1v1 presence, but the 17k hp pool is enough to not get 1-shotted by most classes while offering more buffer against conditions.
Note that daze/stun duration (Mesmer Runes and Paralization Sigils) does not work with Tactical Strike at this current point in time.
IV. Runes, Sigils, Accessories & Jewels
Armor & Runes
- Precision: 25
- Condition Duration: 5%
- Precision: 50
- When you use a heal skill, you gain a random boon for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)
- Precision: 100
- When you use an elite skill, convert up to 5 conditions into boons. (Cooldown: 45 seconds)
- Precision: 25
- Condition Duration: 5%
- Precision: 50
- When you use a heal skill, you gain a random boon for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)
- Precision: 100
- When you use an elite skill, convert up to 5 conditions into boons. (Cooldown: 45 seconds)
- Precision: 25
- Condition Duration: 5%
- Precision: 50
- When you use a heal skill, you gain a random boon for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)
- Precision: 100
- When you use an elite skill, convert up to 5 conditions into boons. (Cooldown: 45 seconds)
- Precision: 25
- Condition Duration: 5%
- Precision: 50
- When you use a heal skill, you gain a random boon for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)
- Precision: 100
- When you use an elite skill, convert up to 5 conditions into boons. (Cooldown: 45 seconds)
- Precision: 25
- Condition Duration: 5%
- Precision: 50
- When you use a heal skill, you gain a random boon for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)
- Precision: 100
- When you use an elite skill, convert up to 5 conditions into boons. (Cooldown: 45 seconds)
- Precision: 25
- Condition Duration: 5%
- Precision: 50
- When you use a heal skill, you gain a random boon for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)
- Precision: 100
- When you use an elite skill, convert up to 5 conditions into boons. (Cooldown: 45 seconds)
Rune Stat Totals
- Precision 175
- Condition Duration 5%
Rune Bonuses
PvP Rune of Lyssa- Precision: 25
- Condition Duration: 5%
- Precision: 50
- When you use a heal skill, you gain a random boon for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)
- Precision: 100
- When you use an elite skill, convert up to 5 conditions into boons. (Cooldown: 45 seconds)
Accessories & Jewels
- Power: 0
- Toughness: 0
- Ferocity: 0
- Healing Power: 0
Accessory Totals
- Power:1200
- Precision:900
- Ferocity:900
- Toughness:0
- Healing Power:0
Weapon Set Sigils
- Weapon Strength: 905-1000
- Weapon Strength: 924-981
Weapon Set I
Sigil of Superior Force+5% damage.
Sigil of Superior EnergyYou gain 50% of your endurance when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (This effect cannot trigger more than once every 9s)
- Weapon Strength: 905-1000
- Weapon Strength: 924-981
Weapon Set II
Sigil of Superior Force+5% damage.
Sigil of Superior EnergyYou gain 50% of your endurance when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (This effect cannot trigger more than once every 9s)
Water Weapon I
Sigil of Superior EnergyYou gain 50% of your endurance when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (This effect cannot trigger more than once every 9s)
Water Weapon II
Sigil of Superior EnergyYou gain 50% of your endurance when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (This effect cannot trigger more than once every 9s)
Upgrade Item Details
Amulet/Jewel
Berserker's may not give you the best 1v1 setup against power builds, but gives you the damage necessary to apply pressure in a teamfight while having a decent amount of vitality to help survive the onslaught of conditions that will be coming your way. If there is no condition damage class on the enemy team, a Soldier's with a Zerker jewel can be used to somewhat equal effectiveness and stronger dueling presence.
Runes
Lyssa Runes are awesome. 90% of the time, what will kill you is conditions. 45 seconds for a full condi cleanse is incredible. The boons also come in handy, for example proccing stability to stomp a guardian or proccing aegis to counter a thief's backstab.
Sigils
Sigil of Energy
Synergizes with Feline Grace and S/D in general
Force vs Accuracy vs Bloodlust
Force gives you a bit more damage. Accuracy will help proc your Opportunist trait at the cost of some damage. Bloodlust on one set isn't a bad idea considering if you're weapon swapping constantly and the power stacks are being applied to both sets, you only need 11/2 kill for it to become as effective on average than another Force. Ofcourse, you'll have to make sure to be in the right S/D set for the kill, and you wont always have your weapon swap available on demand.
Sigil of Doom
When using Shortbow, assuming you are pulling Shortbow out mostly for body cleave, this will save you 4 initiative. Potentially resulting in far more damage than Force, Bloodlust or Fire.
Sigil of Fire
Fire Sigil has a very low base damage but scales immensely with Power. Unfortunately, this build runs little power and Fire Sigil only hits for about 40% the strength of a standard D/P build. I strongly recommend against using this.
V. Basic Gameplay
In teamfights, always make sure to have a Shadow Return (Sword#2) readily available at all times. Preferably in a safe spot out of line of sight.
Your role with S/D is basically a "bruiser". You offer consistant single-target dps while being tough to take down. Good targets consist of D/P Thieves, Necros, Mesmers, S/D Eles. Most of the time you will be on a seperate target than your allies, pushing your target away and out of the teamfight.
I listed this build as "Teamfight" focused, but you can easily zone the enemy home node to make the match 5v4 in your team's favor. You also have the potential to overpower alot of classes in a 1v1 scenario making you a good choice to hit far node.
Make sure your team always has a target marked. You have 3 shadowsteps in this build which require targets if you blow all of them you can practically instantly get to your team to assist by simply asking them to put up a target which you normally wouldn't be able to get due to line of sight.
Starting a stomp and using Shadow Return to move out of line of sight or out of range and shadowstepping back in range is an effective way to "safestomp" all classes except rangers if your team is lacking the stability necessary. You are also the best candidate to stomp an enemy thief by shadowstepping after his downstate#2.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Other S/D Thieves
Other S/D thieves will pose a threat for your teammates. Do not attempt to peel the enemy thief from your teammates, you aren't equipped for that. It is a waste of time. Just mirror what he is doing. This is the complete reverse thinking of D/P vs D/P thieves in which your primary job is to kill the enemy thief.
D/P Thieves
In a 1v1 it takes a considerable amount of luck and skill to come out on top against a D/P thief by correctly utilizing your shadowsteps and CnD. In a teamfight, the D/P is both your favorite target or your worst nightmare. If the D/P thief is pushing into your team's lines you can punish it harshly with your ability to stick to him with shadowsteps. If you are pushing the enemy lines the D/P thief can punish you by timing his bursts between your evade frames or offering support to his teammates via smoke fields. The trick here is to harass and attempt baiting him to your side of the teamfight with your superior combat mobility via Infiltrator Strike.
D/D Elementalist
This is your favorite food. Once you learn their attack patterns and animations, there is literally no other spec in the game more equipped to deal with them than you. You are one of the main reasons D/D Eles mostly died out in competitive play.
S/D Elementalist
In a 1v1 this can be an extremely difficult fight. Their lightning burst is instant and can come every 5 seconds. It is easily timed between dodge frames so you have to predict when its coming and be extremely careful when going in for Larcenous's. When they swap to Fire, try your best to predict the Pheonix and dodge accordingly. Try to weave in and out and bait it out. If you fail to see the Pheonix or Fire Grab coming, you can say goodbye to 1/2 of your health. In a teamfight scenario, S/D eles aren't a problem at all. He won't have enough cooldowns available to deal with you and his healing won't be able to sustain nearly as much AoE/focus fire damage as you're mitigating with evasions.
Shatter Mesmers
Again, here, you are one of the driving factors pushing them out of the metagame. They simply have too little tools to deal with the constant unyielding pressure of S/D. Just make sure to play on the defensive if he is standing in 2-3 clones. Like with the scepter ele, weave in and out to try to bait out the shatters when you see two or more clones.
Phantasm Mesmers
Less of a threat in a teamfight than a shatter mesmer but an incredibly difficult matchup 1v1. This basically comes down to a DPS-race to see if you can kill him before he pumps out his 3rd Phantasm. You will need to predict each of his dodges perfectly because if you miss a Larcenous, you will likely lose the race.
Spirit Ranger
In a 1v1 scenario, DO NOT MISS YOUR STEAL! Use a basilisk venom or wait until after an evade to ensure that it hits! The healing spring is vital to surviving against a Spirit Ranger. Since his damage will be many tiny hits applying condition over time, it will slowly whittle you down. You can't evade every hit. Your only chance here is to play hyper-aggressive and burn him down before you drop, like with the phantasm mesmer, but also don't miss a single Larcenous which is very difficult feat given the amount of vigor and weapon evades rangers have. CnD>Tactical Strike cast time is too long to interrupt a Nature Spirit res. Your only option if he has it up, is to land the killing blow with CnD, shadowstep to the spirit, and daze it ASAP.
Engineer
Non-HGH Engineers running bomb kit. Avoid them at all costs. They are your hardest counter. HGH engineers are easy prey especially in teamfights if you can get the rhythm of their grenade tosses down and steal their might stacks. Rifle/power engies' moves are too telegraphed to work against S/D thief.
(more to come)
Main Skill Rotation
There are hidden intricacies in what others often mistake for "mindless 3-spam".
As I briefly mentioned before, you have to take into account aftercasts and try to bait your opponent into dodging without wasting your Larcenous Strike. The concept is you want to be evading everything to give yourself an advantage. Every. Single. Hit.
FS>LS>Slice>Dodge
The basic rotation is generally FS>LS>Slice>Dodge. This maximizes the lack of aftercast from LS, and dodges to minimize damage taken during the aftercast of Slice (time you would be just standing there). Use this only when you feel your opponent is low on evades/endurance as it is very telegraphed.
FS>LS>Dodge
A similar, less effective rotation, FS>LS>Dodge can be used to cancel the small aftercast after Larcenous Strike, saving you roughly a tenth of a second of downtime. It isn't nearly as effective as the former rotation in terms of cutting aftercast and evasion per damage, but it's still better than spamming 3, which puts a heavy drain on your initiative bar and is easily predictable.
FS>Slice>Dodge>LS>Slice>Dodge
If you land an Infiltrator's Strike, if you use Flanking Strike immediately while they're immobilized, they will probably dodge immediately after coming out of it expecting your LS so don't waste your Larcenous Strike. Throw in a Slice instead and save your LS for later. This goes for pretty much any other time you expect a dodge as well. LS also has little aftercast and after you land one, it is generally best to throw out a slice before dodging, ofcourse unless you see an eviscerate flying towards your face.
Another option would be to cast a Flanking Strike out of combat/range and Infiltrator Strike in for the immob to ensure a Larcenous hit.
Popping a Basilisk Venom at the beginning of a fight and throwing out a Flanking Strike from a distance will feign as if you were going to use Steal or Infiltrator Signet and can result in your target wasting a dodge.
If you have the suspicion that your target (mainly mesmers, s/d eles) will try to burst you after coming out of Flanking Strike, Slice then dodge. It will give them an extremely small window to burst. If you know for certain that they will go for a burst don't risk the Slice just dodge immediately.
Note that whenever I say "dodge", this is of course optional. If, after a slice, you feel your opponent has nothing left to throw at you and you need to cut back on some initiative, you can continue the autoattack chain with Slash and Crippling Strike.
Never try to apply Basilisk Venom with Flanking Strike unless you are doing it from out of range and/or sight with a shadowstep. If you are melee range, try to apply it with a Slice due to its incredible cast time and follow up with Slash into Crippling Strike to apply weakness after the Venom wears off.
If you happen to land a Flanking *shadowstep* Basilisk Venom, Larcenous Strike>Cloak>Tactical Strike lines up perfectly with the Venom duration.
To play S/D effectively, you need to learn when to use each of these rotations to react to your enemy. Unlike other classes, it's not so much about knowing what button to press, but to get inside your opponent's head and dodge when expects an attack and attack when he expects a dodge.
VI. Changelog
9/6/13: Changed to variation: Mug+Furious Retaliation. Jewel replaced with Valkyrie's.
7/27/13: Added 'Strengths and Weaknesses' section.
Just amazing, especially the time invested to learn all the cast times and tricks.
Thanks a lot!