Guild Wars 2

Newbie questions

a) How hard is solo leveling a thief from lvl 1 via quests ?. Any particular weapons i should go for ?
b) Do thieves get permanent stealth in GW2 or is there a specialization or something that gives them permanent stealth ?

Nothing is hard to level, though some are trivial compared to others. A berserker pistol/pistol thief can be very casual to play, as you can simply spam unload to kill enemies nearly instantly from range.

Permanent stealth, as in the ability to toggle it on forever, does not exist. Stealth lasts for a few seconds, but can be extended in duration through the combination of abilities, which could potentially last as long as you wanted.

Thief can be one of the harder classes to level as a first toon. It is super squishy and has no “passive defenses” (armor, regen, lots of hit points etc). All of Thief’s defenses are what we call “Active Defenses” (Blind, dodge, evade, stealth, etc). Which means you have to use them when you think/see the enemy attacks to avoid it or cancel their attack.

That said, it is my favorite class in PVE partially for just that reason, once you start getting the hang of it, it is very fun!

Regarding weapons, I’d recommend starting with Sword/Pistol and Shortbow. Because of Thief’s unique weapon setup, when you combine 2 different weapons, you get a unique skill #3, and Sword+Pistol gives one that is very good for PVE and lets you take on and kill many mobs at the same time. Try it, it is quite fun And Shortbow is very good all-round, it is sort of something you gotta get used to as thief, your best aoe attacks, and use skill #5 just to teleport around faster!

There is no permanent stealth, near all stealth in the game is 3-5 seconds in duration, trait for +1 second. Stealth is meant to be used in combat to trigger “Stealth Attacks” (Most famously Backstab with dagger) and to use for quick repositions, getting away from things you don’t like by giving 3-4 seconds head start on running etc.

Shadow Refuge can give you a 15 or so seconds of stealth, which is the longest you can get from a single skill, but on a long cooldown.

If you want to play around with the combo system (smoke fields + leap finishers), you can use Dagger/Pistol, use #5 for a smoke field, and use #2 for a Leap finisher, and cna use this to “stack” stealth on top of each other, combined with other skills, this cn be used to create “permanent stealth” but you’ll spend more time keeping your stealth up than actually using it for anything this way. Not recommended.

Play a Thief only, if you have good finger reflexes and when you know how to dodge well, what you can only, if you know your enemies first well. Thats something a newbie surely won’t, but you will be, once you have played through the game first with an other class to collect experience with all the enemies in the game and the game mechanics.

For a GW2 Newbie I’d suggest to play first with easier, more forgiving Classes, like a Warrior, or like a Necromancer or like a Ranger which are all Classes, that have better tanking abilities, more Health and more access to defensive skills and traits that help you in surviving better – unless you are a player that has already lots of experience with squishy thief classes from other games and you know, how to handle such classes and how to behave as such a class better on the battlefields and in large enemy crowds full of AoEs and CC effects everywhere.

Sure, Stealth can be a very good life saver in this game and there are also places in the game, where stealth can save you alot of time (and nerves), but thats also again something for the more experienced thieves.

Levelign as a Thief first is a bit harder… but once you get at least a set of exotic armors together and you play with for example Signet of Malice, becomes leveling easier as you constantly heal yourself then with every attack, which makes you pretty much invincible then to all enemies, that can’t outdamage your heals from your fast attacks, especially useful in combination with Shortbows Clusterbomb, the poison field skill and Dagger Storm lastly for essentially an instant full health when being in a bad situation surrounded by lots of enemies.

Theres like said no perma stealth, but Thief has essentially the skills, traits ect to get the longest lasting stealths wih the help of the right upgrades and weapon sets in use due to their initiative system allowing it to renew their stealth quickly, while a class liek the mesmer has to wait first on the skill cooldowns to get stealth again.
So if your good in initiative management, you can have the longest stealths, but this kind of gameplay requires also a good understand and experience with the class to perform these long lasting stealthes without having any gaps where you can be seen in between and then theres still hard counter classes, that can end your stealth anymore if you are unlocky with reveal skills – so there is even no permanet stealth, when beign in group possible – but as big enough group it is practically possible to have permanent stealth, when you cycle through the group members their stealth skills to renew your stealths always long enough, until someone can use Shadow Refuge or spam long enough stealth through combo finishers for everyone, until the next one has enough initiative to do so -the only way how you can have in this game basically permastealth – as teamwork.

Thief is a very fulfilling class to play, if you can really master its gameplay – because it feels good, when you can defeat enemies in this game by your domincance through stealth – when you kill them, finish them off with Finishers, before they even realized, what basically happened to them – thats the very moment when playing a thief makes the most fun, or when you can outplay your enemies through your evensive and stealthy skills and turn this way eventually a defensive battle suddenly into a win for you – thats when you will feel great, when you see that you can win also with this class, where an enemy clearly underestimated you and you where able to quickly turn the favor of winning to you, just by evadign some attacks successfully and surprising the from with some stealth attacks at the right moment with the right skills.

Another fun aspect of the stealth system is naturally that you can check out as thief way better your chances of winning, than any other class, because you simply has by design the best assets in your hands to escape a battle, if you realize that an enemy is better than you and you maybe underestimated your foe, then you are able to make anytime a quick retreat to try it better prepared the next tiem again.

vpy.6183:

Newbie questions

a) How hard is solo leveling a thief from lvl 1 via quests ?. Any particular weapons i should go for ?
b) Do thieves get permanent stealth in GW2 or is there a specialization or something that gives them permanent stealth ?

Generally speaking, leveling in GW2 is pretty easy.

I recommend sword or dagger paired with off-hand pistol, and shortbow for mobility. However, you might also consider dual pistols instead of shortbow for fighting tough enemies that you aren’t comfortable getting close to.

Passive permanent stealth is not a thing, however you can maintain stealth indefinitely by stringing together active sources of stealth. This is of limited value, however, as eventually you are going to have to break stealth in order to deal damage. Also, in close quarters combat you can still be struck by area effect/cleave damage while in stealth.

Other advice:

Take power first, precision second, ferocity third for equipment stats while leveling.

If you find you’re dying a lot and your heal is too long on cooldown, try picking up the critical strikes trait line and using the invigorating precision trait. It returns 15% of critical damage as health, so that the more damage you deal the more you heal.