Guild Wars 2

Let me first state that I’ve fallen in love with this game. I have been a long time MMORPG player since EQ first launched. I had gotten bored with Timeless Isle in WoW and due to some financial reasons, one of my guildmates asked me if I ever tried GW2. I looked into it and with some trepidation bought the digital download. Two weeks later I’m still going strong. Everything about this game is visually breathtaking and there is always something new for me. Now with that being said I have one question of a mechanic that is bothering me.

I know what kiting is I know the mechanics of it and for some of my Professions it can mean the difference between life or death. Take for instance my paper thin Thief. This is the Profession that I first fell in love with. It was the first toon I made. Hindsight being 20/20 it was also one of the most unforgiving Professions to learn the “action” aspect of this fast paced game. His survivability is so very thin it seems to me. I’ve tried the whole S/P build but hitting two buttons two me just kills the enjoyment and grinds against what I believe a Thief should be. I want to lurk in shadows and leap upon my unsuspecting PVE foes with D/D. I love the animations of the Thief. This is why I fell in love with the profession to begin with. The whole spinning up in the air acrobatics and landing behind the foe is just such a refreshing change! However more than 4 mobs and I’m taking a dirt nap…

So Kiting. I thought this was a mechanic that was allowed in the game but it seems that whenever I try to kite a Veteran mob with shortbow, the “rubberband” effect comes into play and the mob starts running away while his health replenishes. Is this working as intended? What’s the max distance you can kite before the string gets yanked on the mob?

Thanks in advance for any and all insight that you shed on this mechanic. And if any of yall have any advice/videos to link me on leveling a Thief please by all means share them. DreamyAbbadon love your videos btw! Thanks all! <3 this game!

Mobs do have really short pull distances but I’m going to assume you’re trying to keep pulling them backwards? Have you tried to kite in circles?

I havn’t played much of a thief in PvE but from the small time I did they didn’t really seem that great PvP is where they shine.

I think you are running into what PvM Chaos mentioned, you can’t pull too far in a straight line. Thief though if you use F2 to steal, circle with shortbow and switch to dagger with pistol the vet is dead before you need to worry too much about your health.

Since some classes can fight at 1500 range I’m quite sure that’s a safe distance, providing quite some room to kite. Nonetheless always kite in a circle as mentioned above, some foes seem to pull way further than 1500 but not all.

As for the leveling:
If Dagger/Dagger is your weapons of choice I’d recommend using Death Blossom (3) on mobs more, whist using Death Blossom you’re evading and it tends to deal enough damage to kill (or apply enough bleeds to kill) all the weaker mobs leaving only the Veteran standing before you run out of initiative. Spec in Catrops on Dodge (trickery, 10 points) to mix in some dodges for more bleeds/cripple whilst evading. This is no way to play at 80, but it made leveling a breeze for my leveling-playstyle (aggro a lot…)

Other useful things are keeping a Ranged Weapon-option in your second set to get away and start kiting when you’re taking too much damage. My preferred option would be the Shortbow, 3 is an escape, 5 is wonderful mobility where-as the rest is AoE. AoE is just wonderful in Open-World. Pistol/Dagger is good aswell, but sadly single target. Pistol/Dagger 3 makes a wonderful escape whilst you auto-attack from pistol, dagger 4 can provide some AoE and cripple.

Lastly more a general leveling tip, minor runes on the trading post are only a few copper can you can buy differently named ones to provide an easy +10 to any stat (I’d go for Power, death foes can’t kill you, but Toughness/Vitality is fine aswell) if you’re struggling or want an easier time.

Have you tried any of the other professions yet?

I know back when I first started playing the game at launch I chose an elementalist, which would have been an awful choice for me, except I was leveling with someone else. It was probably the only reason I ever got it to max level because when I tried to kill mobs solo I died very, very easily.

Then I chose to level a guardian and it was absolutely amazing solo and very easy to get used to all the game mechanics on. I loved it. I’ve heard that warriors are similar in ease when just starting out as well.

I’m now playing a mesmer and I didn’t really have any problems leveling it, but I have heard some people talk about it being harder to level before 40. Very easy to get enough illusions out though so you don’t take too much damage from mobs…easy to fool them.

Ranger could also be an option because of the pet, but they do tend to die quickly.

I haven’t been playing my thief too long, only reach mid 30s level wise, but one thing i have learnt is to dodge forwards and then kite back to the mobs original point. I’ve ended up with a P/D build which seems very good at slowing them down while letting the poisons finish the mob off. May not be the optimum build but works pretty well for me.

Yes there are leashes on critters and once stretched so far they will suddenly break attack and heal fully. So unless it’s a wandering critter like Wolfmaster in the Wayfarer Foothills, traditional kiting is of limited effectiveness. But you can get them to chase you in a limited area. I too have a thief and in some Vet/Champ situations I resort to a pistol/pistol setup to attack while staying out of attack range, mostly. Most critters really dislike caltrops and will gladly focus on you, and with their decreased mobility you can run rings around them.

I admit it did take a bit of time to get use to the leash but I understand why, pulling critters into what’s normally considered to be a “safe” area is a form of griefing. Also everyone knows where to find a major critter instead of playing hide and seek.

When using dual daggers, try skill #4 (Dancing Dagger). This will cripple the target for 5s (and also bounce to any nearby targets, crippling them as well) giving you more time to kite in a circle as was mentioned by PvM Chaos.

Dancing Dagger’s damage is not great but I’ve used it to kite bosses during personal story missions (just takes a long time to take them down but at least you’ll survive).

Always make sure your armor isn’t more than 10 lvl below your level (15 if using rares). Any class will seem weak if you forget to update your equipment.

This has been covered a bit above but I wanted to expand on it a bit.
Strafing has several advantages over backpedaling. This is especially true for a thief.

1) avoids the problem with leashing since you are not actually going anywhere
2) if using D/ it puts you in place for dealing extra damage with Backstab
3) if using SB you can keep the mobs inside of Choking Gas for the full duration
4) when strafing you are moving faster than backpedaling(180u/s vs 105u/s)
5) puts you in place for dealing with extra damage with the Flanking Strikes trait if you are using that
6) you will avoid more attacks. Many attacks are either straight lines or cones. When strafing you can sidestep most of those.