Thief combos
Hey there and welcome to GW2!
Most thief weapon combos are pretty good, so remember that what feels most comfortable for you to play is likely best at least while you level and get more used to the game!
That said, first rule of thumb: melee is much better for damage than ranged, so try to favor that. I leveled my thief using dagger mainhand + pistol offhand a lot: the pistol 5 skill drops a blinding field that will help survive a lot by making enemies in melee range miss their attacks while 4 will stun/interrupt them, and the dagger skills have very high damage – 3 will let you close in quickly on an enemy and blind them, allowing for a good opening strike, and 2 is an excellent finisher. (I think I had a rotation along the lines of 3-5-1-2-2, it can go very fast.)
The main problem with dagger however is that it is single-target only, so in situations where you want to cleave you might prefer sword mainhand instead. The 3 skill will stun, attack a lot and let you dodge attacks for a little bit, which is extremely handy for survival on top of doing great damage.
For situations where you need to be ranged I personally like shortbow, as the 3 skill is extra evades and the 2 skill has blast finishers, which come in handy to use over combo fields (for example, dropping 2 several times on a smoke curtain will stack stealth on you; doing it on a fire field will stack might, etc). It’s not great damage, but it’s good to get away for a bit while you wait for your heal skill to come off cooldown.
Joran Blackgear – Engineer – EU | Juras Blackpowder – Engineer – NA