Guild Wars 2

I just want to make sure. I’m used to MMOs, I played GW1 quite a bit as well as GW2 Beta and for a few weeks when it came out but then I left and just got back into it 3 days ago.

I got a lvl 23 ele, 23 Thief, 22 Mesmer and 12 Necro. I have a hard time picking which class I want to focus more on and I was testing a bit in 1v1s with some friends and Practice Matches. I fixed the sigils and runes, my specializations and abilities. I only don’t have a cloak or an amulet (none equipped I mean). I should be maxed out in these sPvP games with that right?

I just want to make sure because I can do good with Thief in 1v1 but in Practice Mode, I literally go from 100% hp to 0 under 3 seconds. I’m aware that I probably suck at Thief right now but it seems pretty extreme to the point where I just wanted to make sure that it was because I’m bad and not because I’m missing something. I don’t know engineers at all but I’ve had some that killed me from full life to zero in 1-2 seconds it seemed like.

I land a few kills here and there but even guardians drop me fast if I don’t go back invis and run away after I do 1-2 hits. Is this normal (for the possible amount of dmg I mean)? I’ve been hit by burning for 25k dmg… I have 17k health. Backstab for 7k. It just feels as if I almost get globaled. Is it that thieves can’t take more than 1 hit and absolutely must go stealth immediately when they get burning onto them to cleanse it off via spec passives or else they insta die?

It doesn’t feel that way with my Mesmer but my mesmer just has illusions so people don’t necessarely target me properly.

(It felt fine in 1v1s vs friends but they also are low lvl chars)

In sPvP, gears/acessories does not matter. HOWEVER you must have a chest + pants + boots piece equipped to get the full armour values. Everything else is selected from the PvP customization menu with amulet/runes/sigils.

In addressing to damage values, different damage source have different counters. Burning needs to be cleansed via condition removal skills else it will accumulate a lot of damage overtime. To avoid burst physical damage, you’ll need to get used to skill animations and dodge accordingly. (Unfortunately it’s hard to predict an incoming backstab from stealth and it has been a repeated discussion by many players in the PvP forums.) Dodging and positioning is the key to avoid numerous sources of damage in this game.

As for Thief, the class itself is the definition of a glass cannon. It hits hard but it’s extremely vulnerable to getting hit. Thief is generally not a good class to transgress into for new PvP experience because you’ll need to be confident in knowing how to play the class to do well.

gear does not matter, all you need are any Chest Legs and Boots equipped. these give the same armour value in pvp regardless of what level they, or you are. a level 1 in starter gear is just as good as a level 80 in full ascended.

metabattle.com has popular builds for all the classes that you can try.

currently damage is very high, but thief has always been a free kill when played by a noob. it relies on active defences, which you have to learn how to use.