Guild Wars 2

Hello, guys.

I like this dual-daggers sneaky assassin style, so I started a Thief. But I’m facing a problem: my Thief doesn’t seem to be able to kill almost anything. I’m still level 19, and it feels terribly difficult to kill anything on melee. So my question is: would you guys have advices for leveling a melee Thief? People often say “use a bow” but that’s not really what I’m looking for on this character…

sword/pistol and shortbow. 5th skill pistol perma blind for 4secs is very good for melees

I’m currently levelling a condition thief. Until lvl 55 my armor was all prec/con damage using caltrops and ive never had a problem.
Now im at 55 ive switched to Carrion and the build works even better

its not perma blind…its blind every pulse….basically every second it blinds so about half the attackes usually miss depending on attack speed. low lvl thieves have low lvl crit % so alot of your dmg is culled due to your lvl. hang tight til you get to higher lvls. learn to use ambush to help lvl and caltrops and hide in shadows. dont be afraid to run around and kite if u need. pick power and hp gear until abuot 50 or 60ish
then go to your regular berskers/valkrye or etc gear. keep it green til 80

If you want to stick with D/D to level go ahead, but you’ll need to work on avoid damage with your dodges and timing Leaping Death Blossom to evade big incoming hits. It will help to either soften things up from range with secondary set Shortbow; or secondary set offhand Pistol for Black Powder’s blind field.

You will not be standing toe to toe with mobs otherwise. Thief, you MUST move/mitigate incoming damage.

Ambush (Trap) might help you because it gives you another source of damage and if the mobs hit the other guy, they’re not hitting you. Caltrops can help with damage too. You just need to work on juggling when to hit things, when to let things bleed, and when to haul kitten.

If you really want to get your sneaky on, practice using Cloak and Dagger so that you tap the mob right after you reappear so you go straight back into stealth. This will come in handy if you get into WvW one day. *big grin*

You might want to take Withdraw as your healing skill just for the extra evade with a decent heal tacked on. That or Signet of Malice for the small heals on attacks. Experiment with everything until you find what seems to work for you.

But D/D can be a rough row to hoe when learning thief. The other sets are much more forgiving without being leveled up with help from traits and spiffy gear.

Hang in there, daggers take a few traits to really be effective. In the meantime there are several other weapon combos that are good at the lower levels. This profession doesn’t start out strong like a warrior, but once you get some levels behind you it will really start to shine.

/Pistol will make killing mobs a breeze. Use 5 for constant blindness application. If you take a Dagger main you can use 2 inside of the smoke cloud for stealth and a free backstab while the mob is constantly getting blinded. Once you can time their attacks you can take /D as offhand and just avoid their attacks while backstab spamming.

I just hit 80 last week on my Thief alt. Like one of the guys above said condition damage and caltrops on dodge leveled me really easily. Trait III in Trickery is what you are looking for. I used that with caltrops and death blossom and bled almost everything to death while leveling. Then I used ambush trap until I got thieves guild to spread the damage around on vets and packs. It is a surprisingly effective build for leveling. I’ve gone to Dagger pistol now that I’m 80 but bleds work great at low levels and the gear is cheap on the TP.

I leveled mostly by kiting mobs with shortbow/pistols, till I hit lvl 40 or so, and then tried many different melee weapons. Kiting is great for survivability and with shortbow, the aoe dmg is really good. D/P is also great, as other stated due to the melee blinds but won’t protect you from ranged attacks. Leveling with a shortbow/pistols early on then switching to melee weapons worked well for me.

Shortbow is your friend, learn it’s little tricks as you’ll be using it a lot.

Go for power and vitality until you reach 50-60ish. If you like the sneaky style of the daggers you could go for a pistol off hand and get the blind attached to it. It makes 1v1 against mobs a laugh. As a bonus you can use heartseeker while in the smoke field to get stealth and to a backstab. You can also go for S/P for a nice AoE damage and blind.

I would really recommend to have a short bow too just as a survival tool and in group fights.

You should practice your backstab at all times, you’ll find that you can take out ~30% of your target’s HP with just one backstab.

Thanks everyone. I’ve been practicing and it’s been really much better lately. I was talking with someone on my guild about how I’m amazed how Guild Wars 2 (seems to) create completely different playing experiences for different classes (professions, if you will). It’s not just “oh, I’ll be leveling my mesmer all over again, but now with no illusions and no shattering, but with stealth and backstabbing” as most games seem to be. You really have to be on top of your dodging (and i thought i was, since my mesmer is kinda squishy and I also relly on dodging to survive sometimes), paying attention to different situations, it’s like learning to play all over again.

Thanks again everyone, and now I’m really eager to check out the other classes (even thou the Guardian [I have one, level 27 thou] and the Warrior seem to be really a breeze, a careless playstyle).