Guild Wars 2

Greetings, thanks for looking on these pathetic questions, but meeh, I cannot help myself otherwise ;_;

I have been playing Guild Wars 2 for two days now, and I really enjoy this game, BUT…
I struggle with WoW syndrome, yes, that’s right, need a guide ;_;
So, I have read all the topics on the forum, and have a general view of how building my thief, I went for a PvE levelling, as I am only lvl 11 right now. I use Sword/Pistol as my 1st Swap and ShortBow as my 2nd.

I find S/P very great, as I can cleave and get back with my 3rd skill and finish them off with the Short-bow. BUT, I find short-bow not as great as well, anything else I have played yet. It is maybe just my skill or stat distribution, but it isn’t that great in my opinion. Now, the reason I came here asking you guys is: why is it so ;_;

I really like Short-Bow and would like to stick to it, but if my DPS keeps like this, I might change to silly Pew/Pew as secondary ;_;

Also, I’m using Insignia of Assassin and The Smoke Bomb, as I find it great having +40 Power and Smoke Bomb as a free Stealth and Blindess, allowing me for more Area Control. Though, I have not yet choosen my traits, I would like to kindly ask Thief Masters to create a quick summary of what to use and what not to for PvE levelling generally, thanks.

P.S I find that crafting professions are not that great in the start, basically, I can buy better things in Trading Posts than it costs me to create them, with even less attributes and armor/damage. Maybe I am wrong, but that is why I ask, thanks.

Dodges, Weakness, Blindness and Evasion are some tools that help leveling. S/P has Blinding field with Black Powder and Evasion with Pistol Whip. Short Bow has AoE Weakness by throwing Poison Field shot and then Cluster Bomb into it (Combo field situation). I like Signet of Malice as a heal, Pistol Whip and an exploded Cluster Bomb gives good health regen. For traits Acrobatics 15 is great, it gives you almost twice as many dodges. Sword auto attack chain hits as hard as Pistol Whip and costs 0 initiative, don’t be afraid to just swing at your target a bit if you need.

Try all the weapon configurations, all are viable. Shortbow has a lot of tools and 5 helps you move around the map n get outta sticky situations. Initiative regen is important so look at traits that give this, makes life easier. Stealth used to drop agro but it doesn’t any more, still lets you get distance if you need to escape though.

S/P and SB is great for leveling.

Blood~

Crafting

As a brand new player who doesn’t have any rich players giving you some start up cash, you would be correct. Crafting does tend to be more expensive than just buying what you need. Having said that, it is also a great source of +xp for you character. If you find yourself falling behind the leveling curve and don’t want to simply go to a different low level zone to catch yourself up, then crafting is a good option.

Shortbow

The SB is for AoE ranged dps. Its auto attack his multiple targets, creates AoE damage through Cluster Bomb, and even creates poison fields. Having said all of that, my own S/P character only uses it as a rare resort for specific situations. Between Sword #2 and Steal, you already have enough melee closers. People use the SB to shore up the weakness of S/P.

Pistol/Pistol

On my 2nd Thief, this is my ranged weapon set. While it does have some nice spike dps if you’ve got a lot of initiative to burn, the sustained dps is rather poor. I find P/P enjoyable on my caltrop dropping alt since it gives me a nice single target ranged kiting weapon choice. Yet it’s still very limited and doesn’t even have a Blast combo finisher (which SB has access to through the Cluster Bomb skill).

Builds

There are a bunch of sticky threads at the top of this forum with various builds. If you’re running a S/P & SB build, then you’re going to want to avoid all of the stealth focused trait choices. Your 1st choice should about how you play S/P. Are you usually going to hold your ground while you Sword #1 (while hiding under the Pistol #5 blindness field) or Combo #3 to Pistol Whip people to death? Or are you going to be constantly dodging around and only pausing to melee things down?

My assumption is that you’ll just sit there and melee things down. In that cause, you might want to also skip many of the mobility focused traits. That reduces us down to builds that are either dps focused, tanky focused, or some kind of support build. Dps S/P builds tend to focus on traits in Deadly Arts and Critical Strikes. Tanky builds might focus more on Acrobatics and Shadow Arts. Support builds tend to focus Trickery (for the AoE buffs when you Steal) and Deadly Arts/Shadow Arts (for the Venomous Aura AoE venom buff sharing).

My own personal build for my S/P & SB character is a tanky AoE buffing build. I’m Deadly Arts 30 / Critical Strikes 10 / Shadow Arts 30. The point of my character is to be tough enough to off-tank when needed while I provide AoE buffing through my devoted Venomous Aura trait spec. Yet the price that I paid was giving up most of my skill options and almost all of my trait options to make this spec work. I’m happy to link it if you’re interested, but it’s an extremely non-traditional Thief spec and not something that you average Thief player wants.

First off, welcome to the game! It’s great to see more non-conventional thieves these days.

S/P is great in PvE. It has near perma blind, plenty of CC options, a very nice gap closer/get out of trouble button and an awesome daze that when used correctly will essentially prevent any wind up attack due to its lack of CD and cast time.

I do recommend finding your own way to play by trial and error, but I’ll give you some tips;

As stated above, there are a few options, either blind>AA or PW are what I would recommend. Both are good and will keep you alive while up close and personal and both do almost the same damage though I do like the stun that comes with PW.

It’s great to open up with Infil Strike because from that time on, you have 13 seconds to do your damage and if you get in to trouble, just use Return and you’ll be right out of the fight. Use it again when you’re ready and continue killing.

My build is not so great in Dungeons, decent in PvE and really good in WvW so take this with a grain of salt.

10/30/0/0/30 DA(III) CS(I,X,XI) Trickery(VI,VII,XII)
Zerker everything + Scholar runes

It is extremely glass cannon (which is why I’m terrible at dungeons) but I feel that it’s so worth it to see the high numbers I get. You could probably go a bit more tanky if you’re just doing PvE, but don’t let the low HP scare you, with all your dodges and blinds you shouldn’t be taking much damage at all anyways.

Anyways, PM me if you have any questions, I’m always happy to help new thieves!

Thank you all very much, you have no idea how much you helped me, the quality and carefully pointed out tips and tricks have already helped me.
I chose to stay with the Build I am using now, I upgraded my gear, and, being said, I can complete Story Missions that are 4-5 levels higher than me C:

SB low-dps has changed, as I invested some points into Precision, which gave me quite good critical dps.

Overall, I now fight only with my Smoke Bombs, and my enemies fail to hit me every time. Thank you for your builds, much appriciated, good day and nice loot! C:

Ok in pve you to main situations. A couple mob on you OR one hard hitting tanky veteran or something. The whole idea is to limit how much you get hit to none as much as possible. So to start off fresh, use dagger/pistol. When you are fighting mobs use black powder and mow em down with your auto attack. they will be blind and will miss every attack. remember to renew the black powder as needed. Also remember to only use initiative for black powder.
For the big bad veterans and champs use Pistol/dagger. keep adding up bleeds and use the pistol stealth opener everytime you get the chance. if he gets to close for comfort use the “3” ability to instantly shadow step away.
While stacking up your skill points aim to get caltrops. Once you have this switch your D/P to D/D. At this time for big mobs use caltrops and the number “3” ability for d/d to stack bleeds. This combo will serve you well until level 80.
You want to specialize in condition damage maximizing on your bleeds over all.

As for traits throw 10 into trickery for uncatchable. And eventually throw 15-20(your choice) into Acrobatics for the Minor trait: feline grace. once you have those two paired together. You will be dropping mobs like no bodies business. Also throw 10 into shadow arts for Shadow protector. Later on get the assassins signet for better mobility. Good luck.