Guild Wars 2

I’ve been trying to find a good leveling build/spec etc guild for my theif, all I seem to be able to find are discussions that have broken down into S/P or D/D arguements!

At the moment i’m really struggling to kill 1 or 2 mobs around or below my level without dieing myself and i’m not sure why!

I’m level 24, most of my gear is between 18-23 probably average 21. I can’t believe i need to buy whole new armor every 2 levels to be able to kill things?

I’m currently running D/D (10 points in critical strikes, 3 in shadow arts. Skills are hide in shadows, Haste, assassins signet and Scorp Wire)

If there’s one mob i try to stealth and backstab but normally just heartseeker cos its a bit tricky with the strange temporary stealth mechanic n then just autoattack and heartseeker till they die,

Groups of mobs i try to spam Death Blossom as much as I can but take so much damage when i’m standing waiting for recharge!

Where am I going wrong + what build etc should I be using?

A few tips for you, based on the info in your post:

When more than one mob is present, and you are running D/D, Caltrops and Death Blossom are your best friends. Don’t forget that DB is an evade too.

When caltrops are downed or the mobs are crippled from dancing dagger, you can pull off a CnD + BS combo much more easily.

Never, ever open up on a mob with hearseeker; heartseeker before the mob is below 50% is a waste of initiative, IMO.

It gets much easier on a thief as you get into the 40s or so and can afford to put some more points in Shadow Arts or Acrobatics to stay alive.

Also, if you are fighting an AOE pack and plan on using DB a lot, Signet of Malice for your heal is great.

Or, if you want the idiot proof way to level against anything besides dredge:

Equip S/P. Run up, hit black powder, and auto attack mob down. When the last blind from your previous black powder wears off, drop another one. Keep all mobs within the black powder.

You can use this method to solo most veterans and even some low level champions once you have some initiative regen traits/utility skills.

Breaking down your utility skills:
Haste – Destroys your mobility in return for burst damage.
Assassin’s Signet – Brings a slight damage boost to the field, nothing defensive. It really isn’t helping you much.
Scorpion Wire – Rather mediocre in open-world PvE, doesn’t really help you offensively or defensively.

You need to be focusing on keeping mobility high for PvE, both via normal WASD movement and knowing when to hit dodge. When and only when you’ve learned to avoid most of the damage in PvE by movement you can start using burst/offense utilities.

For traits: My recommendation in the short-term would be to go ahead and put 15 points into acrobatics when you can and focus on learning how to dodge. Acrobatics is unique in trait trees because it is mostly survivability based, but by taking the Might-on-Dodge trait it will give you a minor offensive bonus as well.

Furthermore, you’ve mentioned both backstab and Death Blossom as engagement options, but each of these are going to be vastly more effective with different stat setups. You may want to streamline your stats towards one or the other and make a choice in play style.

Finally: D/D just isn’t that great in PvE unless you’re specialized towards Death Blossom spam. Open-world PvE is all about utilizing AE to kill large groups at once, an arena that single-target dagger damage has a hard time competing in.

If you’re having initiative problems, these will get better over time as you gain access to Opportunist (15 points in Critical Strikes) and Quick Recovery (20 points in Acrobatics).

Your damage will also increase as you level, since you’ll have access to real crit-damage gear.

If you just want to skip past the early levels with as little pain as possible, easy mode for leveling is Sword/Pistol. In most cases you can literally stand in one spot, hit 5 every once in a while, and auto-attack.

In more detail:
See a monster or a small group. Run up to it and use Black Powder. Step back a foot or two to draw the monsters into the center more.
Auto-attack 5-6 times (6 is ideal, since your third attack hits hard, and because you want to conserve initiative; but Black Powder will expire around the fifth attack, and then it’s a matter of hoping the blindness is still up).
Black Powder again.
Rinse and repeat until stuff is dead.
Against spread-out groups of ranged mobs, you have to play more carefully, at least until you have Dagger Storm; but basically you want to use Smoke Screen to block some damage while you kill one, or maybe Scorpion Wire to pull them together into the same Black Powder field.

Points go into Critical Strikes and Acrobatics to keep Black Powder going. This basic build will allow you to roll through everything until you face Dredge at, like, level 50. By then you’ll have the traits to dodge a bunch while you Pistol Whip or Clusterbomb them to death, or the ability to switch to another, more trait-dependent build.

Whatever you play, I recommend taking Haste off your bar. Dodging is one of your best resources. It’s not worth it to wipe it out in PvE just to get a few faster attacks.

Wow! incredible, thank you all so much, I can’t believe the speed at which I got 3 great answers,

I’d totally missed signet of Malice, and how good that would be, I was so in the “Thieves must use Stealth” mindset i hadn’t looked beyond hid in shadows

Also I hadn’t realised how much it was costing me to be trying to be good at backstab as well as trying to to DB spam!

On the subject of Backstab…

Players are unpredictable, attack quickly, and have fairly limited health pools. Oftentimes you only need to kill one or two to accomplish some objective. Bringing an enemy player down as fast as possible with Backstab is a good plan.

Monsters are pretty dang predictable and the harder ones usually have boatloads of HP. And you usually have to kill a lot of them to get anything done. This makes Backstab occasionally useful, but not nearly as appealing. Consistent damage output and endurance — not necessarily “survivability” in the way people use it to mean upping Toughness and Vitality, but the ability to stay in combat for a while without dying, however you do it — are more important than spike damage.

Whichever weapon set you go for, you’ll want to focus on consistent damage output and damage avoidance.

…

I usually run around PvE without any stealth skills, or just Shadow Refuge if I’m on a team (it’s a good skill, though a bit overused, in my opinion). If you need to disengage, movement buffs and shadowsteps work pretty well, since monsters have a limited chase range.

For cheap low level gear, go with power. All “might” armor and six different runes with power+10 as the first stat (that way you get power+60 even at level 2). I usually update my land weapons every 6 levels, armor & aquatics every 12. Never anything more costly than green armor until L80. As you level, you can branch out a bit (’strong" adds power & precision, “berserker” adds power, precision, & crit damage).

I’ve used this method for starting out all my characters. Usually, the character will have generated about 12~15g by the time they hit 80. So, you can afford to get exotic weapons, jewelry, and a set of rare armor. That will make it useful and fun in dungeons.

For WvW, you’ll probably have discovered things you like, dislike, or want to explore. Try it out in the Mists first on the PvE targets there. You can change up your entire gear and trait line in the Mists and find out what you like before you spend 15g on an exotic set. I’d suggest taking a L80 green set to WvW, too, before spending gold on gear — unless, of course, you find and sell a precursor or two during your leveling and have gold to burn. ^~

I actually love to use D/D in PvE, so most of these tips are based around that.

Dancing dagger is your friend.

Roll for Initiative is great in PvE (watch your proximity to ledges)

Make liberal use of stealth abilities to stop taking damage and set up a backstab (basic heal, dagger 5, and blinding powder).

Trait for extra damage from rear and flank and for extra dagger damage and circle-strafe around mobs (not so great when soloing but good in groups where another player has mob aggro). You can increase damage without using skills which cost initiative, thereby allowing your initiative to regenerate to where you can use something other than spamming Heartseeker.

Use Steal. A lot.

Use the Power of Inertia trait (Acrobatics line) to gain might upon dodging. Dodging at least once before engaging mobs gives you a free stack of might.

Hope these help a bit.

Bring shadow refuge, it’s one of the best pve utility skills.
Sword/Pistol is really easy to use, Shortbow is also a great, especially vs more than 1 target.
Dodge when a mob does some obvious slow and hard hitting attack.
Keep moving, mobs will miss a lot of attacks if you circle around them.
Use a nourishment (peach pie is cheap and regenerates HP)
Run away when you can’t win.

biggs.4702:

Dancing dagger is your friend.

No it isn’t, it was…

For levelling I would use Sword & Pistol, Shortbow, Caltrops + Signets (get signet of malice as soon as possible and save for shadow refuge)

• pull with shortbow gas or auto
• wait for them to come to you
• Black Powder Shot
• Pistol Whip
• Repeat steps 3 and 4

Tulisin.6945:

Breaking down your utility skills:
Haste – Destroys your mobility in return for burst damage.
Assassin’s Signet – Brings a slight damage boost to the field, nothing defensive. It really isn’t helping you much.
Scorpion Wire – Rather mediocre in open-world PvE, doesn’t really help you offensively or defensively.

You need to be focusing on keeping mobility high for PvE, both via normal WASD movement and knowing when to hit dodge. When and only when you’ve learned to avoid most of the damage in PvE by movement you can start using burst/offense utilities.

For traits: My recommendation in the short-term would be to go ahead and put 15 points into acrobatics when you can and focus on learning how to dodge. Acrobatics is unique in trait trees because it is mostly survivability based, but by taking the Might-on-Dodge trait it will give you a minor offensive bonus as well.

Furthermore, you’ve mentioned both backstab and Death Blossom as engagement options, but each of these are going to be vastly more effective with different stat setups. You may want to streamline your stats towards one or the other and make a choice in play style.

Finally: D/D just isn’t that great in PvE unless you’re specialized towards Death Blossom spam. Open-world PvE is all about utilizing AE to kill large groups at once, an arena that single-target dagger damage has a hard time competing in.

You are right about D/D, but IF you do build around Death Blossom, your AoE is not an issue. Intelligent Death blossom usage with Signet of Malice and Dagger Storm as the Elite allows you to chew up groups with solid survivability. Once you stack your bleeds, you can go mobile and make use of your dodge to relieve the pressure. I usually run with P/P for the swap. DB and DS are my AoE, P/P is good for finishing off foes if you need to kite until the numbers game turns in your favor. The ability to spam blind also comes in handy if you find yourself in a war of attrition with a tough veteran and can provide some nice support in a group vs. a champion.

I no longer switch to SB for most DEs. Properly executed DB and target switching to spread the AoE around work great for tagging grouped up mobs when there are a lot of other players around. When Alone or with a small group, you can take more time to really set up and maximize your DB and Dagger Storm.

Not contradicting the quoted poster, just pointing out that a Death Blossom build can actually be very effective at AoE in PvE. Get really good at it and you will feel no need to go with an AoE set for your swap. (Signet of Malice, Roll for Initiative, Shadow Refuge and Dagger Storm are key for my personal build. I like Signet of Shadows for the open slot, for the added mobility and the additional pressure reliever if something goes bad).

Hi Trif, I have been playing thief as my main and i have been having fun with her for the last 3 months, mainly casual playing, but i managed to play enough to get 250+ skillpoints lol.

Anyway, to share with you on leveling.

Survival for a thief esp. a low lvl thief is very critical. Initially i tried out D/D, S/D, D/P etc all melee builds and i find myself having problems with mobs.

I would recommend that you start off with (P/P or P/D) and Shortbow for lower levels. These 2 weapon sets will give you range and help in keeping you alive for most encounters. The important thing to remember is: RUN IN CIRCLES LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT. which is literally true.

Now, while running:
1. Use shortbow auto-attack for more than 1 target and trick shot will take them down quick. If you wan to take them down faster use Skill 2 and tap twice in quick succession to detonate and apply 3 bleeds.
2. Use P/P Skill 3 Unload or P/D Skill 5 + Skill 1 for Poor Man’s Unload for single target.

And if you find the fight not going your way, pop Hide in Shadows or Shadow’s Refuge. Stealth will instant shred aggro, so popping stealth will buy you some time to decide on whether to take a breather and re-engage, or to disengage and run away.

With range and stealth, survival will not become a problem. Once you are more familiar with the thief, you can branch out to melee with more caution and respect lol.

When i was lower level i found that spamming DB 3 times = no more initiative for me and i became a sitting duck (while initiative is recovering) for mobs. Only realised later that DB is NOT meant to be spammed in a mob.. spamming Clusterbombs is WAYYYY more effective.

Hope this post of mine will help all aspiring thieves out there, don’t give up early, thief is very fun! (abeit thru keeping you on your toes since 1 wrong move may result in your death, as opposed to boring bunker builds)

Bluebird.1890:

Or, if you want the idiot proof way to level against anything besides dredge:

Equip S/P. Run up, hit black powder, and auto attack mob down. When the last blind from your previous black powder wears off, drop another one. Keep all mobs within the black powder.

You can use this method to solo most veterans and even some low level champions once you have some initiative regen traits/utility skills.

^This.
And as soon as you can get Dagger Storm, DB Spam+DS pretty much makes AoE farming mobs pretty easy and quick.

In case people hasn’t realised, the poor OP here is 6 levels from elite, and 16 levels from advanced training required for 10+ points in trait lines. You might want to tailor your advice to better suit lower level people. (also, note that Dagger Storm is 30 traitpoints, meaning 50 traitpoints (after including requirements) to obtain.)

Change your utilities:
I run with speed signet (the passive is so cool in PvE), shadowstep and shadow refuge (get refuge asap). Get Mug asap.

Playstyle is usual hit and run, so u do mug/cnd/stab combo, then either heartseeker to finish mob or DB to bleed the pack (and evade what’s going to hit you). Also dont forget that you have Shortbow in secondary slot, which is AoE king for Thieves.

I dont think i’ll be playing any other build then burst (all equip I have is power/precision), it’s just imo waste of time to try to play thief as condition (or whatever), you just dont kill fast enough

P.S. Fact is that I 1st played like 200 games in PvP as glass Thief and then I decided to try some PvE and since then I find PvE pretty boring and easy (much easier then on my necro).

pEEtrs.4320:

Change your utilities:
I run with speed signet (the passive is so cool in PvE), shadowstep and shadow refuge (get refuge asap). Get Mug asap.

Playstyle is usual hit and run, so u do mug/cnd/stab combo, then either heartseeker to finish mob or DB to bleed the pack (and evade what’s going to hit you). Also dont forget that you have Shortbow in secondary slot, which is AoE king for Thieves.

I dont think i’ll be playing any other build then burst (all equip I have is power/precision), it’s just imo waste of time to try to play thief as condition (or whatever), you just dont kill fast enough

P.S. Fact is that I 1st played like 200 games in PvP as glass Thief and then I decided to try some PvE and since then I find PvE pretty boring and easy (much easier then on my necro).

While ending fights quickly with burst is extremely effective in PvP, I don’t think relying on Mug, a 40s~ cooldown, is a sound solution in PvE. If you enjoy the playstyle, great, you can really do whatever you want in open-world PvE (I’ve run sword/nothing in Orr for the lulz) and do fine, but power-based D/D doesn’t really excel at most PvE situations. Telling a struggling thief to go with a build like that is likely to make them more frustrated.

Tulisin.6945:

While ending fights quickly with burst is extremely effective in PvP, I don’t think relying on Mug, a 40s~ cooldown, is a sound solution in PvE. If you enjoy the playstyle, great, you can really do whatever you want in open-world PvE (I’ve run sword/nothing in Orr for the lulz) and do fine, but power-based D/D doesn’t really excel at most PvE situations. Telling a struggling thief to go with a build like that is likely to make them more frustrated.

That’s why I added that P.S. in the end. Because when I bought the game, I ended up in the very same palce as OP and I rolled necro for PvE, because I was dead with thief quite fast (and it felt like weak PvE class). Later on after few weeks of serious PvP I realized, that I was doing it wrong with thief and started one again. Since then I wonder why should I go back to my necro, it just can’t kill single targets / packs of mobs as fast and pretty much untouched as my thief can.

I wouldn’t say power / crit build won’t excel in most PvE situations. Only situation I’ve yet to encounter (to test how this build works there) is dungeon. I haven’t done any yet. My experience is that power/crit build excels in most PvE situation because it kill so freakin fast that most mobs attack maybe once before they die (and you always have SB when things are getting hairy). Tell me wchich class can go to location 5 levels higher then current char level and do events / stuff without any problem what so ever? I’ve done that, because I was too lazy to switch to different map just to get me few levels (sure they hit bit harder if they managed to hit me).

The major thing every Thief should learn (and what I learned through some serious tpvp) is use of his insane mobility. 2nd most important skill every Thief needs is to master Shortbow. Since you can solo most of gold bosses (if they dont spam AoEs), sure, it takes a while, but melee bosses can’t hit you, while you bomb them with cluster bombs.