Guild Wars 2

Hey!

I’m rather new to the game and I’ve been playing a thief up to level 17 now. I’m just wondering what’s a good survivable setup for a thief while leveling?

First I went P/P, I was very survivable but the damage felt a bit low. Now I’m playing S/P and occasionaly switching to a SB. Thing is, if I use my pistolwhip, I get hit atleast once even if I blinded all the mobs around me. I feel very squishy in prolonged fights (running out of initiative) or if I make 1 mistake. I haven’t taken traits yet, still figuring out how.

Is P/D, P/S or D/P better for solo leveling? I assumed that it would already go a lot better if I make sure to stack condition upgrades and traits aswell?

Thanks in advance!

Pistol is too slow unless you’re spamming unload. If you want to kill fast and not get punish go did SD dd dp. That’s a stealth build with blind and back stab . Plus get 10 on str prec and shadow arts.

Wouldn’t P/D be better than D/P for leveling solo? You don’t have the blind, but you have more stealth. Or should I be able to go stealth plenty with D/P aswell?

I’ve heard a thief get’s a lot of damage from conditions, does D/P have enough of those by itself or should I make sure to get some poison in utility?

Sword and pistol with a + initiative build is hands down the best solo spec imo. At least vs mobs in melee range.

You can also do very well with short bow and short range cluster bomb kiting.

make sure you use signet of malice as well.

I rock shortbow and D/D for leveling, out out a ton of damage with DD and lots of stealth features with blinding powder, I have never had a problem leveling. If mobs get to think switch to shortbow and spam cluster bomb, detonating the bomb right before it hits them so all the little bombers hit everyone plus they cause lots of bleeding.

You are going to want a bit of vitality/precision and power gear and accessories.

D/D is great for leveling in my opinion because you get and extra evade that does damage and causes bleeds, as well as a ranged cripple that hits multiple foes and cloak and dagger to get you in stealth more.

Wat blueprint said (Semper Fi). Dual daggers, ftw.

S/P with blinds and Signets. PBAoE 2-3 mobs at once, drop AoE blinds (Black Powder, Blinding Powder) to reduce incoming damage. Very effective.

Isn’t D/D more risky when you are trying to fight hard to avoid or untankable mobs solo? I can see a P/D or S/P & D/P being really good solo because with P/D you can apply conditions and evade + stealth and with the others you can almost permablind with enough initiative.

I would think P/D or SB is the best option for hard hitting or multiple targets solo while S/P can do the same but kills faster while being less durable.

Or am I gettings things wrong?

I think maybe my problem with S/P was that I didn’t take initiative traits or skills yet?

FatFuzzy.2659:

Wat blueprint said (Semper Fi). Dual daggers, ftw.

Semper Fi brother thanks.

Just go D/D. I’ve used that from 1-80.
Be mobile, use poison and cripple.

D/D is actually really effective for fighting hard mobs for area reasons, you get cloak and dagger, an instant stealth to break aggro, land backstabs which do great damage in mobs btw. Not only that but you get a ranged cripple with D/D to kite if needed, also an extra evade (blossoming death) that makes you have multiple dodges on top of your vigor dodges. Plus blossoming death also does damage and is great for stacking bleeds. Not only all those benefits but with the great damage capability of D/D fights don’t last long and you are blowing through mobs quickly. P/P damage is away under D/D damage.

Still, S/P sounds a lot more plausible as the best solo build for harder mobs like Darklor said. I’m not too far in the game, but it feels to me that the pistol whip, headshot and black powder add something that can help you get in melee range with some enemies.

I’m sure D/D has higher damage and is just as evasive with the average mob, but how do you deal with spells or abilities that are nigh impossible to dodge out? With S/P you can pistolwhip them or headshot them and interrupt it.

Just trying to understand what D/D would do in those situations (which are pretty common so far) to be better at it than S/P with an initiative build?

EDIT: P/D seems to do pretty well aswell, only ranged are harder cuz no blind

I went D/P and love it. So many dazes and blinds, and signet of shadow (another blind!). If timed right you can take down a mob w/o taking any damage.

The best advice for leveling i can give is find whatever damage build you like playing, and get gear with the offensive stat that plays to that, with vitality also somewhere in the mix on gear. For a long while (like level 35-60) i tried to go it with just offensive stat gear, and when i switched over (first to toughness tiertiary, then vitality)….

It was a whole new ball game. Certain areas i was struggling with became much easier.

Past that, try out all the thief offensive weapon loadouts, and try to get comfortable with as many as you like to play. They all have something to offer in some situation. In particular learning the ins and outs of shortbow is a must. Its a life saver in certain dungeons and in pvp – also very useful as well against some open pve boss mobs. You can cater to which others you like (i switch from D/D and Sw/P – though i do kind of like P/P occasionally too).

The more weapon loadouts you’re comfortable with the more you can shake things up.

Ivonbeton: You do realize that you have 2 weapon specs right?
Still, I never did have a need to interrupt anything in PvE. Too easy.

And bosses can’t be interrupted.

Yes. I’ve been using SB since I heard it’s the safest thing around with decent damage. I’ve been playing with loads of different setups aswell. It’s not like it’s going bad, I’m playing mobs a lot higher level than myself, I’m just trying to figure out everything about this class so that I can better pick my gear and traits.

I think I’ll stick with P/D condition damage when I need to. I like playing S/P aswell, but I think I might need to know a bit more about which mobs I can’t take on with this setup. Like knockdown or those mobs that hit everything around them even when they are blinded.

Seems to me that P/D is much more effective with low traits and S/P catches up when you get more traits (when you get plenty of initiative and toughness/vitality traits to make your S/P build more durable)

I went through with D/D death blossom bleed/condition spec. Great for destroying multiple enemies at a time, as long as you have no problem running around a lot. (If you don’t like moving a lot, might as well either get used to it or reroll… thief = mobility)

So I’ve tried some more D/D, works pretty great. Only problem is that it devours initiative very fast. I’m going to level with it once I hit level 40 and I can get the “20% chance after a critical strike to get +1initiative” and the one from trickery.