Guild Wars 2

Thinking about leveling a Thief but is there a less painful build that I can use for leveling?

I am, by no means, a good thief. That said, my success with Sword/Pistol should tell you its worth trying. I can face tank anything melee with black powder (#5). Time it right on vets, etc and it will take time, but you should win. I’ve tried with other sets and the others might be stronger, but I’ll take easy for leveling purposes. I range with SB for flavor. P/P might be stronger, but I like the options on SB.

I’ll let someone else post proper traits. I’ve been running 0/20/0/20/0 so far, but I’m only level 50. I’m just focusing on things that just make my usual leveling issues less problematic (mostly time savers and stuff).

There are a few other threads in here with leveling advice that I have greatly benefited from. They are worth a search through the forums to find.

Man, I’m leveling my Necromancer, insanely fun to play and, by far, the easiest class I ever level….

I can take 4~5 mobs at time 3~4 level above mine without a problem… I know that with a thief this wont be possible but I want something that makes my leveling a little less painful you know..

sword+pistol, caltrops.
with caltrops, you can keep melees at a distance, so you can kill them off in small packages.
S/P got evades on pistol whip and a blind fied to facetank mobs.
Short bow is nice, too. Poison field and spam some clusters to combo weakness, then keep autoattacking and kiting.

Pistol offhand, either S/P or D/P, Black Powder (Pistol #5) will own almost anything (except dredge as they have seen the light and all that). Sword mainhand for cleave. Caltrops with high condition damage will get most mobs to near death. Shadow Refuge -learn to use it, then the run signet, heal and elite of choice. Shortbow as secondary, even if just to learn it’s use since for many thieves this one is perma-locked to one weapon set.

Another very solid style of playing while leveling is what a good friend of mine calls “Shadowdancing”. I tend to call it “The Backstab Shuffle” instead, if only to torment said friend. It’s a good way to kill groups at a time.

Go sword/dagger and get the trait “Cloaked in Shadow” (Shadow Arts VI), which blinds enemies around you when going into Stealth. Use CnD, then head ’round to the rear of the enemy and pop it with Tactical Strike from behind, go through a full auto attack combo, and pop the enemy with CnD again, then repeat. Against Vets, just swap to main hand dagger if you have trouble.

Your liberal application of blind and daze won’t have much trouble handling roaming or story missions at all. I used this same build all the way to 80, adding in traits like flanking strike that increase damage from behind or the side as well as initiative boosting traits to make sure I could sustain high safety and DPS.

Keep Hide in Shadows, Blinding Powder, and one other stealth power in your utility bar as well as either Caltrops (for crippling and bleeds), Roll For Initiative (for initiative recovery), or a signet in the third slot.

Initially, you’ll need to lean on your stealth utility skills harder than you want in order to keep the pattern up, but traiting will help ease that significantly.

I’d avoid using this build against large numbers of Dredge, who are immune to blind, as well as in Orr, where many of the enemies eat, remove, or transfer conditions and have AoEs to knock you out of stealth.

Gear-wise, I always went Zerker or the lower level power/accuracy boost equivalent in order to maximize damage, though my friend spent a while in Soldier’s gear for the survivability.

Overall, it’s a solid and pretty safe leveling build. Hope this helps!

but what about traits and slot skills? What should I pick for leveling?

Try anything, everything. There’s no point going into harder content without knowing your class skills. Dungeons become easy for players who know their skills but at the same time they eat up people who don’t have a clue. Open world exploration is the easiest part of the game so experiment!

Goathi.7034:

Man, I’m leveling my Necromancer, insanely fun to play and, by far, the easiest class I ever level….

I can take 4~5 mobs at time 3~4 level above mine without a problem… I know that with a thief this wont be possible but I want something that makes my leveling a little less painful you know..

You can! Bleeding is very good while levelling. D/D death blossom and caltrops on dodge. It wasn’t very inventive, but as a new thief with no experience with the class, it was a clear choice, logical, and it worked nicely. That being said, after getting experience, the sword/pistol for blind + auto attack may be better for trash. The dagger/dagger death blossom + caltrops + stealth/kite while bleeds tick worked well against those bosses 90% immune to blinds though. Especially those higher level than you – stack those bleeds, criple with caltrops and run away lol. I can’t remember the trait set up I used, but it was definitely 10 trickery for caltrops on dodge and 15 acrobatics for endurance return.