Guild Wars 2

So I just hit level 60 on my thief, and usually every 10-15 levels I spend about 10-15s on upgrades because I tend to find nothing while leveling.

Since I’m upgrading my level 45-55 gear, I’m thinking of switching from a power/precision/crit dmg build to a conditions build using DD/PP (or PD). So far with my current gear I’ve noticed how effective DB is on groups. Even now I have no problems kiting and killing large groups of risen (4-6) without taking much damage. I guess I have a few questions:

Does crit chance affect bleeds? I was looking at buying Rampagers armor.

Is this effective in Orr? All I’ve seen are QQ threads, or posts on different PvP builds.

Does anyone have any recommended builds for 60-80? Even if they aren’t condition focused.

Thanks for any help.

If you want to just level up, I suggest getting a shortbow and zerging in wvwvw otherwise death blossom works for lvling in pve also

crit chance does not affect bleeds, and is only helpful for bleeds if you can bleed on crit. that said leveling conditions with DB is extremely effective at leveling, especially with caltrops and signet of malice. you can even beat hordes of risen in orr with that setup. I would recommend carrion gear over rampager. the extra condition damage and survivability are more than worth it. I went 40-80 with condition damage and I never had any problem with most anything. that and sword/pistol are probably the most effective/easiest builds for leveling.

I leveled with a dd/sb condition build, all carrion gear. You can kite with the sb and round up mobs, once you have 4 or 5 mobs, switch to dd and spam death blossom. After 5 death blossoms, your mobs will have up to 15 stacks of bleeds on them. That should just about do it.

I firmly believe that Carrion gear provides the best stats for leveling.

Basically, you don’t get enough precision or critical damage from low level greens for it to make a difference. They’re great stats when you can get a bunch of each from exotics and end-game runes stacked on a full critical strikes trait tree, but until you get all that in place it’s massively underwhelming.

At low gear levels you need really basic, linear stats – power, vitality, condition damage. Vitality is key because you’re so naturally squishy, and weak gear only amplifies that weakness. Power and condition damage directly amplify your damage and give the best returns in the low stat part of the power curve.

Carrion gear offers all of these stats, and as such is perfect for leveling; it gives you the survivability and long term DPS you need to fight higher level mobs while undergeared, while still providing the power you want for hitting weak targets.

So yes, conditions are effective for leveling.

I leveled as condition thief. When I got to Orr, I had to stop. But I was running around in ravager gear, like a noob. Don’t do that. Carrion gear really is the best for a condition thief, because of the vitality. Not to mention that for carrion gear, condition damage is the main stat, so if you have all carrion gear and chrysocola jewelry, and the bottom tree maxed out for +300 malice, you’ll probably bleed the beep out of things in a matter of seconds. But I hear this isn’t good for WvW. Just lay down the caltrops and spam leaping death blossom with dual daggers.