Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I am playing a Sylveri Thief. I’m very new to this game and only at lvl 13 now. I just like to take things slow and i’m slowly trying to complete the Caledon forest map plus gain crafting materials to lvl my crafts.

Problem is I just don’t seem to be geared enough or doing something wrong. I can never take more than 1 mob when fighting. Even when fighting against a single mob, my hp will dip to almost zero prior to killing it.

Any guidance on what exactly I should do to manage this issue will be nice. There are many guides out there on leveling and crafting but none that addresses this problem. I’m guessing this is too simple an issue for such elaborate guidance.

Thanks for help.

I was in your boat once. Almost the exact same (look at my signature) Play around with diff weapons. Try sword pistol for pistol whip, and bring a ranged weapon like shortbow or pistols for the dangerous foes

Dont listen to the guy below me he doesnt have over 1k hours on his thief :p

Sword/pistol is tanky and really good for pve. Basically press 5 to put down a black powder that blinds everything around you and auto attack.

You can also use d/d conditions. Lay down Caltrops, use Dagger Storm and then spam Death Blossom.

P/D is good vs melee champs since you will have 100% uptime with bleed and torment.

I had the same difficult as you when start playing thief, he just couldn’t stand in melee range against normal mobs. But with P/P – SB it was much more easy to play. The first 10 points go to Critical Strikes, and then 10 to Acrobatics. At level 30 i go to Shadow Arts, and at 40 respec to 0/20/0/10/0.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYQQNAoYVlUmaP3cS6E95Ey2jdqCJKdG4UL1f4qA-jQyAYLioRqCGZJQUhEm8KiGbboIas6aMlLRUtBvIa1SBExYA-e

When you are level 60, you get Hidden Killer (30 pts on Critical Strikes), then D/D becomes really useful, you can kill mobs with 2 hits.

Best thing you can do while leveling with a new class is to:

1) Keep your gear up to level. If you’re 13, make sure you’re in level 12-13 Blues or Greens.
2) Invest in some Toughness and Vitality. Whether through Traits or Armor, Toughness/Vitality will drastically increase your survivability while leveling.

When I was lower level I used a condition based build. Dual daggers and dual pistols, spam death blossom and caltrops and kite the mobs in the trap, it usually kills most enemies. Keep up to date with your armor, it’s important since you are playing a squishy profession.

While you level, S/P is an excellent setup. Except against Dredge that are inmune to Blind, if you only spend initiative on Black Powder (tip: even if the field disappears, don’t use it again until the Blind condition is gone from your opponent, as PvE enemies have very slow attack animations, this will give you extra seconds without wasting initiative so you will be able to keep useing BP longer).

It gets better, although I think thief is one of the harder professions to play right now. Was just playing around with Warrior a little bit in PvP and it was so easy to play compared to thief. Keep your gear up to date, use shortbow a lot to kite your enemies. I remember it was pretty hard for me too when I was a low level thief trying to PvE by myself.

Switching to another character type isn’t a bad idea either, before you are too invested. Heavy or light armor is much cooler, medium armor you are pretty much limited to wearing a buttcape.

When I leveled I primarily used P/P and SB to play it safe. By the time I was 70+ I swapped over to D/D and notice I killed mobs faster and took little damage myself, with proper stealth and skills you can go in and out of stealth, strafe run to avoid hits. Even when you have multi mobs, just swap over to SB for a bit to widdle them down, and then go back to D/D to finish the job, though multi mob situation SB is probably one of the best choice out there, staying safe and doing damage via point blank clusterbombs+autos.

When I was helping my gf with her Thief, I tried S/P. you basically kill anything and groups of anything with 1 spammable button. Just try kiting wit ha thief, even with melee. GW2 mobs are insanely stupid and you can dodge(not actually using evade) most attacks by back peddling/straffing.

There are two simple thief strategies for low level. The first is to use sword/pistol and with either pistol whip or black powder to keep yourself safe. The second is to use pistol/dagger with dancing daggers to keep an enemy crippled at distance. All the high level thief capability is already there in the weapon sets if you want to look for it but those are two simple tactics.

I just leveled my second thief to 80 and what i did was use Sword main hand and pistol offhand, have signet of malice. Auto attack or pistolwhip, buy fine(blue color item) gear and weapon from trade post, update it every 10 or 5 lvl, up to you and your money.

When mobs become to hard, change map to another same level map. Example, you are on caledon forest 1-15 map, you have trouble there, go to human start map Queensdale 1-15 and finish that one, so you become higher level and have a easier time in caledon forest.

1) Use Caltrops and use them often.
2) Use some sort of evasive skills, Death Blossom or Pistol Whip are your go-to skills.
3) Always have a ranged weapon at hand. A Shortbow or mainhand pistol works wonders against stronger mobs.
4) Don’t rely on stealth to “keep you alive”. It drags things out needlessly. Sometimes a straightforward approach is simply more rewarding(and by straightforward, I mean, bash a pistol into their face and cut them down!)
5) Evade and kite, kite and evade. Learn to hit without being hit. If you aim for dual exchanges, you will lose, cause the mobs are not half as squishy, as you are.

Also, if you still got problems, craft some jewels and get some food.