Guild Wars 2

I’m just starting out a brand-new Thief since I’ve seen a few people playing one before and the whole jumping-flipping-beating face thing looks like a lot of fun. I’m enjoying mine so far, but I’m sort of at a loss of what to stat for.

I’m going to go for Dagger/Dagger because out of all the weapon combinations(I have a huntsman and a weaponsmith so I made the low level versions of everything to try it all out) I enjoyed that one the most.

What should I go for? Power? Condition Damage? Precision? What would benefit me the most?

I think your stat choice will be dependent on how you like playing the thief.

Since you’re going with D/D you have a good bit of condition damage from your Lotus Poison and Death Blossom. So if you like more damage over time and watching your opponents tick away you may want to give this a shot. Also Death Blossom lets you flip and evade attacks making timing it’s use important with harder creatures. Plus it looks cool. This is how I am currently playing my thief.

The D/D combo does seem to have potential for high burst damage if you go for power and precision. Your back stab out of stealth will do double damage if it hits from behind and Heart seeker strike can do big numbers on low hp targets. I haven’t tried a build like this but it seems to have potential.

Just remember to always take some defensive stats or prepare your utility skills accordingly. Nobody like a death thief.

Survivability, Toughness and Vitality. I’ve found the D/D build is most effective over a longer fight, sure you can burst someone down, but lets be honest the second you come across a decent play you will lose, you will be snared, you will be blinded and you will be stunned and you will die.

But with a combination of utility (Shadow Refuge, Scorpion Wire, Caltrops, Blinding Powder – Even if it’s so buggy it rarely works) you can really work on a team and keep them on you and ruin their targeting for a really long time. Work it all into your 5 skill (Name slips my mind) and you can last in a fight for a very long time. The damage is significant as well, that you can take down squishier targets rather efficiently or force them to use all their CD’s to stay alive.

Fair warning this build makes you really weak 1v1, because you lack burst. Obviously as well, this is my personal preference and i have found it to work for me, often averaging top scores for spvp from getting most Revives and kills in the match.

Well I’m talking from a PvE perspective, though the tips on staying alive will certainly help me out there as well!

I guess I’ll try out a mix of gears as I level and see how things work out.

For PvE try maxing out your bleed damage. That’s what I roll and it absolutely destroys mobs. 1, 3 or 5 doesn’t matter. The more, the merrier. Build for mobility, evasion and condition damage rather than duration. Hint: Caltrops are your friend

I run primarily PvE and D/D. I’m running Precision > Vitality > Power > Toughness.

With Crit thief, you want to stealth and backstab until they are below 33%, then use Heartseeker. If you are having trouble with large groups, grab a Short Bow, or save up Skill Points for Dagger Storm (30 pt. Elite skill). Protip: Dagger Storm + Shadow Refuge is awesome.

if you are going to be a Blossomthief via D/D…conditions all the way..condition condition, condition. You also want to grab Caltrops, and uncatchable trait. People sorely underestimate the amount of pain you dish out even in packs of mobs/aoe.

Run in, drop caltrops(several stacks of bleed, cant remember how much), DB x 3(9 stacks right there), dodge out(dropping more caltrops), steal(with mug trait), and maybe you get lucky with a poison field, at that time, DB again.

Everything falls dead at your feet. Without question. I take on packs of mobs same level or 1 higher, in numbers of 4 or 5 without breaking a sweat.

To top it off, if you use Spider Venom and DB x 3, thats even more dottage.