Guild Wars 2

a)
I have played kitten and Sub Rogue extensively in WoW.
Can i expect a similar playstyle here with this Thief profession ?

b)
For a beginner what is the relatively easy path to level a thief ?

tx for your time

Not sure why it is showing as “kitten” when i meant as assassination

First question:

GW2 thief is a heavily watered down WoW rogue. Unlike WoW rogues GW2 thieves lack cloak of shadows so condition damage is actually a threat especially combined with a low HP pool. In WoW sub-rogues counter priests and warlocks very hard whereas paladins and death knights were a big uphill battle though certainly possible to beat. Here we have expose armor, but mixed in with other vulnerability causing abilities such as dagger/dagger number 5 and rupture is dagger dagger 3 with the added benefit of landing behind your opponent while also applying some light bleeding.

As to the second question just keep gear updated every 10 levels or so and go mostly for offense. You want signet of shadows ASAP for the 25% passive increase in movement speed and then haste for a stunbreaker (you won’t see everything but tells for dodging are easy enough to spot) and finally shadow refuge. Try going for map completion and don’t leave a map until you discovered everything, but waypoints and hero point spots are most important.

Leveling any class in GW2 is pretty easy, as most of the leveling revolves around story completion and map exploration with a healthy does of public events.

It doesn’t cost anything to change up your spec, and gear is not at all important while leveling as long as it’s near your intended level. You’ll eventually have every skill and spec line unlocked so don’t be afraid of making a “wrong” build decision. Just pick what looks cool, and if you end up not liking it swap it out later for free.

You can get all the gear you’ll really need to level with from the new level up rewards and karma merchants, so just make sure to check the heart merchants as you complete them and look carefully when you have a choice of leveling rewards and you won’t really need to buy gear until you’re 80 and have a good idea of what playstyle you like, and thus what stats to buy/craft.

The only thief-specific reccommendation for leveling is to pack a shortbow. Virtually all thieves alt-swap to shortbow because of the mobility afforded to you by shortbow 5. This has kind of messed with our balancing in PvP, but in general, if you’re leveling, shortbow will get it done faster since it’s the quickest way to get from place to place along side your move signet.

Trickshot also bounces from foe to foe so it’s good for tagging.

I am also trying dual wielding pistols…they are more fun imo….how pistol/pistol fare with respect to solo leveling ?

vpy.6183:

I am also trying dual wielding pistols…they are more fun imo….how pistol/pistol fare with respect to solo leveling ?

Not great TBH. The main problem with p/p is that it’s a single target set. You’ll live, but you won’t tag as many mobs in events and you’ll spend extra time killing pretty much everything because you have to burst each enemy down one at a time.

There used to be a trait called ricochet that added an aoe effect to pistols… but they removed it.

Best Weapon set for grinding Thiefs:
Sword / Pistol (More than 3 Targets) and Dagger / Pistol (Up to 2 Targets)
Just drop the Blind Field and spam auto attack.
For ranged damage you can use Pistol/Pistol or Pistol/Dagger until mid levels.
Once your crit% gets better, you will find yourself using Shortbow, for plenty of reasons.

For utility skills you want:
- Signet of Shadows for the speed bonus (will keep you sanity in check, there is a lot of walking with your first character)
- Haste: Great stunbreak and damage boost.
- Shadow Refuge: Your “oh sh~t” skill.
- If you don’t need the speed bonus, you can pick any of those: Signet of Agility, Assassin Signet, Smoke Screen or Ambush

For Elite Skills: Thieves Guild is the best for grinding. Other two are more PvP oriented. Tough Dagger Storm can deal some damage.

For Traits I believe that Trickery is the overal best first choice. Followed by Critical Strikes and Deadly Arts.
Leave Shadow Arts and Acrobatic for last since they aren’t that useful for grinding.

vpy.6183:

I am also trying dual wielding pistols…they are more fun imo….how pistol/pistol fare with respect to solo leveling ?

p/p stinks for lvling

take sword/pistol
and
dagger/pistol

tbh i take dagger pistol over anything in pve, all u have to do is
3 it ports u to target > 1 1 1 1 repeat easy as kitten relaxing as hell (for me atleast since i enjoy grinding mindless once in a while)

sword/pistol i use it for harder enemies or when i wanna AoE and i can pull mobs together since skill 3 gives u evade frames and u can just spam it nothing will hit u and u will hit mobs multiple times