Guild Wars 2

I have a thief in the early 30s, and I am enjoying it a lot, but I don’t feel I’m getting the most out of this class that I can. I realize that at lower levels its tough to judge how effective I will be without great armor and all the traits. I do alright against small groups, but when doing dungeons or large scale events I feel kind of useless. I’m used to playing healing / tanking roles and I’d like to branch out and try something a little different. This is for PvE.

the build I am going for is here:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmkzMmMMzMCrboMoLbmp0f0xVszckq08khT70z7kiO7khT70M7kIZ70V7ow270m

I’m looking for advice! What would you change? Does it make sense? Am I totally off the mark for something that will be fun to play?

First off, I would suggest a ranged weapon set. Personally I go with short bow because it’s great against a big group of mobs, but you can also try pistol/pistol and see if it suits your taste. In dungeons most of the times it’s hard to melee because of the damage that mobs/bosses can put out so it forces you to kite while ranging them.
As for your traits, I am not sure about “uncatchable” and “hastened replenishment” in your tricks line. Although my traits are completely different, but I won’t really debate against the ones you’ve chosen because it’s a matter of personal preference in gameplay. I’ve tried caltrops on dodge and it felt underwhelming. Maybe you are really good at getting those to hit, but I felt that I could get more out of my trait points elsewhere. Getting 4 initiative on heal just seems flat out underwhelming though. Since your heal has a cooldown of 30s (and you probably won’t just use it for the initiatives), I just think there are better traits out there.

Honestly man if you have that much in Trickery, you are looking at a condition build which is what I ran to level up. I love putting points into shadow arts for the toughness and rocking carrion gear for the condition and vitality. Basically with dagger dagger / SB I jump in with three leaping death blossoms, dodge twice for caltrops, steal and another LDB and just walk away while they bleed out. I have been able to solo champions with this build as long as they are alone. But I would go for the necro runes or something of that nature to help out with your vitality. I was having a real hard time staying alive in instances until I switched to the carrion/ condition build.

In instances (unless you are with a very well geared group) you will mostly be focusing down targets one at a time. So you need good single target dps and melee is the best but some bosses are hard to melee so that’s when I like to go pistol/pistol again looking for condition damage.

Don’t be afraid to switch your skills out regularly: when I am alone I like to have signet of malice (amazing with LDB), assassin’s signet, signet of shadows (helps leveling), and spider venom or needle trap (another condition). However when I am in a dungeon shadow refuge is a MUST. Also Signet of agility so you can remove conditions and blinding powder or RFI.

But most importantly, you are a thief and your best support skill is your steal if you spec thrill of the crime and bountiful theft. You definitely want Mug since you should be stealing on cool down basically and klepto with preparadness and caltops on dodge mean you will always have >10 stacks of bleed on target.

thanks for the replies.

I didn’t consider the healing skill recharge with the last trait there… good point.

conditions sounds like fun. think it’ll tweak a little bit and see what works. I much prefer the pistols over the shortbow, unless I’m fighting dredge >_<

Pistol/Pistol is quite fun, particularly unload. But be careful, it loses a lot of its utility if used in a condition build since P/P damage is burst damage. The real utility out of those weapon sets come in if you pump power and critical hit trait line, where the last few hits can hit upwards to 2-3k when you’re level 60s and above.

That being said, the infuriating thing about P/P is dealing with mobs, it has no AoE’s (besides blinding powder, which doesn’t necessarily damage foes). This is why Short Bow is so popular, the 2 and 4 attacks are pretty good AoE’s, and if you’re running condition build anyway, 2 stacks bleeds and 4 throws down poison, both these abilities will benefit from your investment into trickery. The 5 skill people like to spam to move faster through the map and get out of tricky situations, the 1 skill bounces and hits 3 enemies, and 3 puts distance b/t u and the opponent so u can keep kiting.

Overall, I feel P/P is really fun I greatly enjoyed it, but as I got further and further into level 40 areas and above where its mobs of centaurs being hurled at me, I found it to be inadequate. SB was a much more solid option.