Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

I’m new to GW2. I tried a necromancer for a few levels and didn’t get in to it, so I rolled a thief and instantly enjoyed the game. It’s a really fun class to play. The only problem I have is that I seem to die A LOT. Doing any sort of quest against monsters of the same level I have to be super careful to fight 1v1 or else I will almost certainly die. Any time I fight something even a single level above me I get destroyed.

I’m at level 14 at the moment and my stats are as follows:
Power: 150
Precision: 142
Toughness: 86
Vitality: 91

Attack: 319
Crit Chance: 27%
Armor: 210
Health: 980

I’m currently using 2 daggers as my primary set and either 2 pistols or a shortbow as my secondary.

My skills on the right of the bar are Hide in Shadows, Spider Venom and Assassin’s Signet.

So I’m sort of asking for any suggestions that will help my survivability, and possibly increase my effectiveness in the game in general. Any changes to my skill build, item changes, whether I should focus on toughness or vitality, what self-preservation skills I might aim for, etc.

Thanks in advance,

Mitchell.

Try different weapons, and constantly move. Killing stuff is not the fastest way to level up, however. Go to events. But if you want to stand there and kill stuff, grab a Pistol offhand and use the #5 Black Powder to blind enemies. You can time it to always have your enemy mob miss you. You can fight mobs which are any higher level than you this way if you do it right.

I play as a thief and finally reached level 80 and it was a complete pain in thekitten The thief is by far the most underpowered class. He dies in one hit no matter what build or equipment you have. Even if you do spec into defense you lose any kind of damage you had before which is pathetic to begin with. What I don’t understand is why every other thief in thekittengame is so strong.

I’m making this post because I’m sick of getting the kitten kicked out of me by every other mob in the game. At this point I’m reallykitten off because I spent the entire leveling process trying out every build imaginable and I’ve yet to find out a viable way to play a thief. I can barely take on 1 mob or person and if there are 2 there’s no way to escape fights.

Double pistols seem to be the only weapons capable of dealing decent damage. Melee weapons are bad because that means having to tank hits and I can tank 1 hit before dying. I’ve tried glass canon at first and I could deal some decent damage but no where near as much as other classes. I’ve tried specing into defense with shadow arts but stealth skills are limited and stealth doesn’t stop them from seeing you. I thought it made you invisible but people can still see and target me. I’ve tried acrobatics thinking I should just dodge skills. Any kind of cc just locks me down and there are maybe 2 dodging skills that seemed useful.

At this point I honestly can’t think of any skill, weapon combo, or trait setup I haven’t tried and all of them seemed to fail in every area. What am I doing wrong? Why is every other thief X100 stronger than me? Is there any way to build a thief that doesn’t suck and how do you play it? At this point I literally can’t afford to keep dying. I’m running out of money for repairs but I can’t live long enough to make any.

What’s up with the kitten? is that a forum feature? looks like it

Well sadly, you’ve either badly built your thief or the thief isn’t the class for you. The thief isn’t there to take the hits. It’s a glass cannon with mass stealth abilities. The whole point is to either kite with condition damage and invest in vit, or go pure crit/power with stealthing abilities.

I have 0 issues with the Thief. Heavy Condition/Vit stacking for PvE, where as pure damage in PvP. If I die, it’s because of a fault on my end; 90% of the times it’s me running into battle as if I’m a warrior/guardian. If you’re complaining about a lack of Power, look for “Jinzu’s backstab build”, or “Minions Invincible Thief”. Both, are prime examples of strongly built Thiefs.

And I’ll say it again. Thief ISN’T meant for TANK. If you want to tank hits and zerg, you need a Warrior or Guardian. The usual playstyle for a Thief is a Hit and Run. Get in, and get out as fast as possible. Not sit there like a duck and strike hits.

Dervy.7901:

Well sadly, you’ve either badly built your thief or the thief isn’t the class for you. The thief isn’t there to take the hits. It’s a glass cannon with mass stealth abilities. The whole point is to either kite with condition damage and invest in vit, or go pure crit/power with stealthing abilities.

I have 0 issues with the Thief. Heavy Condition/Vit stacking for PvE, where as pure damage in PvP. If I die, it’s because of a fault on my end; 90% of the times it’s me running into battle as if I’m a warrior/guardian. If you’re complaining about a lack of Power, look for “Jinzu’s backstab build”, or “Minions Invincible Thief”. Both, are prime examples of strongly built Thiefs.

And I’ll say it again. Thief ISN’T meant for TANK. If you want to tank hits and zerg, you need a Warrior or Guardian. The usual playstyle for a Thief is a Hit and Run. Get in, and get out as fast as possible. Not sit there like a duck and strike hits.

I never said the thief should tank hits. I know thieves are never supposed to get hit but I’m saying there’s no way to avoid getting hit. Nothing I do works since I move so slow in combat. I dodge twice and I’m done for the fight. Not to mention the thief has very little escape power. Everyone says that’s what thief is best at but I’ve yet to find a way to get out of a fight. Other classes have so much chasing power and stealth isn’t an option since everyone can see you. I’m gonna try those builds see if I can get any results.

Thanks, I tried that and it helped quite a bit. What ratio of attack to defense do you aim for? Should I try and balance it a little more than I have or continue trying to get higher damage out?

learn to use your dodge effectively. some monsters have a chargeup for their biggest hitting skills, generally with some kind of cc like knock back or knock down. your dodge will generally override your current attack, unless you’re in the middle of death blossom, so use your dodge immediately when you see them charge up. avoiding these while kiting circles around monsters should help you survive without having to get better gear.
also dancing dagger is a great skill when fighting off multiple enemies. bounces 4 times and cripples them which allows you to kite easier.

I’ve used a D/D condition damage build for my thief while leveling. I focused on stacking up condition damage for equipments. And in traits for more initiative/dodge/stealths. It basically just spams Deathblossom, the d/d combo skill, and stays moving the whole time, like seriously never stop moving. The caltrops on dodge skill was handy for keeping the enemy just out of range, else Dancing Dagger works for that just as well.

Try to aim and invest in a few toughness/vit accessories. The toughness really helps, especially in the Cursed Shore.

I run Signet of Malice, Roll for Initiative, Blinding Powder and Signet of Shadows. I run 1268 toughness, and 1372 Vitality (15k health).

As Ravnodaus has said above, Death Blossom is your friend for Condition thieves. If you time it properly, the Death Blossom procs as an “evade”, which can be used with the trait “Expeditious Dodger” which gives swiftness, helping with that little escape.

S/P has Infiltrators Strike, has a 1 1/2 second immobilize, deal your damage, then use it’s second ability to get back out of range, and repeat.

Shortbow has an ability called “Infiltrators Arrow”, where you shadow step to wherever you shot your arrow.

Heartseeker can be used to escape situations, as long as you’re not targetting an enemy.

We have shadow Refuge, where you throw a healing AOE on the ground and gives you stealth to aid your escape.

There’s many other skills the thief has that can aid you to deal damage and NOT get hit.

You got to use your initiative with a thief, literally ;P

I don’t seem to have much problem playing a thief, i can easily take on a veteran mob 1v1 without even going down and even groups of 4 mobs.

In battle i am NEVER stood still, always running while using shortbow, use 3rd skill to cripple, lay down poison, hit 2nd skill for bleed, steal..stealth..swap to dagger/dagger.. backstab from behind..cloak and dagger..backstab…easy kill.

I’ve even taken on rangers and warriors in pvp/wvw

Ehh did someone say that thieves have very little escape power? I call troll on this one xD
They got the most escape power (abilities) of all prof imho:b I think guardians got the least.
Dual pistol are awesome, but daggers gives huge amount of dmg. I think that Dervy is right, thiefmis not you profession, you might have to reroll.. Nothing wrong with the profession or you..
But the profession can’t adapt to your playstyle and you apparently can’t adapt to the professions playstyle, so might as well try the other professions:)

A little trick is to make a lvl 1 and head to the mist.. It gives you a feeling on how the class plays end game:)

On-topic short bow can save your life, blinding powder, shadow refuge and/or pistol off-hand for blind:) and getting vitality and toughness on your gear is a blessing^^
15 i acrobatic also helps a lot, and with 10 in trickery you can really kite those Kittens!

Well, if you’re dying a lot when running around solo (at any level), you’re definitely doing it wrong.

I went Sword/Pistol from pretty much 1-80, and it was completely smooth sailing. Lay down Blind, and make judicious use of interrupts. Pistol Whip usually does the job, and it has a nice evade during the flurry. If you need to interrupt at range, use Headshot. Often, interrupts aren’t even necessary, and you can just cleave your way through 5+ enemies by keeping up Blind. Use the stealth skill as your Heal skill, it can get you out of pretty much everything. I invested into crit traits and the ones on the bottom.

I might be old fashion here but I found the best pve we to be short bow. I fought my way up from lvl 1 to lvl 80 in pve with a short bow main hand 93% of the time, even against veterans/champions solo.

My Pve specs and gears are in full power/precision, with the stealth heal, roll for initiative, shadow refuge and the speed boost signet.

Short bow have the greatest dmg aoe wise, with a cookie cutter build, you can kill 3-5 mobs really fast. After ~5 cluster bombs, they should be dead or about to, so even if they knock you down, you can still rally easily. Or you can roll for initiative if youre quick enough and spam 2-3 more cluster bombs. The 3 utility skills are for mobility. The thing is you gotta know your strength. Can you survive against them? If not, stealth and rethink your strategy. The 2 stealth skills you have can give you a lots of stealth time. Roll for initiative can be great against the unwanted showdowns or spiders.

Short bow is also great for 1v1 against veterans or champions due to it great mobility. The crippling shot is like an extra dodge and also cripple them. I always kite the target until its <50 health and then change to d/d and charge in. Sure its slower but its safer with a full dmg gears.

You’re still low lvl to fully experience the thief, it’ll get easier if you spec right. Remember to focus on 1 or 2 things you do best only, dont build your thief to be a jack of all trades and a master of none.

What I’ve found is not so much that Thieves are UP as much as they are very squishy. I died a TON in PVE until I realized that I just shouldn’t get hit. Obviously this is easier said then done, but i found focusing on dodging attacks and using stealth alot helped.

A lot of your skill choice and build seems to be biased towards damage. (In my opinion, D/D is geared towards killing stuff quickly, with a bonus cripple and a really high cost stealth) So you might consider making one more of your utility skills more defensive. How much mileage are you getting out of Spider Venom? And are you remembering to use Assassin’s Signet? Whichever one feels less impactful, consider switching it out for Blinding Powder (A great “Oh crap” button), or Roll for Initiative (An escape, plus reloading a lot of your initiative for a Cloak & Dagger or Retreating Shot or what have you.)

As far as weapon set tips go: For D/D, don’t go below 4 initiative unless you’re winning / about to end it. You want Cloak & Dagger available, since it can buy you 3 seconds to wait for your heal to come off cooldown, and generally just drop the focus of your enemies.

For P/P: If you’re kiting, most of the time you shouldn’t be taking too much damage. If they ever get up in your face, fire blinding shot and hold your ground. (Possibly switch to D/D while you’re at it?) As long as they’re within the cloud, they can’t do damage to you with regular attacks. (AoEs can still work though, so be aware.)

Things to try and consider, in case you haven’t already.

I’m liking dagger/dagger; pistol/dagger. I used dagger/dagger on single targets and kite groups with pistol/dagger. On singles I like to use 5 to stealth and back stab. Take the 15 point ability in the top tier, the one that gives weakness on poison. Your auto attack with dagger applies poison so now you apply weakness too. This reduces damage a lot. Run round in circles, a lot of mobs only hit once every few seconds and you can miss a lot of this just by moving. And stealth, get behind them and back stab. On groups I run round in a circle while auto attacking with pistol and using 4 (the thrown dagger that bounces) every few seconds. The thrown dagger is an amazing ability because it bounces to up to 4 targets. It’s pretty good damage along with the cripple on 1 target, on 2 or more it’s amazing. Even on 2 targets you get all 4 hits as it bounces back and forth. Add poison and now they all have a dot on them as well.

Ravnodaus.5130:

I’ve used a D/D condition damage build for my thief while leveling. I focused on stacking up condition damage for equipments. And in traits for more initiative/dodge/stealths. It basically just spams Deathblossom, the d/d combo skill, and stays moving the whole time, like seriously never stop moving. The caltrops on dodge skill was handy for keeping the enemy just out of range, else Dancing Dagger works for that just as well.

Seriously, this.

When I started my thief, I felt the same way. I was dying constantly, and I felt like there was something I was missing, because I never died that often on my ranger or my warrior, or even my engineer.

If you’re using D/D, your best bet is to load up on condition damage and kite. Kite like hell. Death Blossom whenever you can, and load up with initiative recovery skills/traits. I’m currently using Roll for Initiative utility skill, along with the traits that regenerate initiative when I use Steal, and when I stealth. Then I have 4 different skills that can stealth me (5, once I get the trait that stealths when I steal), which means I can constantly keep 6-9 stacks of bleeds up on multiple targets. Pair that up with the trait that drops caltrops when you dodge, and it becomes a fight to misdirect and evade damage, rather than soak it.

I can’t express how important it is to get used to dodging attacks. Even the non-telegraphed attacks by some mobs can be dodged if you get a feel for how often they attack.

Nowadays, I usually gather 3-4 mobs and spam death blossom, and kite them around the area, popping stealth when I need to drop aggro or reposition or just gain back some initiative.

I know it’s a bit soon since you’re probably low level, but don’t forget your elite once you reach 30. In PVE thieves guild is very strong, both for reducing aggro on you but also for damage. I pop that on veteran mobs or when there are more then 4 mobs attacking me.

I play as a thief and finally reached level 80 and it was a complete pain in thekitten The thief is by far the most underpowered class

As a thief farming for money in Orr… You have got to be kidding me.

It takes 4 seconds to unload 20k damage worth of DoTs on large mob groups and then you kite and dodge as you wait for stuff to die. How are we underpowered?

To the OP, it’s good in low levels to pick up some +toughness and +vitality (also good in higher levels really), as well as defensive utilities like Blinding Powder.

This game’s mechanics punish pure glass cannons severely by exponantially spiking damage done to any profession with zero toughness investment.

@Major Squiggles.8257

I’m a thief that rarely goes into hiding (specially cause I pull mostly 3-5 mob packs) and I very rarely die.

Death Blossom + Signet of Malice = survivability. You can add whirlwind to that to heal yourself to full.

This is a pretty well known concept and works great.

Bear in mind I haven’t got a single point in Toughness or Vitality.

Occasionaly I die but that’s due to some inadvertly spawn.

You should have some points in Acrobatics so you can dodge 3 times instead of 2.
Also you need to start using your utilities or change them with better ones.

I was able to solo elite mobs and kill small groups of adds (3-5) with Caltrops and Death Blossom.

Shadow Refuge is a life saver and Thieves Guild as Elite also helps.

Sorry, this is the best i can do for you now its up to you.

PS. did all that with D/D + SB (personal preference)

Just wanted to share my 5 cents, as I have been levelling with my thief and almost exactly the same specs, except for putting a bit more into vitality as well.

First thing you have to realise is that thief is not face-to-face tank type damage dealing profession, so running up to mobs and turning on auto-attack will lead you to your demise, especially with the way you have built your thief without any surviveability.

The way I play my D/D + SB thief is this (and I can deal with 2-4 mobs at a time without much trouble and I am not close to being any hardcore MMORG gamer) – run up to the mob/s ,do 2-3 death blossoms over them, then dodge away to replenish initiative while they bleed, now depending on how healthy they are, you can either:
1st – come back for more death blossoms (most likely in case of 2-3 weaker mobs)
2nd – come back with heartseeker (in case of one weaker mob)
3rd – change to bow and kite them away with poison shots/cluster bombs

If you are fighting one strong (veteran) mob, use steal+stealth for some nice backstabs and heal yourself in the process, make them bleed with death blossom and if all else fails, switch to shortbow and use 3rd skill, which slows them down to kite them as long as necessary.

The key to playing thief is staying mobile, evading or in stealth while still dealing damage. Death blossom is the simplest solution as it lets you also evade and do insane amounts of damage, so common mobs go down in 3-4 seconds and you are left without a scratch.

Later when you level on I recommend using utility skills that grant speed – Signet of shadows (for easier kiting and adventuring) and Shadow refuge, which basically grants you 10 seconds of peace and quiet if you run into problems you cannot solve. I have also traited in acrobatics and trickery to leave caltrops and gain swiftness whenever I dodge, which is useful for getting away from the face-to-face situations thieves are not so good at.

Hope this helps

I’ve been reading this thread and I noticed something I find interesting. It seems like all of the folks who are having a lot of trouble playing a thief have something in common. Like me, they are all trying to use D/D.

I use D/D and Shortbow, myself. I found myself getting slaughtered once I got to around lv 16. At that point, I couldn’t find any hearts around my level and I started moving into areas that are one level higher than me and I got eaten alive.

Of course, I try to soften up my opponts a little with Shortbow, but honestly I just don’t find this very satisfying.

After lots of trial and error, I was able to find a way to survive and win against a single mob. I was fighting Ettins and I would watch very carefully for their big wind-up and then do something to make sure I wasn’t there when it hit. Most often, I used Deathblossom so that by the time the bit hit came, I was behind the big brute. If I run out of initiative, there are other ways to avoid the hit, like double-tapping. But all of his is extremely dicey. If I miss just once, I’m down.

And just forget about fighting two mobs at once. It’s impossible with D/D.

Am I wrong? Or is a D/D thief just not a viable choice?

And just forget about fighting two mobs at once. It’s impossible with D/D.

Am I wrong? Or is a D/D thief just not a viable choice?

I use D/D/ SB myself and I didn’t have much trouble leveling up. Yes it’s true you can sometimes be underleveled with all hearts complete in which case I reccomend to go WvW to get extra xp or just do a bit of crafting to compensate for it.

Early on I recommend you get condition dmg and power and bleed your opponents out. Trust me it will hurt them.

So I guess it’s a very viable choice you just have to bear in mind you can’t be fighting toe to toe with mobs. Death Blossom evades, deals dmg and leaves dots. Those dots will do good dmg with cond dmg.

I even can say I didn’t use shortbow much and I still don’t use it that often other than in dungeons or world bosses that can hit you pretty hard and you can’ t see it coming due to the clutter in melee.

Or you can ignore the power if you prefer since you will mostly be doing damage through dots and go toughness instead. You don’t need precision unless you want to go hybrid since as far as I know, dots don’t crit.

And ofc use and abuse of Steal.

PS Ettins are easy to avoid but are amongst the most durable normal mobs in the game.

Meph.2709:

Hey all,

I’m new to GW2. I tried a necromancer for a few levels and didn’t get in to it, so I rolled a thief and instantly enjoyed the game. It’s a really fun class to play. The only problem I have is that I seem to die A LOT. Doing any sort of quest against monsters of the same level I have to be super careful to fight 1v1 or else I will almost certainly die. Any time I fight something even a single level above me I get destroyed.

Hey mitch! Ive released a couple videos with players iust like you in mind! There are a ton of things to do to help a thief survive but i illustrate a couple in depth here. I hope this helps!

Look forward to some more advanced thief techniques including trait builds as well as other class skill usage, remember guild wars 2 is a toolbox game all about understanding how each tool works and then applying the right tool to the right situation!

Running D/D i would use LDB+Caltraps, Evade+cripple+bleed takes down even the toughest targets. I still use it to this day for solo pve. It only gets better with D-Storm.

Okay… so I’ve read through all the thief weapon abilities and skills and I still can’t figure out what LDB is.

Leaping Death Blossom

Oh. The “L” threw me off. There’s no “Leaping” on mine, it’s just “Death Blossom”.

OmegaAngel.2653:

learn to use your dodge effectively. some monsters have a chargeup for their biggest hitting skills, generally with some kind of cc like knock back or knock down. your dodge will generally override your current attack, unless you’re in the middle of death blossom, so use your dodge immediately when you see them charge up. avoiding these while kiting circles around monsters should help you survive without having to get better gear.
also dancing dagger is a great skill when fighting off multiple enemies. bounces 4 times and cripples them which allows you to kite easier.

This. Learn to dodge well and use the shortbow skill 3 (Disabling Shot) or Dagger/Dagger skill 4 (Dancing Dagger) often. Also note that Dancing Dagger hits up to 4 targets so it’s a great skill to use with poisons & bleeds when there is more than 1 target.

The Thief is all about damage and evasion with emphasis on evasion. You will die a lot if you let yourself become a target or act like a tank. You cannot take hits. You will feel them.

Dance around, kite, use invisibility, dodge, evade, and cripples to your advantage. A good thief can go through many combats, even solo, without taking a single hit.

As an experienced 80 Thief, I see many lower level thieves fail in low level zones many times. This was because they rushed head first into the enemy with dual daggers and only used auto attack standing in one place.
In order to efficiently play Thief you need to teach yourself how to strafe auto attack and use your skills at the right time.
Signet of Malice is a lot better in PvE especially if you are using Sword/Pistol.
If you want to use D/D, start with crippling dagger at max range, then run in and use CnD positioning yourself behind the enemy for backstab. You should have done at least 1/2 damage while still on full hp.

I’ve died over 350 times and it doesn’t bother me because I’ve screwed up by accidentally hitting a veteran while using Dagger Storm or just a patrol group passing by.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.guildwars2guru.com%2Ftopic%2F60762-condition-life-leecher-for-wvwvwpve%2F

This build changed my life.

The build is solid, gduber, but the 30 points in shadow arts are all unnecessary overkill. I run 0 shadow arts and Signet of Malice + Assassin’s Reward are sufficient to keep me at >90 % HP most of the time in PvE.

Running something like that will probably make you unkillable in PvE even if you don’t bother to dodge, but if you introduce even a little movement you can drop 30 points in an offensive tree instead of a defensive one and vastly increase your kill rate at pretty much no loss to defense.