Just started a thief
Any advice would be appreciated!
what do you plan to do most with it? PvE? WvW? sPvP?
Wu Táng Financial [Táng] – YB
what do you plan to do most with it? PvE? WvW? sPvP?
PvE cause I’m leveling and I may go into some WvW occasionally
Use Sword/Pistol to level. Just use #5 and auto attack.
Use Sword/Pistol to level. Just use #5 and auto attack.
So shortbow isn’t viable for leveling? What is the shortbow good for?
Use Sword/Pistol to level. Just use #5 and auto attack.
So shortbow isn’t viable for leveling? What is the shortbow good for?
Uh… standing the back of a zerg in WvW being a wuss, and spammable blast finisher. I wouldnt say its very good for leveling.
reroll, you still got time!
reroll, you still got time!
Why?
The shortbow is popular as a second weapon set. The reason being is that even with a full-on damage build, it can’t hit the kind of damage numbers that other weapon sets can. What it does have is a great deal of utility.
For example, drop a choking gas cloud on a group of enemies, then detonate that cloud with a Cluster Bomb. The enemies will all be effected by Weakness (making them deal 50% less damage 50% of the time) and Poison (slight damage over time and 33% less healing) for a few seconds. The cluster bomb can also be tossed into other player’s fields for a wide variety of useful effects, like stacking Might from fire fields, and is the only ability in the game that can do this without a cooldown.
Unfortunately, the lower damage is a deal breaker for most people, given how important it is in most harder content and structured pvp.
The shortbow is popular as a second weapon set. The reason being is that even with a full-on damage build, it can’t hit the kind of damage numbers that other weapon sets can. What it does have is a great deal of utility.
For example, drop a choking gas cloud on a group of enemies, then detonate that cloud with a Cluster Bomb. The enemies will all be effected by Weakness (making them deal 50% less damage 50% of the time) and Poison (slight damage over time and 33% less healing) for a few seconds. The cluster bomb can also be tossed into other player’s fields for a wide variety of useful effects, like stacking Might from fire fields, and is the only ability in the game that can do this without a cooldown.
Unfortunately, the lower damage is a deal breaker for most people, given how important it is in most harder content and structured pvp.
I don’t mind sacrificing damage for utility. Are there any builds with shortbow as primary weapon for PvE because I really like the shortbow and want to level with it.
The shortbow is popular as a second weapon set. The reason being is that even with a full-on damage build, it can’t hit the kind of damage numbers that other weapon sets can. What it does have is a great deal of utility.
For example, drop a choking gas cloud on a group of enemies, then detonate that cloud with a Cluster Bomb. The enemies will all be effected by Weakness (making them deal 50% less damage 50% of the time) and Poison (slight damage over time and 33% less healing) for a few seconds. The cluster bomb can also be tossed into other player’s fields for a wide variety of useful effects, like stacking Might from fire fields, and is the only ability in the game that can do this without a cooldown.
Unfortunately, the lower damage is a deal breaker for most people, given how important it is in most harder content and structured pvp.
I don’t mind sacrificing damage for utility. Are there any builds with shortbow as primary weapon for PvE because I really like the shortbow and want to level with it.
There really isn’t much in the thief traits that caters to the shortbow. There is Power Shots, which is quite possibly the worst damage trait you can take. It only offers +5% damage, gives no other bonuses (other than harpoon gun damage), just doesn’t scale well with the shortbow’s already low damage, and is nested 20 deep in the Shadow Arts tree, which is all about stealth, which the shortbow doesn’t directly offer (unless you take Smoke Screen and detonate it with Cluster Bomb).
Leveling, at least to 40 or 60, the various builds you find around these boards won’t do you a whole lot of good. A lot of them rely on various synergies that just won’t be available to you before then, so I wouldn’t start sweating builds during your leveling phase. If you see some appealing traits, try them and see how they work for you. Respecs are extremely cheap. Early on, the first trait line (the one with Power) is often nice, simply because it offers more bonus damage than you’ll be getting from your gear at those levels.
Try all of the utilities as you go. Because you won’t be building around the bow, what types of utilities you like will probably dictate the kind of build you enjoy. Like, venom builds are rather popular. Some people hate venoms, and so offering them a venom build would be pointless. With that information in mind, builds should be much easier to zone in on.
The reason sword/pistol is a good idea for leveling is because of its ability to deal with mobs. Thief doesn’t really have a ton of AoE’s it is mostly single target skills, with the exception of sword and short bow.
Clusterbomb is your best AoE tool I would defn recommend having SB as your offset with sword/pistol as your main set. If nothing else it is gratifying spamming 5 on shortbow and blinking all over the map to move faster.
I would also recommend patience. Before you hit level 40 thieves are notoriously difficult to level unless you are overleveled (i.e. you finish kryta starting level and then do the norn, then charr, then sylvari, etc and by the time you’re done with all that ur level 35 heading into a level 15-25 zone, etc. I recommend this for any class you are leveling btw, its also good for map completion =D). After level 40 thieves gain access to some of the better shadow arts traits which help your survivability immensely.
Do NOT try going glass cannon d/d backstab build at level 20, your burst will not be high enough at that point to kill anything.
EDIT: I personally had my thief as my first toon in gw2 as well, and I leveled with a d/d condition build. I really liked it due to the AoE capabilities of the d/d #3 ability. Made getting to level 80 a lot of fun. Problem is that this condi build is not viable at level 80 when you want to do dungeons and such
(edited by Silver.4798)