Guild Wars 2

Hey all. I have been running around leveling a thief and am at around level 15 or so, but am finding that I’m so squishy and lack the sustain to be able to chew through mobs for questing/leveling.

I’m doing sword/pistol but still seems to bean exercise in frustration. The armor I have is at level/masterwork and ive got health on it but still going squish too easily for my liking. Any suggestions? I’ve read the leveling guide for thieves but it is out of date regarding SP’s and such.

Not really, no. Pretty much practice makes perfect, and to use the blind field for negation.

yeah, stack your thief up with damage from cheap runes, strong armor (I think thats 15 otherwise just go power) and so on, along with whatever you can put in trinkets.

Buy it on the TP its easier.

But put it all in precision, ferocity and power.

If I remember I think I had pack and rage runes together but I dont really remember. You will need three different runes.

Then start to learn how to stay alive with thief, because part of staying alive as thief is killing the enemy and active defense. (Active dodging, active movement, and stealth.)

But stealth is a tad harder in PvE as mobs have auto targeting, they dont have to find you or anything.

Hi,

while having extra vitality on gear helps vs big hits from mobs, it won’t kill them. I found leveling to be easiest (and I leveled many alts and many thieves) when I go full dmg that is available to me at that particular lvl.

Put 6 × 10 power minor runes in (or if you find those that give power/prec or power/vitality when in set of two). Add minor bloodlust sigil to your weapon and get some cheap food with power or precision (also gives extra xp on kills). You don’t need the best in particular level but these small upgrades can add a lot to your attack strength.

You can be either squishy and hit hard or a bit less squishy and have a low dmg. Thief is not for tanking.

S/P is by far the better weapon spec for leveling, simply because of Black powder. It also allows you to go full damage, as mobs won’t even hit you.
Essentially, S/P is ‘easymode’ for thief/

Another viable option are condition builds. Using condi builds, you’ll gain a lot more survivablity and sustain. The only reason condition builds are not really used is because of the condition cap in dungeons. So there is really no reason to not use condition builds in the Open world during leveling.
Dire gear+, shadow arts, Caltrops, hard to catch, feline grace, P/D + richocchet, DD and Signet of malice, I guarantee your survival in every situation outside of champions and bosses.

I wouldn’t reccommend using condi gear as you level up.

Learn it the hard way! It will make you a better player.

Going condi spec with dire (toughness, vitality and condi damage) will make it so easy, it will make you a bad player (lol).
You can always change later, but you will need to learn when to dodge etc on your thief, so better get used to it early on :-)

It may look dark for you, but as soon as you learn The way of the Thief, it will be very satisfiying

Good luck :-)

You’re leveling?

Run a Shortbow, find the zerg in WvW/Edge of the mists(Follow the commander tag), join a group (Makes more kills count for EXP) and spam Poison fields all over the battle ground among the enemies you encounter.

Use food and utility buffs for the exp boosts(They stack), use vitality/defense boosting ones for added survivability. Use utility skills that help you stay alive/get away where needed.

Any banners/guild upgrades/boosters you have that increase exp gain are nice but optional.

Thieves are indeed squishy. Very squishy. The squishiest. Every Light Armor profession in the game is less squishy than Thieves. Find what works for you and your play style for staying alive.

Good luck and good hunting.

If it’s someone’s first character or first character in a particular class, lvling in eotm is the worst they can do. Fresh lvl 80s that have no idea how to play.

Hi Ione,

When I leveled my thief I went the dual dagger condi route, but now I play berserker dagger pistol. I also occasionally go sword pistol with signet of malice, in dungeons and tougher open world content.

I spec for high damage (either condi or crits) and rely on blinds, evades and healing for survival. As you mentioned SP I would highly recommend getting signet of malice as your heal, if you haven’t already got it. This combined with the SP dual skill Pistol Whip is great for surviving multiple mobs while dishing out lots of damage to a few of them.

I would get stats to increase power, precision and ferocity, and use utility skills and traits that can help you survive if you are finding the pistol whip malice combo not enough.

I use this build sometimes, and it is pretty strong in PvE. I can take on multiple mobs without any problems, and can finish them off pretty quickly too.

The thief is a squishy class, so you need to use your skills and traits to help you survive. Pistol whip + malice is more than enough to help you survive when fighting most groups of mobs, but when you need that extra help you have your utiliy skills and stealth utilizing traits. The linked build is what I often use in dungeons, and it works wonders, and it is usually more than capable in most open world PvE situations.

Of course, when you’re leveling, you don’t have access to all these things straight away, but it should give you an idea what to aim for and what skills and traits to unlock first. In general though, use your pistol skill 5 to blind multiple mobs (use positioning wisely), and use pistol whip + malice passive to regain health and hit them hard. Then use your utilities when you get in serious trouble.

Don’t worry if you are finding the thief hard at first. Once you learn the profession and get to grips with how to survive with it, it can be a very rewarding profession to play.

Blinds are your friend. I leveled my thief using dagger/pistol, that blind from shadow shot is very effective, plus black powder gives and AOE blind and access to stealth. Also: signet of malice is my favorite heal for thieves.

Shortbow is also really good for larger groups of mobs. It has an aoe blind (#5) and a very powerful aoe attack: cluster bomb. Just make sure you are in melee range when using cluster bomb and most importantly: Do not detonate it! It does more damage if you let it explode on it’s own, hits more targets, and if you are in melee range you can get this attack off more often.

make sure you are using gear that is all DPS. (Just power at low levels, Power, Precision, and Ferocity at higher levels) Thieves bets defends is their offense, other than that it’s all about blinds, stealth, and evades.

pistol off hand wins pve hard. Shortbow is by far most fun and best weapon for pve i think- great splash/weaken/AA hits 3 targets/kittenton of evade

in terms of traits get 1 in acro to have swiftness asap. When you get 2 points switch for trickery and thrill of the crime for swiftness uptime then get back to acro. on grandmaster go S/P all signets 6/6/0/2/0 to max dmg and have healing on crits, and you will be basicly zerking every mob you see.