Leveling thief... am I doing this right?
I have issues with picking a character and sticking with it so I have done about every classes 1-30 and I’d say you are going to feel like that with any prof. except guardian. I found that guardians had amazing survivability with mobs, but I feel like most in their early levels shouldn’t be pulling big mobs. Its a change from another MMO I played but I have adapted quite well. I’d suggest equipping shortbow for leveling because it offers a good escape in the 5 skill.
rTeapot,
Have you honestly tried out all of the various weapon combinations? While I had my own ideas going into the Thief class, the weapon combination I personally fell in love with was Sword / Pistol. Even if you prefer to run D/D as your standard weapon set, you might want to think about (S or D)/P as your 2nd weapon set.
Why the Off-Hand Pistol? #5 Black Powder is likely the answer to your problems. It creates a small AoE Blind field around where you were standing when you used the power. While it technically sends a ranged pistol bullet to your target that has a Blind attached to it, the real power is the left over AoE Blind field. Any mobs within that field will constantly get Blind re-applied to them. Therefore once they miss with Attack #1 (due to the Blind debuff), the AoE immediately re-applies Blind to make Attack #2 miss. Rinse and repeat. This method will basically make you immune to melee range combatants, though ranged mobs who are spread out will still give you real problems.
We are Test Group F. (Don’t ask about what happened to the previous Test Groups.)
I didn’t quite hit my stride with Thief until I picked up 5 in Trickery. With a condition damage build and the healing signet, it all starts coming together. I mostly run P/D, with an in-and-out combat style. I get into melee for Steal and Cloak & Dagger, and tumble away dropping caltrops as I go. With multiple opponents I use more caltrops and Dancing Dagger. At this point, my Thief can deal with a tough enemy about as well as my Guardian can, but it’s a fun short-range kiting and skirmish style rather than facetanking.
This game is all about survival and self preservation :P To do this you need to mitigate damage, take none at all or kill the mobs first. Your tools are all there but their potency is limited at low levels. Our best way to mitigate damage is stealth imho. It drops aggro until you unstealth and allows you to run or just get a quick breather if things start getting messy. Note if a mob has initiated an attack before you stealth it will still hit if you are in ranged and don’t dodge but will not drop you from stealth. Black Powder is also a very strong option as noted in previous posts.
Single targets you may do well with D/D Cloak and Dagger>Backstab combo. D/P Black Powder>Heartseeker>Backstab could be good for multiple mobs but watch your initiative. D/D Deathblossom is nice for 3 to 4 mobs in a group, throw 2 or 3 on and run away, let the bleed do the damage, wade back in and finish um off when you have initiative for another strike. S/P could be good for you, Pistol Whip gives you evasion while it is going and does respectable damage, this load-out also gives you Black Powder blind field and Sword hits 4 targets in front of you iirc. I prefer Short Bow as a secondary weapon.
My suggestion is to gear Vitality and Power to allow for trying different weapon load-outs as you level. If you like the stealth>backstab route trait 10 in Shadow Arts for Shadow Infusion at lvl 20. If you like S/P Acrobatics 10 for Power of Inertia and more Vitality may be good or Deadly Arts 10 for Mug maybe.
When you hit Tier 2 traits I really like Trickery 15 for Preparedness.
GL
Blood~
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance”
(edited by Bloodgruve.6038)
D/D is simply weak early on.
You need Traits to back it up before it gets good.
Just continue using Power/Precision gear and switch your offhand to pistol.
With D/P you can use [Shadow Shot] and [Black Powder] to keep either one or multiple mobs blinded so that you don’t take any damage.
If you fight one mob at a time you can literally just hit [Shadow Shot], let your auto attack chain finish once, and repeat to take no damage at all from the vast majority of enemy types.
If you get adds, use only [Black Powder] for as long as you can while letting auto attack do all the damage, then dodge out and swap to Shortbow to finish off anything that’s left.
It’s really quite safe and the killspeed is amazing.
Also, make sure you’re using [Hide in Shadows] while leveling instead of [Signet of Malice] because the condition curing is important and it gives you another escape if you get overwhelmed.
(edited by Moderator)
I’m running 22/0/0/20/15 d/d and sb with healing signet, spider venom, caltrops, signet of shadows and dagger storm. I was built for straight toughness and vitality and I died all the time because mobs weren’t dying. Now I just bleed kite things. Pull groups with cluster bomb, dodge with uncatchable to spam caltrops and then use caltrops and spam death blossom. With everything crippled and bleeding you can run around with sb and spider venom and add cluster bombs as needed. Things die so fast and you can avoid damage while dealing bleed damage constantly. I can get 20 stacks of bleeds on right off the bat. I highly recommend this play style for leveling.
I had a really hard time sticking with my thief early on as a D/D – P/D.
My issue was I was being torn apart, even when fighting lower level mobs.
I retraited and at ~L20 I dumped all my points into Shadow Arts first, then into Acrobatics.
My gear is toughness/vitality with runes for +condition dmg/duration. My jewelry was made with power/precision to round things out.
After these changes Im really enjoying the D/D. Blossom is always awesome, the cloak and dagger is great..
I run around with mostly sigils for the passive effect since the weapon skills are usually enough. Caltrops are nice for when you get more than a couple..or just to add extra bleeding dmg for a veteran kill.
This may not be the best route to take, but It was like night and day after going with this.
DD is about CnD, then backstabs and finishing with HS. LDB for adds. I have the trait to drop caltrops on dodge, so that and LDB pretty much handle anything for me.
And yeah… you’ll need a few levels/traits before stuff really comes together. Try different builds too. I thought I’d like pistols and swords… but nah…
(Alvyn | Crystal Desert )
Just use the caltrops utility
Possibly also d/d 3 or sb 2
(edited by ens.9854)
D/D starts pretty weak, but it really isn’t THAT bad. You want to steal, CnD, wait until stealth is about to drop, backstab, auto till revealed is gone, repeat and dodge when needed on certain foe attacks and heartseeker them once they are low. Use Steal special abilities in there as well. You can also chain in Caltrops, which you should be using as one of your utilities instead of Assassin’s Signet, this will up your aoe damage and allow you to kite tougher mobs around and regain initiative while the enemy is slowed and taking damage from your dots.
Ok, so basically the title says it all. I have been leveling my thief and am level 13 now, but I just feel underpowered for some reason. I am a D/D thief, and have so far put all of my points into Critical Strikes. I try to get gear that focuses on power and precision. I use signet of agility and assassins signet, but for some reason I just feel weak. I can down mobs my level fairly quickly, but if 2-3 get on me I will usually end the fight with little to no health. I read on the forums about how PvE is quite easy, but I am just having a hard time with it. So any strategies you guys and gals can pass on to help me out a little while trying to level?
Full glass cannon builds aren’t going to do you any good, especially in questing/dungeons. Add some from acrobatics or shadow arts. A high crit chance and attack power aren’t going to do you much good if you’re lying there “dead”. PvP is a different story: Your opponents have far less HP than champs that can two shot you and have large HP pools, but some defense is still important.