Guild Wars 2

I recently started messing around with GW2 again… after being away since the first few months the game was out. Since then, of course, they reworked stuff and locked in a bunch of things on my character’s builds that I find… well, sub-optimal. On all my characters I have some free hero points to work with though.

My Thief is currently level 55 and has about 155 hero points saved up …so enough to max out two specialization paths (or whatever they’re called, sorry I forget some terms). Thing is, most of the info I’ve looked up seems outdated or geared towards end-game, HoT PvP/WvW builds.

I’m looking for a solid SOLO leveling PvE build to go from 55-80 smoothly. You don’t need to get ultra-detailed… I’d be happy with:
Spec 1: X
Spec 2: Y
Spec 3: Z
Weapon Set 1: A
Weapon Set 2: B
Any more info is appreciated, but the above would at least give me a running start…
Thanks in advance for any info!

Here’s my suggestion — build condition damage;
Trait Line
- Deadly Arts – Dagger Training, Deadly Trap, Potent Poison
- Acrobatics – Pain response, Guarded, Upper Hand
- Trickery – Uncatchable, Trickster, Bewildering Ambush

Weapon Set 1: Dagger / Dagger
Weapon Set 2: Shortbow
Weapon Sigils: of Venom / of Agony

Armor stats: Carrion
Armor Runes: Rune of the Afflicted

Heal Skill: Signet of Malice
Utility Skill 1: Ambush
Utility Skill 2: Caltrops
Utility Skill 3: Needle Trap
Elite Skill: Dagger Storm

Your main weapon here is shortbow and the purpose is to gather as many mob you can aggro, spread Choking Cloud and Caltrops…watch the mobs at your level melts like ice under a hot sun. The D/D weapon set is mainly for bosses. Dagger Training will ensure that your Death Blossom will apply poison in addition to the bleed. Upper Hand and Pain Response will make sure that you’re topped off when you evade or when you missed an evade (respectively). Carrion armor is a great starting point, but you would want Dire if you can find/purchase them. Just keep your distance from the mobs and you’ll be just fine. Also, if you’re getting too much pressure, drop the Ambush trap to call a decoy to give yourself a breather.

When I was leveling up my 3rd Thief, I used this setup, pop all the EXP boosts I have and simply gather some mobs and watch them melt, even those who are higher level than me. You’ll be 80 in no time.

For leveling, I would simply go S/P with berzerker’s gear (or as close as you can manage). With the vast majority of mobs you can just spam autoattack/pistol whip and things will very quickly die. Black powder can be used if you find yourself taking too much damage and need a blind. Take both the power and precision signet when you can, which should be most of the time, and bam you’re set.

This was the build I used all the way up through HoT maps until I unlocked daredevil. Very easy (mindless even), very effective way to level. And that way, also no need to worry about condition gear while leveling.

Spec 1: Crit
Spec 2: Deadly Arts
Spec 3: Trickery

(You want +%damage and +%crit damage).

Weapon Set 1: S/P
Weapon Set 2: SB

healing signet
power signet
precision signet
movement signet
elite: w/e

Stats: +Power is best. +Precision is 2nd best. +Ferocity is 3rd best.

Basically, use pistol 5 for blinding field and auto attack away. Use pistol whip for more healing. All your damage traits and +power gear is there to augment this simple process. Shortbow is for running around faster. Bloodlust stacking is your friend.

Wow, this guy is actually copy pasting the same post in almost every class sub forum Nothing wrong with that, just saw the same post in the Guardian/Ranger section and though it was cute ^^

A large part of leveling in GW2 revolves around getting to places fast, tagging stuff and follow the crowd unless you wanna kill monsters to level which is extremely slow.

Spec the current meta d/p build (and play around with different weapon set) coz you are gonna have to learn to dodge every single sneeze coming at you anyway.

Personally i would just open a few dungeon reward track and go wvw, follow tag around map tagging everything with shortbow, help out here and there since those track reward give u a few leveling tomes and lots of mats, etc etc.

Raguel: When I left I had an 80 Mesmer and 55-ish every other class

I found solid current info on some, but the other 3 I wasn’t as sure of …thus the three very-similar posts :p (Ranger, Thief, and Guardian)

Think I should be good with this Thief info – Thanks all!

…still not sure on my Guardian or Ranger though…

Oh I don’t mind I was just amused when I saw the copy paste posts ^^ Last time I was leveling a guardian in HoT (it’s quite fun to do Dragon’s Stand on a lvl 35+ character xD), I had a greatsword and scepter/focus for the range and blocks. Sword/focus is nice for moving around a bit faster.