Guild Wars 2

Looking for experienced Thief’s to give me some friendly advice on builds.

I have recently started leveling this class, it’s currently level 40 right now… I prefer using D/D and sometimes P/P. I am looking for a build that will let me deal good damage without being too squishy. Once I hit 80 I will be doing WvW and dungeons.

So any advice on builds, gear, upgrades and traits would be awesome. Thanks!

I’m level 50 using D/D and just asked a similar question the other day and got some good advice from the community.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Leveling-tips-for-50/first#post1767228

I decided on 0/0/0/20/20 and it does more damage than you would think, with the best survivability you can get at that level. In your case at level 40, try out 0/0/0/20/10. In Acro, get Might on Dodge, which gives you the power and condition damage you are missing from putting points in Strength, and for the 20 point trait you can switch between 2 init/10 seconds, or Assassin’s Reward which will heal you for every init point spent, making you much less squishy. Acro minors also give you swiftness and endurance back for more dodging which is good.

10 in Trickery is the best trait going so far with caltrops on dodge. Combined with the acro traits, your dodge is a great offensive weapon while letting you avoid lots of damage. I always have the full caltrops skill equipped and death blossom groups of mobs, they melt very quickly with this setup. Beyond that I have more to learn about the class, but I love this build for leveling.

Well… d/p + regen and 2 initiative on stealth will pretty much let you solo just about anything. Just drop black powder and then heartseeker before your last attack on the 2nd auto attack chain. Backstab, rinse and repeat.

Then you basically work up to either 30 in shadow arts for more regen, or 30 in crits for hidden killer.

d/d will deal slightly more dmg (you can backstab slightly more often), but you’ll have to deal with getting hit some more.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1g.h17.8.1g.h4|c.1g.h1h.a.1g.h4|1p.a7.1p.a7.1p.a7.1p.a7.1p.a7.1p.a7|4s.d1g.2s.e13.3s.e16.1c.61.1c.61.2v.e13|0.u63c.u56b.a1.0|40.1|57.5c.5b.5h.5v|e

This is what I use now for WvW, solo or small group roaming. Though there are a few things that I change out often. First being S/P, normally I run with a short bow for the normal reasons. The reason for S/P is access to pistol whip and the #5 blind. After the normal C&D→Steal→back stab I’ll swap to S/P to get a quick pistol whip in, most cases this will be a good amount of damage to down the opponent. The other change is anything will sigil of blood lust would be switched out for sigil of force when you hit 25 stacks. Elites, normally I only use dagger storm as it has the best utility and our only way to get stability but I often switch it out for thieves guild for particular scenarios, main one being snipping escorted yaks, they will normally give you that extra damage and distraction to focus the yak with out worry of the dirty invaders attacking you.

Disclaimer to this build: I have been playing it for quite some time now and even after the nerf to stealth I wanted to prove to my self that is it still a viable build. It is! Though I had to add a bit more defense (the soldier items) and change my play style a bit (more aggressive hence the S/P for after the D/D burst) Though there is a lot more room for mistakes that will other wise end up with your death.

If your set on wanting to use P/P (instead of S/P) you could switch out “side strikes” in the crit tree for “pistol mastery” and use it in the same way I use pistol whip. Basically after your opener switch to P/P and unload on them. (Don’t have much experience with this tactic my self and I normally find P/P thieves to be rather easy kills)

Since this is a level 80 build it won’t help much at your level as the 30 point traits in crit strikes and shadow arts are the key points of the build. For leveling get 15 in acrobatics for feline grace! IMO the best trait a thief has! (I don’t personally like condition thief game play so I’m bias on that) but stack damaging stats (power/condition damage) till you feel like your to squishy then add a bit of defense. Shoot for more toughness then vitality but try to find a good mix between them. I feel you can’t say get this number of stats to be perfect because how much defense you need is completely based off your skill level. As you get better your can drop more defense for offense.

Good luck and I hope you get to 80 and get the chance to feast on the tears of all the thief QQ’ers!

I run a lvl 80 thief, and i still change my gear sometimes at the moment i run:

Weapons: Berserkers Daggers, Beserker ShortBow. i run a sigl of bloodlust on dagger cant remember whats on the other

Armor: 4 pieces of Valkyrie, 2 pieces of Berserker, ruby orbs on all

Trinkets, All Berserker

Traits: 0/30/30/10/0
the 10 is for 50% reduced fall damage, gives me an extra sttealth in WvW and saves me a lot

i sit around 14.7l – 15.2K hp with this and i do about 7K BS.. i fi can land it, i usually miss :P

i have also run full condition build.. love this but takes forever to kill someone

full zerker.. not a fan, not enough survival

P/D, this is fun with perma stealth
P/P never liked
S/D so much fun
D/D my fav