Guild Wars 2

My Thief recently got to 80, so naturally I started looking towards dungeons and fractals. Well, it was Fractals daily that got me really thinking about them. I was lucky to get into a group of 3 other Fractals newbs, so we all started with our lvl 1 Fractal to get our feet wet.
It was a sobering experience. I died so many times, I felt like a complete kitten after two Fractals and decided not to do them, until I’ve managed to learn a bit more about my class. It’s just not fair to others in my team, if they need to keep rezzing me as I am not prepared for such a huge step up from ordinary PVE.

I can see there are numerous threads about Thief in Fractals or Dungeons, but they are all months old, so my question would be, if those pointers are still valid, or should I try to find some more recent ones?
My biggest problem was with AOEs. What is the best way to counter that, besides avoiding them? In a Fractal with “Dulfy”, everything around me was one huge red circle. What to do in such situation?

Let me tell you, it doesn’t help my ego, seeing players soloing Dungeons with their Thief. But, it does help in me in understanding there’s much to learn about it.

I even made a new Warrior in attempt to level him to 80, learn about Dungeon and Fractal mechanics, and then do them with my Thief. But after all this time, playing a Warrior feels so … “static”. I just can’t find the same level of enjoyment out of him as I do with my Thief.

I will probably keep slowly leveling Warrior, while getting better gear and missing traits on my Thief and trying to learn more about his combos, and trait changes one needs to do for different encounters, but any kind of tip would really be appreciated.
So far, I’ve found the most fun with D/D and D/P, but I see I will have to dwell into SB and S/P more than I have.

Hi! Welcome to the shadows.

Warrior is indeed a more static class, and Thief is just so much more fun!
So if you like that playstyle, don’t shelve him/her because you feel it’s challenging.

As for AOE’s, it all comes down to move outside that big red circle. Warrior’s probably could stand in them and like “is something touching me?”… A Thief can’t do that. Unfair, right? :-P

As a Thief you have to be more aware of your surroundings, and act fast.

What traits and gear are you using?

mompen.7952:

Hi! Welcome to the shadows.

Warrior is indeed a more static class, and Thief is just so much more fun!
So if you like that playstyle, don’t shelve him/her because you feel it’s challenging.

As for AOE’s, it all comes down to move outside that big red circle. Warrior’s probably could stand in them and like “is something touching me?”… A Thief can’t do that. Unfair, right? :-P

As a Thief you have to be more aware of your surroundings, and act fast.

What traits and gear are you using?

I just turned 80, so most of my gear, while being lvl 75-80, is there mostly because it looked better than what I had before. I usually prefer increase in power, precision or ferocity over toughness, vitality and condition damage.
I got most of it while fighting world bosses and my decision to change it based mostly on it’s color . I know it’s not the most practical way of doing it, but yellow or gold does look better .
The same goes for traits. I have whatever I got while leveling. I recently made a list of traits I would like to get, so my next priority is to find zones I need to uncover or activities I need to do in order to get them.

Is it better to make the necessary gear myself, buy it from others, or continue doing bosses and PVE and wait for something good to drop into my lap?

Hahahahalol all new thieves will experience the same situation. Unless if you’re not new to the game of course. Anyway, the important part about being a thief is to know your trait lines like the back of your hand. It’s usually best to let your build synergies with your weapons:) you can of course make up your own builds an improvise a few during your free time but don’t get overwhelmed by it by changing it vigorously. Especially during tough pve levels like fractals. Maybe you can try a few spvp matches to help improve your gameplay with the thief overall. Oh and you can affectively avoid heavy aoe bosses by bringing a sword mainland:)s/d preferably. How? Skill2 infiltrator’s strike/return. Teleport all over the map like a boss bruh8|

Do you play on EU and do you still need the trait “hidden killer”? If so, msg me in game – my mesmer sits there =)

In general: I use all weapons thieves have got in dungeons/fractals – I don’t change the traits and only switch from blinding powder to smoke screen if I know there are bosses/mobs who shoot projectiles. Same goes for when I know multiple mobs are ahead, then I switch to signet of malice, daggestorm, SB and S/P. If it’s a usual single boss, I use D/D.
I run a 06620 build with valk armor, zerker trinkets and weapons. You can also use full zerker though, the valk has a bit more vitality but it’s not that important. There are tons of ways of getting that armor – dungeons, wvw, TP, crafting. Ruby orbs instead of runes are usually enough for the start. And I honestly wouldn’t wait for it to drop

symke.3105:

mompen.7952:

Hi! Welcome to the shadows.

Warrior is indeed a more static class, and Thief is just so much more fun!
So if you like that playstyle, don’t shelve him/her because you feel it’s challenging.

As for AOE’s, it all comes down to move outside that big red circle. Warrior’s probably could stand in them and like “is something touching me?”… A Thief can’t do that. Unfair, right? :-P

As a Thief you have to be more aware of your surroundings, and act fast.

What traits and gear are you using?

I just turned 80, so most of my gear, while being lvl 75-80, is there mostly because it looked better than what I had before. I usually prefer increase in power, precision or ferocity over toughness, vitality and condition damage.
I got most of it while fighting world bosses and my decision to change it based mostly on it’s color . I know it’s not the most practical way of doing it, but yellow or gold does look better .
The same goes for traits. I have whatever I got while leveling. I recently made a list of traits I would like to get, so my next priority is to find zones I need to uncover or activities I need to do in order to get them.

Is it better to make the necessary gear myself, buy it from others, or continue doing bosses and PVE and wait for something good to drop into my lap?

I see! (note that you can also buy the traits for skill points, but if you don’t mind exploring, go ahead).

You can make your own armor, but it requires you too level your crafting, and it’s quite expensive and time consuming. I would recommend just buying the armor you want off the Trade Post.
You are focusing on the right stats for your armor, but since you are new to the Thief, starting out with only berserker gear (power, precision ferocity) can be a pain in the kittttten. So changing out a few of the armors with Valkyrie armor (some more health) or Cavalier/Knights armor (power, thoughness and ferocity/precision) can be a good idea. And then changing out pieces with berserker gear as you get more comfortable with the class.

@symke: Put 3 points into vitality trait line: those extra dodges and 1500 HP really make the difference. Also in precision trait line get 6 and 13 for 1000 more HP and great self healing. Also keep signet of agility as utility 24/7, it’s a real life saver.

For your specific exemple in the ascalon fractal, there’s nothing much you can do against those arrow carts aoes. Thankfully, they don’t hurt that much, and any small regen buff will overcome the damage you’re taking. Destroy the oil pots, burst dulfy and the gate, and move inside as quickly as you can. For general tips, use blinds on melee trash mobs, use smokescreen as a projectile defense skill between reflect gaps, and use 5/6/0/3/0 as mentioned above. For bosses, try to always be behind your target, both for additional damage and an easier time as some attacks are frontal cones. Swap between heals depending on the fight; signet of malice is great against sustained damage or multiple targets, whereas withdraw can mitigate bursts and deadly aoes and hide in shadows is a good condition clear.

One of your main job as a thief is knowing where to stealth, where to blast, where to stop and path mobs. This is a lesser problem in fractals are most mobs don’t need to be pathed, but for dungeons, you’ll have to wait at some specific locations to gather all mobs while stealthed.

Playing with a good team helps. Try to get exotic berserker gear as soon as possible to contribute to the damage output and rally off trash mobs. Don’t get used to pistolwhip ( S/P 3) spam. It messes up defiance on bosses and leaves you without initiative for blinds on trash mobs. This is all general advices, if you have trouble with a specific encounter, you can either pm me or ask on this topic and I, or others, will answer.

Good luck with your thief !

Thief is actually a wonderful class for dungeon content. It sports top-notch dps, a lot of active defenses to stay alive, stealth to skip, best blast finisher ingame and best user of conjured weapons.

You have to understand that thief relies on active defenses to stay alive. You don’t have heavy armor or 18000 HP to do the job for you. Dodging is one of the best active defenses ingame, and thieves get a lot of dodges thanks to Wild Strike, so ideally you should never run out of energy unless you waste dodges, so it’s very important to know the encounter and choose the right time to get out of the way.

Blind is king against packs of trash mobs, you can blind everything but defiant enemies. When a pack is attacking you and you’re stacked, drop Blinding Powder (S/P 5) or Smoke Screen and a lot of their attacks will miss.

Stealth is not that useful in pve, you basically use it just to Backstab and drop some aggro from time to time.

Use D/D for bosses and S/P for trash. When fighting bosses, place yourself behind the target, Cloak and Dagger, Backstab, execute one AA chain and one Double Strike, rinse and repeat. For trash use S/P and drop Black Powder and see their attack miss, also use Signet of Malice and if you are in trouble Pistol Whip to fully heal. Always bring your shortbow so you can blast finish fire fields with Cluster Bomb.

I advise you to start off with this build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZEQRAoY8al0MpxpFOx0JsPNRLRtdHEdjouXQA0XVA-TBCBwAGV+JRJI29HwpiDgTCQK9D6UPIwTAAA-e

It gives you extra HP, extra dodges (like unlimited dodges thanks to Wild Strike and Feline Grace) and quite a bit of healing thanks to Invigorating Precision. Assassin’s Signet improves your damage and once the boss reaches 25% HP pop it and then spam Heartseeker. Signet of Agility also improves your damage and it doubles as a condition removal and it fully refills your endurance and your teammates’, it’s really a wonderful skill. Use Shadowstep for break stun, since I assume you’re going to run AC at first you’re goint to need it against knockdowns, and condition cleanse. Use signet of malice when when stacking, and Withdraw when not. You can swap Shadowstep for Smoke Screen, if you need extra blinds, Shadow Refuge when you need to skip and don’t feel like swapping to shortbow (yeah I do that often because I’m a lazy kitten) and I also like to use Ambush Trap to have a little bit of extra DPS.

Once you feel comfortable with this build and manage to survive easily, swap out Valkyrie and go full berserker. Then, when you’re used to run full berserker, swap invigorating precision to executioner, and once you manage to survive without the extra healing, swap to this build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZEQRAoY8al0MpxpFOx0JsPNRLRtdHEdjIXzg2XQAEiA-TxBBwAY3fQiSQjK/AcSAwp+TK9DBeCAAA-e

You’ll have some less endurance since you lose Feline Grace but will gain a lot of damage and once you manage to survive you’ll never go back to previous builds. Thief takes a lot of practice to actually be decent in dungeon but once you manage to survive and deal a lot of damage it’s in my opinion the most satisfying class to use.

A big “thank you” to everyone.

I did my first AC story and P1 yesterday, and while still daunting, it was easier than Fractals. Easier in a “I didn’t die so often” way.
Now, I have to try other dungeons and paths, while learning what I can and cannot do with my Thief. I will try all your suggestions and welcome any others you might give me.
Who knows, maybe some day, I will be in a situation to advise others.

Don’t forget your dungeon run depends a lot on the party you are with. If others don’t know what to do and/or don’t listen, even a good player dies a lot.

If you are EU, I do some dungeons almost daily and could take you for few runs with my guildies.

Part of playing a squishy OP. L2P and take your time…getting completely pwned is a really good thing.

You clearly have a great attitude in that you want to learn more. You’ll be fine in time purely because your mature in your outlook of the situation. Kudos.

My 2 cents…always roll P/P as your offset when learning. Worst case….dodge or use your plethora of evasion skills to get out of trouble, you should have at least one on your bar, and pew pew. If combined with SoM you’ll gain health while you do so., then jump back into the fray with your melee.

Just think smart and have fun I guess. Thiefs can actually be highly survivable when played as such while ignoring the max dps zerker meta.

Happy to catch up in-game. Best of luck