Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, just got the game about 10 days ago. Spent a week dabbling in this and that class until I settled for the thief. I’m lvl 21 now and have been playing sword/pistol. Amazing black powder But I got addicted… lemme explain:

I decided to try PvP and there I was joining a server, walking around the map and looking to kill someone. I saw a target and clicked #2 (I think its shadowstep in S/P) and something different came…. It took me a while, and dying, to realise I was using daggers! Heck, let´s spam and see what happens. Was fun, I was jumping all over the place. But I felt nude without black powder.

It was then that I realised I didn’t know how to dodge. I never needed! Just spammed black powder and slashed away. Very poor skills. So what I actually need is a good build, mainly for PvE since my #1 priority is reaching lvl 80, and that actually teaches me to play the game correctly. Anyone knows of a solid, newbie friendly build like that?

If you need to practice dodging, you need to practice dodging. Acrobatics has abilities that restore Vigor (your dodging resource) and Initiative (which can be used for death blossom to dodge more often than vigor alone would allow).

Aside from that, you need to pay attention to the enemies you are fighting and what animations signal what attacks so you know when to dodge. You’ll also want to get a sense of the rhythm that enemies attack in, as you’ll often need to dodge an attack before it actually begins to avoid it successfully.

You could always do dagger/dagger, in other set pistol/pistol if you are wanting the black powder back, or dagger pistol. If you just love the blind there are other skills, and traits you can use as well.

D/D will give you two ‘build’ options that you can mess with. Conditions with Deathblossom or Backstab with Cloak and Dagger>Backstab. Gear while leveling isn’t going to be extremely focused so go for power vitality and precision. Trickery line is good for condition and Shadow Arts V is good for stealth/Backstab builds.

S/P Pistol Whip is a good ‘tanky’ ability as you wont get hit while you’re swinging and it hits multiple targets. This is good with Signet of Malice healing.

Use Shortbow as a second weapon or P/P for ranged.

GL
Blood~

Black Powder is great but it isn’t a perfect defense. There’s plenty out there that will hit you anyway so learning to dodge and shadowstep is important regardless of build or weapon sets. You do that by playing the game, watching for the tells of the heavy attacks, and getting the heck out of the way. You really need to get those down. If you can’t then your trek to 80 and the end of your personal story is going to be a drag. Once you get dodging and stepping down you’ll find that the game gets to be a lot less frustrating.

Thanks for the responses guys. I’m lvl 30 now and tried dagger/dagger for a couple lvls.
I really enjoyed the animations of the attacks, death blossom, heartseeker, being stealthed more often and all. But against multiple opponents it was a let down. I thing this weapon set is really good for 1v1. It has very good damage output and almost no tanking ability except timing to evade incoming blows.

I think I’ll keep the S/P for now as it’s faster. It’s not only the dying, but dodging and positioning was making the D/D take longer to kill mobs. Maybe it’s because I’m still learning, who knows? Anyways, thanks guys for the input.

When leveling with D/D for groups of 3 mobs I just used death blossom 3 times, then ran around throwing in another death blossom when I got initiative back. Used the trait for 15 base initiative.

D/D bleed build was my favorite for leveling. Once you start getting enough traits to go 20 into trickery and acro, you will own huge groups of enemies.

Just spam death blossom, steal for initiative, more db, roll for initiative, more db, all the while caltrops is basically dropping enemies by itself, and signet of malice and DB evade are easily keeping you alive.