Guild Wars 2

So, I started playing GW2 four days ago and it has been a blast so far, despite some greedy design/monetization choices that I dislike. But, moving on:

I felt in love with thief. I feel like if I fail, I can actually die contrary to warrior or guardian, and I feel like I dont depend on carved-in-stone rotations like elementalists and I feel like, if I know how to play, I can make a difference contrary to rangers or mesmers. This is all from my experience from levels 1-20 and from talking to multiple people in-game and reading on the forums.

So, basically, I loved the D/D high risk high reward style. In pve it doesnt have reliable area damage so I also picked shortbow. I may change that on endgame, but for now I will stick to this build.

Do you guys have any newbie advice that I should know of? Any help is greatly appreciated, and Im on Jade Quarry if any guild around is recruiting.

Cheers,
Bel

As a thief, most of your damage from your melee weapons will come from #1.

Treat 2 3 4 and 5 as utility skills to use for when the time calls for it.

Advice: Love d/d with your very soul, even when you die stick to it and practice a ton and you will become good enough to 1v3 in a rather short time. Though if you need practice getting used to the playstyle and positioning thing you can practice on d/p or watch youtube vids from the following people for tips and other helpful advice:
Yishis
Nightblade
xAkromaify

Thank you guys, I am really loving d/d and have started doing some spvp hotjoins to pratice

Glad I could help

My advice while you’re still at low level are;

- Get used to the timing of the skill activation and the initiative recharge.
- Get familiar with the Revealed duration, so you won’t waste your stealth skill.
- Get familiar with your skills so that you’ll know when to use a CnD vs. 3x Heartseeker when you only have 6 initiatives left.
- Take note the different weapon ranges, you don’t always have to dodge to avoid a melee attack, sometimes all you need is to side step — and Longbow shoots for a far far ranged especially from a high elevation.
- Know that bouncing projectile will reveal you, so do practice on how Ricochet (Pistol), Bouncing Daggers (Offhand Dagger), and Trick Shot (Shortbow AA) affects you in stealth.
- Most of all. Learn to remain calm. Unlike other professions, if you panic, the cooldown saves you from activating the same weapon skill more than once…with Thief, you can activate any weapon skill multiple times as long as you have Initiatives. If you panic, you’ll end up wasting resources.

That’s all I have for you…everything else I’m sure you’ll learn along the way.

If you’re doing open-world PVE, you’ll be able to (if not already) take on 3-5 enemies that are 6-8 levels above you. I use D/D and SB and love it. I try to use all the weapon skills as needed, but mostly rely on death blossom to stack bleed. My utility skills are caltrops, roll for init and shadow refuge. I use SR, hide in shadows (heal) and cloak and dagger to get stealth for back stabbing single targets (vets, champ etc). Heartseeker is good for quick “almost dead” kills or gap close, dancing daggers can be used to tag mobs and/or to keep your distance. D/D is amazing fun if you like to evade and keep yourself dancing around your enemies (esp important if they’re 6+ levels above you and just a couple hits will down you). There’s also lots to be done with SB, but I’m still learning that myself.

D/D Thief main since before launch, here!

Once you’ve got positioning and dodging down to second nature, you’ll be able to solo champs and large groups several levels above you. Personally, I like to open on groups with Dancing Dagger, just to tag it all, then hit them with Death Blossom once in range. Cripple and Bleeding to open the battle, then wail away with 1 skill to add poison. Hit Cloak and Dagger to stealth, then get behind the target and Backstab for hefty damage. The timing is something you’ll have to get a feel for, but once you’ve got it, you annihilate.

My util skills are Shadow Refuge, Roll for Initiative, and Signet of Shadows. Shadow Refuge is a good, healthy skill for emergencies, as it’ll drop your aggro and heal you a little bit. Roll for Initiative is a powerful stunbreaker. (try using it with Fear-happy Necros) Signet of Shadows is for movement speed, but it’s a handy Blind when you need that.

Shortbow is a good choice for range, as I find it to be more effective than Pistol/Pistol, but I mostly use it for dungeons or WvW. Cluster Bomb and Choking Gas are the primary means of damage, so learn to ground-target effectively. Disabiling Shot is mainly for keeping out of a melee target’s range.

D/D is heaps of excitement however its very easy to mess up on it. I’d say if you have troubles against a certain build don’t change your build as much as your approach. Maybe you have a thing here or there that could use some adjustment (condition clearing, stun breaking, mobility, etc) but overall you have to just look at each build in how they combo things. Sometimes even the best preparation won’t help, because some blocks just don’t fit into the triangle.

When stealing with dagger off-hand, cast cloak and dagger (#5) a half second before to get stealth on steal (never a need to trait for it with dagger offhand) setting you up for a back-stab. Also if you’re not going for conditions, 6 points in critical strikes is essential (at least in PvE) IMO

I appreciate everyone for all the advice given! I will be sure to follow each of them. I am level 32 right now and been sticking to D/D and SB. I’m getting used to the timers, and getting positioning sorted out. Been trying some eotm recently to get a feel for pvp as well.

Once again, thank you everyone! My IGN is Fierce Belisario, if anyone wants to chat ingame!

Sir Vincent III.1286:

- Most of all. Learn to remain calm. Unlike other professions, if you panic, the cooldown saves you from activating the same weapon skill more than once…with Thief, you can activate any weapon skill multiple times as long as you have Initiatives. If you panic, you’ll end up wasting resources.

That’s all I have for you…everything else I’m sure you’ll learn along the way.

So true. I used to panic a lot as a nub thief in wvw so when I started using sword, I would just teleport back and forth with infiltrator strike. The return didn’t have casting time back then so I burned all my ini really fast >.<

Just to add a tip to the list:
You can do some serious tagging/tanking of multiple targets (PvE) with Signet of Malice and Shortbow Cluster Bomb spam (2). It makes a good way to quickly get the daily kill requirement for Dailies.

Btw, you JQ’s are packing out some nice WvW encounters!