Guild Wars 2

Started a thief 2 days ago, been leveling (normal way, hate crafting) it and trying to find a playstyle. So far I have to say that I love it, especially the way initiative works. Currently running d/d after trying s/d and p/p, always keep a sb as second set but dont know what I like most…

But the biggest question I have is how to build (when lvl 80)? and specifically build for dungeon groups? Is it possible to go full berzerker gear and dps traits without dying all the time?
And if someone knows, how is the damage output compared to warrior? since my main is a warrior.. =)

Any tips&tricks, help and guides are welcome!
Thanks,
Odin

I won’t list builds because there are plenty posted on this forum and I’m to lazy, but to answer your other questions:

You should definetely gear full zerker and get your defense through traits. Yes you can also go with full glass canon traits (25/30/ – / – / – ) but you better be really skilled at avoiding damage.

Thief’s damage output UNBUFFED is very similar to a warrior’s if not better (especially on single targets). Where warriors distance themselves is by buffing the GROUP’s dps (banners, FGJ, etc.).

You can go down the full glass cannon route, but there are plenty of viable alternative builds. Some people try to work at least a little +Toughness and +Vitality into their builds to help with their survivability. However once your Toughness starts to get around 1,400 or more, it will start to generate more melee aggro then you might want to deal with.

Others go for tanky builds. I’m built to off-tank Champion trash mobs, which is easily possible with how it’s structured. The build is extremely unorthodox for a Thief, but it lets me play how I want. My point is that while most people will advocate some kind of glass cannon build in full Berserker gear, Thief is more flexible than that.

The profession isn’t very forgiving and if you go full zerker then you’ll pay a high price for any mistakes you make. With that said, it’s PvE so it’s entirely possible to into high level fractals with a glass cannon build and never be downed; it comes down to how well you play and know how to deal with particular encounters.

In terms of damage it depends really. A dagger/dagger build should do slightly more damage than a warrior if they have the same buffs, but warriors generally have more might stacks and fury uptime if your group isn’t providing them. Thieves offer competitive damage but warriors will probably offer higher dps in most cases for the majority of players. A zerker warrior can take significantly more damage than a zerker thief too.

For level 80 builds it also depends on what you’re going for. For PvE content you can get away with just about anything. For WvW and sPvP there are really only a few viable builds.