Guild Wars 2

I played GW1, GW2 beta and a bit when it came out but quit shortly after release. I picked the game back up last week and am enjoying it quite a lot. I have a very hard time deciding between Thief, Warrior and Guardian as a main (I can play all of them but I want one to lvl to 80 and get nicer armor, focus on, etc.).

I’m doing good with the Thief so far with the cookie cutter build from meta battle (with dagger/pistol). However, I have a few questions, some things I obviously am doing wrong and I couldn’t find answers or a guide to it.

1- It feels very easy and natural for my to swap weapons on every class I play (I’ve tried them all) especially on Warrior or Guardian where I use some skills from both sets into my rotations and such. However, I find myself hardly ever using the Short bow for the Thief. There just doesn’t seem to be any synergy really. It can be nice occasionally to help killing a downed foe from far with poison or to teleport once or twice when the gates open for better mobility but that’s about it. When do you use the bow and how? I’m always afraid of using it because it costs so much initiative to use the teleport that I don’t want to use it to enter a fight and can’t use it often to escape either. I don’t want to mess up my combos just for that or the poison cloud.

2- Do you have any particular way to open onto people? I’m guessing Shadow Step is ideal but I often end up opening with Steal+basilisk poison into a backstab and then a heart seeker (works well vs squishies). I know that I should probably save steal for mid fight though since it heals me a bit.

3- I haven’t really played with Sword/dagger but I know that one of the best Thieves (the one that won the recent championship) uses sword/dagger instead of dagger/pistol. It feels to me like backstab is my main source of damage and I would miss it a lot if I were to go with Sword in MH. What advantage does Sword MH have over Dagger MH? It’s all about having more control at the cost of burst? I can’t seem to be able to fight for long without having to retreat with the Thief so I’m a bit confused over this one.

4- Also, one of my main problems I have when playing Thief is that I can put squishies into a downstate pretty fast and efficiently but once they are in the downed state, I’m so fragile that I feel like I can rarely stick around to finish them off (sometimes I can use Shadow Refuge for it but it’s a long CD and I don’t have stability in my build I believe). Do you have any Tricks for that?

5- Finally, do you have any sort of ‘’ideal rotation’‘. I know that it varies depending on what you’re fighting and the situation but just to get an idea aside from going back stealth to do more backstabs and heart seekers (sometimes I’ll do 3 from pistol into 5 and then 2 for heartseeker and go back invis for an other backstab but I don’t know if it’s optimal or not).

1. Okay so Shortbow is more utility weapon, use it for mobility, disengage, when you are immobilized swap to it and use 3 for evade, or when enemy thief/mesmer/anything else is low and tries to stealth throw some #2 there, remeber to activate it again for explosions.

2. I suggest saving Steal for interrupting healing, use Basilisk Venom and then Shadow Shot. I suggest stealthing first with Heartseeker (Dagger #2) through Black Powder (Pistol #5).

3. I use Sword/Dagger still, it’s not as good as Dagger/Pistol I’d say. After 23/6 spec update it feels kind of weak with less evades due to nerfed Acrobatics line. So I run now either Shadow Arts or Critical Strikes. I suggest trying Sword/Dagger and see what you have more success with and keep running it.

4. If you really want to stomp your opponent that you just downed, stealth with Black Powder and Heartseeker, if you are running Shadow Arts it gives you solid 4 second invisibility which is just enough to stomp. Also if you are against guardian you can use your Shadowstep to teleport away, wait for them to use their downed knockback skill and then teleport back with your Shadow Return.

5. Can’t give too much tips for ideal Dagger/Pistol rotations. Sorry about that. As far as I know it’s mostly stealth and backstab, cleave, Steal for healing interrupting (or some other important skill such as Rampage, Mass Invis etc).

1. You need to think of the Shortbow as a tool and not as a weapon. As you may have noticed 900 range is the maximum we get with this profession. That is because our main role is the quick “get in and get out” kind of gameplay. Shortbow is good to force a target to behave a certain way or have some control over the fight.
ex: you are fighting a thief who just used Shadow Refuge, you may want to bombard his zone to force him out of it. or do put a nice Choking gas, to reduce his healing.

Other than that, you use your melee weapons to do the dirty job.

Shortbow is a particular situations, and isn’t here to save the day. It MAY, but that’s not the purpose.

2. I ALMOST never open with Basilik as it is the most common epectation of a thief. I Suggest you leave this Elite for the middle of the fight as the target is a lot more likely to think about healing. A few seconds of a Basilik in the middle of fight is more damaging than a few secs at the very begining. You’ ll probably waste it on an Aegis (block) anyway.

3. RIP S/D. RIP Acrobatics. It used to be such a sexy thing, with a rather solid condition cleaning build. But it’s too frustrating for me to use espcially that Condition builds on other professions are just beast. Do not bother fighting a condition Mesmer.

4. There are only 4 way to complete a Finisher as a thief with D/P:
-You don’t do anything and just Finish
- You go in stealth, obviously this is the safest.
- You drop Black Powder on them, a constant blind should be enough for a Finisher.
- You could use teleportation skills such as Shadowstep/ Shadow return or Infiltrator’s Signet you instantly teleport to target who moved away, or get away from heated situations. Discrete kills are sexy kills.

5.
You see D/P #3+#5 is good, but it is very costly. It’s all about managing your initiatives. Only use #3+#5, IF (AND ONLY IF) you have enough for a Heartseeker. You don’t want to stay there in your Black Smoke waiting for your ini to get back up. You’ ll die.

There is a good amount of simple tricks or combos you can pull off. Here are a few that could also be used an opener:

a. Black Smoke+ Heartseeker +Steal = let’s you bypass all the damages, including the heartseeker witout breaking stealth. It also closes the gap… ready for a backstab.

-b-. Black Smoke +Steal = a safe opener. Your target will clearly miss his next atatck and as long as he stays in that aoe, he will miss. It leaves you ready for a nice heartseeker and Stealth.

c. Black Smoke+ Heartseeker+ ShadowShot + Backstab= if timed properly, Both backstab and shadowshot will hit. It is very costly, but sometimes, 4 seconds of stealth is not enough time to reach your target by foot.

d. Headshot+ Shadowshot = Good for the retreating target but costly. The target is low on HP, trying to heal and showing his back. Daze him/her and catch up.

e. Black Smoke+ Heartseeker x3= Manipulate your camera to stay near the Black Smoke AoE. It requires some training, but it saves lives. It should give you free 6-8 seconds of stealth. Stay cloaked, especially against other thieves, because sometimes the first one who gets spotted is the one who dies. if you do Black Smoke + Heartseeker x3 but mess up one of them, it is serious waste of initiave, and stealth time. practice.

I wrote enough.

You need to realize that the more stealthed you are, the more chance you are giving your target to mentally wake up to take you on. Be quick, save your Shadowstep for a condition cleaning, unless your kill is certain. Do not rush to Shadow Refuge to retreat and recover. Instead use your initiative to Black Smoke+ heartseeker like I told you on e.

Honor Amongst Thieves. Good luck.