Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

I’m getting a little tired of my guardian main and after trying a few different classes have discovered I really like my level 20 thief in PVE. With the new WVW features I’m thinking of taking him into the Mists this week.

Here’s my question: is a lower level thief extremely hard to play in WVW? I did ok on my guardian as soon as I hit 30 in WVW, but I was playing a toughness-oriented build and relied on buffing larger groups. Thieves seem to shine 1 vs 1 but of course I’m not going to win that many fights against level 80s.

Also, are there particular survival strategies I should be employing as I level?

Personal advice here.

I would recommend staying at least with a party. This doesn’t mean you need to follow around an entire zerg (although this would be helpful if you just wanted to lvl faster/easier) Thieves are indeed very good in 1v1, but one thing to keep in mind is that most roamers tend to be lvl 80’s with full exotic (if not ascended) gear looking for underlevels such as yourself to make them feel pro. Sticking with at least a party of maybe guildies or just friends solves this issue.

As for playstyle, I would recommend shortbow at least, even using pistols if you’re so inclined. Being ranged in wvw while underleveled is a lot easier than trying to play assassin when your set-up is more often than not sub-par to the person you’re trying to assassinate. Using any CC you have (traps, blinds, pull, cripple, poisons) all ensures you’re being an asset to the team and getting exp, while staying reletively safe as you will be an easy target and thus a hindrance if you try and jump around like a fully lvl’ed thief would.
And of course remember not to get frustrated. You’re going to die a lot, it’s inevitable. But once you get up there you’ll get them all back. Oh and have fun ~

Any other questions or things I missed feel free to ask.

If you are an uplevel, don’t go solo.

Most solo roamers are built specifically for duels/small scale so they are going to absolutely destroy you in not only experience, skill, and build advantage, but also the fact that you are upleveled and they are not.

Uplevels have a massive disadvantage. It’s easy enough to kill a lv 80 glass thief with 10.8k health, if you run at lv 30 without all your utilities and half the glass thief’s armor you are going to go down to about 3 autoattacks from anyone who isn’t built completely bunker.

You will be one-shotted by a lot of people built for dps. Fire grab, for instance, from even a bunker elementalist, has the potential to one shot you.

What I would recommend is getting to level thirty and just opening with daggerstorm. After it’s done get to the mid/back lines and start shortbow trick shot spam.