Guild Wars 2

Hi, so leveling a thief currently and wondering what the best and most efficient way of leveling is. Is it s/p? d/p? d/d viable at all for leveling? Sb switch of course. Should I be going 20 into acrobatics for the extra initiative gain? Or should I just concentrate on critical strikes and deadly arts?

I find black powder and auto attack method quite boring to play. Is there an alternative to that playstyle while maintaining high dmg? Also spamming pistol whip is almost as boring. I just don’t want to be standing still so much as thief heh. I tried dual pistol for fun but dmg seems weak even with the 10% pistol dmg trait. I’ve never actually tried trickery line yet.

Also what is the ultimate end game pve gear/build for dmg? Zerker gear of course I’m assuming.

Heya. Pasting a copy of a post I just made in another thread about this same topic:

“Another very solid style of playing while leveling is what a good friend of mine calls “Shadowdancing”. I tend to call it “The Backstab Shuffle” instead, if only to torment said friend. It’s a good way to kill groups at a time.
Go sword/dagger and get the trait “Cloaked in Shadow” (Shadow Arts VI), which blinds enemies around you when going into Stealth. Use CnD, then head ’round to the rear of the enemy and pop it with Tactical Strike from behind, go through a full auto attack combo, and pop the enemy with CnD again, then repeat. Against Vets, just swap to main hand dagger if you have trouble.
Your liberal application of blind and daze won’t have much trouble handling roaming or story missions at all. I used this same build all the way to 80, adding in traits like flanking strike that increase damage from behind or the side as well as initiative boosting traits to make sure I could sustain high safety and DPS.
Keep Hide in Shadows, Blinding Powder, and one other stealth power in your utility bar as well as either Caltrops (for crippling and bleeds), Roll For Initiative (for initiative recovery), or a signet in the third slot.
Initially, you’ll need to lean on your stealth utility skills harder than you want in order to keep the pattern up, but traiting will help ease that significantly.
I’d avoid using this build against large numbers of Dredge, who are immune to blind, as well as in Orr, where many of the enemies eat, remove, or transfer conditions and have AoEs to knock you out of stealth.
Gear-wise, I always went Zerker or the lower level power/accuracy boost equivalent in order to maximize damage, though my friend spent a while in Soldier’s gear for the survivability.
Overall, it’s a solid and pretty safe leveling build. Hope this helps!”

In terms of endgame gear, yes I do recommend Berserker’s everything. Ascended, if you can manage it. I also suggest an endgame PvE build of 25/30/0/0/15. (Highly adjustable damage build that lets you switch things out on the fly for use with multiple weapons and situations). All thief weapons are viable at endgame (though I wouldn’t bring P/P into dungeons/fractals as your main setup), but I have SB mostly glued to my bar like many thieves for Infiltrator’s arrow and those beautiful combos. My other personal weapon choice is usually S/D or S/P, swapping to D/D for champs unless I need the sword interrupts.