Guild Wars 2

g’day guys, im new to gw2, i was watching a gw2 stream, he recommended to start with thief because they are OP with invis damage, and to go dagger/pistol.

From what ive done so far, my query is.. should i be using dagger / dagger or something else to level until i am atleast 40 and can unlock some of the skills that make dagger/pistol worth while?

i feel like people and guides are saying this is the best build for thieves because it is at end game, and early game is garbage in comparison to other things i could be using?

thanks for reading the novel

hi welcome to GW2 forums, to start with thieves are not OP, its just knowing how to use your toon properly. my suggestion is to get to level 80 first then after worry about build. it wont make any difference since your still below 40, as you can reset your traits as many times as you like.

thank you, in your opinion what is the easiest weapon combo to level with? i am not having an easy time, or should i say a faceroll time with thief at all, and i figure the lower levels are meant to be really easy so i must be doing something wrong?

You are going to want Shortbow (AoE) and some run Sword/Pistol or Sword/Dagger since once again sword is AoE.

First of all, welcome to the thief! We’re not OP, just hard to counter a good thief unless you know what you’re doing.

If you’re going with d/p you should get 10 in shadow arts asap. You need those extra initiative upon going stealth. Drop black powder on each encounter (combo field) and auto attack 3-4 times, then do a heartseeker through the field to get stealth, move behind target and backstab. Repeat. It’s an easy opening to understanding the thief.

Another option will be to go with sword main hand for the AoE damage (keep in mind that the dagger has more single target damage), also here drop black powder while you can.

The AI in this game attack so slow that it will actually get blinded in between each hit. You don’t even have to dodge.

Just start with that and experiment from there. I would recommend you to learn the combo fields and finishers as they play a huge role in the thiefs later game. Remember that the thief has little health and armor, so we stay alive by avoiding damage (stealth, blind, evade, interrupt and shadow step).

Good luck!

thank you geiir, you would be surprised how long i searched to try and find a combo and everything on youtube or sites was just stat builds

No problem! Just add me in-game if you need more advice. I’m back home on my computer around the 8th of July, so I won’t be able to do much before then though… You could also just send me a pm here on the forum ^^

Here is btw all the combo fields and finishers in the game:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo

thanks mate, i added you, i checked that wiki, i dont really understand what im reading

at the moment im using noxxic for guides, it says how to combo on it so i assume thats what youre getting at there

but it doesnt have a traits guide for leveling D/P
any idea where i can find one you agree with?

I had problems lvling my thief as well (my first and so far only class) and i was dieing very fast but they are pretty good if u get used to them.

Ppl told me to go for for dagger/pistol for leveling, but i choose sword/dagger. It was more fun that way and i liked it so much that i am still using it. Maybe you should play a bit between sword/dagger and dagger/pistol and see what suits better for your play style.

Other that that, don’t really bother till you get 80.

Also in case you don’t know it, you can go lvl at lower areas as well, xp scales according to your lvl, not areas lvl. This helped me a lot.

For leveling up you should start with sword/pistol for melee and either pistol/dagger for ranged. Get a shortbow for safe aoe at group events. These provides from the weapon sets your main defenses that you need to learn to use: cripple, smoke (blind), daze (interrupt), and shadowstep/return. They workout with any utilities from level 1. You get cleave on the sword auto-attack.

As you go up levels you should experiment with builds and switch weapons to see what you are missing. If you’re going to learn the class you shouldn’t pick a level 80 PvP set from day one and stick to it.

for leveling, i recommend using mace/shield
it has good healing, awsome buffs (including protection) +
“Save Yourselves!”“Hold the Line!”Smite Condition

what more could you want ?

That’s a lot of thieves !

Stooperdale.3560:

As you go up levels you should experiment with builds and switch weapons to see what you are missing. If you’re going to learn the class you shouldn’t pick a level 80 PvP set from day one and stick to it.

Hi Rossidis and welcome to gw2! As Stooperdale said, certainly make sure to experiment with lots of different builds/weapons as you level.

As a flat out answer same as above, pistol off hand is great for PvE, as that blinding powder is just too good. However, don’t take that as the end all be all. Even at 80, most of us swap gear and builds and weapons all the time! Thief playstyle can change drastically depending on your weapons/trait combo and that makes for a very interesting and constantly evolving class.

Truly, you want to be a master of all weapons and fighting styles, not least because you want to know how to counter those styles if you plan on PvPing any.

Good luck and welcome aboard.

rossidis.1923:

thanks mate, i added you, i checked that wiki, i dont really understand what im reading

at the moment im using noxxic for guides, it says how to combo on it so i assume thats what youre getting at there

but it doesnt have a traits guide for leveling D/P
any idea where i can find one you agree with?

It show every combo field and finisher, but you’ll get to that later.

For starting I would focus on getting power and some vitality. Precision and critical damage doesn’t really help until at least lvl 40.

A popular d/p build is 0/30/30/10/0, but that won’t work until level 40 earliest. My tip would be to go for 15 in deadly arts for the extra damage, chose Mug as your trait since it heals and deal nice damage. Also you need 10 in shadow arts asap and choose infusion of shadow, you really need that extra initiative in this weapon set.

Always have a shortbow with you when exploring, the teleport is brilliant for that!

Basic rotation will be drop Black Powder, auto attack 3-4 times, heartseek, backstab. Repeat

OP still needs ~70 thieves to respond

Geiir.7603:

rossidis.1923:

thanks mate, i added you, i checked that wiki, i dont really understand what im reading

at the moment im using noxxic for guides, it says how to combo on it so i assume thats what youre getting at there

but it doesnt have a traits guide for leveling D/P
any idea where i can find one you agree with?

It show every combo field and finisher, but you’ll get to that later.

For starting I would focus on getting power and some vitality. Precision and critical damage doesn’t really help until at least lvl 40.

A popular d/p build is 0/30/30/10/0, but that won’t work until level 40 earliest. My tip would be to go for 15 in deadly arts for the extra damage, chose Mug as your trait since it heals and deal nice damage. Also you need 10 in shadow arts asap and choose infusion of shadow, you really need that extra initiative in this weapon set.

Always have a shortbow with you when exploring, the teleport is brilliant for that!

Basic rotation will be drop Black Powder, auto attack 3-4 times, heartseek, backstab. Repeat

i can’t see mug in my traits mate, as for the rest of your advice, thank you ive gone from 7 to 15 so far

Pandalishus.8426:

OP still needs ~70 thieves to respond

68.

I went shortbow for AOE and pistol pistol for single target. Pretty easy. In a group of mobs run in a circle spam cluster bomb as int. permits.

For single target run in a circle and spam unload as int permits.

Go sbow and d/d if you want to do pve. You’ll need to get used to daggers. D/d is by far the highest dps weapon set. D/p is only for wvw or pvp. It’s better there b/c it’s a set better against players and the access to stealth is a lot easier.

The one thing that you need to do and fast is learn to dodge. That’s the bread and butter of gw2 and it’s even more important for the thief class as their only way to mitigate damage reliably is to evade it. Blinds aren’t that reliable when your blind fields are in melee range, single target, and/or initiative intensive. They also don’t work on bosses.

EDIT:
Also lvl 80 doesn’t mean anything in this game. It`s very easy to get to max lvl, getting there only means that you`re now able to start doing the best/top content in the game. Since you’re just starting out I highly suggest putting 15 points into acrobatics and at least 10 into shadow arts. Getting infusion of shadow means you don’t ever run out of initiative when doing cnd/backstab chain (the bread and butter dps chain for thieves). You’ll also need 30 into critical strikes as that’s necessary for thief dps and dps is the best thing thieves do. For just starting out I suggest you go 15-30-10-15-0. This is a strange build but it’s fairly strong and easy to use for someone just starting out. When you get better at the class/game you can drop acrobatics and go for a better build like 25-30-10-0-5 or 25-30-0-0-15. I suggest 10 into sa since you’ll never run out of ini from doing the cnd chain. If you use/land 2 cnd in a fight, 10-0-5 will be better than 0-0-15.

Read up on fields and finishers.
http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/combo-fields-and-finishers

The ones you’ll be using the most are water, fire, dark, ethereal, and smoke.

tldr ~ If you’re new to thief, you’re going to want to read this.

randomfightfan.4091:

Go sbow and d/d if you want to do pve. You’ll need to get used to daggers. D/d is by far the highest dps weapon set. D/p is only for wvw or pvp. It’s better there b/c it’s a set better against players and the access to stealth is a lot easier.

The one thing that you need to do and fast is learn to dodge. That’s the bread and butter of gw2 and it’s even more important for the thief class as their only way to mitigate damage reliably is to evade it. Blinds aren’t that reliable when your blind fields are in melee range, single target, and/or initiative intensive. They also don’t work on bosses.

EDIT:
Also lvl 80 doesn’t mean anything in this game. It`s very easy to get to max lvl, getting there only means that you`re now able to start doing the best/top content in the game. Since you’re just starting out I highly suggest putting 15 points into acrobatics and at least 10 into shadow arts. Getting infusion of shadow means you don’t ever run out of initiative when doing cnd/backstab chain (the bread and butter dps chain for thieves). You’ll also need 30 into critical strikes as that’s necessary for thief dps and dps is the best thing thieves do. For just starting out I suggest you go 15-30-10-15-0. This is a strange build but it’s fairly strong and easy to use for someone just starting out. When you get better at the class/game you can drop acrobatics and go for a better build like 25-30-10-0-5 or 25-30-0-0-15. I suggest 10 into sa since you’ll never run out of ini from doing the cnd chain. If you use/land 2 cnd in a fight, 10-0-5 will be better than 0-0-15.

Read up on fields and finishers.
http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/combo-fields-and-finishers

The ones you’ll be using the most are water, fire, dark, ethereal, and smoke.

tldr ~ If you’re new to thief, you’re going to want to read this.

now i don’t know what to believe, i had a sneaking suspicion that dagger/pistol was better for pvp and there would be a better leveling spec, but i have really enjoyed being able to take on multiple mobs and miraculously survive due to invis’s and blinds, i don’t think id be able to do that trying to focus dps on a squishy class, none the less, ill try it, thank you for the advice

now i am in limbo because im not sure who is right.

Saw this post, was going to say “be a noob like all the other Thief builds and go D/D & D/P”. Then I read your post and your friend already showed you.

He’s got you covered.

/rolls-eyes

id love to know your build crawford
edit;
tried d/d and i can’t say im a fan, its like im just desperately trying to to kill them before they kill me and i have no real control over the fight, i can’t deal with big numbers like i can with d/p

i know im definitely doing something wrong, but seeing as ive already got d/p basics covered, i may as well stick with that

rossidis.1923:

id love to know your build crawford
edit;
tried d/d and i can’t say im a fan, its like im just desperately trying to to kill them before they kill me and i have no real control over the fight, i can’t deal with big numbers like i can with d/p

i know im definitely doing something wrong, but seeing as ive already got d/p basics covered, i may as well stick with that

In open world, go s/p if you’re just worried about the number of mobs or stick with sbow. D/p is kind of counter productive b/c even though you’re blinding the mobs, you’re only hitting 1 at a time. That’s not very good when you’re trying to fight off big numbers. D/d is amazing in dungeons where it’s mostly 1-3 targets. You’ll be doing such insanely high dps that things will melt (compared to other builds) and you’ll get used to manipulating aggro and being bouncy. If there’s more than 3, sbow is the way to go. S/p would be better than sbow in some situations but it’s not as safe and it doesn’t have the combo finishers of sbow that can make the team super buffed.

The 3 skill on d/p is a LOT better than on d/d but the 4 and 5 on daggers is better. The field isn’t useful on bosses and most of the time stripping defiance with headshot is just wasted initiative. If you’re fighting mobs that rely on leaps and charges, the bouncing cripple is much more useful than headshot. Making the enemy waste their skills and miss is more effective than delaying the attack by 1/4s and resetting defiance. The best part though is the added dps of cnd. It’s the difference between doing 3k from hs and 7k from backstab over 1.5s and doing 5k cnd + 7k backstab over .5s and costing less initiative. D/d is also pretty crazy good for quickly killing choice targets to quickly rally downed allies. The only times D/p is better is vs Lupi ONLY IF your teamates are ranged, maw in fractals, exploring the open world, and wvw/pvp (both are good, d/p is just easier).

If you really want the aoe blind, I suggest putting 30 into shadow arts then and grabbing +ini on stealth, remove condi on stealth, and aoe blind on stealth. In time, you’ll learn to rock pve without it and do much better. You won’t need healing on stealth. In pve, it’s a wasted trait. It’s like toughness in pve, it might be nice when you’re learning the ropes, but when you learn to be good at the game, it’s just wasted stats. I started this game as a thief and every piece of dungeon armor I bought was zerker. I died a lot at first, but I learnt fast. I suggest that when you hit lvl 80 (it’ll happen fast), start joining CoE runs. CoF is easy to make money but you’ll never learn to play if that’s all you do. CoE is easy once you’ve learnt it and it gives a lot of valuable basics for excelling at this game. It also has the benefit of giving zerker armor in exchange for dungeon tokens and it drops charged cores and lodes (very expensive). The dungeon is tailored for thieves as well. If you can handle that dungeon easily, you will have a good head start for arah. If you can handle arah, you will be able to thrash 99% of the players in wvw.

I wasn’t expecting this to turn into a book :s Oh well, hope you find this advice useful. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. It’s up to you to figure out what works best for you when playing this game. That’s just what worked for me and a few buds.

I really appreciate the time you took to write that mate, i read it all, and i have this thread favourited, i will refer back to it indefinitely.

i am currently leveling with D/D and dropping caltrops or w/e they are called and blossoming over the top of multiple mobs with life on hit as my heal, it works pretty well, although i can’t really beat any strong monsters like skill points

over-all it is quicker and less tedious than d/p

My suggestion to new thieves is:
Start with (S/P – SB)

S/P
Sword AoE+Blinding Powder=AoE Blinding for easy tanking on trash (skills 1 and 5)

SB
Aoe and range for when learning new mobs attack patterns.

*When in a hot spot you can Chain activate skill 3 on SB for an evade to get out of sticky situations. Think of this as your emergency escape when you don’t have stealth.
On top of evading it will allow you to cripple your target.

Most important learn the Circle Strafe when fighting mobs solo.
Term form FPS games to mean you attack while kiting in a circle.

This may help explain what I mean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqN7F0Z95GY

oiiiio, apart from your heal, is there a combo to enter stealth with sword pistol?

rossidis.1923:

oiiiio, apart from your heal, is there a combo to enter stealth with sword pistol?

No. It’s the only melee set that doesn’t have access to stealth, so you’ll have to bring stealth from a utility slot (if you need it).

rossidis.1923:

oiiiio, apart from your heal, is there a combo to enter stealth with sword pistol?

Fields and finishers are your best source of stealth. Sword doesn’t have any but off hand pistol has the field, dagger has the finisher. Thief is the 1 class in the game that makes the most out of fields b/c you have all the finishers. Get used to using them when they’re around.