Guild Wars 2

So I have a level 13 Thief and i’m having some serious issues with surviving in pve (common issue). I have read the threads on how to survive better so i know i have to

- Dodge as much as you can at the right time
- Use defensive utilities
- use skills that evade, blind, etc.
- circle your opponent when auto attacking for more a chance to miss

I use D/D and a shortbow. I know we’re a squishy class so I was wondering if I could get some advice on a good skill rotation, maybe a change of weapon combo, a change in utilities, or just a better strategy of playing the thief.

Utilities:
- Hide In the Shadows
- Assassins Signet
- Caltrops

Because thief’s use initiative that the problem for skill rotation, i don’t know when to use what skill and not just spam until its out.

Any help is appreciated

Thief was the first character I played, and I didn’t play any others until after 40, so I didn’t really have anything to compare my leveling too, but it didn’t seem much worse than any other professions I’ve played. This is all about PvE, I haven’t done enough PvP to know heads or tails.

I started by going up Acrobatics tree to get vitality, then I went up trickery to get Thrill of the Crime. But if I had to do it again I’d probably go up shadow arts and acrobatics to get toughness.

Make good use of steal, I see a lot of thieves running around and not using steal at all. Steal can give you some really helpful abilities. From heals, to extra stealths, to straight damage, learn them and use em well.

You can steal, not use the stolen ability, and while you hold on to the stolen ability your steal ability CD is counting down. So it’s possible to hold on to your stolen ability long enough that when you do use it, you can steal again right away.

Against one basic mob I usually steal to close the gap or use my stolen item to start then steal right away, then death blossom until empty, then I dodge and run in circles around while auto attacking. At low levels that was enough to kill them or finish them with a heartseeker. At higher levels it takes quite a bit more.

Use Stolen > Steal > DB > DB > DB > Auto Attack until I can either HS or DB again as needed.

I like to try and pull two mobs at a time because Dancing Dagger is amazing against two. If I can get two I use…
Use Stolen > Steal > DD > DD > DD > DD > Attack with 1 until HS, DB or DD as needed.

Against a veteran/boss I use cloak and dagger a lot for the backstabs, and try to keep some bleeds on the boss with DB. I also use this on regular mobs if I am worried about DB picking up adds.

For my weapon swap I use P/P. I use D/D with DD for kiting when I need to kite, P/P is just for the veterans/champions that hit way to hard for me to spend the whole fight up close.

Or P/P is alright for quick healing with signet of malice and unload. Quick 3000k health if I need it.

My build is 0/15/20/20/15, I don’t play a lot so I don’t have the experience most everyone else has, but I’ve no complaints with how this build is working for me.
Trait selection.
0/I/VI,IX/II,X,/V

I’m not sure I like Furious Retaliation over side strike, I liked the idea of it but I’m not sure if it’s paying off since FR has that long CD.

I use Signet of Malice, Spider Venom, Skale Venom, Signet of Agility or Shadow Refuge. For epic I use Dagger Storm by default and switch to Thieves Guild for single target bosses.

A large group of enemies, such as in the events where waves of mobs attack, Dagger Storm in Shadow Refuge w/ Signet of Malice is typically good for a full heal from near death.

Until Assassin’s Reward, Malice wasn’t really enough to keep me up and moving.

Sorry for the long ramble, hope this gives something useful.

unless you are running a condition build D/D is all about burst. utilizing cloak and dagger with backstab will be a lot of your damage. so will heartseeker. if theres more than 1 enemy, dancing dagger does a lot more damage than people give it credit for. especially with 2 enemies dancing dagger spam will usually bring both to ~50%hp. caltrops are great in condition builds or for ranged kiting but not so much for a burst dagger build. i like signet of agility because it gives you precision and can clear conditions if youre taking to much damage. assassins signet is fine. i found ambush trap to be really useful as well as you get some extra damage and some1 to take the heat for a while. i maxed out critical strikes tree 1st when possible followed by deadly arts. you die faster but you should be killing things fairly quickly.

once i got to higher levels i experimented with D/D condition build. if you back it up with toughness or vitality you can easy take on 3-4 enemies at a time. caltrops and death blossom spam stacks bleed on everything around you. i thought it was ok but not really my preference.

Sword/pistol i found was great for PvE. pistol whip does incredible damage to multiple enemies. with blinding powder on demand you can stand in the area and melee enemies will be completely useless. with signet of malice you can also just stand there pistolwhipping and heal more than the damage being done to you. combine this with a shadow refuge which gives you lifesteal per hit and you will just not die. you can easily take on multiple enemies this way. actually its more efficient if you take on multiple enemies as signet of malice heals you per hit, you can multiple your healing by how many enemies you are fighting. also went power precision for this.

S/P is a good, reliable way to PvE, because Pistol Whip, Shadow Step, and Black Powder give you excellent defense (interrupt/evade, CC breaking, and blind lock). D/P is also good – you get more single target potential, while keeping the defense power of Black Powder.

Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder are excellent defensive utilities.

SB as your secondary weapon basically handles anything you do not want to melee, and has reliable weakness (4+2 for combo area weakness) and extreme mobility (and can proc Malice three times per attack).

Thanks guys, i’m gona try sword and pistol, but first trying to use Death Blossom more (i was rarely using it before)

I like Dagger + Pistol, as you still get a powerful stealth ability, but no need to maneuver behind your enemy.

I do dagger/dagger and dagger/pistol. Basically just Cloak and Dagger to stealth and murder things.

One cool thing you can do to get instant stealth and close range is to hit CnD and then steal while the cast bar is up. You’ll teleport to mob and steal, then immediately CnD will go off and stealth you, setting up a powerful cloaked attack.