Guild Wars 2

At the moment i am a level 33 thief whos going for the glass cannon type. I found it fine in the pve enviroment, squishy but i can still kill them before i get killed. But some nights ago i went to the ascalonian catacombs and when ever a mob attacked me it would always 1shot me or just kill me so quickly it seemed like it shed more light on how really a glass cannon i am 1 or 2 hits and its over*haha i know right?* Any ways i’m looking for a build while i’m leveling that’s perfectly viable in the pve world just as much as it is in the dungeon world. I’m pretty much open to any type of weapons so please give me some info and or builds that i could use as i’m leveling up?

Thanks for youre time.

as far as my stats and equipment its all geared to being a glass cannon 100percent

Wait until you’re lvl80, then you should worry about End-game PvE Dungeon builds. Until then, don’t dungeon unless you’re with your mates or guildies.

Find a build for leveling up your character first and focus on the mechanics of the game.

tbh, my pvp is my pve and wvw build. i personally dont see the need to change constantly but thats just me

Jay.3284:

Wait until you’re lvl80

>*BS*<

You can do any dungeon – Just make sure you’re not below the recommended level!
You’ll still be squishier than higher leveled players, so I suggest that you choose a build that gives you more survivability.
I don’t know much about Thiefs, but It’s usually best to have a ranged weapon ready when it’s needed.

If you want to get into dungeons, first I would say make sure you know how to use stealth effectively. The thief is one of the squishiest classes in the game (arguably the squishiest) and can go down easily unless you’re making full use of our mechanics. I would recommend staying in the back line and focusing mostly on ranged damage to start until you really know the bosses and environments. For a ranged weapon, I’d recommend SB for aoe damage spam, initiative dodge (Disabling Shot) and poison field. Also, there are a lot of mobs that attack in groups, so going P/P isn’t always very efficient.

I’ll keep saying it, stealth is one of our main advantages. The ability to cut aggro in the middle of a fight and stealth downed teammates make us great for team play and for survivability. To make the most out of this, check out builds that make heavy use of Shadow Arts and Acrobatics. Acrobatics I can’t go without anymore, since at 15 points you gain an extra dodge. For survivability, these two trait lines are the best for you.

I wouldn’t recommend going full damage, mainly because one hit can easily take out half our health. Then there’s the fact that we are in the lowest base health pool in the game. Basically without V/T gear or mostly stealth builds we can go down a lot.

TL:DR, know the dungeon, try playing around with Shadow Arts and Acrobatics for better survivability, ranged roles are going to work best until you’ve learned the different bosses, take a SB

Hope this helps.

Keeping this short.

Knowing the content is pretty much the big hurdle in this game. If you know the content you know what ot expect when to dodge etc.

As far as builds go what Quarantine said is correct. Thief is inherently squishy and bring a short bow. However 3 build usually stand out for melee Sword/Dagger Dagger/Pistol and Sword/Pistol/

1. S/D → Skill number 2 is a stun breaker with a ridiculous range that teleports removes a condition (happens to be the only weapon set stun breaker). The rest of the skills have their uses too so look it up.

2. D/P → Black powder + heartseeker equals stealth. Black powder + melee = blind tanking. Not much more to say look it up.

3. S/P → Spam 3 (which is pistol whip) Evades and does serious dps at the same time.

I went in to my first dungeon in full zerker’s and was wrecking mobs. I also kept getting downed, because I didn’t know the dungeon. This lead me to change my build until I learned the aspect of each dungeon. Therefore, the first few times I do a path of a dungeon, I use my safe build. Once I learn the mechanics, I can switch to my dps build.

The overall goal of the safe build is group utility while contributing dps and not dying.

Safe build:
P/P and SB – use P/P in single target situations or debuffing situations, SB for AoE situations

P/P – sustained single target dps, blinds on trash mobs (if group is weak, this helps immensely), stack vulnerability if there are uber dps machines in the group (as you will contribute more to group dps by stacking vulnerability for the crazy dps people compared with P/P)

SB – AoE weakness, AoE dps for trash mobs, cluster bomb for dps

0 – power is nice, but the traits aren’t very good for P/P
30 – V (helps with P/P damage), VI (provides a TON of hp), XI (extra dps for boss situations)
10 – V (more init is always nice) (this can be switched out if you have a different preference)
30 – II (might increases dps), IX (more init is great), X (extra heals is nice) can swap to XII as well for more init since you will be swapping weps a lot
0 – meh

Utilities will vary depending on the dungeon path, but generally it is smoke screen, blinding powder, shadow refuge, and thieves guild.

This build is great when combined with Valkyrie armor. For runes and jewelry I stack prec and vit where possible. Currently my build sits around 2k power (meh, want to increase), 19k health, 30% crit chance (meh, want to increase). I’m not finished with my jewelry though so I think I can reach 2500 power, 19k health, 40% crit. This does not include any buffs (or food or anything).

Again, this build is for dungeons your first time so you can take some hits and help the group (fractals too).