Guild Wars 2

Hello all.

I’m going to classify myself as a new GW2 player even though I played at launch and leveled a Ranger to 80.

I’m back and playing mostly solo with my theif. Up to about level 28. Still going well but I’m getting my butt kicked more and more. So my thought is that I’m doing something wrong.

I figured I’d ask for some tips and strategy for what types of weapons and what type of attributes to go after.

Also any thoughts/situations on sword/dagger vs dagger/dagger? I use double pistol as my secondary set.

Thanks

i’m new aswell but i can survive most things i’ve encountered so far (level 43)
i use 2 daggers as my main weapons.. with them i let autoattack do most of the work and hit 3 to dodge stuff.. sometimes i switch to a pistol in my offhand and facetank with number 5 and autoattack. you can also gain stealth by hitting 5 and then 2 if you should find yourself in trouble.(dagger/pistol)

secondary weapon i mostly run with short bow for faster travel and ranged attacks.

Hi there,

Some very important things for all classes when leveling is to upgrade your gear. Since the game scales you to the level of content you are in, if you are a level 30 in level 15 gear, you are only at half potential, even in a level 5 area. It may seem counter intuitive that if your gear is matching the zone you should be fine, but its based on the difference between your theoretical max stats and your current stats. (This is why a level 1 warrior can go into WvW with 30khp and a bunch of damage, that player went and got every upgrade for a level 1, so he was basically a well geared 80 in wvw, without the traits and utilities. This was before the NPE, as you only get 1 skill now at level 1 vs 5 before. )

Now that I’ve covered that, take this time to learn your profession. If you struggle on something try mixing it up, there is no best for everything in this game. Although, generally s/p, d/p and shortbow are good weapons for leveling. (shortbow should often be your secondary, but again, mix it up, there are many many ways to level; just don’t give up)

For utilities, again try them all (in the pvp zone if you have to), there are uses for most of them during leveling. Sometimes a bunch of strong undead aren’t so scary when you lay down some caltrops and range them with a shortbow, or skelk that go invisible, you can put down a smoke field to blind them (even when invisible) and protect yourself from their initial burst (pistol offhand for smokefield). The list goes on. Also remember that dredge can’t be blinded, so don’t get offguard. NPCs with special abilities will have it written in white underneath their health bar.

Now a last thing, which I kind of mentioned. You can go into a pvp zone called heart of the mists, which allows you to be intantly max level (your gear doesn’t affect pvp in this area, only your “pvp build” which you’ll find in the top center of the screen). You can get there by an icon in the top left, opening with the keybind (mine is shift-b) or a portal in lions arch near the WvW portals.

In heart of the mists, you can try all your abilities on npcs that mimic players to get a feel for what each one does. You can try everything (minus 5 traits a heal skill and your racial abilities). So go nuts and see how you enjoy the different aspects of thief in there. You might find something you enjoy and take a reduced version of the build to max level in the open world zones.

Good luck, and have fun. (Also, learn about combo fields and finishers, they are very important to some thief builds and most thieves in any team play)

Thieves are rather “selfish” when it comes to interacting with other players and npcs around them (except for stealth and using some traits to share a few boons)

Thats one of the reasons why you should learn your skills and how to combo them with your self.

They are are also very situational so be sure to swap weapons and utility skills when you see the enviroment changed around you.

Thieves are the only profession in the game that dont have cooldowns on their weapons and because of that you could either play bursty by spaming your most powerfull skills all over the place OR you can use them carefully and balanced.

Initiative is very important as it grants a thief both offensive and defensive abilities.
Keeping a few initiative points for a defensive just in case you dont think you can handle the mobs around you as you could 10 levels ago.

You should also use the most out of your stealth as it gives you a short “invulnerability” (since nobody is attacking you anymore) as well as a few free initiative point you regain in that short period of stealth.

Last but not least Traits are very important to thieves. It allows your stealth to last longer, remove conditions, and even heal. It increases your base initiative pool and gives numerous way to regain initiative (both of which you lack at lvl 28) and much more.

Lowest health, medium armor, relying on initiative… those are the things you must respect and understand before you go and play a thief as it would be a guardian or a melee ranger…

Might be helpful:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Advice-List/first