Guild Wars 2

Last night I deleted my Ranger, as I lost patience with the pets system this game has and I’m tired of relying on a crappy AI to do my damage for me, but when I switch to thief my problem is how easy it dies. So tips on how I can make my thief less stressful and less squishy early in the game would be appreciated. I alright know some tips, like the concept of having Vitality and Toughness. But if there’s any trick to the thief I’m missing I’d like to know.

Also if this is just early game, and later on in the game the thief becomes more viable then that will be a relief.

Always keep moving. Your weapon skills also have some type of damage denial (shadowstep, blind, stealth, cripple, …) that you need, so don’t waste all your initiative on burst damage. It’s more important to keep moving and deal consistent damage.

It’s pretty much the opposite to playing a Ranger, where you mostly just stand still and let your pet tank.

early game, i had a hard time. I tried using a condition build by pivoting on the D/D #3 skill (death blossom). It was extremely effective while using it, so long as you’re using it carefully and planfully.

At the start (sub 40) go a melee set and a range set.
For example d/d and sb or d/d and p/p.
weak mobs> cnd, bs, heartseekers
medium mobs> use death blossom then kite.
very hard mobs> use range weapon and kite (will take very long)
Things that you need to learn are:
Dodge all big attacks, thieves have trash hp and you have to dodge all the major attacks from bosses and players, practice it asap.
You have this skill called steal, its pretty good. As you start out you won’t use it much, but try to spam it and get familiar with how to use the effects (eg. if you steal the healing tree, you can use hs to heal), also it is a shadow step so you can use it to get out of bad situations.
Try to get a couple of vit items as you level, you really need the hp.

Acrobatics line can be very helpful at low levels. If you want to be a little less reliant on stealth, you can use withdraw combined with vigorous healing, heartseeker back into the crowd and then Deathblossom over it. Combined with caltrops, you can kite pretty effectively like this, switch out to shortbow and use your initiative for 2&3 to evade while damaging them. D/D + SB also sets you up with a great number of combo finishers for running in groups or doing events.