Guild Wars 2

As a brand new thief, I am constantly amazed by how long some can stealth even when not using a daggers as an offhand weapon for Cloak & Dagger. It seems like the most popular build since the skills/trait revision is Dagger/Pistol which enables some to be PvP ghosts, but not me.

I have already checked out Metabattle and played around with the suggested builds, but cannot stealth for more than a few seconds. What am I missing?

Can anyone offer some up-to-date tips, combos, and builds? Thanks in advance!

Angle your camera down for shorter heartseekers. Use this to leap up to 4 times through your black powder.

Blinding Powder, Black Powder, and Shadow refuge. Steal and Throw Tuft vs other thieves.

Blinding powder + black powder.
Black powder + shortbow 2 (cluster shot)
Black powder + heartseeker.
Smoke Screen + Blinding powder.
Smoke Screen + cluster shot
Smoke screen + heartseeker
Shadow trap.

Other than what folks above me have mentioned, it’s important to keep your eyes out on the following:

1. Initiative use during combat – ensure you have enough to stealth out if situation is turning against you
2. “Revealed” condition – you cannot stealth immediately after attacking someone from of stealth. Test this on a golem to get a feel for how long revealed duration is. (Crosshair icon that appears with conditions when you attack out of stealth)
3. Shadow Arts traitline – gives you additional second of stealth for all stealth skills

And may be obvious to us, but you can Heartseeker multiple times over a smoke field to gain stacks of stealth to stay in stealth longer.

Enjoy your thief!