Guild Wars 2

I was watching some other chars they had enemies hitting them while killing another, seen guardian, hunter and warrior all do it, while taking no dmg. I then tried it and got downed in 4 hits. I was just letting a ranged creep hit me and it took them 4-5 hits to down. It’s not like i deal extreme dmg to compensate either,
feel like a glass cannon without the cannon. Trying to do caves is so messed up.

I use daggers and shortbow, i’m level 35.
I have 3k health, 530 armor, 11% crit, 790 attack.

You seem a little low on crit, I built power precision, items with the “strong” prefix up to level 60 where I changed to a mixture of knights and berserker with emerald gems

1) regear to strong and you will feel more like a cannon

2) fill your accessoray slots if they are not already. Earrings and rings are not expensive from the trade post

3) get rid of your daggers, they are sub par for leveling. Use sword pistol for pistol whip and all default attacks doing aoe/applying weakness which will make you take less damage. You can also use 5 to almost perma blind enemies.

4) get haste in your bar, Its amazing for taking out nasty pulls

5) Use Signet of malice as your heal

6) Always eat food that gives you health regen while leveling. The lowest level one is called banana cream pie

7) put 5 points in shadow arts to get last refuge… this will stealth you in sticky situations giving the choice to re-engage or run away.

Hey, thanks for that, so much better then the condition build i had, the kill time is 80% better and better survival. They said condition build was the best in the other threads and guides i had read, they were wrong

The food at my level heals for 21.
However the other food 36% chance to regen health on crit, it heals for 85 and procs a fair bit and only costs 2 copper, that is better yeh, my crit rate is now 53% so it goes off 3-4 times each PW.

There’s a rune in pvp that does % chance to regen health on crit for weapons, Is there anything like that for pve?

My traits are now 10 DA(mug), 15 CS(side strike) and 5 SA, what do i go for now? Is PW a dual skill, +5% crit chance with dual skills?

Cheers.

Dronin.3957:

You seem a little low on crit, I built power precision, items with the “strong” prefix up to level 60 where I changed to a mixture of knights and berserker with emerald gems

1) regear to strong and you will feel more like a cannon

2) fill your accessoray slots if they are not already. Earrings and rings are not expensive from the trade post

3) get rid of your daggers, they are sub par for leveling. Use sword pistol for pistol whip and all default attacks doing aoe/applying weakness which will make you take less damage. You can also use 5 to almost perma blind enemies.

4) get haste in your bar, Its amazing for taking out nasty pulls

5) Use Signet of malice as your heal

6) Always eat food that gives you health regen while leveling. The lowest level one is called banana cream pie

7) put 5 points in shadow arts to get last refuge… this will stealth you in sticky situations giving the choice to re-engage or run away.

Actually, the lowest level food that gives you “Gain Health Every Second” is Apple Tart. It is usable at level 5.

The rune is sigil of blood, 30% chance to steal health on crit(2 sec cooldown) does it stack with food steal on crit?
I find enemies 9 levels above to be no probs with this build
The only down side is i feel 1 initiative short every 5 seconds vs multiple mobs, anyway to get more regen through runes or food?

The only way to get an initiative boost via anything other than traits is to take the Opportunist trait (15-point minor trait in Critical Strikes) and boost precision via food/equipment. With 20 points in Critical Strikes you can take both Opportunist and Signet Use, and just load up on signets. Then 5 points in Trickery for Kleptomaniac and you can pretty much spam Pistol Whip nonstop.

That said, S/P isn’t the best build for PvE imo. D/P is the best set defensively, D/D is best for AoE bleeds, and P/D for single target damage.

Thief is not weak in PvE. your problem is probably related to your own gear/stats more than anything else. when was the last time you updated your equipment? if you’re using gear thats 10 levels out of date you’re gonna have a hard time.

8) use the summoning ulti, defensive golem if your asura, else the theifs. They tank veteran mobs very nicely and allow you to dps safely for all those pesky skillpoints

congrats you are now a pve force to be reckoned with… not quite as easy as ranger, gaurdian or warrior, but not bad

Ive used d/d almost exclusivly to lvl 55. If your weapons are starting to show their age get some lvl current ones off the trading post and you should notice a difference in how fast you kill stuff. Use your blossom as a dodge that also applies damage. You end up with four dodges so you should have some sort of dodge available most of the time. Keep auto attack on someone as much as possible and watch for enemy health bars to get low then heart seeker the low one so he goes byby. Pull out your two thief buddies when it gets hairy. Use the smoke stealth skill and your stealth heal skill to avoid damage while your bleeds and poison chew them down. Oh apply poison too. I also like that 25% run speed bonus skill. Dam 55 levels of d/d I should broaden my horizon. Cant comment on other classes killing better as I only play thief and ele atm. Sounds like you found what works for you. Have fun.

I think the PVE question here isn’t so much that we suck in PVE, it’s just that being the squishiest class in the game we have to spec differently then we would in PvP for it. (Granted other classes may be this way, don’t know yet.)

I don’t mean we need to spec differently for us to do our best, I just mean in general. We are extremely squishy unless you have good gear and spec for armor and vitality, and even then.

I think the real distinction that catches us off guard is just how ANet did their PvE. PvE is just hard. Mobs hit much harder then we are used to in other games. I actually rather like this. (Although it is annoying when some mobs equal level can 3 shot you and they put them in a pack of 3. =/)

Scorpions wire is your best friend. I never really used it and was dying A LOT. I started using it to break up mob packs and suddenly my survivability went way up.

Welcome to the “I should have rolled a warrior or guardian” club.

It is annoying how squishy we are without the dps to back it up. We may be good in PvP because of stealth and mobility but IMO thieves are pretty frustrating to play in PvE.

If you’re going daggers, I’d suggest putting 10 points in Shadow Arts first. The blind on stealth trait, Cloaked in Shadow, is fantastic for avoiding damage in melee range.

Kizee.2184:

Welcome to the “I should have rolled a warrior or guardian” club.

It is annoying how squishy we are without the dps to back it up. We may be good in PvP because of stealth and mobility but IMO thieves are pretty frustrating to play in PvE.

I’m a level 80 Thief that spends most of my time in Orr/Frostgorge. I hardly ever die because I use Sword/Pistol with Shortbow on swap.

Here’s my build.

At level 35, if you’re worried about survivability, I would focus on Acrobatics. It will increase your mobility and Vitality in ways that gear can’t really help you at this point. Then build out into Trickery and finally Critical Strikes for your last 30 levels. Wear gear that gives you Power/Crit Damage (like Valkyrie) at later levels to even out the lack of points in your Power trait line.