Guild Wars 2

hey guys, I’m new to the game (as I just started yesterday) and so far out of all the classes I enjoy this one the most (:

played every class until I unlocked all the skills in the bars in the starting zone, but thief was my favorite by far. I was wondering how these guys do in pvp/pve? and how I should build my thief if I wanted to go both, or lean more towards pvp more then anything

I’ve read some things about them, but still a little confused on them, and I noticed that I can’t like put more bars in other skill bars? so the amount of skills are set for us? sorry if I am asking like dumb questions, it’s just I’m pretty lost right now in this game :P

also not sure, but is there a way to reset your skill points? I may have bought some useless skills because I thought they sounded neat, but weren’t as good as I thought

also how does this games pvp work? do I need gear or is it equalized? I came from a game where you didn’t need gear in pvp, because it was all equalized….was really fun but it had host problems

Hi, I’ll try to answer your questions.

and how I should build my thief if I wanted to go both, or lean more towards pvp more then anything

PvP builds are (more often than not) different than your PvE builds. For doing dungeons and such, you usually want highest DPS. For PvP, you want to fill in specific rolls for your teams and be more supportive overall. All thief weapon sets are viable in PvP (wait, except dual pistols). Pick the one you enjoy and you can get a PvP build for it.

so the amount of skills are set for us? sorry if I am asking like dumb questions, it’s just I’m pretty lost right now in this game :P

You can slot 5 weapon skills (from each weapon), your heal, your 3 utilities and an elite at any time. In PvE, you are free to trade these out, as the situation demands, once you’re out of combat. In PvP, these skills are locked from change at the start of games.

also not sure, but is there a way to reset your skill points? I may have bought some useless skills because I thought they sounded neat, but weren’t as good as I thought

Yes, in your traits menu, top left corner, there should be a “refund traits” button.

also how does this games pvp work? do I need gear or is it equalized?

All PvP gear is normalised. Theoretically, you can start competing at the highest level the second you purchase the game.

thank you for the quick reply (:

do you know any pvp/pve builds you could share with me? ^^ I mostly am a fan of pvp, but sometimes a little pve doesn’t hurt :P

I just saw that, I got a whole new skill set with a bow, didn’t even noticed xD

okay found it… I can’t even click on the button I’m not level 30 that resets even the ones in the tree above? like the ‘slot skills’ area? oh and is it unlimited the amount of times I can reset?

and you mean that I can pvp whenever and there would be no unfair advantage due to gear/level? o.o

thanks again all this helps so much

Hello ceces, glad you’re enjoying the thief and gw2.

@PvE: Thieves have among highest single-target dps in the game and some neat melee AoE and ranged options. But it however can feel like you die much easier compared to other classes. Top weapon-choices for PvE is switching between D/D, S/P, P/P and SB.
@PvP: PvP is split in WvW and sPvP/tPvP.

• @WvW: in WvW all your equipment will take in account and you can run around freely on 4 different huge maps + 1 seperate map which is independent from the server scores, if you are low level you will gain uplevel status and stats close to those of lvl 80’s, having good gear as low level will be taken in account as well. In WvW there’s a lot of stuff to do, capturing towers, camps, keeps, killing supply caravans to cripple enemy upgrading of towers, fighting other players. All this can be done either alone, in small groups or with huge groups called zergs. WvW stands for World versus World, and is a war between your home server and 2 different servers.
• @sPvP/tPvP: When about to enter sPvP you go to Heart of the Mists, here you can go whenever you want and it’s a nice place to experiment with things, everyone has equal stats here and it’s based on traits and an amulet that comes with different stats, everything is free except if you want different weapons. sPvP stands for structured PvP, and would be called “battlegrounds” compared to other mmo’s, while WvW is a world more similar to the PvE one. tPvP stands for team PvP and is GW2’s form of “arenas” which works pretty much same as sPvP, just that it is rated, and has better rewards, you can either join solo or team, solo has a fully random match up while team will place you as a stand-in to a team consisting of 4 or less, unless you form your own team. But it is advised that you get good at PvP and learn your role before heading for tPvP. sPvP is where you can practice that, and don’t be afraid to get ganked by high rank players who play like haxor, one day you’ll be one of them if you keep playing.

@Skillbars: You’re limited to weapon set skills which variates between classes (thieves have 2×5 and engineers for instance can reach 5×5), and 5 utilities, 1 of which is heal and 1 is elite. But GW2 is about a lot more than having lots of skills to press.
@Skillpoint refund: nope, but after playing for a while you will in the end have every skill unlocked, you gain 1 skillpoint per level + 1 per skill challenge.

Your build consists of traits (which you can start unlocking at lvl 30 in PvE), 2 weapon sets, utility skills and gear stats(amulet in pvp)

D/D = Dual Dagger
D/P = Dagger Pistol
S/P = Sword Pistol
SB = Shortbow
etc. so you get an idea

To clear up the different dmg stats:
Power = Raw damage
Precision = Crit Chance
Ferocity = Critical dmg (15 = 1% more dmg from critical dmg)
Condition = dot dmg (bleeds, burns, poison, confusion etc.)

First off, welcome to GW2! Here are some basics you should learn. Incoming wall of text.

Firstly, there is a huge difference between the combat here and the combat in WoW and most other MMOs. A few things of note:
The combat in this game is much more action-oriented- you can avoid attacks by strafing and dodging as you fight, and using skills to counter enemy attacks. It’s more important to avoid attacks than to heal them. You can avoid attacks via blind, blocks, teleports, and evades/dodges. Every class also has their own healing skill, which is your #6 slot.
There is no healer/tank/DPS trinity. Everyone is responsible for their own survival, for DPSing the enemy, for coordinating support and control to make fights more manageable.
Your success in this game depends largely on your skill as a player, rather than your gear.
I highly recommend giving this a read: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/GW2-Combat-system-101-Guide/first
In addition, GW2 is highly unlike WoW in many other respects. The game’s meant to be more of a journey- you take your time and enjoy the process of leveling, explore to your heart’s content, and when you hit 80, there aren’t tiers of raids and gear to chase one after the other. You pretty much find what you enjoy doing and do it.

By bars do you mean adding additional skill bars for skills and such? For example in WoW you could add skill bars all over the screen. It doesn’t work like that here. All classes #1-5 skills are affected by your weapon choice, with main hand weapons affecting #1-3 and offhand are your 4-5 skills. Twohanders use all #1-5. All classes also have their own heal skills, which is the #6 slot. All classes also have 3 utility skills, which are the 7-9 slots. These youll unlock as you level up, the first at lvl5, then lvl 10, and the last one at lvl 20. Lastly, every profession has an elite slot. These are typically very powerful, game changing skills and as such have large cooldowns. Youll unlock this at lvl 30. In these slots youll put skills that youve unlocked via skill points. Dont worry about spending them incorrectly, as by the time you get to lvl 80 youll have more than enough points for every single skill. If not, skill points are still extremely easy to get at lvl 80.

Triple or dual signets are the best for leveling, btw. Assassins signet, signet of agility, and signet of shadows. For the most part leave them just as passive buffs, but be aware of what they do in case you get in a pinch. For example if you run out of endurance and need to dodge that ettins hammer, you can pop signet of shadows and blind his attack so that it misses. if you get a nasty, long lasting condition on you (aka bleed, poison, burning, and others) you can use signet of agility to remove 1 condition, as well as refilling all your endurance. Shadow refuge is also extremely helpful while leveling, allowing you to grab some tougher skill points guarded by a veteran or champion with absolutely 0 combat. Its also a great skill to reset a bit and refresh yourself.

As for weapons, sword+pistol is easily the best for leveling. You can get up on mobs with Sw #2 and then drop black powder, your #5 skill so that theyll miss almost every single attack and you can just autoattack them down. If there are multiple mobs or ranged mobs, use LoS to pull them behind a corner and do the same thing. The #3 skill, pistol whip, also evades any incoming attacks for the duration of the second part of the skill. If also advise using mighty gear at lvls 1-26, strong at 26-65, and berserkers at lvl 65-80. Update your gear every 10 levels or so by buying green quality gear from the Trading post, with the prefixes i described.

There are two types of pvp in this game, spvp and WvW. Spvp is equalized, WvW is not. Id actually suggest staying away from pvp until at leat lvl 60, so you can understand the basics of avoiding dmg rather than healing it up.

thank you guys (: I read everything you guys, posted and I’m glad I didn’t mess up my build because i’ll get them all anways :P was worried I had to pay or something to reset my build

i’ll look at the link you posted in a bit carpboy and in the trait section will I go like 1 specific class deeper? like since you have played WoW (I assume since you are using it as an example) a warlock can go destruction, affliction, or demonology…is there something here similar? or I’m totally off

A bit more like WoW in the old days, but still not quite the same. You have 5 trait lines.

For thief:
Deadly Arts: Focuses around being, well, deadly, it has a few traits for venoms, some traits for control and some dmg increase.
Critical Strikes: This whole line is fully focused around direct dmg increase.
Shadow Arts: This line is known to focus a lot on stealth, but also some support and a nifty lifedrain from venoms. 5% SB damage too for some unknown reason.
Acrobatics: Says itself pretty much, mobility and being slippery.
Trickery: The thug line with some tricks, some support, and buffs to the steal class mechanic.

So, you can pretty much create the thief you wanna be using these trait lines. And at lvl 80 or in PvP you will have enough trait points to fill out 2 and 1/3 lines, a total of 14 trait points.

So Deadly Arts 5, Critical Strikes 6 and Trickery 3 and you have a pure assassin.
Deadly arts 2, Critical strikes 6, Shadow Arts 6 and you have a more stealthy ninja-like build.

You can have a look at things here
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQBAA

neat, thanks (:

and just double checking because I want to be really careful…don’t want to mess up like I did in other games, I can reset my traits if I want too…or is it set and stone once I choose?

Yep, traits can be reset whenever you are out of combat, so you may experiment with things just as much as you’d like.

thanks a lot you guys are the best