Guild Wars 2

Using caltrops on dodge trait helped a lot. I practiced strafing with shortbow and cripple and smoke screen for ranged and it made a world of difference. However, the biggest difference was once I turned level 40 and retraited, I found myself far more survivable. It was like night and day for reasons unclear to me.

Thanks for the advice, all.

“How quickly are you able to put down trash mobs? A big part of thief survivability out in the open world is that things shouldn’t be living longer than a few seconds.”

I am not sure what you mean by a “few” seconds. Against 1-3 melees I take my time and kill them with offhand pistol and on hand sword or pistol skill #1. In this case, it is usually close, black powder, pause until last blind goes down, black powder and they die some time into the second BP or just afterwards. That would put a single melee in the 6-10 second range.

When I used dagger/dagger death blossom against groups that cluster, they die faster but hit me with lots of ouchies and sometimes down or defeat me. However, I have no skill sequence to use as a timer.

When I use shortbow or pistol/pistol for strafing (depending on circumstance), they last longer than with sword/pistol, but I am not sure how much longer. That said, I am strafing melees which is usually not a problem to go up and blind.

“Most ranged attacks can still be strafed.”

At near max pistol and shortbow range and assuming they are not rapid, yes (I strafe to one side and reverse direction when they shoot). However, this requires a lot of room and tends to cause more aggro and more defeat. In some areas this works, but against centaur archers in Gendarran Fields north of Nebo Terrace? Not so much, because I usually don’t have enough room. If you can strafe dodge at close range, you are much better than I am.

“As someone else mentioned, if you’re having issues with minor damage then life leech will help, but honestly the most important solution is to stay mobile. Simply circle strafing as you attack ensures that >80 % of mobs simply don’t do any damage, their attacks are that slow and their AI that bad. Let me repeat with bold, you should be avoiding most damage via simple WASD movement, not dodges.”

I should clarify. I have little trouble with melee because I can blind or strafe (usually blind to avoid accidental aggro except against dredge or rapid attackers). However, ranged attackers will get me even when strafing. Another problem, as I alluded to, is when strafing I pull extras. On my mesmer, my ranger and my elementalist (where I am often strafing), I can handle a couple of extras when I was fighting 2-3 enemies. They often will defeat my thief.

I can practice mobility more, I suppose. Maybe it is just a matter of not enough practice.

I have played professions up to level 45-80 on guardian, ranger, mesmer, necromancer and elementalist.There was a learning curve on all of them, but by the mid-30’s levels I was able to handle almost every situation without too much difficulty. The thief is different. I get defeated far more often than other professions. I have tried many weapon combos (well, as many as exist on the thief), but aside from offhand pistol to keep melees blind, it is not working.

As far as I can tell, it is the small, routine attacks from ordinary enemies killing me with the death of a thousand cuts (sometime by conditions, but most often just ordinary hits). I can usually dodge or blind or otherwise avoid the big, telegraphed attacks and I can adapt my tactics depending on the enemies I see I am about to face. But my health bar steadily decreases from the little attacks that are not usually worth dodging. I have traited up toughness and have significant investment in vitality. I am not going glass cannon and dying.

Can anyone offer me some basic advice on my approach? If I am having trouble at level 35, I am doomed at high level. How does a thief avoid dying from the steady stream of routine damage?

I cannot just transfer servers to get 100% since my server is full and if I transfer, I might not be able to get back and play with my friends.

“When your server is green, go out and get all the points close to the green start points (and anything else your server owns). Then wait until you are blue or red and get those points.”

My server has been green for at least 5 weeks and counting. I am pretty sure ANet put in an update that Blackgate is always green.

I came to this forum to look at something unrelated when I saw this. I thought it was just my computer. Two points:

1. Thank you, ANet, for working on this problem and not being afraid to experiment.

2. I cannot see the enemies. They are retreating. We have 4 of them cornered and there are 9 of us. Ha, you fail Sanctum of Ra—- what the? Where did these 25 new Sanctum of Rall around us come from? [Blackgate gets curb stomped]

So, it does need more work, but thanks.

I played in Southsun Cove for awhile. I found Dyanmic Events at about the same rate as Orr and none of the oens I encountered were bugged. Enemies were spaced better, I thought, than Cursed Shore or Malchor’s Leap. I worried a lot less that I would get ganked because I dodged and ended up aggroing 2 other enemies.

The main events had bugs, but I just went off and played the regular game rather than spending too much time on bugged events.

The last event overtaxed either my computer or my server. Perhaps creating instances with, for example, maximum populations of 50 players would have worked better. I left after getting 27-93 second response times for activating a skill because I did not find that terribly fun.

I like the new zone with new enemies and a greater variety of enemies for my “kill variety” daily achievement.

I like the new zone. It is all level 80 and has a greater variety of enemies for my daily “kill variety” achievement. The loot was decent. More high-end areas means alternatives to Orr, Frostgorge and WvW for top-end loot and events.

I have seen discussion of crafting for leveling, profit and better gear. There is another reason to craft that I did not see mentioned: Achievments. If you want to do the GW2 equivalent of GW1 title accumulation, crafting is an important way to do it. I intend to max all craftin disciplines on my achievment character. From a game perspective, it also provides another gold sink to curb inflation.

Thank you for this compilation. I am glad that others are talking about the camera issues. I have two major issues:
(1) The most important issue I have is I want a hotkey to right the camera in the direction I am facing. It is frustrating when playing the ranger in melee when it rolls me around the target and I try to dodge and end up going somewhere I did not expect at all. I hate having to swivel the camera with the mouse and when I do, I sometimes have a new, unintended target.

(2) The smaller issue is in brushy areas I cannot see what is directly in front of my character. If I max zoom, I cannot see anything and my character’s body is in the way. If I zoom out a bit to see what is immediately around me, brush is in front of my camera. I don’t have an easy solution to this problem.

Thanks for your attention!