Guild Wars 2

NinjaEd.3946:

produde.8092:

Create new characters, I have 3 Necros and 4 Mesmers each for a different purpose. Problem solved don`t thank me.
No but seriously, as I see it it would take away precious programer time to make this thing happen, and there are things in this PvP that are way more important than something.

I’m not only doing pvp, so wasting a character slot so that I can swap my build doesn’t seem reasonable. And I never said this should be a priority, so don’t say things like “precious programmer time”. There are more important things in pvp, I agree. But this should still be addressed if not already being worked on.

Agree 100% – the suggestion that we should buy more character slots in order to be able to save different builds/loadouts is pretty absurd considering the cost of an extra character slot.

Also, this is a simple quality of life enhancement request – obviously it is lower priority than other fundamental issues that need to be fixed but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be suggested.

So I messed around with the 30/20/15/0/15 build using ogre runes last night and certainly noticed a significant increase in DS1 damage. I Feel that the Unyielding blast trait could be seen as situational and maybe personal preference (well i guess everything is personal pref but maybe this one more than others) – I really like the trait that makes LF drain slower – I noticed a big difference in that last night (though I’m not entirely sure whether my LF was draining quick due to this missing trait or due to above average incoming damage).

I didn’t realize the sigils shared a cooldown – that’s good to know – how do you find that out?

The only thing is I find myself hardly using staff with my power build – it has some great utility but I tend to use it very situationally so I’m not entirely sure that trait would be worth it… but basically something along these lines:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNAodWjMaZ7VaiaM8JCoH769OLSxxQGli1xOA;TsAA2CnoQygkAJLSOkkIt+YMyECA

Skyro, thx for that info – I think I’ll definitely give the ogre runes a shot.

Regarding the curses line – maybe i get too hung up on the fact that it’s the primary line for conditionmancer and one of the main benefits is condition damage… there are actually some really good traits in there that are not condition oriented including the fury one that you mention, the well targetting one (I use a couple wells with my power build), etc.

I find that with the build I’ve been playing with SR maxed LF builds even faster that I can or care to use it so I could probably sacrifice some points in that line to invest into curses. If LF, which I love for survivability, becomes an issue I guess I could replace a well or my spectral armor/walk with that signet that grants LF.

People talk about how hard DS1 hits with a power build in spvp but I’m not really seeing it… I get low 2ks tops for crits and 950ish for noncrits. I am playing a 30/x/x/x/30 (with 10 points moving around) build with Thief runes and Knights Amulet with zerker jewel. Lich #1 crits for mid 4ks. Just curious what other people are seeing and what their setups are?

Agree this happens to me too – I think a small CD would be the better solution over a different button/keypress.

I’m a casual/semi-casual and think that profession balance is important but it’s not as important as the other problems with hot join pvp including lack of game modes; lack of any kind of match-making algorithm to at least balance the OP classes across teams and perhaps balance higher ranked players; lack of penalty for people leaving matches because they are losing; lack of a system that promotes even teams – currently players can opt to join a <even number>/10 match knowing that they will be on the team with an extra player for the easy kills/points – I strongly believe there are a lot of players taking advantage of this. Also the the “play now” option should take into consideration unbalanced matches and attempt to balance them – if it’s not already doing this.

All these are fundamental issues that need to be addressed before anything else including changes that propel the game towards “esport”. If new players cannot enter the game and start having fun without suffering from those issues, you’ll never have a player base that will facilitate any kind of esport environment.

It would also be nice to be able to see your boons/conditions in DS?

EDIT: see the post above me – cool!

I have been messing around with this one – sort of a condition/well hybrid build – but only in hot join. I have only probably played like 15ish games on it but found it to be really fun (you have to copy and paste the link doesn’t work clicking on it):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNArYWjMaZ7Vaaa8bKApCPPp47xhKsb0DiHOZA;TsAAzCuo8xAjAGbROfkFtqYUxMAA

I switch out that last well depending on the enemy team setup – if there are a lot of glass melee I’ll grab WOD for the blinding counter or WOP if there are a lot of condition spreading guys on the enemy team.

Also, blood magic first trait – sometimes I go with teh reduced dagger skill CD trait instead of well of blood – but not sure which is better…

Would love to hear some criticism on it from the other more experienced pvp’ers.

Maybe I should be using Well of Blood since I have the well CD reducing trait? That extra bit of time to target the well could be the difference between life and death for me…

daydream.2938:

I dont know how people stand hot join for long. But i will concede, thiefs would probably be very annoying in hot join.
Thats still not a balance issue per se though.

I am a casual pvp’er who spends the majority of my time in hot joins and I agree 100% with the post you made previous to this one and was also going to say exactly this (what I’m quoting from you) – it’s just completely different in hot join because you have lots of < 20 rank players who do not know how to deal with thieves and are also playing solo with a “deathmatch” type of mind set. I think in tpvp a person getting bursted down by a thief is mostly an inconvenience because all their teammates are around with their various levels of support and then can easily rez that downed player – now the thief has to get out of dodge or go down very fast due to how squishy they are in compensation for their burst… yes they can easily get out of dodge with their superior mobility but at that point what good are they to their team?

The point is that I think what you said is 100% correct and basically teh game is completely different in hot join than in tpvp. I think it’s very subjective as to which is more important to balance around – you need spvp hot join to be reasonable or risk driving away all the new casual players that have the potential for becoming long time fans and growing the game.

Anyways kudos to your posts – well said.

I really don’t get it – I am an average player (slightly above average at best) and I often see the BS combo coming and can avoid it, usually by simply dodging. Once the thief misses the combo they are vulnerable and if you can cc them to prevent them from using their mobility to escape they go down extremely quickly because they sacrifice all survivability for that burst. I don’t really see this is a big problem – they stated they designed the thief to be good and getting in doing a bunch of burst and getting out – I’m fine with it. I think there are other setups that are a lot more troublesome than BS thief (including P/D thief). Just my “casual” opinion

nerva.7940:

doesnt matter, wait for nerf. let them enjoy it for a few more weeks.

Pretty tough to take anything you say seriously at this point when you have created a thread complaining about BS thief, created a thread complaining about condi/stealth thief, posted in the power well necro thread about how OP they are, posted in the d/d ele thread about how OP they are —- yet in all of these claimed that you never die to any of them… mmmk. Just sayin, starting to get a bit tired and annoying… imo of course.

Yep super annoying… hope they fix that soon.

doublepost mybad

triplepost – but i don’t think it’s my fault this forum is messed up

I don’t see any harm in adding duels into Hearts of the Mist – if it’s fun for some people then why not? It will alleviate the issue of joining a hot join match and finding that people are dueling instead of playing the game.

I agree that dueling doesn’t make much sense for this game in general because of the wide variety of builds you can have, many of which are not meant for 1v1. But if certain people want to build their characters to excel at 1v1 and duel then I don’t see the problem with that.

However, I think the biggest problems with spvp are:
1) Team balancing (not profession balancing) = no penalty for quitting mid-match; allowing people to join even numbered matches making it uneven and unfair (why not do it like wow and other games where an algorithm is used to put people into matches and prevent uneven teams?); the previous two points will address the horrible auto-balancing that moves someone from a team they have helped win to the losing team
2) Point system – I can walk up to a downed player whack him twice and get 5-15 points but if I help cap a point but get killed or step out at the last second I do not get any points despite my having been there for nearly the entire fight
3) Game modes – the game mode got boring 2 months ago and some new stuff needs to be added ASAP
4) Profession balancing – I really don’t think it’s as far off as many people make it sound like but there are clearly some adjustments necessary

All of these probably have to take a back seat to the many bugs existing in trait system and other places.

Jericho.4521:

Thieves were designed by Anet to be able to use the same skill twice. The difference that most people don’t get, and I myself didn’t get until I made one, is that they can use their total skill pool LESS OFTEN overall than other professions. If you don’t believe me, make a thief and try to use all of your skills in the exact same manner you would with say, a warrior or ele.

With initiative, it is essentially a global CD on thief skills. Without traiting into high initiative regen (which most thieves don’t, since it tends to severely cut into their damage or survivability), if you blow your initiative at the wrong time, or just fail to hit with it, you are a sitting duck. Unlike other professions, you can’t just weapon swap and spam away. You’ll have to either blow a util to stealth and wait (while your enemy is recovering and capping a point), or sit there spamming 1 hoping the enemy doesn’t CC you in any way.

This means that timing is essential for a thief. Before my thief, I had a Necro and a D/D Ele. The ele I can safely say was incredibly easy to duel with compared to my thief, as I almost never really needed to think “hmm…Can I get away with using this now?” If I missed a skill or 3, no biggie, just swap to another attunement and use any of my other skills.

If I mis-time just about any 2 skills on my thief, it can easily cost me my life. This is the tradeoff, unfortunately.

With all that said, I actually wouldn’t mind something being done to heartseeker. Preferably make it manual aim. If they increase the init cost, it’s going to make D/P thieves (and any other thief not running the stupid BS build) suffer much more as HS with other builds is being used typically as a gap closer, execution skill, or leap finisher ie: Black Powder + HS for stealth, which btw costs 3/4 of your init pool currently.

This!!! Thieves can do a lot of burst dmg when traited but they are super squishy and lack a lot of survivability and therefore cannot stay in a fight for long. Coupled with good mobility, especially with crossbow, they are designed to get in, deal a bunch of damage, and then get out and run away. If they make a mistake and get caught, they go down very easily. This is all true for backstab thieves… which seems to be what people are primarily complaining about. What about p/d thieves? They are WAY harder to deal with!

THat being said, I agree HS spam is silly and it would be nice if they could find a creative way to deal with it – completely breaking thief class design by introducing a cooldown is NOT the answer at all. Perhaps reducing hte range or making it a targetable skill or something would be the answer – maybe even a trait to remove the targetting from it that forces thieves to sacrifice something to get spammable HS.

THat’s exactly what I was wondering – before I drop $400 or so on an upgrade I wanted to see if people with high end setups like that are also having problems… I imagine that your issues are not nearly as severe as mine though…

What do you mean “amd cpu can’t follow intel….”? I don’t understand that sentence. I did clean out inside the case recently with some compressed air so I doubt dust is the issue.

Interesting, so your CPU is a couple steps up from mine but otherwise the same deal.

When I encounter zergs it’s not just FPS – it’s the whole computer struggles. e.g. casting a target spell, my mouse moves sluggishly as I try to move the target reticle around!

Hi, I’m sure this has been discussed but a couple of attempts at searching did not yield the information I’m looking for.

I have a AMD Phenom 955 X4 Black Edition 3.2Ghz with 8GB DDR 1600 RAM and an EVGA 560TI 1GB memory card.

In WvW if I encounter a zerg with more than say 15 people, the performance of the game decreases drastically. It appears to be a CPU limitation as opposed to GPU because my GPU is not being overly taxed at all. I turned down graphic settings to low (and disabled shadows) but it didn’t make much of a difference.

I’m wondering whether an upgrade of my CPU/Motherboard would improve this issue? How much?

What setups are people running that make wvw zergs smooth?

I’m on blackgate – my thief is level 41. I might log in and jump in wvw later tonight – if you see a thief spamming /m looking for a group that might be me. :P

FYI – I was using the DPS variant which takes Sig Stam, Frenzy, and Balanced Stance instead of the shouts. I Found that 1) I was having a really hard time reliably getting the hammer cc’s off (which, again, may be my lack of skill/experience with this) and 2) the dmg was pretty low – also probably due to my current skill level using this build since he states that you need to build up stacks from kills before the damage ramps up.

Anyways, it may not be the build for me. So far I have had the most success with Goldraeder’s spartan build but would still like to try something else. I tend to like tankier specs so I can stay alive longer at least while learning the class… so that may rule out typical GS HB builds.

I was just trying it out and find that I just cannot land the hammer control abilities… probably a l2p issue but they are slow and get constantly dodged or out of range.

How is this build (especially the DPS variant) doing these days? I jump around a lot between a few classes and am looking for a fresh perspective on warrior – i was previously playing goldraeder’s spartan build but I like the looks of this one with the hammer :P Just curious if it’s still viable for s/tpvp? I can’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t be.

Hi I decided to mess around with bunkering on a guardian in spvp with aspirations of using him in tpvp. I have tried out a greatsword/mace+shield mediation oriented (30/20/20) build. I am clearly doing something wrong or using a lackluster build because I’m dieing pretty quickly even in 1v1’s. I don’t have a dedicated team so I’m often solo – can someone give me some tips on a better build or some hints at how to more effectively use this one? Thanks!

Speaking from the perspective of a casual hot join pvper (which many will claim means jack kitten) I think necros are a blast. Currently, I have played necro, warrior, and thief and necro is rising to my favorite. They do not have the insane burst options that warriors and thiefs (and other classes) have but they do have the option for a good balance between damage and survivability as well as the option to be a pretty nasty condition spreading utility guy.

The build I have had the most success with is a power/DS-centric (30 in spite 30 in soul reaping with signet of undeath) using axe/warhorn (axe because I have had great success kiting with it and doing decent damage with axe #2). I can put out very reasonable damage while being very tanky through the use of DS – life force is constantly regenerating.

I have recently started messing with Hanzo’s dagger/well power build but haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet. People say that dagger does a ton more damage than axe but I haven’t actually seen that really – of course, my opinion is purely anecdotal so take with a grain of salt.

Anyways, I think necros are really fun – I like hte DS mechanic and a lot of their utility skills are interesting. The trait structure seems a little messed up though.

My 2 cents fwiw

Salt.6794:

Pizz.3698:

Salt.6794:

I almost stopped reading after you said thieves dont burst anyone down with pistols or shortbow.

You might be able to burst someone down with p/p and haste, but it’s nothing compared to d/d. And short is just rofl… if you get bursted down by a shortbow thief you’Re bad. The only way to achieve this is to spam cluster bomb and it’s only effective in super short range and even then it’s not even worth it.

Dagger is obviously the highest potential burst but p/p burst is still crazy hasted. Clusterbomb spam from a full glass thief is nothing to scoff at. Obviously not a 1v1 tactic but it’s nice in group fights with too much aoe.

I think his point was that clusterbomb spam is only effective if the thief is right on top of you because otherwise you can go make a sandwich come back and still have time to get out of the things way.

Lordryux.9785:

i mean honestly the only 2 classes that give me trouble on necro is warriors and thiefs i cant seem to beat them unless i run full on condition damage in a well bombing build thiefs eat me alive in seconds plus eat through my DS in seconds aswell so it makes really no difference what i try to do. sometimes i can get the jump on them other times they get me just as equally and at those times i have no DS saved up because i usually get zerged on and die x.x hate that necro really barely has any ways to escape lol even on warrior and guardian i can hop out of danger

I have trouble with condition perma-stealth thieves for obvious reasons. But I am able to survive the burst classes pretty well with my DS-centric axe/warhorn build. I use DS to absorb the burst on most occassions and then use spectral armor to refill life force while bursting with axe #2 and kiting with axe #3 and warhorn #5. Burst thieves are especially squishy so if they miss their burst and do not try to escape they are usually going down pretty fast. Warrior have much more survivability for the burst they put out but are also much more vulnerable if you can counter their burst.

This is really why I like to put points into soul reaping and often opt for the signet of undeath for the life force gen. However, as previously mentioned, I have not gotten used to playing melee with the dagger yet, which apparently also generates tons of life force and may still allow you to get a lot out of DS without traiting for it or using hte signet.

I think one issue I had, and granted I did not try it for very long, was that the uptime on the elite minion was pretty low so his knockdown was not available to me very often. This could very well have been a l2p issue. Therefore, the only immobilize I had left was dagger #3 but the enemy typically had a stun breaker ready for that. So some more tips on faking people out to get the immobilize off may be useful since that seems to be key to getting a well bombing build to work.

I have no problems with burst thieves on my necro as long as I have some life force ready and I see them coming. Popping into DS to absorb their burst is pretty awesome. I can see the blind well working really well too.

I use axe/warhorn in hot join mainly because I like that it’s ranged over dagger. #2 does pretty good dmg but yeah the auto-attack is pretty lackluster. The thing is, you do not need to auto attack very often – especially using the build I’m using which has crazy life force regen.

I really like the look of Hanzo’s build but I tried playing it last night without much success… I think most likely I was not on top of my game last night and also am way too used to kiting with this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQQQNBHhZakRLbvSTajhPRA9YXvvWRFQG1D3tuzB;TsAA2CnoqxUjoGbNuak1s+YAxEDA

Anybody care to critique this build? I often swap out the life force signet for another well like the blinding one if I’m facing a lot of melee or the boon to condition one in other cases. What I really like about it is the uptime of DS and the survivability I get from it. I like axe because it is ranged and I can kite with it giving me even more survivability. I typically like to play builds that allow me to stay alive for a while which is what I like about this build.

I want to try a dagger based build again because it seems to put out pretty good dmg… I think I just have to get used to playing in melee range and learning how to survive despite that.

It seems incredible to me that for a game that claims to be pvp oriented that such simple things cannot be done right and apparently are not being given any priority. I know spvp is not as important in many peoples eyes as tpvp but still – these are easy things to fix!

Constantly uneven teams – why do we have the option to select what server we go to? You KNOW that there are tons of jerks strategically picking servers with even numbers so they know they will be on the team with the advantage. That combined with rage quitting makes for matches that have uneven times the large majority of the time – the team with more players has a very obvious advantage in these games. This just seems like a simple problem to fix but nothing has been done!

Then of course stemming from that is the horrible “auto-balancing” where you get bumped from the team you worked with to get a good score and put on the losing team. This would not be necessary or nearly as bad if they addressed the first problem and put in place a system that strives to balance teams when placing new players into matches.

Profession balance – I don’t mean op vs. up (although of course there are major issues there as well) but the balancing of professions per team. I can’t count how many times I have been on a team of mixed professions against a team with 4/5 mesmers or 4/5 some other class. How in the world was this deemed acceptable?? Why would they not think to put SOME kind of logic into their system to spread the professions out evenly.

For a PVP game, these seem to me to be very basic functionality that is missing or broken and does not seem to be getting any priority. Very disappointing.

Rezz.8019:

Yeah d/d eles are quite overpowered, but people still complain about thieves

I was about to post a thread asking about this… people are always kittening about thieves but what about these ele’s I keep running into?

I admit I am no pro but still, these d/d ele’s seem tanky like guardians but put out a ton of damage – not quite as bursty as a backstab theif combo or a fully eaten 100b but still pretty bad coupled with a lot of cc.

Why do I not hear anybody kittening about this? I would see one argument possibly being that elementalists are a lot harder to play – I am not stating this as a fact but looking at the fact that you have to juggle weapon skills across 4 attunements I imagine this is a much higher skill cap.

Thief burst is deadly when it hits every 30-40s whatever it is – but outside of that they get shredded like a paper bag if they can’t get away.

Had this happen twice now: I refund my traits while in Heart of the Mists and then go to assign them but cannot – when you click on the traits the selection popup does not show up. You can hit the + button and fill up the points but still cannot select traits.

Logging out and back in clears the problem up… so “low” priority unless it’s low-hanging fruit!!!

PS – the first occurrence was LAST night prior to the update today – the second one was just now. So not specific to latest build.

So I’m assuming the “more survivability” comes mainly from runes and the spectral utilities and not so much from use of death shroud? Sorry if these are stupid questions.

I guess that’s what I was getting at earlier because I have been messing around with DS type builds and was wondering whether it was viable to change this up a bit by replacing the spectral stuff with DS stuff. I love the condition builds for necro but find that if I’m without teammates (i’m a spvp person mostly) then I get taken down pretty quick!

Cool video, mind sharing your build?

Hi, just wondering why you chose Mark of Evasion over Reaper’s Protection which would give an extra fear to work with the terror traits?

Also, would trading one of the spectral defense skill for something more offensive like a corruption skill or a well and changing the first soul reaping trait to the one that drains life force slower be viable?

Check out rainythief on youtube – he’s got a bunch of good thief pvp tutorial videos.

Probably makes more sense to post this in the guardian forums – you’ll have better luck there.

I wouldn’t mind messing wth a minion build but it seems you have to sacrifice stun breaker and condition removal which is pretty much a non starter typically n spvp.

Hi, I have had some fun playing a conditionmancer – make them pay for walking around on MY turf. I admit to be a casual, averagish (hopefully above averagish) pvper. I was wondering if anybody could give me some tips on escaping/staying alive/being tankier from a gameplay perspective. Currently playing:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNArYWjMah7tbybM8JAJFX/8kivzO6BxGnMA;TsAAzCpoay0koJbTumkNtqYUx0DA

I sometimes swap corrupt boon for plague signet but i wonder if that’s stupid because I already have dagger 4.

Just looking for some tips or tweaks to the build to deal with getting focused because I feel like I have a hard time gettting away from melee, etc.

iced cooly.5794:

Out of all the games I have ever played, people in GW2 are the most touchy and most cruel to each other..

It didn’t seem that way at first, but it has gotten worse. Also, this is just as true in WOW – there are plenty of jerks/trolls.

If I stumble into a server where they’re dueling, I typically just leave and find another server (unless I actually feel like dueling). I agree that the servers are not for dueling but I’m not going to sit there and try to fight with them even though they are technically the ones in the wrong.

I also never use the “Play Now” button, I always look for 7/10, 8/10, 9/10 servers and join those (which reminds me, they need to fix the issue where if you can’t get into the server you have to wait for a minute before you can try another one – annoying).

haha, sometimes for certain ragers it’s quit or break something expensive like a razer naga mouse

frans.8092:

The tooltip lists 1200, which seems to be correct. Also, yo must not go beyond the 1200 range or you forfeit the use of Shadowreturn.

The way I read the OP was that you CAN go beyond the range without forfeiting return – but if you do so, it will not teleport you all the way back, only up to some limit. Correct me if I’m wrong OP.

Thanks a lot for the tips guys.

I thought about using the fast ground targeting option but was worried that it would be too annoying to not have the ground target coloring to tell me whether I am in range or not for the skill… more of an issue for infiltrators arrow than shadow step but still. However, I guess using that option may kill 2 birds with one stone = 1) faster use of those skills and 2) I will better learn the range of those skills without needing the target color as a crutch – I’ll have to mess with this some more.

I have been using a tanky/stealthy (0/0/30/20/20) D/D LDB spam loltrops build primarily but recently started messing around with an S/P build – I picked up Shadow step for an additional condition removal since it’s quite a bit more squishy than I’m used to. Honestly, I don’t know how people can stand to play the backstab glass cannon build because of the huge lack of any survivability – I feel like, contrary to the whining masses, that that build is actually much more difficult to play successfully. Getting the hang of the backstab combo is one thing – but then learning how to escape and survive is where it gets really tricky – at least in my noob opinion

I do have a razer naga and use buttons on it for skills 5-9 and elite. I am very much used to using those buttons but recently was wondering if shadow step might actually be easier with a keyboard key – I bound it to Q in addition to the naga button but have not convinced my brain to actually use it yet so I can’t comment on whether it’s easier or not.

Maybe I find myself wanting to use shadow step because I want to improve my skill and this utility clearly requires more skill than RFI… I guess I’m just wondering whether people (like good players) are actually able to use shadow step as a quick stun break for things like bullrush/100B types of situations as effectively as a skill like RFI or if it’s more for gap closing/escaping?

I agree with this – also agree mostly with Jesiah – I think downed state should be at a significant disadvantage to live players… i.e. it should be much harder to rez from downed state than it is to stomp/finish off a downed player.

I admit to be an average-ish casual player – all I do in this game is spvp.

I want to like shadow step, but I have a very hard time using it as a stun breaker due to the need to target it somewhere on the screen. Is this just a L2P/practice issue or is there some trick to it? Am I the only one who often takes roll for initiative just because if I find myself stuck in a 100B I can just hit that key and instantly be out of harms way?

InfernoUk.5867:

ok cool so you salvage the stuff you get in the chests then use the loickers to craft good stuff?

Is there a specific good theif spvp build i can use to learn and get good with thats forgiving for a beginner? I know people said copy twitch top players but obviously thry can get away with playing with less health etc…

Thanks for the help guys!

Not exactly, when you purchase a chest and open a bunch of stuff will go into your bags. Then, if you do “Deposit Collectibles” any of the PVP gear or waeapons you received that are not ALREADY in your pvp locker will get transported there (similar to what happens to crafting materials and how they go to your bank). Then, any of the pvp stuff LEFT in your bags means that they already are in your locker, so it is just a duplicate of what you already have – those are what I salvage.

Then, go to the PVP locker and using that thread I posted, you can basically go look at what each piece of gear available at your current rank looks like on you by right clicking them (whether you actually have the piece or not) and doing “Preview” if it looks like you can think about crafting it – again, see the thread I linked. To craft you need to go to the mystic forge, just north of the gear/weapon vendors in the mists, and combine the materials to craft the gear.

I personally am using a condition build – it doesn’t do a ton of damage but it’s easy to escape and stay alive. Really, what you want to do is play with a bunch of different builds until you identify one that you like. I use this – the shadow arts and trickery trees give a lot of healing and vigor for lots of dodge rolls and survivability. The damage is based on spreading bleeds with caltrops and death blossom (although may people use pistol/dagger instead – it requires a lot more kiting i think). I didn’t fill in the sigils or runes but pretty sure I"m using geomancy and energe and also maybe using 6/6 runes of undead but there are other viable choices – you want to focus on condition dmg and maybe duration (duration more if you use a pistol build i believe):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAoYlUmKP3ey7E95EB3Dji0m6p4rjtTBXtKA

EDIT: realizing I forgot to fill in the 2nd weapon set – i almost always use crossbow as the 2nd weapon – it’s just really good.

Another suggestion, which helped me a ton when I was learning to play thief, go check out rainythief channel on youtube. He has a ton of useful instructional thief videos. It really helped me figure out pvp in gw2 in general and also provides a lot of build options for the thief.