Guild Wars 2

To be fair, when I hit this point, I was still really new at the game, as my Thief was my first and primary character. I was nowhere near as good as I am now. However, this particular encounter with Doc Howler improved my play quite a bit, as I died several times and had to adjust my play style and weapon choices in order to advance. Most of the difficulty from Doc Howler comes from her poison damage, I think, and at such a low level, you might not necessarily have good condition removal. It’s nice not being able to mow everything over every now and then, helps keep the skills sharp.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

I’ve checked out Two-Blade Pete, and he’s a standard “veteran” level creature (with reduced damage.) So he should be soloable, though you might need to adjust your build/tactics to take him out. Basically, he’s roughly the same difficulty as a same-level skill challenge. I’ve personally beat him with an equal-level thief, making sure I didn’t use any traits/skills I wouldn’t have access to at that level.

I thought the OP’s issue was with Doc Howler, not Two-Blade Pete…

This was a challenge for me as well at the appropriate level on my Thief. I eventually got past it by using Sword/Pistol. The only skills I used were the sword auto attack, the #5 skill Black Powder, and the Hide in Shadows healing skill. I saved my initiative for Black Powder shots and used it whenever it was available. Hide in Shadows helped alleviate some of the pain of the poison damage Doc deals. The blinds from Black Powder really help reduce the damage Doc Howler deals. You can run outside to line-of-site Doc if you need some time for initiative to regen.

Suggestion: Provide some time before facing off against Mazdak to fight with Caladbolg to get used to using the weapon. It took me a few seconds to realize that I didn’t have my normal arsenal of spells, and I had no clue what any of the sword’s abilities did. By the time I realized what was going on, about half my life was gone. The area just before Mazdak, where you have to gather ancient bones and fight the cave spiders would be perfect.