Guild Wars 2

Kodiak.3281:

wmryan.7209:

Ooh I really like this idea, complete focus on just one field of magic. I wasn’t an ele main, but wasn’t that how the they played in GW1?

Pyromancer could be a burst aoe spec, Aeromancer (sp?) would be single target, Geomancer could be a condi/bunker type class and Aquamancer would be full support?

My concern would be that an Aquamancer would be too close to a full-support healing class for those who specifically don’t want the trinity.

I mained an Ele for a long time until Dervish came along and yea that’s more or less how it worked. You had to put points into 1-2 lines as each class, so that lead to 12 points into Fire so you used mostly Fire oriented skills with something like Energy Storage (the class specific line). In GW1 Fire was very AOE+Burn focused, Water was more about chill and delayed burst damage, Air was very burst single target armor pen (and really the only viable one for high end PvE due to high natural AR values until the change) and Earth was mostly about bunker/tanking with wards and light damage.

Considering all the new info on Specializations and their scope with the new HOT press info dump an overhaul of things isn’t as far fetched as it sounds. They were quoted saying that they’re looking at a new weapon, utilities, traits and even new profession mechanic as part of specializations. This really opens up the scale of what specialization means so you never know.

Ooh, thanks for the response! Yeah this is just an idea I hadn’t heard or thought of before and I think it would be a really fun way to take the class.

What content are you playing? In PvP there’s a ton of build variation with different playstyles. For example, S/D is more about evasion while D/P is more about stealth. In PvE there’s one “best” way to do dungeons (Zerker D/D SB with a S/P in your pocket for trash) but open world there’s plenty of ways to play.

Maybe you just have to stop thinking of it as a perma-stealth class like WoW’s rogue is, because Thief is completely different in just about every way.

Ooh I really like this idea, complete focus on just one field of magic. I wasn’t an ele main, but wasn’t that how the they played in GW1?

Pyromancer could be a burst aoe spec, Aeromancer (sp?) would be single target, Geomancer could be a condi/bunker type class and Aquamancer would be full support?

My concern would be that an Aquamancer would be too close to a full-support healing class for those who specifically don’t want the trinity.

Hi there!

Happy to see someone thinking about the thief profession, it’s my personal favorite and will always be my main

There are a few options that you can look into for PvE builds, but first let me give the standard response when someone asks a question like this… While you are leveling, don’t force yourself into a build. Try anything and everything, as the open world content is where you should be experimenting with everything the class has to offer. One note is that you should generally always keep your shortbow as your secondary weapon. Learn to love it. It’s great for tagging enemies in events, mobility (#5 skill) and much much more. But that Primary weapon slot, I encourage you to try every single combination!

When you are comfortable with all of the weapon sets, try this one out. It’s very good for taking on large groups of enemies while taking virtually no damage. It utilizes the dodge from Dagger #3 along with traits to give you additional dodges and to drop Caltrops on dodge.

As you get to higher levels (around 60-80 I’d say), this is when you should focus in on what you want to be doing when you get to 80. Whether you want to focus more on PvP or PvE, that sort of thing. Whichever you do, check out Metabattle . It’s a great source for all of the builds the masses are running, which is a very good starting point even if you don’t want to follow the meta to a T.

Remember you can always go check out sPvP or WvW at any time and any level (in PvP you will get upleveled and have all of the traits available to you. In WvW I’d suggest running with the zerg because actual level 80s will have an advantage over you for roaming).

Feel free to add me in game to ask any Thief questions, I’m on a bit of an odd schedule, but I’m always willing to help an up-and-coming thief

If you are used to playing something like a Warrior and just tanking through every hit, i suppose the answer to your question would be yes. As a Thief, you need to utilize dodges in order to negate a good chunk of damage. Luckily thieves have access to a ton of evasion and a lot of good traits to help you out.

If you’re looking for a good leveling build:

I used this build for my first 50 levels or so. Basically you use D/D with an offhand SB, gather a few enemies, use Caltrops, and spam Death Blossom while dodging around to drop more caltrops (from the Trickery III trait).

The best part about it is while you’re doing your spamming you are dodging all attacks.

You should only be 1v1ing classes that you know you can burst hard and fast. In my experience this includes berserker staff ele’s, shatter mesmers, and other thieves.

Anything else you should either turn around and run away or look to make it into an “unfair” fight (1v2, 2v3, etc).’

The reasoning behind this is even though you could eventually outplay most classes, the time you spent 1v1ing could be better spent doing something else (back capping, imbalancing the team fight mid or close, completing other map objectives)

personally I hate the way Charr move, and the Asura’s warrior animations are absolutely amazing.

I’d say make one of each and run around with them for a bit trying out animations and choose whichever looks better to you. You have to remember that you’ll be staring at this character’s butt for the next ~40 hours, so pick what looks best.

I’m pretty sure the main reason is that while Unload does a ton of dps, you can’t keep up with the initiative cost. This makes your damage fall off rather fast.