Thief Leveling

[Darrow.6430]

Hello,

 

I'M new to the game and leveling a thief for the first time. I used to play rogue in WoW as main so figured it would be interesting to see this games take on stealthy characters. Could anyone recommend a leveling build such as weapons/traits/skills/rotations to use effectively, I have been enjoying D/D or P/P at low levels but any guidance on a decent build would be great!

 

Thanks

[Tails.9372]

Go P/P and switch to D/D later on, assuming no expansions:

 




Make sure to put one weapon per "weapon set" so you can "switch" weapons to gain 3 initiative every 9 seconds. Also prioritize trickery over critical strikes and critical strikes over deadly arts. You usually only need the 3d weapon skill to attack, the 4th one is to break the blue bars some enemies have below their HP bar. Usually you can just kite the enemy and ignore it but it's useful to stop certain attacks later on but that shouldn't be to relevant while you're still leveling up.

 

In terms of gear I would suggest assassin stats (precision > power = ferocity) simply because they are cheaper than berserker (power > precision = ferocity).

 

 

[Darrow.6430]

Thanks for the advice and build, I will try it out now! :)

[aries.4256]

I say Pistol/Pistol and Dagger/Dagger is a good start for leveling, you might like it. Try Sword/Dagger too, while leveling just try all weapons and combos and see what you find fun.

[Vornollo.5182]

Without access to Elite Specializations, S/P is probably the 'easiest' weaponset to use (using the same build Tails posted).

It's got an incredibly strong skill on #3 which Interrupts, evades and cleaves multiple targets.

S/P for mainhand, P/P for off-hand (can just put asingle pistol in one mainhand slot then). Also, Shortbow's #5 skill will greatly help in moving around any map.

If you use Tails' build with D/D instead of P/P for a setup, make sure to pick up 'Dagger Training' instead of 'Mug' for PvE content btw.

Oh, and instead of the Thieves' Guild Elite skill, you could also pick up Basilisk Venom, it's a very strong CC skill on arelatively low cooldown.

 

But really.... You can play whatever you want in open world PvE, the game's mechanics in Core Tyria are rather forgiving and make up for an excellent new=player playground to try out different weapons and builds, just to see what you like and what is effective for you.

[babazhook.6805]

I agree that s/p is one of the better sets for open world leveling. It has great cleave with #3 and if you have one, or both of IP and SOM for heals you can take down multiples of enemies and barely see your health touched. A good test of this are those mini raptors that attack in packs in the HOT areas wherein both p/p and d/d can leave you very vulnerable.

 

Open world P/P is devastating against single targets , but I really think that second set needs some good cleave or AOE.

[Tails.9372]

> @"babazhook.6805" said:

> I really think that second set needs some good cleave or AOE.

The problem is there is no good ranged AoE weapon for thieves. P/P used to fill that role vs small groups of enemies but then they removed the ricochet trait for seemingly no reason. Now we're "stuck" with cluster bomb which does work (to a degree) vs. low tier trash mobs but feels extremely clunky to use and defeats the purpose of using a ranged weapon.

[babazhook.6805]

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> > @"babazhook.6805" said:

> > I really think that second set needs some good cleave or AOE.

> The problem is there is no good ranged AoE weapon for thieves. P/P used to fill that role vs small groups of enemies but then they removed the ricochet trait for seemingly no reason. Now we're "stuck" with cluster bomb which does work (to a degree) vs. low tier trash mobs but feels extremely clunky to use and defeats the purpose of using a ranged weapon.

 

Cluster bomb/choking gas in fact works better in WvW than it does open world. The big problem open world is it slow and so you generally do at your feet AOE meaning you are taking hits all along and while you can certainly use disabling shot and infiltrators to maintain distance , this just lowers your overall damage out. That said the bounce on #1 does help as it hits three targets. More a cleave effect then an AOE effect but it more useful in that regard then is the always single target p/p.