Core Thief

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Following build is designed to guide you through your first playthrough, or simply offer you a decent and reliable Core build if you are on Free to Play account. Core builds are not advised to use later in game due to superiority of elite specializations.

In this build you will be focusing on movement, teleporting around the map, and in-and-out fight style.

You’ll be able to keep close to 25 Might stacks and permanent Fury, as well as decent Vigor and Swiftness uptime. All these boons will be partially shared with your team too.

Build Fundamentals

In this build, you want to jump in with Infiltrator's Strike and apply Vulnerability to an enemy and as many boons to yourself as you can with Steal and attacks (due to Superior Rune of the Pack, Unrelenting Strikes, and Assassin's Fury synergy). 

That will allow you to hit very strong Pistol Whip, which is your main damage source. Generally, you want to keep your initiative relatively low to keep multiple stacks of damage-increasing Lead Attacks after the initial combo.

Additionally, Pistol Whip is an evade, even tho there is no info about it in the tooltip, which should help you mitigate most of the damage.

You are relatively squishy, but with mentioned evades and thanks to Invigorating Precision, you shouldn’t have much of a problem with staying alive. For even more passive healing, you can swap Withdraw with Signet of Malice, but only do that when you are certain you won’t need condition cleanses.

You will also have decent healing from Steal via Mug.

On top of that, Weakness applied with Steal (via Serpent's Touch and Lotus Poison) and Crowd Control from Steal and Pistol Whip will ease the pressure from the enemy

Always take note of the Infiltrator's Return icon on your buff bar, as during a short window after using Infiltrator's Strike this can be used again to escape sticky situations, gain some distance and heal up.

When you don’t have Infiltrator's Return anymore, you can apply Blinded with Black Powder, note that it doesn’t provide Stealth as the tooltip suggests, but you still can get Stealth by using Cluster Bomb in the Smoke Field.

Two other skills useful on your Shortbow is Infiltrator's Arrow used for mobility and auto-attack Trick Shot, which is used for hitting multiple enemies if you need to do so (for example during larger events).

Skills

Your main offensive utility skill will be Assassin's Signet, its active component is so strong, that it’ll outweigh the passive effect in most cases.

You want to use it with a lot of offensive boons like Might and Fury when delivering chains of strong attacks (Flanking Strike,Pistol Whip).

If you are jumping from enemy to enemy though, don’t use Assassin's Signet with quickly dying mobs, keeping the passive will be more valuable.

Roll for Initiative can be used defensively to disengage the enemy or evade a powerful attack if you are out of endurance, or offensively to squeeze in one or two more attacks with the initiative you’ll get from it. Don’t be too reckless with using it though, as it’s your only Stun Break.

And finally, your elite Dagger Storm. Unfortunately, it’s not as powerful as it sounds, and more often than not it’s used for its long evade, but if you are fighting a strong enemy, especially with a larger hitbox, you can enter the hitbox to land more attacks on the same mob.

Crowd Control

• Steal
• Head Shot
• Pistol Whip
• Infiltrator's Strike with Immobilize

Gearing tips

Since this build is designed to be your entry point to Guild Wars 2 world, let’s start with the basics, if you haven’t checked the guides below, give them a read to make yourself familiar with game basics.

Game basics – first steps in Tyria

This short guide contains answers to the questions you might have on the first days of your adventure, such as where to look for tips, how to look for a group (LFG), what are the most important parts of the interface, and more!

Game systems and mechanics

Downstate, dodging, skills tied to weapon types, heart quests, and meta events, it all can be overwhelming for the new player. This guide attempts to answer all your questions, even those you don't yet know you have.

Gearing guide for PvE

This guide aims to teach you about the easiest, fastest, and most importantly, cheapest methods of acquiring your first entry-level equipment for instanced PvE content.

Introduction to the Thief

Meet the Thief. Stealthy, sneaky, and very deadly. Learn about the initiative, stealing, utility skills, specializations, and mechanics of this profession.

Don’t try to invest in Runes and Sigils before you acquire proper level-80 Exotic gear with Berserker’s stats as transferring upgrades is not possible without destroying the item, and retrieving them during the process has a small chance with most salvage kits.

From drops, crafting and level-up rewards pick items with Power, and on later levels supplemented by Precision and Ferocity.

Unlocking skills

If you’re looking up this build as you’re leveling through the wide world of Tyria we recommend unlocking Assassin's Signet and Withdraw leading to Roll for Initiative and Dagger Storm.

The first specialization at level 21 should be Trickery as it offers the most useful traits in early levels. At level 45 get Critical Strikes and finally at level 71 unlock Deadly Arts.