(As posted at Guildwars2.com Forum)
Mileinnor.7125:
I have over 600 hours playing as a guardian, and I’m trying to play my lvl 80 thief. My main issue is that I’ve played an AH guardian for so long, that I’m simply not used to the fact that I cannot heal at anytime I want with a thief. Condition removal is also something I have to actively think about (As a guardian, conditions are auto removed every 10 seconds and at every shout). I run a mixture of Valkyrie/Knight armor with berserker accessories on my thief, and yet I feel so squishy. Do you guys have any advice or builds that can make my transition easier? What traits should I go with? Should I go with a more tanky spec?
That is a very good observation of the difference between the two professions. Unlike the Guardian, for which you get Aegis to mitigate damages and a lot of ways to block incoming attacks, Thieves relies solely on dodges, evasions, shadowsteps and blind to avoid damage.
Thieves will always be squishy that is why you need to learn how to use your damage prevention skills and to learn that you cannot handle large group any more like you would with your Guardian. You need to eat and breath Thief before you can overcome this limitation since it requires a lot of experience and technic training to pull off a very effective playstyle.
But first, to learn the Thief profession, you need to remove all bias that you have about the Guardian and about the Thief. It seems that your trouble starts because you expect the Thief to function like the Guardian, but once you set the Guardian in you aside, there will be nothing in the way for you to learn how to become a Thief.
