New thief seeking advice!

[Crymsyn.5037]

First of all lets start this with I've never really played Rogue/Thief type characters I chose this due to daredevil which seems more Martial artist themed. I'd like some advice on how to play a thief in Pve mostly just going through the zones and story been using mostly sword and dagger or dual daggers. Now I have been thinking of going Trickery first but being that I know nothing about thieves before I settled on a Specialization I thought I'd see what other's though....I'll likely be using a shortbow or dual pistols in my second set for some ranged but mostly wanting to melee....Now I am close to 30 so maybe I should of asked this long before now =P.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

The easiest way to level up a thief is using sword + pistol.  Pistol Skill #5 is Black Powder, which puts down a smoke field that inflicts blind on enemies every two seconds.  Since this is faster than most enemies attack, it means that Black Powder will make everything but champions just miss you over and over again.  Once you've gotten that, everything else becomes quite a bit easier.

 

When it comes to specializations, trickery is good for the first choice.  After that, I would recommend going with Critical Strikes, Deadly Arts, Shadow Arts, and Acrobatics in that order.