Guild Wars 2

Prezzy.2783:

Okay, i appologise that my figures weren’t exactly on the dot but unfortunately i have a life outside of Tyria so don’t memorise every inch.

That being said i respect you correcting me, although, you are wrong. I run Full zerkers armor along with balance trinkets (trifoge amulet, solaria circle of sun, sunari circle of moon, 2 x ancient karka shell earring). My only healing comes from these Trinkets and also my Sup runes of divinity. Even with this Very minimal healing i heal for 1700hp each shout, so your 1k is wholly inacurate.

Your figures are still even more inaccurate than his. Shouts heal for 1192 without any healing power, scaling factor is equal to 0.8 so in order to heal for 1700hp you need to have 635 healing power. Nice waste of statistic points.

I was wrong in what i said, you were wrong in what you said – 2 wrongs dont make a right but dont speak to me like you are some eliteist of a higher order than me.

And as for your dungeons comment, is there only one mob to fight in a dungeon? Because last i checked i fought more than one ‘boss’ on the way to the Final Boss. Yes, certain bosses convert conds to buffs – either way dude, every mob i hit with OMM goes down 10% faster… (albeit for a given time)… correct?

He meant that a vast amount of bosses are partially immune to vulnerability, it lasts much shorter than on normal mobs.

And to finish, i never said that Throw Bolas -> 100B was flawless – but it does work wonders when you have a d/d theif trying to dance around you. In case you were wondering my 2nd weapon is LB – this also has 5sec Immob – not to mention stomp / bulls charge. Yeah, sure, they’ll be able to break 1 maybe 2 immob but 2 immobilize + 2 knowckdowns – now i think that would be a struggle. After all, 100B only need to hit a theif once and they won’t be getting up.

So now you have two 5s immobilize skills, it just keeps getting better. I can tell fairy tales how warriors keep dying to stealth+cnd+backstab combo all day long, doesn’t mean it’s an actual image of balance. A thief can just teleport away from your immobile 100b even if you immobilize him beforehand (or just use black powder and troll you).

Fiennes.9568:

galimx.8907:

Thieves are better for pvp, for pve you have better options (guardian, warrior). I always prefer a party with warriors or guardians only. It makes things easier.

Then clearly, you’ve either rolled with bad thieves or do not understand the class. The reason I say this is because in these threads there are always plenty of posts describing exactly why the thief is a boon to any party… and then someone just ignores that and posts comments like this. Just need to jump on the hate-wagon, huh?

He doesn’t hate on thieves or even say they are bad, just that there are other classes which bring more to the group (and I fully agree). Besides SR (which is a very good skill for reviving downed group mates on bosses that don’t use AoE) there is very little a thief brings that other classes can’t bring to at least the same level. Cluster bombs for blast finishers have been mentioned earlier in this thread and it is indeed their best support skill since it’s the most spammable blast finisher in the game atm but it is reliant upon useful combo fields being out (water or fire, mostly) in order to shine.

So in short: For dungeon runs thieves are good but they aren’t the “optimal choice” if you want a speed run. (And for non speed runs pretty much anything is viable anyway since there are no enrage timers)

haviz.1340:

Prezzy.2783:

Okay, i appologise that my figures weren’t exactly on the dot but unfortunately i have a life outside of Tyria so don’t memorise every inch.

That being said i respect you correcting me, although, you are wrong. I run Full zerkers armor along with balance trinkets (trifoge amulet, solaria circle of sun, sunari circle of moon, 2 x ancient karka shell earring). My only healing comes from these Trinkets and also my Sup runes of divinity. Even with this Very minimal healing i heal for 1700hp each shout, so your 1k is wholly inacurate.

Your figures are still even more inaccurate than his. Shouts heal for 1192 without any healing power, scaling factor is equal to 0.8 so in order to heal for 1700hp you need to have 635 healing power. Nice waste of statistic points.

I was wrong in what i said, you were wrong in what you said – 2 wrongs dont make a right but dont speak to me like you are some eliteist of a higher order than me.

And as for your dungeons comment, is there only one mob to fight in a dungeon? Because last i checked i fought more than one ‘boss’ on the way to the Final Boss. Yes, certain bosses convert conds to buffs – either way dude, every mob i hit with OMM goes down 10% faster… (albeit for a given time)… correct?

He meant that a vast amount of bosses are partially immune to vulnerability, it lasts much shorter than on normal mobs.

And to finish, i never said that Throw Bolas -> 100B was flawless – but it does work wonders when you have a d/d theif trying to dance around you. In case you were wondering my 2nd weapon is LB – this also has 5sec Immob – not to mention stomp / bulls charge. Yeah, sure, they’ll be able to break 1 maybe 2 immob but 2 immobilize + 2 knowckdowns – now i think that would be a struggle. After all, 100B only need to hit a theif once and they won’t be getting up.

So now you have two 5s immobilize skills, it just keeps getting better. I can tell fairy tales how warriors keep dying to stealth+cnd+backstab combo all day long, doesn’t mean it’s an actual image of balance. A thief can just teleport away from your immobile 100b even if you immobilize him beforehand (or just use black powder and troll you).

No, tbh i think bolas is 3 seconds, LB skill 5 is 5 seconds, stomp is 2 second knockdown, as is bulls charge.

I would love to put my warrior in practice against your theif – afterall, i tailored my build around beating theives as they were the only issue i faced in WvW / PvP.

It’s the combination of melee + medium armor +low HP that makes Thieves die so much in Dungeons.

Assuming equal skill distribution amongst all classes Thieves are rather unforgiving.

One god thief will not change a sea of bad thieves. People will not waste their time on dungeons runs (because they have to be as FAST as possible) trying thieves until they found a good one.

So if you really want to play a thief you will have to accept this, NO ONE will do anything to force people to accept thieves in their party and ANET will not give thieves uberpowers so everyone will want a thief in their party.

And before you even start, yes I know how thieves play, 90% of them are just kitten, most just make thief to invisible kill in pvp/wvw and don´t have a clue about PVE. And I know how good thieves play and have a very good damage and their stealth habilites helps a lot on dungeons runs.

OP mentioned that he was kicked from CoF runs because he was a Thief.

Does this actually happen to anyone else? ._.

I’ve pugged CoFs, CoEs and Fractals at least dozens of times each and haven’t ever been kicked just because I play a thief.

Maybe I just happened to be lucky so far?

Takato.4976:

Sovta.4719:

And BEFORE you say i sacrifice DPS for this i have might stacking on crits and perma-fury meaning 68% crit chance, Can comfortably drop theives in both PvP and WvW – with 2 skills – Bolas -> 100 Blades = Dead squishy theif.

I think you lack the pvp experience if you think throw bolas -> 100b actually works on anything, especially a thief. Saying this just plummeted any credibility you could have had.

Warriors are in need of a buff in pvp, they dont lack damage but have no reliable way to actually do the damage on anything. Plenty of threads about this in the warrior boards, you may have a read.

For the topic at hand, Ill take a thief over a warrior/guardian any day, you only see what you’re missing after playing one in the higher level fractal or playing with a good thief.

Cheers.

Talking about dungeons, i’m not that good at pvp and i know thiefs are great there .:)

Kaon.7192:

OP mentioned that he was kicked from CoF runs because he was a Thief.

Does this actually happen to anyone else? ._.

I’ve pugged CoFs, CoEs and Fractals at least dozens of times each and haven’t ever been kicked just because I play a thief.

Maybe I just happened to be lucky so far?

Yes and no.

It´s because you pugged randons most of the time and not those high efficient runs parties. Two friends of mine play thieves, they are very good at this and even get downed but done a lot of damage before. Most of the time they are kicked.

For me it´s not a real problem a random thief on my party if I´m not doing a real fast run, but in fast runs I prefer a warrior and if I have to take and thief i pick one that I know well.

The sea of bad thieves is astounding. On the other hand, you can tell when there’s a good thief, but at that point, the effect is just meh.

It doesn’t help that a lot of people build pure glass cannon and don’t know how to use the dodge key.

Prezzy.2783:

haviz.1340:

Prezzy.2783:

Okay, i appologise that my figures weren’t exactly on the dot but unfortunately i have a life outside of Tyria so don’t memorise every inch.

That being said i respect you correcting me, although, you are wrong. I run Full zerkers armor along with balance trinkets (trifoge amulet, solaria circle of sun, sunari circle of moon, 2 x ancient karka shell earring). My only healing comes from these Trinkets and also my Sup runes of divinity. Even with this Very minimal healing i heal for 1700hp each shout, so your 1k is wholly inacurate.

Your figures are still even more inaccurate than his. Shouts heal for 1192 without any healing power, scaling factor is equal to 0.8 so in order to heal for 1700hp you need to have 635 healing power. Nice waste of statistic points.

I was wrong in what i said, you were wrong in what you said – 2 wrongs dont make a right but dont speak to me like you are some eliteist of a higher order than me.

And as for your dungeons comment, is there only one mob to fight in a dungeon? Because last i checked i fought more than one ‘boss’ on the way to the Final Boss. Yes, certain bosses convert conds to buffs – either way dude, every mob i hit with OMM goes down 10% faster… (albeit for a given time)… correct?

He meant that a vast amount of bosses are partially immune to vulnerability, it lasts much shorter than on normal mobs.

And to finish, i never said that Throw Bolas -> 100B was flawless – but it does work wonders when you have a d/d theif trying to dance around you. In case you were wondering my 2nd weapon is LB – this also has 5sec Immob – not to mention stomp / bulls charge. Yeah, sure, they’ll be able to break 1 maybe 2 immob but 2 immobilize + 2 knowckdowns – now i think that would be a struggle. After all, 100B only need to hit a theif once and they won’t be getting up.

So now you have two 5s immobilize skills, it just keeps getting better. I can tell fairy tales how warriors keep dying to stealth+cnd+backstab combo all day long, doesn’t mean it’s an actual image of balance. A thief can just teleport away from your immobile 100b even if you immobilize him beforehand (or just use black powder and troll you).

No, tbh i think bolas is 3 seconds, LB skill 5 is 5 seconds, stomp is 2 second knockdown, as is bulls charge.

I would love to put my warrior in practice against your theif – afterall, i tailored my build around beating theives as they were the only issue i faced in WvW / PvP.

Actually haviz makes a very good point in regards to Black Powder; all your immobilizes really are meaningless when you do no damage.

Thiefs tend to be squishy when glass cannon build but that’s pretty much the only build you can do to be on equal footing with others in terms of contribution in dungeons since bunker and condition builds are easily outclassed by other classes.

They have some skills that are useful in certain situations but that’s about it.

They are far better in pvp than pve.

I think the problem people have with thiefs is there is just so many that are worried about them selfs. an by that i mean they dont spec in a way to help the group they spec to do dmg and have little survivability if they arnt using stealths. that being said there are good thiefs out there but i think the number of ones that just bring dps to the table give say venom leechers or other support builds a bad rep and people just dont feel like taking the chance.

Prezzy.2783:

No, tbh i think bolas is 3 seconds, LB skill 5 is 5 seconds, stomp is 2 second knockdown, as is bulls charge.

I would love to put my warrior in practice against your theif – afterall, i tailored my build around beating theives as they were the only issue i faced in WvW / PvP.

For a change, hover your mouse cursor on that skill and check again, it’s 3s without any +cond duration. Secondly, I own both thief and warrior and I actually can tell their weaknesses and strong points. Thirdly, do you even know about existance of this function called dodge?

Dueling is pointless because this thread is about PvE so it will prove nothing (unless you think rangers are very good in PvE cause they are in PvP) and even then thieves are better at PvP (check top tournamets teams’ rosters).

Why people don’t like thief?
Well if you read the comments that are on the thief side you can clearly see how the people who are saying that thiefs are great are the ones that are actually playing them, as well as saying that a good thief is the most amazing, and most valuable class to have in a party for pve is just silly, I’ll take a second guardian, warrior, over a thief any day.

I’m not biased however, thiefs are an amazing pvp class and a good thief will win every 1v1 fight, I do quite a bit of WvW and whenever I run into a thief and if the person knows what he’s doing, there is no hope I’ll get him down, a problem I do not have with any other class.

There are good PvE thief too, there are just too many bad once so people don’t take chances, I feel that thief is a class that requires you to be a bit more active to be good with it.

I think this topic requires some defining. There’s a difference in running and dungeon and the ever so popular “speed run”. If you look on gw2lfg.com and see someone saying “GLF1M CoF p1-3 Already in dungeon!” joining as a thief is likely not going to cause you any problems. The dungeons truly are setup in a way that practically every team composition can successfully finish them. (Arah p4 is it’s own category. Personally, I would place it as a special kind of hell.)

Then there are the speed runs. These parties are farming machines. They are looking for maximum long term damage and utilities/cantrips that allow them to cut corners in the dungeon. CoF path 1 is the perfect example of this as it’s the most farmed path/dungeon in the game.

People want 4 warriors and 1 mesmer ideally. Guardians can be substituted in for warriors, but what people really want are 4 100b and a time warp. Then you quickly kill the acolytes, then the mesmer ports you through the flame ball trap, a warrior dps’s the gate down, and you do 4 100b/Time Warp on the flame effigy and rinse repeat.

So why do people have an issue with thieves joining in on the equation? As a guy that farms with a zerker thief, I have been kicked many times whilst trying to join CoF p1 farm groups. I feel like the reasons for such are as follows

-Thieves do NOT benefit from cooldown reduction
This is a big deal because a hardcore CoF farming group wants to kill The Slaver in 1 Time Warp (2 Time Warps if you’re running a 3 dps 2 mes party).

-Thieves have a ridiculously small margin of error
Like I said, I do dungeon farming with my thief. And I can honestly say when I first started it was insanely difficult. I had phenomenal dps, but the moment I got hit my 2-3 AoE’s I was done for. As I’ve continued to play these high tier dungeons I have become better and now can safely say that I can bring top notch dps and stay up, but I had to work at it.
-DON’T BE A SUPPORT IN FARM RUNS.
Seriously, almost 95% of the time I see farming parties kick thieves it’s because as soon as the thieves see the party is skeptical about their presence they say “Don’t worry, I’m a boss support.” Farming parties don’t want support. They have a mesmer to hit the Time Warp button and they expect everyone else to be facemelting. Thief support is crazy amazing, but recognize the party’s need.

For those asking about builds I run Sword/Pistol Pistol/Pistol with 30/30/0/0/10 with full berserker gear. For utilities I run shadow refuge/signet of shadow, venom, and haste. Thieves guild for elite.

xev.9476:

For those defending thieves, mind posting what build(s) you run for dungeons?

i’m 10,30,20,0,10

it’s a ton of dps, near perma cond removal, and near infinite ini until you start spamming hs to help finish off the mobs/boss. You can’t just have static utilities and expect to succeed so… I use all of the heals depending on the situation. I use roll for ini, shadow step, smoke screen, scorpion wire, shadow refuge, and haste as my utilities and all of the “0” skills have their uses as well. Also use all the weapons/combos but usually run d/d and sbow.

i just got the boot from 2 partys because i am a thief (again)
1 didn’t even let me enter, the other i said “hi all” on party, then i got kicked !

WTF ???

I’ll be honest – I cower when I’m grouped up with a thief in any dungeon. 9/10 they’re absolutely awful and glass cannon. I haven’t kicked a thief just for being a thief, but I don’t have much sympathy for when it happens harsh as it may sound. x-x

i have to revive the warriors and gaurdians constantly when i run dungeons as a glass cannon thief, it actually gets kinda annoying, thinking they are heros

with bosses, i sit back and spam unload.. massive sustained dmg and out of harms way. I revive using shadow refuge, and clear a condi/refill endurance of teamates with sig agil

randomfightfan.4091:

I know there are a lot of bad thieves out there but when you have a truely good thief in your party, one that really knows the class, they can bring more to the group then any other class. Many people probably believe this but yet every day I see dozens of lfgs saying no thieves. Even in cof p1 farm teams straight up kick my thief(and obviously others) just cause of the bad stigma. People just don’t seem to care that other classes can bring in more than whAt they assume.

well
1) One thing – bad thieves indeed die too much
2) Even in that CoF1, thieves don’t contribute to the party as a whole. Warriors share banner buffs,shout buffs. Thieves just consume. In CoFp1. warriors are much much much(….^10) better than thieves for sure.

ah yes, after i got the boot 2 times in a row,
i decided to make my own party and invited 1 more thief
after that, ppl were just entering party then leaving 2 seconds later !!!!!

i want this problem to be fixed !!!
(it should have been all caps)

I think the thief profession needs a complete redesign. Currently thieves have the highest single target damage in the game and superior tools of engagement and disengagement (shadowstep and stealth). Thieves are easy pownage in WvWvW and pvp, but don’t fare that well in pve, because:
1. Most thieves build themselves only for damage. This brings very little to the team. Dungeons are about teamplay. Not about selfish “I made the most kills”
2. Thief profession attracts players with low levels of skill
3. Thieves don’t have that many party-wide utility skills as some other professions do

A great thief can be an asset in a dungeon, providing stacks of vulnerability, group stealth and stealth reviving (shadow refuge), keep the enemy blinded and dishing tons of damage and do I need to mention caltrops, scorpion wire and cluster bomb (= biggest damage ranged spammable AoE skill in the game). However I have also seen very bad thieves in dungeon. I was playing my warrior & using rifle most of the time. The group’s thief decided to face tank the boss. I was telling in party chat “use ranged weapons, dodge away”. But the thief just insisted to use his dual daggers and kept dying next to the boss. This happened with every encounter. Even as a warrior, I do not facetank forever. More like hit & run.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Currently thieves have the highest single target damage in the game

i do not think so …. warriors seem to do a better job and bring more to the table… really
healing shouts/banners/perma fury/ quite tanky etc.
5 seconds of invulnerability f f s … (6 if traited)

randomfightfan.4091:

I know there are a lot of bad thieves out there but when you have a truely good thief in your party, one that really knows the class, they can bring more to the group then any other class.

No, thieves can not bring more to the group than any other class. I have never seen a thief that came even remotely close to this. The most I have ever seen a thief bring to a group is shadow refuge for gimmicks or skipping content (something which I strongly despise). I’m sure thieves have good DPS, blast finishers from bows can be useful and generally they can contribute around the same as other classes but I would never believe they can bring more to a group than any other class. If I had to pick a class I thought added the least to my dungeon groups (control, combo fields, combo finishers, DPS with reliable survivability across all skill levels) it would probably be the thief. Most thieves fall into either the category of frequently getting downed and often needing a res, or they never die and are incredibly selfish with the way they use stealth. They can use stealth for support purposes (without being gimmicky or skipping mobs) but that alone doesn’t make up for the limitation in other non-DPS contributions the thief is given.

You are getting kicked from CoF farms because they only want warriors and mesmers. It’s not because you are a thief, it’s because you are not a warrior or a mesmer.

Shiren.9532:

You are getting kicked from CoF farms because they only want warriors and mesmers. It’s not because you are a thief, it’s because you are not a warrior or a mesmer.

it was for fractals ~30ish ….
i am very upset about this, really.
i have just 1 character, and that’s thief 80.
i don’t want to grind another class to lvl 80 and all my soulbound items !
i don’t care about pvp or wvw where thief is king…

i think why all of us got a bad day wich thieves in party :P , for me is the most skill based char, im lvl 38 fractal and doned all the dungeon many many time and have watch no more then 10-15 realy good thieves

randomfightfan.4091:

Btw the PERFECT team comp for Coe is 5 thieves. Tested and true

Problem solved, thieves can run dungeons together and everyone else can feel secure leaving them out since they are so capable.

randomfightfan.4091:

I know there are a lot of bad thieves out there but when you have a truely good thief in your party, one that really knows the class, they can bring more to the group then any other class.

And exactly what support can you offer for this opinion because let’s not kid ourselves, this is purely your own opinion here.

Sheesh. I’m a warrior, and while I’m happy to no longer experience the class discrimination I found in GW1 as a warrior, it’s dismaying to see other classes get the same treatment in GW2.

Heck, I recently met an Engie saying the same thing – how he was straight up kicked from a Fractal simply by virtue of his class.

When GW2 got started, I marveled at the fact there really was no class discrimination, and each class was useful. I guess that’s the penance of the endgame content…

As soon as the going gets slightly rough, rather than working constructively to get around the problem, some groups start playing the Blame Game and shout at each other for being Bad – and of course, it’s never even partially their fault at all.

Those groups aren’t fun. I’d rather run a dungeon with a good-natured ‘undesirable’ class any day of a week, than a bunch of players telling other people they’re playing their class wrong – or the wrong class altogether.

Seems like some folks here should give this thread a read: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/About-elitism-in-MMOs/first

I keep seeing that we burn our initiative and suck the rest of a boss fight, yet I seem to be able to spam cluster bomb as much as I’d like in a fight. I think this idea comes from too much theorycrafting on paper, and not enough actual play experience.

1 of the reasons I stopped playing theif was because of all the bad theives out their who give decent ones a bad name. Also shadow refuge is pretty easily replaced by ash kits and order of whisper kits

To start i am a thief lvl 80 play more dungeons than WvsW and pvp (but i have experience). I am happy they nerfed the stealth kits because when i am online they always ask me for dungeons. (before too but now more for stealth at skipping).

I started with a cond build but for pve and dungeons but it is not that good. Now i have a full dps build. I use d/d and p/p or sb but i am thinking to change to d/s.

I have done a lot of dungeons runs (also DM). I am now helping guildies with arah.
My experience in most dungeons is that if you have a melee group just hug the boss and dps him, if someone gets downed heal him (good tactic).

I had a lot of good reactions of people and when people invite me they never kicked me in a dungeon because i sucked. When i did fractals a lot, i was most of the time the last man standing at the fireshaman dungeon.

You need to learn your class and know or learn to play with it. And learn the dungeon tactics.

People need to learn that there are good thiefs and that they are usefull (more now they nerfed the spykits (ty a-net)).

I have an 80 thief, necro, and warrior. Despite all the clamoring for zerker warriors, I honestly think my thief is more useful in dungeons unless it’s a total steamroll of an easy path where everyone knows exactly what to do, is in no real danger of dying, and the only thing that matters is getting through it slightly quicker. Black powder, pistol whip, scorpion wire, and shadow refuge are all absolutely invaluable.

RedDragon.7984:

To start i am a thief lvl 80 play more dungeons than WvsW and pvp (but i have experience). I am happy they nerfed the stealth kits because when i am online they always ask me for dungeons. (before too but now more for stealth at skipping).

I started with a cond build but for pve and dungeons but it is not that good. Now i have a full dps build. I use d/d and p/p or sb but i am thinking to change to d/s.

I have done a lot of dungeons runs (also DM). I am now helping guildies with arah.
My experience in most dungeons is that if you have a melee group just hug the boss and dps him, if someone gets downed heal him (good tactic).

I had a lot of good reactions of people and when people invite me they never kicked me in a dungeon because i sucked. When i did fractals a lot, i was most of the time the last man standing at the fireshaman dungeon.

You need to learn your class and know or learn to play with it. And learn the dungeon tactics.

People need to learn that there are good thiefs and that they are usefull (more now they nerfed the spykits (ty a-net)).

completely agree and am also super happy about the spy kit nerf :P Too many people just see people who don’t know how to play their thieves fail and then assume all thieves are like that.

Also just looking at your utilities on the grawl shaman, if you aren’t already using it, smoke screen and dagger storm are stupid strong there (save for the lil eles). Although congrats on getting recognition from others, it is VERY hard for people to break the stigma of thieves=bad
But if you found a build that works for you and you do well with it then just ignore me and keep on winning

And in general, thief can drop the ele’s shield faster than any class EXCEPT for sbow ranger… but the thief needs to use daggers to do it.

I say daggers because his shield removes 1 tick pre ABILITY used, not per hit of dmg hitting him. Unload, exploded cluster bomb, hundred blades, warrior riffle unload, ect. all only remove 1 stack of shield And thief can remove it faster than necro solely because they can get onto the boss faster (with a free removal of 1 tick with steal + the stolen item) and out easier with dagger storm/blinks.

Nikaido.3457:

Black powder is useless against most (all?) boss, what does pistol whip bring except being a subpar version of 100 blades that roots you but deals far less damage ? I’ve never seen the point of scorpion wire when a mesmer with a focus and a guardian with a gs can pull all of the mobs close together for a quick melee aoe burst. Shadow Refuge is useful in a group where people die all of the time, not in a good group, and for dungeon speedclears, is subpar, compared to the mesmer’s veil, because you need to stay inside until the end of SR before you can move while stealthed, unlike veil, which lets you run through quickly with no aggro. Then you compare the paltry smoke screen to a guard’s wall of reflection or mesmer’s feedback + temporal curtain reflect..

The thief has neither the utility of a guardian or mesmer, nor the raw, sustained damage of a war. And the war doesn’t only have a personal DPS, it boosts the WHOLE group dps, with a banner giving 10% more crit damage to everyone, might, fury.. and don’t get me started on the elite banner. It has saved many more lives in high lvl fractal runs than a useless Shadow Refuge that will not protect you from AoE and can actually resurrect more than one downed at a time. Also works on NPC which boost the speed of completion of the urban battleground fractal.

pistol whip=spamable hundred blades where you are evading while casting it, removing stacks of defiance, and stunning your target while doing it.

Use black powder before judging it

Hundred blades doesn’t root you? It doesn’t last longer than pistol whip? It’s spammable? Crazy, I always thought otherwise…

Mesmer focus and guardian gs have 1200 range that brings the target onto you? Guardian gs has a knockdown after the displacement? They apply whatever on hit/crit (can crit) effects that you have on you at the time? Crazy, I always thought otherwise…

Shadow refuge isn’t an insanely strong combo field? It doesn’t help displace entire groups of mobs when you use it right? It doesn’t give any size group the ability to run past anything without generating agro? It doesn’t save you time on any dungeon run if you use it right? Crazy, I always thought otherwise…

Thieves don’t have other utilities? Only shadow refuge and scorpion wire? Thieves don’t have any stealth skills that can be used while people are moving? Veil lasts as long as ANY thief stealth abilities… let alone smoke screen and shadow refuge? Shadow refuge doesn’t help keep people alive while staying inside it? Shadow refuge isn’t HUGE, meaning you can move around inside it? You are locked/rooted in place while in shadow refuge? Crazy, I always thought otherwise…

Smoke screen doesn’t have a significantly better combo field than guardian wall? You can position mesmer feedback bubble as well as guardian wall or thief smoke screen? Crazy, I always thought otherwise…

Thief doesn’t have utility or raw dps? Crazy, I always thought otherwise…

Shadow refuge only stealths 1 person at a time? Shadow refuge doesn’t stealth downed people? Thief can’t give party wide big buffs? Shadow refuge has a longer than 4 minute cooldown? Warrior elite banner can give the buffs when needed and still be saved to res downed allies? Shadow refuge doesn’t help heal downed allies? Shadow refuge doesn’t make it easier to res downed allies? Warrior banner takes agro off in trouble, priority targets? Warrior banner has a combo field? Necro signet of undeath can’t res anything that warrior banner can on a significantly shorter cooldown? Crazy, I always thought otherwise…

Nikaido.3457:

When i did fractals a lot, i was most of the time the last man standing at the fireshaman dungeon.

That’s mostly because the people you group with were more than unskilled. A guardian has way too many projectiles block (shield of the avenger, wall of reflection, shield of absorbtion), regular block (shield of wrath), aegis, regeneration.. to die in that fractal unless they truly don’t know what they are doing. A mesmer is a tad more squishy, but has distortion, feedback, reflection on temporal curtain, the focus phantasm, blink, strong condition removal.. a well played thief can survive the grawl fractal well, but the other classes have much more to bring to a party.

My first character was a thief and I brought it up to lvl 30+ fractals. I just stopped playing it, not because I had a problem surviving with it, but because it just doesn’t bring enough to a party beside its own ability to survive. The war boosts the whole party dps and deals more sustained damage, the guard has a very strong ability to keep a bad group from a wipe, the mesmer has both some of the utility of a guardian, a decent dps and brings group quickness for 10 sec with time warp. The question is, among my characters, why would I keep playing the thief?

because thief can solo SOMETHING in 90% of the fractals that no other class can bring. Warriors have no projectile block/reflect aside from the one on HIMSELF. Thief can kite better than warriors making it easy if only the thief and 1 other is alive, he can stealth the 1 other and kite the boss while the 1 other reses the rest.

I agree that guardian and mesmer are the in the top 3 of best classes for fractals, but thief is in the top 3 as well. There is no specific order (would be if you could chose which 3 fracs to do but if you get dredge, thief instantly becomes #1), but I wouldn’t argue if you had to say thief was the 3rd best class for fractals. I also wouldn’t argue that you only need 1 thief, but having 2 good thieves is never bad.

I’m sorry to say but the only classes that are legitimately bad at fractals are necros, engis, and warriors (rangers are good for 99% res and for breaking grawl shaman bubble).

I’m not saying not to bring anyone from those classes along. A good player in any one of those classes will always do more than a bad player of the more useful classes. However, someone from the above mentioned classes have more potential to do well than the others.

randomfightfan.4091:

they can bring more to the group then any other class.

I LOLed. By virtue of standing there doing nothing but spamming virtues and shouts on cd (or WoR and SoA) a guardian would easily dish out more support than a thief playing at 100%. Hell, playing hammer you can give everyone around you 100% protection uptime. Just by friggin auto-attacking.

So No.

Nikaido.3457:

pistol whip=spamable hundred blades where you are evading while casting it, removing stacks of defiance, and stunning your target while doing it.

with my build I get a kittenton of dps and still have insane damage. I don’t know what you think thieves have to sacrifice to get good ini back but it’s not nearly as much as you think. And cc is almost never necessary but it is ALWAYS nice to have. Try doing the ritual part of lvl 40 frak without any cc lately?

Nikaido.3457:

Could you, gasp, give me a single example of where in the hell that might be useful ?

Chasing down fleeing opponents, grawl fractal ritual phase, kitty fractal – keeping bots off your buddy as the are kiting the boss around a pillar… WITHOUT potentially agroing the boss away, char fractal, pulling in mobs to kill them easily without bringing the wrath of ascalon on top of your group, pulling any of the silvers in arah (except hunter sadly) without agroing all of his killer friends… there are many more but I don’t feel like typing them all in, would take too long.

Nikaido.3457:

Hint, it’s not about how long veil last. It’s about the fact that you can just run past through it and you’re already getting past the mob once it’s cast. Shadow Refuge needs the group to stay inside that circle and lose time before running. It’s useless in a speedclear.

those 4 seconds of standing still, that completely drops all agro with no chance of it coming back (unless someone severely messes up) makes it useless in a speed clear? So dropping agro on something that was still slightly too close after veil invis ended isn’t slower than waiting 4 seconds? How about the part in cof where you need to run past the bridge but are already blocked by the door, cast it so the door opens when the circle goes away and you just sped up the run by 4 seconds because no one gets slowed down from combat.

Also talking about speed clears, CoE, running past the abom. Instead of running to the left and hiding for 20s, waiting for it to pass, drop sr, wait 4s (or 0 if u time it for when the door gets blown open), then just run past the abom and all the risen and wait a grand total of 0 seconds instead of 20, speeding up the speed clear.

Any mesmer invis doesn’t keep you invis for long enough if a mob gets pulled into a horrible spot, sr and smoke screen spam does. Also the thief invises give better combo fields that last longer.

Nikaido.3457:

If you find yourself in a situation where you’d really need a lot more than the elite banner, which does have a long cooldown, to rez downed people, you are in the wrong group.
And Shadow Refuge is basically meaningless to rez someone in a fight like Alpha in CoE. The guardian with a trait can rez fast and the elite banner does work there, shadow refuge will not protect anyone. An instant “aegis” before the AoE is far more useful than this.

The thief is not a terrible class, but it doesn’t have any area where it’s not inferior to another. A balanced group with a few mes, guard, war will just do better.

People can mess up but still be good players. Also, in the groups with people who don’t die, I use the invis on sr to clear conditions, give me ini (can go from 0 to full if I don’t break stealth immediately), heals my group (base heal and the field), boosts my damage. Also sr is insta cast, res banner has 2s channel.

If you’re saving warrior res banner until someone goes down then it’s just a waste of an elite skill. Why not just bring signet of rage or something? At least that will be getting used.

Agreed that sr is pretty useless in a fight like alpha for ressing, but it’s amazing in most other fights (including lupi).

Every class has their special abilities that makes them truely shine, including thief. All classes ARE better than thieves in one way where as thief IS better than ALL classes in others.

The problem with this little argument that we’re having is that you’re just trying to say thief=bad just because in certain areas all other classes have them beat. You are ignoring EVERYTHING a thief can do well so you just don’t want to acknowledge it because that would, in a way, make you wrong. You’re just selling thieves short and not giving them a chance. It’s one of those things where you’ll never see what a thief really can bring to the group until you either play one and learn how it’s meant to be played, or have a good one straight up carry you by showing how much it does for you.

And I’ve never said any other classes are bad in this argument. Even when I said certain classes were bad IN FRACTALS, it doesn’t make them a bad class. All that means is that their strengths are used to the extent as the strengths of other classes.

Hint, it’s not about how long veil last. It’s about the fact that you can just run past through it and you’re already getting past the mob once it’s cast. Shadow Refuge needs the group to stay inside that circle and lose time before running. It’s useless in a speedclear.

With stealth change, even though you run past the mobs after using it, you are still very likely to reagro the mob when stealth breaks. Also you can only have it for the start OR middle OR end of the run. With thief, you can have stealth for the start AND middle AND end

My anecdotal 2c on Thief’s awesomeness in speed clears:

When my guild runs the harpy fractal, I can stealth my party through the entirety of both platforming portions using a combination of Shadow Refuge and Smoke Screen blast spamming and coordinated short stops along the way.

Never aggro’ing a single harpy.

Kaon.7192:

My anecdotal 2c on Thief’s awesomeness in speed clears:

When my guild runs the harpy fractal, I can stealth my party through the entirety of both platforming portions using a combination of Shadow Refuge and Smoke Screen blast spamming and coordinated short stops along the way.

Never aggro’ing a single harpy.

could do that… but the powerful bloods :s. Another nice little piece of advice is if you have a portal gun you can run up solo and portal them all up. Makes it easier and faster imo.

randomfightfan.4091:

Also just looking at your utilities on the grawl shaman, if you aren’t already using it, smoke screen and dagger storm are stupid strong there (save for the lil eles).

Those weren’t the skills i used, i use daggerstorm to kill the elementals but i don’t use smoke screen i know it is usefull but i like other skills more.

I use stealth to help fallen teammates and to heal myself sometimes (drop it on you than use pistolwhipe to get lifesteal). Signet of aggil for extra precion or to remove a condition and give me 2 more dodges (i use remove conditions when i am close to people that need it).
Haste if my teammates die/go down a lot to heal the faster.

I have a full dps build but i still am a teamplayer so i try to keep my team up and running as i can.

Sometimes when i was in fractals there were people that didnt heal me, they were selfish. That is when i went in “evil mode” i would pull mobs bring them to that player and go stealth and let him die and let him think about helping teammates.

I dont care if i m/ you are a pug play as a team and everything goes a lot better.

abelooi.9156:

randomfightfan.4091:

they can bring more to the group then any other class.

I LOLed. By virtue of standing there doing nothing but spamming virtues and shouts on cd (or WoR and SoA) a guardian would easily dish out more support than a thief playing at 100%. Hell, playing hammer you can give everyone around you 100% protection uptime. Just by friggin auto-attacking.

So No.

And by playing mace you can heal everyone around you just by autoattacking. I wonder how many bosses in GW2 are beatable by a team of 5 guardians, one hammer the others mace + shield all autoattacking and just waiting for it to end

Ive grouped with good thieves in Arah and Fractals and have enjoyed having them in groups. Im not sure why but most random pug thieves Ive grouped with are more concerned with playing for themselves rather than using skills to help the group. And when they are like that there is very little value in taking one in a group. This isnt to single out thieves because the same can be said of other professions. And they are probably asking “why not take my <insert profession here>” in a group?

Good people care for the group’s success and they will do utmost to not burden the group even at their own discomfort. Naturally, they will adapt and will become a better player.

stof.9341:

abelooi.9156:

randomfightfan.4091:

they can bring more to the group then any other class.

I LOLed. By virtue of standing there doing nothing but spamming virtues and shouts on cd (or WoR and SoA) a guardian would easily dish out more support than a thief playing at 100%. Hell, playing hammer you can give everyone around you 100% protection uptime. Just by friggin auto-attacking.

So No.

And by playing mace you can heal everyone around you just by autoattacking. I wonder how many bosses in GW2 are beatable by a team of 5 guardians, one hammer the others mace + shield all autoattacking and just waiting for it to end

I would feel bad for any guardian forced into using mace… soooooooo boring. Sure it heals but that’s about all it does, and only on the 3rd attack and for very little.

SkyChef.5432:

Good people cares for the group’s success and they will do utmost to not burden the group even at their own discomfort. Naturally, they will adapt and will become a better player.

Nope, they’ll complain that they should be able to play how they want to and be able to obtain the rewards they want even if it means holding back their 4 other teammates.

Ioflux.4369:

SkyChef.5432:

Good people cares for the group’s success and they will do utmost to not burden the group even at their own discomfort. Naturally, they will adapt and will become a better player.

Nope, they’ll complain that they should be able to play how they want to and be able to obtain the rewards they want even if it means holding back their 4 other teammates.

If you keep tickling me, I will drown you w/ my new warrior skill: Beer Burst.

Hmm, I must be lucky that I’m pugging with nice folks :p

Imo, Thieves strive in situations that require speedy burst over short distances & short non-aggroing maneuvers, plus some dps support & defense against projectiles. With some practice with shadow stepping skills, familiarity with dungeon/fractal maps & most important of all, learning to work with other team mates, I believe Thieves can contribute to success of the team. Personally I find working with Elementalists is best to dish out huge AoE dmg with multiple conditions.

Some examples : Shadow Refuge, together with speed buffs, can help whole team to skip trash mobs in TA, CoF, SE & Arah easier, or stealthing 2 folks who are hacking console & bomb runs of underground fractal; Smoke screen are good to have when fighting projectiles hurling mobs, especially harpies at uncategorised fractal, where we used to take turn to conjure reflection/absorption walls to minimise being knocked out of platforms; Shadow-stepping skills such as Infiltrator’s arrow can help in covering short distance faster, especially operating buckets at underground fractal boss fight, getting the wisp at eastern part of map alone, without aggro many hatchlings & clearing laser floor trap at beginning of CoE.

stof.9341:

And by playing mace you can heal everyone around you just by autoattacking. I wonder how many bosses in GW2 are beatable by a team of 5 guardians, one hammer the others mace + shield all autoattacking and just waiting for it to end

The same number that are beatable by a team of 5 guardians using ANY weapon.