Guild Wars 2

I’ve not really used my Thief in serious exploration modes, but even at launch I recall people claiming Thieves were selfish and offered nothing in a dungeon setting. While reading on GW2Guru and other off-site forums, I noticed a vitriolic hate against Thieves as recent as a few weeks ago.

Assuming the player is competent, is there really a stigma against them, or is it just the vocal minority?

Due to time constraints, I find I’ll have to focus on my Thief or Ranger exclusively and while I know both are dark horses, I don’t want to be “persecuted”.

Thanks!

Sokar Rostau.7316:

I have really noticed that it is usually the overall group, and not any individual class that makes or breaks a dungeon. Sad to say, since I play one, the Necro is the only class that I am hesitant to run a dungeon with if there’s more than one of them in the group, and that’s only because of the way Conditions work which often means one of the Necros is contributing very little.

With that said, bad players are bad players, regardless of class.

I find this goes double as a thief. I can be very effective if there are a bunch of tough frontliners alongside my D/D self to help spread the incoming damage around, and someone spamming regen really, really helps keep me in the fight. In these situations I feel just as useful as my guard/mes/warrior, pumping out damage that would make 100 blades blush. If everyone in the group is ranged or are other squishy melee classes, I can’t really take the heat and it’s awful. Meanwhile I am much more capable of being the sole melee character on my guardian or warrior and can slot them into any group setup just fine.

There are certain areas in dungeons that having a thief will make easier or faster to skip / complete.

Also I’d say competent thieves will do better in Pugs that an organized group, stealth is of great asset when things go haywire.

Depends entirely on who you are grouped with.

We took my guildmate’s thief with us when we first started doing explorables. However, we run synergistically with an eye to folks playing what they are good at, not forcing them into cookie cutter professions/builds designed for specific encounters. We ran those explorables with 4, not 5. She has since moved onto a couple of other classes (her choice). We are constantly experimenting with different group combinations, as our interests change. Besides being supportive and creative, we actually do care about being effective and efficient. Although not the hyper-efficiency with all the correlating trade-offs that some embrace.

Short answer for us: yes, her well-played thief added to our group.

You will probably get "grief "from some players who have different values about what constitutes a “viable” class in a dungeon.

And there will be others that will embrace diversity as long as the person is competent.

Join a guild, if you haven’t already, that would welcome the player behind the profession not because of the profession.

Good luck.

I’m sure there will be more responses that offer better data than I can.

First of all it depends on the thief, his skill and build.

I’ve seen many thieves in my parties and I can say most of them are just plain simple bad.

Sometimes I join a party with a thief that does huge dps and is competent enough to not die. Most times though I will join a party and a thief will die all the time or just go and use bow.

I know it’s probably true for most classes but thief is a king here. To play thief you have to dodge a lot, which means enough experience to notice all the clues.

IMO thief is rather hard to play well but when you do every party will notice how much you’re helping them.

It’s PVE take whatever the hell you want.
There is a stigma but again srs just use the prof if you want.

Thieves are pretty middle of the road in dungeons. They definitely aren’t a must-have class that people hope to have in their party like War/Mes/Guard, but if the person playing it is capable enough to deal with being a squishy, melee-focused class then they can hold their own okay. Stealth and black powder make some sections easier. Bad thieves, however, are utterly worthless, unlike a bad warrior or guardian. I’d even take a bad necro, ranger, or engineer over a bad thief – at least they’re much less likely to die immediately.

I wouldn’t call thieves good, but I wouldn’t call them completely terrible either.

I run with a couple of thieves regularly. We usually do quite well in even the hardest explorable dungeons. Haven’t been above 20 in fractals though.

ensoriki.5789:

It’s PVE take whatever the hell you want.
There is a stigma but again srs just use the prof if you want.

Indeed, play whatever is fun to you, not whatever is supposed to work for somebody else. Much like in real-life, we can’t really live trying to please everybody, especially since many people have their weird biases and can be close-minded. If we are to be free individuals, we do things our way, not someone else’s way (especially in a game, which you play to have your own kind of fun, not anyone else’s-are other people our bosses?)

I always have fun when partying up with thieves-the stigma is rather ironic, as the “PvE meta” supposedly favors Berserker’s sets and “all DPS all the time” (so they claim, I am not convinced at all), but everybody assumes Thieves are Berserker’s (and thus “too squishy”) because many of them are, and reject them due to this… do you like full DPS or not? O.o Convenient DPS bias (OK for Warriors on Dungeons, not OK for Thieves?) That said, any good player using his/her Thief makes for a fun Dungeon venture, whether he/she is full DPS or something else.

If somebody won’t accept your Profession, you are better off not playing with them. Play with someone more open-minded, and enjoy the ride-but please don’t limit your choice to the common 3 “accepted Dungeon Professions”, because those are not needed-no specific Professions are required to do well, and this game was even designed around that principle, which many seem to ignore.

Thiefs may be getting an over all kitten damage nerf but they will also be getting a bit more servivabilty. And than if there new ability to steal boons is also useful on mobs they could get way better for dungeons

I’m pretty great in dungeons that I know. I really enjoy my thief and I’m pretty good at my play style. It depends on what you’re comfortable with. I do group with other thieves and sometimes they’re great and sometimes they’re horrible. Just be good at what you do (unless what you do is run in and burst then die. Stop that, just dodge roll out once you burst)

nah, warriors ftw.

Thanks for the input!

I know I felt good about dungeons (if squishy) back at launch, but since I don’t have fractal or real explorable experience, it’s hard to cut through the usual negative static some of the forum communities have. I’d like to put the effort into being a great thief you’d like to have than being a mediocre ranger (though I do love the combo fields that brings). Not that I’d be mediocre as a ranger, but you get what I’m saying. I’m willing to do the work, but have fun with both classes.

I know smoke wall and shadow refuge were useful, but I can see how smoke wall isn’t as great as Mesmer or Guardian or even Ele utility since it doesn’t reflect. And I’m aware blind is great, but not on bosses. If any thieves have tricks of the trade, I’d love to hear.

I’m coming from a caster DPS and tank background, so it’s really refreshing to play these classes.

I have really noticed that it is usually the overall group, and not any individual class that makes or breaks a dungeon. Sad to say, since I play one, the Necro is the only class that I am hesitant to run a dungeon with if there’s more than one of them in the group, and that’s only because of the way Conditions work which often means one of the Necros is contributing very little.

With that said, bad players are bad players, regardless of class.

To answer the title: Yes.

Thieves have some great utility which is all to often forgotten. Blind can be a life saver in certain fights, Harpies on Fractals, Bloomhunger, Kitten-Golems etc. They are also really useful in the Dredge fractal, both as a lever puller, you can shadowstep cutting out a lot of the run, drop agro easily, pick up downed players, on the panel in the cage and running bombs. I’ve also seen them be very useful in the Ice fractal for lighting the big fire.

If all they are contributing is DPS then there are better classes, if they are competent and able to support the team they can do part of a Guardians job in higher level fractals, where their walls and blinds can do a similar job to a Guardians Bubbles and Walls.

I would totally add a thief to a dungeon party if that means we can stealth and skip a lot of encounters.

The only thieves that are not viable in dungeons are the berserker ones. You should know that the thieves have the lowest base health pool of the game.
If you play thief, always have two sets of gears : one for dungeon with survivability and keep the berserker for open world or pvp.

I use to worry about being a thief in dungeons before I hit 80. I read a lot of negativity so I made a warrior, got to level 20, wasn’t for me. Made a mesmer to 66, I liked it but still, it wasn’t me. So I went back to my thief.

After you really learn to play a class, they all work. You have to adapt to the party I find. Take for instance, I’ve been running a 0/30/30/10/0 build lately with sword/ dagger and sb combo for dungeons with a focus on blinding when going stealth and regen allies when stealthing them. It works great if yiu have several melee classes. Yiu can keep the blinds up and put regen on your teammates. Yiur almost all in god mode.

But then yesterday, I did a few runs with some guild mates on some dungeons and fractals. We had a necro, guard and 2 eles. I basically switched to my sb and just spammed combo field. With the guard and 2 elementslist, I was gettin some crazy area nights and area retaliation. We were all in constant 25 stacks of might, and retaliation plus me and the guard were providing regen. It was so smooth

I try to stay away from stuff like 30/30/0/0/10 stuff in dungeons except for cof 1 runs since then I use dagger dagger because most fights are 1 guy who you dps fast. Even the acolytes are easier with it since I can mug Cnd and backstab.

At the end of it all, it’s a game, the goal is to beat a dungeon, pick your favorite class and do it. Yiu have to get that mindset. Most dungeon runs that go well are because the group knows the mechanics and their class.

Most this " I don’t want this class" honestly comes from bad players. Take for instance, I don’t mean to rag on rangers but most rangers I run into are very bad. They just sit there and shoot a now in the same spot while the pet tanks the front. Even in WvW , you can be on top of them and they just seem to keyboard turn in place and pew pew. Usually in a dungeon, if I see a ranger pull out a melee weapon, I know their goin to rock. But since most stay in the back and hog their healing seed for themselves, they don’t help the group and are just there. And it happens a lot and gives races a bad name. It’s like when a thief goes full berserk and jumps Ina group of bets and tries to bs one out of 50 trash, its pointless, get the bow or sword out and start aoeing.