Guild Wars 2

Hey!

I haven’t played for a long while,
I made a Thief almost 3 years ago and I used to love it,
then my little brother kept playing it a couple of months ago,
(he got bored pretty fast lol)
but there’s something that I’m quite not understanding right now.
As you can see on the official site: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/thief/
What makes the Thief unique are Initiative and Stealth.
This are supposed to be what define the Thief as a class.

But after checking the wiki for a couple seconds I see that now Rangers, Mesmers, Engineers, Druids and Scrappers can use stealth skills too?
I mean, what? Then what makes the Thief feel unique now is only the Initiative system?
I mean that’s cool but a thief is supposed to be the class that hides in the shadows and stuff, not an engineer or a druid..

Not only that but Scrapper gets even better Stealth that Thief?
I just wanted to ask because I don’t get what’s the point of playing Thief now.
Thanks for reading!

Hi, welcome in this game. Mesmer and Engineer can stealth since launch. Ranger since… a long time. Stealth has never been a specific thief mechanic. Thief as a special attack when in stealth, that’s their ‘’special mechanic’‘. I hope you don’t play thief only for stealthing…

Well I was 3 years ago at least,
Stealth was the unique mechanic at least, that’s the idea they sold me,
if Stealth is just a gimmick then what is this: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/thief/
I certainly don’t see they mentioning Stealth on other professions,
I just don’t get what has the Thief on his favor,
I mean mesmer was already pretty unique, didn’t need to have other’s professions mechanics as well, same for engineers.

I mean, aside from warrior and guardian every class has something pretty unique,
mesmers can make clones, engi has turrets, ranger has pets (and this actually didn’t need something that unique, I mean.. it’s the archer class), necro has transformation, revenant is a mess, elementalist has 4 different elements with lots of skills.

I just want to know why should anyone play Thief, just for the no-cd basic skills?
It won’t tank better than a guardian, it won’t deal more dps than a warrior, it won’t stealth better than a scrapper, what can he do better than others?
I know it has a somewhat better movement capability, that’s cool for pvp (I guess), but for a PvE player the Thief doesn’t offer anything special or unique, it’s just a “little of everything” class.

Is your question “Why play thief?” or “How do we justify thief as a class with stealth when other classes also have access to stealth?”

I pose a few questions in return:

Does engineer have a trait line dedicated to stealth? Does mesmer?

Should thief gameplay be based entirely on stealth?

Thief has the most access to stealth, and can activate it almost at-will, unlike the other classes that have to deal with cooldowns on very few skills.

Thief has a lot going for it – Stealth, the Initiative system, its specific skills and traits and utilities, its evades…

If Thief doesn’t offer anything special or unique, then no class does.

A thief main here, and have been playing for 1 year so far. With the recent balance patch, thieves have the added advantage of innate venomsharing, which means you don’t need to equip the trait to share your venoms with your allies. How useful is this I’m not sure, especially since the radius is reduced and a few venoms have reduced stacks, but in PvE with lots of breakbars, it might be useful to share CC venoms with allies.

Also, the now empty venomshare trait is replaced with boon steals when attacking in stealth, which may be useful in PvP and WvW, though stealth skills now have a 1 sec cooldown between them.

Though from what I can gather, thief is now a class that requires a higher level of play skill as compared to before, with nerf after nerf every balance patch that really forces you to use whatever you have left. I admit my thief skills are rather meh, but I’ve seen very skilled stealth gankers in WvW. My personal opinion is also that I feel when it comes to stealthing, mesmers and scrappers are more useful.

To be honest, I feel rather useless being a thief in WvW because there’s not much that I can do with my skill (and lag) level, and I don’t dare try PvP, but I still have fun playing it, and the daredevil elite, in PvE. I love playing as a thief, regardless of what happens to the class in general

Yeah I’m not saying that the class is not fun, I’m just asking what’s unique about it.
Some say that thief has a stealth traitline, that doesn’t make stealth a unique mechanic, it’s literally on other 4 classes.

Also, that doesn’t make the thief the best stealth class,
as Kuro said above, Scrapper is way better, yes Thief could get more stealth but you would have to use that specific traitline (which I consider to be a negative thing, not a positive thing, because you lose another possible traitline just to be able to use your main mechanic: stealth) instead of other mechanics to be actually viable (deal damage or gain mobility).

I just feel like Thief hasn’t got anything in what he is better than the rest,
except maybe for a little mobility and.. yeah that’s it.

What’s the point?
Again, I’m not saying it is a boring class, I love my thief and I’ll continue to play as a thief, but I certainly feel like any other class would be better on almost any situation.

Unique to Thiefs: Steal ability, three dodges (when specced for Daredevil), very high DPS (probably highest vs. smaller targets)
Other pros (though not exactly “unique”) would be great CC ability and hilarious mobility.

Thieves have Steal and more endurance if traited for it as unique features among others. Our signature mechanics are initiative and dual wield skills. You can build for stealth and disengage or you can build for evasive brawling but your success will come down to how you spend your initiative and how well you conserve and then use initiative and skills in one fluid chain or one explosive action while having the responsibility to adapt instantly for yourself and your group.

We are the initiative and your team should use you as such if you’re capable and aware of that.

thief is working on getting nerfed every balance patch til the game is over. i suggest finding another class unless you just absolutely love the thief. if thats the case stick to pvp as everyone will hate you for pve.

Also with DD; customisable dodges, great mobility, and melee staff. Only two professions have access to Melee staff, Revenant and DD thief.

Because Thief can Auto attack and get the highest dps in the game in PvE.

Simply press 1 and you can achieve 34.5k in organized settings XD.
Its so efficient that it is replacing elementalist (old king of big immobile target dps) on their specialty (big, immobile target dps).

Also it takes 7% less base damage than Ele due to medium armor, has 3 dodges, and lots of useful initiative skills for more dodges making you 10x more survivable than many other classes so long as you know what you’re doing.

I see a lot of good comments,
and I agree that Thief is not a bad profession, at least for regular pve,
but that’s not the point of the thread, the point is that it has nothing unique.

Steal is not unique, it’s just an F1 skill and most professions have one,
its ability is not unique either it’s just a skill that grants another skill.
Can’t really compare that to a pet, clones, different elements, turrets, etc.

I already said that his mobility is the only thing that is a bit better than the rest,
but is nothing that great either, it’s just an extra roll and only if you have the elite spec,
which means you have to be Lv80 (so for a new pve player this is useless) and you have to own HoT (which means no free player will ever use this).

I like my Thief and I don’t think it’s garbage or anything,
I just feel like the Profession has nothing unique to offer.

You are highly underestimating the Thief’s mobility. It’s not just the extra dodge – Initiative gives the ability to spam gap closers or disengages, engage at any range (Any other class with off-hand ranged weapon and melee main has to wait forever to strike again with the off-hand weapon), rapidly warp around the battlefield (Sure, Rev, Guard, and Mesmer have shadowsteps – but theirs are laughably ineffective compared to Thief), reposition and dodge at-will, and tell-free stealth. (Engineer has the big flashy ’STEALTH GYRO" flying around)