Guild Wars 2

I’m eventually going for level 80 on each class, right now I’m not sure if I should go for a thief or warrior.
A little about what I like to do:
I roam in wvw a lot, sometimes zerg.
I PvE a lot, not much sPvP
I like mobility and having a little big of a supportive aspect.
I play at a medium level, not terrible but not very good.

warrior if you play at medium level, although thief would be better for roaming

Warrior is pretty good at everything it does without being too complicated or difficult to play decent. Roaming you can run a variety of builds from Condition to Power builds depending on your liking. The mobility is good, but you will most likely focus 1 of your weaponsets to achieve this. (Sword/Warhorn ftw) For zerg you can AoE CC amazingly well with Hammer whilst having decent survivability. With shouts you offer some support to your team. For PvE you’ll mainly support by buffing your teams damage (Banners, some Might/Fury or even 20-25 Might at the cost of your own DPS (Phalanx Strenght trait))

Thief is great at roaming, high burst and likely the best escape mechanics in game, meaning you can escape from a lost fight and re-engage when you’re recovered. They also have access to multiple shadowsteps/returns for any mobility-needs. For zergs they don’t offer a lot that other classes can’t offer either better, or with more survivability. In PvE they mainly play Sw/P on trash (perma blinds) and D/D for bosses (the highest dps) with some support possibilities through a single conditioncleanse/endurance restore and Smoke Screen (Anti-Projectile, more Blind) and ofcourse for allowing the team to Stealth certain bits. (E.g. Underground Facility/Uncatagorized) The downside of this is that you’re squishy, especially if you compare it to a Warrior, so it might not be as enjoyable if you think you’ll struggle staying alive.

Tl;DR
I’d personally recommend you to roll Warrior first. Warriors are generally well-beloved in any aspect of the game by PuGs (and organized groups,) whether it’s a Dungeon/Fractal group or a WvW zerg/roaming Party. For this reason (assuming you enjoy playing them) they’re great to have at 80, even if it’s just to fall back on when you struggle finding a group. It’s also an amazing class for learning the robes of more difficult content.

Thieves, though not the most unbeloved class, can recieve some hate/dislike and are also not something you want to have more than 1 in your group. I know this shouldn’t be a reason to not roll a class, but you’ve already expressed you’d roll the other class sooner or later.

Yeah I’ll be getting both, the question is which to get first (a lot of gems for extra char slots :/ so the second may be a while)
Thank you so much for the feedback

How squishy are thieves compared to an engineer? I’m fine with the survivability my engi has.
Or maybe is it closer to an ele?

TheBandit.7031:

How squishy are thieves compared to an engineer? I’m fine with the survivability my engi has.
Or maybe is it closer to an ele?

In PvE I find the Thieves survivability is closer to an Elementalist due to having the same hp-pool (~11k.) On trash (or any mob without Defiance) Thieves are incredibly survivable due to their high blind-uptime, but on anything with Defience (Champions, Dungeon Bosses, Fractal Bosses) they are closer to an Elementalist having a similar HP-pool and only slightly higher Armor. I feel the extra 4k hp (at 80) on Engineer makes them quite a bit bulkier, where-as a Thief and Ele might get 1-shot, the 15k and 18k hp classes can usually take a second hit.

I can’t judge for PvP situations, Thief is by far the squishiest class I play, but I can pick my fights and either burst them down or escape. On top of that I play Elementalist with Celestial Amulet (I don’t roam with her) and Engineer in Rabid, making them more survivable just due to the gearchoice.

I do think how-ever you can easily level a Thief and work on getting used to the Boss-mechanics to survive, you can also chose to go high into Shadow Arts whilst practicing for an incredible survivability boost. (It’s what I did when I was still very inexperienced) so if Thief sounds a lot better to you than Warrior, go for it. You won’t improve unless you try.

randomguy.1283:

warrior if you play at medium level, although thief would be better for roaming

Thief is actually quite easy, just get a decent build from Into The Mists. Not extremely supportive, but its great for roaming.

I’ve rolled both a warr and a thief to 80, although my warr is my first and longest played character.

Quick point. You don’t need thieves in the Underground fractal anymore as that has been nerfed to oblivion. This was added in the last major patch. You pick up bombs from a dispenser and run through a smoke cloud to get stealth then plant the bombs. There are stealth detectors that will reveal you and mobs spawn to attack. It’s face roll easy now.

If you look at pure zerk warr vs thief it’s all about the survivability. There’s about a 5-6k difference in HP which means a hit that would one shot a thief wouldn’t a warrior. Thieves rely heavily on good timing on the dodges and blinds to provide the same damage absorption.

In terms of party offensive support, it’s pretty hard to overlook a warrior. Empower Allies, Banners, shouts all of those are solid support so even without an ele you can maintain 25 might on your party.

The single biggest advantage that warrs have is Battle Standard. Way too many times has that saved a party from wiping in a boss fight. Instant res on anyone within the AOE, which can be extended from 600-900 with trait that also decreases the recharge time by 20%. Most boss fights won’t last that long but it is an amazing skill.

A Soldier kitted warrior can eat a lot of damage without going down while still dishing out respectable damage. About the only class that has higher survivability is the Necro.

Think of the warrior as a jack of all trades. It has very good dps output, solid survivability, excellent party buffs.

Thieves on the other hand are very much specialists. You really need to excel in dash-in-dash-out techniques to make the best use of their damage output. Positioning is everything to a thief as their flank and rear attack abilities are devastating. Particular when you factor in their stealth attacks on auto attacks. They’re probably the class with the best mobility skills with all the evades, stealths and leaps at their disposal. However, they’re incredibly squishy and a mistimed attack, especially in wvw, could mean you eat an Eviscerated or a hammer attack in the face and poof there goes your HP. Channel skills are the biggest enemy to thieves as they will continue to track you even in stealth if the first hit connects.