Guild Wars 2

I swear people are way way worse at rotating now than when I used to play during the old solo queue.

Thieves. Listen. I don’t care how many 1 sided stomps you have watched in the “esports” scene where some thief decaps far alot. Stop trying to copy that stuff.

Think about it logically. You are a damage class. The highest burst in the game. As a damage class you want to be in outnumbering situations. That is what damage classes do in every game ever made.

Common scenario

When you 5v5 mid on legacy and get 1 kill, it is common for you thieves (because you just copy people and dont think for yourself) to go and decap far. Which makes no sense.

Think about it. All your teams damage and cool downs have gone on getting a kill middle. And all your enemies teams cooldowns and damage have done damage to one of your targets (probably your necro if you have one). So your necro is probably low on health and cds. Your ele probably has no cds for heals. You enemies are probably high on health as they haven’t been focused (the dude you downed and killed got focused not them)

Then you leave because you got a kill. So the its now a 4v4 where all the enemies are full health with cds and all your team is low on cds as they used them to get the kill and used them to stop whoever the enemies were focusing from dying.

So the thief leaves and the enemy then turns the fight around (as they now have a big advantage) and wipes your team. So now your decap didn’t matter. Because they get it back anyway and snowball the whole game.

In addition, thieves don’t seem to realise respawns happen. Like if we get a kill mid but dont snowball the fight and wipe them then guess what. Their respawn will come in with full cds and health and will just clean up that mid fight.

If I help 1 thief not suck from this post then I will be happy. Give a thief a direct order and they can not suck for that moment. Give them the logic of why they shouldn’t decap far so soon and maybe they can learn to not suck forever.

Depends on comp of course. In bunker vs bunker perhaps decap far more quickly. But generally the whole “get 1 kill so I go far” means you probably punt most your games despite playing the most OP class.

If you think about it logically my advice is flawless.

I don’t understand your scenario at all. How does a 5v5 turn into a 4v4 where your team is on low health with no cds but the enemy team doesn’t suffer the same consequences? Your scenario basically assumes the enemy isn’t trying to dps or heal.

It actually makes more sense to me for the thf to quickly decap far after getting a kill at mid. If the thf decaps far, the respawn might be tempted to waste their time capping it rather than return to mid fight, meanwhile your thf, being the fastest roamer, can get back to mid quickly to +1 another target. The assumption here however is that the thf’s team doesn’t lose the 4v4 in which case that’s not the thf’s fault at all. In fact, if your team can’t win 4v4 and can only win 5v5 when the thf is there, it gives the impression that the thf might be carrying you.

Kuya.6495:

I don’t understand your scenario at all. How does a 5v5 turn into a 4v4 where your team is on low health with no cds but the enemy team doesn’t suffer the same consequences? Your scenario basically assumes the enemy isn’t trying to dps or heal.

It actually makes more sense to me for the thf to quickly decap far after getting a kill at mid. If the thf decaps far, the respawn might be tempted to waste their time capping it rather than return to mid fight, meanwhile your thf, being the fastest roamer, can get back to mid quickly to +1 another target. The assumption here however is that the thf’s team doesn’t lose the 4v4 in which case that’s not the thf’s fault at all. In fact, if your team can’t win 4v4 and can only win 5v5 when the thf is there, it gives the impression that the thf might be carrying you.

Because your teams damage was focused on the person who died. Their teams damage was focused on someone who hasn’t died. So you have 1 person in the 4v4 who has taken alot of pressure. They do not. So it isn’t a fair 4v4 at all. Imagine this.

Your team focus their necro. They kill it and he dies. Great. But the rest of their team is full health. Their team focus your warrior. He doesn’t die. But he is now low on cds and health. So then you, as the thief, leave for 20-30 seconds. You leave your team in a bad situation. Most likely that warrior will go down because he was already pressured and because you left. And you will then lose the mid fight and snowball from there.

Your logic of “you lost the 4v4” is what most people in this game think and say and it is illogical for the reasons I stated. It happens every game. It isn’t only thieves. But it happens alot.

People overvalue caps and undervalue actually finishing the fights and winning the fights.

Understand?

But to say the enemy doesn’t have cooldowns isn’t true. They would probably be worse off since they’re trying to save their downed.

I think that:

1. you undervalue the amount of aoe damage the enemy team is taking during the initial confrontation

2. it seems while you didn’t state it, your scenario assumes your team doesn’t have a support ele because it’s hard to imagine a warrior going down with a tempest there to support and no peels from the other 2.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Kuya.6495:

I don’t understand your scenario at all. How does a 5v5 turn into a 4v4 where your team is on low health with no cds but the enemy team doesn’t suffer the same consequences? Your scenario basically assumes the enemy isn’t trying to dps or heal.

It actually makes more sense to me for the thf to quickly decap far after getting a kill at mid. If the thf decaps far, the respawn might be tempted to waste their time capping it rather than return to mid fight, meanwhile your thf, being the fastest roamer, can get back to mid quickly to +1 another target. The assumption here however is that the thf’s team doesn’t lose the 4v4 in which case that’s not the thf’s fault at all. In fact, if your team can’t win 4v4 and can only win 5v5 when the thf is there, it gives the impression that the thf might be carrying you.

Because your teams damage was focused on the person who died. Their teams damage was focused on someone who hasn’t died. So you have 1 person in the 4v4 who has taken alot of pressure. They do not. So it isn’t a fair 4v4 at all. Imagine this.

Your team focus their necro. They kill it and he dies. Great. But the rest of their team is full health. Their team focus your warrior. He doesn’t die. But he is now low on cds and health. So then you, as the thief, leave for 20-30 seconds. You leave your team in a bad situation. Most likely that warrior will go down because he was already pressured and because you left. And you will then lose the mid fight and snowball from there.

Your logic of “you lost the 4v4” is what most people in this game think and say and it is illogical for the reasons I stated. It happens every game. It isn’t only thieves. But it happens alot.

People overvalue caps and undervalue actually finishing the fights and winning the fights.

Understand?

This is an interesting thought, but pvp is a game of pressure, right? By decapping far, you relieve pressure from mid in a different way than +1ing mid does. It achieves roughly the same result depending on how badly your team loses the 4v4. If you go far and then 3 of the 4 of your team dies mid, you made a mistake; if, however, the two teams mid tie, when you get back to +1 again, you have relieved pressure from mid by making their now respawning player go far and are in the process of relieving more pressure mid by taking out another player.

Warcry.1596:

But to say the enemy doesn’t have cooldowns isn’t true. They would probably be worse off since they’re trying to save their downed.

Obviously if they all die ressing (or almost die ressing) that is different. But often thieves will get a down and automatically leave. Which is really really bad for the reasons I stated.

It is much more common your team will be low on cds (or someone on your team) because they were being focussed. So that damage previously done is still in the 4v4 to come. Whereas the damage your team did on the person who died is out of the 4v4. So its a really disadvantaged 4v4 often.

Kuya.6495:

I think that:

1. you undervalue the amount of aoe damage the enemy team is taking during the initial confrontation

2. it seems while you didn’t state it, your scenario assumes your team doesn’t have a support ele because it’s hard to imagine a warrior going down with a tempest there to support and no peels from the other 2.

Thats irrelevant as both teams have aoe damage. Lets say each player does an arbitrary 5 damage (on average) during the initial 5v5. So each team does 25 damage (arbitrary number).

So your team maybe puts 12 of that 25 onto the target who died (reasonable assumption). The other 13 damage carries over to the 4v4. However, the other team put their whole 25 damage onto your team (probably none on you as the thief). So 25 of their damage carries over to the 4v4. So your team is at a disadvantage in the coming 4v4 after the thief leaves. Their damage from the 5v5 carries over to the 4v4. Yours does not.

The numbers arent important. The concept is. Other games do not make such fundamental mistakes as is done at ALL levels in gw2.

As for having an ele. That isn’t really relevant as we are talking logic, maths and principles here. But obviously the tankier the match is (the less damage in the match) then the less bad it is for the thief to go and decap.

The basic principle (again based on math) is that in dps comps and vs dps comps you need to focus your dps and focus on kills as the caps mean less. In bunker comp vs bunker comp then decaps matter alot more because the time to kill is higher.

I have never seen or played with a thief in this game who understands this. They play the same whether they have a 2 necro/warrior/engi/thief (dps comp) or a ele/engi/dh/warrior/thief (bunkery comp).

BloodriverTim.2031:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Kuya.6495:

I don’t understand your scenario at all. How does a 5v5 turn into a 4v4 where your team is on low health with no cds but the enemy team doesn’t suffer the same consequences? Your scenario basically assumes the enemy isn’t trying to dps or heal.

It actually makes more sense to me for the thf to quickly decap far after getting a kill at mid. If the thf decaps far, the respawn might be tempted to waste their time capping it rather than return to mid fight, meanwhile your thf, being the fastest roamer, can get back to mid quickly to +1 another target. The assumption here however is that the thf’s team doesn’t lose the 4v4 in which case that’s not the thf’s fault at all. In fact, if your team can’t win 4v4 and can only win 5v5 when the thf is there, it gives the impression that the thf might be carrying you.

Because your teams damage was focused on the person who died. Their teams damage was focused on someone who hasn’t died. So you have 1 person in the 4v4 who has taken alot of pressure. They do not. So it isn’t a fair 4v4 at all. Imagine this.

Your team focus their necro. They kill it and he dies. Great. But the rest of their team is full health. Their team focus your warrior. He doesn’t die. But he is now low on cds and health. So then you, as the thief, leave for 20-30 seconds. You leave your team in a bad situation. Most likely that warrior will go down because he was already pressured and because you left. And you will then lose the mid fight and snowball from there.

Your logic of “you lost the 4v4” is what most people in this game think and say and it is illogical for the reasons I stated. It happens every game. It isn’t only thieves. But it happens alot.

People overvalue caps and undervalue actually finishing the fights and winning the fights.

Understand?

This is an interesting thought, but pvp is a game of pressure, right? By decapping far, you relieve pressure from mid in a different way than +1ing mid does. It achieves roughly the same result depending on how badly your team loses the 4v4. If you go far and then 3 of the 4 of your team dies mid, you made a mistake; if, however, the two teams mid tie, when you get back to +1 again, you have relieved pressure from mid by making their now respawning player go far and are in the process of relieving more pressure mid by taking out another player.

That is another mistake. When a thief decaps, often some stupid ranger will follow him and cap the point. This is even more stupid than the thieves decap because then you let your team get outnumbered again.

By going to decap in this scenario the thief makes a mistake. But he gets rewarded for it if (say) a ranger follows him out of the mid fight to recap.

The respawning person should not go and cap the empty point either. He should go to the mid fight and try and win that. The caps don’t matter. You can always go and cap the point later.

I agree with your point, thieves you should focus on building momentum from kills and decapping is more of a defensive move to break the enemy momentum by pulling people away from the main fight.

However, your scenario doesn’t make much sence, as you assume no one from both teams knows how to peel. If the enemy necro is under heavy pressure, the other teamfighters will try to relieve him from that pressure by throwing tons of aoe damage on him while he’s kiting. The same should happen on your side of course. But when you have players peeling/supporting each other, chances are when you get a kill, everyone from the enemy team is under heavy pressure and you still keep the advantage 4v4.

The thief should rotate depending on what the person at your far or their home node does. Usually after capping home, that person will rotate into the mid fight. If a thief see’s this, they should immediately decap far to force that person back to the node to stand on it and out of the mid fight, where hopefully your guy rotates mid from home and the thief rejoins the fight making it 5v4 mid and an easy win…..

I like how you typed ALL thieves are bad at rotating. Like 100% of thief players are bad, every.single.one.of.them. You should change the title if its possible.

Your scenario makes no sense. You are worried about tempest and berserker with cooldowns but somehow completely neglect that the thief will be the one suffering from it the most after a team fight.

Often times is better for the thief go decap a node while recovering from the low hp, which can get them one shot, and recover the cooldowns, go back to +1 or down a really low target than stay in a team fight and be deleted in 1 second because have no sustain.

Remember that a dead thief have 0 damage.

Scykosix.7836:

I like how you typed ALL thieves are bad at rotating. Like 100% of thief players are bad, every.single.one.of.them. You should change the title if its possible.

Why change it? He’s not wrong.

hackks.3687:

Scykosix.7836:

I like how you typed ALL thieves are bad at rotating. Like 100% of thief players are bad, every.single.one.of.them. You should change the title if its possible.

Why change it? He’s not wrong.

That means even sindrenerr is bad at rotating which i find hard to believe u know, he is top 3 all the time.

Highest burst in the game? Not even close, Sc/F ele with arcane wave can take 20k off people, though they’d have to be special to be hit by dragons tooth, triple phoenix, electrical discharge, lightening bolt and arcane wave.

Mesmer doing a full burst while also predictable can do more than thief but in terms of current meta builds and viable builds warrior takes a big old dump on thief burst. 5k headbutt into 6k arc divider, gg.

Ridiculous, you know the problem with thieves? having to play with people that don’t know basic rotations, or worst yet, low mobility classes thinking they can decap faster then a thief..

You see the problem with your example. you are the one losing not the thief. infact he created a nice 4v5, and has a guaranteed decap/full cap at far. Is it really his fault you are to incompetent to win the soon to be 4vs4 mid? you don’t even realize this gives you a 150 point lead and a 3 cap do you?

Arena net please create i guide to “how to play with a thief”

hackks.3687:

Scykosix.7836:

I like how you typed ALL thieves are bad at rotating. Like 100% of thief players are bad, every.single.one.of.them. You should change the title if its possible.

Why change it? He’s not wrong.

He’s extremely wrong – TOP EU is filled with thiefs.

The window for a kill is quite small in the first team fight. Even being in a team fight is dangerous for a thief. You didn’t mention the map, but depending on the node it can be a nightmare to engage.

If I judge I can’t get a second downed / kill in the next 5 sec I go decap far. In best case that gives our team the opportunity ( delay the respawn guy + win mid ), in average case secure equal score even if our team lose. In the worst case, we are whipped and a few points behind but their team is spread out.

I watched a video from a pro player once saying: “the team must create the oportunity for the thief or I will be useless in this match”. Opportunity in this case means +1 on points or neutralize unprotected points.
It really depends on the situation. If a thief see a fast kill, that´s ok for him to stay in a team fight and help. Otherwise, it will be completely useless stay in a long fight. It will be much more productive go neutralize other point and come back fast.
Main role of thieves has always been to rotate points and +1 on points. Stay and fight a 3×3 or 4×4 in most of cases is not worth.

Thieves aren’t worse at rotating.

Everyone else is better at it now.

Seriously, the only class with significant distance teleports besides thieves at launch were guardians or mesmers with a very specific setup. Otherwise thieves out-rotated everyone else handily.

Nowdays, guardians, mesmers, elementalist, rangers, and revenants can easily catch up to thieves. Only classes that have some difficulty catching up are warriors, necros, and engineers.

TL ; DR: Thieves didn’t get worse. Everybody else got better. The meta changed.

I really dont want to sound rude here, but if u get a thief on your team, vs a team with no thief , u probly gonna lose, not because thief suks, but because players cant play thief to the full pktential of the class.
Most thiefs, insta die, this is one big problem, because they cause a 4vs 5 on the map , and some thievs are perma down the whole game , others spends so much time 1vs 1 far to die, others dont have the awereness to +1 on time or rotate on time, or insted of just decaping they full cap , wasting so much time, just to get capped again afer 5 seconds.
A bad guard can still be usefull, or a warrior, but a bad thief is a big problem.
And before u say, just tell them what to do, i can assure they dont listen, and on top they insult u even.
They cant see they are making the team lose, so no point even to talk.
So yes its a big problem getting a bad thief or even a bad necro for that matter in the team.
I won games with thievs and even 2 thievs in team, but i bonestly think there is only 5 maybe 7 good thievs in gw2 that can play thief and dont mess up the team play.
So yes ,i think thief is not a class that any one can master ,just like u can with a warrior or guard.

Every Time my team loses it’s always because of the thief. I don’t care if our marauder longbow/staff druid sat off point all game and did nothing, we blame the thief.

Seeing a Thief die to a Dragons Maw off point, all I can do is call him a pleb all game, he should have known there was static traps placed off point, he is pleb.

I watch thief try and spike something, but everyone’s explosive AoE stops him from getting anywhere near the stomp, everyone cleaves, rez gyro is rezzing, thief is pleb, should have stomped inside gravity wells and Dragons Maw. Thief too scared to cross Test Of Faith too, and there’s lots of those on points. Thief is bad, should play traps DH or Warrior instead, he is pleb for trying to play something that requires skill instead of spamming traps and aoe.

/sarcasm.

Prince Vingador.8067:

A bad guard can still be usefull, or a warrior, but a bad thief is a big problem.

this is the pure truth, thieves are the most specialized class in game, they have a role nomathers the meta and the best tools to do it, and this role is decap(eventually cap if they dont see the hp bars of teammates downing significantly ), +1 and controling the side mechanics in some maps (kill/steal beast in forest, making the base/boss alarm sound in foefire to drag people to base etc)
getting a thieve that thinks they have other job to do, is being 4 v 5.
in mid/low tiers bronze/silver this is most of the cases even you see some thieves using bow to be the first on midfight

sephiroth.4217:

Every Time my team loses it’s always because of the thief. I don’t care if our marauder longbow/staff druid sat off point all game and did nothing, we blame the thief.

Seeing a Thief die to a Dragons Maw off point, all I can do is call him a pleb all game, he should have known there was static traps placed off point, he is pleb.

I watch thief try and spike something, but everyone’s explosive AoE stops him from getting anywhere near the stomp, everyone cleaves, rez gyro is rezzing, thief is pleb, should have stomped inside gravity wells and Dragons Maw. Thief too scared to cross Test Of Faith too, and there’s lots of those on points. Thief is bad, should play traps DH or Warrior instead, he is pleb for trying to play something that requires skill instead of spamming traps and aoe.

/sarcasm.

Lmao, he just needs to spam 4. It’s OP and needs a nerf.

sephiroth.4217:

Every Time my team loses it’s always because of the thief. I don’t care if our marauder longbow/staff druid sat off point all game and did nothing, we blame the thief.

Seeing a Thief die to a Dragons Maw off point, all I can do is call him a pleb all game, he should have known there was static traps placed off point, he is pleb.

I watch thief try and spike something, but everyone’s explosive AoE stops him from getting anywhere near the stomp, everyone cleaves, rez gyro is rezzing, thief is pleb, should have stomped inside gravity wells and Dragons Maw. Thief too scared to cross Test Of Faith too, and there’s lots of those on points. Thief is bad, should play traps DH or Warrior instead, he is pleb for trying to play something that requires skill instead of spamming traps and aoe.

/sarcasm.

when you get a 4v5 match being the team of 5 whith 2 thieves,necro, ele, guardian in your team and having problems to win cuz the far is never decaped and the team of four can reagrup and zerk to a single point to get a 4v5 that intantly turn in 4vs 3 (thieves explode on first aoe)cuz they never had to care about their home you came and talk
yes someother can go to decap and let the other point fight a 4v2 ;-)

^ probably because your relying on the thief for your teams burst.

kitten thieves NERF EM. its there fault i can’t do damage to this self sustain wall!!!

Good read very educational, hopefully some of our bandwagon clicking friends take some notable pointers on this one for innovation and beyond.

apharma.3741:

Highest burst in the game? Not even close, Sc/F ele with arcane wave can take 20k off people, though they’d have to be special to be hit by dragons tooth, triple phoenix, electrical discharge, lightening bolt and arcane wave.

Mesmer doing a full burst while also predictable can do more than thief but in terms of current meta builds and viable builds warrior takes a big old dump on thief burst. 5k headbutt into 6k arc divider, gg.

While a warrior can do just that every 20s, thief has a high DPS all the time. Thief will out-DPS a warrior even with AA only.