Guild Wars 2

Hey Guys,

Relatively new player, but gauging the forums to understand relative positions of classes.

Can i get a consensus on :

1) How strong is thief in this meta ?

2) How strong is thief specifically vs conditionmancer?

Thanks!

very strong
it loses to condi necro though

DP(trickery) thief vs Condi Necro should be a 50%/50%. This ratio can be changed by the following:
-Lyssa Runes on thief(add 10% to thief)
-Nightmare Runes on Necro(add 10% on necro)
-Necro running stunbreakers(add 10% on necro for every stun breaker he is carrying).
The only way for a DP to beat a Condi necro is to stick on him constantly with Shadow Shot, go in stealth for a quick burst and keep sticking on him, while CCing the necro with Steal, Stolen Skull, Basilisk Venom.
I’d open in stealth with BV, do some damage, interrupt the heal with Steal, go back in stealth and interrupt the heal again with the stolen fear.
The moment you fail to land one of those, you lose (as DP).

SD thieves are way better at dealing with necros thanks to their many Condi removals.
After the Dhuumfire nerf, necros are way easier to take on for thieves.

Zord.6130:

DP(trickery) thief vs Condi Necro should be a 50%/50%. This ratio can be changed by the following:
-Lyssa Runes on thief(add 10% to thief)
-Nightmare Runes on Necro(add 10% on necro)
-Necro running stunbreakers(add 10% on necro for every stun breaker he is carrying).
The only way for a DP to beat a Condi necro is to stick on him constantly with Shadow Shot, go in stealth for a quick burst and keep sticking on him, while CCing the necro with Steal, Stolen Skull, Basilisk Venom.
I’d open in stealth with BV, do some damage, interrupt the heal with Steal, go back in stealth and interrupt the heal again with the stolen fear.
The moment you fail to land one of those, you lose (as DP).

SD thieves are way better at dealing with necros thanks to their many Condi removals.
After the Dhuumfire nerf, necros are way easier to take on for thieves.

sd thief is actually coutnered by condi necro

Thieves aren’t unstoppable.

Imo the profession simply forces you to be a better player in order to be viable, therefore you’ll find people that actually play thief tend to be stronger players.

Cleave. Best bet against them is beat them at a game that they have a hard time doing.

Don’t even bring cluster bomb to the argument, that’s not even a good one ever since the nerfs.

The reason why people complain about thieves is their high mobility paired with high damage and high surviveability while they got some broken mechanics like steal which works without line of sight and rips stability before it interrupts, so there is no counterplay to it and you can´t cover your heal or any important spell. Another broken mechanic is perma vigor + feline grace which allows them to evade permanently. All classes except thieves have cooldowns on their abilities, so you just gonna waste too much stuff if you try to hit a thief.

Atm thieves are the reason why there is no other zerker class set in the meta game, they are just faster so you cant run from them and they get away on will so they survive better and get the most decaps while still doing crazy damage, which comes from air and fire sigil. Those sigils allow thief to spec defensively and still do an absurd amount of damage each time he hits you after dodging around waiting for sigils to recharge.

Lopez.7369:

Zord.6130:

DP(trickery) thief vs Condi Necro should be a 50%/50%.

No. Any condition necromancer that loses to a thief is an embarrassment.

I am regularly an embarrassment then

Lopez.7369:

Zord.6130:

DP(trickery) thief vs Condi Necro should be a 50%/50%.

No. Any condition necromancer that loses to a thief is an embarrassment.

Without reaper protection and nightmare runes, necros are nothing more than food for thieves, especially in teamfights.

If thief doesn’t suck THAT bad and doesn’t get insta shotted by the condi burst, a thief will always free kill a nec as long as spite in on CD.

If he has both nightmare and reaper prot, than nec will basically always win, but nobody run such set up in team q.

Tbh no one runs nec in team q, or at least it’s not the best choice available.

Blackjack.5621:

The reason why people complain about thieves is their high mobility paired with high damage and high surviveability while they got some broken mechanics like steal which works without line of sight and rips stability before it interrupts, so there is no counterplay to it and you can´t cover your heal or any important spell. Another broken mechanic is perma vigor + feline grace which allows them to evade permanently. All classes except thieves have cooldowns on their abilities, so you just gonna waste too much stuff if you try to hit a thief.

Atm thieves are the reason why there is no other zerker class set in the meta game, they are just faster so you cant run from them and they get away on will so they survive better and get the most decaps while still doing crazy damage, which comes from air and fire sigil. Those sigils allow thief to spec defensively and still do an absurd amount of damage each time he hits you after dodging around waiting for sigils to recharge.

Zerk mesmers are in the meta. they are very viable. doesnt have the advantage in 1v1 against a thief but in tpvp meta they are great

Blackjack.5621:

The reason why people complain about thieves is their high mobility paired with high damage and high surviveability while they got some broken mechanics like steal which works without line of sight and rips stability before it interrupts, so there is no counterplay to it and you can´t cover your heal or any important spell. Another broken mechanic is perma vigor + feline grace which allows them to evade permanently. All classes except thieves have cooldowns on their abilities, so you just gonna waste too much stuff if you try to hit a thief.

Atm thieves are the reason why there is no other zerker class set in the meta game, they are just faster so you cant run from them and they get away on will so they survive better and get the most decaps while still doing crazy damage, which comes from air and fire sigil. Those sigils allow thief to spec defensively and still do an absurd amount of damage each time he hits you after dodging around waiting for sigils to recharge.

Trickery is the reason other zerkers are out of the meta it’s on such a low cool down you’re almost guaranteed to interrupt the heal. Bountiful theft and sleight of hand are both overpowered. They completely negate other classes chances to heal/their traits (see ether renewal + rock solid elementalist). There is a reason that our elite skill is a stun. Steal being on that low of a cool down also makes the stolen abilities way overpowered (50% uptime on chill on elementalist, chain dazing guards for 8 seconds). But those skills are no where near as powerful when you have the default 35 second steal timer. Trickery really needs sleight of hand to be split from its cool down reduction and bountiful theft to stop prioritizing stab. Then we can see some actual balance.

For your other points about spec defensively and doing damage, every class does this now. 0/2/0/6/6 elementalist, hambow specs defensively 0/0/6/2/6, dps guard generally goes in the bottom 3 trait lines as well. It’s something anet needs to fix on all classes not just thief.

In my opinion, the problem is that runes now allow for crazy might stacks and sigils. Without sigils and might stacking, a 2/0/0/6/6 thief is just annoying because they won’t deal much damage. The s/d meta build takes advantage of the fact that you can now trait defensively while relying on sigil procs + might to make up for the lack of damage. As long as these runes and sigils exist, there is no point thinking about individual skill balance.

For the OP:

1. I’m not a pro, but I agree with others here that the s/d thief is very strong in this meta. With practice, you can kill just about anyone. Better yet is that I actually think the build is fun to play because it doesn’t rely on constant stealth.

2. I avoid fighting conditionmancers. I can take them down about 50% of the time by myself as the posters above have suggested, but why bother? With my superior mobility, I can do something more productive for my team than putz around with a fight in which one mistake = death. If there are multiple conditionmancers on the enemy team, you might have a bigger problem by yourself, but that’s no problem for other toons on your team (I’m looking at you, Warrs).

In SoloQ, conditionmancers are my biggest problem, usually because it’s harder to organize everyone to use their classes optimally. This often forces me into fights that I don’t want to be in.

Javonovich.5280:

In my opinion, the problem is that runes now allow for crazy might stacks and sigils. Without sigils and might stacking, a 2/0/0/6/6 thief is just annoying because they won’t deal much damage. The s/d meta build takes advantage of the fact that you can now trait defensively while relying on sigil procs + might to make up for the lack of damage. As long as these runes and sigils exist, there is no point thinking about individual skill balance.

Very right, most meta builds are build areound sigils or runes and those classes who don´t synergize with runes/sigils struggle.
We won´t see any proper balancing as long as runes and sigils define builds. They must be towned down to a state where you can exchange them at will without effecting your viability.

unstoppable? nope.
they do have some really easy specs though for regular level of play,
these specs all revolve around spamming one skill. PW, HS, LS

however a good thief can be fairly unstoppable, but in terms of skill<→reward they have earned it.

as a condi necro you should be ok though, thief is one of the lesser classes for condi removal, they also don’t have very much HP, 20k on the upper side.

Unstoppable?

Only a few, but that comes from the spamming of stealth and the weaponskills, which make them partly invulnerability.

The others are so dangerous like a bucket of warm water.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Lopez.7369:

Zord.6130:

DP(trickery) thief vs Condi Necro should be a 50%/50%.

No. Any condition necromancer that loses to a thief is an embarrassment.

I am regularly an embarrassment then

Come on now, do you really struggle against a thief if you engage him 1v1 on a point?

In a solo situation for most of the meta builds thief is nothing but an annoying bee. In group fights though good one can be a pain. Though average ones a pretty easy to kill the moment they stuff up after using shadowstep they pretty much dead.

My current guardian build, while it wasn’t built for the specific purpose, absolutely destroys most of the thief builds.

The only one I had trouble with, was a chain stun for 8 sec+ build. I figured out how to counter play it after a few engagements though, to the point where I won a 2v1 vs the stun chain thief and a ranger (admittedly by the skin of my teeth, but hey it was a 2v1.)

So no, they’re not unstoppable.

On that note I also had a recent, straight up 2v1, me vs 2 thieves, where I dropped them both in under 10 seconds, then finished them off. Then when I died to a 4v1 those thieves stated calling me “bad.” lol

Shockwave.1230:

Thieves aren’t unstoppable.

Imo the profession simply forces you to be a better player in order to be viable, therefore you’ll find people that actually play thief tend to be stronger players.

Thief players tend to be stronger players? What are you smoking? That class, beside wari, is the most forgiving class in the game. No other zerker build in the game can survive so many major kitten ups. Reset in stealth and survive another kitten load of kitten ups again.

They can be unstoppable, but requires high level of skill and its not easy to achieve that high skill level.

Not saying they can run into a 1v5 and win, but they could be so slippery you never kill them and deadly that they come out of no where and take you down when your alone.

I find it is much easier to fight a necro with dps guard than with d/p thief- and I basically just spam my abilities with dps guard. Playing thief I have to be careful and set things up well to have a chance.

Yasha.5963:

I find it is much easier to fight a necro with dps guard than with d/p thief- and I basically just spam my abilities with dps guard. Playing thief I have to be careful and set things up well to have a chance.

dps guards can pretty much maintain 100% uptime on either blind block or evade vs terrormancer, so ya it is heavily favoured for the guard.

s/d is imo the most powerful build in the game, crazy mobility along with being able to 1v1 nearly everything / reset if it doesn’t go your way

Blackjack.5621:

The reason why people complain about thieves is their high mobility paired with high damage and high surviveability

While wearing a zerker amulet.

vincecontix.1264:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Lopez.7369:

Zord.6130:

DP(trickery) thief vs Condi Necro should be a 50%/50%.

No. Any condition necromancer that loses to a thief is an embarrassment.

I am regularly an embarrassment then

Come on now, do you really struggle against a thief if you engage him 1v1 on a point?

I win most of the time. But you can lose. You can mess up, get unlucky or he can proc everything. This game everything is so hard hitting that honestly 1 or 2 mistakes/unlucky moments and you can just die. It is same vs engis and warriors. Very rarely do I lose to engis but it can easily happen if you make some errors and have some bad luck. Vs warriors you can win despite it being a hard match up.

Power creep in this game means that anyone can die to anyone on at least the odd occasion. Kind of like an FPS game where even a told newbie can kill the best player in the world on occasion

Aza.2105:

Blackjack.5621:

The reason why people complain about thieves is their high mobility paired with high damage and high surviveability

While wearing a zerker amulet.

That is why he said high damage I think ^^

Mayama.1854:

Shockwave.1230:

Thieves aren’t unstoppable.

Imo the profession simply forces you to be a better player in order to be viable, therefore you’ll find people that actually play thief tend to be stronger players.

Thief players tend to be stronger players? What are you smoking? That class, beside wari, is the most forgiving class in the game. No other zerker build in the game can survive so many major kitten ups. Reset in stealth and survive another kitten load of kitten ups again.

Yeah, what you are saying are valid if we speak WvW, not the meta tPvP builds. In PvP one error against any good player means death.

To the OP:
I usually play d/p, and it is far from unstoppable. Some fights I just can’t win, others are free kills. The strength of the thief in PvP are its ability to rotate quick and be exactly where he is needed within seconds. Good thieves take their time to get a good overview of the situation before engaging, and they often choose the weaker target or any ranged dps. We have an excellent ability to finish off low health targets thanks to executioner (20% extra damage when target is below 50% health). Therefore you will often find the enemy thief just jumping in, giving you a stab and get out. The main goal as a thief is to turn teamfights in my teams favor and then just leave the fight to decap or do secondary objectives.

Against condition necros I’m having a hard time. If I manage to stay on you and keep you blinded I will win, but if you get me feared and manage to stack conditions on me I am pretty much done for. My condition removal are very limited, so I just tend to stay away from you until I see an opportunity to take you down.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Aza.2105:

Blackjack.5621:

The reason why people complain about thieves is their high mobility paired with high damage and high surviveability

While wearing a zerker amulet.

That is why he said high damage I think ^^

Yeah I know. Its amazing though.

I personally feel the reason why its possible for the class to have high damage and high survivability at once is because their mitigation isn’t tied to any defensive stat.

Thanks for all the responses yet. I guess – Has condimancer fallen outta tPVP meta? Or are they still high up there with war?

Javonovich.5280:

In my opinion, the problem is that runes now allow for crazy might stacks and sigils. Without sigils and might stacking, a 2/0/0/6/6 thief is just annoying because they won’t deal much damage. The s/d meta build takes advantage of the fact that you can now trait defensively while relying on sigil procs + might to make up for the lack of damage. As long as these runes and sigils exist, there is no point thinking about individual skill balance.

This…

Boons (whether coming from runes, traits, or sigils) and conditions are just WAY out of control in the current game. Power creep appears to be here to stay.

What happened to the ‘short duration, hard to apply, situational, large impacting’ boons and conditions ArenaNet were talking about prior to Beta? Anyone know where that game went? I sure would like to give it a try instead of the perma-might, perma-regeneration, perma-stealth, perma-swiftness, perma-vigor, perma-stun, perma-immobilize, perma-burning, perma-weakness, and soon to be perma-crippled (thanks to the soon-to-come improvement to the Engineer’s tool kit) game that has manifested itself now.

Thanks.

Seazen.7415:

Thanks for all the responses yet. I guess – Has condimancer fallen outta tPVP meta? Or are they still high up there with war?

1) I play necro condi in teamQ everyday. It’s not out from meta…if played good can be really annoying for other team. Your role is play with team, strip boon, spam condition and give some support (sometimes you need to play defensive). Remember…GOOD POSITIONING IS REALLY IMPORTANT!
In some case you need to fight 1vs1 but remember…condi necro is not the strongest 1vs1 build, but with train is very good vs everyone.

2) In 1vs1 situation generally I haven’t really big problem…my most hated class are mesmer and d/d elem.

3) Talking about 1vs1, don’t get sad if you lose vs a thief or a mesmer. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose…it’s the game. Also high skilled players can lose in 1vs1 situation versus a class that they have advantage.

Seazen.7415:

Thanks for all the responses yet. I guess – Has condimancer fallen outta tPVP meta? Or are they still high up there with war?

Problem is the most effective comps are fairly tanky. Necro, imo, is really hard to play in tanky comps because you just get focussed and die however well you kite. Sure your team can peel for you but you will still die eventually. A peel can only help you for 5 seconds. The only comp I enjoy playing necro in is one with really high dps. The ultimate “peel” is killing what is chasing you. But those comps are generally not as effective as playing in a team with sustain builds. It can work though. I think playing necro in a team with 2 other glass cannons, a bunker guard and a warrior/ele is probably ok but then its hard to rotate because your guardian can get stuck on a point.

Lopez.7369:

Zord.6130:

DP(trickery) thief vs Condi Necro should be a 50%/50%.

No. Any condition necromancer that loses to a thief is an embarrassment.

Then all the Condi necros I’ve fought, even in 1v1 servers, were an embarrassment. Which is not the case.