Guild Wars 2

And I have a problem. No matter how much I play PvP I still suck. Somehow. Build/class below.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAqaVn0MBFmiNmCmOB0PhFmiyLFyhagrACgBY+8f/5H-TJBGABts/g3lBA4JAk2pAAA

Looking for honest help. Tried to learn to play, hasn’t worked. Can’t figure out how not to get one shot, and I refuse to play condi.

Well you’re literally playing the worst weaponset on the worst pvp class right now (tied with Warriors maybe), that’s your problem probably.

Its the only one that feels fun and the only one I can seem to play =/. This is bad…

The build is very weak and looks like something a begginer would come up with, maybe mixed with pve, since p/p has never been used in pvp.

For builds i would therefore highly recomend metabattle.com.

Also note, thief is currently in its weakest state since launch and is almost not used in tournaments but it is enough for soloq play.

Never ever fight xvx, always run for the decap and or run back for +1. And never xvx.
Example from a mesmer main but think its graphic enough
http://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth/v/27364498
(first match and 1h00min match)

Try this maybe:
I like it. Build is in the describtion.

https://youtu.be/zB9qZYWueq8

Best regards!

Shino

Serious Thought.5394:

Its the only one that feels fun and the only one I can seem to play =/. This is bad…

arena net more than likely doesn’t care if you can’t enjoy the game because the only profession you find fun is neglected by it’s developer. alongside warrior, thief is the only profession that’s gotten objectively worse as the game has gotten older and that probably isn’t going to change.

if you were to look at the history of metas and balance, you’d notice that the engineer developer for example is looking for ways to make engineer stronger (even if it doesnt need it), while ours (karl) is looking for ways to undercut our viability across the game while giving us vanity buffs or outright lying about/denying buffs in general.
we were told thief would see a 10% increase in withdraw’s healing almost half a year ago but yet the only change made to withdraw has been a nerf to it’s CD to 18 seconds. it’s a small example, but a it’s a microcosm of how thief and it’s players have been treated. you can also see how they gutted Acro, introduced plenty of counters to our then only viable playstyle (reveals, taunt, stronger AoE), and then repackaged Acro to sell back to us for $50. they even randomly nerfed critical strikes because the dev thought it was the strongest thief traitline in the game despite having not been used in the pvp meta for about a year or so.

the best one can do is hope karl gets replaced with another dev, one hopefully interested in advancing thief rather than pushing it out of relevancy in all gamemodes; otherwise if you’re like me and don’t find playing whatever flavor of the month profession that’s gone unchecked very fun you might as well stop playing, that’s what im doing at least.

p.s. i’ll be surprised if this post is still here and not removed by a moderator/admin/dev after bit, because apparently articulating your criticisms = flaming and trolling to them.

P/P isn’t necessarily bad but it is definitely suboptimal. I suggest you to play around with some melee weaponsets (commonly used in pvp are d/p, s/d and staff, but d/d and s/p aren’t that bad too).

About your build: It has good ideas, but needs to be refined:
1st Distracting Daggers: You know that your pistol #4 does the same? Some suggestions as a replacement:
-Roll for Initiative: Another stunbreak, creates distance and refills initiate for more unload spam. Since you traited for trickster, probably the best choice
- Signet of Agility: Refills all your endurance and removes a condition. Always good on any daredevil build.
- Blinding Powder: Emergency stealth/blind button.
- Impairing daggers: nice damage, low cd and immob/slow

2nd: Bandit’s Defense: This skill is great for 1v1 on a melee weapon, but is quite weak in Teamfights. May help against some ranged attacks like Rapid Fire from rangers or DH True Shot, but remember that it imidiately stops blocking and locking you in an animation if anything in 300 range hits you. For a P/P build use something i mentioned above.
3rd: some trait choices.
- you trait for shadow arts without using any stealth utility. Either keep shadow arts with a d/p build or swap it out for either deadly arts (i recommend this)for utility or critical strikes for more damage.
- trickery line is ok if you go for one more trick skill (roll for initiative), otherwise use thrill of the crime and bountiful theft.
- daredevil: weakening strikes is alright, but pulmonary impact is not optimal. If you can always interrupt people (but the initiative is better spend on unload) go for it, but i recommend escapists absolution. For the dodge bounding dodger is good if you go for tricks, if not go for unhindered combatant.

Sigil choices are good, maybe go for sigil of air instead of generosity.
Rune: Lyssa is ok but try pack: more damage and useful fury proc if you get hit.

Elite Spell: While dagger storm is good against projectile-based opponents, you want to go for Basilisk Venom or Impact Strike most of the time.

Some modified builds:
1st trick variant
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAqaVl0MhynYvTw0Jw/ELwEmXa4M0Gm/glwVoWCIAsbA-TpBFABiXGohjAABnAga2fYhDBAAPAAA
2nd no tricks, some physical spells
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAqaVn8lCdmi9OBmOBkmiFYCzLNcGaDzhwSYLULBEA2NA-TpBFABiXGohjAABnAga2fYhDBAAPAAA

for more help visit the thief forums

Playing thief is very tricky nowadays. You can do 2 things in pvp:

1- cap and decap fast without engaging the enemy. This will help your team to get points but may become boring. And dangerous too.

2- Waiting in stealth and hitting those who are weakened. Again dangerous with new elite specs. Some do not die that easy and you do not have too many options against cc.

3- Create a revenant and make it look just like your thief. Manipulate yourself that it is your thief with new powers. Try not to cry. Win.

And I am very sorry to say this but change your build. You can handle yourself in wvw with builds like these but in spvp you need different qualities in your build. Visit thief forums. They are good people.

Well first thing’s first, I’m not an expert in Thief, but it is my 3rd most played class, so I’ll throw you some of my advice.

Pistol/Pistol isn’t really that viable in structured PvP, unless you’re really really good at Thief. The same goes for Dagger/Dagger, it just doesn’t make viable sense.

First thing you’ll want to do is leave the PvP forums, you do NOT want to seek viable class advice here. There are way too many ESports PvE Hero’s here that think they’re the best in the world, and they’ll feed you doubt about your class to try and make you feel useless.

Second, try playing with Condi. If you “refuse” to play it, then it must have been someone telling you that it’s a no-skill spec, and all this other crap. If you want to run with a Pistol, grab a dagger off-hand, and run Condi.

If you want to Win – Grab a Staff or Dagger/Pistol, with a Shortbow Secondary, and grab the Meta Thief build. As a Thief, your primary job in this meta is going to be to Decap and Run – and then force +1’s where you’re needed.

If there is a 1v1 going on at Home, but Far is empty, you can hit far with a decap, and then +1 home faster than any class in the game. You can then use your superior damage to easily win the 2 vs 1 at home point, giving your team the positional advantage at mid (they will be forced to give up the point, and rotate one home to re-cap), or you can just bomb over to mid after you decap far, and plus that fight as well.

You have plenty of versatility, it just depends on how you use it. I can EASILY 1 vs 1 most classes on my Thief. You just have to play it to your advantage, and know when to back out. Abuse your mobility, and you’ll never lose.

What you need to do is go to character select screen click on ‘create a new character’ and make anything that is not a thief. No matter what build you try as a thief you will be subpar to everything else. If you like the sneaky assassin character play a memser, it will be far less frustrating than playing a broken class.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVn0MBNmidmCGPBkmiFmiyLFyhagrACgBYu8f/5H-TJBGABts/g3lBA4JAk2pAAA

I swapped into this. Mostly looking for playstyle advice. I did a few numbers and realized Daggers do an incredible amount of damage OVER Pistols. So I swapped, but I kept offhand (because it is my one and only legendary weapon).
Maybe some advice within the build (I did listen guys, but hear me out a bit. I should of explained more)?

Lyssa- Great condi clear on a fairly low cooldown as well as a great deal of precision. Condi duration mainly for the weakness from shortbow, but thats it.
Blood/Generosity sigils- Transfer condition and sap health, good for sustain.
Shadow Arts- condi clear, heal over time, and initiative regen.
Trickery- Haste (it will never be quickness to me =/) helps burst, trickster removes more conditions, steal dazes.
Daredevil- Good melee damage, good control, bound gives me better ways to access stealth.

Rune/sigil/traits- Sustained damage with an emphasis on high survivability. Focus is mostly denying a single opponent from playing as long as possible.

Withdraw is the go to heal, Impairing Dagger is better than Palm Strike (it never lands), Distracting Dagger is a good damage interrupt that massively increases cooldown and applies pulm over headshot costing and just resetting to 3 seconds- also cancels certain key animations to help push more skills through during an after cast, Haste/RoI wasn’t sure which I needed more both seem to work, and Takedown works through Guardian/Necro/Engineer/Ranger/etc.

So from here, what do I fix? Still a fan of lyssa because its so good- a match or two back I got loaded with burning/confusion/poison/torment/cripple and got back protection/swiftness/aegis/regen/might. Its mostly remembering that every two off cooldown elites I will get a mega clear. I explained the rest of the reasonings. Thanks by the way.

stop playing thief.

Flumek.9043:

The build is very weak and looks like something a begginer would come up with, maybe mixed with pve, since p/p has never been used in pvp.

For builds i would therefore highly recomend metabattle.com.

Also note, thief is currently in its weakest state since launch and is almost not used in tournaments but it is enough for soloq play.

Never ever fight xvx, always run for the decap and or run back for +1. And never xvx.
Example from a mesmer main but think its graphic enough
http://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth/v/27364498
(first match and 1h00min match)

Lo kittening l watching Helseth just kite around people, failing to get decaps, and dying to random AoE on his first life in the first match was hilarious. Nah thief is fine tho rite.

Edit: Rewatched his whole speech before the match lmao. About how thief is good because ‘broken by mechanics’ and Shadowstep and SR. Then gets revealed in a game because of dodging out of SR lol.

Flumek.9043:

The build is very weak and looks like something a begginer would come up with, maybe mixed with pve, since p/p has never been used in pvp.

For builds i would therefore highly recomend metabattle.com.

Also note, thief is currently in its weakest state since launch and is almost not used in tournaments but it is enough for soloq play.

Never ever fight xvx, always run for the decap and or run back for +1. And never xvx.
Example from a mesmer main but think its graphic enough
http://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth/v/27364498
(first match and 1h00min match)

Worst thief gameplay I’ve seen in a while. As for the build… Running Dash “to run away and decap” is tantamount to running Dash to be bad, and is completely contradicted by running Shadow Refuge with it. “Hey guys! I’m over here!” In a real match the other team players wouldn’t walk away from a vulnerable thief stuck in that small area. They’d nuke it.

Anyone can play an unfamiliar class and or build, fail with it, and blame it, calling it weak.

Impact.2780:

Flumek.9043:

The build is very weak and looks like something a begginer would come up with, maybe mixed with pve, since p/p has never been used in pvp.

For builds i would therefore highly recomend metabattle.com.

Also note, thief is currently in its weakest state since launch and is almost not used in tournaments but it is enough for soloq play.

Never ever fight xvx, always run for the decap and or run back for +1. And never xvx.
Example from a mesmer main but think its graphic enough
http://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth/v/27364498
(first match and 1h00min match)

Worst thief gameplay I’ve seen in a while. As for the build… Running Dash “to run away and decap” is tantamount to running Dash to be bad, and is completely contradicted by running Shadow Refuge with it. “Hey guys! I’m over here!” In a real match the other team players wouldn’t walk away from a vulnerable thief stuck in that small area. They’d nuke it.

Anyone can play an unfamiliar class and or build, fail with it, and blame it, calling it weak.

Yeah I lol’d when he passed over bound for dash. Maybe he didn’t see the leap finisher part of the tooltip? I love dash (on S/D) don’t get me wrong, but while d/p with any of the DD GMs feels kittening weird to me, bound is just too good for d/p compared to the other dodges.