Guild Wars 2

I play Gw2 for pvp. Been doing it along time and always will. My main is my Thief and I have had some fantastic times in pvp but these past few weeks I barely even play him anymore.

With all the condi flying around now its just impossible to survive long enough to have a real impact. Sure, we can still burst the lone straggler down but getting anywhere close to an actual fight and we are pretty much dead before we arrive. Just a couple of notable things: A guard burning me for 20% of my health per tick (Killed me when i was fighting him without even landing a hit on me). A Warrior killing me before i even get out of its CC. And also Necros… Just lol!

I have been playing my Ele and my Necro recently and man is it so much easier and fun running around burning everyone down with condis. I actually feel sick now when i log in on my Thief to pvp.

Of course I love my Thief as its my main so I wonder, is it even worth playing now in pvp? Yes you can tell me we are meant to pick of targets on low health and then get out but is it really fun doing that whilst other classes stomp the battlefield with all their condi?

Extremelly so, other than the 2 major offenders and may be necro bunker, you can essentially burst anyone down in 3s flat from stealth.

Considering the amount of QQ the forum still gets for thiefs, I say yes.

But you make an interesting point. A lot of players think its easy to be good on a thief, but it really isn’t. It’s so easy to screw up when playing a thief and get yourself busted. To be a good thief, you need a lot of practice, way more time training than on… say, a burn guard.

It’s easy to play a profession, a different story when you want to master it.

Thief in nutshell:
- stealth bot for team
- rez bot for team
- decap bot
- stomp/rezzes interrupts

90% of the fights are advices to avoid, you are basically independent utility pet for other players on your team. If you like that playstyle, sure thief is viable.

i dont know what you are doing wrong , but thief is still good in pvp

http://www.twitch.tv/magictoker , maybe it will help if you watch toker, if you dont know him , he is the thief of the team that won the last WTS in germany

Cynz.9437:

Thief in nutshell:
- stealth bot for team
- rez bot for team
- decap bot
- stomp/rezzes interrupts

90% of the fights are advices to avoid, you are basically independent utility pet for other players on your team. If you like that playstyle, sure thief is viable.

It’s sad but pretty much this.

Basically In meta for shortbow 5

And if u’re a bad thief….better to play another profession directly, to not create too much damage to Your team.

It’s certainly viable and still meta in competitive scene. But I’d say it’s also the hardest to play for casuals currently. You need to have a very good sense of team play to be successful with it.

Your team needs to be good enough to win even fights or last long enough in out numbered fights.

Once you have that the thief is the icing on the cake.

No, but the playerbase is terrified of Thieves. Not good ones or bad ones, just the concept of something killing them for not running proper utilities or defense. Ironically, I am swapping characters (as a Thief main, like other Thief mains) because i can do so much more instant damage on my meditation guardian. Thief is still viable, but heavily outclassed. Another poster stated it- you are in the meta because you can stealth rez and tp around on shortbow. Burst damage is higher on Medi Guards, condition damage is anything that has burns (oh lol, wow…only Thief doesn’t have access to easy burns without a specific rune type or sigil type…. k), you can’t outsustain an ele….. It’s 100% mobility. Thief was introduced as a disabler that took high priority targets out of fights- you can’t do that anymore without going full yolo. And if you go full yolo, and I go full yolo on my new Medi Guard, I’m going to come out on top. Especially if we just do a dps race.

Thief is viable, but outclassed. It is currently the lowest ranking PvP profession. When Necromancers find the time to complain about their lifeblasts doing less damage than our backstabs (which isn’t always true anymore, I got hit for 9k consistently…and my backstabs hit for 8k unless I yolo) there is a problem. Just put your Thief down, wait it out, wait for something to pop up. OR. Play d/p sheep meta Thief, because anything else has to put in 100% more effort to come close to what that pulls for lazy clicks.

tl;dr- Thief isn’t garbage, but it gets outperformed on. You are a mobile blind/rez station, deal with it. It’s why I only play my Thief when I silverwaste farm now (and when I feel like playing full yolo stupid mode…but now full yolo stupid mode feels better on mediguard).

Thief is like perfectly designed for conquest, unless something majorly gutted it or they gave another class equal mobility/stealth it will most likely always be meta in PvP.

If you believe other thieves then the apocalypse has come, thieves have and were worse than Rangers and necros and they’re all doomed.

The reality is thief is still fine but you probably don’t want more than one as they have trouble sticking around in fights. Try to +1 fights going on to end them fast and move on, you are the burst on many teams and you have unparalleled mobility to quickly punish undefended points and plenty of options to adapt to many situations.

Best thing to do is if you figure someone is condi, specifically burn then avoid them and rotate around them.

Also not sure if you were saying condi necro was better…it really isn’t, bleeds took a huge nerf and it was their main damage source for conditions.

I’m definitely not a bad thief but at the same time I still have things to learn. I guess I’m just raging slightly because 2 weeks ago I was topping all leaderboards and now I’m just getting torn apart by everyone as Condi seems to be 90% of people in pvp now. I feel fine losing to a skilled player as it gives me motivation to find out where I went wrong and get better but when i’m getting annihalated by Condi without even taking a hit it just makes me feel hopeless.

I don’t deny that Thief is still good but I’m actually finding it rare to see another thief in pvp games now and playing a condi class is just so much easier that I think less and less people will bother to play one unless they are really in love with it.

L Step.8659:

Thief is like perfectly designed for conquest, unless something majorly gutted it or they gave another class equal mobility/stealth it will most likely always be meta in PvP.

Mesmer can already out Stealth us and has more mobility, so yuh

Zodi.8932:

L Step.8659:

Thief is like perfectly designed for conquest, unless something majorly gutted it or they gave another class equal mobility/stealth it will most likely always be meta in PvP.

Mesmer can already out Stealth us and has more mobility, so yuh

NOTHING is more mobile than thief.
And Thief still has more on demand invis than Mesmer. Mesmer just has good duration.

MVP of WTS was a thief.

Thief is the fastest profession in the game.

It has access to stealth on demand, stealth for teammates and high dmg repeatable bursts with stuns and boon strips.

No, it’s not as strong as it used to be.

Yes, it is still viable.

L Step.8659:

Thief is like perfectly designed for conquest, unless something majorly gutted it or they gave another class equal mobility/stealth it will most likely always be meta in PvP.

Thief has only 1 role in the meta, and that role is slowly getting gutted with some professions getting more ways to help their team other than running away to decap a point.

It is a vital role, but that role can be done by others all the while remaining a threat on the node and being reliable in a team fight. People will look for and focus fire thieves when they reveal themselves, its not a perfectly designed profession having to run all the time.

Zodi.8932:

I play Gw2 for pvp. Been doing it along time and always will. My main is my Thief and I have had some fantastic times in pvp but these past few weeks I barely even play him anymore.

With all the condi flying around now its just impossible to survive long enough to have a real impact. Sure, we can still burst the lone straggler down but getting anywhere close to an actual fight and we are pretty much dead before we arrive. Just a couple of notable things: A guard burning me for 20% of my health per tick (Killed me when i was fighting him without even landing a hit on me). A Warrior killing me before i even get out of its CC. And also Necros… Just lol!

I have been playing my Ele and my Necro recently and man is it so much easier and fun running around burning everyone down with condis. I actually feel sick now when i log in on my Thief to pvp.

Of course I love my Thief as its my main so I wonder, is it even worth playing now in pvp? Yes you can tell me we are meant to pick of targets on low health and then get out but is it really fun doing that whilst other classes stomp the battlefield with all their condi?

No, thief has not been viable for a long time. Now especially not.

MrKahwk.9524:

Zodi.8932:

I play Gw2 for pvp. Been doing it along time and always will. My main is my Thief and I have had some fantastic times in pvp but these past few weeks I barely even play him anymore.

With all the condi flying around now its just impossible to survive long enough to have a real impact. Sure, we can still burst the lone straggler down but getting anywhere close to an actual fight and we are pretty much dead before we arrive. Just a couple of notable things: A guard burning me for 20% of my health per tick (Killed me when i was fighting him without even landing a hit on me). A Warrior killing me before i even get out of its CC. And also Necros… Just lol!

I have been playing my Ele and my Necro recently and man is it so much easier and fun running around burning everyone down with condis. I actually feel sick now when i log in on my Thief to pvp.

Of course I love my Thief as its my main so I wonder, is it even worth playing now in pvp? Yes you can tell me we are meant to pick of targets on low health and then get out but is it really fun doing that whilst other classes stomp the battlefield with all their condi?

No, thief has not been viable for a long time. Now especially not.

Dont listen to him

Thief only has 1 good build dagger/pistol/shortbow sooo boring after a while. Arena net needs to give thief more variety of builds.

Thief is still the most viable prof, and will be unless Anet reworks SB#5 ^^

On a good team, thieves are extremely viable. A good thief, on a good team can “carry” that team. And by “carry” I mean the match will snowball in favour of the team with the Thief due to the mobility they possess. The ability to backcap is huge.

On a bad team, a good thief doesn’t contribute much.

Of all the classes, it’s less likely for a great player to carry a bad team with a Thief.

For 2 years: thief always viable: if not, show me their balance sheet and Arena net actions? I can show you more of “thief worse than” evidences if you want? Yes! evidence with actions not with words.

DarkSyze.8627:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MmbMCps00Q

For 2 years: thief always viable: if not, show me their balance sheet and Arena net actions? I can show you more of “thief worse than” evidences if you want? Yes! evidence with actions not with words.

Did you even watch the video you linked? It was like halfway through before a fight that he killed someone without +1, engaging with them at half healf, or out of cooldowns. In fact the biggest backstab out of the whole thing was against another thief….

DarkSyze.8627:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MmbMCps00Q

For 2 years: thief always viable: if not, show me their balance sheet and Arena net actions? I can show you more of “thief worse than” evidences if you want? Yes! evidence with actions not with words.

Wow, I see a whole lot of downed/dead thieves in that video. It feels a little like genocide. So sad to watch :-(

Thief is one of those classes that is very radically different depending on who plays it. It’s easily the worst and easily the best player on a team.

People that try to play the class like a brawler, constantly looking for fights to jump are probably pretty prevalent among those calling thieves under powered.

Players that are strategic, good at watching the map, and always perfectly timed with their +1s on fights are kings of turning the tides in games.

Toker is a prime example of the latter.

apharma.3741:

The reality is thief is still fine but you probably don’t want more than one as they have trouble sticking around in fights. Try to +1 fights going on to end them fast and move on, you are the burst on many teams and you have unparalleled mobility to quickly punish undefended points and plenty of options to adapt to many situations.

Best thing to do is if you figure someone is condi, specifically burn then avoid them and rotate around them.

Also not sure if you were saying condi necro was better…it really isn’t, bleeds took a huge nerf and it was their main damage source for conditions.

tl;dr: “Of course teef are fine for pvp, as long as you don’t intend to actually fight other players.”

Thieves are outshined by many classes in burst damage these days, moreso with the changes to burn and Mesmers getting they fully functioning shatter build baseline. Burst damage is nothing that thieves can add to the team, as they have to be so glassy to do noticable damage, that they pop up in downstate next to celeleles that turned the floor to lava and havent even noticed them until then.

Thieves playing victim role?

Playing the Victim: Avoiding Responsibility While Getting Sympathy- “Most of the time, when the manipulator casts themselves as a victim, they don’t really see themselves as victimized, they just really want the other party to see them as wounded, injured, or suffering in some way in order to elicit sympathy, cloud the picture about just who is the victimizer and who is the victim, and otherwise impression-manage the real victim”.

“That’s why playing the victim role is such an effective tactic. Especially when they’re confronted about their own malicious behavior, disordered characters will try and turn the tables by trying to get you to see them as the injured party”.

DarkSyze.8627:

Thieves playing victim role?

Playing the Victim: Avoiding Responsibility While Getting Sympathy- “Most of the time, when the manipulator casts themselves as a victim, they don’t really see themselves as victimized, they just really want the other party to see them as wounded, injured, or suffering in some way in order to elicit sympathy, cloud the picture about just who is the victimizer and who is the victim, and otherwise impression-manage the real victim”.

“That’s why playing the victim role is such an effective tactic. Especially when they’re confronted about their own malicious behavior, disordered characters will try and turn the tables by trying to get you to see them as the injured party”.

Well there’s the pot calling the kettle black.

DarkSyze.8627:

Thieves playing victim role?

Yes! Finally! An actual, real for true life role for a Thief to play! Unlike the fake “+1” role Thieves get labeled with.

Anyway, for me personally, I don’t want sympathy… unless that sympathy turns into improvements for the Thief profession. Without improvements, sympathy is meaningless. I’d prefer to skip it altogether and just get the improvements.

Personally, I am happy when I do not have a thief on my team. If someone is not a top 10 thief in the game, they are pretty useless. Worse, they usually think they are good and don’t realize they are the reason the team is losing.

style.6173:

Personally, I am happy when I do not have a thief on my team.

Most Thieves do not play the class well. This may be a serious design flaw.

it takes a different kind of mindset to play a thief effectively.

the gist of it comes down to: you have the highest mobility in the game, use that to your advantage.

the current meta is not a very combat friendly place for a thief unless its vs another thief or ganking a mesmer

a majority of the time, unless you’re going in for a quick +1 to gank an unsuspecting enemy, if you take longer than 10 secs engaged in combat, you’re doing something wrong and effectively hurting your team.

stealth, decap, stealth, move to another node on the other side of the map and keep the other team constantly trying to guess where you are and over commit to certain spots that generate outnumbered fights for your team.

Does any of you noticed this Bug? i keep getting this special debuff when i did my Stealth burst fighting against golems and npc’s. its getting annoying and perhaps this is the reason why Thief is useless in every Teamfights?.

So any one already noticed this Bug? i keep getting a 4sec debuff when doing Backstab,Tactical Strike,Sneak Attack and Surprised Shot any one else having problem on this Bug?