Guild Wars 2

Hello, I am a month old in this game.
Decided to try PvP straight off, since that is what I understood to be the end-game in the previous MMO I was in.

I started a Thief because the latest promotional material on GW2 said we have to be a thief to catch one, that is Caithe.

No, actually, the main reason was that I finally tried Rogue after years of playing ranged spellcasters and the difference of breath-close melee was exhilarating.

But the thieves here get only a few seconds of stealth, not the ability to run miles while stealthed until action. That took some getting used to.

Targeting: Auto-aiming at a target by hitting Tab is not there. It happens, in PvE, automatically, by just flinging any spell or weapon within range of the NPC, but it doesn’t work that way with living, thinking people.

Neither does your automatic following of them while channeled skills (if there is such a thing here) are active.

Add to it that targeting while hitting ‘Tab’ is not always accurate. That also is taking some time to get used to.

All skills auto turn toward the opponent as long as you’re not holding down a movement key.

You can perma stealth, you just need to work for it and trait for it. Smoke field + heartseeker (e.g. dagger + pistol, use 5, then 2, 2, 2 through it).

It’s easier to mouse target opponents in a crowd of turrets/minions. You can see who you are targeting by the visible outline (must have post processing in graphics set to at least low).

Kharr.5746:

All skills auto turn toward the opponent as long as you’re not holding down a movement key.

You can perma stealth, you just need to work for it and trait for it. Smoke field + heartseeker (e.g. dagger + pistol, use 5, then 2, 2, 2 through it).

It’s easier to mouse target opponents in a crowd of turrets/minions. You can see who you are targeting by the visible outline (must have post processing in graphics set to at least low).

Thank you, Kharr. Even if they are behind me?
As for the stealthing, that is relieving to know.

This was supposed to be a much longer post, but I decided to divide it into sections.
Part II:

Reading all the raves and wows on how Thieves are the penultimate glass cannon, the hidden shard of ice that strikes hard, fast and true, then just ‘eating grit’ during 99% of my PvP experience is also taking some time to get used to.

Listening to all the complaints from the oh-so-pro players who, oh-so-professionally remain in practice PvP and crow over me for being so weak is also taking some time getting used to, and will not eventually happen because it does not make sense that people are so unkind in a game.

The only thing that makes sense is that these people are being jerks to weaker players because they themselves are probably weak, or lazy, or impatient: too weak to play ranked, too lazy to earn their PvP rewards playing against equally strong/experienced players, or too impatient to wait for the loading transitions that occur in ranked PvP.

What else could they expect from someone they are rude to? Those people will wonder why, and the answers will be ugly. Geeks gloating over other geeks? Come on.

The only time a criticism actually bothered me was when I was told I was hurting the team. THAT, I can take. It hurts, but they are right to complain.

Allow me to add that I use the following method as a humbling experience towards bigmouth ‘pros’: I make sure I am on their team for the next round if they talk too much in the wrong way. I still try hard to do my best for the team, and if they cooperate, we actually win.

But elitists hardly look over their shoulder or on the map to see if everyone is OK.

I shall have to resort to this unfortunate means of punishment until I am good enough to play them as an opponent, by which time I will be playing against much stronger folk.

On the other hand, there are some awesome people. They will kill you, but teach you how, and will not put you down for dying as frequently as they kill you. They might even stay their hand and go after their customary ‘heavy’ opponents while you pick up your pieces, and try again.

They can also give you an amazing display of skill one can experience by ‘spectating’ a game. (Thank you, GW2 Devs!)

There was a BEAUTIFUL one-on-one Thief vs. Thief match in my second-ever PvP day here. I shall always remember it, and the group that was there. They let their two Thieves go at each other for a deathmatch:

The man vanished like water into nothing, whisped around the space like he weighed nothing, then HIT so hard and disappeared again, always, always in full control of his space and location, and his opponent always on his tail, in direct and balanced opposition, relentless, matching strike for strike, step for step.

This was better than any action movie. I could feel my heart in my ribcage, it was fast. I was holding my breath.

I want to be that good.

Was the thought I had, then.

Turning auto targeting off for thief in pvp is a must. Hiting or even porting to wrong enemy is too big of a risk.

Tab target at least prioritzes players over pets,minion…. Just not mesmer clone. So if theres few enemys you can reliably use tab otherwise mouse is faster.

A lot of you skills dont need a target. Weapons with cleave will hit even multiple enemys in range, example swinging your sword will hit even stealthed enemys if theyre in range front of you.

This is real beginner stuff to be honest.
When you got called stay in practice i presume you were at least playing unranked. That mode already uses matchmaking so poeple expext to be matche dwith equally skilled players and when you a big beginner on your team you often can call the game lost.
I hope i explained you a bit and i strongly recommend you check out a few guides for both thief fighting gameplay as well as their role and map movement.

My main problems are movement and targeting. I could have all the fancy builds and stats and what have you, but not moving well at the right pace in the right direction is DEATH.

I was given to understand a thief is supposed to be a solitary roamer in PvP, but I always get killed if alone. This is very frustrating.

It takes anywhere from one really good to four really bad/preoccupied players to kill me nowadays, thanks to evasion, but it really bugs me to be so weak and clumsy.

Once, together with another Thief, I’ve been scolded for ‘sitting bases’ in ranked PvP, trying to be clever and sneaking out of/away from the fray on the map to capture another base for my team while they captured and fought for another, keeping our opponents distracted. I and another Thief were both told to be roaming and killing folks.

What happens is I get killed instead. I only seem to be doing well if I run together with others, and top off their maintained damage by using my own small, rapidly repetitive, sharp bursts of damage.
Thanks to the sword, I think, sometimes those bursts are far from small, and the opponents who mock me in chat can get very earnest in retaliation. Those few seconds of violent silence..

Well, going anywhere alone in PvP gets me killed too easily for me to be useful.
Any advice on that would be great.

I do not want to feel a coward for sticking to the team, but I do want my team to win.
I also want to be efficient on my own. My impression is that a thief is one who sneaks and gets difficult things done alone. That requires a good deal of strength, imagination, and ability to move around in a landscape in the least expected ways.
I am a bit of a coward, with my own kind of courage. Ready to go anywhere, afraid of being killed doing it, yet enjoying the thrill of danger while doing it, and all too happy to reap a good reward for my efforts.
‘Thief’ suits me.

Flumek.9043:

Turning auto targeting off for thief in pvp is a must. Hiting or even porting to wrong enemy is too big of a risk.

Tab target at least prioritzes players over pets,minion…. Just not mesmer clone. So if theres few enemys you can reliably use tab otherwise mouse is faster.

A lot of you skills dont need a target. Weapons with cleave will hit even multiple enemys in range, example swinging your sword will hit even stealthed enemys if theyre in range front of you.

This is real beginner stuff to be honest.
When you got called stay in practice i presume you were at least playing unranked. That mode already uses matchmaking so poeple expext to be matche dwith equally skilled players and when you a big beginner on your team you often can call the game lost.
I hope i explained you a bit and i strongly recommend you check out a few guides for both thief fighting gameplay as well as their role and map movement.

Thank you, Flumek.
I was mocked, not called to order, in Practice PvP. I was called during the one or two times I played ranked. It was said in an insulting way, but it made me think, and check forums and whatnot. I will not play ranked till I am sure I can hold my team’s score up.

On targeting: I see. So no auto targeting. Mouse involvement. And all skills auto direct themselves to a target so long as they are nearby. What about swerving the camera? I suppose I have to stop using the direction keys altogether.

On movement: I will go to the practice arena for this, but the evasion on key 3 seems to be very random. I don’t want to fall off cliffs or face the wall when my opponent is behind me.

I am sorry if they are beginner questions, but I am a beginner, and it has taken a lot of reading trying to get to this point to begin with. Bad basics make a bad player.

I want to at least play normally, if not well.

I’m confused. Is this a blog or something?

Anyway, answers to your questions:

The main role of a thief is to be a) decapping points, b) taking out high priority classes (other thieves, mesmers, anything with high DPS but low survivability), c) +1ing fights where needed and, d) watching and predicting enemy movement.

So yes, you should be roaming between points, taking out targets, that kind of thing. You should never ever be sitting on a point as a thief. Defending, maybe, depending on the situation, but bunkering a point? No.

Put it this way: if the enemy is constantly having to watch you and be on the look out for your movements, you’re doing something right.

A thief can 1v1 against most classes. You’ll probably struggle against anything with big AoE though, or a necro with full death shroud (good luck bursting through ~35k health). CC skills (immobilise, knockdown, cripple etc) are all kryptonite for thieves. They rely on mobility to survive and when that’s taken away, they become easy targets. So learn what skills inflict CC and learn to dodge/avoid them.

If you’re dying a lot in 1v1s, it’ll be because either, you’re not avoiding the right stuff (don’t bother dodging an autoattack when there’s a key skill coming that you really need to dodge), or you’re trying to tank too much. A thief wins fights through avoiding damage and doing high bursts. Utilise the super high mobility and evasion the thief has to kite your enemy.

One of the best ways to kite someone is to use the terrain to line of sight the enemy (put the terrain between you and the enemy so they can’t hit you). This is probably the thing that really separates good player from the bad.

Not to say that I’m good by an means, but I managed to kite 3 players in a match earlier whilst on about 2k health and survived long enough for some people on my team to arrive and relieve the pressure. Now, I wasn’t playing thief but the point still stands. With good kiting you can survive much much longer.

A thief should very rarely be in a team fight. You can jump in, land a burst or take out a low enemy, but don’t try and stick around for too long. You’ll become a target and you’re too squishy to survive any sort of focused damage.

Also, and maybe this is completely wrong, but it seems like you’re trying to role-play in pvp which is strange:

“My impression is that a thief is one who sneaks and gets difficult things done alone. That requires a good deal of strength, imagination, and ability to move around in a landscape in the least expected ways.
I am a bit of a coward, with my own kind of courage. Ready to go anywhere, afraid of being killed doing it, yet enjoying the thrill of danger while doing it, and all too happy to reap a good reward for my efforts.”

Every class has it’s own role, but it’s nothing quite so… Romanticized.

I recommend you watch some videos on thief play to compare.

Not for nothing but you are telling everyone that the things you struggle with are literally the most basic parts of the pvp game. It’s not surprising you got flamed and you should have almost expected it if you have pvped in any other game or even if you’ve played cod for .1 second.

So gw2 uses like a hybrid tab targeting. Some skills are aoe target and some you just select the player and face towards them when casting.

Flumek is talking about the autotargeting in your options, when this is clicked if you use a skill or attack it will automatically select a target for you. You need to turn it off as a thief due to multiple movement skills and sometimes you may use an attack for a combo field (learn your combo fields). There is also anot her targeting option that is going to show default targeting, fast targ eh with range indicator, and fast targeting. As soon as you can try and get used to fast targeting. It’s gonna hurt you right now but it will really help you in the long run, I myself got so used to default targeting I found the switch less than pleasant.
The direction keys yes you never want to use the turning keys, only forward backwards and the strafe keys all your turning should be done by mouse, also its a good idea to bind a key to look backward its in your controls just bind a key to it. Biggest reason for this is your toon will move faster while walking forward and there are lots of skills you do not need to be facing the enemy to use. This will make kiting easier as backpedaling is a pretty good way to get yourself killed.

Haters gonna hate. You just keep on keeping on.

William C, imaclown, thank you.
William C,
I wasn’t romanticising or RP’ing as much as expressing my reaction to what I have seen as Thief. Perhaps the expression was less technical. So far, I have thoughts and feelings, not know-how

I was doing everything on your list except b) taking out high level DPS, and not being consistent with d) watching enemy movement. When I did, it was a source of delight to look at the map, see everyone clustered in a battle-lock, then go and uncap all the other bases, forcing the opponent to break battle and run after me around the map while my teammates rebounded. The pain was when they caught up!

Kiting, Line of Sight, and Terrain Manipulation, is it? Thank you!

imaclown, thank you very much also for your patience with a newbie. Maybe there are others like me who are struggling with basics but are keeping quiet.

Autotargeting is finally off. UGH. With it on, I was evading like 3 opponents and hitting none because each evasion sent me on another right-curving L-hook jump to an irrelevant location.

I wasn’t used to it to begin with, so it might be less painful for me to switch.

Working on all else, with much thanks.

You might want to try out some dueling servers for more 1v1 experience. Thief has a good chance at winning most duels, you just need to learn/practice the match-ups. You can find the dueling servers in the same place as practice pvp servers (in-case you had not seen them yet) You might want to noting which classes are giving you the most trouble in 1v1’s and think about how/why they are winning against you. Most of the skills you will need to practice you can learn over time in Practice mode, just stick with it, learn you skill rotations/burts and never be afraid to engage in duels. Everything is a learning experience, PvP in this game doesn’t have many rewards besides personal growth (bettering your PvP skillz)

GL HF – I’ll see you in the battlefield.

set it to tab to closest target. go to metabattle.com to find current meta builds. The thing about thief in pvp is you have to pick and choose fights and wait for the right moment to burst (I wait until they are around 50% health then burst them)

If you’re finding something too difficult, make it easier. - Adjust your build slightly, put some training wheels on if you must and ignore the criticisms of others while you use it to get to grips with something else faster, and once you have, return to the better, higher skill-cap build.

Auto-targeting off: absolutely. You’ll find you can escape better with it off as well, for flanking strike will evade you in the direction you’re moving rather than redirect you back to a foe.

Camera movement: Always hold the right mouse button down and steer with your mouse, using the keyboard for moving forwards, backwards and strafing. Why? It is much much faster, combat becomes much more fluid, you can keep your eye on more things and dodge telegraphed skills, and you find yourself better able to switch targets in the middle of a fight.

Sitting on a point: Try not to do this. Why? You’re not a bunker. You can capture undefended points or points you’ve won, or just decap it and leave to force someone from the enemy team to pull off to it, turning the fight they left into an outnumbered fight in your team’s favour - especially when you get back much faster than the enemy can get to the decapped point and must spend a good while re-capturing it. If an enemy pushes your point though, you’re less likely to be able to hold the cap. Thief excels at engaging and disengaging to avoid damage, and while engaged striking hard and evading. It’s quite easy for another class to force you off a point and decap it. You might want to defend it, but since you’ll likely lose the cap, and are the fastest class anyway, you can just leave the point but watch for anyone attempting to take it, and beat them back there. As you get better you’ll be able to fight on points longer or even until you win if it’s a 1v1. Also, if you’re sitting on a point your mobility is being wasted.

Decapping points: Always look to do this. Do it when you’re low or pressured and need to recover. Do it when your team is comfortable (winning or sustaining) in a team fight and you can afford to leave them momentarily. Don’t do this when it will cost you a more important point, and remember unless you’re in an organised team your allies will not likely think to retreat and fall back on a point they own to regroup, but will instead opt to die, going on respawn and possibly even staggering their respawns which can cost the game if not quickly remedied.

Fighting 1v1 on a decapped point: You can do this to delay an enemy cap or maintain the neutrality while your team has no points captured yet, as it prevents the enemy team from pulling ahead. Once they have won a fight though, you can pull off and support another point, returning to decap if able.

Going it alone: Obviously thieves do this, but not exclusively. Team PvP by its very nature requires team work. Sometimes it is beneficial to pull off and do a job a lone, but more often you should be with 1-2 others. Creating outnumbered situations by joining fights is an important job and by nature is not going it alone. If the enemy team has hard counters to your allies like a necromancer to an engineer or a thief to a mesmer, you want to pressure them off of their would-be targets which often means roaming with or returning to them to provide that pressure-support. You also have more damage with more people, so if your team has another high damage class it is common practice to pull off to take a point by killing whoever is on it very quickly.

Flanking strike going in weird directions... Yes it does this. It’s the most annoying skill if you or your opponent has a bit of lag. If your target is moving in direction A, then B, but a packet loss occurs when they change direction, your game client will see them still moving in direction A, while to them they are moving in direction B. If the game successfully receives a packet from them then, it will update their position, and it will then update for you. There are a couple of windows where, if you use flanking strike, it will send you in the wrong direction and will not hit. Similarly, if you’re lagging, your client will keep drawing your target moving in the last known direction when they very well might have changed, so when you use flanking strike your client moves you in the direction it knows the target to be, and when you re-sync with the server they appear to teleport away from you, and because the client controls movement and the server determines whether or not something hit, you will move in the wrong direction and not land a hit.

Im my opinion you need to know/understand the other classes skills/burst/animations. Thiefs have very good ways to win against other classes but they need to know the best time to land burst or to evade critical attacks.
I would recomend to play other classes just to learn animations and the burst you will need to avoid. You could start with those that are more dificult for you to beat.
After that i would practise landing thief burst and the best ways to do so.
There are some ways to deal even more damage with thief like doing a backstab while stealing.
Using pistol 5 and then dagger 2 against one enemy will do damage AND you will also get stealth leaving room for Backstab or whatever you need to do.

In my experience, it is better for a thief to +1 fights. And by that I mean, they should jump into even fights and end it quickly so that their team can win the fight without having to commit more players than the other team. So in other words, thieves are Solo roamers, until they get into other fights and quickly end them.

Should a thief stand on a node? No. Should a thief be a part of team fights? Absolutely. Thieves need to land burst damage on the opponent’s damage. (Kill off the other team’s thief/mesmer first). A thief can bring defense to their team in the form of offense by harassing the other team’s low armor rating professions during team fights.

It seems like you are doing a good job of watching for opportunities to decap the enemy’s nodes. That is good, but it sounds like you need to work on your speed of movement! A thief should be uncatchable (except to other thieves). Are you using shortbow? Are you using shadowstep+shadow refuge+1 optional for your utility skills? With those three things, no one should ever be able to catch you.

Bring weapon sets that have utility!

Sword/ Dagger is a great weapon set because it provides 1. Mobility, 2. Evasion, 3. Damage.

Dagger/Pistol is a great weapon set because it provides 1. Gap Closing, 2. A lot of Stealth, 3. Burst damage.

Shortbow is great because it has 1. INSANE mobility, 2. Cleave for downed bodies (AoE damage+ poison) 3. Evasion

I highly recommend bringing D/P and SB or S/D and SB!

A good thief will end 1v1s quickly, use mobility rotate to other fights quickly, realize good times to decap the other team’s base, and basically provide map-wide support burst damage.

Also, watch Sizer or Magic Toker on twitch. Watch, emulate, repeat, and be patient. Thief is one of the hardest classes to acclimate to.

Brigg.6189:

Also, watch Sizer or Magic Toker on twitch. Watch, emulate, repeat, and be patient. Thief is one of the hardest classes to acclimate to.

I’d also recommend looking up Cruuk’s twitch page. He solo Qs (or used to) quite a bit. I’m still a bit baffled by him playing Norn since all the animations are a bit off, and make it difficult to see where your attacks are going.

Thank you all so much! I will treat your posts as a handbook for Thievery.
Very valuable advice. It is a massive relief coming out of the darkness of ignorance.

Oh came back to see here and nice that you read and liked tipps.

I dont want to discourage you, but i think its good to be honest. When you said mouse camera movement and keyboard turning….. wow it is actualy a joke among poeple to tell someone hes keyboard turning – as that would indicate he hes about 0-10 hours played…… if you want to get a grip about thief and pvp, be prepared for learning a few 100 hours , keep in mind most currently have more 1.000 h clocked

Youll need to get to a pure tehnical point of memoring the keyboard layout and that you can press them fast at anytime. then you can ask again on how to better understand the rythm of battle.

I see a bright light in you that youre prepared to take advice
Wish you best of luck

Flumek, thank you.
Advice is the precious concentrate of experience and effort of others.

Regarding movement:
I was under the impression of the total contrary, where I used to find WASD to be difficult, and used mouse-camera on my former game.

That left the long string of 1234567890-= at the top of the keyboard. It was annoying and not always difficult, so I rehashed the keymap to:
1234
QWER
ASDF
ZXCV

With the mouse for the right hand. I came to Tyria, and thought I would train myself to learn WASD movement from scratch, so I flung all the commands to the number keypad, starting at the bottom, like this:
(Key: WS: Weapon Skill; US: Utility Skill)

7= US2 8= US3 9= PS2 (Thief has only one? So ‘blank’ key) [+] = Weapon Swap
4= Elite 5=Heal 6=US1
1= WS4 2=WS5 3=Steal!
0 = WS1 .=WS2 [Enter]=WS3

Now you tell me that I need the mouse for the camera- I tried that. I had to! Literally had to push my keyboard aside to use the number pad with my left hand and steer with my right. A different world!

Looks like I am going to buy this baby, or, actually, I have finally earned the reason to buy it: The Razer Tartarus Gaming Keypad

Or I can climb down the price ladder to buy a separate number pad, telling anyone who asks, ‘For accounting’ with a straight face.

…but taking away WASD leaves the question of dodging. I tried using the mouse for movement and number pad for actions, and was the easiest target EVER.

I’m using a Naga and wasd.
Dodge, movement, class specific skills (normally bound to f1-4) are on the keyboard, camera control and skills are done by mouse.

Holy wowsers! That is a thing to know and use! Thank you, Genev.