Guild Wars 2

Jnaathra.6549:

rom.9726:

the thief is NOT one of the most easiest classes to grasp. Sorry. And No I will quantify my statement since you didn’t bother either.

My first 80 was an elementalist. Here I am swapping through attuenments.. Trying to keep track of which is on cd and which is not. I need some extra condition removal and healing, water. I need high damage, get into fire. Oh no that melee is to close to me.. I need some control and protection, earth. etc etc etc. Regardless of weapon and spec you are in a constant state of juggling all this stuff around.

Enter the thief…

So last night I feel like making a thief. I go through the tutorial/story area. I hit level 2 and immediately go to spvp. I throw together a dagger/pistol with pistol/pistol spec. I don’t touch a target dummy and go immediately into spvp.

Put on some poison, pop and assassin signet. Spam HS and watch crap die. Start getting hurt and throw down a stealth field. Watch my teammates take them down a notch.. come out of the stealth field and spam HS and watch crap die. Get into a few situations that require ranged, spam unload and watch crap die.

So I have been playing an elementalist since release.. Spvp, wvw, pve.. dungeons.. Trying out every weapon, every spec possible.

First time using a thief… get the highest score I have ever gotten in spvp, first place overall, lots of kills, a single death..

How do you think I feel about my Elementalist now?

I am really getting tired of seeing these posts. I play Ele and rarely die to thieves anymore. Once you know the build they are using they are fairly easy to counter. Unless they are good then its a more even match, maybe giving them the advantage on damage since they are a bit higher then the ele right now. But anyway, basing a thief being OP off of hot join spvp matches is pointless. Those matches are full of bad players and players that are trying out different builds or just running around to smash things. Its easy to roflstomp with a thief on pub games. In tPvP with my guilds I play roamer so i usually 1v1 thieves alot since the other team usually has one as their roam. S/P venom builds give me more trouble usually and im okay with that since it requires some more skill then d/d hs spam. But a HS spam thief is useless in a tpvp match agianst smart players. They are easily countered bu updrafting as an ele when they HS in then drop dragon tooth, phoenix, arcane blast and wave while they are in the knock down. This will finish about 75 percent of their health. then you can just use your 1/2/3/ in air to finish them. Water if you need heals, you should start out in earth to get the armor as well. Just my experience. Take it as you will.

Thieves are a pain in thekitten but I’ve found I can hard-counter HSS spamming thieves on necro with Well of Darkness and Well of Corruption. Throw 20 bleed stacks on them and watch them die while flailing blind.

100b warriors are worse. If I fail to dodge the stun I can expect to eat up to 10k damage from a single 100b, with 3100 Armor.

I will say Thief is very op 1v1 vs anything that isn’t a Guardian. sPvP is a whole different story because you people are mostly talking about pubs rather than tournaments, and anyone can shine in pubs.

Anyway, the problem really is Heartseeker. It’s the strongest skill at every interval of enemy heath except “above 66%”. If you pair that with the fact that it only costs 3 initiative, that makes it the cheapest and most effective way to kill enemies when using Dagger as a main hand.

On the other hand, Thieves aren’t op in the slightest against any player that has actually played Thief in a PvP situation before. You just think, “Here it comes, HS’ everywhere” and that’s your grand opportunity to counter them at any point in time. Playing the Thief in both beta and release, I’d say the biggest counters to him are Guardians in general and skills that inflict conditions.

Symbiosis.5418:

Well, I’ve made a video on this topic. I hope it helps some of you guys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq8BJrmrUaU

The problem is a thief from steal that will 322 kill you while you proudly killing a warrior.
Whats annoying me is that is a kid’s proffesion and not OP. Just 322, tons of damage then stealth then 322 again.

If you are dying a lot to HS spam it is a L2P issue on your part. I dont think what people are so mad about is that HS is OP, because it really isnt, its that Thiefs really only need 2 buttons to be competitive.

benhamann.9570:

If you are dying a lot to HS spam it is a L2P issue on your part. I dont think what people are so mad about is that HS is OP, because it really isnt, its that Thiefs really only need 2 buttons to be competitive.

That’s the real root of the problem. If you’re fighting a hs thief and you mess up, you’re dead. If they mess up, it’s easily recoverable. It’s a low skill high reward system that really creates an inequality with other classes that have a much higher skil cap for the same returns.

Agreed. They have many ways to escape and their class is forgiving, and simple to play. They dont have to worry about F1-4 mechanics like other classes. Stealing is optional. But, a max damage build thief has about 14k hp. If you can survive a few seconds of HS spam nonsense and then burst on them you win.

It would also be nice for people in these threads to stop talking about topping the score chart as if it represents a lot of kills. I do far better on the score chart by running around flipping nodes than I do by getting kills.

Great explanatory vid

Thank you for the video showing us how much more dmg and utility the thief has compared to our class!