Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

I’ve been playing a power thief and enjoying 1v1s and small fights. I like the direct damage and being forced to actively outplay/control my enemeies via evades/interrupts in order to win. The mobility is great too since I can quickly avoid zergs and catch runners.

However, I often run around with a partner and we find ourselves 2v3-4 frequently or in larger messy brawls of 5-6v5-6.

I find it very hard to contribute on Thief in this scenario after the initial opener. I end up relying on a lot of stealth and get forced out quickly just because of the aoespam from so many people. This leaves my buddy in 1v2-4s until I can restore some health, initiative, and evades.

Is there another class that has similar attributes but can contribute a little more actively in skirmishes?

A Rev is pretty much a thief without stealth but with group support and actual viability in WvW.

I agree with the Rev idea. You might also take a look a Mes, they can be pretty fun to play.

Ranger or mes. You still have the stealth and interrupts, ranger is pretty darn close in mobility and has some great cc, but a mesmer provides some boon strips which is pretty kitten ed important right now.

Warrior, Druid are both mobile and good in skirmish. Boon Duration Stance Warriors are flat out OP right now.

Scrapper, Tempest are great in skirmish but trade in the long range mobility. Bunker Tempests are insanely hard to kill and almost pure group support.

Mesmer is a great skirmish class with plenty of group synergy. They have solid in combat mobility and have decent long range escape but don’t move over the map very quickly.

Stick with thief.

Don’t ask “what is good class/build that i can win with”, figure out what you can change in your own play first before completely garbage canning your time played on thief.

If you are getting into messy fights it’s probably because you are not reading the map and anticipating where the two enemy faction’s are and where they are going. A simple example that most roamers know,

You come out of South West spawn and head for swc.
The home borderland defenders just retook bay.
The 3rd faction currently has swc.
What is going to happen if you show up?

You flip swc, the sentry, tag bay and head for sw various sentry.
Are you going to be safe from a train of players while standing in that red circle?

I know this stuff may be obvious but it is incredibly easy to hunt enemy roamers because many of them do not have years of experience which is also why they run in packs.

If you want to kill enemy players in a more reasonable fight, know where to place the bait and where to place the trap.

Hi Justine,

You misinterpret me. We are not being caught off-guard. We’re willingly entering outnumbered fights. While alone, I can pull off some 1v2s & together we can do some 2v3s – I find it very difficult to contribute in larger fights on my Thief.

In small fights, damage avoidance is simpler, I don’t run out of initiative until the fight is over, and shutting down 1 target is more impactful.

In larger fights, I find Thief struggles for all those reasons.
Damage becomes almost unavoidable, unless you’re spamming evades/stealth (in which case you’re putting out no pressure).
The fight will not be close to over when I’ve burned through my initiative because there’s simply more health bars to burn.
Controlling/shutting down one target means far less in larger fights AND it’s much harder to do because there’s additional people to peel/pressure you off.

Thief (or at least the way I play Thief) really struggles in these larger, messier, protracted fights – by design. Which is inline with the feedback I’ve gotten from other Thieves & my guildmates.

However, I really like finding these fights – I don’t want to just backcap across WvW looking for 1&2s, as your post seems to suggest. I don’t really give a kitten about the points in WvW, I just want spontaneous, messy fights.

My goal with this post was to see if there were any other power classes out there that could deliver on what I love about Power Thief:
Direct damage, resource instead of rotation based, evasive/slippery/defensive-outplay, interrupt/control/offensive-outplay.

People have made some good suggestions for which I’m thankful.

So you want everything.

Your problems in 1or2 vs X is securing spikes. After that it is getting boxed in ending with you or friend getting killed.

Id roll a dragon hunter with trapper runes.
Stealth/superspeed/ranged spike dmg with bow/pbaoe dmg&cc with traps/party support/stability.
Your limitation will be free target mobility.

That should have everything needed to stay alive in a fight but if it becomes really lopsided you are likely dead.

Blaqatak.1395:

resource instead of rotation based

This is a caracteristic unique to thief, and you won’t find that on any other profession as all of them have CDs in every weapon skill. At best a kit engineer or a elementalist who have multiple weapon choices (elementalist have 20 weapon skills oposed to the typical 10. Engineer have an extra 5 per equipped kit) so you are more likely to always have somenthing at your disposal.

I’m sorry but the beast incarnate is NECRO baby.

Justine.6351:

Stick with thief.

Don’t ask “what is good class/build that i can win with”, figure out what you can change in your own play first before completely garbage canning your time played on thief.

The only time a thief is good in a skirmish group is around other stealth classes. Otherwise the poor guy running with the thief ends up being a lightning rod for 3+ guys wailing on him. Best to run a class with overlap so that the builds they are running are elevated.

For example, two tRex running a Bunker Tempest/Guardian combo can easily handle a 2v5 scenario. They just have to stay on top of each other and will grind down most other groups fairly easily. Two thieves in that same fight are stealthing and/or running.

Deciding between Warrior & Revenant – leaning towards Warrior for the mobility & condi-clear. But after Thief, playing them feels straightforward, rotation-based, & tactically uninteresting. I don’t see opportunities for mixups/outplays. The interesting questions for these classes feel like pre-fight choices (builds & whether to fight). In a 1v1, everything feels pre-planned rather than reactive.

In comparison on my thief, I’m constantly outplaying or getting outplayed. Evading/interrupting/blinding critical moves, trying to position for backstabs, being clever with stolen skills, stealth juking, managing initiative, and of course trying to figure out how to contribute in larger fights without getting gibbed.

Part of the difference is likely just my unfamiliarity with the tactically depth/options. But I’m curious to hear:
Which do y’all think has a higher tactical skill-ceiling?
What separates a good Warrior or Revenant from a great one?

Straegen.2938:

Justine.6351:

Stick with thief.

Don’t ask “what is good class/build that i can win with”, figure out what you can change in your own play first before completely garbage canning your time played on thief.

The only time a thief is good in a skirmish group is around other stealth classes. Otherwise the poor guy running with the thief ends up being a lightning rod for 3+ guys wailing on him. Best to run a class with overlap so that the builds they are running are elevated.

For example, two tRex running a Bunker Tempest/Guardian combo can easily handle a 2v5 scenario. They just have to stay on top of each other and will grind down most other groups fairly easily. Two thieves in that same fight are stealthing and/or running.

Bingo. The real issue is when the thief saves his butt, it pretty much requires stealth or disengage, and thus his friend gets eaten alive in the process.

Ultimately, mesmer provides much better group potential than most thieves considering they have much better shared stealth application and can effectively remove targets from the fight via moa. Better ranged options and group mobility and battlefield control enable a lot more strategic use.

The thief isn’t a good option when fighting outnumbered if you’re not with other stealth builds.

Typically, though, small groups benefit most from running very tanky/condnition and sustain-oriented builds as it allows them to out-last other groups while having just enough damage to focus enemies to downed state and secure spikes. Power-based damage is not an efficient stat combination in the game at all for PvP formats.

I’m in the same proces. Thief main since beta, but I run with just a few friends now and they need more support from me besides bursts. Wish thief could do more support than the occasional Blinding Powder resque. But alas..

I’m going to try Rev, since it appears to have more depth and more active defenses. Which to me sounds more like a thief than the other two tanky types. But the gear I make for the Rev will also be useable on War/Guard so it’s no biggy to try all three at some point.

Hanza.6872:

I’m going to try Rev, since it appears to have more depth and more active defenses. Which to me sounds more like a thief than the other two tanky types. But the gear I make for the Rev will also be useable on War/Guard so it’s no biggy to try all three at some point.

For now focus on Commander armor with boon duration food and Durability runes. Works for almost every heavy and is ridiculously good for group support.