Guild Wars 2

Just another day in tpvp and…

I heard wvw thieves are so much better than tpvp thieves. The very little I’ve wvw’d maybe I’ve only come across bad thieves shrugs. I’m curious about other people’s thoughts and opinions on this subject. Are there amazing wvw thieves, if so who are they? I would love to test them out. If you are one of them hit me up..

No trolling and don’t talk kitten if you can’t back it up

Yes, there are some amazing theives. I have a guildie who regularly takes down 3-4 at a time (in a group of 5-10)by himself. He’s great at getting in, hitting them, and getting out safely, only to go back and finish the rest off. Last night we ran into a 4x d/p thief and 1 mesmer group that was friggin hard to take down; got 3 of us down the first time, 2 the second (I died both times-Ranger). Fun fights.

That being said, most thieves are either glass cannon, heartseeker spamming, predictable types, or barely hit but can always run and get away types. While the glass cannons hurt if you’re busy fighting someone else, 1v1 they are usually pretty lackluster and end up running away. It’s rare that a thief can kill more than one of us at a time before having to hightail away. Most are bad, some are decent, few are good. I think the most important part is target selection, honestly. Some people know which people to target, and end up doing better.

It’s not that the WvW thieves are better(they might be better if they have better equipment and manage to kill a lot of low leveld and/or bad equipped players but this is no real “better”).

I think it’s just that in sPvP the players actually learn to do PvP(instead of zerging) and how to counter thieves – which means the thief seems weaker there… making you think there are better thieves in WvW(if you read all the whine in the forums – there is certainly more whining about thieves in WvW forums).

This won’t affect you if you are an experienced sPvP/tPvP player and go to WvW… since then you already know how to fight thieves from the sPvP/tPvP. Of course then they don’t seem stronger to you in WvW(as long as they don’t have much better equipment).

It’s not that people in sPvP are generally better, it’s simply how the game is played.

In sPvP, if you stealth away, the enemy gains points from capping the point. This means the Thief ‘loses’.

In WvW, if you stealth away, there is no penalty (except time). The ability of a Thief to reset the fight over and over becomes much more valuable. Obviously this doesn’t only apply to Thieves (Mesmers, D/D Eles.etc), but the point is that being able to disengage is much more valuable in WvW.

Add in the fact that Thieves can CnD off random monsters in WvW, the difference in stat builds available (making the D/P perma stealth stack-crit-damage build much, much stronger), and you see that the two game modes are vastly different.

I spend almost all my time in SPVP but sometimes go out to WvW. You kind of get used to any solo guy in sPvP being tough – it’s why they are roaming, they are good at it and feel safe.

In WvW… even roaming guys explode in seconds.

In sPvP 90% are solid player vs player fighters or at least have enough experience to defend themselves. In WvW it seems the stats are reversed. But having said that… the top 1% of WvW would smash almost any player I see in sPvP so there is a brilliant top end who are insanely good.

there are good thieves even in wvw… if they are better, it depends only on their opponents.

Watch some videos on YouTube of Yishis on blackgate server. He’s one of the most widely renowned WvW thieves at the moment, all his vids are outmanned fights.

Most of my brothers dedicate almost exclusively to MVM.
Shadow way of fight:

http://youtu.be/nXJCG7msTnc

Four Shadows against X..

Best,

Haltair, one of the twelve shadows

I’ve never run into a thief and felt I was outplayed to a level well above mine. But there is an issue with “rating” thiefs in WvW because of the way the game is played out. More often than not, your wasting a lot of valuable time if your standing around fighting other players. Players who don’t understand that don’t understand the mechanics of the game or don’t care how they work.

Also, thieves in WvW hit much more harder than SPvP. Not to mention that SPvP is a more controlled environment that WvW and restricts a lot of builds a thief could play around with.

In WvW, you can experiment with a lot of build types that could be good in roaming, group and zerg fights.

Roles and tasks are totally different aswell. SPvP requires people to capture points but in WvW, roles are more diverse with havoc squads and scouts being also important as to capturing keeps and towers.

Thats the main reason why I prefer WvW than SPvP, its more diverse and does not get as repetitive as much compared with SPvP.

Goob.9752:

I heard wvw thieves are so much better than tpvp thieves. The very little I’ve wvw’d maybe I’ve only come across bad thieves shrugs.

That’s because most players are bad. Or rather, most players are average (bell curve) so to truly good/great players, almost all players are going to be bad in comparison.

Couple that with the fact that many WvW players do not build/equip themselves for 1v1 but rather for ZvZ. They also spend most of their playtime in zergs further hindering 1v1 skill development.

Add all this up and you get an environment where almost all encounters will have a 1v1-centric player destroying their opponent (except for the semi-uncommon occasions where two strong 1v1ers meet).

Faeyd.5094:

I spend almost all my time in SPVP but sometimes go out to WvW. You kind of get used to any solo guy in sPvP being tough – it’s why they are roaming, they are good at it and feel safe.

In WvW… even roaming guys explode in seconds.

In sPvP 90% are solid player vs player fighters or at least have enough experience to defend themselves. In WvW it seems the stats are reversed. But having said that… the top 1% of WvW would smash almost any player I see in sPvP so there is a brilliant top end who are insanely good.

I don’t know about that 90% statistic, I see tons of completely trash players in sPvP where if you offered me a million dollars to guess what their thinking was at the time, I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea. I see thieves in sPvP on a regular basis that do things like shadow refuge and go straight from stealth into 4x to 5x heartseeker spam on me while I was at 100% life. Completely bizarre. Granted there are a lot of terrible thieves in WvW, I would say the likelihood of any given thief being bad in sPvP is about the same as WvW.

I love getting 3 shot by terrible thieves then the rest just run away with infinite heartseeker…

There are a few good thieves in WvW but most are just trolls. A thief can just stealth and reset the fight. I have had to tell small groups multiple times to leave the thief alone. Unless he is killing your yaks your time is much better spent elsewhere.

In my experience, I rarely come across good thieves in spvp or in wvw. Most of the time, they are equally bad. On occasion though, I come across solid thieves. That is based on the player her/himself though and not on the game-mode.

• In WvW it is easy to stack 25 stacks of Bloodlust / Perception before engaging in a fight, giving those who have stacks an advantage.
• In WvW you have consumables to further augment your stats, giving players higher bursts.
• In WvW, a good Thief will play the role of opportunist most of the time, catching you off-guard while you’re facing another, or while you’re performing some other task.
• Ascended gear exists in WvW.
• In WvW revealed is 3s, in PvP it’s 4s.
• In WvW most players are built for larger scale combat, and so do not perform adequately when singled out by a good Thief. Examples of this that are prevalent are LB Rangers, Staff Eles, and LB Warriors.

All of these things, and probably more, contribute to why Thieves cause more grief in WvW than PvP. If you are a good PvP player built for and trained for performing in small-scale battles, you should be able to handle an equally skilled Thief just fine. They are not broken by any stretch, they just fill a unique role you must be able to handle as their opponent.

Rising Dusk.2408:

• In WvW, a good Thief will play the role of opportunist most of the time, catching you off-guard while you’re facing another, or while you’re performing some other task.

Id argue a good thief doesn’t waste his time on opportunist targets as its non productive.

sostronk.8167:

Rising Dusk.2408:

• In WvW, a good Thief will play the role of opportunist most of the time, catching you off-guard while you’re facing another, or while you’re performing some other task.

Id argue a good thief doesn’t waste his time on opportunist targets as its non productive.

stranglers/distracted players are great rally food.

They’re also great loot bags, and every time you kill a straggler or a distracted player you shrink the size of whatever group he was with, bettering the odds for your server in that fight. This is especially valid if you’re picking players out of a bigger group, and your killing them rallies your buddies.

A thread’s title “WvW thiefs” that you get in and find out it’s not a troll/complain about thiefs being OP or something alike. You don’t see that everyday.

In sPvP what do thieves have? 14k hp, 30% crit chance and 50% crit damage?

In WvW they have 18k hp, 50% crit chance with 100% crit damage and still maintain 2500 armor.

Still, they don’t provide much real value to WvW and with roaming getting harder and harder to do, their role is questionable at best.

I’m built for 1vX more than 1v1 which can’t be replicated in sPvP but would definitely like to 1v1 if you’re facing Maguuma. I don’t know why so many people think tPvP and WvW players are mutually exclusive.

Of course there are amazing thieves (not me though). Why do you think there are so much tears. Thieves are the troll class of choice, and really good thieves have amazing survival instincts without sacrificing much damage. Most thieves range from good to awful, but there are a few that are flat out ninjas.