Guild Wars 2

I’m struggling a bit to contribute to larger battles in WvW except when I use my shortbow, and even then the range is limited. Theoretically I could focus on targets of opportunity (with low health) and finish them off, but typically the amount of AoE used in large battles restrict this option. Is it better for thieves not to participate in large battles at all and just focus on supply/roaming?

Well, you can do some decent work on gate defense with the poison cloud and exploding the cluster bomb early. On offense you can use scorpion wire to pull defenders off the walls if you’re lucky. Just make sure you don’t pull them near thier escape hatch back inside.

But I’d say the place where a thief can really do the most damage is by skirmishing.
Take out supply Dolyaks and kill reinforcements before they can get back to the front. Team up with a small squad, preferably other thieves, and wreak havok on the back lines.

In open field Zerg on Zerg battles, try to attack the flanks and get people who stray too far from the pack. Scorpion wire comes in handy here again. If you connect with it, you can pull some unfortunate into range of your own zerg. Lots of fun!

If you use Venomous Aura and then equip several venoms you can spread them to your allies so everyone can use them. That’s good right?

I usually just run a condition spec and use Shortbow/DD for AoE condition spread. Effective if you stay at max range of your SB and kind of poke at people. If people get too close just be sure to time your dodges and Death Blossoms to avoid any damage (although usually hard to do with all the CC).

jalikar.1385:

I’m struggling a bit to contribute to larger battles in WvW except when I use my shortbow, and even then the range is limited. Theoretically I could focus on targets of opportunity (with low health) and finish them off, but typically the amount of AoE used in large battles restrict this option. Is it better for thieves not to participate in large battles at all and just focus on supply/roaming?

1. Cluster bomb people on the walls to make them stop attacking your rams. Combined with ele AOE you can bring wall defenders down in fact. If you’re a defender, you can poison and bleed people attacking your doors with minimal risk (only have to risk for poison, cluster bomb arcs)

2. Yank people off the walls into your group with Scorpion Wire. It’s an almost guaranteed kill that results in that person having to run back because they can’t be ressed,

3. Stop straggling reinforcements/ressers running back. Utilize things like infiltrator’s strike, 3 on shortbow, dancing dagger etc to hinder reinforcements from reaching keeps and kill them early.

4. SCOUT. Seriously you as a thief make the best scout/recon in the entire game. You are highly mobile with a permanent 25% speed increase and shadow steps, and you can make yourself temporarily invisible when behind enemy lines, shadow refuge is absolutely invaluable for this, as is the trait that makes you stealth when taking falling damage. A trick is that if you take falling damage multiple times when sliding down a hill, the stealth duration will stack and you can get a good 10+s of stealth to escape if you happen to get spotted.

I’ve found my Thief to be much better at ranged AoE than my Warrior, both at level 80 and geared. And the mobility that it has is amazing. This is what I do:

Cluster Bomb is essential. With a Power/Precision/Crit + Vit build you can do a lot of damage with it, usually critical hits range from 3-5k and has a good range to it. The other advantage of this skill is that you can spam it. When defending a keep from the rampart, shoot one, dodge back, shoot another, dodge, etc., and you’ll be taking very little damage while doing a lot of it yourself. If you ‘re good on knowing how to time the air explosion then you can do more damage, just try to explode it when it’s almost hitting the ground.

With D/P as weapons, you can also solo any control point out there with Blind spam. And if you get some Acrobatics in your build, you’ll get so much mobility that no one, not even the whole enemy’s zerg, will catch you.

Dodges+Shadowstep+Withdraw+Infiltrator’s Arrow are excelent escape mechanisms. I’ve had situations where there’s 10 people hell bent on chasing me using cripples, stuns, etc., and still come out alive.

I think the biggest factor is that you need be 80 and have at least exotic weapons to feel like you’re doing something. My damage duplicated, nay, tripled upon gearing myself at 80 compared to when I entered at lower levels. It makes a HUGE difference.

I’m in the front of every large open battle picking targets. We are one of the best pushers in the game.

Why?

Cause of our insane outs.

Be aggressive and get kills.

I often see a stagnant battle or one where we’re being slowly pushed back. I’ll run in there, toss some Choking Gas for the Poison, and Dagger Storm my way back to our lines. It usually disrupts the enemy and causes mayhem enough to break their ranks and our team moves forward.

And that’s just only 1 Thief doing it. So much room for coordination.

use scorpion wire, pull people off of the keeps and towers, or out from the group and into yours

Since most things have already been touched on, you could always set up a rogue group (3-5 thieves) and just roam, taking out Yaks, Supply Points and scouting for your team. Not many teams do it, but it’s very fun and the enemy team has to do something about your group. Five thieves are pretty hard to stop if they know how to play.

Lag + Shadow Step + Scorpion Wire = you pull people quite far.

But yeah, Scorpion wire is godlike in WvW. Your target pretty much dies 100% if it hits.

No, definitely not the best pusher. There is so much AoE that you will surely be snared. Your stealth is so limited that once you pop out of it and plus with the revealed debuff you can’t stealth for another 3 seconds, you’ll just be sitting there stunned and then dead.

DirtyHoudini.2917:

No, definitely not the best pusher. There is so much AoE that you will surely be snared. Your stealth is so limited that once you pop out of it and plus with the revealed debuff you can’t stealth for another 3 seconds, you’ll just be sitting there stunned and then dead.

Snared? You have 2 rolls on short cooldowns. It doesn’t stop you from shadow stepping either. And dodging 2-3 times…

Lot’s of good stuff on here so far. One thing I can’t emphasize enough though is using the poison on you SB for cc. I know it sounds absurd, but it’s a big circle with a lot of particle effects that lasts a few seconds. Toss 2 or 3 of these down and people MOVE. I’m not even specced for condition, damage, and I don’t want to be. The poison cloud does wonders for breaking enemy front lines, keeping them off the front of their keep, or getting people to think twice about passing through a bottleneck. It’s cheep, fast, and has no cooldown (except for your own init reserves).

Other than that, yeah scouting is vital. Grab some stealths and mobility options, and get some eyes on your target for your guild. Avoid the roads, don’t use flashy looking weapons. (Sorry, Fiery Dragon Sword)