Guild Wars 2

hello thieves, been playing lots of thief in ranked PvP but I’m stuck in that good ol 50/50 trap. Yes, matchmaking has its problems, but there are plenty of threads about that. I want to focus on how I can improve my thief play as a soloQer.

What should I do to improve, should I just keep playing games and watching streams/recordings of pro league players? I enjoy Sindrener’s gameplay a lot but now Im not seeing any improvement in my own skills.

I run the d/p meta and swap traits depending on the other team comp (mostly in elite spec line). I am always moving around, rotating, decapping/capping (depending on map situation), +1 fights…

but I am starting to notice myself getting pressured into equalising fights (making 1v2 into 2v2) and getting better score reviving allies than participating in teamfights… if I don’t, team yells at me for being useless??

but the most important point and tl;dr is that I want to get better, and I’m wondering how I can find a reliable way to measure improvement because ranked matchmaking is so volatile for team comps and actual player skill

thanks for reading, looking forward to feedback!

All I can suggest is to get more eyes on your gameplay and to record your play to review and see what you could have done better.

As far as getting top scorer or some other metric data, there’s really no way to measure your performance as a thief without often being a liability in some respect. Winning the game and being a cause for it is often the only benefit you’ll really be able to measure by. Boosting outgoing damage numbers in terms of team placement or something isn’t going to verify you’re a better or worse thief, because that’s not what the class does in sPvP. Almost anyone can get top damage on a thief. But doing so often comes with most deaths and being a total liability to the overall game’s score.

Really, without a video breakdown of your play with people critiquing your play and decisions as the game unfolds, there’s little anyone can suggest to improve.

If you want to get better at the thief or sPvP as a whole, play other builds, professions, etc. to better learn about their nuances so that you can increase your fight effectiveness should you be forced into one or be a potential point-saver in a critical make-or-break skirmish for the game. Otherwise, you really shouldn’t be participating in combat much because our combat effectiveness in sPvP from a mathematical perspective is fairly poor.

Honestly, dueling. Duel some good thieves and it really helps a lot just with reactions and creating tactics. It translates into team play. Also just helps with experience.

alchemyst.2165:

Honestly, dueling. Duel some good thieves and it really helps a lot just with reactions and creating tactics. It translates into team play. Also just helps with experience.

^ Good advice. I really need to do more of this myself.

Recording your own gameplay is also a really good idea if you can do this.

I’d also say to consider turning off map chat or taking breaks if you find yourself getting frustrated or just not playing as well as you should. Often just having the right frame of mind when going into games will have a big impact, particularly if you already know how to play well and have done so in the past. Sometimes it’s just tapping into your own already learned knowledge and established talent that’s needed to do well more than simply learning something else new.

It definitely sounds like you have the right attitude though.

I’ve been recording my play, on ranger, for like 2 years now. The early ones are complete cringe.

If you upload to YouTube and link them here expect:
-People calling you trash
-People calling you amazing
-People not watching (no one wants to see another “me vs bads”)
-People trying to rewrite your build to their vision
-People giving you good advice

If you are trying to improve and want help, posting your play on YouTube would be great. A healthy mix of wins, losses and humble will get you some advice. It’s up to you to ignore all the other stuff that will come along with it.

-Keep vids under 10min
-Refrain from adding heavy metal music (music gets you likes but won’t get you positive criticism)
-No heavy editing

Thank you all, I will look into recording my gameplay eventually if my specs allow.

I should also improve my attitude, I leave 90% of losses salty but need to be more positive and constructive to myself and teammates. It is hard when someone tells me “haha I’m here for dailies” or “testing new build” and I have been stuck around the same tier for awhile

@Justine I will edit in many airhorns and mountain dew logos everywhere, skrillex music with hashtags for yolo and 420blazeit and unnecessary 720 camera spins during my thief play (but seriously thanks for the tips, I have a lot to learn for videos and gameplay)

EDIT: I also just tried dueling 1v1 today, I definitely lost more duels than I won, but big problem I noticed was ppl running really strange thief builds… ones that are great for 1v1 but kind of gimmicky and not really seen in actual ranked play. should I keep dueling these guys?

I think successful pvp is actually having about 3 classes up your sleeve. Even when I really want to play thief some games are just not suited for it, so I switch. Or vice versa. So I usually switch between necro, war and thief to round out my capabilities. And to your above question, no.

Reisinger.4203:

EDIT: I also just tried dueling 1v1 today, I definitely lost more duels than I won, but big problem I noticed was ppl running really strange thief builds… ones that are great for 1v1 but kind of gimmicky and not really seen in actual ranked play. should I keep dueling these guys?

You can by why not just continue gaining more experience in solo que?

I can only run thief or ele well (ezmode class, its like the new shout heal warrior with more utility). my necro, warr, and guard are geared but im bad at warr and guard. I might try engi since they can sustain so much, but since Sabell’s performance against Orange Logo in Pro League i’m surprised ppl dont focus down engis more!

mesmer is a lost cause for me, i would much rather prefer killing them in ranked than playing as one

as for soloQing, I am still doing that, but then we go to the original problem, stuck in the 50/50 (still stuck after 4-5 hours of ranked yesterday). i understand the matchmaking algorithm is probably right cos im in the right division/tier, but again point of the thread is how to improve and move further from current position

Reisinger.4203:

EDIT: I also just tried dueling 1v1 today, I definitely lost more duels than I won, but big problem I noticed was ppl running really strange thief builds… ones that are great for 1v1 but kind of gimmicky and not really seen in actual ranked play. should I keep dueling these guys?

Yea, that’s the tough thing about going to dueling servers. So many people are either testing weird builds or are running builds specifically designed to win duels. Unfortunately, this generally isn’t very helpful since you’ll want to practice dueling against builds you encounter in actual PvP games, so you may need to ask around to find people running a specific build you want to practice against.

Reisinger.4203:

EDIT: I also just tried dueling 1v1 today, I definitely lost more duels than I won, but big problem I noticed was ppl running really strange thief builds… ones that are great for 1v1 but kind of gimmicky and not really seen in actual ranked play. should I keep dueling these guys?

I would say keep going. It teaches you how to adapt to many different builds quickly and dueling simply just helps with skill and experience.

That being said, dueling is NOT the only thing you should do. Do a mix of both. Dedicate some time to dueling, though, maybe 30 minutes at a time. Have sparring sessions with guildies or friends.

Reisinger.4203:

but I am starting to notice myself getting pressured into equalising fights (making 1v2 into 2v2) and getting better score reviving allies than participating in teamfights… if I don’t, team yells at me for being useless??

First of all, ignore score.

Secondly, making a 1v2 a 2v2 is not your job. If anything you should push the other node and leave your ally to 1v2 while you 2v1 another point.

And if your team yells at you for being useless, well, you either ignore them and focus on playing thief, or maybe you need to just need to pick another class.

Running away from fights is actually really important. Say you 2v2 on an enemy point and managed to decap it. You should really leave the fight and go somewhere else if it doesnt seem like you’d kill either of them soon. Your job’s done!