Guild Wars 2

Okay, for starters, it is much easier to die a lot with a thief than with a warrior. There is a bit of l2p involved, of course, the the skill curve seems higher. That’s okay though, I find the thief enjoyable for the most part and they don’t feel super weak. In particular, the utility skills seem a lot more game-changing than they do for the warrior, so that’s nice. My only real complaint is that some specific weapon skills don’t seem very well balanced, but it’s still very playable.

However, there is one chronic problem I’m having in pve that is really frustrating me- the downed state. I see a lot of complaints on the forum that the thief’s downed state is too good in pvp, but in my pve experience it’s terrible. If I go down, unless I’m in a group, there is very little chance that I’m getting back up. Smoke bomb and the teleport seem balanced for pvp or group play and do nothing for you solo, it’s actually laughable how the stealth doesn’t even last long enough to get an enemy off of you. The knife throw does pathetic damage, and there’s no other interrupt or damage ability. Is there something I’m missing here? With a warrior, you are noticeably weaker in the downed state but between your 3 action skills you still had a fighting chance. With the thief you really don’t, and I die 90% of the time when I get knocked down. It’s really, really annoying coming from the warrior.

What it amounts to is that with the squishiness of the class, thieves are somewhat dependent on their ability to get out of dangerous situations and/or reset fights. Their ability to do that seems to be balanced around PvP (even if it’s too good) and is consequently inadequate in PvE. Does anyone else perceive it this way? Why don’t they just change the timer of smoke bomb for PvP and PvE situations? Like 3 seconds for PvP, 6 seconds for PvE, or something.

You are missing nothing, and nobody here will be able to help you with game design questions (aka “Why don’t they just change the timer of smoke bomb for PvP and PvE situations?”)

Welcome to the Thief profession…

One of the weakest classes, claimed to be the strongest (and getting further nerfed for it).

Honestly, if you don’t play Thief because you just happen to like the theme of the class, stick to Warrior.
You will have more damage, more health and more toughness,
but only miss the feeling of playing a assassin.

You will find a lot more issues with the Thief, especially in PvE, making him a pretty poor pick.
If you don’t love the theme and playstyle of the class, you will have a really hard time with it.

Its tough for me to justify rolling a thief for pve reasons, honestly, esp in light of things like GS warrs (got mine to 80 recently, holy crap did he tear stuff up solo, even in Orr. and he can take hits! many hits, actually; w/ S/Horn swaps he can cover lotsa ground and escape quickly too), and all the calls for pvp nerfs that will likely hit the class in pve too.

Only thing you can really do is save your teleport and hope you survive long enough for the smoke bomb to come off cooldown. If you can combo the two of them together you might have a tiny chance of dropping aggro, but it’s still pretty bad. By far the worst downed state in PvE out of everything I’ve played so far (which is all but necro)

It’s just dumb, because it seems to me that the Thief needs to have a superior downed state to other classes because of how vulnerable they are and how few tools they have to mitigate damage. Being able to escape a fight in the downed state somewhat reliably is really a no-brainer for things a melee-oriented low-defense class needs, yet the reality is that their still skills aren’t just not superior, they’re notably inferior (in PvE at least).

So, in short, the stealth mechanics (coupled with high burst) make them seem OP to anyone fighting against them, but in the actual game world of PvE they obviously have problems in the other direction. It’s no wonder this forum is so full of QQ.

Don’t listen to the crybabies. Pistol Whip doesn’t do 100b levels of damage,… but you can chain it almost infinitely with the right traits. Mines go for 16k, I don’t know about everyone else’s. If you can’t melee, use 2pistols and you’re fine still.

Your best tool to mitigate damage is your brain. Use it.

I’ll admit, I’ve always did say my friend (warrior) was OP from when I was a lv 1 thief to when I’ve became lv 80 with full gear sets. I kept saying he was OP because of his burst damage, his skill synergy, his durability, and the fact that he can res himself like tryndamere from League of Legends and kill you. Not once have I ever said I could beat him in pvp, until I had some experience fighting warriors. Even so, I honestly think he has no problem killing me if I wasn’t careful.

Your opinion of the thief’s downed state may be skewed by how effective the warrior’s is in PvE. A decent multi-target #1, and a #2/3 combo which can allow you to de-aggro and leash a mob is more than most professions get in the way of options for surviving a downed state in PvE.

Tulisin.6945:

Your opinion of the thief’s downed state may be skewed by how effective the warrior’s is in PvE. A decent multi-target #1, and a #2/3 combo which can allow you to de-aggro and leash a mob is more than most professions get in the way of options for surviving a downed state in PvE.

The thief’s downed state 1 skill is pathetically weak. It barely does any damage. And the 2 and 3 skills have to be used together to have any effect, leaving the thief with no other options while downed except spamming one of the weakest damage abilities in the game while waiting for the smoke bomb to be available. And then when it is available, there’s an extremely good chance it still won’t drop aggro. Warrior is actually one of the weaker ones as well for actually getting up, but their 3 skill is great if you need to quickly finish off a mob for a skill challenge or something. But then there’s the damage and utility on mesmer (spam skill causes confusion, 2 skill is the thief 2 and 3 together plus a clone, 3 skill is an illusion that backstabs), the survival on ranger (2 skill is an AoE daze, lick wounds can get you up with mobs smacking you), etc…