For those who focus only on PvE
There was a thread on weapon swapping for Thieves several months ago. I’m not convinced they even know about the issue, or at least care.
Weapon swapping seriously blows on Thieves, and they need to either drastically reduce the cooldown for Thieves or do as you said and return several Initiative on swapping.
Well for PvE most builds will work but if your looking for sustained dps thats something thief tends to lack, it can be obtained with a plain backstab rotation with the right builds (mostly use of init on stealth) and there are other builds that can work (such as some condition builds)
You can either try your own builds and find something that fits with you as being able to play your build well beats out optimal builds/max gear for the majority of encounters. Or you can look at some builds on forums and see if you can adapt them for what you want.
The initiative system is a big negative for sustained and weapon swapping, you can trait to get +3 initiative on swap but there are very few benefits to this compared to other peoples for the most part weapon swapping for thief is mostly used to swap to shortbow for escape/utility (not saying it CANT be used there are builds and people that can do well, we are the only people that really gain from swapping between identical weapon sets for instance)
Mostly you either have to work the initiative into your build (my way is utilizing the initiative downtime as a time to reposition/burn utils/set up other stuff) or try and build to ignore it (this will most likely mean the loss of damage traits however)
But one thing you have to accept of the bat is that your not going to be matching DPS+Standing Survivability with say a warrior at least not without the perfect ideal conditions (aka you stood behind the mob permenately with no dodges and someone giving you all the might and fury you need)
Mostly you either have to work the initiative into your build (my way is utilizing the initiative downtime as a time to reposition/burn utils/set up other stuff) or try and build to ignore it (this will most likely mean the loss of damage traits however)
Having to set your traits to just be able to have enough initiative on weapon swap for the loss of damage (that isn’t much to begin with) says something is wrong with the way the class was designed. I’d seriously wish Anet would take more consideration into this mechanic.
As for builds I usually liked the D/D & SB set up. But I’ll try anything really, I just don’t like full zerker builds. I like being DPS/Supportive at the same time. I can’t find any decent thief builds/guides to get me started.
well with D/D + SB you can go the perma-backstab route allowing for some good sustained dps with the option of switching out to SB for your support via blast finishers, aoe poison+weakness.
For support you have to basically make as much use as you can from your blast finisher on SB (pay attention to the fields being put down etc) and of course your utilities, a well placed shadow refuge can top up your entire team or save someone who miss timed a dodge, signet of agility both gives you a team condition removal skill and a team endurance filler.
Your third slot can be basically anything you want either to help your dps or for support (personally apart from signet of agility, in pve my utilities are constantly swapped out battle to battle depending on whats best to support the team)
TBH, Quick Pockets should just be an innate thief characteristic. 3 initiative isn’t huge, but it is enough incentive to swap weapons to keep things interesting, and it isn’t particularly appealing as a grandmaster trait. Keeping Quick Pockets and adding 3/4 initiative regain on swap might be a bit broken though.
A perfect world thief has the highest DPS in the game – 25/30/10/0/5 to hit max DPS on a CnD > BS > 1,1,1 > repeat. Steals for Mug damage during CnD triggers and to bolster your init if your crit gain slacks. Someone else gives you Fury/Might. Target is a rock.
Unfortunately ANet built Thief with CRAP base damage. You have to go full glass cannon to bring comparable DPS to the table. SotG suggested they will look at thief base damage, and I hope they do – I’m tired of having no choice but to play a 25/30/x/x/x or 10/30/30/0/0 to be able to kill anything.
Unfortunately this is not 90% of the bosses in GW2, so here’s my opinion of weapon sets:
-D/D = if you’re a master twitch dodger, this can be a solid combo in PvE, but only on single targets. Though being able to 2-shot trash means that doesn’t really matter.
-D/P = Much more versatile bringing interrupts, blinds and mobility while keeping the burst. Top dog for PvP and blinds are OP in non-boss PvE.
-P/P = Your desperado look. Get the hat, and look cool. You get the Pistol skills without the mobility or stealth (which gives access to the only real Pistol attack that’s worth it). The only reason to ever use this is for things you can’t fight melee range effectively as SB sucks at range and the rest takes melee for DPS.
-P/D = It’s like having P/P unload, but at the cost of 1 more init, you get to do several K more damage and a bunch of bleeds much faster all the while gaining two mobility moves.
-S/D = This is your sustained DPS weapon. Auto attack DPS is very respectable, #2 is epic mobility on top of a condition remover, and #3 is a dodge, hard hit, and boon strip. I’d say this is more PvP as you generally could care less about boon stripping in PvE, but with the update adding boon steal, there could be points this is awesome.
-S/P = I find this to be a useful PvE weapon. You just own the face of trash mobs with BP and autos. Add in a stun and an interrupt, and you now also have great control.
-SB = This is actually a horrible DPS weapon, but the fact that it has nothing but AoE and Mobility, is the linchpin to taking on any amount of PvE trash. Drop gas on a group and auto attack to get a quick poison stack, and once they get close, kite and CB spam them. It’s not even fair to trash mobs as shotgunning Cluster Bombs at melee range actually becomes good DPS and can wipe groups of any size.
Really, pick what works for you since as I don’t see there being a ‘bad’ choice with the exception of P/P. If my dreams come true and they turn P/P into a highest range DPS weaponset that it should be, then it would be complete playstyle.
Enjoy it though – I’ve seen many lame complaints of Thief being weak in PvE, and that’s all bonk. I’ve had no trouble with ANY open world content or dungeons – it just happens to be “why bring a thief” to a dungeon when a Warrior provides better DPS (why must you suck Pistols?) and better support (thief class support is blinds and CC, and bosses are immune to both. Yay!)
Really, pick what works for you since as I don’t see there being a ‘bad’ choice with the exception of P/P. If my dreams come true and they turn P/P into a highest range DPS weaponset that it should be, then it would be complete playstyle.
P/P would be nice if there was actually legitimately a way to Unload and burn all of your resources for amazing ranged damage. As it stands, Unload is so slow and mediocre that it becomes nearly sustainable and therefore can’t really have the oomph to be impressive. I wonder what it’d look like if Unload was preserved literally exactly as-is but with half the activation time, making it an unsustainable burst of damage.
“One thing that has always bothered me with the thief is the initiative mechanic. Most of the time I felt like there was no point in weapon swapping as a thief since your initiative stays the same amount anyway and you’d have to wait for regen. I’d prefer cool downs tbh, or if Anet can give us +4 initiative every time we swap weapons”
Why? Weapon swapping is a mechanic and there’s no reason why this mechanic should give you a bonus any more than swapping your armor. As a concept, it is ridiculous for a ranger to put away one bow and get out another bow because it will be faster somehow. Not having artificial incentives to swap weapons seems like a strange reason to dislike the thief.
“One thing that has always bothered me with the thief is the initiative mechanic. Most of the time I felt like there was no point in weapon swapping as a thief since your initiative stays the same amount anyway and you’d have to wait for regen. I’d prefer cool downs tbh, or if Anet can give us +4 initiative every time we swap weapons”
Why? Weapon swapping is a mechanic and there’s no reason why this mechanic should give you a bonus any more than swapping your armor. As a concept, it is ridiculous for a ranger to put away one bow and get out another bow because it will be faster somehow. Not having artificial incentives to swap weapons seems like a strange reason to dislike the thief.
Its not so much wanting a bonus as wanting less of a penalty.
Ranger: burns all 4 skills on thier sword/dagger, switches to shortbow has 4 more cooldowns
Thief: Burns all initiative on sword/dagger, switches to shortbow still has no initiative.
The bonus of the initiative system is we get to choose how we spend it but thats not as much freedom as non-thieves seem to think.
As it stands the grand master trait that gives initiative on swap allows you access to 1 use of the cheapest skill available to that weapon set (3 initiative cost)
Ideally swapping giving 6 (in some fashion, 3 base 3 traited or such) would allow you to utilize upto 2 of your cheapest attack or 1 of any of the others upon swapping, alleviating that lack of reasons to ever consider swapping (outside of fleeing or auto attack range changing) without giving people that much to complain about as even 2 of the cheap attacks is still fairly inferior to a full set of 4 more cooldowns.
(edited by Dasorine.1964)
“One thing that has always bothered me with the thief is the initiative mechanic. Most of the time I felt like there was no point in weapon swapping as a thief since your initiative stays the same amount anyway and you’d have to wait for regen. I’d prefer cool downs tbh, or if Anet can give us +4 initiative every time we swap weapons”
Why? Weapon swapping is a mechanic and there’s no reason why this mechanic should give you a bonus any more than swapping your armor. As a concept, it is ridiculous for a ranger to put away one bow and get out another bow because it will be faster somehow. Not having artificial incentives to swap weapons seems like a strange reason to dislike the thief.
Its not so much wanting a bonus as wanting less of a penalty.
Ranger: burns all 4 skills on thier sword/dagger, switches to shortbow has 4 more cooldowns
Thief: Burns all initiative on sword/dagger, switches to shortbow still has no initiative.The bonus of the initiative system is we get to choose how we spend it but thats not as much freedom as non-thieves seem to think.
As it stands the grand master trait that gives initiative on swap allows you access to 1 use of the cheapest skill available to that weapon set (3 initiative cost)
Ideally swapping giving 6 (in some fashion, 3 base 3 traited or such) would allow you to utilize upto 2 of your cheapest attack or 1 of any of the others upon swapping, alleviating that lack of reasons to ever consider swapping (outside of fleeing or auto attack range changing) without giving people that much to complain about as even 2 of the cheap attacks is still fairly inferior to a full set of 4 more cooldowns.
This is what I exactly meant, and thank you for your insight on the class!