Guild Wars 2

Looking for recommended strategies for a Thief at the beginning of a Forest of Niflhel match.

Is a Thief best used to secure home, support mid, attack beasts, push far, or intercept/delay opponents inbound for home/mid?

And also, with all of the “Thief rules” such as “don’t 1v1” or “don’t make fights even, only make fights outnumbered,” where should a squishy Thief go if the enemy is making a 4-man push on mid, but a friendly is already capping home?

Close is ok if you dont expect to be overrun there.
Otherwise what I like to do is rushing mid and attcking them offpoint before they get there. It puts them in a loose-loose situation. They can either try to fight me, therefore not be participating in the teamfight and try to kill a class that will always escape.
Or they can ignore me, allowing me to deal some serious damage and give me free kills on the players that have to retreat from mid to heal.
If my team looses anyways I can still decap far.
In general distraction works well on nifhel. Both henge and mine a great to skip, since you got some cover. You can engage players directly at spawn and be out of reach fast.
My favourite match was running around in circles at henge for 12 minutes.
You can kill the pet or pretent like you are killing the pet.
Nifhel is one of the best maps to force offpoint fights, most players are not comfortable with that and you can use that to your advantage.
You should ofc not be forgetting about rotating and +1ing, but you have a lot of alternatives.
You can also go mid, just not in the main aoe-pool. Stay behind their lines, make them nervous and wait for a good target. Or move upwards and spam some shortbow aoe on the point.
I would not attack a pet on my own, only if one of your team or the enemies did it first.
You can kill the pet relatively easy, but if anyone moves in to steal it from you, they will usually be successful with nothing but a well-timed stun.

Thanks. Yeah, solo-q can get rough for Thieves.

I’m currently running a very squishy build, so defending a point or getting into that slugfest at mid is likely to end up with me dead quickly.

Personally, I prefer to Stealth in my spawn and intercept anyone exiting their inside spawn. I do enjoy the thrill of intercepting the initial mid-rush at the choke points, but that is usually not a good idea, haha! So I’m thinking of just picking off the trailing player from behind to make it one less opponent at the initial mid-fight.

Against my current level opponents, when I do go immediately for far, my “assassin” build usually allows me to either win the fight quickly or to force another opponent to help. But I have to be very careful to not get into team fights or I’m burnt toast.

on forest, when I don’t get asked to cap close ( which happens, and its risky if anything cross ), i tend to help stack swiftness at the main exit and then go to crossing exit, watch for crosser on the beach, intercept if there is one, go below mid if not;

Then you either engage on someone being a bit late on the 4 mid train. Or you can harass the train with shortbow to slow them down a bit.
Sometimes, one guy from the 4 group will try to attack and chase you ( often Revenants ) and that’s good to make the Mid fight a bit easier for your team because you can just kite the guy around easily.

Then I usually fight mid while being very cautious of positioning, do a good burst combo with steal on the main target and try to finish off low players, especially with Impact Strike instant stomp if doable.

Watch for the guy who capped far to come mid, and depending fi the mid fight is going well or not, i either stay mid to clean up, or intercept the 5th man who might go close to decap, or stealth my way past the 5th man to decap far.

There’s no perfect opening strategy since it all depends on how the other team splits, but here’s my recommendation for solo Q:

Head towards mid and watch for anyone crossing. If you see someone crossing to home, stealth and +1 the home fight. If there’s no crossers, you can hang back, then burst to try for a quick kill in the mid fight. Necros are the best target for this. Even if you can’t burst a target, some heavy CC with something like Basilisk or Impact can help your team gain enough momentum to win the fight. Don’t stick in this fight for long, however, and check on Far to see if it’s unguarded after the enemy caps it.

In lower tier games, you may actually see an enemy go for a beast kill at the start of the game, so it may be worthwhile to go for a steal, but you’ll rarely see that in more competitive games.

Alternatively, if there’s a revenant in your group, you can ask them to split and go far with you at the start. Black Powder → blast with short bow at the start of the game to stealth and go for far or burst any enemy that tries to cross by themselves if you see anyone.

I use to bounce mid and watch where the enemy goes. If anyone crosses to home I’ll go there and +1 that fight. If they’re going for beast I’ll try to steal it. If they’re going mid I’ll help out there. Pretty much what I do every time in the first minute :p

I like to go mid because I can get there faster than anyone else on my team. I can almost always cap it before enemy gets there.

After capping it, I agree with Asrat that rushing the enemy effs them up. Shadow step onto their platform and meet them as they approach. (if you have a trap or two to lay on the platform, so much the better.)

As Asrat explained, you give the enemy a poor choice between dealing with you off-point or ignoring you to de-cap mid. You can go far if they ignore you, or pick one of them off if they don’t. At a minimum you can deal some damage and hold them off for a few while your teammates get to mid.

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

I like to go mid because I can get there faster than anyone else on my team. I can almost always cap it before enemy gets there.

After capping it, I agree with Asrat that rushing the enemy effs them up. Shadow step onto their platform and meet them as they approach. (if you have a trap or two to lay on the platform, so much the better.)

As Asrat explained, you give the enemy a poor choice between dealing with you off-point or ignoring you to de-cap mid. You can go far if they ignore you, or pick one of them off if they don’t. At a minimum you can deal some damage and hold them off for a few while your teammates get to mid.

Fullcapping mid before they even get there? I mean: i havent tried it out, and if it works on any map it would be nifhel, but that seems to be a little too fast, even for a thief.
Are your enemies using movement skills in the matchups you are doing this? Or are they just running?
If I would try to replicate this: any specific suggestions? Are you taking the stairs or do you have a teleport spot to get up to the keep? Do you have to triple dodge and SoA?

Depends on division. In lower divisions it might be worth try to steal enemy animal since low ranked people tend to do it a lot.

In higher divisions i either just grab home (unless i know enemies and know they like to rush our home) or go mid, land few attacks, stealth up and go decap far.

Asrat.2645:

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

I like to go mid because I can get there faster than anyone else on my team. I can almost always cap it before enemy gets there.

After capping it, I agree with Asrat that rushing the enemy effs them up. Shadow step onto their platform and meet them as they approach. (if you have a trap or two to lay on the platform, so much the better.)

As Asrat explained, you give the enemy a poor choice between dealing with you off-point or ignoring you to de-cap mid. You can go far if they ignore you, or pick one of them off if they don’t. At a minimum you can deal some damage and hold them off for a few while your teammates get to mid.

Fullcapping mid before they even get there? I mean: i havent tried it out, and if it works on any map it would be nifhel, but that seems to be a little too fast, even for a thief.
Are your enemies using movement skills in the matchups you are doing this? Or are they just running?
If I would try to replicate this: any specific suggestions? Are you taking the stairs or do you have a teleport spot to get up to the keep? Do you have to triple dodge and SoA?

Yea, you’ll almost never cap mid in higher divisions, where people know to stack swiftness before a match starts.

One other thing I would mention is that a very common strategy for solo Q is to see a 4:1 split where 1 person goes for home and the rest go mid. If you end up on a team that does this, make sure to disengage to +1 home if an enemy attacks there, regardless of the map. Here’s why:

In a 1 v 1, you double the effective power of your side’s advantage when you +1. In a 3 v 3, you only increase the advantage by 1/3rd. So, not only are you very vulnerable to the high AoE damage and CC in a larger scale team fight, but the fight will still take a long time to play out.

Alternatively, if you disengage to help the 1 v 1 at home, you will quickly turn the tides in that fight. Even if your home defender would have won the 1 v 1 anyways, you’ll ensure that they win faster. And when you return to the 3 v 3, health bars will be a lot lower and it’ll be easier to find a low HP enemy to burst, who will also be less likely to expect your burst.

Asrat.2645:

…. attcking them offpoint before they get there. It puts them in a loose-loose situation. They can either try to fight me, therefore not be participating in the teamfight and try to kill a class that will always escape.
Or they can ignore me, allowing me to deal some serious damage and give me free kills on the players that have to retreat from mid to heal.

You won’t do that one single time against decent teams without getting heavily punished for it. Overextending alone into multiple ppl is just bad play. Best case scenario against good teams is that you’ll have to use important CD’s to escape without doing anything.

Thief should at first either get close or help getting close, then either try and get a kill mid if there are only 1-2 enemies there or decap far.

If close is not getting invaded by a class you can’t 1v1, close → flank mid is the best option, afterwards rotating to decap or cap far, depending on the outcome of the fight.

Another option is straight to mid, engaging from behind the enemy team when they’re distracted.

It’s quite rare for a thief to go far nowadays, since there’s almost always a druid or mesmer there.

PowerBottom.5796:

Asrat.2645:

…. attcking them offpoint before they get there. It puts them in a loose-loose situation. They can either try to fight me, therefore not be participating in the teamfight and try to kill a class that will always escape.
Or they can ignore me, allowing me to deal some serious damage and give me free kills on the players that have to retreat from mid to heal.

You won’t do that one single time against decent teams without getting heavily punished for it. Overextending alone into multiple ppl is just bad play. Best case scenario against good teams is that you’ll have to use important CD’s to escape without doing anything.

Thief should at first either get close or help getting close, then either try and get a kill mid if there are only 1-2 enemies there or decap far.

Under what cicumstances will you only meet 1-2 enemies on mid? If they are all going pet? We where discussing decnt teams I believe.
‘Help getting close’ No. You run mid, if they rush close and your teammate needs help you can go back. But hanging out at close with two people is a bad idea.
If im unlucky I have to use shadowstep to get away. Usually IA is enough tho.
And skipping multiple people is exactly what Im good at. I play paladin staff, they wont kill me unless I let them.(If I choose to stick to a fight or a kill even tho i know I might get killed)

Asrat.2645:

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

I like to go mid because I can get there faster than anyone else on my team. I can almost always cap it before enemy gets there.

After capping it, I agree with Asrat that rushing the enemy effs them up. Shadow step onto their platform and meet them as they approach. (if you have a trap or two to lay on the platform, so much the better.)

As Asrat explained, you give the enemy a poor choice between dealing with you off-point or ignoring you to de-cap mid. You can go far if they ignore you, or pick one of them off if they don’t. At a minimum you can deal some damage and hold them off for a few while your teammates get to mid.

Fullcapping mid before they even get there? I mean: i havent tried it out, and if it works on any map it would be nifhel, but that seems to be a little too fast, even for a thief.
Are your enemies using movement skills in the matchups you are doing this? Or are they just running?
If I would try to replicate this: any specific suggestions? Are you taking the stairs or do you have a teleport spot to get up to the keep? Do you have to triple dodge and SoA?

I should clarify that my competition is probably not that good. I run vanilla S/D and play unranked, with pug teams. My win rate is about 43%. High level teams will no doubt have someone running to mid as fast as I do.

Having said that, the OP may be in the same boat that I am, so the strategy remains valid for low to mid-tier play. Most of us are not high level players on good teams, facing the same.

I just use swiftness (from Acrobatics trait, or Trickster trait) and short bow to get up the steps. If I’m running Signet of Precision, that gives me more dodges=more swiftness. I almost always full cap before the enemy gets there.