Guild Wars 2

Hey guys I just started doing fractals recently on my thief, and I have a couple questions
I find myself constantly getting 1 shot and honestly, it’s really annoying. I running with full zerker armor (2 ascended/4 exotic) I have +5 agony but I find myself getting crushed even in 1-9 fractals. Is zerker optimal for fractals? And what weapon sets should I be using? Right now I’m using d/p and shortbow. I’ve seen posts of people saying to use p/p, but does the ranged dps of shortbow or p/p on thief even get remotely close to what a ranger does? If not, then I really just feel like a handicap. My utility’s are signet of malice, shadow refuge, smoke screen, signet of agility, and dagger storm.

Troncat.7051:

thief, … constantly getting 1 shot … feel like a handicap.

Just, you know, do that thing Thieves are supposed to be great at… dodge
And when you run out of endurance and everyone else is still able to soak damage with their face all day, remember the words: Working as Intended.

Troncat.7051:

I really just feel like a handicap.

Yes, that’s our main mechanic.

Hey OP. You can’t have everything. Especially running berserker and expect not to get one shoted. Be reasonable.

For fractals, I run S/D- SB with critical stikes instead of DA for constant Fury. I got signet of assasination smoke screen and signet of precision to support the condi cleanse.

S/D helps me dodge and SoP helps me retake my endurance for my dodge. I mean it’s fractals OP it’s not an easy walk in the park even with 1-9. Get used to dodging and i promise you’ ll enjoy the gameplay even more.

Your real HP is your endurance. Never forget that.

Kocoff.7582:

Hey OP. You can’t have everything. Especially running berserker and expect not to get one shoted. Be reasonable.

Pretty much this. Fractals are not at all forgiving for mess-ups especially in higher level fractals where everything starts to feel like a truck, and dodging everything is exhausting and impossible to keep up long-term.

For trash mobs blind fields and projectile control are going to be your best friends taking care of a lot of the pressure. Though with the “berserker strategy” your goal is to nuke everything before you’re stuck thumb twiddling while you’re on cooldown. If your team can’t deal with the mobs quickly the fight will start to dissolve.

On boss fights it’s more about learning their mechanics. A lot of boss attacks are effectively one-shots with a Thief’s health pool so if you can’t dodge the attack or move out of its radius, well, the floor will be your best friend in that case.

Invigorating Precision may be helpful as a crutch as even a small 15% adds up with more targets and more attacks.

Is berserker optimal for Fractals? Absolutely! Is it easy? Well, not at first. Even if you’re experienced with Fractals with one class trying to play the same content with a different class may end up feeling like an entirely different experience.

As stated by the others dodging is extremely important. What I do is run S/P for trashmobs and use signet of malice with pistol whip to keep me alive. As for boss battle it depends which boss you’re facing. Most of the time I’ll use D/D and keep to the back of the boss, When he starts to focus me I’ll back of and use ranged

If you’re a masochist, run D/P. Otherwise, it is suggested that you run S/P for the BPS and Pistol Whip in dungeons. That being said, I run P/P just fine in fractal 40. I also run D/D for no apparent reason. I don’t play meta stuff, so don’t listen to me ;P

you guys missed the most important part for thieves in fractals….
spamming headshot until the defiance is gone for those pretty 4 icebows per metaparty

The greatest feeling you can have when playing a thief is when you stop dying every 20 seconds in dungeons.

But seriously though, dodges are important, and I’d swap SoM to withdraw. An extra dodge is a lot more useful then the measly heal SoM gives.

Besides rather depressing state of the thief i can say following regarding fractals:
- zerker is more than fine in fractals, in fact you should be running it
- there are 2 types of groups in fractals: elitists speed runners and your casual Joe groups.
The elitists: stack 25 might stacks, fight pretty much all bosses in melee range. Thing is, thief can’t do it so well on certain bosses unless you have superhuman reflexes. If useing dd is too hard for you atm, use s/p in those groups. PW will get you through most encounters in melee range thanks to evades, just have to time them a bit.

Average Joe groups: camp PP. Simple as it is. If you are only person trying to melee boss while ele and mesmer on your team spam sword/staff from 1200 range you just gonna be dead all day. There is no point trying to RP some melee hero when rest of your group is pewpewing from safety.

That being said, every boss is different – some bosses can be meleed decently, some not so much. Example: you can easily fight tree boss in swamp fractal with DD, just stay behind his back right leg. Boss that can’t be mele’d so easily (nor you should on first place) is Mai Trin, that’s where PP is probably better choice.

I am sure there is guide for every boss for thief somewhere in forums/internet. Looks it up (sry i am too lazy to type strategies for every boss).

Personally, i used to run lv 50 fractals every day untill i got tired of it. I have full set of weapons, ascended zerker daggers, sword, pistol, shortbow, and switch them depending on what boss i fight and what kind of group i joined.