Guild Wars 2

Hello, after dumping a ton of time and money into my elementalist, I’m finally starting to feel underpowered in that class and I’d like to possible switch my main to a thief, however I’d like to know how great they are in PvE content. My only experience with thieves is in spvp.

So please tell me possible builds, weaponsets, strategies, gear advice, and whatnot. Thanks!

I am not stating that I am a pro, but I can tell you something for sure: Thief is a decent place for PVE, in spite of the haters on the forums. I am playing this class since beta and I’ve seen many meta changes and thorough adjustments for this one. I can start with a whatnot for going PVE: the dual pistols, although I heard that dagger/pistol is viable, but IMO you should go dagger/dagger all the way and pick Shortbow for kitting in the beggining.
You also can have nice burst damage if you go for Condition Damage/Precision build, you get like 6-7k crits with daggers backstab before getting nice exotics, so yeah you can give it a try.

I’ve completed every dungeon and done high level fractals as a thief without issue. We are also currently one of the best classes for the best farm in the game atm (deadeye). They can farm zerg events quite well if you’re into that.

You don’t need to worry about viability in any of the content. No one who is worth playing with would kick a good thief from a group.

As you would expect from playing PvP, thieves are best played when focused on damage. At level 80, pretty much every form of content is viable for a full berserker thief. In generic PvE, d/d, d/p, s/p, and s/d are all extremely good and can solo pretty much any event, even some group events. In a dungeon setting, you need to treat it like PvP. You aren’t a tank or a warrior, so don’t act like one. Go melee when the mob isn’t focused on you, and when it does become focus on you, create distance. Thieves survive by avoiding damage, and they have a ton of tools to accomplish this. Just learn how to avoid damage and you’ll be able to do any dungeon viably. In fractals, it doesn’t matter how much toughness you have, agony will kill you, so being a berserker, again, won’t hurt anything.

In terms of PvE builds, I normally go with something like 10/30/10/15/5 so that I can be lazy and use all the weapon sets without a need to change traits. All you need for initiative management is signet use and initiative on steal (Crit strikes major trait and first minor trait in trickery). If you’re going d/p, use initiative on stealth. With this, you can do pretty much everything and feel powerful and survivable while doing it.

The most successful weapon sets, in my experience, are s/p and d/p. With s/p, you can pretty much kill anything by just spamming pistol whip, and with d/p, you are pretty much invincible because everything will be perma blinded. However, in dungeons, the bosses have defient, which means blinds are not that effective. Pistol whip would be best against mobs. Though, black powder shot will pretty much destroy fodder mobs in the dungeons. Also, my secondary weapon is almost always shortbow for the range and for AoE. It has cluster bomb, which is the best blast finisher in the game, meaning it works really well in group play, and the #3 is amazing at keeping your distance.

All 3 of the thief’s heals are really good. Signet of malice is very powerful with shortbow, pistol whip, and dagger auto attack. You won’t even have to use it most of the time, as the passive regain you’ll get from it will keep you at full health. Withdraw is fantastic in dungeons to keep distance and have an extra evade. It also synergizes well with the acrobatics trait vigor on heal. You’ll basically have unlimited dodges.

For utilities, I often go with Signet of agility (Refill endurance bar and a passive 9% crit chance), Shadowstep (Mobility + Stun breaker + Condition removal), and a third trait that depends on the situation. I’ll use signet of shadows (25% movement speed) In generic PvP, or shadow refuge in dungeons for group stealth when needed. Infiltrator’s signet is also good for a little extra initiative management and mobility.

If you do decide to go full berserker, don’t be scared of your 12k health. Yes, it looks small, but a good thief is one of the hardest things to kill in this game. You have an unlimited supply of blinds, dodges, and shadowsteps in your arsenal. Learning how to use them effectively will be what makes or breaks your thief career.

Ciao.

nearlight.3064:

Hello, after dumping a ton of time and money into my elementalist, I’m finally starting to feel underpowered in that class and I’d like to possible switch my main to a thief, however I’d like to know how great they are in PvE content. My only experience with thieves is in spvp.

So please tell me possible builds, weaponsets, strategies, gear advice, and whatnot. Thanks!

a better choice would be warrior or guardian, trust me

Thief is awesome for PvE once you realize it’s not all about stealth and backstabs.

Thieves are amazing in pve, including high level content, but it all depends on your playstyle. If you don’t enjoy being always on top of your game regarding positioning, awareness, initiative management, knowing when you have to switch to SB and back to melee, then you won’t enjoy playing a thief and getting 1 shot by something you didn’t see coming can get frustrating.

If you go with S/P make sure to practice and learn the evade frame on PW, especially if you played a mesmer before with BF (blurred frenzy). We don’t have same duration on evade nor is it instant as for mesmer, so what you could immune / dodge on mesmer will not work same on thief.

Position is perhaps most important, not moving in the path of another player who is attacked to eat something that wasn’t for you is a great example (for example when you skip trash, try to be first always to not run into the aoe / attacks targeted at players in front of you, they may be able to take the hit, but you most likely won’t).

I would say that thief is in a pretty good place in PvE now. It’s not easy, but it’s strong if played right. I pretty much agree with Loki, and I run a similar build. It’s very versatile and viable with all our power weapon sets (condition is not the way to go, we got necromancers for that now).

Thief is probably the most hated PvE profession because we are easily killed in dungeons unless we know what we are doing. Learn the dungeon (when to evade, stealth, blind, interrupt etc) and you’ll be a very good addition to your team!

Here’s something I wrote in another thread a while ago:

• AoE stealth from Shadow Refugee, Black Powder/Smoke Screen with Cluster Bomb combo and Blinding Powder.
• With Shadow Trap we can do things in the Dredge Fractal that other professions can only wish for.
• We can completely lock down ranged opponents for 7 seconds with Smoke Screen while blinding all that stand in it (very useful in Asura fractal!).
• We can AoE blind trash mobs for easy mode.
• We can give our entire team Swiftness, Fury, Might and Vigor every 21 seconds (traited Steal) on top off combo finishers.
• We have access to every single combo finisher in the game!
• Very good damage (not as good as other professions, but definitely worth having)
• If we get downed we can usually get ourself up. Our downed state attack is AoE, so there’s a huge chance of rallying, and we have stealth and teleport from downed state.
• We can strip Defiance from bosses like no one else can. A well timed Pistol Whip / Head Shot / Steal (traited) can interrupt a major attack from the boss.
• With all our AoE stealth we are the best profession for getting our teammates back up again (or we can just Shadow Step across the room and burst the mob they’re trying to defeat for a rally).
• Signet of Agility remove conditions AoE.
• We can share venoms, but it’s better to just have a Necromancer fixing the part of stacking conditions.
• If allies stand in Shadow Refugee and do a whirl or projectile combo finisher they’ll steal life.

I would say any good Thief, that know how to play and know that bringing different weapon sets and utilities for different dungeons and encounters, is a welcome addition to any team.

If you want some in-game advice you can always contact me there. I’d be happy to guest to your server and help you out