Guild Wars 2

Hi and thanks in advance for your time and any answers!

I’m a leveling thief and I’ve found I do best about 80% of the time with a d/p weapons combo. The #3 skill is especially fun and useful. I’ve been trying to learn to remember to use steal, but I find it a bit lacluster with the previously mentioned teleport skill in my kitten nal.

I assume I’m wrong and missing something, so what makes steal so good that it deserves to be a class skill? Also, if you could describe some situations where you’d use #3 preferably than steal and vise versa.

Very few guides actually seem to go into effective steal usage.

Thanks!

Steal is mostly a gap closer + stolen skill when untraited which isn’t very appealing. But they are many traits that makes steal very good (Trickery and Deadly Arts line).

On a pretty standard build, steal does with a ~20s cooldown :
About 2k damage
Heal you for about 2k
Daze the target
Grant you switfness, vigor, fury and 1 stack of might for about 10s
Steal 3 boons from the enemy and give them to your allies and you
May reset some of your utilities skills
Inflict poison and weakness
Give you 3 initiatives
Give you 2 charges on your stolen skill

In pve it’s not a big deal if you don’t steal since the stolen items aren’t that good most of the time. But in spvp/wvw, the stolen item are designed to help you to counter (in some senses) the class and are only determined by the class of the players you stole on. When you got your steal traited, you want to use it as an interrupt/burst opener.

Will depend on how you have it buffed with traits. Ich got almost all the buffs PvP guys put on Steal, but he missed a few :p Seriously, PvP guys buff Steal to the point that landing it pretty much makes you MVP of the entire game. For however you trait Steal, read what it does and apply it in the situation where it could be used.

Saying everything would take too much time, so I’ll just give you a basic tip: You can use Steal in-between the animation of anything. This is useful as it allows you to start a skill like Heartseeker from afar and then use Steal partway through it to hit your target.

It’s hard to say exactly because it depends on so much. It depends on the class, build, the situation, and much more. Some classes have boons you will want to rip with steal. Some classes have heals skills you can interrupt with steal. Sometimes, steal is used just to close a gap. Steal can be used while rezzing to daze and prevent someone from interrupting you. It can be used on mesmers and druids to use the stolen skill to save you from some conditions. There are just so many uses that can be highly effectively.

The simplest and most through explanation we can provide is to tell you to watch a skilled thief player play and see the multitude of ways they use steal for yourself. For sPvP, you would want to watch Sindrener. His twitch is: https://www.twitch.tv/sindrenerr

You steal most effecvitely by not missing lol.
and when interrupting.

saloja.7920:

Hi and thanks in advance for your time and any answers!

I’m a leveling thief and I’ve found I do best about 80% of the time with a d/p weapons combo. The #3 skill is especially fun and useful. I’ve been trying to learn to remember to use steal, but I find it a bit lacluster with the previously mentioned teleport skill in my kitten nal.

I assume I’m wrong and missing something, so what makes steal so good that it deserves to be a class skill? Also, if you could describe some situations where you’d use #3 preferably than steal and vise versa.

Very few guides actually seem to go into effective steal usage.

Thanks!

You’d use #3 if steal is on CD and you need to apply a blind on an incoming attack/prevent an incoming attack from landing while you put yourself in melee range.

Steal can/ can be traited to:

*Rip boons. (Good for ruining engies, taking stability from heavies)
*Daze. (Good for interrupting powerful kills with obvious cast times)
*deliver an attack from 1200 range. (you may precast backstab, sword 3 and bound then steal to drop it on a foe)
*Gain life/deal damage. (Good for pegging that guy trying to run away)
*Traverse obstacles with some cases not requiring line of sight (You can steal up ledges without wasting initiative)
*Reset fights. (Although Shadow Arts is one of the less popular branches right now due to how much it costs you outside of WVW, resets sometimes have practical application in conquest. Sometimes. *

These are general cases, there are others.

You use DP 3 if:

*You have line of sight.
*You are in range.
*The above two are true and you may need to apply a blind. Generally, steal is for, as the name implies, people unaware of your presence. It is an opener first and foremost, and then practical in game. When you are targeted by an enemy, youd mostly be relying on DP3 when needed to get in close and apply blinds.

That’s a basic question but I need to go back to the basics sometimes… In which scenario do you HS + steal ?

Wargameur.6950:

That’s a basic question but I need to go back to the basics sometimes… In which scenario do you HS + steal ?

That’s a mistake on my part, I’m thinking backstab.
editing. I do still have an answer for you though!

That being said, you generally heartseeker/steal if you are leaping through a smoke field. if you steal in HS you will do damage with the HS and you will gain the stealth from your leap (initial leap does not proc revealed). Then your AA flips over to backstab and you can use it immediately for big damage.

You can also use it for juking due to the expectation of this. if you HS one way then steal in the other directon to, say, someone behind you, you can use the stealth from your leap to disengage because people will be carpet bombing the area you were pointing when you heartseeker’d in an attempt to down you in stealth.

if your talking pvp or WvW you wait for your target to dodge an you steal at end of it because there be unavoidable frames where he can do nothing make your steal 100% hit rate.

Thank you, everyone, for your informative responses!

To sum up, I gather that the trick is to load the steal-skill up with all kinds of goodies via traits as well as use it early / use it often.

I need to start learning the other hints and tricks as well.

You might want to look at this guys videos. One of the best thiefs (if not THE best) around and he explains his actions etc. very well.

https://www.twitch.tv/sindrenerr
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXQEmr_-XvMRSIKJg4MDMIA

i.e. when attacking a dragonhunter you don’t start with steal because (mostly) they have a passive trait that protect them from hard CC. He starts with pistol 4 skill to bait that trait, then later in the fight steals.

Excelsior.

Beefing it up with certain traits also adds a very satisfying sound effect.
I often kill-steal (rimshot) random Moas just because of that noise.