Guild Wars 2

So last season I cut through the PVP tiers pretty much like butter. But now, I’m struggling. I’m struggling hard. I’m going on losing streaks with scattered wins and there doesn’t seem to be an end to this.

I assume the common denominator is me, and I hate it. I want to be good, I want to win. Unfortunately, it’s not happening. My gameplay in conquest primarily revolves around 1 upping fights. I’m the guy who looks for 1v1s at each point on the map, and I go there and make it 2v1. That’s what I do, that’s what I like doing. On top of capping deserted points, it doesn’t seem to be enough.

I would like some hard tips that I can utilize and practice so that I can be the deciding factor in matches. I want my team to find me useful, so… How can I do this?

So I guess what I’m asking is:

When a thief is playing conquest, what makes them a winner? What makes a thief GOOD?

Thank you.

I’ll be editing this post as people give me tips so as to hopefully help everybody who shares my thoughts.

Posting your build is probably a good way to start when trying to get people to help you.

Also going more into how you play would be nice.

I play a zerker staff build, traited in daredevil, acrobatics, and trickery with DMG focusing sigils and runes. I’m also pretty good with daredevil s/d and condition p/d.

Can you share a build constructor of the two you use the most?

If you say you play zerker, would you say you die fast? I know it is possible to survive on a zerker build, but its hard. One of the great things about the thief class is that you can avoid getting killed for a long time if you do it right.
Also zerker could force you to hide or run of more often than you should.
Since you said your running acro I assume you use assassins reward? In that case you certainly dont want zerker, the healing doesnt help you when you get instadowned. The trait also scales good with healing power so taking none at all feels like wasted potential.

The thing is, staff is not really the best +1 set. That would be d/p. Staff is a good weapon because you can team fight more (since you’re constantly evading), but it kills slower than d/p, because you can get kited more easily. So if the playstyle you enjoy is +1ing fights, I would advise you to give d/p a try.

That being said, I would like you to share your build with a build constructor such as http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ , so that we can help you better.

As general advice before any build is posted —

Thief is very good at disengage–reengage as a tactic. What I mean is that a good thief can stay alive and avoid the fights that will be lost. Case in point from WvW yesterday: I was unable to solo defend against a group of 5-8 people running around taking camps. But after they took a camp two of them took interest in trying to kill me (I had been harassing the group without being able to kill anyone because I was being careful and escaping before it was too late). The two were left behind by the group and I killed them.

Likewise in sPvP you can either distract multiple enemy players to give your team a better chance at taking points and winning fights generally OR you can disengage from losing fights and capture points to put pressure on the other team. Thief is also generally good at +1’ing a fight, waiting for the right moment to step in.

Essentially what I’m saying is that, regardless of what weapons you are using, mobility and having the ability to disengage is essential. Dodge, steal, teleport, stealth, etc. can all be used to help with that. As to personal skill I would say just practicing and knowing “when” is the right time to pull back and having situational awareness to avoid being overwhelmed by 3v1 is an important skill to have. (Which in a word is “timing”).

Glad you’re taking the initiative to get better (see what I did there? :P)
A few tips I have just in general to take your gameplay to a higher level and allow you to be the highly influential player you are destined to become:
-Record your gameplay if possible (allows you to look at it and see where you may have done something wrong)
-Duel a ton to improve your mechanical skill (also helps you figure out the defensive rotations of other opponents so you know when to burst in actual matches)
-If you need help with surviving, go into wvw and find a group of players then see how long you can survive until you get killed
-Practice bursting in different ways and find a combo that you can use quickly with high amounts of damage without completely draining your ini pool so you can still react to unexpected events.

Build advice
-Either run d/p or s/d. Like someone said previously staff is not much of a +1 weapon and it is outdamaged by d/p. D/p technically is the best choice but s/d can still work extremely well and does not rely on stealth to burst so if you don’t enjoy playing stealth builds then that may be your best bet. (s/d works well in +1s due to it’s extreme mobility from sword 2 on top of shortbow 5 and dash so you can have insane map presence and always be where you need to be to help your team. Plus with the right combo you can still have a really heavy burst in only a little more time than d/p would be bursting so the choice really comes down to preference)
-I would play mara over zerk due to the fact that there isn’t a huge difference in damage and you’ll be much more survivable long term which will allow you to enter fights more often and stay in the ones you need to without getting downed by every random aoe someone poops on the point.

Until there are more specific questions or your full build is posted there’s not much else I can offer as all of this is just general stuff. Good luck in your endeavors

Here is my build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn8lCFmilOBePB8PhFqiqLCCgg0LE+gSY+67+yH-TphFwAGOEAJOCAAuAA82fYaZABPAAA

And tbh guys, I’ve never had issues with fighting. I consider myself pretty good at dueling and killing people. I guess I was looking more for general gameplay tips, not fighting tips.

Unless you want to offer advice for killing trap guardians, I hate them lmao.

thief is trash but it can still score to ruby
1) most popular build played by Levin:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVl0MhSnY5TwwJw/ELwE2cH8E2C9CDxh2gWCIAkBA-TJBHwAAOEANLDM4IAAc/BA
vollun variation with fist flurry instead of signet (i disagree with this choice)
2) staff build very strong, probably bettter but very hard to master- my preference
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVl0MhSnY5TwwJw/EL7Em3SYLcF2CA1m208BsBeBB-TJBHwANLDA4QAAc/hBHBAA

now pro tips:
-surviving is most important so use powder + tp out if u are gettin rekt
- vs rev first dodge then steal to avoid being tounted by passive
- all u have to avoid vs rev is sword 3 with 3Xstaff 3 or dodges, dp can go 5+2

-vs dh first dodge then steal to avoid being kitten d by passive trap daze
-i hate traps as well, best strat vs dh seems to be dodge steal opening + staffautoatack with reflect. it guarantees 50/50 winratio due to 50% reflect upkeep
-vs necro its easy once u interrupt or hit stafff5
-never go in boiler room in team fight, just spam dmg just outside of boiler
-engie duel is easy once u understand all u need to avoid is hammer leap
-thief is best in fighting duels, not team fights so look for isolated targets.
-thief can easily decap enemy and go back to snowball if u have ele
- thief is only class which can teleport from poinc a to c and stay in combat (exept mes tp)

"
-Either run d/p or s/d. Like someone said previously staff is not much of a +1 weapon and it is outdamaged by d/p. "

staff has 10% higher dps than dp mathematicly proofed somewhere. Autoatack is better ans auto + skill uasage is better for staff. this is one of the reasons why i like staff more

If you say you do not have problems fighting, and you also say you are putting focus on running around and helping out your team, I really dont know what you could do better.
You can, naturally, always improve your gameplay, but it sounds like youre in general doing everything you should do.
However: you run dont stop and unhindered combatant in the same build. Why? You also use mesmer runes and only have a single daze. Change your runes. I personally like vampire, simple thief rune could also be a good idea if you really just want the damage.
I like that build btw.

Asrat.2645:

I Change your runes. I personally like vampire.

Wouldn’t the 6th bonus break stealth? In which case that would be a big no-go.

Sorel.4870:

Asrat.2645:

I Change your runes. I personally like vampire.

Wouldn’t the 6th bonus break stealth? In which case that would be a big no-go.

I dont believe so. At least i am running vampire for quite some time now and never had an issue with it. But im not playing stealthbuilds, only stealth i get is stolen from other thieves or sometimes cnd. The 6th is great when fighting minion master btw.

Asrat.2645:

However: you run dont stop and unhindered combatant in the same build. Why? You also use mesmer runes and only have a single daze. Change your runes. I personally like vampire, simple thief rune could also be a good idea if you really just want the damage.

Quoting this for emphasis. The runes I could see maybe, but don’t stop and dash are really redundant.

Also Vigorous Recovery gives 26.25 endurance over the span of 7s when you use a heal skill. Considering that you use Dash. I would say that half of the endurance needed for dash on a 7s delay isn’t worth it. Possibly similar reasoning going to Feline Grace and Sigil of Energy, which both offer 18.75 endurance over the span of 5s.

Edit: Also note that those gains don’t stack in parallel. Meaning that if you proc Vigorous Recovery and Feline Grace/Sigil of Energy at the same time then you get 45 endurance over 12s. 12s is quite a long time for less than one dodge. Tells you something about how much Sigil of Energy got nerfed when it used to give one dodge instantly. Where now even a Sigil of Energy proc + a skill tied to the CD of your heal + Vigor buffs from Acro don’t offer one dodge over the span of 12s.

Urejt.5648:

"
-Either run d/p or s/d. Like someone said previously staff is not much of a +1 weapon and it is outdamaged by d/p. "

staff has 10% higher dps than dp mathematicly proofed somewhere. Autoatack is better ans auto + skill uasage is better for staff. this is one of the reasons why i like staff more

Also, rune of mesmer is good in theory, but in practice its sub par, you want pack, vamp, daredevil, evasion… depending on if you go d/p of s/d.

metyabattle is outdated

I came back after a year hiatus, really liked the staff daredevil with mobility, but got destroyed left and right the damage is great but there is no sustain and no I didn’t run zerk. Hopped on my druid, slapped on a meta build with 0 practice and suddenly I am very hard to kill while pumping out reasonable damage and tons of heals. Just tried the scrapper and even though I didn’t bother to read what half of my skills did I still facerolled through games.

I really want to like the daredevil but it’s just so difficult…

Staff is not good for pvp, only three weapon sets seem good. d/p, shortbow, and p/p. I went into one match with d/d by accident and it did better than I expected, but I don’t recommend it. Shortbow is even more important in this meta than ever. It is the only weapon that allows you to sustain fights for longer periods. I always run shortbow, and make sure to practice, it takes a while to learn the proper rotations and positioning for thief, but it can be very solid when played well. There are no tricks really, its just a matter of not using all your initiative at once, and properly timing your attacks/evades, don’t forget to make great use of your mobility. And not every game can be won, even if you play perfect.

simple answer is record your game an figure out why you lost if you cant figure it out ask here.

I made it to T3 Ruby using a staff DA/acro/DrD. Staff isn’t as bad as people think it is imo. vault is an aoe backstab with a higher coefficient and no setup required, just dont use it to close gaps or chase – it’s most effective when your right on top of somebody. Staff wrecks in team fights but I use bound, sometimes with daredevil runes which makes vault garenteed to crit so you can pretty much sustain an entire fight just F1>Weakening charge>Bound>vault>Bound>vault ect ect, just dont waste dodges or init when you could just be back peddling or kiting, that was my biggest issue.

Ario.8964:

Plus with the right combo you can still have a really heavy burst in only a little more time than d/p would be bursting so the choice really comes down to preference)

What’s the good burst rotation for S/D? It’s been forever since I’ve played it.

Staff DrD has amazing sustain. I spent 12 minutes running in circles around the enemies far, at least two poeple chased me all the time (yes, they actually fell for it).^^

I still haven’t been killed by a staff thief yet this season. Sure they can dodge a lot, but the damage has very obvious tells. Although I can maybe see it working in teamfights, but I rarely spend much time in team fights on my thief.

Midi.8359:

Asrat.2645:

However: you run dont stop and unhindered combatant in the same build. Why? You also use mesmer runes and only have a single daze. Change your runes. I personally like vampire, simple thief rune could also be a good idea if you really just want the damage.

Quoting this for emphasis. The runes I could see maybe, but don’t stop and dash are really redundant.

Also Vigorous Recovery gives 26.25 endurance over the span of 7s when you use a heal skill. Considering that you use Dash. I would say that half of the endurance needed for dash on a 7s delay isn’t worth it. Possibly similar reasoning going to Feline Grace and Sigil of Energy, which both offer 18.75 endurance over the span of 5s.

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Edit: Also note that those gains don’t stack in parallel. Meaning that if you proc Vigorous Recovery and Feline Grace/Sigil of Energy at the same time then you get 45 endurance over 12s. 12s is quite a long time for less than one dodge. Tells you something about how much Sigil of Energy got nerfed when it used to give one dodge instantly. Where now even a Sigil of Energy proc + a skill tied to the CD of your heal + Vigor buffs from Acro don’t offer one dodge over the span of 12s.

I agree about not using Don’t Stop and Vigorous Recovery. However, I have to point out that you are forgetting about Endless Stamina in your calculations. Vigorous Recovery gives 39.375 endurance over 7 seconds, and Feline’s Grace gives 29.125 over 5 seconds with the extra endurance from vigor. This means you can dodge every 3.8 seconds while vigor is up, with Endless Stamina, instead of every 4.4 seconds without Endless Stamina or every 6.6 seconds without vigor.

I actually did not forget about endless stamina. I used a rate of 5%(0.5) + 5%(0.5^2).
Which is 3.75% per second and consistent with the blurb on wiki/Endless_Stamina.
I also ran tests in game and got results consistent with my approximations above.

Anywho as the OP has stopped responding I don’t this thread is worth continuing on.

No, I’m still here, quietly reading and changing my build. I’ve already changed my runes and traits accordingly.