Guild Wars 2

I’ll preface this little thread by saying that the Thief was the class I was most excited about pre-launch. I didn’t play any betas but had watched a ton of vids, loved the style, the weapons. I always play a rogue.

When I got the game I made a Thief and jumped into some questing and then some sPvP and… I sucked, man. I sucked with the Thief SOkittenMUCH. I was terrible. I researched builds, bleeding builds, roaming builds, couldn’t make any of them work.

I said to myself, the Thief sucks in this game. I am disappointed with the Thief, it could have been so much more.

I re-rolled a Ranger, then a Guardian but something was bothering me. These weren’t the classes I wanted to play. They weren’t… me. The Thief was and I felt I’d given up too early on it. I revisited my Thief and said to myself tokittenwell keep playing it and watching vids of other people playing it until you get good, until you find a weapon combo you love.

What I didn’t know at the time was what being ‘good’ meant in this game. Coming from other games such as RIFT, TSW, Tera, I owned PvP in every game, particularly RIFT, usually finishing every single game with highest damage/kills.

So, naturally, that’s what I tried to do in GW2. I tried to kill the most people I could.

It’s only after I watched a few vids and spent hours and hours more in the battlefields that I learnt that, getting the most kills in a game is NOT what a Thief is about.

I don’t pretend to be sick at the game all of a sudden but after I had this little realisation, my game style completely changed and I feel like I am much more helpful to the team now.

I feel like, I have found my role in my team.

I equip pistol/daggers. Basically in fights I just use 1 to do damage and kite and when they get close use Cloak and Dagger to stealth, wait a few secs whilst they bleed, unload from stealth with 1, kite, stealth when they get close. It makes me slippery, it makes me confusing to enemy players, it makes me frustrating. In my utility bar I have more abilities that stealth me. There is a video a guy made in the fan made section of the forum that showcases this playstyle. It makes you able to roam about on your own and take on two or three people at the same time.

It makes you learn to choose what fights you enter. That massive zerg over there? Forget about the kills, head over to the other side of the map and cap the unattended flag. If a straggler comes along, trust me, you can win almost every single 1v1 with pistol/dagger (although I lose to mesmers, I suck at fighting them haha).

Playing Thief, I have found is not about being in a zerg. It’s about being on the other side of the map getting areas that are unattended because every1 else is in a zerg. It’s about beating stragglers, being slippery enough to defend a base even if it’s 1v3 or more, and importantly, it’s about being able to escape if the situation takes an unexpected turn. Escape, look around, see where everyone is, and then go the other way.

Ofc, I am mainly talking about sPvP but it’s for this reason that there are so many threads about why the Thief sucks in WvW. The people rollin Thieves want to be up in the zerg kitten kitten up but that’s not how it is in this game, brothers!

TL;DR

Basically, this game forces you to re-learn, re-wire everything you ever learnt in other MMO’s. Do what I did, and stop thinking what build/weps will make you the best, and start thinking about what it means to be the ‘best’. Think about what role in a game you will take and consciously change your gamestyle to reflect this.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE THE MOST POINTS AT THE END OF THE GAME TO HAVE BEEN THE MOST USEFUL PLAYER IN THE TEAM.

Anyways, these are just my musings, sorry for the wall of text.

Thanks for reading.

EDIT: I just want to add in that ofc there are players that are good at wiping the floor with a Thief. I didn’t mean to say that Thieves aren’t good at dps or whatever and that they can’t kill people what this thread is more about is that, I wasn’t good at those builds, that style in this game and I thought the Thief was under-powered as a consequence, when it’s really not. Basically, if any of you are having trouble with the Thief, do what I do and try changing your style, find a different way to help the team. The Thief is so much more than a killing machine. I feel like something has ‘clicked’ with me, I feel like I can help the team in my own way now and it doesn’t include massive killing streaks.

I used Pistol/Dagger for a long while as well, doing the same tactic as you do while trying to stack as much bleeds as well.
When I got the courage to get close to enemies, I swapped to Dagger/Dagger. Honestly I didn’t know they can put bleeds too, found out around level 40. Haven’t switched back since.

I use P/D without the kiting. Instead of kiting I dodge around enemies and spread caltrops on dodge. I use cloak and dagger whenever the visibility debuff wears off.

Having played Starcraft I’m thinking you’re not using the term “zerg” right. But maybe I’m wrong, it’s been a while since I was into MMO PvP, but it used to mean the players you just killed were all streaming out of the respawn point right back into combat, and they were “zerging” you. It’s based off the idea that the Zerg in Starcraft would usually end up pumping out a constant stream of units to the front lines, eventually overrunning you.

When you say, “That massive zerg over there” that says to me you’ve found an ultralisk. And “I have found is not about being in a zerg.” You don’t usually get inside a zerg… unless you’re a marine facing off against an ultralisk 1 on 1, and then it’s more like “get cut in half by that massive zerg” rather than actually consumed by it.

But back on your original topic, thanks! I’ve been confused about the general squishiness of my thief. I was wondering how anyone could manage to dual wield daggers and not get taken apart, so I’ve been dual pistoling and kiting a lot.

no we’re talking about zerging the points, which is trying to take it by throwing the whole team or most of it at the one spot. successful zerg is overcoming the amount of forces they have, and often the only way to overcome a turtling unit at an objective.

often both teams will keep trying to keep it up so they wont lose to the zerg so its just zerg against zerg at that point. you kind of get blown up unless you’re playing very trickily with a shortbow in those battles

Agree with the OP. I was in the exact same boat when I first rolled thief. I hated it. I was squishy, I couldn’t kill anyone. But now…..

P/D is the way to go, imho. Leave the HS spamming to other players. I’m all about survivability, enemy harassment, and team tactics. I don’t get kills as fast as some builds, but I can take on any class with confidence. I used to dread mesmers and guardians, but now I can go the distance with them. And if I have even a single teammate to back up, it’s downright scary how well I can do.

Practice and research and more practice got me to finally figure out thief. I’m still learning and figuring it out, but it’s a lot more fun than the other classes I’ve tried. Far more mobile, and much much harder to lock down and kill. The best part is that I always have options on what to do. Stick around and brawl, stealth and flee, stealth and reposition to attack from a new angle.

That’s all stuff I couldn’t really do effectively on my other characters.

Welcome to the thief my friend. I have completely theorycraftes multiple builds and this is one of my favorite thief builds. Another fun one is sword/dagger

Thanks for the kind messages guys, and I’m glad it’s all starting to ‘click’ for you all too.

I do see the Heartseeker guys running around and I think they give us a little bit of a bad rep. For example there is a thread in the forums saying Thieves unique skill: Spamming.

Well I think there is a very tactical side to playing a thief that requires a high player skill level, fast reflexes and reactions and fantastic map awareness.

The analogy for my experience with Thief so far to compare it with that feeling when you change your keybinds. It feels like learning to walk again. You know when you’ve had a skill linked a specific key for a long time, and even though you’ve changed it you press it anyways out of habit and it ends up getting you killed, haha.

Well it’s been kinda like that for me, but it’s all starting to click now. Just need some time and patience and don’t do what I did and re-roll – you’ll regret it later.

To all thieves who are struggling a little bit: hang in there! It will ‘click’ for you too

I’m glad other people out there are starting to figure this out. I think this kind of message can be applied to more than just Thief pvp – it’s true also for PvE, and for every other profession. You need to figure out your role on a team, and build accordingly, and play accordingly.

I’d like to think that, as this game goes on over time, we’ll start developing a meta game where both PvE groups and PvP teams have soft “roles” the way LoL teams do. Even WvWvW could have this. There will be groups of people to zerg, and siege, and whatnot… while smaller teams will go around with more precise goals, capping smaller points, etc etc.