Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

I feel like I’m getting worse and worse on my thief recently. I managed to get to ruby in the last 2 seasons, but I’m stuck in sapphire tier 2 for a while now.

I hang around the forum quite a lot, so I know the +1 and decapping thief role. It’s just I can’t make it work right now. The first season was so tanky I was forced to that role (and it was a good thing), but with the second season I started to go for 1v1 and teamfights and now I can’t get rid of that temptation…

I start to get “kittenty thief” comments as well. I want to improve so I started to record myself.

One thing I noticed is that I’m not rotating well. There is some situations where I don’t know what to do.

So if I had one question it would be what are your golden rules for rotations ?

Maybe I expect to get ruby too much for this season, so I try hard too much. I have to enjoy it more, like I used too.

There are too many variables to determine where you should rotate tbh. How good your teammates are, what comp you have, what comp enemy has, how good enemy is, do they have a thief, do they have a druid, what map it is, can you 1v1 well, what build do you run etc. Probably would be easier to explain on examples.

Generally i say, point > kills.

Hum..one exemple that comes to my mind is the following.

I just re-spawned on nifhelm, there is a 3v3 battle on mid. At the same time our warrior is going far to decap, he comes on the point and few seconds later is contested by an Ele. Where should I go ?

Helping the warrior against the sustainy ele ? Or helping to shift the balance mid ?

No thief in their comp

I would go help warrior because thief can murder ele pretty fast, especially in 1v2. Who is at home btw? If they have 5th dead then probably better to go mid, althrough depends who 5th is and how good your war is.

me I suppose since I just re-spawned. Don’t ask me it’s sapphire…team rotations are not the best out there…

I miss that feeling when the rotations with your team is smooth

Wargameur.6950:

me I suppose since I just re-spawned. Don’t ask me it’s sapphire…team rotations are not the best out there…

I miss that feeling when the rotations with your team is smooth

who is their fifth?

Oh yea so I suppose they are 4 mid, sry about that.

What classes are at mid?

If your team has an ele and in best case scrapper at mid and they don’t have an ele you can probably go mid to help them unless they are already dying. If your comp is really squishy and theirs not, then probably go quick kill ele at far.

So what is your class target order, independant from comp and positionning ? It coud help me making choices to rotate.

Wargameur.6950:

So what is your class target order, independant from comp and positionning ? It coud help me making choices to rotate.

Necros should die first, they are immobile and can’t deal with focus well.

Also revs and enemy thieves, if you let them w/o pressure they will murder your entire team and will keep decapping everything. If i had to pick between thief and rev, then rev – they can’t go in stealth, don’t have as many dodges and escapes as thief.

Next on my list would be chrono and druid. Chrono can’t escape you and if you land your burst they go down relatively fast. Druid can’t deal with CC pressure well while being also focused by multiple enemies.

If they have for example war and ele, i would go for ele, war is really hard to kill and almost impossible if he got ele’s help but war can’t support ele so if you kill ele first war is in 1v2 situation.

Scrappers would be last on the list, as they are close to unkillable in good hands, frankly you can actually die by just being near them. I would avoid fighting on point that has scrapper and ele there. Add necro and druid in the mix and you have unkillable comp unless they are just really really bad. Best way to deal with them is to play sides and split them as much as possible.

That is just my opinion. It also heavily depends on how good enemy players are. Sometimes it is better to focus crappy warrior than really good rev.

P.S. forgot DH lol, focus them after necro

Wargameur.6950:

So what is your class target order, independent from comp and positioning ? It could help me making choices rotating.

Assuming all are at 100%

1.Rangers
2.Necros
3.Eles
4.Revenants
5.Other thieves
6.Mesmers
7.Warriors
8.Guardians
9.Engineers

This is assuming common builds on metabattle but the order varies from weaponset to weaponset. Some rangers can be tough, some thieves are very tough to deal with while others get blown up, but revenant and mesmer seem consistent on thief where the win depends on whose more skilled. Ele and necro you need to be patient with, but if you’re conservative with headshot you’ll have enough initiative and interrupts to burst down the ele. Warriors are a soft counter so you can still win 1v1 but you’re going in at a disadvantage while guardians and engis aren’t worth bothering except in the occasional teamfight or +1. The same scrappers you really mess up on revenant could make you disengage on your thief the counter seems hard enough.

If a good druid gets the first hit then just quickly disengage while you can because you’re at a disadvantage whereas even if you get first hit you aren’t quite safe yet. Just be careful of your blinds, stealths, and interrupts. Try LoS’ing after reading a bristleback’s tell. Most rangers get blown up but some are trouble and the list is from subjective experience instead of the actual strengths of the class relative to thief.

if you record yourself try start predicting other team builds. try to understand how they rotate becuase if you get that much you know how to effectively be everywhere on the map.

also if your recording yourself you should watching are you spacing moves right ? wasting dodges ?. stuff like that can really inprove your game play.

i can tell you 100% every game i go home then mid to grab a quick stomp then rotate far. then i stay at far untill someone try to contest me if i can win fight i stay around if they 1v2 me i just rotate to mid to get another quick stomp. that basicly how i play every map lol.

Taobella.6597:

also if your recording yourself you should watching are you spacing moves right ? wasting dodges ?. stuff like that can really inprove your game play.

Yea, I saw that, I’m much more aware of necro staff animations that I failed to dodge before…even if the animation is obvious. I just didn’t pay much attention before.

Taobella.6597:

i can tell you 100% every game i go home then mid to grab a quick stomp then rotate far. then i stay at far untill someone try to contest me if i can win fight i stay around if they 1v2 me i just rotate to mid to get another quick stomp. that basicly how i play every map lol.

How do you manage someone coming close at the beginning ? someone you will have trouble with like an engi or a warrior ? How do you counter that ? I suppose it depends on the ennemy team comp. Could you explain for both sustainy and medium ennemy comp ?

Wargameur.6950:

Taobella.6597:

also if your recording yourself you should watching are you spacing moves right ? wasting dodges ?. stuff like that can really inprove your game play.

Yea, I saw that, I’m much more aware of necro staff animations that I failed to dodge before…even if the animation is obvious. I just didn’t pay much attention before.

Taobella.6597:

i can tell you 100% every game i go home then mid to grab a quick stomp then rotate far. then i stay at far untill someone try to contest me if i can win fight i stay around if they 1v2 me i just rotate to mid to get another quick stomp. that basicly how i play every map lol.

How do you manage someone coming close at the beginning ? someone you will have trouble with like an engi or a warrior ? How do you counter that ? I suppose it depends on the ennemy team comp. Could you explain for both sustainy and medium ennemy comp ?

if engi want my home he can take it honestly i just recap 10 seconds later if he rotate back far i brawl him on his own point because then he wont win a long term fight if you know how to intrup a engi. with well placed dodges you should be able to out tempo him in long run but more then likely you draw support from other team to try deal with you then you even if they cap the point you just run them around in circles as long you can befor ditching out. you may view it as it dumb an no one ever fall for that but i had 4 people tried to chase me at far befor other team started raging : ).

Deal with a warrior you have to play match up really really really slow. because basically anything they do will instant kill you if you let them land it on you so you have to slowly burn out there stab well not being hit by anything. honestly i would just avoid the match up all together let your nerco make them look like a joke.

Thank you for every advises you gave me guys !