Guild Wars 2

I’ve mained a guardian for over 500 hours now, and in all honesty I feel I’ve gotten very good at it. I started out dungeons using strifey’s rather famous altruistic healing build, it got me on the right track, from there on I just kept changing the build until I set one up purely based on whatever I felt would provide me with the most fun.

To my astonishment, I played pvp after all this with the exact same build and I was doing very well for a couple of days straight. Top stats in nearly every match I took part in. Now a I’m not claiming I’m superior to anyone, I just have a lot of hours in and this granted me some good experience and the ability to make good judgements throughout the fights I get into.

So, because my build is not a pvp cookie cutter build, and not really optimized for anything other than what I enjoy, I figured “I got this game down man, and thieves look fun as hell”. So I rolled a thief and played PVE for 25 hours roughly, and decided I have a feel for this sneaky little guy by now, let’s give it a shot in PVP.

Now despite doing well on the guardian, I am absolutely terrible at the thief. Literally getting the lowest scores in nearly every match. I don’t know if people just really know how to counter thieves by now, but it feels like I get my heal interrupted, my sneak attacks I get knocked back, and when we’re just melee’ing it out up close I just about always lose. I stuck it out for hours yesterday but it feels like I’ve made no progress.

So after giving it my all and failing lol, here I am. If anyone has any tips or a good starter bud to practice with for this class, I’m all ears.

Utilize stealth, dodges, and gap closers/creators. As a thief you don’t trade blows very well. While you can do insane damage, any tanky build/class that can withstand your burst will punish you if you stick around.

It’s best to jump/stealth in, burst for 3-5 seconds, jump/stealth out. Rinse and repeat until you target is dead. Get good enough at it and you will be able to dance around half a team while picking them off 1 by 1. Thiefs have good enough damage that you don’t need as much attacking uptime in order to keep constant pressure on your opponent.

This is just my experience though, I could be completely off base.

To be honest, I think that the fact that you’ve played your Guardian for so long is what’s hindering your ability to PvP well with a Thief. The one thing that you need to understand and remember at all times is that you’re not playing a class that can trade blows and survive like your Guardian, rather you’re playing one that has very poor toughness scaling, shares the lowest HP pool with Guardian/Elementalist, and takes very few hits to down if not specialised purely defensive ability.

That being said, Keltset gave you a few great tips above, but to reiterate, you need to utilise your stealth, dodges (15 points in Acrobatics is excellent), and kiting as much as possible, even if you’re playing with melee. You’re a stealthy, mobile class, and the only way to survive is to use that fact to your utmost advantage.

In other words, forget anything you know about playing a Guardian, a Thief is almost the opposite in every way.

Hope we’ve helped, and don’t be afraid to search for the standard builds (D/D Backstab, S/D control, P/D conditions, etc) and then improvise from there.

well, like keltset said, unlike with your guardian you can’t trade blows or commit to a fight for too long. most thief builds simply don’t have the staying power to stay un-stealthed in the open for too long. you need to pick your targets. look for the enemy that needs to die or someone already injured, standing to the rear of the enemy group, or someone you know is a squishier target than the rest. apply your burst until they realize what is going on or are dead, get out, recharge, re engage.you can also use your slippery nature to your advantage, draw enemies away from objectives, or strike into them and run to keep them occupied at one point. the short bow is your friend. you can stay on the edge of large fights and apply pressure to the enemies with AoE damage, then run like the wind if they try to catch you. generally just never fight an enemy who knows you are coming for him, and has the luxury of preparing for you. you should also be aware that guardians, warriors, and necros are most likely going to be very hard to kill while you are learning, as their defensive nature and , for the warrior and necro, their health pools will make things difficult. you do play a guardian though, so they may be easier for you than they were for me starting out.

:edited for typos

Yes, such advice is useful one. Stealth and gap closers are my best friends all around battle. I feel like sewing needle stitching a blanket of dead.
This type of playing is good for mesmer equipped with S\P too.

Yeah a Thief is probably close to the exact opposite of a Guardian.

Not to bash on Guardians, but they are a very forgiving class. Thieves needs to utilize Stealth and Dodges to survive anything for more than a few seconds.

As I always play thief type classes that don’t fare well playing normally I can add to the guys above in that the class cannot be played normally. Observation and quick reactions are paramount, it’s why I like them. They’re sneaky and can go down very quickly buy also vet fast paced and on the edge type of play. Guardians on the other hand are pretty tough so they’re like chalk and cheese. I joined WvW as a level 10 thief and in all honesty I did even die much then becuase I was so used to play that type of class that kinda ‘dances’ around and I’m usually always surviving any onslaught because evasion is a large part of the class. Classic WvW moments for me involved being chased by someone who I loop back on and cath off guard -very thiefy, they shouldn’t know youre coming.

What utility skills are you using? What weapon set? And what build? We can help more if we know this.

There are thief builds that can handle protracted engagements and take on several people at once, but even the tankiest thief builds can’t withstand much damage. The thief’s only real defences are stealth and their mobility. You’ll have to make effective use of both of these to deal with longer fights. As said already, you generally want to go in, deal as much burst damage as you can that get out. Try to have an escape plan every time you come out of stealth.

The glass cannon backstab build is great for dealing with new players or other glass cannons, but it doesn’t really have the tools to deal with players if they don’t die to your initial burst damage and I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re looking for a more forgiving play style to ease into the profession.