Guild Wars 2

Hey, I come to you all with an explanation of my predicament. You see, I love Thief. I love the fast-paced, reaction-based playstyle. I love being mobile. I love dishing out a crapton of damage out of nowhere. It’s fun and rewarding when things go well.

My problem? It almost never goes well. I’m terrible. I’ve played hundreds of hours of Thief in PvE and a sizeable amount of games in PvP and I just feel completely helpless. Some problems I have:

1.) I run out of initiative way too much. It’s 9 initiative alone just to cast the stealth combo (Black Power > Heartseeker) and after that and a Shadow Shot / Headshot or two, I’m out.

2.) I have trouble catching up to opponents that are moving. All too often I’m in stealth, trying to land a Backstab, and I just awkwardly chase the opponent, swinging my dagger in the air a couple of feet away like an idiot, followed by my stealth running out.

3.) Speaking of which, I can almost never land a good Backstab. In the unfortunately rare occurrence that I’m actually facing the enemy’s back when in stealth AND I’m close enough to land it, it ends up getting dodged/blocked, I get hit by some random blind, or I’m hit by a CC attack out of nowhere.

4.) I don’t even remember the last time I faced a “fair” 1v1 and came out on top. It always ends in me running away or getting downed, even against classes/builds that Thief is supposed to be OK against. I know the class isn’t meant for 1v1ing but for +1ing and decapping, but even when I’m +1ing, I usually just jump in only to get roflstomped by AoE or by some hard-hitting attack (example of some footage from a match I played today).

I usually play power shatter Mesmer and got to diamond with that build last season. It has a playstyle very similar to Thief in that it focuses on avoiding damage, being slippery, interrupting, and bursting. I generally have WAY more luck on my Mesmer than I do on my Thief, though.

Clearly I’m doing something wrong, because I’ve seen some truly fantastic Thief players both on my team and on the enemy team. I just have no idea how they do it. I know Thief isn’t the easiest class to play, but I’m willing to put the effort in. I just need to learn to put the effort in the right places. For the record, I’m using the top-rated D/P Metabattle build. I’ve copied it to a T. I also know about the various Thief combos such as Black Powder > Heartseeker + Steal > Backstab, and stowing your weapon after the teleport of Shadow Shot to avoid breaking stealth.

So, does anyone have any tips for me to make my life easier as I learn this class? I can record myself playing a full game on my Thief if it helps for analysis purposes.

Wall of text alarm :P

I’d start of by simply recommending to watch videos and/or streams of Thief players that are known to be good on the class and the Pro league matches where there’s a thief on one or both teams. Look at how they move, what skills they use to move and in some cases where they move. I’d personally recommend trying to tune in to Sindrener’s, Red Levin’s and VallunV Twitch stream as they’re very open and helpful to answering any questions you might have about what/why/how/when etc. in at least my expierence.
Just movement and setup between/around/before engagements can be incredibly helpful since a massive part of playing thief is know where to go and when to go there. You’ll find plenty of videos of thieves on YouTube who are great at fighting, but in PvP many thieves fall over the fact that Map Awareness plays a key part in your efficiency and is of direct consequence to how you use the tools available to you (be it Initiative or Utility skills).

Now to answer more directly…
1.) Key trick is to use the skill you need when you see that you need it. Some skills are best to blind, others are best to interrupt, anything in between should simply be filled up with Auto Attacks from Dagger, or in case of bigger fights, with a Shortbow until you find the proper opening. Unlike classes such as Guardian and Warrior which often play more proactive, I’d say Thief is much more reactive. Over time you’ll develop an eye and mind for animations and rotations and you’ll get an instinct for when to use what tool. Until then, play it safe and try to get in more Auto Attacks instead or scour along the outskirts of the battlefield. Pick and choose when you want to fight, instead of getting plunged into it.
It’s a mater of controlling the fight. Often times it’s enough to simply leave your enemy guessing… “I saw that thief stealth up, is he still here or not?” Mind tricks are as much of a weapon for thief as the actual combat mechanics. But since you play Shatter Mesmer often, you probably know about that all too well ^^

2.) Very situational… But in general I’d say you could try to “cut corners”. If an enemy is moving in what would be a clockwise circle, you move counter-clockwise to faster position yourself. If an enemy is simply running away, first ask yourself if it’s worth the chase or not. Often chasing can lead to overextending and generally, overextending gets you killed quickly.

3.) Pretty much the same as what I said for point 2… You know about stowing Shadow Shot etc. I assume you know about basic things such as using ports to land a backstab.
I just try to watch how an enemy moves and try to predict where they’re going. It’s the same kind of thing when you’re fighting an opponent with access to stealth… You just end up developing a sense for movement simply by asking yourself “how would I move?”. Learning the various kiting spots is paramount, but again… Same goes for Shatter Mesmer, so you should be fine there. Apply your own knowledge to figure out what your target is likely to do.
As for having your hits dodged/blocked/blinded/cc’d or simply getting hit with insane burst… Only advice I could give is to try not to tunnelvision. I know many people tend to look at their own character as a point of focus, you should try to look at what’s around your character instead (at least, that works for me).

4.) Fair 1v1’s on a thief? Try to move avoid them if you can. At least in PvP. More often than not it’s simply not worth the time spent on a 1v1. It might be a boring “role” to some, but look on at the minimap, try to keep an eye on who killed who (respawns coming up etc.) and like with points 2 and 3, try to predict movement. Decide where to go based on what you can see and on what your enemy is likely going to do.
Sooner or later you’ll get a knack for knowing when to use what skill, then certain 1v1’s will seem like the best option to take.

Ofcourse, there’s also the simple fact that some people are simply not “able” to play a certain class in a certain way. I for one for the life of me can’t get a feeling for Druids, I know how they work, how they play and whatnot. But whenever I touch my druid, it just doesn’t feel right to me.
All I can say is: Keep at it! As long as you’re having fun

It’s hard to put everything down in a forum post and this is just “my way” and it’s what has worked for me. Maybe someone else has better input or a way to work things out for you that simply suits you more.
Hope the wall of text helped!

Super helpful post! Thank you.

So would you suggest that, for now, I just avoid 1v1s altogether? For instance, I cap close at the start of the match and if an enemy starts approaching me I usually at least TRY to 1v1 to avoid letting them take close. 99% of the time I fail and die. Do you recommend that I just book it and find somewhere else to be for now?

A bit of advertising: check out this topic and watch the vid, which are highlights from my gameplay. It may be useful for you to see some tricks and patterns that I use.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Video-Thief-season-2-PvP-highlights/first#post6173856

Check out Vallun on twitch for some videos of D/P thief. He has lots of videos and in some of them, he’s pretty good about narrating parts of what he’s doing. He’s one of the few thief streamers left and, in my opinion, the way he plays D/P can be much easier to learn from than other players. One main thing you’ll want to watch with other thief players is the pace of how they fight because a lot of situations require you take things much more slowly than how you currently are, such as not opening with expending a lot of initiative on stealth and instead just kind of poking in and out with shadow shot and dodges.

https://www.twitch.tv/vallunv

Step.1285:

Super helpful post! Thank you.

So would you suggest that, for now, I just avoid 1v1s altogether? For instance, I cap close at the start of the match and if an enemy starts approaching me I usually at least TRY to 1v1 to avoid letting them take close. 99% of the time I fail and die. Do you recommend that I just book it and find somewhere else to be for now?

If you cap close at the start of the match and an enemy comes for you, that means your team has the advantage on mid (the enemy should have 1 capping close 99% of the time), you could go mid to quickly get the kills there and then go back to close with 1 of your teammates to outnumber that fight aswel.. I’d say you should take the 1v1 only if you know you can win it. If you realize you’re just wasting time delaying an inevitable death -> inevitable cap… Leave the point and add in on mid so you can snowball the map after that.
Even if you lose a few score points like that at the start, it’ll usually be worth it since you can maintain a 2 cap longer after that (it hopefully also prevents your teammates from mindlessly pushing to far point instead of holding 2 points and winning).

It all comes down to wether or not you can win that 1v1 for sure, or if you should come back 30 seconds later after you’ve capped mid in a 5v3.

EDIT:
Another thing to note that I was reminded of by reading DutchRiders’ post below.
If you do cap close as a Thief, you give the opportunity to your enemy to open up on you and start a fight on their terms. If the enemy team has a thief, engi or mesmer (depends on builds) they can be on top of you before you know they’re actually there.
Giving your enemy a chance to start a fight on their terms is straight up in conflict with how a thief “should play”.

Step.1285:

Super helpful post! Thank you.

So would you suggest that, for now, I just avoid 1v1s altogether? For instance, I cap close at the start of the match and if an enemy starts approaching me I usually at least TRY to 1v1 to avoid letting them take close. 99% of the time I fail and die. Do you recommend that I just book it and find somewhere else to be for now?

For this reason you never let a thief cap close.

Step.1285:

For the record, I’m using the top-rated D/P Metabattle build. I’ve copied it to a T. I also know about the various Thief combos such as Black Powder > Heartseeker + Steal > Backstab, and stowing your weapon after the teleport of Shadow Shot to avoid breaking stealth.

First, I don’t claim to be a great Thief… so there’s my disclaimer :-P

1. I would suggest you play around with builds that suit your playstyle. Meta builds aren’t for everyone. I don’t have HoT, so no Daredevil for me. But I’ve always preferred a glass-cannon to other builds, so I’m DA/CS/T.

2. Push yourself. If you want to learn how to survive the best as a Thief, place yourself in situations where you MUST avoid damage or you will die. That means no vitality/toughness stats. Berserker… 11k health. Try it out for a while. You will die a LOT! But you will develop the reflexes needed in order to survive. You will still die, but not nearly as much. Then afterward, you can go back to using Marauder stats.

3. Find your weaknesses. What is killing you? Conditions? Stuns? Ranged? Melee? Customize your build to counter them. Change your utilities. Learn to Stealth to close gaps. Learn when you are losing a fight, so you can switch to Shortbow and escape.

4. Unless you need a quick Stealth to get a Backstab or cleanse conditions, try to stack your Black Powder + Heartseeker combos 3-4 times. Only one combo costs 9 initiative, and lasts for 3 seconds, with a net loss of 6 initiative. Stacking it 4 times costs all 15 initiative, but gives you 12 seconds of Stealth, meaning you will be able to renew up to 12 initiative before becoming visible again… netting a loss of only 3 initiative.

5. A variation on the Black Powder + Heartseeker + Steal combo is to pre-cast Black Powder, then Steal before it activates. This will put the smoke field on top of your opponent, forcing them to move or be continuously blinded. As soon as the Black Powder activates, then you can Heartseeker to Stealth and Backstab if you wish.

6. Also, related to what Vornollo said, if you are Stealthed and far enough away from your target, you can actually activate Shadow Shot and pre-cast Backstab before it teleports you. Much simpler than having to stow your weapon. Just spam the Backstab key immediately after pressing the Shadow Shot key.

7. Backstab isn’t all it’s cracked up to be anymore. Shadow Shot is much more efficient. You can use it a lot more than Backstab. It can effectively disable your opponent’s next strike. And it can keep you in melee range where you need to be.

8. Heartseeker should only be used as an attack under certain circumstances. When the target is under 50% health… preferably under 25%. Or when it’s difficult to stay with your target… its homing capabilities come in very handy. But beware, it is very easy to accidentally queue way too many times. When you mean to use it twice, you may end up doing three or four of them.

9. Learn to jump when using Infiltrator’s Arrow. It can help avoid getting your teleports cut short by obstacles or hills. And when using the Sword, jumping when using Infiltrator’s Strike can actually disable the return teleport of Infiltrator’s Return, allowing you to chase down targets much easier.

10. To go back to my first points… here’s is the best Thief advice I can give… especially the chorus ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj4nJ1YEAp4

here a trick that help me a lot years ago when i discover it. its called the forward back stab second you start to pass threw model the hit box frame trigger the back even if you facing the front.

(fix audio problem ^^)

Most others above have provided good insight. Shadow Shot is optimal burst in terms of reliability, and it is the best burst if you have quickness from the faster aftercast, so there’s very little reason to use backstab unless your opponent has no idea you’re there to come in for a backstab. You can also linger in stealth for a few seconds after BP -> HS, re-position to your opponent’s back, refund two initiative, and SS -> backstab while the projectile flies to path into the target for the backstab so you don’t miss. Shadow Show is egregiously overpowered for the damage and effects it does and how cheap it is, though. While effective in use, learn how to ween off of it through smarter play as the above posters have mentioned. If it gets nerfed, and I hope it does, a lot of thieves who think they’re good will start losing a lot more to simply better-skilled players.

In current balance state, don’t try and 1v1 in sPvP. You can do it in WvW, but that’s because the thief gets all its damage from modifiers (like +% damage). Since stats themselves are so low in sPvP, the thief does disproportionately lower amounts of damage than other professions in the format, while doing more in PvE/WvW. Until this is normalized, the class will be mathematically either superior or inferior on the numerical level, and most of the power creep coming with HoT has had a lot of direct counters to a good portion of the core thief’s kit and strategy to promote/enforce the use of Daredevil. Go for uncontested points and only enter fights you absolutely know you’ll win.

Further, only combo if you’re playing a true combo build. A lot of thief players get hung up on stringing abilities together into rotations. It doesn’t work. You need to think about what abilities will give you the best chance of surviving at the current time, rather than pumping out huge damage. Unless you’re playing something like signets or a S/P crit build, you shouldn’t be focused on strictly aggressive play.

Use your kit in full. As someone mentioned, tunnel-vision will kill you. Do not be afraid to target new foes or terrain to really throw people off and re-position heavily. Doing something like Using Shadow Shot or Steal to another enemy just to shake off the one currently hitting you is an essential part of the profession. Keep an open mind on all of the effects and possibilities you have at your disposal and try to learn about your opponents’ playstyles and patterns as fights progress. Look at their combo/rotation use, their movement patterns, and really try to predict what they’re going to do next to work a strategy in advance. Fighting another thief, you should consider using steal after they do, as to rip the boons they steal from you back from them and to take theirs, etc. Over time, the nuances will become learned and will eventually become second nature. You’ll realize people as a whole play pretty similarly, and can use your experiences to be faster in reaching decisions and anticipate what to do.

Thanks for all the tips! I’ve been following them religiously, and I have to say that I’m definitely seeing an improvement. I think my biggest problem was being too hung up on trying to land backstabs. I’d tunnel-vision on it because I had this mentality that it was Thief’s main source of damage, but now I’m trying to play more reactively, using Shadow Shot and Headshot at suitable moments, and I’m having a lot more luck.

Thanks again! Very helpful.

Hey, welcome to thief. Here’s my advice regarding your questions:

1) Don’t rely on BP -> HS often. It’s a good opener and a good escape, but when you’re actually fighting someone, you’ll want to rely primarily on your auto-attacks for damage. If they start kiting, use Shadow Shot to stay on them with auto attacks. If they’re attacking hard, drop black powder and try to get them to stand in it so that they get blinded. Save your initiative for clutch head shots when they get low. Heartseeker when they’re under 33% hp.

2) Use Shadow Shot to land backstabs from stealth. Hit Shadow Shot and then immediately press 1, which will start the backstab animation.

3) Backstabs are nice and you’ll land more once you get more used to the class, but they’re not as important during mid fights. Just remember that it counts as a backstab even if you’re just flanking to the side and don’t try too hard to make every one land perfectly from behind. Most of your backstabs should come from your initial steal burst on an unsuspecting enemy when you jump into a fight.

Also, the more you play, the more you’ll get a feel for when you can expect to get blocked, blinded, etc.

4) Fair 1 v 1s don’t matter. If you play a D/P build, you win games by making smart rotations and making your teammates fair 1 v 1s and 2 v 2s unfair in your team’s advantage. Focus low health targets, CC-lock down bunkers, and break blocking enemies with basilisk. If a fight isn’t going to your team’s favor, disengage and live to help somewhere else.

I’d say you should only ever really 1 v 1 an enemy thief, a rev if they’re not ret (you can recognize ret revs by the taunt on CC trait), and enemy necros. If you do fight a necro, focus them hard until they use shroud, then kite until shroud is gone and resume burst.

And yea, not focusing on backstabs as you mentioned will definitely help. That was my biggest mistake when I started playing thief as well.

Also, just remember that unsuspected mediocre burst will always be more effective than a perfect heavy burst on a suspecting enemy.

Pretty much what dahkeus said especially number 4.

I’m no expert. I’ve got about 600 matches in PvP and I run vanilla S/D. So take my advice for what it’s worth.

Being a good PvP Thief means understanding when to go far and when to go mid. Only the best thieves can consistently win 1v1 against good competition. A good PvP Thief decaps the empty node, and then caps it ONLY if he is not needed elsewhere.

I’ve played plenty of matches where I can’t even Plus1 that well. There are so many classes that can lay down mad AoE, heal over and over, block 3+ attacks, or simply ignore your damage.

Learn your short bow hops to decap fast. Don’t bother fighting Dragonhunters and their traps. Kill other thieves.

Also, experiment with full glass gear (for example, Berserker and Eagle runes) vs. Marauder gear. I wound up going full glass because the damage is more significant than the slight increase in survivability provided by Marauder.

Good luck.

Edit: In group fights, try to take out the ranged opponent (usually Ranger). This keeps you out of the AoE orgy in the middle of the fight.