Guild Wars 2

Alright guys, I want to really get into sPVP and I absolutely love playing thief.

The “quirks” I have with it are ENTIRELY my quirks. I accept, admit, and am not going to pretend they aren’t because I am bad at playing thief in PVP. (or at least sPVP)

I find that I am really inconsistent and I want to fix this. I have had a thief come from out of no where and 3 hit me more or less. The chain was brutal and I found myself unable to retaliate. I didn’t even see anyone else around and then from no where I’m just getting roflstomped.

The problem is even putting every single point I have into Power/Precision I still find I’m unable to do that kind of damage to other classes. edit: Other players actually.

The even bigger problem, is that I have absolutely no durability and even with just 2 or 3 people fighting, if there is a lot of AoE going off, then it makes it incredibly hard to get behind someone to work the thief magic.

I’m open to any suggestions, tips, and constructive criticism. I think maybe my build could also use a bit of work. I feel like I don’t bring the proper damage, and I feel like I’m too glassy to really justify my current lack of damage.

Hi Storm, Let me preface for the trolls, that i am not gods gift to PvP, but i’m close. Huge MMOer all i do is pvp.

Now, a lot of thief’s are out there running Glass Cannon builds and hoping HS or PW will carry them to victory. Effective, yes. But not amazing.

I prefer survival to Burst. Which is why i get conqueror most games. The Thief class has some really great abilities. Were a highly mobile class capable of subverting terrain and causing more confusion then a mesmer if played correctly.

First things first. Our energy pool, Initiative.. fuels our attacks, if you have no energy you do less damage, you cant escape, you die. First and foremost, Look for traits that improve initiative regen and pool. These are game changers.

Secondly, Health. If you dont like dying to 100blades or anyother High Burst ability you need to be able to tank at least some damage. 15k health isnt going to cut it. Get yourself a “Knights Amulet” and insert a Berserk Gem.
The Acrobatics Tree is your friend. And its abilities are incredibly useful for PvP. Youll find that stacking Might will make up for your loss in Power. And it gives you more HP.
I’m running 24k hp i can 1v2 consitantly. I’m running 25Critical/30Acro/15Trick

Third, the shortbow. Is the thiefs best friend. Period. Get familiar with this weapon, get accustomed to using it in combat. Infiltrators arrow is ridiculous and will allow you to break terrain advantageously and keep your distance. And with enough crit and CritDmg, the damage it can put out. Especially AoE, is impressive.

As your your other weapons.. thats up to playstyle. I prefer to use Sword/Dagger, It gives you a cleanse, a stealth (IMPORTANT FOR DOWNING) and its main attack evades (Free Dodge).

Skills, I prefer to have at least 2 stunbreaks, cause everyone wants to kill a thief. Up to you. Summon Thief is the best elite skill. And i even use a thief trap. It creates confusion, and when you shadow step out of combat it gives enemies something to see and not look for you. Plus they do a lot of dmg..

After that it’s just playing learning the maps and what terrain you can break. How you can use the environment to your advantage. Were not a Toe to Toe class, we shouldnt fight fair.

Sime Vickers (Gate of Madness)

Classic.4072:

Were not a Toe to Toe class, we shouldnt fight fair.

Sime Vickers (Gate of Madness)

I never had any intention of doing so.

I’ll try your advice now actually. Thanks for the suggestions.

Glass Cannon works well enough in generic situations (non sPVP)but, when the enemy team has 5 people and knows to expect a thief life can quickly get complicated.

I’ll definitely try going for more survivability and see how that works.

Let me know how it works out.\

Classic, let me just try to catch you since this topic is still fresh.

I too, see many people going straight into the glass cannon build, and mostly I think that’s just because of the freshness of the game still. The whole ‘wow I love my archer, but being a fire blasting mage seems pretty fun’ and going to make a level 1 preset that is build towards damage right by default might have something to do with that.

I love my ranger as much as the next guy, but I think that they are more geared towards pve and raiding scene, so I decided to use a thief to pvp.

I gotta say after reading your post I really want to try this build out but how do you think it would work with dagger/dagger? Simply because right now I’m running sword/dagger or pistol + pistol/pistol and I don’t really like the way a sword feels in the whole invisibility thing. I want to try a more elusive subtle approach, but I wonder if you feel I can be a tanky stealthy rogue o.O

Sword is amazing id say just try it out a bit, but once u master its shadowstep. Good to Go. if you want to use this build with Duel Daggers, it’ll work. youll be better off swaping out your amulet with a carrion, and going condition dmg instead of HS spam. but if u want to keep your HS Viable. Switch up the build and do 30crit/25acro/15trick and get teh 20% dmg when under 50%. youll be a little less tanky and your crit will be like.. 25% but youll gain significant dps all around as your dots will be substantially more powerful.

And i’ve used this build with Duel Pistols. 30crit/15acro/25Trick, Use Knights with zerker gem, Stack Vulnerability, pop haste, Unload … profit. with 2 ranged weapons your best suited to roaming, backcapping and support. as Duel Pistols lacks Kiting (unless you spec). It can overwhelm though.

Your so much more knowledgeable than I lol. I have replayed with it, and the whole going into stealth as often as possible to back stab isn’t really needed when your tanky, so I do prefer sword / pistol now. The bow still feels clumsy in my hands but that’ll come soon enough.

I wish I could just absorb your knowledge of thief XD

Or maybe just a little more detail on your tanky sword/x + bow thief and your traits perhaps.

So i just tried Classic’s build in a sPvP and got top player 3 games in a row. He has an extremely great build!

You can do the glass cannon thing if you want (mostly with S/P and a few sources of Quickness), but one thing you have to accept about playing Thief is that we simply don’t have the highest damage. Good damage, yes, but not Ele or Warrior level damage. Nor should we, of course, because we have the highest mobility in the game bar none.

Yup what everyone says, this is coming from a wvw player, glass cannon in there won’t cut it, i tried it the last time and got burst down in 5 sec, the first mmo i ever played i ran an assassin and i ALWAYS find that going glass cannon is only going to get you so far, i rework my armors and jewelries and add vit, this simple change made my assassin that more powerful. I haven’t tried adding vit to my thief yet since i’m still getting the mats for craft armors and planning to craft a valk set and see how it goes.

What runes and glyphs are you running in your weapons Classic?

I prefer to use Battle 3stacks of might on swap, on both my bow and my MH, and for my OH i use Strength, 30% might on crit.