Guild Wars 2

Hey guys lately I have been dueling a lot of players from other servers to help get better and I realized that players of equal skill on other classes I have a really hard time winning against. Everyone says that thief is OP but we are only OP against unskilled players.

Put us up against a player of equal skill on another class and we will probably lose (Or at least me). Thieves just seem to have to sacrifice way more than other classes to do more damage or to survive. So I wanted to discuss if the thief community thought the thief was weak both in Spvp and in WvW compared to other classes.

We’re worse than Rangers.

I don’t know if you are joking but I agree. Thieves really only have one way of dealing damage and one of defense which is stealth. The problem with this reliance on stealth is it makes thief builds very one dimensional which leads to a weak class. Thieves don’t have any inactive defense such as blocks, protection, or agesis. We rely on stealth and dogging which are both active defense and active defense isn’t as effective as inactive defense. The thief will become a strong class when it is no longer dependent on stealth.

I understand that there are builds that do not use stealth but they are not very strong and they don’t hold up against good players.

AikijinX.6258:

We’re worse than Rangers.

Only a thief will eat a ranger for breakfast in wvw and not break a sweat.

Dead Muppet.9718:

AikijinX.6258:

We’re worse than Rangers.

Only a thief will eat a ranger for breakfast in wvw and not break a sweat.

A thief will eat a bad ranger for breakfast. A thief will eat any bad player for breakfast. Actually any decent player will each a bad player for breakfast. There are good players out there that play ranger that will kick your kittin in. The majority of players that play the ranger are either new to the game or they are not that good. Good players would rather play the warrior or some other competitive class and be god mode.

Ranger is a weak class mainly due to the crappy AI system but thief is actually weaker and the only reason why you see thieves eating rangers is because almost all rangers are new or bad players like I said already.

I’d say it’s in a good spot. If anything, D/P is a little too much, actually.

The amount of skill it takes to beat a thief as a ranger is higher than that it requires of the thief.

I’d also argue active defense is better than passive defense. What’s better, a 100% reduction in damage with lower/no cooldowns or a 33% reduction or a one-time block with a 90 second cooldown? Stealth versus more base hp? I’ll gladly take the stealth. I’ll take that active defense and get way more value out of it than someone just relying on numbers, thank you.

The thing about rangers is that Aiki is right to an extent. Yes, normally thieves eat rangers for breakfast, but like the thief class, most of the ranger class don’t know how to effectively pvp but for different reasons. For thieves it’s because someone got 3 shot by one and wanted to do the same and not bother to learn anything about the class as a whole, for ranger though, that class just promotes poor gameplay; sit back with a bow and let the pet do all of the work, which is why most are eaten by thieves, especially of the DD variety. Rangers in general don’t know how to deal with situations that require quick and active thinking. but find a skilled ranger and you’ll find that they are actually pretty darn tough to kill.

Azawrath.7304:

Hey guys lately I have been dueling a lot of players from other servers to help get better and I realized that players of equal skill on other classes I have a really hard time winning against. Everyone says that thief is OP but we are only OP against unskilled players.

Put us up against a player of equal skill on another class and we will probably lose (Or at least me). Thieves just seem to have to sacrifice way more than other classes to do more damage or to survive. So I wanted to discuss if the thief community thought the thief was weak both in Spvp and in WvW compared to other classes.

Thief is the strongest roaming class in WvW and is great in PvP.

Azawrath.7304:

Hey guys lately I have been dueling a lot of players from other servers to help get better and I realized that players of equal skill on other classes I have a really hard time winning against. Everyone says that thief is OP but we are only OP against unskilled players.

Put us up against a player of equal skill on another class and we will probably lose (Or at least me). Thieves just seem to have to sacrifice way more than other classes to do more damage or to survive. So I wanted to discuss if the thief community thought the thief was weak both in Spvp and in WvW compared to other classes.

I think you need to change your build, a thief is pretty easy to play if you can manage the ini.

I would suggest you to learn in OS, there are lot of good players there that can make you improve your game, most are thief because it’s the best 1vs1 class, but you will find other classes aswell.

If you think thief is weak or particularly hard to play, you are not very good in general and/or lack knowledge about game mechanics.

Nonetheless, you usually don’t want more than 1 one in your team because a second one would be redundant. Dredge fractal and roaming in WvW might be exceptions.

It depends:

I’ve found that Thieves, depending on build and play-style, do well against some classes, but are nigh useless against others.

We almost hard-counter Hammer Warriors for example if we manage to kite their Berserker Stance but have a much harder time once they equip Longbows.

We also do very well against many Mesmer builds (except PU), Ranger builds (except the Bunker type) and a series of other classes as well.

But there’s a limit to what you can do with any given build. No build is a “one-size fits all”. All have their strengths and their weaknesses. I guess this is working as intended but it also means there’s a limit to what skill can achieve in this game.

I don’t think you can straight-up say “a class is weak”.

You need to consider game type, build, player skill, enemy build/skill, etc

Thief is not the weakest , in fact is one of the strongest at fighting.U will not win every game, but u can kill with it even when outnumbered and so on . I have killed with almost same stats and skills everyclass, condi , burst ,bunk whatever. I can show u some pics, and some of these guys were exp in wvw, and some were a bit less.Fighting u gonna be better.
U can check in some pics different classes witch i killed even alone and some of them had some skills.
http://i62.tinypic.com/xbd3l2.jpg
http://i57.tinypic.com/59vtoz.jpg
http://i57.tinypic.com/vhxksk.jpg

http://i57.tinypic.com/317d5d2.jpg
http://i60.tinypic.com/vyulpk.jpg

http://i57.tinypic.com/vhxksk.jpg
http://i59.tinypic.com/2ijs1eg.jpg
http://i62.tinypic.com/qpgbxv.jpg
http://i61.tinypic.com/kxlr8.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/1zqtx03.jpg
http://i57.tinypic.com/21b6v5k.jpg

I think, the thief belong to the weakest classes.
Full Dmg builds are the best and the only specialisation, which they have, and stealth their only “deffense”.

Outside of that, the thief can nothing, what other classes cant do better.
You could remove everything, unless these two things, but you wont see any differents.

But the biggest reason, why I think the thief is one of the weakest classes, is stealth and their dependence from it.
Before the headstart, stealth was already a bad designed mechanic, with a too high access and too many traits, which it need.
There’s nothing happening, the things have just become worse.
Counter stealth and you counter the whole class. It’s as broken as AR, but have the contrary effect.
As long as stealth owns >90% of all survivalskills/-traits, keep so broken and unbalanced how it is, while the thief is dependence from it, and the last two traitlines keep weak and can easily replaced by SA or a weapon, these class will never be good, balanced or get buffs, just more nerfs and die further in this game.

Erzian.5218:

[…]

Weakest =!= Weak.

Don’t you know the different between an Adjective and an Absolut?

Throughout my time playing thief in SPvP (Were not only our Zerker dmg is nerfed but also most of our skills) I’ve learned there is a very messed up thief learning curve. But thieves are still quite strong and I still think they are the strongest class when mastered.

Low skilled thief vs low skilled other class (Performance is Tied, anyone can win)

Medium skilled thief vs medium skilled other class (Thief is very likely to loose)

Mastered skilled thief vs Mastered skilled other class (Thief should RARELY loose)

Thieves defend themselves via use to broken mechanics, Stealth causes un-targeting which is very useful, great placements of blinds will allow you to take way less damage from an exchange than your opponent. Even though I’ve never seen a good evasion S/D thief in WvW, there is a very powerful evasion build in SPvP, but it requires knowledge of what to dodge for EVERY class/build to avoid getting 2 shotted, takes lots of game knowledge to master, but you are likely to win almost every duel.

I dont think we are so weak. We have the advantage to join and leave fights when we want with stealth and blinks. We are not supposed to face to face in order to win but hide sneak hit and repeat till we kill the enemy. Our defence is stealth and huge dmg burst. Hit hide run repeat, if u want to duel other classes and face to face them then u either need to be very VERY experienced with everything evade the right time dodge the right time interrupt stealth etcetc 1mistake and your dead. But our utility in wvw zergs or huge fights is almost zero..

Black Teagan.9215:

Weakest =!= Weak.

Don’t you know the different between an Adjective and an Absolut?

If something is the weakest, then it is weak compared to the remaining contesters.
My apologies, I wasn’t aware of the astonishingly low level of basic reading skills at this forum and thought that was obvious, next time I’ll add a “compared to other classes” so that you don’t have to look at the context.

Thief offers much more than stealth in terms of defense. If you truly believe in what you wrote I recommend taking a closer look at what the thief class and its weapon sets really offer (D/D and P/P are exceptions, they don’t offer much).

@OP, no. It’s just highly overrated.

However look at it this way. Use a hambow or s/s lb warrior, or bomb kit engi, or trap ranger, or miniomancer, and a zerker pw thief. Put some aweful new player on each of those and you will see that a lot of professions have easy to play builds. Some however are much stronger with little to no skill. Doesn’t mean thief is weakest, but playing a bad thief is probably on par with a bad ranger. I couldn’t tell you how many thieves I see spam 1 skill and die over and over.

Azawrath.7304:

I don’t know if you are joking but I agree. Thieves really only have one way of dealing damage and one of defense which is stealth. The problem with this reliance on stealth is it makes thief builds very one dimensional which leads to a weak class. Thieves don’t have any inactive defense such as blocks, protection, or agesis. We rely on stealth and dogging which are both active defense and active defense isn’t as effective as inactive defense. The thief will become a strong class when it is no longer dependent on stealth.

I understand that there are builds that do not use stealth but they are not very strong and they don’t hold up against good players.

There are so many wrong things here, that I don’t even know where to start.

• Thieves have multiple ways of dealing damage, be it Power-based or Condition-based. Backstab is not the only move that’s viable.
• Stealth is not our only defense. We have more access to dodge than any other profession, because of Feline Grace, potential perma-Vigor, and tons of weapon evades. We even have a utility evade and a healing skill evade, for kitten’s sake.
• Active defense blows passive defense out of the water in this game. Most dangerous moves are telegraphed, and evade > all when it comes to damage mitigation.
• Non-stealth or limited-stealth builds are perfectly fine, and plenty good enough for killing good players. Builds that don’t require stealth time-outs for defense/healing can put constant pressure on an opponent (AKA, like S/D or S/P), which is very powerful.

tl;dr: lolno.

Azawrath.7304:

I don’t know if you are joking but I agree. Thieves really only have one way of dealing damage and one of defense which is stealth.

…I think you mean stealth and evades and blinds and teleports, lol.

Azawrath.7304:

The problem with this reliance on stealth is it makes thief builds very one dimensional which leads to a weak class. Thieves don’t have any inactive defense such as blocks, protection, or agesis. We rely on stealth and dogging which are both active defense and active defense isn’t as effective as inactive defense. The thief will become a strong class when it is no longer dependent on stealth.

I understand that there are builds that do not use stealth but they are not very strong and they don’t hold up against good players.

An active defense isn’t inherently inferior. It’s only weak when the player doesn’t know how to use it and/or tries to tank damage instead of shutting it down/avoiding it. The great thing about an active defense is that it allows players who do know how to utilize their abilities to shine much brighter than your average player.

Oh, and you don’t need stealth to have a strong defense. S/D builds are probably one of the best examples of this.

Thief is definitely not weak overall, it has a ton of potential and a lot of techniques that can help performance a lot. It can be extremely unforgiving compared to a lot of other profs and a bringing out it’s potential requires a decent player to contribute.

It doesn’t take a good player to spec 30 Shadow Arts and run away not attacking and get the free stealth at 25% and get away/heal up, but most SA thieves you see (generally in WvW) won’t be killing people unless they’re low levels anyway.

More offensively built Thieves require player mechanics for survivability. The prof itself brings a lot of player-based things to the table.

As a Thief main (even when Im not playing Thief) I generally dislike seeing Thieves on my team in SPvP, because most of the time they either go squish and feed or they just run around a whole lot and not do much.

There’s gimick builds (just about everything people do with d/d for instance) and there’s flexible builds. Initiative system alone can punish bad decision making because you can waste your init by using a wrong ability or simply dump them for no reason. (That Incinerator x2 that blew 5 heartseekers trying to chase me and I only needed 2 dodges to take 0 damage from all of them)

Not to sound like “IF UR GOOD ANYTHING IS NOT WEAK” however, Thief has a really high skill floor and an even higher skill ceiling. It’s literally as strong as it’s player and boy can it be strong in good hands. Unless a player has a very analytical approach, solid reflex, good on-the-fly decision making, they will probably be better off on a Mesmer.

in 1v1 perspective thinking of what potential the classes have when played by an experienced player:

1. Necromancers and Engineers have the fight in their favor, unless they make severe mistakes and/or the thief uses non-classwise mechanics (LoS for instance) to gain the fight in his favor.

2. Guardians, can completely avoid taking damage against thieves while they deal fatal AoE burs, if the thief however is able to successfully kite them while taking low damage and find an opening when the guardian has cooldowns they can bring the fight to their favor.

3. Warriors and Mesmer (yes PU too) are strong against thieves in the right hands.

4. Thief vs. Thief.

5. Elementalist and Ranger, it takes a great amount of efforts for these 2 to match the thief.

In team fights and roaming however they are generally among the strongest.

^ Even those match-ups depend on the builds in play. Against a P/D condition Thief, for example, a Warrior is at a disadvantage no matter how good their execution and mechanics are.

The strength of the Thief profession reflects the strength of the player using it. In the hands of weak players, Thieves are nothing but loot bags.

DeceiverX.8361:

I’d say it’s in a good spot. If anything, D/P is a little too much, actually.

The amount of skill it takes to beat a thief as a ranger is higher than that it requires of the thief.

I’d also argue active defense is better than passive defense. What’s better, a 100% reduction in damage with lower/no cooldowns or a 33% reduction or a one-time block with a 90 second cooldown? Stealth versus more base hp? I’ll gladly take the stealth. I’ll take that active defense and get way more value out of it than someone just relying on numbers, thank you.

The reason why I wrote this post was because I had just been crushed by a GS/Hammer warrior that night. I felt absolutely useless fighting the warrior since my backstabs could only hit for around 4-5k and the warrior would just regen the health back in a matter of seconds.

So that is why I wrote this post saying that I think passive defense is better then active. The warrior could just eat my backstabs and just regen in a matter of seconds without having to do anything. Also the warrior was decent so he would swing in the area I just stealthed and get a couple hits in which dealt a high amount of damage. That is why I posted that passive > active.

Now I see that I just need to change up my build to fight better in duels and in WvW. I was running a 10 30 30 0 0 D/D backstab build but I think my armor was wrong since I was very squishy and not getting enough damage to justify for the lack of armor.

I will still stand by my opinion that thief is weak to conditions when not using stealth. We can use food, a signet, runes, and a sigil to cleanse conditions. But the lyssa runes are getting nerfed and the food, signet, and sigils only cleanse 1 condi which is not enough to go up against a necro, engi, or any other condi class.

Also I agree that D/P is a very strong weapon set that should get knocked down a peg.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The strength of the Thief profession reflects the strength of the player using it. In the hands of weak players, Thieves are nothing but loot bags.

“In the hands of weak players, Thieves are nothing but loot bags”

u sure that’s accurate?

No learning curve requirements, None to very Low Cool-downs: Stealth Skills, Shadow Steps, Steal, Dual Skills and Initiatives..

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/thief/

Burnfall.9573:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The strength of the Thief profession reflects the strength of the player using it. In the hands of weak players, Thieves are nothing but loot bags.

“In the hands of weak players, Thieves are nothing but loot bags”

u sure that’s accurate?

No learning curve requirements, None to very Low Cool-downs: Stealth Skills, Shadow Steps, Steal, Dual Skills and Initiatives..

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/thief/

The Initiative system punishes the weak — low cooldowns only means that they will be wasting initiatives at a faster rate.

Now its one of the weakest. GG ferocity

Thief is very dependant on luck. If u dodge key enemy atacks with roll or sword’ 3 u ll win every fight exept worriors. Worriors are nearly unbeatable. Thief can kill them only with choking gass in 4 min duel.

Urejt.5648:

Thief is very dependant on luck. If u dodge key enemy atacks with roll or sword’ 3 u ll win every fight exept worriors. Worriors are nearly unbeatable. Thief can kill them only with choking gass in 4 min duel.

Nah, Warriors aren’t unbeatable. You don’t have to use Choking Gas rather keep them poisoned and blind the whole fight.

Like I said, Thief is only weak because the player controlling them is weak.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Like I said, Thief is only weak because the player controlling them is weak.

Yea, we get it. You can stop thumping your chest now.

Dahkeus.8243:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Like I said, Thief is only weak because the player controlling them is weak.

Yea, we get it. You can stop thumping your chest now.

I’m responding to those who don’t.

Or you’d rather see me post “L2P” instead?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Dahkeus.8243:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Like I said, Thief is only weak because the player controlling them is weak.

Yea, we get it. You can stop thumping your chest now.

I’m responding to those who don’t.

Or you’d rather see me post “L2P” instead?

So what is the best way to get better? I have over 2k hours logged in on my thief but there are just some player, about 60% of them are warriors, who I cannot win against. I don’t know if its just that they are better than me or it is the build they use, or a combination of both. If it is the build that is countering me I guess the solution would be to keep dueling that build and learn how to fight it. Any other tips to get better?

It depends on the weaponset you play with. Smart use of your dodges.. don’t let them stun you. Most important of all, don’t chase the warrior.. atleast don’t use your stunbreakers doing so.

GS Warrior will only die if he allows it tbh, the mobility is too much to keep up with. I won my share of duels vs good warriors. But it all depends on what you play of course.

Azawrath.7304:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Dahkeus.8243:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Like I said, Thief is only weak because the player controlling them is weak.

Yea, we get it. You can stop thumping your chest now.

I’m responding to those who don’t.

Or you’d rather see me post “L2P” instead?

So what is the best way to get better? I have over 2k hours logged in on my thief but there are just some player, about 60% of them are warriors, who I cannot win against. I don’t know if its just that they are better than me or it is the build they use, or a combination of both. If it is the build that is countering me I guess the solution would be to keep dueling that build and learn how to fight it. Any other tips to get better?

Well, perhaps you could upload some vid of your gameplay – i think we could help you much more if we see you play.

If you feel like you lose agains on profession most of the time you might want to use a different build , a build which helps you agains this specific profession.

And like the others said already , vs. a GS warrior who knows what he is doing its very hard to get the kill unless he overextends or makes some big mistake, but then i would not consider him a a warrior who knows what he is doing.

I think / feel like you have much better chances against warriors when you play with conditions, but this is a completely different playstyle , which one has to like .

Azawrath.7304:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Dahkeus.8243:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Like I said, Thief is only weak because the player controlling them is weak.

Yea, we get it. You can stop thumping your chest now.

I’m responding to those who don’t.

Or you’d rather see me post “L2P” instead?

So what is the best way to get better? I have over 2k hours logged in on my thief but there are just some player, about 60% of them are warriors, who I cannot win against. I don’t know if its just that they are better than me or it is the build they use, or a combination of both. If it is the build that is countering me I guess the solution would be to keep dueling that build and learn how to fight it. Any other tips to get better?

The question is, what have you learned from those defeat?

In my experience, I used to assume that stealth and high damage would be enough to beat them. But I learned over time that poison and blind is the bane of all Warriors and you can effortlessly apply both using D/P as your weapon set.

Then you’ll see them run away after a while not being able to hit you, at this point don’t chase after them because all they’re doing is buying themselves time for their passive heal and skill cooldown. If you chase after them, you’ll be wasting Initiatives and by the time you caught up, you have no resources to use while they are fully prepared and recharged — then you die. I used to do this and I still see other Thieves to this; I’ve learned from that and I hope others too learned from their mistake.

Now, it’s your turn. What did you do wrong in those scenarios?

Azawrath.7304:

So what is the best way to get better? I have over 2k hours logged in on my thief but there are just some player, about 60% of them are warriors, who I cannot win against. I don’t know if its just that they are better than me or it is the build they use, or a combination of both. If it is the build that is countering me I guess the solution would be to keep dueling that build and learn how to fight it. Any other tips to get better?

Yes, D/P is a pretty effective way to deal with warriors. Before I was always torn between D/D and D/P because I liked the damage of D/D more but the utility of D/P more. Now that the burst of D/D has been cut by about 20% and the sustained damage lowered by about 10%, sustain is the name of the game and D/D doesn’t have the utility to keep up. Glass trickery seems to be working pretty well for me now with lyssa runes for condition clear. I haven’t spent a lot of time in WvW yet, but it was still working for me in sPvP pretty well.

Specific D/P strategy against warriors: Bait out berserker stance so they won’t be immune to your blinds during the next part and keep your distance when they pop it. After it ends, BPS>HS>Steal (in the middle of HS)>Backstab> BPS> Whirling axe (stolen skill). With a 2/6/0/0/6 build, you’ll poison them on the steal cutting their regen nicely while the whirling axe in your BPS damages them a fair amount while keeping you safe from them and ranged allies they might have.

In PvP you should be able to take on average warriors this way pretty nicely, even some of the absurd condi tank ones. Some warriors you simply wont be able to touch though (at least in PvP) and it’s better to walk away or have a necro help you if you need the point. This is where I disagree with Sir Vincent III because sometimes you can be an exceptionally good player but not have the correct tools for the situation. (D/P has the most broad tool set imo)

Maugetarr.6823:

This is where I disagree with Sir Vincent III because sometimes you can be an exceptionally good player but not have the correct tools for the situation. (D/P has the most broad tool set imo)

Like the old saying;

“No matter how much you fortify your castle, a window will always remain open.”

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The question is, what have you learned from those defeat?

Now there is a question that really fits the Thief section.

I could quote that down for further use.

I’ve begun playing ranger competitively now, rather than my thief. The QQ is fantastically refreshing when my opponents can’t believe I 2v1’d them rather than the standard thief QQ that incurs when someone blocks me for the class I’m playing. The only downside is that, no matter my personal rank or score, I’ll always be the one anyone blamed for my team’s poor communication skills resulting in a loss. Come to the… Nature side?

Thieves are definitely not weak, granted we’ve been struck extremely hard by the nerfhammer many times when compared to other professions and now we’ve got a class that relies very heavily on player ability.
It’s a very punishing profession, the slighest mistake will likely get you killed but it’s in no way weak or underperforming.
Playing the profession to a viable only level be it in PvE or PvP means you’ll need a good deal of understanding of the game and the professions’ mechanics, knowing other professions you’re matched up against in PvP will be your best asset as a thief, more often than not winning duels with other professions means you’ll have to wait for them to overcommit so you can burst them down.
Condition P/D in dire gear can just about win any war of atrition and totally eats any melee challengers alive for instance, being a good thief player is an everyday progressing goal and takes a great deal of mental fortitude and that the thief player accepts he/she will taste the floor before forcing others to.

P.S.: If you wanna faceroll your way to wins rather than sticking with something you enjoy just because it will take effort you can always just go with Hambow warrior.

I think it would be ridiculous to claim otherwise. Before the game launched, back in beta, there was almost a consensus that thieves were an underpowered class. It’s received almost nothing but nerfs since. It still offers a pretty brutal punishment against new or unskilled players. But outside of that situation, the thief is a weak class. Hell, the one time a dev was seen playing a thief they died instantly XD

is this a joke thread? theif is the single most op pvp / wvw class in game, even the mesmer has been knocked off their OP tower by theif

Duke I would love to see you play sometimes, you sound like a clicker.. or a troll, can’t decide which.

Veckna.9621:

Thieves are definitely not weak, granted we’ve been struck extremely hard by the nerfhammer many times when compared to other professions and now we’ve got a class that relies very heavily on player ability.
It’s a very punishing profession, the slighest mistake will likely get you killed but it’s in no way weak or underperforming.
Playing the profession to a viable only level be it in PvE or PvP means you’ll need a good deal of understanding of the game and the professions’ mechanics, knowing other professions you’re matched up against in PvP will be your best asset as a thief, more often than not winning duels with other professions means you’ll have to wait for them to overcommit so you can burst them down.
Condition P/D in dire gear can just about win any war of atrition and totally eats any melee challengers alive for instance, being a good thief player is an everyday progressing goal and takes a great deal of mental fortitude and that the thief player accepts he/she will taste the floor before forcing others to.

P.S.: If you wanna faceroll your way to wins rather than sticking with something you enjoy just because it will take effort you can always just go with Hambow warrior.

hum… I already have a Job and a part-time, I don’t need another job, ill think Ill shelve the thief and bring out the necro or the ele.

P.S. I play to have fun! If i wanted another job I’d go out and get it…

Thieves can be pretty OP.

L2p your class.

not being able to be certain classes is balance, if a thief could default win any class all there would be are thieves.

Tanought.5428:

Thieves can be pretty OP.

L2p your class.

not being able to be certain classes is balance, if a thief could default win any class all there would be are thieves.

Did you just dig up and necro a 3 month old post just to say ‘L2P!!!!’? X.x

Azawrath.7304:

I understand that there are builds that do not use stealth but they are not very strong and they don’t hold up against good players.

You must not know your class very well. I play S/D trickery, and I pretty much never lose a duel except when I face an extremely skilled player. You can evade most of the hard hits as lomg as you know the tells and port out of range with Sword 2 as you will, and you have plenty of assets to turn the fight in your favor. You have just the right amount of survivability/damage if you know how to spec right.

You must be talking from a wvw perspective, whereas the common belief is stealth>everything. Well, as you mentioned, it’s very predictable and it isn’t. Thieves speccing for Shadow Arts are generally weaker players, and their damage output is really terrible and they won’t be beating a good player who actually knows what he’s doing. Even conditions are not a problem, at least if you decide to run Lyssa runes for an extra safety net.

OP; thief is not the weakest class, not even close. It does have somewhat of a skill floor if you actually decide to play something that isn’t cheese (=6 SA DP or PD) though. It’s all up to to you if you’re willing to invest the time to learn the class or roll something easier.

If you seek to kill warriors you must have heavy cc and boon strip (for removing stab).
1 into deadly arts and you’ll have a strong poison application at hand. Pistol mainhand and either pistol or dagger offhand will give you the cc you need to kite the warrior, alongside the tools you need to defend. Imo, sword pistol works pretty good.

Azawrath.7304:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Dahkeus.8243:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Like I said, Thief is only weak because the player controlling them is weak.

Yea, we get it. You can stop thumping your chest now.

I’m responding to those who don’t.

Or you’d rather see me post “L2P” instead?

So what is the best way to get better? I have over 2k hours logged in on my thief but there are just some player, about 60% of them are warriors, who I cannot win against. I don’t know if its just that they are better than me or it is the build they use, or a combination of both. If it is the build that is countering me I guess the solution would be to keep dueling that build and learn how to fight it. Any other tips to get better?

you will never win all your fights and there will always be a build that is able to counter your own that’s they way the game. warriors can be hard with certain build due to there re gen and the amount of hp they have but if take your time and dodge those big moves evis,shield stun,skull crack, 100b etc and keep there healing in check with poison. if you want it easy just fight cheese with cheese and go dire condi and you should win most the time