Guild Wars 2

I just got my thief to level 80 and took her the Heart of the Mists PvP combat training area where she can spar with NPCs of different professions. She is so weak compared to my ranger! Ranger can beat them all without losing a point of damage. She has to slug it out and barely come out with a win. It’s embarrassing. The only option I’ve found for beating these NPCs is p/p “unload” while running around and dodging. But p/p is supposed to be totally useless according to the posts here.

I can, however, see that in actual PvP (which I’ve barely played) a thief’s shadowstep and stealth moves may cause havoc, especially the for the inexperienced opponent. It’s not a shadowstep, it’s teleportation.

Also, everyone claims to be a total zerker thief (in PvP and PvE) with d/d and s/d. But a total zerker thief can’t even take a few shots from a pet lynx without being in crisis mode.

What’s the trick?

I have full assassin gear traited with 6,6,0,0,2 and can take more then a few hits. I have 13k hp. And crit 80% of time killing everything.

carlobarletta.5638:

What’s the trick?

Being relatively new at thief myself I can share the embarrassing moment (not too long ago) when I died to the necromancer npc …..

After a bit of practice, I think the best answer I can give you (since I am not an amazing thief just yet) is:

Avoid getting hit as much as you can and work on reacting fast to anything coming your way. Your entire defense is active, so you need to learn when to be aggressive and when not to be. You need to get out of a bad situation right away and preferably see it coming and reacting before it even happens.

You need to learn about the other classes, so you are able to recognize and react accordingly to their attacks etc. You are not forgiven for making mistakes when playing a thief.

You need to pop in, when you have your burst ready and see an opening, but more importantly: You need to get back out again if needed. Learn to love the shortbow. It is an amazing weapon imo.

Thief defenses are active, you won’t take much beating and if you build defensively, you will hit like a wet noodle. There isn’t really any trick to playing thief, it just takes some time to learn the class and well, every other class too cos you need know your opponents.

I have full zerk gear, 6/6/x/x/x in all modes and do fine, might not be the “meta” here and there but that’s just my preference.

I’d fall asleep without having the risk of crisis mode 24/7 :P

The engi NPC can be somewhat threatening and I guess the necro has all that aoe. =p

But in any case the I tried them out and the NPCs are pretty easy if you have any kind of usable build. They don’t know how to respond to stealth or ranged weapons. I picked a knights amulet with 2/0/0/6/6 s/d and it was steal (daze), cloak and dagger, daze with sword auto and the occasional shadow refuge when things got dicey.

Okay, that thief short bow is pitiful piece of junk. AOE damage from poison gas and cluster bomb are nothing and inconvenient to use. Together they took off about 10% of npc health. I’m used to playing ranger and its short bow is about 10x better. I’ve now read others who won’t touch that thief short bow (unless combined with necromancer?).

A bunch of my traits had been changed in screwy ways when I went to PvP which threw things off – it’s not as bad as I thought. If you start the battle with back stab and then begin the real fight that helps.

Sorry for being a frustrated noob, but this class offers very little more than it did 40 levels ago.

Gotta admit thief short bow probably their best PvP weapon (for spvp). Mobility, cleave, aoe poison and an evade though nerfed still an extremely good weapon.

Thieves are all about “crisis mode” basically that is a thief’s natuaral state of existance. You will never ever and no matter how good or expirienced you are be able to take one of the hard hitting abilities of other proffessions to the face neither will you be able to take two or more consecutive hits from anyone without being close to down state.

Thieves are about not getting hit this is a succeed or die approach, even thieves with the most tanky condition wvw builds will simply evaporate in 3 sec if caught.

Also thieves are a “do more with less” profession, there are less buttons but those offer more subtle options. Compared to say elementalists this means an ele uses 4or 5 buttons to make a huge “red circle of doom” then uses 4 or 5 different buttons to make another “circle of doom” in a different colour all the while hoping that someone will stand in it. A thief will use 1 button because she is in desperate need of evading that eviscerate or use the same button to close a gap or to lay down aoe and so on. Most of the really cool thief tricks are very hard to spot very hard to time.

The fun part is you can get away with stuff as a thief (as in surviving) like no other profession can, thieves are about going in taking the shinies and getting out again.

Nobody plays allout damage builds when fighting players as a thief. All decent builds incorporate a lot of either defense or control.

For example the “meta” S/D build takes only defensive or control traits and combines those with very agressive equipment. The “meta” D/P build takes very defensive utilities and splits traits between control and damage this works because of the control the offhand pistol offers. (Control is just active damage migitation)

So think more about avoiding damage than actually killing stuff, ’cause even if you down someone in a 2v2 it means nothing if you have to run and can not finish the guy because you are at 5% hp.

Perhaps the problem comes from you comparing thief wep skills/traits etc to similar skills of other classes. Ofc some of the will look weak in comparison but don’t forget thieves can spam same skill till their initiative is gone.

Thief is pain for any new player to the class, you simply need more practice.

carlobarletta.5638:

Okay, that thief short bow is pitiful piece of junk. AOE damage from poison gas and cluster bomb are nothing and inconvenient to use. Together they took off about 10% of npc health. I’m used to playing ranger and its short bow is about 10x better. I’ve now read others who won’t touch that thief short bow (unless combined with necromancer?).

Thief shortbow is more of a utility weapon. It provides great defensive and mobility options, while it’s damage is better in group situations. It’s hands-down the best weapon in the game imo, despite all the silly nerfs over its lifespan. Not that it’s STRONG, exactly – it’s more useful than strong.

95% of thieves have it as their secondary weaponset. This alone speaks volumes.

Thanks all! I’ve got a lot to learn.