Guild Wars 2

I normaly play a Necromancer but have deicided to start a new character after I completed all his quests and got him full exotics.

Im looking to play a Thief, mostly in WvW and need some advice.

What kind of strengths and weaknesses am I looking at?
What classes should I be careful of and Thieves have a hard time against in pvp.
I see lists of Builds but not really explainations what they do/strengths and weaknesses especialy compared to other builds.

Links to demonstration videos are also welcome.

Welcome to the ranks of the most deceptive and sneaky profession in the game! I can start by telling you that this is a profession that will have no problem killing a lone rider in WvW. We are experts at hunting them down and slaying them. But make no mistake, mastering the thief and knowing when to stay in the fight and when it’s time to get out or not even engage a fight is one of the most important things we do. Easy single target killer, but a very hard profession to truly master.

Weaknesses:

• lowest health pool in the game (about 10k at lvl 80 with no traits or gear)
• low toughness, which means that you will take a lot of damage from all attacks
• not the best straight on damage
• very easy to get killed if cc’d and you’re out of stun breakers
• little condition removal
• conditions can be deadly because of little health
• not much you can do in a siege except from running supplies
• lacking a 1200 ranged weapon

Strengths:

• stealth
• very good tools for survivability
• some nice team support if specced for it
• can perma blind with pistol off hand
• very good roaming abilities
• very easy to enter and leave fights at your own will
• high attack speed
• very high mobility
• very fun to play!
• hands down best 1v1 class in the game

You can’t really say that all thieves are having trouble with one profession. We have problems with builds, and which builds we have a hard time dealing with depends on what build we are using. I’m playing a survival thief d/p and I’m finding my self in some deep kitten if I get too many stacks of bleed or confusion. Good condition necros are dangerous in general and soldier guardians are a pain in the kitten for me. I’m not specced for killing things fast, I’m there to apply pressure and force you to play defensively or freak out ^^

You just have to check the forums and different builds available. Do you want to kill players in two seconds or do you want to be in the middle of the battle swinging your sword? Do you want to play a team support role or do you like the idea of bleeding your enemies dry? Check out Lowell’s thief guide, although it is a bit out of date, it’s still very good to get the feel of what the thief is about and get a taste of some builds.

I’m using my phone to write this, so I didn’t bother to put in some links (take way too much time :p ). Let me know if you need more help, and best of luck with your new awesome profession!

as far as strengths and weaknesses, thieves have incredibly high burst, high mobility, and plenty of stealth access. we pay for that in a few areas. we share the lowest base HP with Eles and guardians, with no real access to defensive boons, and our high burst can not be sustained, once we burn our initiative we have to recharge. most of our survivability is in not getting hit through evades and stealth.

classes thieves have a hard time against tent to be guardians, non GC warriors, and anything that is bunker built. the longer a fight is drawn out, the less likely we are to win. the general strategy for thieves is to burst someone down, get out to recharge initiative and hp then jump back in. some people build for more longevity, but it isn’t common.

as far as our builds, there is the infamous 25 deadly arts 30 crit strikes backstab build. it is a one trick pony that if the initial burst doesn’t kill its target it will most likely run away or die given equal skill. there are more balanced back stab builds, which can vary greatly depending on preference. some people invest in shadow arts for a backstabber that has much more longevity, some people take hidden killer in critical strikes so they can use valkyrie gear over berserker.

if back stab isn’t your cup of tea, S/D is quite fun. it is another stealth heavy setup, that dazes from stealth instead of dealing massive damage. it tends to have more staying power than BS builds due to the sword’s abilities, and it can rip boons right off a target without having to invest 20 points into trickery for bountiful theft.

there is also S/P, which is sadly under-used in WvW. if forgoes most stealth, and gains off hand pistol utility. you get a combo field that blinds every second for a short time with black powder, and a fairly cheap ranged daze. you also have pistol whip, which even after the damage nerf on it a while back hits hard enough if you can get all of it to connect, and puts you into evade for part of it. if you combine it with steal (especially with mug) you can teleport in at the end of the wind up and imedialy stun the enemy going into the evade/self root section of the skill and deal massive burst.

short bow tends to be our most used weapon for our second weapon set. it has massive mobility, and most of our AoE.

dual pistols have unload working for them, allowing quite good ranged burst, but other than unload, all the good pistol attacks are on the off hand.

for condition damage you can use P/D, which took a good hit with the latest patch, and the good ole D/D and short bow combo. P/D chains stealth to use the pistol’s stealth attack to stack bleeds, while healing in stealth. it is the hardest to kill thief out there. it also has trouble killing anyone who isn’t determined to go down fighting. D/D and shortbow is more of an AoE and area denial focused condition build. death blossom is far more obvious of and attack, but it is an Aoe, evade, long duration bleed attack.with 15 points in trickery you can get 4 off of a full initiative bar by using 3, stealing then using the 4th, putting up to 12 bleeds on surrounding enemies while being invuln for a good bit of it. both builds make good use of caltrops.

forgot about D/P until now. it uses black powder and heart seeker to enter stealth, and is quite powerful. howver, seeing as I Don’t really care for it, I will let someone else who has more experience with it explain that one.

Geiir.7603:

Welcome to the ranks of the most deceptive and sneaky profession in the game! I can start by telling you that this is a profession that will have no problem killing a lone rider in WvW. We are experts at hunting them down and slaying them. But make no mistake, mastering the thief and knowing when to stay in the fight and when it’s time to get out or not even engage a fight is one of the most important things we do. Easy single target killer, but a very hard profession to truly master.

Weaknesses:

• lowest health pool in the game (about 10k at lvl 80 with no traits or gear)
• low toughness, which means that you will take a lot of damage from all attacks
• not the best straight on damage
• very easy to get killed if cc’d and you’re out of stun breakers
• little condition removal
• conditions can be deadly because of little health
• not much you can do in a siege except from running supplies
• lacking a 1200 ranged weapon

Strengths:

• stealth
• very good tools for survivability
• some nice team support if specced for it
• can perma blind with pistol off hand
• very good roaming abilities
• very easy to enter and leave fights at your own will
• high attack speed
• very high mobility
• very fun to play!
• hands down best 1v1 class in the game

You can’t really say that all thieves are having trouble with one profession. We have problems with builds, and which builds we have a hard time dealing with depends on what build we are using. I’m playing a survival thief d/p and I’m finding my self in some deep kitten if I get too many stacks of bleed or confusion. Good condition necros are dangerous in general and soldier guardians are a pain in the kitten for me. I’m not specced for killing things fast, I’m there to apply pressure and force you to play defensively or freak out ^^

You just have to check the forums and different builds available. Do you want to kill players in two seconds or do you want to be in the middle of the battle swinging your sword? Do you want to play a team support role or do you like the idea of bleeding your enemies dry? Check out Lowell’s thief guide, although it is a bit out of date, it’s still very good to get the feel of what the thief is about and get a taste of some builds.

I’m using my phone to write this, so I didn’t bother to put in some links (take way too much time :p ). Let me know if you need more help, and best of luck with your new awesome profession!

This guy nailed it.
Case in point, the build of your Thief is factually of little relevance, how you play your Thief will have a much larger influence on your actual success.

It would appear, observing what tools the Thief has at it’s disposal, that regardless of gear/trait build the Thief was designed with a Skirmisher/Ambusher style of warfighter in mind. That being said, observing the flow of the battle will result in much larger success than just assuming you can own everything with the burst available to our class.

For instance, which is the easier target, the Gaurdian who just joined the fight and popped “Save Yourselves!” or, that Longbow ranger who has just over-extended the battle-line and just blew endurance avoiding stray aoe’s?

As always, good hunting.

For instance, which is the easier target, the Gaurdian who just joined the fight and popped “Save Yourselves!” or, that Longbow ranger who has just over-extended the battle-line and just blew endurance avoiding stray aoe’s?
.

Well…when I ran save yourselves ikittenerg I would always get high stacks and almost every condition in the game. Such people are extremely easy targets, more so than the ranger IMO <_<

Geiir.7603:

• hands down best 1v1 class in the game

Mesmer is hands down the best 1v1 class in the game.

Thief dueling specs can draw with most other dueling specs in the game, if that’s your kind of thing – most dueling specs don’t actually have any ability to actually, you know, win the duel, just not lose and hope the other stops not losing first on top of staying in too long.

Thief is, bar none, the best 2v1 class in the game, which is its main role. It also excels at cleaning up the trash, so to speak – killing the various bad builds piloted by bad players that you’ll find wandering aimlessly around WvW.

Otherwise I agree with most everything you said.

Teamkiller.4315:

For instance, which is the easier target, the Gaurdian who just joined the fight and popped “Save Yourselves!” or, that Longbow ranger who has just over-extended the battle-line and just blew endurance avoiding stray aoe’s?
.

Well…when I ran save yourselves ikittenerg I would always get high stacks and almost every condition in the game. Such people are extremely easy targets, more so than the ranger IMO <_<

Well, granted, anecdotal evidence is what it is after all.

Ensign.2189:

Geiir.7603:

• hands down best 1v1 class in the game

Mesmer is hands down the best 1v1 class in the game.

Thief dueling specs can draw with most other dueling specs in the game, if that’s your kind of thing – most dueling specs don’t actually have any ability to actually, you know, win the duel, just not lose and hope the other stops not losing first on top of staying in too long.

Thief is, bar none, the best 2v1 class in the game, which is its main role. It also excels at cleaning up the trash, so to speak – killing the various bad builds piloted by bad players that you’ll find wandering aimlessly around WvW.

Otherwise I agree with most everything you said.

So far hasn’t I had any trouble 1v1 someone, but running the typical zerker thief you are definitely right. They usually find and kill the weakest link in an encounter, but my build allows me to stand right in the middle applying pressure to the enemies and forcing them to start playing defensive, then I burst the kitten out of them :p

But you’re right. Most of the time a person can see the thief and prepare they will win (or it will end in a tie). But if the thief surprise the enemy, they’re usually dead meat.

Just as a side note: most mesmers doesn’t understand the idea of having clones – stand still and auto attack. This will make me pick a random target and hope that I chose the right one. But most mesmers start running while their clones are stationary, which makes it god kitten easy to find the real Mesmer and kill it

Geiir.7603:

So far hasn’t I had any trouble 1v1 someone

probably because you don’t duel much
even the best thieves would sweat a little trying to claim that.

one of the problems with thieves 1v1 ability is that on of our defensive abilities relies mostly on deception, in a 1v1 encounter there is little to draw attention away from the thief stealthing and thus much easier to track through said invisibility. On the other hand in that same situation our evasive ability becomes much stronger due to the limited amount of CC a single opponent can bring, in a group fight these strengths/weaknesses tend to be reversed.

Dasorine.1964:

one of the problems with thieves 1v1 ability is that on of our defensive abilities relies mostly on deception, in a 1v1 encounter there is little to draw attention away from the thief stealthing and thus much easier to track through said invisibility. On the other hand in that same situation our evasive ability becomes much stronger due to the limited amount of CC a single opponent can bring, in a group fight these strengths/weaknesses tend to be reversed.

Basically this. Even dueling specced thieves tend to be pretty weak 1v1 – every good dueling spec is burst proof, and they almost all have more sustain. The better you are as a duelist as a thief, the weaker you are at actually forcing kill on someone…so it’s kind of a waste of time.

Thieves are very, very strong in 3v3, 5v5, and similar situations, where there are distractions for the other team, and teammates for you to play off of. You’re very strong when you can help focus someone down, and your escapes are amazing when you can pop out of combat with strong anchors already there.

Dueling though? Let the Mesmers do that. Especially in WvW, where confusion is king.

Though have to say as strong as stealth can be in group situations where AoEs going off can cover your disappearance, those same AoE’s have a good chance of killing you (no damage reduction at all on stealth if your actually getting hit) so you still got to pay a lot attention in those situations than most.

Thanks for the input from what I gathered im looking at a Sword/Dagger or Sword/pistol Thief and I do have regular groups I go with so 1vX isnt as much of a concern.

I was looking at the builds and something Trickery focused or with valkyrie gear intrested me. More sustained damage and survivabilty then straight burst glass canon.

Teamkiller.4315:

For instance, which is the easier target, the Gaurdian who just joined the fight and popped “Save Yourselves!” or, that Longbow ranger who has just over-extended the battle-line and just blew endurance avoiding stray aoe’s?
.

Well…when I ran save yourselves ikittenerg I would always get high stacks and almost every condition in the game. Such people are extremely easy targets, more so than the ranger IMO <_<

You are still here Guardian? Go away QQist!

LastDarkness.7390:

What kind of strengths and weaknesses am I looking at?

Strengths:
- There is a perception amongst inexperienced players that your class is stronger than theirs if played right.

Weaknesses:
- Low survivability.
- Low DPS.
- You have to rely on dragging out the battle; whereas, all other classes rely on ending the battle as fast as possible.

LastDarkness.7390:

What classes should I be careful of and Thieves have a hard time against in pvp.

You should be careful of all other classes because they are much better than thieves when equally skilled players are behind them. In my opinion, making a thief is a waste of your time. The other classses perform so much better.

The biggest strength is that you can escape practically everything, hence the name thief. Thieves are the most mobile, extremely powerful in 1v1s(depending on the build type), but are weak in zergs.

I have a thread open about this. We can have a discussion about this in my thread. It’s called “Thief overall collective discussion” and read thoroughly about what people have said.

And Welcome to the Thief brother hood, enjoy your stay here.

Geiir.7603:

But make no mistake, mastering the thief and knowing when to stay in the fight and when it’s time to get out or not even engage a fight is one of the most important things we do.

QFT

Many thieves like to “Kilroy Stonekin” regardless of the situation. Practice patience and observe well, test the water will ranged skills first.

Example, if you see a straggler by themself, fire a couple of Vital Shots and watch the numbers (just like throwing jabs at first round to test your opponent’s reflexes and defense).

- If the direct hit is lower than expected, then your target has quite a lot of armor.
- If 1k damage only takes 5% of their total health, you can simply do the math that your target may have a total health of 20k.
- If your Bleed is not doing damage as expected, your target is built with anti-condition items.

And remember, before engaging, know your target’s capabilities and incapabilities and always have an exit strategy.