Guild Wars 2

I used to complain about rally being too slow on ranger, but after seeing thief’s downed state, I have to bite my tongue.

I’m currently lvl 28 and I feel that as soon as I’m downed, I may as well be defeated. I can’t shadowstep far enough away to break aggro for it to be useful. By the time shadow escape is ready, I’ve lost 4/5ths of my health already and I don’t know how to use the 2s of stealth to actually benefit me in any tangible way.

I understand that it could be useful in PvP or if you’re with someone that can res you, but I’m confused about PvE. How can I boost my chances of surviving after being downed?

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Once you are downed, the best way is to rally by killing something – so leave one of the mobs you are fighting on low health and use that as rally fodder to damage when you get downed.

I find the best way though is not to get downed in the first place.

Watch your health carefully and try to not fight mobs above your level (e.g., don’t fight mobs above level 28). As soon as you fight mobs a few levels higher they hit much harder.

Keep your gear up to date also – running around in level 28 with only level 15 or level 20 armour/weapons/trinkets will see you die a lot more than you should. Keep weapons, armour and trinkets within 5 or so levels. Heart merchants often sell upgrades to trinkets, weapons and armour – buy them, equip them and fight mobs at or below your level.

Generally the best option for thieves is the first one he outlined. You will get downed so the rest of his advice, while it may be sound, isn’t really helpful once you get downed. From what I can tell thieves have the worst downed skill bar. The t-port is nice but has a bad cooldown and a short range and you cave really hideous camera angles on using it at times. The stealth is almost worthless UNLESS you have a target you can kill and then it gives you a mediocre damage spike if you have Hidden Killer(?). The skill really should be a long (5+ seconds) invisibility/smoke screen (exit on heal or attack) instead of the worthless POS it is now.

In PvE, there isn’t huge amounts you can do. Utilize stealth (3) when you can for a larger damage hit, shadowstep the same way you can with other Shadowsteps (up cliffs, etc) but nothing else, really.

Once you are downed, the best way is to rally by killing something – so leave one of the mobs you are fighting on low health and use that as rally fodder to damage when you get downed.

I find the best way though is not to get downed in the first place.

Watch your health carefully and try to not fight mobs above your level (e.g., don’t fight mobs above level 28). As soon as you fight mobs a few levels higher they hit much harder.

Keep your gear up to date also – running around in level 28 with only level 15 or level 20 armour/weapons/trinkets will see you die a lot more than you should. Keep weapons, armour and trinkets within 5 or so levels. Heart merchants often sell upgrades to trinkets, weapons and armour – buy them, equip them and fight mobs at or below your level.

The invisibility will only make PvE opponents reset if they are outside their roaming area. The shadowstep is short but it can take you out of a red damage circle or put you behind a pillar that might block some aoe. You’ve just got to make use of the small advantages these skills give you.

You’re at the mercy of your allies when downed as Thief in PvE ever since they nerfed stealth from dropping aggro. Our down skills are pretty pathetic garbage overall. You can port outa aoe range and closer to allies or hide for a second and throw a crappy sneak attack dagger in stealth.

The Thief’s downed state is pretty much the worst in solo PvE and unfortunately results in a lot of frustration. They need to do something with smokebomb, even if it’s just buffing the crap out of the stealth version of the #1.

In PvP you can really mess up with opponents and make them lose precious seconds to finish you that your team can take to have an advantage. With good timing you can make them miss at least 2 finisher banners.

In PvE that’s a different story. In group PvE you can always teleport out of the big red circles to your allies feet, a clear signal that you want to be resurrected and that you’re doing the favor of exiting the big red circles so your resurrectors are safe while ressing you.

In solo PvE you can get out of the red circles but you can’t capitalize on the stealth skill as PvE was changed so mobs don’t lose agro (they did before, which made the downed stealth really useful). Right now the best advice would be to try to have downed fodders by leaving a target at low health, or simply to don’t dye and use as many scapes as you can if you think you might get downed. I usually go for this latter option as it’s easier than keeping always one target at low health.

That said it shouldn’t be really hard to keep yourself alive, always try to identify if you’re going to jump into a sucide fight and in that case don’t do it.