Guild Wars 2

Then come back to thief. I did that and realized how poop even d/p SA is compared to PU Mantra Mesmer.

Yeah, I’ve only played Thief in PvP since launch, played two games with my Warrior today – who I just got to level 80 – and it was like day and night, holy hell. I did better spamming buttons (sort of) because I didn’t have my rotation dialed down, than I do regularly after playing Thief for years.

Al Shamari.7234:

Yeah, I’ve only played Thief in PvP since launch, played two games with my Warrior today – who I just got to level 80 – and it was like day and night, holy hell. I did better spamming buttons (sort of) because I didn’t have my rotation dialed down, than I do regularly after playing Thief for years.

pretty much what I did fast leveling a necro with tomes and tried him out on WvW last night.
Take note I don’t even know the skills and pretty much just bought the standard zerker exotics and transferred my ascended zerk trinkets. My friend did the same thing as me except hes a condi necro and every time we met an enemy (usually 2 more than us so it’s 2v4+) we just click all the buttons and things simply died lmfao.

Of course as always it’s still apples and oranges. Each class has obvious strengths and weaknesses. However the glaring difference here is like choosing between a kitten good looking orange as opposed to a bruised up-on the verge of rotting- apple.

But it boring. I got all other classes to 80…and yeah they way easier to survive on. First time I tried that PU mesmer after the last patch I was fighting 1v5 and barely getting touched.

necromancer can be devastating. Warrior so forgiving. Guardian heals out the ying yang but the play is not as fun.

I did that a while back with a warrior. Everything about the class was so much simpler compared to the thief. The health scaling combined with the heavy armor made me tanky enough that I didn’t even need to dodge most of the times (strictly speaking for non pvp). All I did was stay in front of my enemies and hit my abilities when they came off cooldown.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Then come back to thief. I did that and realized how poop even d/p SA is compared to PU Mantra Mesmer.

In all fairness that is like driving a peppy Volvo then switching to a Bugatti Veyron.

This is not instilling me with confidence. I just picked up Thief this week and came to see about some ideas on how to go all up in the hizzy with the class. Lol. Awhile back, I did rename my Thief ‘Male Nurse Robbins’ and spec just to stay at the back of a zerg, doing the rez duties for people. But between that and Venom Share being popular, what a horribly boring place for Thief in WvW. Roaming and PVP are always more rewarding, but being the class that has to push 80 buttons in a correct sequence is never fun.

Bragging rights are acceptable. Still, I’d rather the class be a little more equivalent?

Yeah, the current state of thief is ridiculous. I main a guardian and in sPvP and I build pretty tanky. I run fighter runes and barbarian amulet which sure, gives me power, but is not as competitive by far as other builds, and I can kill most thieves with 3 of my greatsword skills and my auto attack only. You giys just melt if I can land an interrupt+CC(Basically what greatsword 5 is). I feel dirty whenever I have to play against one. Not to say that thief CANT be good, but it requires such a massive amount of skill to play on par with other classes. I don’t know what anet is doing with thief nerf after thief nerf, but I feel sick

You guys weren’t aware you were selecting hard mode in Gw2 by playing thief at this point?

It is super eye opening if you’ve never played other classes except thief how easy several of them are and how safe so many of their meta builds are comparatively.

It’s ultimately for me the reason why I’ll just roll Rev for HoT unless thief becomes way better than it currently is there’s no reason to keep putting in so much effort to outplay people when the other options take a fraction of the effort and skill for equal to better results.

I’ve played power necro since I started in PvP, lately i’ve decided to give D/P thief a try and I’ve been having a blast o.o

The mobility is insane, I can actually escape a fight if I need to; something I had absolutely no hope of before, I can decap and always get to where I need to be, I can actually chase people if needed, I can almost always res teammates, can actually secure stomps for once, I can down squishy builds in seconds, can shut down players with blinds and CC, have crazy amounts of evades, and I actually get to make use of fields and finishers.

When I play well now, I actually feel like i’m making a huge difference in my team and in the match, whereas necro I basically just do damage and that’s it.

I do understand though you guys don’t match up well at all with a good number of the meta builds and it doesn’t feel like you counter any class anymore. Plus mesmers being able to do most of the things I mentioned above.

“The mobility is insane, I can actually escape a fight if I need to; something I had absolutely no hope of before, I can decap and always get to where I need to be, I can actually chase people if needed, I can almost always res teammates, can actually secure stomps for once, I can down squishy builds in seconds, can shut down players with blinds and CC, have crazy amounts of evades, and I actually get to make use of fields and finishers.”

Ah, that famous 66666 spec again
On the serious side, its exactly thats why we play the class. There is so much potential.
You can´t have it all and some things, like killing squishy targets in seconds (a good player will always live longer then a few seconds, not matter how squishy he is, except Mesmer + thief stealth combo) and suvivability together. About crazy amounts of evades, its far from what it used to be, the nerf of acro crippled S/D a lot and you can´t dodge everything. Shutting down the enemy with blinds got nerfed, too, while still being powerfull through shadow-shot.
Rezzing team-mates for example got a good buff through the new minor in SA, before you used stealth like refuge or blinding powder and had to get away if enemys were cleaving, where you still have to be very cautious.
Thief isn´t really about rotations but much more about using the right combos and managing them at the right time, using you initiative (working like a global cooldown on you both weaponsets) wisely. If you just spam anything except shadowshot (which still has to actually hit :P ), you are dead. Had some lovely heartseeker and headshot-spamming thieves 1-2 month ago ^^

Just to make a small comparison in the feeling:
I wanted to play my warrior half a year ago again in wvw to roam a bit (I´m not really active in wvw anymore though), used some stuff I had around (GS/axe-shield) and encountered a P/D thief after 2min. Well, he got butchered. Managed to almost escape me 2 times, but just pressing the buttons wildly (I never was a good zerker-warri, because I was completely out of warri-gameplay (hadn´t played him for 1 year), I survived and killed him. He wasn´t the best thief of course, but I really had to laugh ^^

Coronit.9432:

“The mobility is insane, I can actually escape a fight if I need to; something I had absolutely no hope of before, I can decap and always get to where I need to be, I can actually chase people if needed, I can almost always res teammates, can actually secure stomps for once, I can down squishy builds in seconds, can shut down players with blinds and CC, have crazy amounts of evades, and I actually get to make use of fields and finishers.”

Ah, that famous 66666 spec again
On the serious side, its exactly thats why we play the class. There is so much potential.
You can´t have it all and some things, like killing squishy targets in seconds (a good player will always live longer then a few seconds, not matter how squishy he is, except Mesmer + thief stealth combo) and suvivability together. About crazy amounts of evades, its far from what it used to be, the nerf of acro crippled S/D a lot and you can´t dodge everything. Shutting down the enemy with blinds got nerfed, too, while still being powerfull through shadow-shot.
Rezzing team-mates for example got a good buff through the new minor in SA, before you used stealth like refuge or blinding powder and had to get away if enemys were cleaving, where you still have to be very cautious.
Thief isn´t really about rotations but much more about using the right combos and managing them at the right time, using you initiative (working like a global cooldown on you both weaponsets) wisely. If you just spam anything except shadowshot (which still has to actually hit :P ), you are dead. Had some lovely heartseeker and headshot-spamming thieves 1-2 month ago ^^

Just to make a small comparison in the feeling:
I wanted to play my warrior half a year ago again in wvw to roam a bit (I´m not really active in wvw anymore though), used some stuff I had around (GS/axe-shield) and encountered a P/D thief after 2min. Well, he got butchered. Managed to almost escape me 2 times, but just pressing the buttons wildly (I never was a good zerker-warri, because I was completely out of warri-gameplay (hadn´t played him for 1 year), I survived and killed him. He wasn´t the best thief of course, but I really had to laugh ^^

Obviously a few seconds is a little bit of an exaggeration, thanks to things like blocks and invulns, they still have the ability to do it though. And you definitely don’t need every single trait tree to do the things I mentioned, most of those are the duties of a thief in matches, they still do them better than others. Maybe the “crazy amount of evades” might not hold as true as old acrobatics tree and S/D thief, but it’s still a lot compared to every other class. Same goes for the blinds and CCs

A normal D/P thief has access to vigor through bountiful theft if steal hits successfully (while other classes have traits giving them vigor passivly). So not that much more dodges (endurance gain on dagger needs you to stay in melee —> vulnaerable). Evade comes mostly through Withdraw and SB 3, both nerfed already more or less and especially withdraw is the only really viable heal we have. Hide in Shadow has the problem with long cd and cast-time (I think you know that feeling when using Consume conditions on necro ). Of course we can cover it with stealth, but needing stealth to get the heal through? Not that great in praxis.
Blinds are less, too. Shadowshot is very strong though.
CCs we are not better than other classes. Engis, warris, mesmer, etc.

Securing stomps? You mean stealth-stomps or port stomps? First ones are risky in teamfights and last ones should ot be used unless extemely needed.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to argue that thief is in an amazing place. I just think it’s weird seeing all these people wanting to play other boring simple classes when the class you have has so much depth and does so much that those other ones lack, plus it is tons of fun to play and contributes a lot to a team, Even if it’s more effort

I’m excited to see that thief is in need of some buffs/changes, it will make the effort now that much more rewarding when it happens.

Sabre.8627:

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to argue that thief is in an amazing place. I just think it’s weird seeing all these people wanting to play other boring simple classes when the class you have has so much depth and does so much that those other ones lack, plus it is tons of fun to play and contributes a lot to a team, Even if it’s more effort

I’m excited to see that thief is in need of some buffs/changes, it will make the effort now that much more rewarding when it happens.

Well, I´m playing thief since 3 years and that are the reasons why I still play it. So much to learn, so many smart moves and ways to play If they would just be viable :/ . I think Mesmer is a fantastic class, too. It has so much possibilities to outplay and outsmart people that its sad to have gotten so easy. So don´t get me wrong, too. Sometimes I play other classes because they have interesting mechanics and other playstyles that are worth it to try out. I really like how eles are designed, that its terrible to see them getting such a bad reputation

Even after 3 years I cant forgive anet to have given thief his name. I wanted him as an Assassin. :´<
And I always disliked pistols :P
I use the smallest skin avalable. ^^