Guild Wars 2

Alright. I know pvp – as a mesmer. I know thief – as a WvW roamer. Needless to say, those two pieces are very different from the puzzle that can build a PvP thief.

Can fellow thieves be so kind to explain the rotations and mechanics expected of a thief in PvP? Too many times I’ve caught myself asking, “Should I flee or stay and fight? Gank here or decap there? Pull back and let my teammate die because he made a stupid decision, or try and play hero despite all odds?”

I’ll try to get this summarized fairly quickly to save you some time
1) Thief’s role is the assassin/ decapper. It seems you know this fairly well but I’ll explain just in case. Your job is to find the squishies in their group and burst them down super fast and then move to the next target. If you can grab a decap go for it unless it means sacrificing a teammate. If they appear to be doing fine in a fight go make the point neutral and run to gank but if they are in need of some assistance go gank first as killing a member from the enemy team will give yours a number advantage.
2) If a teammate makes a stupid decision don’t run in and die because of it. Again, it’s better 1 of you die than 2 of you. Never let yourself die because someone else made a bad decision. Going in outnumbered unless you know you can get out easily is a bad decision, if the odds are against you go somewhere where they will be more in your favor. (example of the outnumbered comment I made. Sometimes if I’m playing S/d thief and I know I can take on any of the enemy team without dying I will go to their home point and take it them if there is someone there I will kill him and if there are multiple people I will run around on the point kiting them so my team has a number advantage as a few times ive managed to get 4 (mostly 2-3 but sometimes 4) of the enemy team on me without dying and then my team can cap the other points and engage on the point with me for the killing blow)

I hope this helps and if you have more questions feel free to message me in game, on youtube, or on twitch and I’ll try to answer any more questions you have

Alright. Next question:

I’ve been going straight for mid right at roundstart, for the sake of ease and better ganks. But I know some thieves will choose to go far at the start, and can turn the points to their team’s favor. What is the deciding factor?

It depends on the type of thief you are.

Generally, thieves decap the enemy captured points to force them to have to run back and re-capture it, or lose out on those points. When doing this, there’s not really any solid way to explain when you should and shouldn’t pull off. It’s extremely situational, but in general you want to pull off for a decap when you know your team can at least sustain themselves on the other point(s), and stay when you are needed more to take down or finish an enemy player such as a berserker, lich, or condi necro who would otherwise be left to free-cast, stay to cleave a downed enemy to ensure they don’t get back up, stay when you know the enemy has a respawner who is likely to anticipate a decap and stop you before you can complete it, and sometimes stay just to win a fight that much faster in order to secure an important cap or cause the enemy respawns to stagger.

The same mobility that lets you decap can also work against the enemy decap attempts. This means if you see them going for a decap you can defend your point, at least long enough for a slower team mate to arrive to bunker it.

Again, generally, thieves act as +1s to fights because of their mobility. If you’re not traveling the map a lot, you’re either not doing it right or are being forced to compensate for a lacking by someone else on your team. Typically though, it’s acro+trickery S/D that is able to compensate, and critical strikes D/P that would -try- to carry.

When +1ing, the thief usually goes for their targets (mobile/squishy players) first to relieve pressure on their allies. After that, they go for the target that is closest to dying - this can mean low health or the squishiest of the bunch - either way, if the target you know you can finish fastest is not the current team target, call the new target. In an ideal scenario, you’d be coordinating your burst with another high damage team mate such as a shatter mesmer, pewpew ranger, offguard, or fresh air elementalist. D/P thieves tend to look for an opening, land some damage, then get out to lose the target on their head - getting out can just be stealth, kitten, then get back in, or pulling off. S/D tends to just dive in, and keep pressuring relentlessly until they need to pull off or recover some initiative or endurance.

How to know when and what to +1? Any point that needs help. Help doesn’t mean "going to lose," it can be a stalemate or a situation that your team mate can win, but can be sped up by you landing a quick burst and getting back to where you were before. Abuse that mobility for such things.

Moving around a lot also makes you the eyes for your team. Call every enemy movement you see. If you can’t see any, go and look at their respawn area to see where they go next.

When does what type of theif you are come into play? All the time. It determines just how much mobility you have and thus whether you’re fast enough to make some plays. It determines how useful you’ll be in a particular fight. For example, if you’re S/D and you don’t need to avoid much damage, you wouldn’t be as effective as D/P because you have less offense and more defense. On the other hand, if you’re needing to avoid damage while pressuring, D/P will spend more time out of the fight than S/D, and D/P’s mobility can be reduced by other players obstructing your shadow step projectile.

Arikyali.5804:

Alright. Next question:

I’ve been going straight for mid right at roundstart, for the sake of ease and better ganks. But I know some thieves will choose to go far at the start, and can turn the points to their team’s favor. What is the deciding factor?

Your team’s composition and the enemy team’s composition. Anticipate where they will go, and go to where you will be most effective. Typically with regard to the far push, it’ll either be two high damage builds like thief and mesmer, or a sustain build that can 1v1 anything like a D/D elementalist. In some cases you might send a thief with a sustain class to land a burst and leave to ensure the point is won or to force someone from another point to have to run far and help their team mate. It’s all situational and composition dependent.

Often you’ll see a thief and another stealth up and wait somewhere, for the enemy to make their moves first before deciding what to do. On a map like forest, you might even stealth out the side and go through the middle to spike down a squishy enemy player before they even make it to mid, or delay the enemy’s far push allowing your close point capturer to get the full cap before it gets contested.

In PvP, it really boils down to your team strategy. Some team only have one roamer and other teams have 3-4 roamers.

The team with one roamer tends to attempt to make a stand in a point while their roamer tries to flip another point —mainly trying to hold 2 points at all times.

The team with multiple roamers tries to cap all points at once by keeping a resistance in each point. The strategy is to overwhelm the opposing team’s single roamer.

With that said, as a Thief, you are either a solo roamer or one of the many roamers in your team. Then you build your Thief in accordance to your team’s strategy.

It also helps that you don’t hesitate in a fight, even if you end up making a bad move. And try to stay away from or not depend on people that do hesitate in fights, since they’re unreliable.
(A very general thing I’ve noticed in most games that involve some sort of combat.)

Should basically cover the most stuff

Well, I’m beginning to get the hang of thief pvp..woot. Even got yelled at in a match that my ranking couldn’t possibly be the same as everyone else because I was doing too well…yay. (Although I blame the glitchy matchmaking system for that…)

Ehm. Anyway. Thanks to everyone for the tips. It’s tricky to transition from one class to another. now I got another question – any type of bunker, I can pretty much handle, except for bunker engies. I’ve 1v1 them in WvW and I can hold my own decently enough, but I simply cannot threaten them off a point, or spike them before their teammates arrive. Going after a bunker engie seems pointless, and I’d be better off focusing on the other two points.

Yay or nay? What’s the advice for a counter rotation against a bunker engie?

Of course you did better than others at your "level!" You took the initiative to investigate PvP concepts to improve, while most just jump in, fail, continue to fail, and blame everyone else!

There are circumstances where you might want to engage a bunker, such as to hold a neut for backup or just to delay the enemy cap, or because you know you can kill or at least pressure the bunker on his point quickly enough that you’ll either win or force them to send backup to help the bunker. If you can’t, you don’t push it alone, and may instead opt to go with another high damage team mate to relive some pressure from another point or to take it when you can’t take something else, or just to be aggressive while the enemy is respawning.

A good engi will always force you off a point, not the other way around. You can win, but alone, it usually takes more time than it’s worth investing into the endeavour. You need to dodge their grenade 2 or cleanse the bleeding asap (usually the first thing they throw when they swap to grenade kit), try to anticipate overcharge shot or keep him blinded as much as you can hoping it’ll miss (it’s an instant cast skill). When you’re knocked down, stun break and dodge the burst, dodge their immobilise, and just try to be aggressive because otherwise they’ll be able to tank you. Engineer’s are weak to conditions since their only cleanse is their turret, so a good move is to - after their block and heal turret are on cooldown - immobilise them and drop throw gunk (stolen skill) on them. If you’re panic strike this should be easy to do; if you’re S/D you’ll need to stealth and swap to shortbow for the stealth attack. Cluster bomb in the gunk (not detonated) will give you (and any allies close enough) chaos armour.

Oh and don’t get greedy vs. engis. They can survive at low health for quite a bit kiting and blocking, and all it takes is one juke from them and you’re suddenly the one running or worse.

It’s been a bit sinse I’ve commented in here but my best advice is if they have a bunker engi sitting on a point let them keep it and play for 2 points with your team. Then you force them to play one man down and if they leave the point you can quickly go and decap it. When you do need to engage though (it should only happen with another teammate) you should have a good opening to burst as they’ll most likely be distracted with your teammate. Otherwise, you’ll be more beneficial to your team by ganking out the other team that is now outnumbered and keeping a two cap.

First of all, thanks to everyone who’s been piling advice for me. It goes without saying that it’s been quite helpful.

Alright. Another question. Foefire. playing sides has proven to be too time consuming – if mid is secured by enemy, it never goes well. It takes way too long to travel from far to home and vice versa.

My tactic as a mesmer is: guard mid and home. As a mes, run speed runes for foefire, recap from decappers and focus spike from the safety of a ledge (like rangers). But as a thief, I’m not guarding and recapping – I should be decapping and focusing spikes, right?

Rotating like a mesmer doesn’t feel….right. As if I could be doing more. If I want to play sides, I get very tempted to run speed runes – but that would be detrimental to my damage output. And when teammates try to play sides, too much time is devoted on a point the enemy can easily defend. From what I’ve seen, securing mid is the best option, and recovery from playing sides is detrimental.

How do you respond to this scenario?

Usually the team that controls mid on Legacy wins, for the exact reasons you’ve described.

A mesmer shouldn’t be the one designated to guarding points though. They can, as can thief, if they have to, and can win some matchups. Usually though, they can only go and hold it temporarily and only if they will receive help in the form of someone who can sit on the point to hold the cap, then they either leave or stay to finish the enemy off. Mesmer and thief actually rotate very similarly, it’s just that if there is a thief, the thief is usually the one to decap because they are faster at getting there and back. In the meantime, both thief and mesmer focus targets, moving between the team fights to +1 or +2 if there are both moving together.

In the event that mid is lost, you need to win a team fight to put some of them on respawn so you can rotate quickly to (if you didn’t win it on mid), and out number mid and get it decapped. The other option is to try and bait the other team into over reaching by holding far so they have to contest your close, and have a thief sneak away and decap mid. You might be pushing the furthest point away from your base, but so must they if you have the far point secured and protected.

I see. Interesting.

And my apologies; what I meant by ‘guarding’ isn’t bunkering. It’s just running back and forth to +1 fights on mid and home. If there is a teammate that can add pressure on far and we don’t have a bunker, then that’s what I do. But if we have a bunker then I stick close to mid and +1 the fights on the sides. That’s what I meant by guarding.