Guild Wars 2

I have been gone for quite a bit of time. Since coming back to gw2 I have been enjoying my time playing; however, an issue I have been facing is pvp. Pvp, as the best way i can put it, feels dull. I have been having issues with finding the role that a thief can fill. It seems to lack in keeping up with most class’ dueling potential, support even with poison, and lock down of points . If you could provide some help I would be most grateful.

Thank you for your time!

Unfortunately, thief is in a bit of a poor position when it comes to pvp, primarily because of its lack of staying power and ranged attacks. What it’s good for at the moment is moving quickly across the map and capturing and contesting points that the enemy team isn’t dealing with.

In stronghold, it can be a bit more useful, as quickly getting around the battlefield in that mode is vital for supply running and the like. But, really, that’s it; you are the high mobility character that can help teammates finish off enemies, and that’s really it.

Now, there are some high-end thieves that can duel well, but thief and mesmer are the two highest skill requirement classes in the game; if you’re bad, you’ll be a terrible thief. If you’re great, you’ll be an amazing thief. So, realistically, the only advice I can give you is either try to improve your skill (I certainly can’t do so, having tried) or wait for the next round of elite specializations to come out for you to play with and see if it changes your combat paradigm.

Nowhere. Devs changed and new devs decided that thief should be nerfed to the point that they can only
- decap empty point (because clearly other classes can’t do it lol)
- +1 almost dead enemy (because clearly other classes can’t do it lol)

But heeeeyyyyy thieves have dat amazing mobility…. that buys them about 1 sec before enemy arrives on point. Under the line, you need to be 10 times better than you enemy on thief to be somewhere remotely as effective.

You want a unrewarding challenge with lot of stress and disappointment or be a hipster, or both? Play thief.

I try to fit in right above the hip bone, into the liver if possible. Or if I have the chance I go for the neck or eye. Sometimes just whatever is available.

Seriously though thief is best at mobility, high damage. There are obvious weaknesses, but if you can’t use the mini-map don’t bother with Thief in pvp. The rest is practice. I find Staff really fun, and when you get evade times down, you can be quite potent, and it doesn’t require you to lose all your damage like shortbow. Shortbow is still near mandatory, but some thieves could maybe find exceptions with certain team makeups.

The main reason I play thief, is that I hate fighting thieves and them being able to run away. Now, when they try to run I can often kill them. So no one can run from me… the trade off is I’m not as strong 1v1 to make people want to run from me… XD Still a fun class in pvp if you love mobility. I love decaping points with perfect timing so the enemy gets nervous and the game’s momentum shifts. I love that I can react faster than anyone to svanir or chieftain attempts. I see the npc icon move, I’m there in 1-10 seconds. I can easily line up burst for a kill or line up cc and damage if it’s only one player. Anyway, Thief is for those who see the battlefield like a dynamic stream of water, and want to carefully move and always be in the weakest parts of the stream. It takes practice, but luckily it’s still viable.

thief is no good in pvp, because thief has big mobility but weak duel capabilities. Pvp is all about fighting on point so thief is no good. Better learn rev or war.

The thief works excellently against newer or disorganized groups that may not be running the optimal/dominant sPvP builds, just because the mobility and point disruption is enough.

That said, particularly at the high echelons of play, the class is inherently shut down by organized play for the most part due to the nature of sPvP and how stat systems are handled in it.

Simple…..you don’t unfortunately

Well thief is actually super easy if you know the other classes. For example, Mesmers usually burst 4-6 seconds after you engage them. If you can predict that you can use Bandit’s Defense (the block) pre-emptively and absorb most of the burst.

For guards there is a bit more you have to do. To take them out you have to break aegis, land the steal, and draw out the passive stun break. Then just hit them with the Stolen Skill and auto as needed (Improvisation in Deadly Arts really helps with this).

Small things like that that most people don’t think about really go a long ways to help countering that class, just hop on alts, do a couple duels, and you’ll be fine in no time

Cynz.9437:

Nowhere. Devs changed and new devs decided that thief should be nerfed to the point that they can only
- decap empty point (because clearly other classes can’t do it lol)
- +1 almost dead enemy (because clearly other classes can’t do it lol)

But heeeeyyyyy thieves have dat amazing mobility…. that buys them about 1 sec before enemy arrives on point. Under the line, you need to be 10 times better than you enemy on thief to be somewhere remotely as effective.

You want a unrewarding challenge with lot of stress and disappointment or be a hipster, or both? Play thief.

I left for almost a year, and this was the case before. I’m glad to see things haven’t changed.

At best the class is a fun-to-play but ultimately selfish class. Other classes now have very strong mobility and can bunker a point. Sure an extremely well played thief can do well but they contribute very little synergy to multi-player fights.