Guild Wars 2

Warrior dps for example is on par or (more often) superior to thief dps while still remaining incredibly survivable.

I would love to see thieves do 1.5x (or so) damage in pve simply for the purposes of being picked up in dungeon groups/giving us an easier time in pve. We would still be limited by our mechanics, including the revealed debuff.

As pure damage spec, warriors and guardians have very similar or higher damage, whilst retaining higher health/armour/condition removal and other survival aspects.

If I spec to remove conditions/have a couple thousand more health/other surviving mechanics other than relying on stealth, my damage is pitiful and I am NOT helping other players by being there.

Does anyone else agree, or does someone really feel like the thief is worthwhile in pve?

Thieves are my second favorite party members ( though I only want 1 at a time)…
Party stealth + blind fields + blast finishers = irreplaceable

EDIT: I personally like 0/30/20/20/0 for PvE – you can use any weapon set other than P/D effectively and it provides plently of initiative to blind spam…

Blind spam is a really big deal, don’t undervalue it…

Party stealth can allow for easy mob skipping + ressing + w/e you can think of in a given instance (I’m looking at you dredge fractal bomb run)

Single target damage thieves are entirely competent, and S/P or S/D (or just sword lol) and/or shortbow and/or Dagger Storm provide decent AoE for AoE fights…

thief>warr in fractals imo
thats just because of the superior mobility; ranged capability, stealth, blinds and (1) projectile control

… but im not super high scale yet; so i may see different at 30+; but i doubt it
… and is wvw still using the same balance as pve? (if it is; then why the hell is it still?)

Yeh coz thiefs damage is already so low….Go try warrior on spvp/wvw ..fight some ur beloved thiefs..and cry that u were downed just due spam skills/heartseaker before u could do any serious damage to ur opponent.Yeh warrior have better dps…but only at pve where mobs stands still and guardian buffing ur back with protection/regeneration..coz they have overall crappy sustain both pve/pve and more hp in pool does no difference when ur healing skills are pure crap,just 2 more seconds on legs before ur dead.Zerker war has better damage both pvp[cheap bull-evisc combo + pray for crit..and 30 points in power line for max adre with elite signet..easy to avoid by any more than medicore player]/pve but its 2 shot punchbag and 1 trick ponny then,especially for thief…u should know that…but guardians damage is nowhere near to both of em,let alone higher..In my opinion thief is the last class,just after eles and guardians that needs buffing in any matter.Op is just silly,some statements sounds like made by someone who played 1st week and had problems with pve …1.5x dmg multi ..hell yeh man,now go take some sleep and dont drink so much before posting such ideas on forums.

Mice.8921:

Thieves are my second favorite party members ( though I only want 1 at a time)…
Party stealth + blind fields + blast finishers = irreplaceable

EDIT: I personally like 0/30/20/20/0 for PvE – you can use any weapon set other than P/D effectively and it provides plently of initiative to blind spam…

Blind spam is a really big deal, don’t undervalue it…

Party stealth can allow for easy mob skipping + ressing + w/e you can think of in a given instance (I’m looking at you dredge fractal bomb run)

Single target damage thieves are entirely competent, and S/P or S/D (or just sword lol) and/or shortbow and/or Dagger Storm provide decent AoE for AoE fights…

You have me intrigued. Do you recommend zerk armor & weapons, or something tougher?

A good thief is awesome to have in the team, similar to a good Ranger. However, when the player is not that good, classes such as Thief and Ranger become a hazard instead. Rather have non-skilled people face-roll on a Warrior, Guardian or Mesmer and clear dungeons without a second thought about a required skill level, than risk having a bad thief/ranger screw up an entire run single-handedly.

Thieves could use a bit more damage on their basic attacks and other non-burst skills, but not too much. Their damage isn’t quite on par with Warriors, but it’s not that far off.

The big problem is the lack of good team buffing utilities. The big edge Warriors and Guardians have is the wide variety of shouts and banners that buff the damage and defense of the entire team; Thieves have nothing to compete with that.

Vaadeer.5013:

Yeh coz thiefs damage is already so low….Go try warrior on spvp/wvw ..fight some ur beloved thiefs..and cry that u were downed just due spam skills/heartseaker before u could do any serious damage to ur opponent.Yeh warrior have better dps…but only at pve where mobs stands still and guardian buffing ur back with protection/regeneration..coz they have overall crappy sustain both pve/pve and more hp in pool does no difference when ur healing skills are pure crap,just 2 more seconds on legs before ur dead.Zerker war has better damage both pvp[cheap bull-evisc combo + pray for crit..and 30 points in power line for max adre with elite signet..easy to avoid by any more than medicore player]/pve but its 2 shot punchbag and 1 trick ponny then,especially for thief…u should know that…but guardians damage is nowhere near to both of em,let alone higher..In my opinion thief is the last class,just after eles and guardians that needs buffing in any matter.Op is just silly,some statements sounds like made by someone who played 1st week and had problems with pve …1.5x dmg multi ..hell yeh man,now go take some sleep and dont drink so much before posting such ideas on forums.

Did you even read? I said PVE, NOT PVP.

I have played both thief and warrior WvW anyway, I’d love to see a May vid of you heartseekering someone to death who isn’t a complete and utter kittening noob.

Not to mention I have been playing the game since the start of the beta. And what, are you a twelve year old? That drinking comment was just childish.

Ensign.2189:

Thieves could use a bit more damage on their basic attacks and other non-burst skills, but not too much. Their damage isn’t quite on par with Warriors, but it’s not that far off.

The big problem is the lack of good team buffing utilities. The big edge Warriors and Guardians have is the wide variety of shouts and banners that buff the damage and defense of the entire team; Thieves have nothing to compete with that.

That’s my main point, is that we have NO buffs to offer people. We can offer stealth res, and medium damage, but really to be balanced in PVE we should be able to offer HIGH damage/stealth/slipperyness.

It would make us more of a team player, because we would bring superior DPS to the table. That would mean that in lieu of supporting the team through buffs, we would be picked up for supporting the team through damage.

I reckon this is something that needs to be implemented, I feel kind of powerless to warriors and guardians in PvP, I have to slink around in stealth/keep away from the fight so much that the few hits I land don’t contribute much. But if those few hits were high damage, then I wouldn’t feel so bad about having to spend 1/2 my time in stealth/dodging.

I mean, obviously a bunker thief would feel different, but I think they would still benefit massively from a pve damage boost as well.

Thanks for your input, guys.

he does have a point….theres really not need for a thief in dungeons/pve…..i mean the Original Poster (i refuse to say OP bc that means Overpowered and its redic to use an acronym with 2 meanings…cmon guys) has a point 1.5x dmg would make us slightly more desireable…i mean 50% increase in dmg isnt that much but would allow thieves to be looked at in a different light. i think it is a huge adjustment and should perhaps give thieves a special skills like F2 (next target you hit you deal 50% more dmg to that type of enemy for the next 5 minutes)(also could pick on race in wvw for a 20% increase in dmg or somethign) just some ideas.

50% more damage is way too much for a class that excels in single target.

Speaking as someone who does 20k+ backstabs in cof.

Thief is fine.

Tonikor.5637:

Speaking as someone who does 20k+ backstabs in cof.

Thief is fine.

CoF P1 (I assume you mean that) is hardly representative of any other dungeon environment. An infant can do CoF P1. There is ZERO threat.

well… our single target dmg is even better then warriors’ – just go out and try a 30-30-10-0-0 with assassins signet, signet of agility, ambush and thieves guild

you will see you need only 1 warrior for might stacking and our dmg is higher
edit: but yeah.. more dmg is always nice
btw: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Build-The-REAL-maximum-DPS-thief/first#post1885380

Uruz Six.6594:

Mice.8921:

Thieves are my second favorite party members ( though I only want 1 at a time)…
Party stealth + blind fields + blast finishers = irreplaceable

EDIT: I personally like 0/30/20/20/0 for PvE – you can use any weapon set other than P/D effectively and it provides plently of initiative to blind spam…

Blind spam is a really big deal, don’t undervalue it…

Party stealth can allow for easy mob skipping + ressing + w/e you can think of in a given instance (I’m looking at you dredge fractal bomb run)

Single target damage thieves are entirely competent, and S/P or S/D (or just sword lol) and/or shortbow and/or Dagger Storm provide decent AoE for AoE fights…

You have me intrigued. Do you recommend zerk armor & weapons, or something tougher?

I personally run valkyrie armor with ruby orbs and berzerker’s everything else, however, I only run dungeons and lower fractals at the moment.

A brilliant guide I would recommend is this youtube guide by a man named Joshua Lewis . He recommends a lot of PVT gear – but he runs higher fractals. His other video guides give a taste of the massive potential a thief has in dungeons and fractals.

Personally I’ve started running 0/30/20/20/0 – this gives me basic damage, stealth and deception traits, dodging, and init regeneration.

That’s not a bad idea really. ANet said in the sPvP chats that thief base damage was too low which is why they have to gear up with little to no defense. And they got too strong of a burst at the same time?

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a slight reduction in backstab damage and maybe HS to go with a sharp increase in dagger autoattack damage.

stof.9341:

That’s not a bad idea really. ANet said in the sPvP chats that thief base damage was too low which is why they have to gear up with little to no defense. And they got too strong of a burst at the same time?

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a slight reduction in backstab damage and maybe HS to go with a sharp increase in dagger autoattack damage.

I think ANet will accomplish this in a slightly different way:
By upping the base damage of ALL Thief weapons skills, then readjusting the “attack” or power drop off rate.
If, say, Heartseeker has a base damage of A and a attack coefficient of B, changing the formula to A+ and B- would not change anything at all in certain builds, while other low power-stacking builds would benefit greatly.

I just hope they don’t go A+ and B—-
That might ruin spike damage completely…

There’s no such thing as “attack” or “power” drop off rate. Skill damage = “weapon damage range * attacker power * skill coefficient / target armor”

Skills only have a skill coefficient as parameter.

I’ve actually been kinda derpy upset recently when farming in South Sun. My Thief is Berserker and my Warrior is Rampager/Rabid and his longbow totally blows the **** outa my Thief’s shortbow when it comes to Damage, and that’s DMG in 2 forms both high burst and cond. Never realized how powerful it truly was but it just melts everything instantly. I feel ashamed of my Shortbow now.

Nyctimus.4109:

Ensign.2189:

Thieves could use a bit more damage on their basic attacks and other non-burst skills, but not too much. Their damage isn’t quite on par with Warriors, but it’s not that far off.

The big problem is the lack of good team buffing utilities. The big edge Warriors and Guardians have is the wide variety of shouts and banners that buff the damage and defense of the entire team; Thieves have nothing to compete with that.

That’s my main point, is that we have NO buffs to offer people. We can offer stealth res, and medium damage, but really to be balanced in PVE we should be able to offer HIGH damage/stealth/slipperyness.

It would make us more of a team player, because we would bring superior DPS to the table. That would mean that in lieu of supporting the team through buffs, we would be picked up for supporting the team through damage.

I reckon this is something that needs to be implemented, I feel kind of powerless to warriors and guardians in PvP, I have to slink around in stealth/keep away from the fight so much that the few hits I land don’t contribute much. But if those few hits were high damage, then I wouldn’t feel so bad about having to spend 1/2 my time in stealth/dodging.

I mean, obviously a bunker thief would feel different, but I think they would still benefit massively from a pve damage boost as well.

Thanks for your input, guys.

But we do offer utility if the person and the team understands combo fields and blind and weakness conditions…

Combo Finisher -
Cluster Bomb is hands down THE best combo finisher in the game. Guardian can lay down Purging Flames and we can apply Might x 15 on the entire party. If the guardian is cooperative and use Empower that’s another 12 Might on top of it. Instant cap might stacks. In Water fields we can heal the party for up to 8k…with no healing power…same concept.

At 15 points into Deadly Arts trait, when we poison foes we Weaken them. Think of Weakness as a 25% damage reduction from enemies…and our Weakness last long if you apply it through our Choking Gas skill…and big AoE. Higher level fractals this can save people from being 1 hit by regular mobs…

Blind, we can apply them in small bursts in large AoE via Dark Fields, but better yet we have Black Powder pistol offhand skill. It works best when we LoS pull a bunch of enemies and stack together to cleave them…it’s a party immunity for PvE because of how slow the enemies attack.

And about our damage? We are the highest dps for single target in the game…I won’t ask for more.

I play a pure GC thief (30/30/x/x/x) at level 48 fractals, premade, pugs, done them all with relative ease and contributing my share.

For PvP, you can always go S/D and feel more contributive to your team in team fights. Ever since Larcenous strike was introduced, fights vs bunkers has gotten alot easier because we can steal their Regen/Protection/Vigor easily. With stealth builds, backstab still hurts alot…you just have to commit to it…When i use stealth backstab builds (D/P) I usually go very glassy but I deal insane damage.

Anubarak.3012:

well… our single target dmg is even better then warriors’ – just go out and try a 30-30-10-0-0 with assassins signet, signet of agility, ambush and thieves guild

you will see you need only 1 warrior for might stacking and our dmg is higher
edit: but yeah.. more dmg is always nice
btw: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Build-The-REAL-maximum-DPS-thief/first#post1885380

this isnt really the highest spike or dps thief version :P close tho.

depends on the enemy… I think you mean 25-30-0-0-15 but the dps of this build is just higher if the enemy dies quickly enough.
Your initiative recovery is much to bad so after few cnd – backstab combos you’ll run out of initiative

Backstab Chain is usually self sustaining when it comes to initiative…
If you somehow find yourself low on initiative often during the combo add Infusion of Shadow from SA traitline if you are going x/x/10/x/x…you should be on full initiative before every CnD at this point.

Orpheus.7284:

But we do offer utility if the person and the team understands combo fields and blind and weakness conditions…

Combo Finisher -
Cluster Bomb is hands down THE best combo finisher in the game. Guardian can lay down Purging Flames and we can apply Might x 15 on the entire party. If the guardian is cooperative and use Empower that’s another 12 Might on top of it. Instant cap might stacks. In Water fields we can heal the party for up to 8k…with no healing power…same concept.

At 15 points into Deadly Arts trait, when we poison foes we Weaken them. Think of Weakness as a 25% damage reduction from enemies…and our Weakness last long if you apply it through our Choking Gas skill…and big AoE. Higher level fractals this can save people from being 1 hit by regular mobs…

Blind, we can apply them in small bursts in large AoE via Dark Fields, but better yet we have Black Powder pistol offhand skill. It works best when we LoS pull a bunch of enemies and stack together to cleave them…it’s a party immunity for PvE because of how slow the enemies attack.

And about our damage? We are the highest dps for single target in the game…I won’t ask for more.

I play a pure GC thief (30/30/x/x/x) at level 48 fractals, premade, pugs, done them all with relative ease and contributing my share.

For PvP, you can always go S/D and feel more contributive to your team in team fights. Ever since Larcenous strike was introduced, fights vs bunkers has gotten alot easier because we can steal their Regen/Protection/Vigor easily. With stealth builds, backstab still hurts alot…you just have to commit to it…When i use stealth backstab builds (D/P) I usually go very glassy but I deal insane damage.

Idk…you mentioned a thief+guard, what if you had two guards? Two casts of empower and hold the line=party wide protection around 10s, regen around 14s, 25stack of might for 10s. Water fields? Two hammer guards w/hold the line=protection, aoe healing, regeneration (+additional aoe condi removal if traited or soldier runes). Weakness is nice, but is it worth missing out on the above benefits? I’m not sure. Blind fields are very nice in open world pve but in most dungeons the party tends to scatter during encounters (especially if there isn’t a guardian/warrior there) resulting in mobs moving from your field or you being unable to place it effectively in the first place…just seems a bit situational and more like a luxury than anything else in my experience. Exploiting the game through stacking as you said will help blind fields be more effective, but then again a sword/gs guardian can aoe blind roughly once every 10/12 seconds-two guardians and you can do aoe blind once every 5s or so minimum (in addition to the 10s protection and regen from hold the line), so is taking a thief over a guardian for blind fields worth it? Hmm…again, not too sure.

The OP spoke about pve so mentioning pvp is irrelevant.

Don’t take it to be me saying the thief is utter crap in pve-I like the playstyle quite a bit and a good player with a thief will still be contributing more to the party than a bad player with a guardian, but whenever I consider the contributions another class can make (I focused on guardians since you mentioned them) I’m hard-pressed to find validity with the thief.

Regarding the topic-I don’t think a damage increase will solve anything, well not in any meaningful way for anyone who has the mental fortitude to do dungeons other than cof 1 and not make up excuses abut ‘efficiency’ for skipping bosses they obviously can’t handle.

Is the thief worthwhile in pve? Well if I happen to know two players are of equal playing skill and one is a necro the other a thief I’ll take the thief over the necro-it’s not worthless, but a long way from being impactful imo.

But isn’t Anet taking the stance that they will just balance all classes the same in WvW/PvE?

Imbune.5497:

Idk…you mentioned a thief+guard, what if you had two guards? Two casts of empower and hold the line=party wide protection around 10s, regen around 14s, 25stack of might for 10s. Water fields? Two hammer guards w/hold the line=protection, aoe healing, regeneration (+additional aoe condi removal if traited or soldier runes). Weakness is nice, but is it worth missing out on the above benefits? I’m not sure. Blind fields are very nice in open world pve but in most dungeons the party tends to scatter during encounters (especially if there isn’t a guardian/warrior there) resulting in mobs moving from your field or you being unable to place it effectively in the first place…just seems a bit situational and more like a luxury than anything else in my experience. Exploiting the game through stacking as you said will help blind fields be more effective, but then again a sword/gs guardian can aoe blind roughly once every 10/12 seconds-two guardians and you can do aoe blind once every 5s or so minimum (in addition to the 10s protection and regen from hold the line), so is taking a thief over a guardian for blind fields worth it? Hmm…again, not too sure.

The OP spoke about pve so mentioning pvp is irrelevant.

Don’t take it to be me saying the thief is utter crap in pve-I like the playstyle quite a bit and a good player with a thief will still be contributing more to the party than a bad player with a guardian, but whenever I consider the contributions another class can make (I focused on guardians since you mentioned them) I’m hard-pressed to find validity with the thief.

Regarding the topic-I don’t think a damage increase will solve anything, well not in any meaningful way for anyone who has the mental fortitude to do dungeons other than cof 1 and not make up excuses abut ‘efficiency’ for skipping bosses they obviously can’t handle.

Is the thief worthwhile in pve? Well if I happen to know two players are of equal playing skill and one is a necro the other a thief I’ll take the thief over the necro-it’s not worthless, but a long way from being impactful imo.

So it’s a Guardian VS Thief comparison now? On top of that you are just comparing their ability to stack defensive buffs? I’m not saying thief is overall better than a guardian in terms of party support that’d be a lie. Guardians are the #1 demanded class on high level fractals for a reason (Although not for the reasons you stated, most people just want their SoA, WoR, Aegis). I brought up Guardian to show thieves how to work in sync with them, not to compare them…

Pretty sure stacking + blinding is not an exploit…and you’re comparing AoE blind once every 10 seconds/5 seconds versus PBAOE blind every 1 second ticked indefinitely with no cooldown? If players learn how to LoS pull mobs or have Mesmer/Guardian pull them with focus/gs, it’s pretty easy to stack. I admit though, Guardians can be almost just as effective with blinding if traited 15 in precision line and spam VoJ.

My belief is that, PVE at endgame level (Fractal 48~50), is all about dps and mitigation via dodges and utility skills. That’s why a lot of high lvl fractal speeds are all zerk spec. That’s also why Guardians are favored because they have Aegis which totally saves people’s butts when they botch a dodge here and there. They also have wall of reflection and shield of avengers which makes certain projectile heavy fractals/bosses very easy. In my opinion you only need 1 Guardian for all that. Thief is also viable because of stealth to save people 10mins on their run and they have their own anti projectile wall on a shorter cooldown than WoR.

Since PVE is what it is, any composition can work at efficient level. My primary party consists of War / Necro / Guard / 2x Thieves which technically leaning on the side of subpar. We’re also mostly GCs that die to 1 hit pretty much especially the thieves with our 11k HP. Our clear time for FoTM 48 is around 80mins which is on par (a lot shorter if we get short fractals like water, uncategorized, etc). I pug too sometimes and i notice FoTM 48 has some of the best pugs. Cuz its mostly people confident in their skills that pug FoTM48s….and regardless of their class they bring good to the team.

Btw, OP did mention PvP in one of his posts which I quoted, and I threw my pvp comment just to help out.

TL,DR Play more, dig deeper.