Guild Wars 2

There are things i just don’t get if i’m honest (relatively newish player)…

- Our backstab hits less on a crit than most warrior skills (e.g. eviscerate or greatsword 5 think it is called rush). Hitting in pvp between 4k – 5.6k with no might.
- To access stealth without using a utility we have to combo blind powder with heartseeker using all our initiative for 8sec of stealth if can get off all 4 but usually only get 3 to avoid breaking stealth by hitting someone and sometimes only 2 if someone stands in the powder. So we burst all this initiative just to get in stealth leaving us no ability to follow up with other skills unless we stay exposed which sucks since we get bursted by pretty much every other class.
- Our shadow shot is good gap closer but it is more efficient to gap close with heartseeker, damage isn’t bad and blind is nice but initiative feels too high.
- Pistol 4 feels crap being it a skill with no damage at all and only giving a 1/4sec daze while costing 4 initiative.

I just think it sucks kitten that we have to use all our initiative to gain access to stealth for usually 6s (in combat) when a mesmer can just press one button with focus 4… And yes it sucks that the trickery line gives initiative and makes it vital to be in every build, so that we can only play around with 2 other lines.

I understand Anet are pushing us towards evades rather than stealth but seriously in the current state acrobatics is so unreliable and daredevil seems like it will be essential for most builds along with trickery and the final line we will be able to swap around but chances are that it will likely be like deadly arts…

I find d/p to be the most effective for thief but it is certainly not on par with other class meta builds, and sadly i doubt we will get a buff until after HoT since buffing thief now may screw up daredevil.

Anyway maybe i’m wrong but let me know if you agree and I understand this is the typical thief rant but kitten it want to get it out of the system lol.

Evades are silly and countered by guardians lines and circles without stab just wait if those ever make a re-appearance.

If you look straight down with your camera you can get Heartseekers off in your powders faster/easier.

pistol 4 is for perplexity hybrid/condi daredevils in the future spamming headshot for 3 stacks of torment and 2k pulmonary pokes+perplexity proc

Accessing stealth doesn’t even matter with engineer lock-on and every Revenant and their mother will run glint. Couple that with reveal traps in wvw and it just gets pathetic.

Even if you love thief most people hate/despise them for legitimately no good reason. If i were new today without experiencing how thief was 3 years back, I would re-roll immediately to mesmer,ele, or revenant save myself the waste of time/effort/heartache.

Thief never gets any love and if it does its taken away and repackaged as “an elite spec”

The problem is not thief but almost every other class making thief feels so useless right now.

1) Yes and? Eviscerate is a powerful skill, but super easy to avoid. That doesn’t make our Backstab bad. Not that many skill does a 2.4 dmg Coefficient.

2) Again and? I almost never use 3-4 HS in a black powder. I usually only use one on the target, then backstab (the stealth come after the damage from HS). With Hidden Killer you should have all the stealth you need. 3-4 HS in a blinding field is one of your tool, use in at the right time (which should be rarely).

3) HS Heroes think like that and they are view as noobs (sorry). HS is half the distance than Shadow Shot. SS have better damage when the target is higher than 50% HP, it’s slight lower when the target is between 25-50% HP, but the blind is powerful with the right timing. You should only use HS as a gap closer when you have a Black Power or when the guy is at very low HP. Don’t spam SS. If you use is right, in combination with other gap closer, you should never run out of initiative. This will come with experience.

4) The Pistol 4 is probably the hardest skill to use at full potentiel. It’s not a powerful daze, but it’s a quick one. One of the faster daze in the game. This allow you to disable a lot of skills, mostly healing skill. It’s also powerful to confuse someone when they try to escape for example. Finally, it’s powerful against foes that are trying to rez. You can go through stability or just keep interrupting something with no stab. At higher level, rezzing and stomping is very important are hard to do.

Each skill have a specific use, learn when and how to use them efficiently. Yes our damage wasn’t buff as much as other profession in the core specialisation update, but keep that in mind. Most team in tournament use one thief. It’s not because of nostalgia.

Thaddeus.4891:

1) Yes and? Eviscerate is a powerful skill, but super easy to avoid. That doesn’t make our Backstab bad. Not that many skill does a 2.4 dmg Coefficient.

2) Again and? I almost never use 3-4 HS in a black powder. I usually only use one on the target, then backstab (the stealth come after the damage from HS). With Hidden Killer you should have all the stealth you need. 3-4 HS in a blinding field is one of your tool, use in at the right time (which should be rarely).

3) HS Heroes think like that and they are view as noobs (sorry). HS is half the distance than Shadow Shot. SS have better damage when the target is higher than 50% HP, it’s slight lower when the target is between 25-50% HP, but the blind is powerful with the right timing. You should only use HS as a gap closer when you have a Black Power or when the guy is at very low HP. Don’t spam SS. If you use is right, in combination with other gap closer, you should never run out of initiative. This will come with experience.

4) The Pistol 4 is probably the hardest skill to use at full potentiel. It’s not a powerful daze, but it’s a quick one. One of the faster daze in the game. This allow you to disable a lot of skills, mostly healing skill. It’s also powerful to confuse someone when they try to escape for example. Finally, it’s powerful against foes that are trying to rez. You can go through stability or just keep interrupting something with no stab. At higher level, rezzing and stomping is very important are hard to do.

Each skill have a specific use, learn when and how to use them efficiently. Yes our damage wasn’t buff as much as other profession in the core specialisation update, but keep that in mind. Most team in tournament use one thief. It’s not because of nostalgia.

Pretty much this. And Shadow Shot’s initiative too high? Wut? I think most classes would kill for a spammable 900 range unblockable blinding teleport with a high damage coefficient. I would argue SS is the single most powerful ability the thief has on any of its weapons, even moreso than Sb5.

While Thief is currently underwhelming in general, D/P is a great weaponset.
You can completely shut down slow hitters such as warrior hammer with the blind, you can deny healing, stomping, rezzing, you can even interrupt enemy thieves’ heartseekers.
You can use them both offensively and defensively to great effect. Instead of using a dodge, use a blind or just interrupt that thing that’s coming to kill you.

The trick is in using your #3 and #4 in a clever way instead of mindlessly spamming them to no avail.

You can also use #3 to duke highly experienced opponents as you can cancel the part where you hit the target. So, say you’re in stealth and want to set up a quick backstab but can’t get around to their flanks, use #3 while stealthed and hit your ‘Stow Weapon’ key while the bullet’s in flight.
Your opponent gets blinded, but you will have cancelled the actual physical hit, thereby not breaking stealth. You close the gap, get in a better position and probably make an experienced opponent waste a dodge. Just hit that backstab after the dodge.

Long story short, D/P allows you to get creative.

D/P is not “good” by a longshot compared to other profession’s weapon skill set — however it’s the only one that works, not because it’s good, but everything else are bad, including the new weapon (staff) at its current state.

The problem facing a decent D/P is that killing them becomes a near exercise in futility for the average player. They can completely control a fight or leave and the skill required to do this is/was minimal. For years they have been one of the most infuriating builds to fight against right next to Shatter builds. Unfortunately ANet decided to basically leave them alone and gut pretty much every other weaponset for a thief.

D/P is truly good. I used to watch D/P players in awe before the patch. Now that we have all been forced into, they turned into an-easy-to-read builds.

That’s the real problem behind D/P is that now everybody is running it, and now everybody is used to it, making is very easy to counter.

But for it’s purpose and resourcefulness, D/P by far the best thing that happened to the Thief.

A good D/P thief is satan for a Necromancer. They can blind all of the must-land skills, and they always interrupt the heal. D/P is probably the best thief has to offer in wvw.

I feel like you are focusing too much on getting into stealth.

To be honest, the kingpin of why I, (and I’m sure many others) play d/p is your #3 ability.

I run Shadow tree, letting me stealth on steal which is usually how I initiate…..does it waste the 1 second interrupt….yes….but it gets me behind them, insta stealths me, and gives me Fury/speed/Might….it’s basically a free backstab to open.

Running the crit tree makes it 100% chance that that opening strike is going to crit, meaning you’ve started the fight in the blink of an eye hitting for 9-10k on squish builds like yourself, and 4-6 on tankier builds. Even the tankier builds this is instantly ripping down 30% of their health. And the squishy builds like yourself are basically losing 75-90% of their health instantly.

Now, against a tankier build they might stand and fight:

1. Make sure you let your 3 auto attacks run their course to get your poison on them. This will help kill their heal and d/p auto hits pretty darn hard.
2. If they stand and fight, throw down #5 and follow it up instantly with a 3, this will usually block their 1st 2 attacks, if they are say, a hammer war, it will block their first 3. 3. Follow 5 and 3 with a 2, this will stealth you, and set you up for another stealth attack.
4. At this point I’ve typically downed anyone who stands and fights minus the tankiest of guards…which you shouldn’t be fighting anyway. It’s not your classes job to handle them.

The squishies will bolt….and even some of the less experienced tanks >.>

1. Youve likely just chunked their health to the point where they have 20-30% left. They are going to bolt. If they don’t….a quick auto attack rotation should down them.
2. When they bolt, use your #3 to stick to them. If they control you and bolt, use Infiltrators signet.
3. Run your auto rotation and you should down them fairly quickly.

After either of these scenarios, throw down shadow’s refuge for an easy finisher.

Final utility is Shadowstep for those who were curious…another gap closer, although I use it almost exclusively for escaping since d/p with infiltrators signet has all the gap closing you could need. If you really feel like things are going badly, attempt to shadowstep away, stealth up with shadows and reset.

This is running full ascended zerkers in WvW, and Full zerkers in SPvP

The key to d/p is to be huge burst and most importantly to GIVE NO QUARTER. The build revolves around giving them no chance to breathe, no room between you and them, and sticking to them until either they’re dead, or you are. It’s an all or nothing build.

That being said, many people don’t like this play style. If you like being tankier and outlasting your opponent, maybe d/p condi is better for you.

Hope this helped.

P.S: Know your classes role. Your role is to get behind their front line with steal and kill their squshies/range like Rangers, Mesmers, Ele’s, Necro’s (Sorta lol)and other thieves. I still go after Warrior’s and Engi’s and down them all day but I’ve been playing for a while. If you are going after guards, unless you’ve been watching them and they are squish guards (Do those exist?) You are going outside of your classes role. Guards are built to counter us. They can usually withstand your burst and hammer out protections long enough to turn on you. Remember what I said, this build is all or nothing, if you cant kill them, they will kill you FAST! I’ll usually avoid guards unless there’s no one else to fight, but to be completely honest it usually ends with me shadow stepping away and stealthing off. Play to your strengths and know your weakness. Most important tip I can give you.

Intersting how i find skills that you complain most of, the best d/p has to offer,namely

1. ,is best gap closer thief hase and is one of reasosns why i dont run s/p
   This skill is my mesmer killer and ranger killer and anything that runs squishy build.

1. is amazing in interupting crucial heal or resurection.

1. and HS combo is good for repositioning cause i mostly swap to sb after this and reset fight .

Its a bit sad that d/p is only option right now

doesnt seem like its as good as Mesmers are right now. theyre doing our job for us.

wolfgang.3471:

There are things i just don’t get if i’m honest (relatively newish player)…

- Our backstab hits less on a crit than most warrior skills (e.g. eviscerate or greatsword 5 think it is called rush). Hitting in pvp between 4k – 5.6k with no might.
- To access stealth without using a utility we have to combo blind powder with heartseeker using all our initiative for 8sec of stealth if can get off all 4 but usually only get 3 to avoid breaking stealth by hitting someone and sometimes only 2 if someone stands in the powder. So we burst all this initiative just to get in stealth leaving us no ability to follow up with other skills unless we stay exposed which sucks since we get bursted by pretty much every other class.
- Our shadow shot is good gap closer but it is more efficient to gap close with heartseeker, damage isn’t bad and blind is nice but initiative feels too high.
- Pistol 4 feels crap being it a skill with no damage at all and only giving a 1/4sec daze while costing 4 initiative.

1. Shadow shot has twice the range of HS for only one higher init cost and (unless your target is below 25%) higher damage and unblockable blindness. It is extremely efficient. Oh, and shadow shot doesn’t have the animation delay that HS does, so it’s faster activating as well. Shadow shot is far, far more efficient unless you’re finishing someone off.

2. Warriors don’t hit that high unless they’re rampaging or swinging drunkenly in hundred blades. Plus, berserker geared warriors are easy to burst down once their invuln expires.

3. That daze is an interrupt. A spammable interrupt. See a warrior catching your friend in hundred blades? Ranger trying to spike you/your ally with rapid fire? Opposing player stomping or rezzing? You can prevent any of those things, at any point, cooldowns be kitten ed, as long as you have initiative. Used wisely, this skill is amazing.

I just think it sucks kitten that we have to use all our initiative to gain access to stealth for usually 6s (in combat) when a mesmer can just press one button with focus 4… And yes it sucks that the trickery line gives initiative and makes it vital to be in every build, so that we can only play around with 2 other lines.

I understand Anet are pushing us towards evades rather than stealth but seriously in the current state acrobatics is so unreliable and daredevil seems like it will be essential for most builds along with trickery and the final line we will be able to swap around but chances are that it will likely be like deadly arts…

I find d/p to be the most effective for thief but it is certainly not on par with other class meta builds, and sadly i doubt we will get a buff until after HoT since buffing thief now may screw up daredevil.

Anyway maybe i’m wrong but let me know if you agree and I understand this is the typical thief rant but kitten it want to get it out of the system lol.

You don’t want/need to get all of the stealth from the BP/HS combo that your initiative can supply. All you need is enough to get behind your target, or LoS an attacker. If you need a longer duration, well, that’s what shadow refuge is for (it is on your skill bar, right?).

At this point, thieves are just a little bit weak because of the number of high-sustain, fairly tanky bruisers running around, chief among these the cele ele. Bunkers can be avoided or kited, but when a high-mobility bruiser lays down AoEs across an entire point and spews out 20k burning damage plus a burst within 5-10 seconds, things can get ugly. That isn’t to say that they’re impossible to beat, but wasting the time to try can put your team at a disadvantage. Plus, it leaves you vulnerable to being +1ed by their thief, and that will kill you.

Edit: Also conditions. Fire bad.

It’s probably the best option for thief pvp, but that’s not saying much.

It’s really good for leveling and map completion, better than pretty much any other class, I guess that’s something.