Guild Wars 2

I have heard so many people talking about recent nerf. Do you think i should play thief in PvE? I usually play share venoms and all deception skills but i don’t think that will be useful in PvE.

What do you guys think? I don’t know the thief situation that much so what did thief got nerf other than Opportunist? I found this class interesting (PvE) after the 10dec announcement.

PS I main Black with white hair Charr Mesmer.

No, play warrior or guardian instead.

Excalibur.9748:

No, play warrior or guardian instead.

I currently play Warrior too (he is just lv 49) but I don’t know why but i usually down faster than mesmer a lot and sometimes number 3 down skill got a bug :‘(. For some reasons for me warrior is really hard to play for me. (maybe i feel all melee weapons in this game are hard to play?)
I still want to know about this from other people. If you wish please reply this thread. I still want to hear other people opinion. (But maybe include some reasons like why should i play warrior instead of thief and etc. Or maybe something like thief is good because…..)
And i found guardian kinda too slow so i decide to put it away from me. But man. I wish he/she can move faster or maybe enhance scepter attack. :’(

I just started playing guild wars about 4 days ago and I currently have about a level 13 thief because i thought it looked very versatile throughout the game. Did I make a bad choice?

tthaltra.8657:

I just started playing guild wars about 4 days ago and I currently have about a level 13 thief because i thought it looked very versatile throughout the game. Did I make a bad choice?

They do well in open world, shortbow is also one of the best AoEs available.
But thieves are also very fragile and have crappy heals.
Blind is only 10% effective against bosses, stealth doesnt negate any dmg and thieves have no innate dodge mechanic.
Stealth is also a mostly in combat thing, without using exploits our longest stealth only lasts for about 15 seconds, untraited.

But thieves can perform well in most content but it seems to be very build specific.

tthaltra.8657:

I just started playing guild wars about 4 days ago and I currently have about a level 13 thief because i thought it looked very versatile throughout the game. Did I make a bad choice?

No. People are just being drama queens. I main a thief and it’s been my favourite profession since launch.

Thanks guys. I met a couple people in game who thought i made a bad choice, its good to hear the other side of things

Thief is fun, albeit weak, profession for open world combat. The thief fundamental problems aren’t that apparent in an open world player-versus-environment, as the environment is not competitive and there is no player relying on you for their own content clearing. Once you start doing group runs in dungeons, the limitations in terms of damage and defense start becoming apparent. To put it bluntly, relying on a Thief (or Ranger) in a group setting is just a bad influence for your team. Everything the Thief/Ranger do, other profession do much better. Don’t be surprised if you get kicked out of a team solely for the choice of your profession. That said, a thief is the most fun as a roamer/skirmisher in WvW but also does not have a good place in zerg-vs-zerg.

Honestly I main a thief, have played over 800h only on him since launch and have NEVER been kicked from a group (ofc I don’t join groups that are looking for warriors or guardians specifically). The pve meta has mostly moved away from the heavy only party with the occasional mesmer. That being said there are some things I would like to note from experience mostly for pve since this thread is about it.
- currently the dungeon meta is about LOSing mobs (line of sight) so they stack and your party can AoE dmg or cleave them down. This is a bit problematic as a thief since we are a class that relies on mobility to stay alive. To counter this I tend to use our available blinds (pistol 5 or smoke field), s/p 3 skill for the high cleave dmg and evade frames and use valkyrie armor (power/vitality/crit dmg) instead of berserker while keeping everything else berserker. Full berserker is also fine(even preffered) I’m just not confortable using it in PUGs.
- stealth is stupidly powerful/useful in pve and dungeons. Skipping mobs, running away, waiting for cds, ressing a downed ally, getting skill points guarded by veterans without using inventory items. I’ve used it numerous times when someone is having trouble skipping the trash in TA for example to help them out or in AC p1 or p3 just before the last boss, or in CM .. you get it.
- Arguably the highest potential single target dps with backstab for taking out bosses with large health pools.
- spammable blast finisher for might stacking on fire fields with the shortbow 2.
I won’t list everything or this post will become too long, but in short you’ll never be a liability to your group for JUST BEING a thief. On the contrary you can be great asset even if POTENTIALLY other classes can “do what the thief does but better”.
P.S. Since open world was also mentioned I don’t see how any class can have a hard time there so you can’t go wrong with w/e choice just take their playstyles into consideration and all will be well.

Thief is the most fun class in PvE IMO. I have over 2000 hours logged on my thief and it’s still my favorite class. (I have a few other 80s, but none compare to the joy playing my thief brings.)

If any new thieves have questions or concerns on playing a thief in PvE send me a PM and I’ll lay some of dis juicy thief knowledge down upon your neurons.

pretty much what above said, personally i do fotm38 with only 30 ar on my thief np.

also i’ve even been asked to switch to my thief from my warrior once to pull bosses and stealth skip on asura map.

IMHO having a pocket thief in your gallery of toons is just a smart decision. That being said you will have to wait till end game to figure out what class you really like and that will be all on you. Play style personally when running dungeons I generally run guardian for the obvious reason but each and every class has it’s place in PvE as all classes do damage. So there is no reason to think you can not run XYZ because the community says so.

Best advice I could give you is run whatever you like in open world. In dungeons know the run and stick to power builds if you can.

Thief just has huge risk vs huge reward. You want to play it as powerful (fragile) as possible. It’s a class that revolves around knowing your encounters more so than knowing the skills available. And Signet of Malice is one of the best heals in the game, considering the class it’s on.

I started off as Thief as my main. My main is now either Guard or Engineer. Mainly because I loved the class so much but it seems almost every major update Thief gets nerfed and it just made me sad. The class is still effective but just be ready for nerfs at any given time.

Playstyle is fun and damage is quite good if built right. If you play a thief and get good at it you’ll be able to survive any dungeon with any other class with ease. Roll Thief to become a good player, then roll Guard to sit back and enjoy the ride.

GL
Blood~

Short answer : No.

Long answer : No. You are squishy and melt to conditions.
You must team with a guardian.

Playing as a thief trying to avoid death all the time improved my guardian and necro survivability, so yes.

I started a thief from lvl 0 and I will admit that I died ALOT until i hit about lvl 20… not because the class is bad but because i didnt know that I could use blind, death blossom shortbow and other mechanics that make PVE a peace of cake.

Honestly i have rolled all classes and just keep going back to my thief because its so much more fun. Go for it if you like the class.

Hey sorry i reply late. I have some…forum login problem. :P
Thanks for advice everyone. I will try to play a bit and see if it’s really fit for risk and reward gameplay or not.

people should stop talking out of their kitten, thief is strong in PVE. excellent dps (second only to ele), tricks with stealth, lots of blast finisher spam, all of which give thief a definite place in the dungeon meta.

they are usable in both speedruns and casual runs, and they can make almost all trash skips (e.g. arah) trivial for the whole party.

play your thief in PVE.

Thief is harder to play in instances PvE than other classes (dungeons and fractals) however it can be extremely rewarding. The problem is all the bad thieves out there….

However I have been playing thief since beta and have never been kicked for being a thief. I also have gotten several compliments for saving the group time and effort. “See this is why I like thief” “wow a good thief is actually awesome” etc.

I am by no means the only one, but making the point that when you know what to do where, and play well, it is probably the most rewarding class out there. Do your research, not as much on builds as on encounters. Learn the tricks.

Feel free to whisper me in game. Not the guide writing kind of person. Or just research, all the information is out there, nothing I do is secret.

Open world…who cares, any class is fine. When you are zerging easy content it doesn’t matter.

I’ve recently bought a full set of zerk arah armor for my thief, and have been spending a lot of time there. It’s certainly the easiest class to skip all the content with, and you really make pug runs a lot safer/easier when you can stealth people. It’s a much harder melee lupi fight (assuming 25/30/x/x/x and not running soldier’s everywhere, etc.) because you have to be flawless, where guardians and warriors have tricks to take multiple kicks, etc.

Compared to a warrior, you have to be a better player making less mistakes to do the same DPS, whilst having ~half of their HP. This means that mistakes by your teammates will punish you harder, so get used to dealing with that. Still, a rewarding class!

Certain dugeon Mechanics makes thieves a bit harder to play than lets say warrior. I recently started using my thief for dungeons instead of my warriors. Full serker, 25/30/15/0/0. It’s not dodge timing or stealth to buy you time or trash runs that is hard, but it’s boss fights that hit you often that does you in. What I would normally shrug off is huge damage to my thief, but those dungeon paths are far and few between.

WvW wish they are fun in their own way, you’ll be supporting your group most by not being with them and scouting/raiding supplies. You are one of the most mobile and highest spike DPSers out there but again very fragile so being in a zerg is your weakness, as stray AoE’s can wreck you.