Guild Wars 2

so I spent a little time on the first boss of the new raid, and I could help but wonder…

what is thief’s place here?

there are a few obvious necessary jobs:

Tank – 100% not Thief. Warrior probably, maybe Guardian or Revenant.
Healer – I’m not even gonna pretend Thief has any relevance here
General DPS – probably the closest role to Thief, but other classes can do this just as well while filling other roles (or just not being as squishy)

for the individual bosses and minibosses, I found that the required mechanics were all things Thief is poor at too.

Blue dude: boon striping – true, we have some of this, but much like the DPS above, you’ll find necro and mesmer do it better while having other benefits.

Red dude: Condition damage only – Thief has one of the worst condition builds in game right now. even without burn, we can’t match ranger for bleeds. heck, can’t even match ranger bleeds with our bleeds, poisons and torments thrown together.

Green dude: general DPS – see above.

Seekers – these things do a lot of damage, but are susceptible to CC. generally, you’ll want knockback, as that moves them away from the party, while dazes, stuns and immobilises will only delay them slightly. however, thief doesn’t have knockbacks.

so far, the only thing I’ve found I excel at is getting to the green circles – and even then, I’m only slightly faster than any other class. as is, I’m finding it hard to contribute in any meaningful way as a thief, and have already been kicked from a few squads on this basis.

so, do you guys think thief have a place in raids? am I missing something, or are we just falling behind again?

I am really disappointed becuae I was expecting some sort of balance change for our class on today’s patch. I have decided to take a break until they fix our class.

nah the only things they are going to fix for thieves are things that will nerf thieves. Next thing you know this will be on the patch notes:

The thief was accidentally given an extra dodge bar, it’s has now been removed.

It’s role is warming the bench on the side lines.

Zero Day.2594:

It’s role is warming the bench on the side lines.

but we don’t have enough burning for that…

Gray.9041:

Zero Day.2594:

It’s role is warming the bench on the side lines.

but we don’t have enough burning for that…

I guess it’s just saving a seat on the bench then, for some other class to come and take the seat. :\

Yeah, we don’t really do anything a revenant can’t do 10 times better for raiding.

I tried to join a raid group as a theif and they said
“Theif sucks not allowed.”
We really don’t bring much to groups….

I kind of hope, though, that in this fest of crying a river, no one is surprised of this (what’s happening).

I really love my Thief but I’m having some massive mental turmoil between just switching to Revenant forever. Not hyped about Nevermore anymore cuz Staff isn’t holding up as well as I had hoped, just like the rest of the class and didn’t really want it on Rev.

I found myself kicking any thief who joined the squad since they contribute nothing special or meaningful when compared to the other classes

IMHO I guess its a gg for this class in raids

I’ll have you know that we’ve done the raid at 10 with 4 thieves, and manage to go to the last boss. Then wipe in chain at his feet.

Among the 4 thieves, only 1 guildy and I ran with a condi build like this one http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVn8MBdmitNBGNB0PhlWCzrM0GSRzlwV4LULA0FWAA-TxSAQBU4IAUItAG4BAEQdBMc/Brp+DAOBATSJ4YU61tDBQIVGAA-e
The 2 others were pugs.

Thieves were very welcome at the blue boss for boon stripping on 20sec CD.

Thieves are not needed in raids, but can manage to perform well. Even if other classes can fill the same role, with better sustain, support and all, does not mean we are excluded from it.

This is pretty much what I’ve been thinking since they announced raids. What can the thief do that another class cannot do better? Unless stealth is sorely needed in one or more encounters (doubtful), any other profession can replace a thief and do a better job. I’m not regretting I changed my main from thief to rev.

Also relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO23WBji_Z0

Nemaides.6873:

I’ll have you know that we’ve done the raid at 10 with 4 thieves, and manage to go to the last boss. Then wipe in chain at his feet.

Among the 4 thieves, only 1 guildy and I ran with a condi build like this one http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVn8MBdmitNBGNB0PhlWCzrM0GSRzlwV4LULA0FWAA-TxSAQBU4IAUItAG4BAEQdBMc/Brp+DAOBATSJ4YU61tDBQIVGAA-e
The 2 others were pugs.

Thieves were very welcome at the blue boss for boon stripping on 20sec CD.

Thieves are not needed in raids, but can manage to perform well. Even if other classes can fill the same role, with better sustain, support and all, does not mean we are excluded from it.

Any argument on boon stripping is kinda irrelevant when every raid will want a chrono ( because alacrity being unique to one class was such a good design ) which has passive boon strip on auto attack.

Oslaf Beinir.5842:

I found myself kicking any thief who joined the squad since they contribute nothing special or meaningful when compared to the other classes

IMHO I guess its a gg for this class in raids

you kitten please go play other game

Why? Because he’s telling the truth? I tried raids too, while I main thief, I went with my Warrior to see if thief can fulfill a role.

Didn’t see any, unless you mean boonstripping.
Running sigil of nullification would be easier.
My guildmate went thief, he’s pretty skilled but he was dying alot and contributing nearly nothing, so I was glad I went with my Warrior.

Killed VG just fine using Staff Daredevil in a DPS slot, huge damage and CC from Physicals. Close to killing Gorseval right now with Venomshare – easy 15k+ DPS with Alacrity from our Chronomancer and nice CC from Basi.

well i actually try DD as the tank!! and it works really well i keep the vale guard in 1 zone.. without taking any damage and do a lot of damage with condi, and sharing condi’s to the team.

This is pretty sad, and we saw it coming. Thief might do decent damage but seeing as everything we can do, another class can do better, all in all there’s no justifiable reason to pick a thief over a (insert class name here) other than ‘’I like playing thief mmkay?’’.

Need an Anet post for reassurance and to stop the Thief Kick plague from spreading. ;o

I haven’t even tried to get into a raid. I know I’ll simply be kicked once they see the boot with wings appear. Sad, really. When it comes to PVE I like it hard so I wanted to try raids.

I remember the engineer was often called “jack of all trades, master of none”

In the current state i’d call the thief “jack of some trades, master of none”

The thief being equivalent to a rogue / assassin class, i was allways hoping that it would get tools to increase the damage of the group done with crits somehow.

But it was given to the ranger and revenant.

In its current state the thief is a medicore dps class without any good support that would make him valueable for a group.

Auesis.7301:

Killed VG just fine using Staff Daredevil in a DPS slot, huge damage and CC from Physicals. Close to killing Gorseval right now with Venomshare – easy 15k+ DPS with Alacrity from our Chronomancer and nice CC from Basi.

Seems like you forgot everyone else can dps a lot better than the current state of thief with even better survivability. This won’t change until anet does anything which is most unlikely. Just because you did it doesn’t mean it’s the most optimal option because if you killed the boss, that’s because the rest of the group consisted of the better classes supporting all roles and keeping personal dps

Simplest raid fix ever for thieves:

Add a unique stolen item to the bosses that grants some kinda raid wide buff.

It’s not even that hard arenanet. The stolen item system is almost tailor made to give thieves different tools in different encounters.

PopeUrban.2578:

Simplest raid fix ever for thieves:

Add a unique stolen item to the bosses that grants some kinda raid wide buff.

It’s not even that hard arenanet. The stolen item system is almost tailor made to give thieves different tools in different encounters.

i rly like that idea

PopeUrban.2578:

Simplest raid fix ever for thieves:

Add a unique stolen item to the bosses that grants some kinda raid wide buff.

It’s not even that hard arenanet. The stolen item system is almost tailor made to give thieves different tools in different encounters.

Although I’d hate be the guy who mess up my Steal for everyone that’s a really good idea that makes sense.

PopeUrban.2578:

Simplest raid fix ever for thieves:

Add a unique stolen item to the bosses that grants some kinda raid wide buff.

It’s not even that hard arenanet. The stolen item system is almost tailor made to give thieves different tools in different encounters.

I took these boots from a guy (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Goodbye-Anet/first#post5774831)

You can have them, you deserve them.

Next tuesday in patch notes:

Thief: we felt thieves needed a little something to help their party progress through raids and decided to include a new stolen item to all raid bosses.

“The towel”
Activate this stolen item at any time during the encounter to immediately remove yourself from your squad, and be teleported back to the raid entrance, effectively throwing in the towel.

Have to see thief performance for myself (I don’t expect much though), but in general raids will be a good (or, if i were Anet probably stressful) way of showing any actual shortcomings in class design. Or the revenant opposite while we’re at it.

So in a way raiding might like putting a finger in our fleshwound. It’ll hurt at first, we’ll scream and yell, but eventually Dr. Anet will come to stitch us up. – Or stitch our mouth shut xD

I main a thief, to be included in a raid I’ve had to switch to warrior to be actually useful… I hate playing warrior.

Sandrox.9524:

Oslaf Beinir.5842:

I found myself kicking any thief who joined the squad since they contribute nothing special or meaningful when compared to the other classes

IMHO I guess its a gg for this class in raids

you kitten please go play other game

Odds of success are higher :/

Reality is, the meta group probably wont have thief. However this doesn’t stop pugs that don’t care too much for the meta to include a thief…

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3tcwav/killed_vale_gaurdian_as_a_pug_may_be_helpful/

actually down a boss as a pug with a thief.

The guy was using venom share, for those that don’t want to click/copy-pasta the link.

Thing is, a spot in a raid for a thief will depend on how toxic the community becomes with adhering to the meta. And through my experience on the interwebz and games… yeah, it will obviously be leaning towards being elitist kitten bags.

Best bet at surviving as a thief and getting into a raid, is to find a nice cozy guild that will tolerate (and get used to) you using a thief in a raid… If you can’t do that, re-roll to w/e is considered meta and you will be able to find a spot.

:D And always remember, people are kittening idiots for the most part. Once a meta becomes popular enough, a good chunk of the population will blindly follow it. Make use of them to get into raids ;D.

:/ And unfortunately, due to things, I have yet to have log on to try the raids… Still trying to follow them as much as I can to see if they’re rewarding… THAT’S the most worrying part, at least to me.

Snow.2506:

I haven’t even tried to get into a raid. I know I’ll simply be kicked once they see the boot with wings appear. Sad, really. When it comes to PVE I like it hard so I wanted to try raids.

I was not kicked at all and well liked in the Condi Slots. 4k – 12k Poison Ticks together with something around 5k Torment Ticks.

PopeUrban.2578:

Simplest raid fix ever for thieves:

Add a unique stolen item to the bosses that grants some kinda raid wide buff.

It’s not even that hard arenanet. The stolen item system is almost tailor made to give thieves different tools in different encounters.

This is a great idea! I support this.

So, out of PvE too?
Maybe… just harder to masterate?

I m just hoping this.

Laosduude.1690:

Auesis.7301:

Killed VG just fine using Staff Daredevil in a DPS slot, huge damage and CC from Physicals. Close to killing Gorseval right now with Venomshare – easy 15k+ DPS with Alacrity from our Chronomancer and nice CC from Basi.

Seems like you forgot everyone else can dps a lot better than the current state of thief with even better survivability. This won’t change until anet does anything which is most unlikely. Just because you did it doesn’t mean it’s the most optimal option because if you killed the boss, that’s because the rest of the group consisted of the better classes supporting all roles and keeping personal dps

Better survivability than dodging everything? I was the only one in the group that never entered downed state and probably had the highest Scholar uptime. The AoE damage aura ticked for a pathetic amount that the Druid was healing up in less than a second. A proper Staff + FF rotation has pretty much the best damage in the game when it comes to burstiness, which is what matters against Gorseval since the encounter is constantly shifting. Same with Vale Guardian to a lesser extent. Good part about CCing for us is that we don’t lose DPS. A Revenant needs to move to Staff out of Sword, which is an enormous DPS loss, while Fist Flurry + Palm Strike is enough for 2x Weakening Charges worth of damage. That, plus the Gorseval fight permanently Reveals everyone, which allows Staff to have +200 Power at all times.

People that think Thief has bad survivability don’t know how to dodge, and with Daredevil, which is the top DPS anyway, there is no excuse. Evasion may not be sufficient with some other kind of undodgeable debuff in another fight, but the first 2 raid bosses have no such thing, and others will be responsible for healing you anyway.

Auesis.7301:

Laosduude.1690:

Auesis.7301:

Killed VG just fine using Staff Daredevil in a DPS slot, huge damage and CC from Physicals. Close to killing Gorseval right now with Venomshare – easy 15k+ DPS with Alacrity from our Chronomancer and nice CC from Basi.

Seems like you forgot everyone else can dps a lot better than the current state of thief with even better survivability. This won’t change until anet does anything which is most unlikely. Just because you did it doesn’t mean it’s the most optimal option because if you killed the boss, that’s because the rest of the group consisted of the better classes supporting all roles and keeping personal dps

Better survivability than dodging everything? I was the only one in the group that never entered downed state and probably had the highest Scholar uptime. The AoE damage aura ticked for a pathetic amount that the Druid was healing up in less than a second. A proper Staff + FF rotation has pretty much the best damage in the game when it comes to burstiness, which is what matters against Gorseval since the encounter is constantly shifting. Same with Vale Guardian to a lesser extent. Good part about CCing for us is that we don’t lose DPS. A Revenant needs to move to Staff out of Sword, which is an enormous DPS loss, while Fist Flurry + Palm Strike is enough for 2x Weakening Charges worth of damage. That, plus the Gorseval fight permanently Reveals everyone, which allows Staff to have +200 Power at all times.

People that think Thief has bad survivability don’t know how to dodge, and with Daredevil, which is the top DPS anyway, there is no excuse. Evasion may not be sufficient with some other kind of undodgeable debuff in another fight, but the first 2 raid bosses have no such thing, and others will be responsible for healing you anyway.

the difference is in passive tankiness. if a warrior messes up a block or an invuln, they’ll take some damage. a thief misses a dodge, you’re gonna take one hell of a hit. sure, others are responsible for healing, but that requires there to be something left to heal.

Nemaides.6873:

I’ll have you know that we’ve done the raid at 10 with 4 thieves, and manage to go to the last boss. Then wipe in chain at his feet.

Among the 4 thieves, only 1 guildy and I ran with a condi build like this one http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVn8MBdmitNBGNB0PhlWCzrM0GSRzlwV4LULA0FWAA-TxSAQBU4IAUItAG4BAEQdBMc/Brp+DAOBATSJ4YU61tDBQIVGAA-e
The 2 others were pugs.

Thieves were very welcome at the blue boss for boon stripping on 20sec CD.

Thieves are not needed in raids, but can manage to perform well. Even if other classes can fill the same role, with better sustain, support and all, does not mean we are excluded from it.

Thanks for sharing this and being one of the few productive posts in the thread, lol.

However, I’d question if this wouldn’t be a better variant for most situations:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVl8MhmmYbTwoJw/ELtEG3Q4IUEmHhrwXoWAoLsAA-TxSAQBRU9HKcEAwmSvCpFwAPAgAqLgh7PAgTAwkUC2tDBQIVGQKgFVWB-e

The main difference is SA instead of TR for venom share. Because of this Impairing Daggers was swapped for Skale Venom and elite was changed to Basilisk. Aside from additional DPS through shared venoms, you also get breakbar utility by popping a shared Basilisk.

Other changes were changing Weakening Strike to Havoc Mastery for 7% extra damage and slight adjustment of gear (although I have a feeling your gear was largely due to the high cost of viper’s armor and time required for Sinister trinkets rather than a min/max of an ideal situation).

I feel like anet wanted to make thief to be the DPS for raids. But their dps still isn’t top tier & hey have some of the worst utility for raids so far so yeah, no reason to want a thief.

Why Lotus Training? The damage is crap. You take it for the healing?
I just got out from a guild run of Vale guardian. We got close, but we started losing members because of disconnects.
I know what my damage as condi share was like, and my survability.
Then I saw a youtube video of a kill from the p.o.v. of a rev. With his auto attack (sword) he was hitting for 9-10k / swing… now w t f? that’s MILES away of what I could do.
:/

This table speaks for itself:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3tcti9/averaged_raid_composition_based_on_successful/

I did the math, and thief dps is about 20% below top tier dps while having less survivability and utility.

The druid should heal enough and the heal from venom share is very rarely needed.

The basilisk venom share helps with the breakbar which shouldnt be a problem for organized groups anyways, since it’s enough if everyone has just minor CC that gets used at the right moment.

supporting with invisibility just reduces the overall dps.

But my request is to nerf thief even more now!
Why?
because it’s still not obvious enough how bad the thief currently is.
In order to get buffs for the thief, first it has to get nerfed even harder.

Auesis.7301:

Laosduude.1690:

Auesis.7301:

Killed VG just fine using Staff Daredevil in a DPS slot, huge damage and CC from Physicals. Close to killing Gorseval right now with Venomshare – easy 15k+ DPS with Alacrity from our Chronomancer and nice CC from Basi.

Seems like you forgot everyone else can dps a lot better than the current state of thief with even better survivability. This won’t change until anet does anything which is most unlikely. Just because you did it doesn’t mean it’s the most optimal option because if you killed the boss, that’s because the rest of the group consisted of the better classes supporting all roles and keeping personal dps

Better survivability than dodging everything? I was the only one in the group that never entered downed state and probably had the highest Scholar uptime. The AoE damage aura ticked for a pathetic amount that the Druid was healing up in less than a second. A proper Staff + FF rotation has pretty much the best damage in the game when it comes to burstiness, which is what matters against Gorseval since the encounter is constantly shifting. Same with Vale Guardian to a lesser extent. Good part about CCing for us is that we don’t lose DPS. A Revenant needs to move to Staff out of Sword, which is an enormous DPS loss, while Fist Flurry + Palm Strike is enough for 2x Weakening Charges worth of damage. That, plus the Gorseval fight permanently Reveals everyone, which allows Staff to have +200 Power at all times.

People that think Thief has bad survivability don’t know how to dodge, and with Daredevil, which is the top DPS anyway, there is no excuse. Evasion may not be sufficient with some other kind of undodgeable debuff in another fight, but the first 2 raid bosses have no such thing, and others will be responsible for healing you anyway.

From what I have seen D/D and staff are pretty even. Especially with D/D giving you easy access to multiple conditions. All we can do is dodge better. Every other class just straight out DPSs us.

crouze.3078:

This table speaks for itself:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3tcti9/averaged_raid_composition_based_on_successful/

I did the math, and thief dps is about 20% below top tier dps while having less survivability and utility.

The druid should heal enough and the heal from venom share is very rarely needed.

The basilisk venom share helps with the breakbar which shouldnt be a problem for organized groups anyways, since it’s enough if everyone has just minor CC that gets used at the right moment.

supporting with invisibility just reduces the overall dps.

But my request is to nerf thief even more now!
Why?
because it’s still not obvious enough how bad the thief currently is.
In order to get buffs for the thief, first it has to get nerfed even harder.

Well, the table does show something else as well: 3 guilds downed the boss with a thief in the group and some of the most coveted professions for raid groups were event absent in some groups, such as engis, druids, and warriors.

In other words, Thief may not be the biggest boon to a group, but if you don’t down a boss, it’s not because you had a thief.

I see thief having the lowest present, only 3/14 groups had one and IMO for good reason.
Our low HP and lack of group support is not complemented by high DPS or any other utility.

I get the distinct feeling that this is a self-reinforcing problem. People think thieves are “bad” because no one takes them into raids, but no one takes them into raids because people already have the preconceived notion that they are bad.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I get the distinct feeling that this is a self-reinforcing problem. People think thieves are “bad” because no one takes them into raids, but no one takes them into raids because people already have the preconceived notion that they are bad.

Possibly, but I did try the raids. I did a few runs, and eventually quit because I didn’t feel like I was contributing.

compared to mesmer sword, my boonstrip on steal is negligable.

thief doesn’t have any knockbacks, so at best I was slightly delaying the seekers – even busting all my stuns and dazes doesn’t match a decent guardian banish.

If I wanted to completely stat-swap all my gear, I could’ve tried a condi build. but even then, the group would’ve been better off with a sinister engi, or even a condi ranger. and both would down less than me.

even DPS wise, I didn’t notice much on my end. I threw everything I had in often enough – but I never noticed my damage making a significant difference. not to mention, I kept having to break off to heal or evade, which dropped my dps quite a bit.

Stealth – even if thief was the best stealth class (which is arguable) – is completely non-existant. at no point will stealth be useful.

so yeah, people might be quitting before they give it a try. but from what I see, giving it a try might well be why people are quitting. it was for me.

So yeah..

Tried my first raid, spent like 3-4 hours wiping on the first boss…
(Actually enjoyed that, the group I was with was funny/friendly… )

At first I was a zerk reaper… Then I switched to condi thief, as part of the reshuffling…

So, Basilisk seems like a must. It rips through breakbars even if not shared. And venom sharing basilisk is probably the most useful thing as a thief. So yeah, condi-venom-share, will be the thief’s build if invited to a raid – that’s my gut’s feeling.

But yeah, you have to get invited first. And the way I did that was…. Got invited as a reaper first, then when people were swapping I offered to swap to thief too and they didnt deny… >.> So the old bait’n’switch tactic.

Considering it was a pug and the lack of damage meters, I have no realistic clue of where the thief stands in comparison to other classes. I would assume the place would be somewhere at rock bottom, but yeah.

Gray.9041:

Possibly, but I did try the raids. I did a few runs, and eventually quit because I didn’t feel like I was contributing.

compared to mesmer sword, my boonstrip on steal is negligable.

thief doesn’t have any knockbacks, so at best I was slightly delaying the seekers – even busting all my stuns and dazes doesn’t match a decent guardian banish.

I’m going to stop here for a moment. The thing about a lot of these complaints about thieves is that they are either unfounded, or sometimes don’t factor things in. Case in point, I don’t know what the seekers are, but as far as movement goes, thieves have a 1200 range pull on a 20 second cooldown via scorpion wire. If it is a matter of lowering break bars, thieves are actually really good at it. Far better than my guardian is. My thief is the only toon I have that can brute force a break bar without having to rely on stacking debuffs for long periods of time.

For comparison, banish is a 750 launch on a 25 second cooldown. The two aren’t completely comparable, as one is a weapons kill and the other eats up a utility, but if the seekers are enough of a problem that a hammer guard is some big important thing that is needed over Longbow or Greatsword, then scorpion wire would be worth a slot.

Gray.9041:

If I wanted to completely stat-swap all my gear, I could’ve tried a condi build. but even then, the group would’ve been better off with a sinister engi, or even a condi ranger. and both would down less than me.

I have a condi ranger, and on him I go down twice as often as I do when running condi daredevil. Here’s why: condi rangers have no defense. While I’m throwing down bonfires and traps, I have no protection. Condi thieves are all defense. Between Death Blossom and Lotus Training, I’m utterly invulnerable for at least half of the time. On the venomshare build I get 8k ticks of poison on top of all of my other condis. On the condi ranger, I don’t get as high of ticks, and I am wholly reliant on my opponent standing still inside of my fire fields (which they don’t. surprisingly often).

Last I checked, condi engineer numbers are completely inflated. They’re calculated using unrealistic animation times and rotations, and if I remember correctly, assume canceling every aftercast and completely stationary enemies.

Gray.9041:

even DPS wise, I didn’t notice much on my end. I threw everything I had in often enough – but I never noticed my damage making a significant difference. not to mention, I kept having to break off to heal or evade, which dropped my dps quite a bit.

Raid boss bars are massive. You can’t see your damage like with other enemies. With the daredevil grandmasters and various weapon skill evades, thief DPS doesn’t drop while evading. How much you have to heal is a culmination of how good your healer is, and how good you are at avoiding damage. Maybe you just aren’t that good at thief. After all, if you’re trying to max out your damage, you should be running DA/CS/DD, not trickery.

Gray.9041:

Stealth – even if thief was the best stealth class (which is arguable) – is completely non-existant. at no point will stealth be useful.

Well, rezzing, but I would still ague that thieves are one of the best stealth classes, because of how easy it is to use. Getting stealth on an engi requires blowing several cooldowns using damaging explosives in a smoke field, which is prone to failure. Sneak Gyro is cumbersome and eats up the elite slot. Mass Invisibility requires dropping time warp, which is never a good idea. Thief stealth is easy: you use shadow refuge and then you’ve got 15 seconds of stealth, 20 when traited. Shadow Refuge also only takes up a utility, which means that if there is some other need-to-have utility, you can still put it one one of the remaining slots.

Here’s the thing: every time I take an honest look at thief, I don’t come up with all of these deficiencies that everyone else has. I’m getting a highly evasive, high healing class with respectable offense and good versatility. On my personal standings, the only toon I have that is outpreforming the Daredevil is the Reaper. The complaints people keep lobbing on these forums are usually unsubstantiated, illogical, myopic, or flat out wrong. It is always the same names, bouncing from thread to thread proclaiming thief dead for 5 months now.

The only complaint here that I actually agree with is that our boon strip is unecessary whenever there’s a mesmer around. That happens to be true of every class not named mesmer.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I get the distinct feeling that this is a self-reinforcing problem. People think thieves are “bad” because no one takes them into raids, but no one takes them into raids because people already have the preconceived notion that they are bad.

I was at vale guardian for the past 3 days with my condi share thief.
The damage output compare to <insert anything> is crap.

edit: check youtube and see, if you don’t believe me. You will see dmg numbers pop up.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Case in point, I don’t know what the seekers are, but as far as movement goes, thieves have a 1200 range pull on a 20 second cooldown via scorpion wire. If it is a matter of lowering break bars, thieves are actually really good at it. Far better than my guardian is. My thief is the only toon I have that can brute force a break bar without having to rely on stacking debuffs for long periods of time.

seekers are relatively unkillable, high-damage adds. the only way to deal with them is to keep them away from the boss. the pull might work, but that means being away from the boss itself, which cuts damage. in this case knockbacks and launches are king.

as for breakbars, the seekers don’t have them. it’s all about moving them, so thief-style CC is far less useful. true, you could spam pistol 2 or 4 to keep them in place, but that’ll drain your initiative quickly and only pause the seeker’s progress, while a simple banish will put a single skill on cooldown and actually move the enemy back – far more efficient.

I know breakbars are the big new thing, but they’re not the only use for CC, and when it comes to putting distance between them, thieves are always the one that move. so when we need to keep two enemies apart, we end up woefully unequiped.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I have a condi ranger, and on him I go down twice as often as I do when running condi daredevil. Here’s why: condi rangers have no defense. While I’m throwing down bonfires and traps, I have no protection. Condi thieves are all defense. Between Death Blossom and Lotus Training, I’m utterly invulnerable for at least half of the time. On the venomshare build I get 8k ticks of poison on top of all of my other condis. On the condi ranger, I don’t get as high of ticks, and I am wholly reliant on my opponent standing still inside of my fire fields (which they don’t. surprisingly often).

well I also have a condi ranger, and I don’t get downed on it half as much. you’ve got pets to help tank, the sort of passive defense a thief can’t hope to approach, and a number of pretty good heals (one of which got an actual buff recently, not just a patch-note buff)

and while condi thief has a lot of evades, all that you need is to be out of initiative, out of stamina once, and you’re gonna get hit. and that hit will do a kitten sight more to a thief than a ranger.

top this off with the sort of condi stacking rangers have. I’ve been able to drop 30-40 bleed stacks quite easily on ranger, and I’m lucky to drop 30 stacks total as thief, across several conditions. add in that ranger has access to burning – which puts the damage in condition damage – and there’s no real compare.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Last I checked, condi engineer numbers are completely inflated. They’re calculated using unrealistic animation times and rotations, and if I remember correctly, assume canceling every aftercast and completely stationary enemies.

I haven’t spent much time on my engi, so I can’t be 100%, but if engi wasn’t top condi damage, we’d probably have heard something by now. engineers have been kings of condition damage for as long as I can remember. they came out of the july 23rd patch rolling, and there’s a reason there was a chrono/4 engi meta for high-end fractals following HoT. if any other class could compare, we’d have seen it by now.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Well, rezzing, but I would still ague that thieves are one of the best stealth classes, because of how easy it is to use. Getting stealth on an engi requires blowing several cooldowns using damaging explosives in a smoke field, which is prone to failure. Sneak Gyro is cumbersome and eats up the elite slot. Mass Invisibility requires dropping time warp, which is never a good idea. Thief stealth is easy: you use shadow refuge and then you’ve got 15 seconds of stealth, 20 when traited. Shadow Refuge also only takes up a utility, which means that if there is some other need-to-have utility, you can still put it one one of the remaining slots.

firstly, stealth ressing is a stupid answer here. we’re talking about instanced content, which means skritt tons of AoE. funnily enough, circles don’t care about stealth.

secondly, being downed is a significant drop in damage. most of the healing should be done on living party members, usually by the healer/support. sure, people are gonna get downed, but if you’re picking a class specifically for ressing, you’re doing something wrong.

thirdly, how useful the stealth is depends on the situation. shadow refuge requires the entire group stay in one place for 4-5 seconds. that’s not always gonna beat out gyro or mass invis. try SRing mid-cannon phase against mai trin, see which stealth’s more effective.

on top of this, engi and chronomancer bring a lot of useful things to a fight besides stealth. top-teir condition damage for the engi, alacrity, boon-stripping, and high-end direct and condition damage for the mesmer. thief’s main selling point is stealth, and we really can’t top these two on the extras.

though, since stealth is no use here, which is more effective is a moot point.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Here’s the thing: every time I take an honest look at thief, I don’t come up with all of these deficiencies that everyone else has.

well for my part, I can switch from my marauder’s daredevil to my soldier’s warrior, do the same or better damage, take far more in the way of hits, and provide a lot more group support, and all this takes far less effort than thief does.

I don’t mind thief being a higher-skill class, but I’m not feeling a trade-off here. if the extra effort provided extra damage, or extra survivability, then I’d get it. as is, it feels like way more effort to just match the other classes.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The only complaint here that I actually agree with is that our boon strip is unnecessary whenever there’s a mesmer around. That happens to be true of every class not named mesmer.

Revenant also has pretty good boon-steal, I believe. and that’s fine, it’s okay for one class to be the best at something. I just wish thief was too.