Guild Wars 2

Is it possible for a thief to play a healer/support in any of the game modes, PvE and WvW in particular?
It seems to me that thief has the worst support and healing capacity compared to other classes.
Could, and should, thieves get some changes to the Shadow arts specialization and deceptions/venoms to make them better at supporting their team? I don’t mean buffs to stealth and self-defense, but only team-support.

The Thief is by design no Healer/Support Class…

The only Support you can expect currently from a Thief is either Stealth or Venoms and to some certain extent Boon Steals

You will never see in this Game Thieves to become healers, thats absolutely not their role. Thief is a selfish Class, which heals only itself. Its not a Boon Sharer, not does its Heal Effects affect at all anyhow any allies on your side, except if you share Skelk Venom with others – the olny exception where you can support allies to improve for a short time their heals through attacking the foe.

The whole design of the Thief is based on offense and escape – hit and run tactics as one would say. There is no space in that for healing and defensive support like classes how the Engineer, Elementalist, Mesmer, Guardian or Ranger do with their builds and elite specializations that have far more defensive and supportive boons up in their a./r..s.e.nal of skills and traits, while the Thief has not, like Protection, like Resistance, like Aegis, like Regeneration and if, then in most cases only the last one for personal gains, not for other allies.

The support that Thieves give, comes from their Initiative System and from Combo Effects, like especially Combo Field Bursts like blastign Clusterbombs into fields to spread this way boons to nearby allies, like Might. Thats the way how the Thief gives support mostly in this game, if Stealth and Venoms aren’t in usage.

Anet should give the Thief Class absolutely more flavorful and thief design fitting Support – absolutely not effects that let Thiefs turn into healers, thats not their role, but they should absolutely become better supporters, so that Thieves become more interesting to use in the various Game Modes, especially WvW, Dungeons/Fractals and Raids – basically the Endgame Content of GW2.

The best thigns that the Thief should receive are:

• Trap Control Abilities – Skills/Traits, that enable the Thief to see laid Enemy Traps and to remove them either safely for allies and reuse them then against the enemy, or to make them for allies just viewable, so that allies can see enemy traps just like you can with Trap Control Abilities, to make it for your allies easier not to run into them, what would be natural counterplay against DHs, Condi Ranger Trappers and Ghost Thieves then and any other eventually upcoming trap based Elite Specs we will see perhaps in the future to come for the other classes…

• More Boon Steals – The current design of the Thief lacks in Boon Steal. there is effectively currently on 1 single Weapon Build, that allows for it to steal a bit Boons and thats the Sword. the Shortbow should get more Boon Steal as well as ranged alternative to stengthen the Boon Steal Support Role of the Thief as a freaking STEALING Thief. For a Thief in this game, this class steals way too less and when they steal, it doesn’t really feel like a loss for the enemy!!!

An other support role that thieves could/should get improved is the role of the “Intermidator”, the class, that constantly tries to bring it’s enemies out of balance, to stop them from doing anything harmful, which interrupts enemies and their skills, before they can use them to take that way the enemy out of the game for your side.
But that would require Anet to improve massively the stuns, dazes, immobilizes ect. of the Thief, what will work only with reduced cool downs and initiative costs in these sections.. but thats also a role, which can quickly become way too overpowered and feels also unfair to your enemy, if you meet onto a thief, which can basicalyl kill you, withotu that you ever got a chance at all to do anything – thats the reason, why people hate too much CC effects in games and GW2 has currently already basically too much CC in my opinion overall on all classes.

Thats why I think its overdue, that Anet implements finally also the Break Bar System for us players, so that CC spam in this game isn’t so effective anymore, unless it gets COORDINATED to break the enemy’s will, so that CCs after that can have then their effects as usual first. Under such a circumstance woudl it be then also possible and not overpowered to significantly improve the role of the thief as a cc spamming intimidator that can massively help then with constant CCs in coordinating the break of the enemies will to bring their Break Bars coordinatedly down to 0, so that CCs then can have their effects together with Stunbreakers beign reworked into lettign Break Bars renegerate faster and by lettign them have after the Bar has been restore the positive side effect, that Stun Breakerd should give you after their usage for some time immunity against CC skills that try to break your bar again.

The game is since years in a state where its whole combat system is completely too outdated for all the skill and trait changes that Anet made so far.
Especially the massive powercreep in CCs, the massive powercreep in conditions and the whole existance of the Elite Specs and all the new added mechanics they brought to the game in regard of conditoons, and boons – stuff liek Alacrity, Torment and Taunt for example – all thing,s that played never a role in the 2012er game balance design of this games combat system, where all of that stuff didn’t exist and wasn’t part of the whole game balance

Thats why i’m so vehemently after if, that Anet should finally give this game a proper class balancing, where all those ignored for years game mechanics get finally the needed overlook to optimize alot of the combat system mechanics for the current state of the game#s skilsl and traits and gameplay mechanics of boons, conditions ect. while bring alotgether with this also the Upgrades like Sigils and Runes, Attributes, Health System ect. back in line, so that all these thigns that are important and belong together as one big part of Class Balance, are then in harmony again with each other.

But this won’t happen, as long Anet always changes only Skilsl and Traits and ignores everything else completely and so long will we also never see Thieves with a better working support role and have instead only this reduced crap that cosnsist of only Stealth, Venoms, Combos and way too less Boon Steals with a Thief Class, that never makes usage of it’s true potential as a supporter, because it seems, that anet wants thieves to be just only Damage Dealers with a tiny part of it being an offensive supporter (+1ing) only and venom based group surprises out of stealth.

There is a possible ninja nurse build that i ran into someone using in WvW, but I’m not sure what the build actually is.

bet team support for thief is actually venom share. With the recent changes to signet of agility you also have a decent party condi clear. but except that and stealth bot / rez nothing much

Ninja Nurse is only good for safely and quickly stealth ressurecting a dead/downed ally.
For nothing else is that build good at all.

JonnyForgotten.4276:

There is a possible ninja nurse build that i ran into someone using in WvW, but I’m not sure what the build actually is.

Venom shares for life steal in the party, the new Signet of Agility possibly, and likely running Trickery to max out Steal usage to throw boons to your buddies. Pack Runes could help with that in a less restorative role as well, by tossing Rage, Might, and Swiftness on nearby allies when struck (which is rather reliable) and lets the thief also supplement melee.

As for anything beside Shadow Arts and Trickery, I don’t know. You’d likely want more abilities that can stealth allies for that little bit of Regeneration as well.

In pve and wvw, I normally use rune of mercy with transference sigil so i can res ppl back to 85-92% with the sa traitline being complementary to the build. The shorrtbow can be good for assisting combo fields. Boon ripping/sharing used to be a good niche to have (untill herald was added in the game) using s/d.
my first setup

my current setup

boon rip setup

JonnyForgotten.4276:

There is a possible ninja nurse build that i ran into someone using in WvW, but I’m not sure what the build actually is.

That setup was super enjoyable to play as a change of pace back in the day. It’s long been gutted and not nearly as effective as it used to be. Dropped it hard. =(

You got the mercy rune ninja nurse and various frontline hybrids that use condition dmg, like frontline venoms thief, frontline immob bomb ghost trapper and mixes inbetween.

All various forms share a few things in common, like a shortbow and bountiful thieft trait.

Bottom line, thief can be a valued crowd control and res support class for both small and large scale fights.

Venom Share Medic Ninja

Hmm, despite me thinking Ninja Nurse being mostly useless by now in the old ways how I knew this build, the thread made me interested in thinking over a new way of “Ninja Nurse”

Lets see, if I can get eventually a good thought out build together here

Thief
Weapon Sets: D/P + Shortbow
As Ninja Nurse you need Mobility and quick On Demand Stealth

Heal:
Either Hide in Shadows or Skelk Venom, HiS for Roaming, SV once you are in a group
Utility:
Shadow Refuge, Signet of Agility, Shadow Trap (to be quickly there, where you are needed to help, 10k Range!! )
Elite
Basilisk Venom
Traitlines

• Trickery > Thrill of Crime > Bountiful Theft >Sleight of Hand
• Shadow Arts > Concealed Defeat/Shadows Embrace > Leeching Venoms/ Shadow Protector > Rending Shades/Shadow Rejuvenation
• Acrobatics > Pain Response/Vigorous Recovery > Hard To Catch > Don’t Stop

Gear Stats
Full Ascended Cleric Set or eventually a Mixture of Cleric/Minstrel

Sigils
D/P = Superior Sigil of Energy + Sigil of Agility
SB = Superior Sigil of Energy + Superior Sigil of Transference/ Sigil of Water/ Sigil of Life (2nd SB to build up higher HP)
Rune Set
Superior Runes of Water or Dwayna or Altruism, based on if you want more Heal Support, or more general Boon Support

Maybe someone whos interested in testing out builds can do it with this one here and report back, how well it functionized in say for example WvW, where i guess are only Ninja Nurses to be found at all, because I don’t believe in it, that anyone would ever want to play such a build in PvE or PvP lol

Support for thief is often though venoms. SA lets you res and prevent a stomp making it valuable for support roles. Pure support may not be “viable” in the sense that people still expect a thief to do thief things in the game mode they are in. Providing AoE buffs is less useful because other classes fulfill that role. Poison field from short bow can be blasted for AoE weakness and provides the -33% healing debuff so SB can be a solid support choice.

Stealth in general is very useful as a support and lets you pve-wise save your team from failing. Or in PvP you can blast smoke fields for AoE stealth to get off a first strike advantage.

A bit off topic but when sharing skelk venom, does the heal scale with my healing power or the user?

Last time thief could kind of fill support role (ninja rez thief), it got nerfed very very quickly by Anet. I think the message is rather clear.

It should scale with the thieves healing power. Just like venoms that do condi scale with condi damage of the thief.