Hello and welcome to the world of thieves! I’ve been playing thief as my main since pre-release. Here’s my take on your questions:
Do you use a sword in your pvp build (weaponswap) for the infiltrator’s strike?
That ability makes me superduper happy
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A lot got jumbled up in the recent patch, and this means that for high tier pvp you will not use sword. D/P with shortbow is the way to go there.
HOWEVER in unranked play or hotjoins sword is just fine. S/D was very viable before the patch, and I suspect it will be again once Anet gets more balancing done.
As for WvW, S/D is still fine aswell.
A quick view of weapon sets (not set in stone, but it will give you an idea about it):
S/D: WvW / unranked PvP
S/P: PvE
D/D: WvW / Unranked PvP / PvE
D/P: WvW, Ranked PvP
P/P: not too great atm, only used for fun
P/D: WVW (being our condition set)
[quote=5349250;Yashuoa.9527:I read how thieves arent good in large scale fights but they have so much mobility and thus escapes. That should not make large scale fights hard right? You can pick targets out in all the chaos of a large scale fight. It could even be in your advantage.[/quote]
The problem with a thief faces in a large scale fight is, that even random AoE to each side will deal heavy damage, and might even down you. As you point out yourself, our way of avoiding this humiliating death is mobility. The problem is, that if you shadowstep away to survive, you will not be helping your team. Take a guardian instead, they survive through heals and blocks. This means that they can continue to stay in the fight and be of help. That’s why people would prefer other professions for large scale fights. Should be noted that shortbow can help in quite a bit if you get a nice position for large scale fights.
Another thing is, that since thief got much mobility they can easily move between points, actually faster than anyone else. Also we excel at taking down a unaware target, so it’s simply better to stick to what we do better. Should be noted that if you see a large scale fight you can do certain combos to great effect, like shadowstep in for a backstab then shadowstep away and get back to your business – this will help your team down an enemy and hopefully win the point.
When people talk about professions that are most difficult I read stuff like ele and engi.
Isnt thief the most difficult? To me it seems the profession with the biggest skillcap with all the options that you have with your positioning, timing, shadowsteps, dazing abilities and such. Right?
Ele is difficult in that they have many abilities. Also they got many roles, being kind of a hybrid.
Engi is the same way, with weapon kits and being hybrid.
Thief do have a bad reputation though. Many people have been taken by a stealthed thief suddenly popping huge backstabs and it can be frustrating. This often leads to people believing thieves are easy to play. Just stealth and backstab. This is often the case in WvW where you can buff your stats to a bit overpowered levels with food and other buffs, but a lot of other professions can do this too.
Personally I’d say thief is among the harder to play in some aspects, but once you learn how other professions work, and how most people react thiefs are not as hard as an ele or engi. Especially because we can almost always just reset the fight or leave it if we don’t think we can win.
Does anyone know some recommendable pvp vids/streams of thiefs that I could watch?
Not watching too many streams, but I’d say go to youtube and search for “Thief roaming” or “Thief PvP”, or anything like it. Try to take new videos, preferably those after June 23, 2015 – this is where a big patch just landed, and watching older videos will often give wrong information about other professions they fight. Thieves have kept much of our old gameplay though, so you can watch older videos to learn how to use your abilities in PvP or WvW.
