Guild Wars 2

Hi, I was hoping on some opinions on these two classes for Dungeons.
I have my main Warrior which I am bored of and want to pick up another class to possibly be my main.
Maybe some pros/cons on them would help me a lot in choosing my next dungeon class.
I also know these two classes are not the most viable in Dungeons but it’s what I have settled down to choose from.

Anyways, any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Both are weak choices.

Ranger con is the pet.
Thief con is melee range.

I’d just stick to the Warrior for PvE and play a Ranger or Thief for PvP.

Now that all said, and you’re determined to make one for PvE anyway, I’d suggest ranger for no other reason than the gameplay may be a little different. Ranger is still VERY boring though (90% of what you’ll do is auto-attack from the side). Thief is still just stabbystabby from the back like a Warrior unless you go condition with pistol or something.

Thieves have no problem staying in melee range aside from the obvious range only fights that are few and far between, but they are ranged fights for everyone. With a thief you will be dodging stealthing backstabbing teleporting never worry about conditions, and saving downed warriors with SR, alot more fun then pressing 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2.

I have never played ranger so I can’t really speak for that profession, but I’ve played thief since beta and I feel I got pretty good knowledge of how to play one :p

Thief can be really fun, really hard and sometimes insanely frustrating in Dungeons. It all depends on how you’re building your thief. If you want to have some survivability (your team will love you if you’re not dead all the time) you should go for Carrion gear and Pistol / Dagger with Short bow as second weapon set. You will be able to apply conditions to infinity and survive most encounters. I played this kind of thief a long time, and it’s pretty awesome!

Build should be something like 20/0/30/20/0. Shadow refuge (obvious reasons), signet of malice or hide in shadows, blinding powder, any other utility you want and dagger storm.

Your goal will be to bleed, weaken and poison your enemies to death. Dagger storm is great for larger encounters with lots of enemies (signet of malice here!!).

While I played this build I was usually the last man standing in every dungeon, and my damage was pretty good too. In one dungeon people even started to bet gold on wether or not I actually would die since my entire team wiped several times and I just slipped away

I’ve got both and I think the thief has a stronger skillset and is more interesting to play. The ranger seems to be better when you just want more damage out + healing in, such as when huddling with guardian and warrior to do aoe with a greatsword.

I play both. I actually have a similar dilemma, as I want to focus on one for the summer, but love both. Here are my thoughts, especially post-patch and as of running MF and AC Explore last night:

They both have strong, supportive skill sets. Both dish damage out, but in different ways.

The Ranger can do damage, but the trick is you can’t really get that Might yourself. In groups where you can stack it on yourself, you will start to massively pull ahead, especially with Sword/Something and Greatsword. I go melee in dungeons unless I desperately need to be ranged (for now, the MF bosses depending on the group, and then I go shortbow). I consider Axe melee because of the shotgunning of bleeds, but it does let you pull back for breathing room. The Chill and weakness on Axe 3 is fantastic. Axe OH is wonderful with the sword if you have a lot of combo fields going on, especially with light or water. Saves your butt and heals/cleanses less than careful players. If you do the twirl in melee range, which you usually can with a good Guardian, it stacks some Vuln.

The Sword is really evasive, I prefer Sword/Torch, and it plays like a sword thief – auto attack, and you have two evades on demand. If you bring Dagger, that’s another, but I prefer Torch for the combo field at your feet, or Warhorn for some nice hard hitting birds and buffs. Greatsword also rips things up (again, work with your group to get more Might) and has a ranged and melee block that can be a lifesaver. The daze is also great, and you can swoop out of trouble or to a stray mob and lock it down.

You bring traps, which are great for trash. Fire and Cripple are great, but you have an Ice field, which is actually not that common. Learn to love Chill. You bring spirits, which can still be killed, but with proper placement and attentive control can offer some nice buffs – I don’t think they’re a Must Use! yet, but if you can drop them, they do work nice when they’re alive. You bring Entangled, great for overzealous pulls or players.

Shortbow is nice in a pinch, but pretty boring. Longbow is useful for Barrage and Hunter’s Shot, which stacks Vuln at 10%, more if you’re pet is traited for Opening Strike. Can be useful if paired with Sword.

Your pets are nice now, after the patch. Drakes simply don’t go down with half-hearted management, and their breath hits reliably and HARD. Each drake has it’s use. I still wouldn’t throw a cat into a melee fray with explosive spell graphics unless you’re really paying attention, but they do stay behind targets when they can, and it does improve the up time. You’ll really just have to play around and find out what works at what time – swap often. Maybe you just want Fury buffs to aid your group. Maybe Chill or dog control. You have options. Oh, and drakes have a blast finisher for your fire and water fields; once you learn their AA cycle you can abuse this.

As for the Thief, Shadow Refuge and Smoke Screen can be invaluable. As long as you don’t have dredge, OH Pistol can turn most dungeons into nap time. Sword control is fantastic, with the teleports. Mobility is key, and you’re a little more selfish then other classes. I prefer to take advantage of the weakness, poison, and bleeds than outright Backstab, along with sword cleaves and dazes. You don’t really focus on multi-targets as much as a Ranger can, but that’s okay because you’re spiking things down one by one just as fast in the end.

Melee is risky, but outside of a Guardian, when isn’t it? Learn you Evade timing on every weapon, learn your dodging, and learn to see through the mess of spell FX on the target. You’ll get the hang of it – play like a boxer, get in, get a few hits in, duck out, repeat. The Thieves I see who die a lot try to play it like other games and just staying on the target’s back.

Shortbow is still good because of it’s gas AoE and blast finisher, but I don’t consider it mandatory.

I highly recommend Shadow Arts as your dungeon tree, the lower cooldown on Deception skills is great.

I enjoy both classes, the mobility on them and group synergy is fun. Yeah, you’re not going to be bringing as valuable toys as a Guardian or Mesmer or sometimes Warrior. And there are people who only want those three. But honestly, even if you’re just the tagalong and know the class, people will respect you and soon be asking for you.

Any questions, PM me.

Best of luck!

I have a blast in dungeons with pistols as a thief.

And saying that a ranger is a con is ridiculous. Its almost like having a soulstoned warlock from wow, when they go down 99% of the time they can get back up without having other people rez them thanks to their pet.

Ranger, imo. Better support healing, better long-term DPS, especially if you go conditions, and generally better support. If you go with a thief, try to have a P/P weaponset on you for the boss fights, use the Shortbow for the rest applying poisons and blast finishers for boons and conditions.

Suralin.3947:

Ranger, imo. Better support healing, better long-term DPS, especially if you go conditions, and generally better support. If you go with a thief, try to have a P/P weaponset on you for the boss fights, use the Shortbow for the rest applying poisons and blast finishers for boons and conditions.

if you don’t melee you’re gimping yourself

If you want to melee, go thief. Go ranger if you want ranged. Want big numbers, thief beats ranger, but melee is trickier to pull out. Ranger is also on the lower end when it comes to dps.
In the support department, thieves offer weakness, blinds, stealth and Smokescreen. While rangers spread some boons and a water field. Difference is, thieves can spec full dps and still offer support, but rangers need a more specialized build.
Overall, ranger is a bit easier to play going full ranged, where your only concern is micro-ing your pet.

If you are bored with your warrior, ranger is even more boring in my opinion.

Suralin.3947:

Ranger, imo. Better support healing, better long-term DPS, especially if you go conditions, and generally better support. If you go with a thief, try to have a P/P weaponset on you for the boss fights, use the Shortbow for the rest applying poisons and blast finishers for boons and conditions.

My group runs with a couple rangers, and I play my thief, what usually happens is one pops their healing well and I switch to Sbow and spam cluster bomb, which can be a very powerful AOE heal. So I guess…..bring both!

Thief Combo field: poison, smoke, dark isn’t useful during boss fights, nor is it up for very long. Ranger healing spring is amazing. Ranger Spirits are good utility as well.

Warrior, mesmer, elementalist, and necro are in a great supply. So thief damage is not needed. Warrior and necro are inherently more robust than thief and therefore more reliable (can’t do damage if you’re dead). Damage specced thief has the same amount of dodges as warrior, who has better condition removal, stability, and actual invulnerability. Can you say endure pain?
No one here is rolling ranger for dps.
Additionally, Thief ranged damage might as well not be on the chart at the moment.

Thief brings little utility to the group. No one cares about blind in a boss fight (thank you boss buff), shadow refuge’s heal is negligible since no one is going to risk dying to stay in the aoe, and trap and venom thief are great on paper but not so effective at the moment. I’ve tried whilst looking for a build that’s both fun and viable.

My 80 thief is far more useful in dungeons than my 80 ranger. More damage, more utility. Blind/daze/stunspam to make trash mobs a breeze, stealth, blast finishers, projectile blocking, shadow refuge ressing, AoE weakness, and the ability to chew through defiance stacks with ease on the rare occasion that it’s helpful.

The only really nice thing the ranger brings to the table is a water field via healing spring, which can only be fully taken advantage of by…a thief with a shortbow. The actual healing from healing spring is negligible, especially considering how infrequently people will stay inside the field, and how it becomes 100% worthless if other group members are already applying regen (like a banner warrior giving perma regen over a huge radius). Rangers also bring decent single target ranged DPS on the occasional boss that you should most likely keep your distance on.

If you want to dungeon, pick a different class. Rangers and thieves are probably the two weakest classes in a dungeon.