Guild Wars 2

Bit of a rant…

So ‘competitive’ PvP is back and so is everyone blaming the thief for them losing.

My understanding is that our job is to decap and add on to fights to give your team an advantage. Assist the called targets, kill the squishy. This is what I do… but no matter what if the team is losing it’s always… “Our thief is terrible.”, “Thief decap!”, (while I am doing so) “I hate having thieves.”… same noise all the time. Everyone is playing perfect and the thief is screwing up the game for them.

Now I don’t consider myself that good, but I play a solid build and I do my general job.

Are we expected to be able to win every 1v1 we encounter? The way I look at it… no matter what I do, there are some builds I cannot beat. But it seems people expect thieves to always win a guarded point 100% of the time. If I run into a build I have no chance against, they sit on the point and I can’t decap it. This is when I get the flack. “Thief decap!” “I can’t beat him 1v1.” “You suck!”.

So IMO if they bunker far and I can’t kill them… then the focus moves to home and mid right? If they put another person on home that I can’t kill than this is when all hell breaks loose. My team refuses to assist me in decaping a point. They are typically all piled on one point expecting me to solo any and all players guarding a point they are not fighting for. In the end… it’s always my fault.

Then you get these games where there are… TWO (or more) thieves on your team. For whatever reasons thief seems to be a class that some players choose as their ‘main’ class and they play nothing else. Unfortunately I am one of these people. I know this makes me a pretty weak player as I have no versatility but this is how I enjoy the game, sorry. When you have two people of this mindset both on thieves… the game is generally a wash. Two guardians? Np. Two rangers? Np… two of whatever class… np. Two thieves? Not good. I wish when they came up with this algorithm to choose teams they would have added something to avoid adding multiple thieves to a team…

Anyhow I know I’m mediocre at best but shoot… it’s not always my fault we lose. I feel as though the thief is always the scapegoat for a loss. It’s very frustrating.

Pretty much been like this since I started playing sPvP in the early days of the game…

First of all I want to say that if you’re running D/P Daredevil you shouldn’t 1v1 unless you know you can kill the target really fast. Our job are, as you say, to decap far and +1 other fights. If far are uncontested you can get there, decap and get back to mid very fast. If they have someone bunkering far you shouldn’t be there, but +1 mid to easily win that fight. If your home get capped you and 1 or more other from your team should respond.

It seems like you have been matched with terrible players. A bad thief can lose the game, but it seems like you are doing the right thing and making the right decisions. Your team however, are not by the looks of it.

Yeah. Thief stacking should be stopped completely by ArenaNet. They want thief to be a roamer and +1 fighter, and there are only room for one on every team. Having 2 doing that job makes it almost impossible to win. I find it even more hilarious when stuff like this happens: 3 thieves on my team, 0 on the enemy team. How can the matchmaker be that bad?!

I concur, it could be funny if it weren’t so sad. I switched from Thief to Ele for this season but two times I had to switch and used Thief as there were none.
In one of the two matches I went close at the beginning getting a Thief and Mesmer directly at the start of the match.
I stalled a little then ran to far and capped that.

All while my team got destroyed on mid – all were killed in a 4 vs 3 match. After the match they blamed me for not wining my “duel” and kapping far instead of close.

shrug

Thief is scapegoat indeed.

Just remember:

• Cap far for us.
• +1 when far is capped and not +1d.

You do these things and those of us not too busy being down on our kitten will notice. I personally commend thieves for playing properly.

If there are two of you, OUT OF THE GATE you two need to decide which one of you is on +1 for mid/ far duty and which one of you is +1 for mid and home duty. If there are two thieves one of you is specifically going to have duty of far, one of you is going to have an eye on home, and the rest of us are going to push mid with whoever is free +1ing. once +1 is done for mid you need to return home, return to far if its capped, or harass objectives and call incoming for home’s case.

If you are far you need to abandon far if inc is more than 1, return to mid, and call target on inc.

Do not both go home or far please. If you are single target DPS you need to focus called target on mid (which means you need to run a build that lets you get close for short periods or a build that lets you range. If you are AOE DPS you need to lay poison on mid.

Thieves need to know their limitations and do specifically what is needed to succeed. They are high skill floor classes, and their duties respect such.

If there are 3+thieves, you better all have shortbow and +1 wherever enemy is not rallied. Or one of you switch. >:{

Problem is a handful of other classes move almost as fast as a thief now and are stronger point bunkers. Thieves are weak in sPvP overall. I know some players play exceptionally well as a thief but those same players in say a Rev would play significantly better.

Thief can still be weak if the soloQ team you get does not know a) what your strengths are b) how to play with a thief in the team. This perpetuates the perception that thief is weak in sPVP, which it isn’t IMHO. I personally think it is very strong, especially this season – but you need a team who understands the dynamics you bring.

Personally I always duo-queue this season when I’m playing as a thief, and always with a friend or guildie who is built for sustained mid point fights (scrapper, druid, ele, DH, etc.) It opens up my game knowing there is a solid player who knows how synergize with my thief play.

You can decap far 10 times during a match, but if your mid guys keep losing even numbered fights it doesn’t matter.

Urgh….kitten you kitten forum, I had made a great answer and now it’s all gone….

In short, thief is a class of momentum, the “+1 and decap” role is just the upper layer of our true role which is to create a virtual 5v4 situation with two things :
- always having someone in the other team dead
- pinning down a enemy at their home by constant decap

With those two things, you build up momentum for your team. If you fail to do it, your team is in the 4v5 situation. Of course every class can do this thing, but this is the default role ( and only one ) for a thief. So playing this class implicitly means you are able to create this momentum.

With two thieves, the only thing you can do is to make sure your roles don’t overlaps, so one d/p and one staff is better ( or p/p if no ele,engi around )

Wargameur.6950:

Urgh….kitten you kitten forum, I had made a great answer and now it’s all gone….

If you are using Chrome, look into Lazarus. Saved many a post for me.

Straegen.2938:

Wargameur.6950:

Urgh….kitten you kitten forum, I had made a great answer and now it’s all gone….

If you are using Chrome, look into Lazarus. Saved many a post for me.

No way I will believe in a Mursaat named browser extention !

Nothing has changed with how Thief is treated (both by players and developers), and nothing will. For whatever reason(s), players tend to HATE rogue classes (regardless of their level of power or viability), and it’s harder to find developers that identify with the archetype to give it the balance and attention it deserves.

If you’re a PvPer and the only profession you enjoy playing in GW2 is Thief, quit now and save yourself years of frustration. I sure wish I did sooner.

If you are the only thief in the matchup and close and far are bunkerd you (as a thief) have a problem. Then you have a 4v4 at mid which you will lose as thief is underwhelming in team fights. In that scenario you have to rely on your teammate at close to join mid to create a 5v4 and win or to force the bunker on far to join mid too for a 5v5. Then you can decap far and return mid (if your team didn’t already lose the 4v5 you created).

This is too complex for non organized Solo Q match. It just doesn’t work most of the time.

If there is another thief in the opposing team, your role is to shut down the other thief. If he is a better player than you and kills you 24/7, nobody in your team can help you. Then you are a true liability to your team as this is your only role in the match. You can’t be helpful somewhere else.

tl;dr Thief sucks in Solo Q.

Couple things.

KrHome.1920:

Then you have a 4v4 at mid which you will lose as thief is underwhelming in team fights.

not necessarily. Target calling just becomes mandatory and you lose the luxury of getting stomps.

In that scenario you have to rely on your teammate at close to join mid to create a 5v4 and win or to force the bunker on far to join mid too for a 5v5. Then you can decap far and return mid (if your team didn’t already lose the 4v5 you created).

dont create a 4v5 in this scenario then. A 3v4 with you focused on a single target can help you overturn the fight. (its technically a 4v4 but let’s ignore thief’s presence for now for the sake of the thief is underwhelming argument. Lay in to one enemy, pull back, let the opponents try to rez and harass them. If you can harass a bunker off a point you can certainly down one at mid.

This is assuming you’re doing your job and home is secure or being contested by your color

This is too complex for non organized Solo Q match. It just doesn’t work most of the time.

If there is another thief in the opposing team, your role is to shut down the other thief. If he is a better player than you and kills you 24/7, nobody in your team can help you. Then you are a true liability to your team as this is your only role in the match. You can’t be helpful somewhere else.

this is true for the most part. If you’re getting outplayed by the opposing thief there’s nothing anyone can do, assuming outplayed means he is decapping AND shutting down your decaps.