Guild Wars 2

Recently i was thinking on making a thief but I was told not many thiefs are wanted in dungeons and that kind of put me off. I wasn’t told reasons why I was told by a streamer I watch on twitch.

How are thiefs in dungeons eg. Over powered, Under powered, Useful, Hardly useful.
Are there specific reasons people don’t want one in their group?

Also how are they in PvE, I know in PvP they can own but does that change in PvE. What weapons sets are the best?

Thanks in advance

I’ll be very blunt here…most people who play thieves suck at playing thieves. As a player who has one of every profession, all at level 80, I have played through every profession a lot, and I can say thieves are definitely the most difficult to play and master. This is why thieves get such a bad rep.

They’re good if you use them right, I’ll say that much. I found this guide to thieves, and it’s pretty interesting if you’d like to know more:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/64903-thief-a-basic-guide/

There’s not really a “best weapon set”, because thief weapon sets are all pretty good for different reasons (I actually have every weapon set available on my thief because of this) and I change them out pretty often. The shortbow is definitely the most useful right now because of its great movement abilities (which is really what the thief is about) and its AoE damage.

Thieves can be useful in the right hands…but as of late, ArenaNet has been nerfing them to dirt in PvE for PvP reasons…which is incredibly stupid. They really need to split PvE and PvP like they did in GW1…but I digress.

They’re also fun to play once you get the hang of it…but like I said, they’re definitely the most difficult class to play because you really can’t be justkittenderping in melee and expect tons of damage and survivability like the easy-to-play warrior can. DPS, movement, burst, evade…etc.

Good luck

this guide is outdated and confuses a lot because it’s not the reality in the game now

Thieves are the very definition of mediocre in dungeons. They aren’t incredible like warriors, guardians, or mesmers, but they aren’t garbage like engineers, rangers, or necromancers. A thief can provide pretty good damage under ideal circumstances while being exceptionally squishy and not typically adding any group support other than shadow refuge and blindspam on non-champions. In terms of dungeon usefulness, they are smack dab in the middle with elementalists, and like elementalists, are very prone to death in the wrong hands.

DanH.5879:

this guide is outdated and confuses a lot because it’s not the reality in the game now

Still has some useful information that is definitely still relevant for beginner thieves.

Vargs.6234:

Thieves are the very definition of mediocre in dungeons. They aren’t incredible like warriors, guardians, or mesmers, but they aren’t garbage like engineers, rangers, or necromancers. A thief can provide pretty good damage under ideal circumstances while being exceptionally squishy and not typically adding any group support other than shadow refuge and blindspam on non-champions. In terms of dungeon usefulness, they are smack dab in the middle with elementalists, and like elementalists, are very prone to death in the wrong hands.

Lol. Just because warriors, guardians, and mesmers are the 3 easiest classes to play doesn’t make them the only good ones in dungeons. Engineers and Rangers have the exact same thing going for them as thieves: they aren’t mediocre at all, they’re just often played by people who don’t know how to play their class well (since medium armor classes are by far the hardest classes to play in this game). Also, necromancers definitely aren’t garbage, and elementalists are not mediocre in the slightest. It really depends on how much the person who’s playing understands how to play their class.

If a ranger brings a bear and a shortbow/longbow and just sits back the whole time, barely using utility and rarely weapon/pet swapping and just leaving their pet to tank (and therefore die) they’re definitely not playing it well. Unfortunately this is the kind of ranger most people play because they think "Oh, “range-r”, I have to stay at range." When in actuality, ranger is just another term for adventurer or so.

If a thief brings d/d or s/p and expects to be able to sustain melee like a warrior or guardian can, they’re going to die, and often very quickly. Again, unfortunately this is often the thief I see when they’re in my parties, and yet again provide them with a bad rep all-around (however it seems ArenaNet has been trying to make them useless with their recent PvP nerfs that have a greater effect on PvE).

I would go on with every other class you mentioned as “garbage/mediocre”, but I think you get the idea. Just because most people end up playing a class wrong doesn’t mean that it’s useless in PvE.

I was in some dungeons last night, and spent most of my time solo kiting bosses, and stealth rezzing my team because they all kept dying. It was embarrassing really. So no, we aren’t useless, we are just not the easiest to learn as others have stated.

Thieves are good in PVE IF specced for PVE; the problem arises when you’d like to do both PVE and WVW there is no good kickbutt build for both.

You have to build your character around PVE to be good at it and useful, even so they aren’t as useful as let’s say a warrior/guardian/mesmer.

Don’t make a thief for PVE. Make one of the 3 classes listed above.

Vargs.6234:

Thieves are the very definition of mediocre in dungeons. They aren’t incredible like warriors, guardians, or mesmers, but they aren’t garbage like engineers, rangers, or necromancers. A thief can provide pretty good damage under ideal circumstances while being exceptionally squishy and not typically adding any group support other than shadow refuge and blindspam on non-champions. In terms of dungeon usefulness, they are smack dab in the middle with elementalists, and like elementalists, are very prone to death in the wrong hands.

I do not agree with this at ALL. Dungeon utility depends on if you know wth you are doing, I never ran into any problems in any of the dungeons that I know what to do.

Look the general consensus you will get about thieves in PvE is that leveling is rough. It really is, a lot of the traits that helps with survival doesn’t get unlocked until later. Once you get to level 80 though, I find playing a thief to be EXTREMELY fun.

I run a guard warrior and thief (<— main), and I can tell you from experience it is a LOT easier for me to PvE with my warrior or guard. There isn’t too much complexity or thinking involved, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense. If I play like a moron even my warriors and guards will die, but this is what I do with my GS/axe/mace warrior when he sees a mob: 100b’s —> whirlwind —> weapon swap to axe/mace-→ hit the 2 and 4 skills to apply vulnarability, 5 to knock em down if I want to —> swap back to GS (thanks to fast hands) —> 100bs to whirlwind and etc. Dodge massive AoE’s as needed, hit for great justice for added damage, balanced stance for stability or shake it off for condi remove when needed. VERY straight forward, most mobs are dead by 2 rotations of this and I can heal as needed.

Thief? If I’m nice to myself I’d rate my skill playing thief as “barely adequate,” (which isn’t saying much maybe I’m just awful). But for comparison’s sake, in the same mob with my thief running D/P and SB I’d do this:
Shadow Shot to close gap —> Blinding Powder for AoE blind and smoke field --→ auto attack —> Heart seeker just before my smoke field dissipates to get stealth —> flank target and backstab —> Kite, reposition myself, and if I feel safe I’ll do this same sequence again. If there is a large mob I will switch to SB and start kiting with its auto attack and CB until I run out of initiative, then stealth, switch to D/P, reposition myself, and start this process again.

Lots of repositioning going on, a lot of decisions need to be make, a lot more of an active play style, which I really enjoy.

In summary, playing thief is not for everyone and for those who are making one it’s going to be a pain in the rear end to level sometimes. But it’s really really fun. In terms of dungeon performance, they do fine assuming you know what you are doing so you don’t keep dying because of silly mistakes. In terms of team utility, you’re not going to be at the same level as a guard or a mesmer, or have the healing of an ele. But there is stealth, and a thief’s DPS (while nerfed to the ground as of late…) is still hefty.

swinsk.6410:

…even so they aren’t as useful as let’s say a warrior/guardian/mesmer.

Don’t make a thief for PVE. Make one of the 3 classes listed above.

Not true at all, unless you’re looking for the most boring/easy classes to play. Warrior, especially, is just hitting an “easy button” when it comes to playing PvE.