Trolls :)
Thiefs in dungeons?
Personally I do not mind bringing Thieves in my group.
However, I have played one as my first primary character, and I do not recommend them for dungeons. It mostly depends on your playstyle, but I don’t like thieves ranged. I use D/D, and you can die very fast in dungeons running up melee. I will often swap between shortbow and D/D in dungeons, use steal to get up close – use Death Blossom a few times, then dodge roll back and swap to bow.
I would say after using an Ele and Mesmer that both easily outshine the Thief in damage and support performance in dungeons. The only one thing my thief is superior at is reviving allies with their AoE stealth.
They’re underpowered and are more demanding on you as a player to stay alive, but they’re not as bad as Rangers at least. Venom sharing can be used quite effectively (it’s not amazing but it’s workable), stealth ressing is obviously always a good thing and you can stay in the fight for quite a while with access to lots of dodges and stealth traits like blinding nearby enemies and spamming Tactical Strike to neutralise key mobs etc. If you trait offensively and run damage gear, the numbers are nothing to ignore, as well. Don’t expect amazing things, but it could be worse. Most of the bad rap comes from the fact that a good portion of Thieves are absolutely terrible and don’t know how to survive in melee.
Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief
Resident Thief
(edited by Auesis.7301)
Shadow refuge/smoke powder rez, projectile destruction/blind field, dagger storm, and the best DPS after warrior. Why would you not bring one again?
Personally I do not mind bringing Thieves in my group.
However, I have played one as my first primary character, and I do not recommend them for dungeons. It mostly depends on your playstyle, but I don’t like thieves ranged. I use D/D, and you can die very fast in dungeons running up melee. I will often swap between shortbow and D/D in dungeons, use steal to get up close – use Death Blossom a few times, then dodge roll back and swap to bow.
I would say after using an Ele and Mesmer that both easily outshine the Thief in damage and support performance in dungeons. The only one thing my thief is superior at is reviving allies with their AoE stealth.
If a mesmer or ele are outdamaging a thief, the thief sucks. Thief has better burst, and considerably better sustained with much stronger autoattacks than both mesmer and ele.
Hmmm well thank you for saying I suck :P
I also said that I would bring a thief into my group; however, I do not suggest making one with dungeons as your end goal. I did and I regretted it.
My Mesmer easily does more damage than my ele and my ele more than my Thief. That is not to say my Thief does not damage, it just does less damage in dungeons. That is primarily because melee’ing often results in death (for me), so I have to spend a lot of time ranged and their ranged are weak from my experience. In the open world, my thief does the most damage.
Granted maybe I needed a better build, or better gear. It’s also been awhile since I had my thief as my main character. There have been many changes and I am also a better player now.
A: Useful if you take the time to learn how to use one.
I love having thieves in my group if they know how to play their profession or are at least willing to take advice. A thief isn’t my main nor is it my specialty, but I know how to melee with them and which skills to use for certain situations. They don’t offer general support like guardians and eles do, but they’re better off doing high damage and niche support (i.e. shadow refuge).
I’ve seen many thieves simply refuse to melee (which is how you can deal the most damage in dungeons) because they’re afraid of taking damage when the reality is that thieves are very evasive (when traited for high endurance return or use more evasive skills) and can survive well with proper usage of signet of malice’s passive (multi hits like pistol whip). I use d/d for single target damage (bosses or specific mob that needs to die quickly) and I use sword/pistol for cleave/control with full zerker gear. I use my shortbow mainly for running through trash for speed runs or for niche situations where you might need poison, weakness, blast finisher, etc. I never range a fight unless it’s something where melee is pretty much suicide such as the ooze boss in Arah P1, who pretty much pulses KD at melee.
If you like the profession enough that you are willing to learn everything about it and use every resource (i.e. switching weapons/traits/skills for the situation) you can to help your team, then that should be reason enough for you to run it if you’re just going for general dungeon running. Once you’ve mastered all that, a few reasons why someone probably wouldn’t take you is because of optimization for a purpose (i.e. highest DPS for CoF p1 farm time; 4 warriors + 1 mesmer), because the group has not witnessed a good thief, or that they are just used to professions that provide the standard conventions: general supportive boons (i.e. might, protection, etc.), strong anti-projectiles (feedback, wall of reflection), etc. I think you’re going to get a lot of mixed reviews on this one, so you might just have to go try it out yourself to really judge it.
The thief is one of my favorite professions (over warrior) to play in dungeons because I really love the mobility/evasion, easy access to control, and seeing the constant big numbers when geared for damage.
Hmmm well thank you for saying I suck :P
I also said that I would bring a thief into my group; however, I do not suggest making one with dungeons as your end goal. I did and I regretted it.
My Mesmer easily does more damage than my ele and my ele more than my Thief. That is not to say my Thief does not damage, it just does less damage in dungeons. That is primarily because melee’ing often results in death (for me), so I have to spend a lot of time ranged and their ranged are weak from my experience. In the open world, my thief does the most damage.
Granted maybe I needed a better build, or better gear. It’s also been awhile since I had my thief as my main character. There have been many changes and I am also a better player now.
Melee thief is like playing my berserker dd ele. You just need to know your build and when to dodge to make it work. I do 48+ lv fractals on a dd ele with 12k hp in full berserker just fine, and it can be done with thieves because I’ve run several who just melee all the time. Sword mainhand thieves are great for pve.
I PUGed to a Dungeon Master title using only my Thief, so I think the Thief is adequate in dungeons. Even though it is my main character, it does have some issues that you should consider before investing a lot of time in one.
First, the class seems to be continuously nerfed in the name of balancing WvW/PvP that seriously impact PvE/dungeon gameplay. I have had to rework my build several times to accommodate this.
Second, Thief is not currently considered top tier in Dungeons by many in the general community which may make it difficult to find games especially for more advanced/high level encounters. There are a lot of Thieves in dungeons that try to run a WvW GC DD build and perform poorly, which contributes to the above impression. Also, since your party support is not as obvious as that provided by Guardians/Warriors/Mesmers, it is often not appreciated by the group especially if it is not a sophisticated one.
Third, with the low HP pool and reliance on active damage mitigation (dodges/evades), the skill level for effectively bringing one to a dungeon is on the higher end of the curve. You really have to know the encounters/boss tells and act accordingly, because the margin for error is very small. If built and traited correctly, however, you can stay in melee range for a surprisingly long time rivaling a heavy armor user.
Now, with all that out of the way, if you are good at dodging and are looking for a very mobile class that can currently put out good sustained DPS and bring some blinds/stuns/pulls(Scorpion Wire)/combo finishers and stealth to the party, then the Thief may be a good choice for you.
If you want to pursue a PvE/DungeonThief, I would suggest using a sword mainhand, with either D or P offhand (P is probably safer to start out on with the blind on the P5 skill), and a shortbow on switch initially. Put 30 points into Critical Strikes to get an adequate amount of damage, at least 15 into Acrobatics to help your dodges, and the rest wherever you like. I wouldn’t get too reliant on the Shadow Arts line, since this seems to be the focus of many of the recent nerfs. Also, getting some PVT stat armor initially might help learning the ropes of the profession.
Good luck!
I main a thief for dungeons, actually. I wouldn’t recommend it as you have to love playing the class in order to want to put in the work to make it effective, but between shadow refuge and smokescreen alone, they certainly aren’t bad to have. Spammable blast finisher on your short bow, stealth rezzing through shadow refuge, smokescreen when your guardians WoR is down, etc. Not to mention you’re very mobile and deal decent damage on your own, so if you learn to manage that mobility, you can capitalize on your position or clutch save a party from wiping.
That said, a common misconception a lot of people have about thieves in relation to dungeons is you’re supposed to go d/d. Don’t. There are very rare instances where you’ll need to switch to d/d, and that ultimately is personal preference (in most case, I’m still d/p). Instead, look at sword/pistol for your main weapon set and ALWAYS carry a short bow for swap. With the first set, you get 3 stuns (2 always active and 1 on stealth), a gap close that turns into a stun break, and a very safe small aoe blind . In the event you need to stay ranged or you want the finisher for combo fields you know are coming, switch to short bow and watch for the opportunity to pop combos with your 2. Your 3 also cripples and can make kiting safer for you group.
You don’t deal warrior damage though, and you don’t do half the awesome things that a guardian could, but if you play your cards right, you can be just as useful as both without needing one or the other (warrior without a guardian, guardian without a warrior). Don’t discount them, but be aware of the challenge it’ll be to get them to be effective in dungeons.
In my opinion, thieves are a balanced dungeon class. Bad thieves can get themselves killed quickly and often however. New thieves are quite often poor since dungeons play completely differently to open world. This probably creates the bad reputation.
I’ve done a couple of dungeons with a thief in my party. I never had any issues with him at all. Or any other class. I guess it depends in the people you’re taking with you, not the class. I only run dungeons with guild members. Since everybody knows each other it’s much more pleasant.
Any player that can stay alive and contribute dps, support and control is fine by me. Don’t care about the class.
Most important thing for any class is to know the bosses/encounters. That counts double for thieves, because it’s very punishing in dungeons as a thief.
Many mobs are pretty easy with offhand pistol/smoke screen. Sword is a great dungeon weapon and it’s my preferred weapon, with Infiltrator’s Strike i don’t have to dodge bosses. S/P + SB and Soldier’s armor is a good combo to start. Unless a boss absolutely oozes melee hate, you can melee it.
As far as support is concerned, the thief’s support is very subtle. Blind and Weakness aren’t as visible as Aegis and Protection. Thieves also offers stealth rezzing, stealth someone with low HP and a spammable Blast Finisher. With enough points in Shadow Arts, stealth removes conditions and applies regen on allies, plus you get the option to share venoms. Ofc we are not the top dog in support, but it’s not bad at all.
Eventually you’d want every weapon set (to counter any scenario) and wear zerker gear as you realize Vitality and Toughness are useless.