Guild Wars 2

My thief is my main and I am still dying a lot at lv 33. I struggled to get that far and some days have been downright painful playing my thief.

But that being said, it just seems to me that playing a thief is SO much more fun than the other classes.

Every so often, I get tired or frustrated, and I play something else for a while. But all of the other classes just seem so dull. With my Elementalist, I hardly have to move around at all. I just stand still and cast my spells. ‘yawn’.

Is it just me, or are thieves just more fun to play?
Are there any other classes that are as fun to play as a thief?

thiefs are defently the most fun

mesmer > thief any day

edit: you hardly move around as elementalist? You must be the easiest freekill in any pvp scenario.

dude I quit on my mesmer, that greatsword sound is sooooooooooo annoying!

Mayama.1854:

mesmer > thief any day

edit: you hardly move around as elementalist? You must be the easiest freekill in any pvp scenario.

I don’t PvP.

I agree with you. I tried all of the classes but i had the most fun with the thief.

Thief has the following attributes:

- High mobility
- Low armor
- Low health
- Trickery (stealth, teleport)

Any class in any game which has these attributes has always been a “high risk, high reward” class which punishes bad players and rewards good players. The gameplay is exciting and rewarding, which makes it more fun to certain people. These classes have always been and always will be the most skill depended class and have the highest skill cap.

People who disagree and cry about thieves are noobs, nothing stops them from making a thief! There is no gear or level barrier in GW2 sPvP, so why don’t they make a thief? Why do they instead come and cry on the forums? It is because they are bad players and don’t have the skill to compete with better thief players ;3

@OP thieves are pretty gear dependent. Buy full crafted greens off the Broker for your level and repeat as necessary. It’s worth the few silver.

Stiv.1820:

@OP thieves are pretty gear dependent. Buy full crafted greens off the Broker for your level and repeat as necessary. It’s worth the few silver.

Agreed. The levels you should buy them at are: 15-25-35-45-65-80

Greens aren’t necessary, blues work just fine. I chose those levels because that is when new trinkets are available. Now sometimes the armor you want isn’t at those levels on the TP at that time, or there are only greens and they are very expensive. It’s okay to buy new gear at say 26 or 27 instead of 25. Do what you think is right.

Ok guys, thieves are fun!

A bit of history
Currently, I am a primary Guardian, secondary Mesmer.
I actually started as a thief. I was on pins-and-needles waiting for GW2 just to play the thief. But on release, I hated the gameplay as a thief. It was so bad that I quit the profession, quit playing the area, and almost quit the game entirely.

Mesmer and Guardian got me back on-board with GW2. Subsequently, I have played all the classes (but I haven’t bought my engineer slot yet) and found each to be uniquely enjoyable, but I was afraid to return to the thief. I had finally begun to love GW2 and I was afraid thief would kill that.

I talked to a guildy who loves his primary thief and asked him, “why?” His answer set me off on a forum/wiki/web quest to find out why some people love playing thief so much. When I concluded my research I again tried the thief.

My conclusion (to reiterate the above) thieves are fun! Now, whenever I am alone I play thief – I still break my guardian out for multi-person (and yes, Guardian is a hoot). I am leveling up my thief at twice the speed of any of my others right now and am exploring – and winning – in PvE areas that should be just stupid for me to try. I even find my self shouting taunts at my computer screen as I evade lethal damage and deal it with the same move.

Why the change?
Now for the specifics. I have heard primary thieves tell other people – specifically people having a hard time playing the profession or who are complaining that it is underpowered – that thief is “just not for them,” or it “doesn’t fit their playing style,” or that they “think like a warrior.” Although probably most of these comments were well meaning, I don’t think they are helpful – they weren’t helpful to me. What is helpful is to understand some of the core differences between thief and all the other classes.

How to Make Thief Fun for You, Too – 101
Or
What Makes a Thief so much Different from All other Classes

• Dealing with Damage: (“Why do I die in 3 seconds as a thief?!?!”)
  Every class in GW has methods to prevent, mitigate, or deal with damage. Guardians block, blind, tank, and heal. Warriors tend towards tanking and healing. Mesmers distract, interrupt, and confuse. Rangers block projectiles and tank with their pets. Elementalists avoid or reduce the damage, heal, and stay at a distance. Necromancers life-steal and use deathshroud.
  But that is all a far cry from the way that thieves handle damage. Or shall we say the way thieves don’t handle damage.
  Thieves evade. Plus nothing. I didn’t understand this, so I didn’t understand how I could make my thief work. Thieves evade attacks, or they die. Essentially, as a thief you are a 2-3 hit wonder, even with good equipment, fighting normal monsters. You cannot stand and fight, you cannot mitigate or reduce the damage, you must avoid it. Fortunately, thieves have a wide array of skills – both weapon and utility – to help you evade attacks. Many of these skills allow you and/or reward you for continuing to attack, while you are evading. Thus, as long as you have initiative (and sometimes without) you can deal damage and remain unscathed.
• Thieves don’t Fight, they Blitz (“Why does the guardian always come out on top?”)
  Well, he caught you, that’s why! Logan Thackery will always beat the tar out of the miscreants he lays his hands on, but if he can’t catch ‘em, what’s he going to do then? As a thief you must understand that you cannot pressure (lets not go into condition pressure or initiative building right now; this is for new thieves).
  The typical attack method is something like: (A) Close distance. (B) Use your attacks as they recharge. (C ) Be smart to the situation. (D) Dodge major attacks.
  Thieves however are different. They have no skill recharge but instead have “initiative.” Initiative is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it gives you a selection from all your tools at once, allowing you to use the best skill – even to repeat that skill – whenever it is needed. But initiative is a curse, because once it is gone, your weapons are next to useless. Thus, thieves have become burst fighters. As a thief, you appear suddenly in combat dropping a devastating amount of damage on your unsuspecting target. Then, whether it dies or not, you disappear into the shadows to recharge the initiative for your next ambush. Necessarily this changes your gameplay.
  Your thief attack method is this: (A) Determine the nature of the encounter/enemy and which weapon set is best for that. (Armor class, number of opponents) (B) What order will you engage/kill the enemy? (Can you take them 1-by-1, or will you need to slaughter multiple foes simultaneously?) © Which skills will you use, in what order, while staying within your initiative allotment, to kill the foe before they can react. (D) Engage and launch your full assault plan on your unlucky victim (E) Adapt to changes. (F) Disappear and escape.
  Notably, A-C of the thief attack method require thieves to think before they engage the target. It is not a long thought process. Anyone who has played GW2 for more than a week can predict the basic flow of a battle in a second or two. But any other class can shoot first and think later. Whereas a thoughtless thief is a dead thief.
  But gosh is this fun! As even a decent thief, you can plan out a battle and then, usually, execute it according to plan. I have literally attacked 6-7 foes (my level) together with a simple plan of who to kill first, what order to use my skills in, and when to disappear. The result, more often than not, is 20-40 seconds of slaughter and the dead bodies of the baddies falling to the ground. Wicked! A simple plan allows a thief to defeat a champion that could 1-hit kill him! Thief wasn’t fun, because I wasn’t thinking ahead. When I did, just a little bit, I became a killing machine.

• You don’t Steal to “steal” (Why is the thief mechanic so under powered?!?)
  When I first played thief, I wanted “steal” to be awesome. I was so disappointed. You get some random skill that may be suckier than most of your utility skills? How is that cool? The answer is that you don’t steal to steal! Forget the new skill. It is there strictly as a bonus. Steal is awesome when used right. Arena Net just named it wrong. The Steal function is actually a permanently available, initiative-free shadow-step that you can trait to give you all kinds of extra bonuses. (Then again what should they have named it? “Initiative-free-shadow-step-plus-extras?” Maybe we will just stick with steal…) Currently, every time I “steal” from an enemy, I poison them, damage them, regain initiative, and then I begin my attack burst. The extra skill? Half the time I just burn it to get back to my beloved FSS (free shadow step). Occasionally, however, I pick up something amazing like Whirling Axe, which I can then use to surprise a mob with bizarre AoE damage before I even start to apply my own attacks.
• Going for the “Sweet Spot” (“Back-stabbing is useless.”)
  Actually, Ridkitten and I would both disagree with that statement (even though I think that I may have originally said it.) Back stabbing is one of the hardest thief talents to learn. The function – you disappear, gain a new #1 slot weapon skill, and when you execute it behind an enemy it deals extra damage – is pretty straight forward. The execution is difficult. But, when you plan its use in battle, you will almost always land it.
  Scenario: Thief blitzes a warrior, warrior survives, thief adapts, warrior has 100 life left – thief usually only deals 50 damage. Thief has 50 life left, no initiative, and warrior usually deals 100 damage. Who wins? That depends on how well the thief can back-stab. Usually, a thief faced with this situation will cloak and run. If he escapes, he heals up and will probably try the encounter again. If the warrior uses a closing or crippling skill, however, he might catch and kill the thief. BUT a smart thief will cloak, roll behind the warrior, and immediately back-stab him. The back-stab will typically do about double damage, giving the clear victory to the thief. Thus, if the thief had that end game strategy planned he will prevail. If not, the best he can do is a wash otherwise – death. (And yes, I did this [with numbers to match my level] yesterday.)
• I like to move-it, move-it (“I get killed by AoE in a second.”)
  Although pretty much every class has its own movement functions – minus, perhaps, Necro unless you have high traits and a weird playing style – the best movement belongs exclusively to the thief. Perhaps a sixth or so thief skills have something to do with the movement of your character. Use them. Don’t ever just stand there! Anyone and everyone will attack a motionless thief. Although a little dizzying at first, the movements of a thief are a joy to use. Similarly, with the Signet of Shadows you get a permanent, passive 25% boost to speed, allowing you to escape all those irrelevant encounters that a Warrior would have to fight through. To enjoy thief to its fullest, keep moving, watch any red circles around you and run or roll out of them, and make sure that nobody is quite sure where you will appear next.

• Know Thyself (“These skills just confuse me.”)
  The real clincher for me was when I learned my skills and how, when, and why to use them. In order to make thief work I had to: use the wiki to learn what my skills should do; use the forum to see what those skills really do and figure out what combos are best; and finally practice them until I could at least land the combo I wanted. I seriously doubt GW2 will ever be able to recover from the loss of the Moas I slaughtered trying to master the basic combos. (In fairness to the Moas, they put up a good showing and – at least at first – they had the upper hand. I can just imagine the passerby, “There’s another thief getting pulverized by the fowls, again.” Fortunately, I choked down my pride. Offed those feathered foes and now enjoy much meaner prey.)
  When you know how and when to use your weapons, skills, and utilities you will enjoy thief. Most GW2 classes do not cater to button mashing. But, with thief, you really need to go a step beyond so that you understand how each skill will help or jeopardize you. (E.g. to state the obvious, avoid Disabling Shot whilst perched on a cliff. Rethink using Heartseaker to heedlessly bounce into a group of 8 veteran ettins with knockdown.) But, additionally, consider when, where, and how each skill can be used to its fullest. Can you get at combo field and a finisher? Should you spam one skill at a certain time? Do two skills really seem to go together? Should two skills never be used at the same time? Answer these questions and thief will be a whole lot more fun.

Conclusion
Thief is fun!
But you have to change the way you look at GW2 in order to really enjoy it. When you master the above – and believe me, I am a long ways from any sort of mastery – you will be able to do the amazing. Even with my moderate skill I have taken out large groups of enemies of significantly higher level, simply because they couldn’t hit me. I certainly hope that readers who don’t like the thief will find my experience useful and give thief another chance.
Enjoy!

@Jack

Hell of an amusing read. Thanks!

Thanks for the complement, mate!

Wait a second! What?!?!? This forum never heard of the Chronicles of Ridkitten? I have been kittenized!!!!

I think my most powerful tool with my thief (my first and only character) is not an in game item but my mouse. I have almost all my skills bound to my G700 allowing me to run around and strike like Billy-O which is the thief’s major forte.

In a group fight against a major boss? With a gaming mouse, I can run round the back, let someone else take the heat for a while, and still maintain my attack rates. As a casual player, I have made L40 in 2 weeks, but I doubt I’d have managed it if I had to take my fingers off movement controls to attack.

Oh… a little tip for any new thief: Thieves Guild elite skill is a lifesaver.

Signet of Shadows skill is also a great addition for a thief. +25% movement speed means that I can often run right through an enemy camp to grab a POI, wait till their attacks start hitting, tap 6 for Hide In Shadows, and before they know it I am off into the sunset.

I also find Hide In Shadows valuable as a time waster. My usual method of attack is this: Choose the enemy, slowly close firing shortbow. Soon as it starts hitting, back off, still firing. He gets close? Dodge back. Then again… but be wary of any enemies you are backing into. When he closes for the third time, switch to your close range setup. Most of the time you will have already dropped him to third health before he is near you.

If he is still quite powerful, lay Ambush, Thieves Guild and hit the enemy once… then Hide In Shadows to regenerate before rejoining the fight. As a total noob, this has won me many, many fights.

I tank just about every mob w/ my thief…

Swrd/Pistol or Dagger/Pistol.

That’s how its done…infact i can take on many mobs at once w/ this