Guild Wars 2

I come from the tPvP aspect of this game. I have 3 level 80s though(Warrior, Necro, Thief) I love my thief in PvP but as far as PvE goes, what do Thieves have to offer to teams? Blast Finishers? If that’s the only thing then I do not want to main a class in PvE for Blast Finishers. I know Thieves do quite a bit of dmg but aren’t they out-dps’d by Warriors, Mesmers, Eles? These are serious questions that I do not know the answers to. Btw my 80s where crafted to 80 from lvl 1. I’ve been playing game since release so I’m not a new person to the game asking questions, just a new person to PvE.

Answering from a dungeon perspective:

tl;dr – Thieves are far from useless and you can easily get through all game content on one, but overall, classes like mesmers and guardians will offer more to a group.

Blast finishers in a fire field before the start of a fight with an organized group can be really strong, but few groups really utilize that. Blast finishers in the middle of combat are rarely that useful outside of AoE trash encounters since they require you to have your short bow on.

Smoke screen is a good projectile block skill…but a mesmer or guardian can reflect those projectiles and do so more often.

Stealth is great for skipping annoying trash mobs and helps with things like bombing the door in the dredge fractal.

A venom build can bring decent might stacking at significant cost to personal dps. It will also contribute things that are relatively weak in PvE (immobilize, chill, etc.).

Shadow’s Refuge can often save a group from a full wipe since it works so well to rez allies.

There’s other utility that a thief can technically provide beyond this, but it’s pretty marginal. A thief can do strong dps, but it’s not really that different from most other classes. I mean, if you do a direct comparison to a berserker guardian, the guardian will bring tons of reflects, stability, AoE boons (can do 100% protection for melee with hammer autoattack), lay down fire fields, blast finish, and condi cleanse all while dealing equal if not greater dps.

To make it simple I’ll compare warrior to thief because you have both of those. Necro is, at best, pathetic and bottom of the barrel in PvE, mainly due to lack of cleave. In terms of sheer damage, warrior is mediocre, tied at 4th place with ranger. Thief is tied at 1st place (LH ele being only 1.2% stronger). When it comes to cleave the numbers start to show more. Ele is firmly in 1st place. Thief is tied for #2 with guardian. Warrior is #3. As far as support goes, thief and warrior are polar opposites. Warrior would be tied with necro on the uselss scale if it weren’t for banners. Warriors bring nothing to the table (except banners) that other classes can’t provide better. Ele and thief stack might better, and thief, guard, and engi stack vulnerability better. That being said, warriors are by far the easiest class to perfect. You literally have to be trying to f up a warriors playstyle. Thief doesn’t bring much to the table (except damage) if you only plan on pugging. What thief does bring really only shines in high end dungeon speedclearing and high level fractals. We can provide ~30 seconds of party-wide stealth and permanent blinds on trash mobs. If you go and watch plenty of the speedrun videos it becomes very apparent that nearly every party is running a minimum of 1 thief. And with the 12/10 buff, we can top warriors vulnerability stacking.

tl;dr If you only plan on doing casual runs (read: idgaf how long this takes my time isn’t valuable) then warrior is more than enough. If, however, you like to strive for perfection then thief is far superior.

Also mesmer damage can be tied for 1st or tied for last. People don’t take mesmers for their damage (although as a mesmer you should try your best do deal good damage). Their usefulness is in feedback, TW, and 100% reflect uptime.

I mean, if you do a direct comparison to a berserker guardian, the guardian will bring tons of reflects, stability, AoE boons (can do 100% protection for melee with hammer autoattack), lay down fire fields, blast finish, and condi cleanse all while dealing equal if not greater dps.

Guardian only takes #3 on the damage scale if he’s running the dps GS+S/F build. If he’s using hammer then he more than likely has either tied with or dropped below the warrior/ranger level. edit: I can’t think of a single situation outside of fractals where a guardian’s boons can even be considered helpful.

Well thanks for these quick replies. As far as weapon sets go. I keep seeing a ton of thieves with Bolt + Incinerator, so I’m assuming S/D is one of the best? Also GEAR! I’m a PvP nerd so zerker thieves is about all I know. I’m assuming zerker isn’t good in Fractals from what I am told. Anyone care to link a build/gear I should be using? Or go into detail what kind of gear I should use for each specific aspect of PvE ( including WvW ) Much appreciated.

twhite.9310:

Well thanks for these quick replies. As far as weapon sets go. I keep seeing a ton of thieves with Bolt + Incinerator, so I’m assuming S/D is one of the best? Also GEAR! I’m a PvP nerd so zerker thieves is about all I know. I’m assuming zerker isn’t good in Fractals from what I am told. Anyone care to link a build/gear I should be using? Or go into detail what kind of gear I should use for each specific aspect of PvE ( including WvW ) Much appreciated.

S/d is popular due to the lazy dps build (30/30/0/0/10 while camping s/d and not using d/d). It keeps us near the top damage-wise while being somewhat easier to use than d/d. As for gear, zerker + scholar runes all the way. In fractals you should absolute never use any gear except berserker. Other gear works decently (albeit slow as ****) in low levels but the higher you go, the more stuff kills you in 1 hit (seriously theres a video somewhere of some thief getting killed in 1 hit in full sentinels by a dredge trash mob). I can’t comment much for WvW, although when I do occasionally hop in, full berserkers is easily workable in solo roaming and seems to work well in zergVzerg. I haven’t experimented much beyond d/d glass for solo roaming though. As for weaponsets, carry everything. Seriously. As you get more familiar with dungeons you’ll want things to go faster. The easiest way to make things faster is by increasing damage. For example most new players start with d/d with force+night sigils. When you enter a day dungeon/fractal you lose 10% damage. The solution is to accumulate daggers with slaying sigils that work for that particular dungeon/fractal (like undead slaying for arah). You should also invest in a set of bloodlust sigils. I prefer 2 for double stacking with s/p. You’ll also want to get a set of slaying potions. Outlaw, nightmare court, dredge, inquest, flame legion, and undead slaying potions are for the most commonly ran dungeons. Buy 250 of each (only required for most dungeon specializing guilds). For food, typically steak and asparagus is more than enough unless your really trying for a record setting speedrun.

edit: For clarification about the weapons: I carry 7 daggers, 3 swords, 2 pistols, and 2 shortbows at all times. More importantly, I use them all for different situations.

The first thing that thieves bring in dungeons/fractals is blind/smoke and that allows thieves to be in front line melee with trash. Elite runners ignore that as they kill things so fast it doesn’t matter to them. Stealth provides some handy skipping and reviving. Shadowsteps and movement skills in general can be useful. The shortbow is a good utility weapon. Repeated cripple or daze on demand can be good from offhand dagger and pistol. Making use of all of that requires different skills to open world PvE and it is harder work than playing a warrior. Many dungeon tactics are also based around heavy classes and can be plainly fatal to thieves – that doesn’t look like it will change any time soon.

twhite.9310:

Well thanks for these quick replies. As far as weapon sets go. I keep seeing a ton of thieves with Bolt + Incinerator, so I’m assuming S/D is one of the best? Also GEAR! I’m a PvP nerd so zerker thieves is about all I know. I’m assuming zerker isn’t good in Fractals from what I am told. Anyone care to link a build/gear I should be using? Or go into detail what kind of gear I should use for each specific aspect of PvE ( including WvW ) Much appreciated.

S/D is actually one of the weaker weaponsets for PvE. S/P will do more dps and there are only a few places where mobs have useful boons to strip.

D/D is your go-to weaponset for high single target dps.

S/P is one of the stronger options for trash since you get cleave dps along with a spammable blind field to negate enemy damage for you and your group.

Short Bow is your largest AoE for when you have a lot of trash or simply don’t need the blind field from S/P.

P/P is your go-to for single target fights where melee isn’t a good option.

Berserker gear is optimal for PvE dungeons, but some valkyrie pieces may be a good choice while you learn the encounters since thieves are probably the squishiest classes in dungeons. If you know the fights well enough and are good with your dodges, you will still be fine without any defensive stats on your gear.