Guild Wars 2

Every time I hear this it amuses me. Just going to let you know that thief is pretty kitten good in PvE. The reason why people think they are bad is b/c they saw bad players playing thief and spread the word. Now the whole world thinks thief is bad.

Get a good thief on your team and you’ll find out that the thief can be the best class in the game. If you need some tips or advice on how to be a good thief, this is all you need to know. Fields and finishers, use them.

People complain about thieves only doing damage? Warriors get praise for doing the same thing but still do less. We may not give perma aoe fury, but that guardian or warrior or mesmer will pick up the slack there while you soak up and use those boons better than any other class.

Oh and people actually complain about survivability?! When you dodge or evade, you don’t take any damage. Any class can do this so why would you need tanky gear or traits? It’s not like any decent player will have any problem avoiding the telegraphed attacks.

Last thing to you non-thief players. When a thief is stacking invis for the team, don’t act like a kitten and run out of the refuge or rush away from the cluster bomb spam on smoke screen. Makes you die, makes the mobs agro farther, makes the aoe hit the smart players (who are invisible and supposed to be safe), and places the mobs (who would have been way out of range) to be waiting for the players as they exit stealth. Save everyone a headache and don’t make yourself look like an idiot, wait those 2 seconds for the free stealth and enjoy the free run to the end.

Oh how many times I’ve dropped shadow ref on the group only for them to charge out and aggro everything in sight.

This kinda doesn’t seem like it needs to be in the thief section. I would assume most thieves know how useful they are.

I think it’s the other people that need to be informed.

No matter how much you preach about this, nobody will listen. The stigma is already too strong.

I just choose to avoid responding to a good portion of those threads, because there is so much misinformation that I cannot even choose where to start.

<- 95-100% melee uptime Thief, zero problems in any dungeon or 40+ Fractals as of yet.

I’m also very tempted to just forget about Refuge altogether – nobody EVER pays attention to it.

Go post where someone actually cares. Why are you preaching to thief players.

Thieves aren’t that great in PvE. Anyone who says they are is in denial. That does not mean that they are either unplayable or unenjoyable, though.

They have a melee focus but go down really easily in zergs
They have a pretty lousy downed state
They lack proper threat reduction
They are not really offensively stronger than any other class
They don’t have amazing support builds. Venom sharing is about it and it’s meh.
Their ranged options are fairly underwhelming

It’s really simple – the Thief’s toolset benefits them more in a PvP setting than it does in a PvE setting. Nowhere is this more obvious than in their downed state.

Einlanzer.1627:

Thieves aren’t that great in PvE. Anyone who says they are is in denial. That does not mean that they are either unplayable or unenjoyable, though.

They have a melee focus but go down really easily in zergs
They have a pretty lousy downed state
They lack proper threat reduction
They are not really offensively stronger than any other class
They don’t have amazing support builds. Venom sharing is about it and it’s meh.
Their ranged options are fairly underwhelming

It’s really simple – the Thief’s toolset benefits them more in a PvP setting than it does in a PvE setting. Nowhere is this more obvious than in their downed state.

Go down easily in zergs…really? Because usually zergs in pve are trash mobs that we can just blindlock forever and take 0 damage. Then proceed to cleave them with auto sword #1 or pistol whip, if things get hairy infiltrator out for a sec and go back in…

Pretty lousy downed state…I do 3k bouncing daggers, I can rally off mobs pretty fast. That’s even if I go down in the first place. I think we actually have some of the better tools while downed like a shadowstep and stealth…when there is a party wipe we end up surviving.

We lack proper threat reduction…what does this even mean? Stealth = no more threat on you. If you mean for the party…well sorry we can’t Aegis everyone like guardians do but we can keep a constant Weakness on mobs, u can look up Weakness does if you are interested.

They are not offensively stronger than any other class? Another false information, man I wish DPS meter was introduced in the game. Here’s an example for you, warrior’s average 100B is 25k in 3 seconds, with 8 sec cool down. Our backstab chain does 7k+13k in a second, with 3 second cool down…math.

We have no great support builds….we don’t need it. No body needs support builds if they are good. Use utility skills depend on situation and you’ll be fine. I’m glass cannon dps build and my shadow refuge and smoke screen does their jobs just as well as a support thief. We support by gimping enemies, sorry u can’t see them cuz there’s no orange boon icons over your skill bar.

Ranged options…Clusterbomb – spammable 7k AOE, trickshot does alot of total dmg if there’s more than 1 target. Single target fights spammable unload is fine, could be better but still fine.

But what do i know, I’m in denial.

I agree on anything writen here in favor of the thief, but the damage part. Thief has the highest single target damage. (Only ele + Fiery Greatsword can outdamage them) But thats it. Warrior has way more AoE and much better offensive support (+ 40% damage for the entire team? Anyone?), two things you need in dungeons, too.

For a smooth run, a good thief is nice to have, but at least one warrior ist almost a must.

Molch.2078:

For a smooth run, a good thief is nice to have, but at least one warrior ist almost a must.

the perfect party is: 2xguardian,2xwarriors,mesmer(10s quickness for everyone, no penalty ftw)

ANY combination without 2 of the 3 classes mentioned will have LESS good results

oh and if a class has GREAT performance in wvw OR pvp, doesn’t mean it’s also the same in pve ! (see warrior, we are in reversed situation)

Molch.2078:

I agree on anything writen here in favor of the thief, but the damage part. Thief has the highest single target damage. (Only ele + Fiery Greatsword can outdamage them) But thats it. Warrior has way more AoE and much better offensive support (+ 40% damage for the entire team? Anyone?), two things you need in dungeons, too.

For a smooth run, a good thief is nice to have, but at least one warrior ist almost a must.

Yeah our cleave kinda sucks.

DanH.5879:

Molch.2078:

For a smooth run, a good thief is nice to have, but at least one warrior ist almost a must.

the perfect party is: 2xguardian,2xwarriors,mesmer(10s quickness for everyone, no penalty ftw)

ANY combination without 2 of the 3 classes mentioned will have LESS good results

This is:

• Offtopic
• Wrong
• Terrible terrible wrong….

The perfect team setup depends on the content you want to use this team for.

Molch.2078:

DanH.5879:

Molch.2078:

For a smooth run, a good thief is nice to have, but at least one warrior ist almost a must.

the perfect party is: 2xguardian,2xwarriors,mesmer(10s quickness for everyone, no penalty ftw)

ANY combination without 2 of the 3 classes mentioned will have LESS good results

This is:

• Offtopic
• Wrong
• Terrible terrible wrong….

The perfect team setup depends on the content you want to use this team for.

then explain to me einstein why i get kicked BECAUSE i am a thief
(from ppl that i don’t know, and they don’t know me)
how do you think i feel when i get the boot even before we start the dungeon?

hm… your team was a bunch of idiots?
Or

Every time I hear this it amuses me. Just going to let you know that thief is pretty kitten good in PvE. The reason why people think they are bad is b/c they saw bad players playing thief and spread the word. Now the whole world thinks thief is bad.

Probably both.

the stigma are too strong…
don’t need another thief confirming it.

Elm.8169:

Go post where someone actually cares. Why are you preaching to thief players.

Because 75% of the people who come to this forum tend to be people who hate thieves so they complain about them. Also if I posted anywhere else a mod would have just moved it here.

Orpheus.7284:

Einlanzer.1627:

Thieves aren’t that great in PvE. Anyone who says they are is in denial. That does not mean that they are either unplayable or unenjoyable, though.

They have a melee focus but go down really easily in zergs
They have a pretty lousy downed state
They lack proper threat reduction
They are not really offensively stronger than any other class
They don’t have amazing support builds. Venom sharing is about it and it’s meh.
Their ranged options are fairly underwhelming

It’s really simple – the Thief’s toolset benefits them more in a PvP setting than it does in a PvE setting. Nowhere is this more obvious than in their downed state.

Go down easily in zergs…really? Because usually zergs in pve are trash mobs that we can just blindlock forever and take 0 damage. Then proceed to cleave them with auto sword #1 or pistol whip, if things get hairy infiltrator out for a sec and go back in…

Pretty lousy downed state…I do 3k bouncing daggers, I can rally off mobs pretty fast. That’s even if I go down in the first place. I think we actually have some of the better tools while downed like a shadowstep and stealth…when there is a party wipe we end up surviving.

We lack proper threat reduction…what does this even mean? Stealth = no more threat on you. If you mean for the party…well sorry we can’t Aegis everyone like guardians do but we can keep a constant Weakness on mobs, u can look up Weakness does if you are interested.

They are not offensively stronger than any other class? Another false information, man I wish DPS meter was introduced in the game. Here’s an example for you, warrior’s average 100B is 25k in 3 seconds, with 8 sec cool down. Our backstab chain does 7k+13k in a second, with 3 second cool down…math.

We have no great support builds….we don’t need it. No body needs support builds if they are good. Use utility skills depend on situation and you’ll be fine. I’m glass cannon dps build and my shadow refuge and smoke screen does their jobs just as well as a support thief. We support by gimping enemies, sorry u can’t see them cuz there’s no orange boon icons over your skill bar.

Ranged options…Clusterbomb – spammable 7k AOE, trickshot does alot of total dmg if there’s more than 1 target. Single target fights spammable unload is fine, could be better but still fine.

But what do i know, I’m in denial.

blah blah blah. Actually, you are, pretty much everything you said here is grossly misinformed.

Einlanzer.1627:

blah blah blah. Actually, you are, pretty much everything you said here is grossly misinformed.

Elaborate. Although I don’t really care since I’m pretty comfortable with Thieves’ PVE atm.

I’m also totally fine to let everyone in the world think thieves are bad in PvE, maybe we’ll get an unreasonably great buff that way like Warrior’s Discipline banners.

IMO, thieves in PVE do have their problems. Though I think they have more problems in PVP.

In PVE I figured out something that lets me do a lot of damage on a thief while still supporting the team and not dying every 5 seconds. Basically it involves spamming black powder and smoke screen while auto attacking with the sword. The problem being that unless you run zerker, thief damage feels lackluster. You need to invest a lot just to become as durable as other classes in their zerkr gear, so overall the thief loses out in this.

Definitely not a beginner class. If you can shuck and dive with the best of them the thief is great, but if you can’t you’ll just die quickly or die a little less quickly while doing crap damage.

It’s not only from word alone that this rumor has emerged. The Thief playstyle is vastly different from any other profession, as the Thief has very low health, but makes up for it by being extremely evasive. This makes it very hard to level up at early levels, if you don’t consider that you constantly have to keep moving. And even if you do, you still only have a limited amount of movement skills, mostly because you feel limited by initiative at first (at least I did). So, many players get a bad first impression of the Thief, and so they naturally think the Thief will be equally “bad” at higher levels. Because they don’t consider that the Thief has a very high learning curve. It’s much easier with the Mesmer, as it has a turn around at level 40, but the Thief takes practice to learn, even well into level 80.

Einlanzer.1627:

Thieves aren’t that great in PvE. Anyone who says they are is in denial. That does not mean that they are either unplayable or unenjoyable, though.

They have a melee focus but go down really easily in zergs
They have a pretty lousy downed state
They lack proper threat reduction
They are not really offensively stronger than any other class
They don’t have amazing support builds. Venom sharing is about it and it’s meh.
Their ranged options are fairly underwhelming

It’s really simple – the Thief’s toolset benefits them more in a PvP setting than it does in a PvE setting. Nowhere is this more obvious than in their downed state.

In WvW, I run straight into zergs all the time, shoot my shortbow AoE skills around, even stomp a player or two, and then run out again. Easily. All the while my allies are standing at distance, trying to take foes out with their ranged attacks. And I’m playing a shortbow-pistol/pistol build. With a stealth build, it honestly just becomes overpowered. PvE it’s no different, you just have to keep moving a lot more.

Like any other downedstate, it has its ups and downs. But there are worse downedstates then the Thief’s. If you are close to an edge or corner, in PvP, it is possible to teleport your way down the edge, or behind the corner, to hide and revive yourself. The only really good downedstates in PvE is the Ranger and Warriors.

What the Thief lacks in boons, it gains by being extremely evasive. As a Thief, you don’t really need stealth for anything ells then stealth skills. It is possible to survive on movement alone.

The Thief is offensively stronger then other professions, by design.

AoE stealth is amazing for support. In WvW you can stealth dolyaks or golems close to permanently, on your own. If you are two Thieves, and you coordinate your stealth skills, it is possible to do permanent AoE stealth. Stealth, together with superior movement, also means the Thief is the best profession at reviving. Next to that the Thief has one of the best AoE weapons in the game. And is arguably the best damage support profession.

As a Thief you don’t need 1200 range, as you have more movement speed then any other profession. If a Thief decides to really chase a foe down, he will not get away.

Kasama.8941:

And is arguably the best damage support profession.

How?

God there is so much misinformation in this thread. The main two are summarized here:

A.) Thieves are not offensively stronger than other classes. In fact, their skills have lower coefficients across the board to compensate for their ability to spam. However, the spamming only affects burst DPS, their sustained DPS is the same as or even slightly weaker than other classes due to the lower coefficients. This is mostly why you see so many Thieves running glass cannon builds, because they have to to play off the only strength the class has – burst DPS. The combination of so-so sustained DPS, very poor attrition, and lack of good thread reduction/damage mitigation makes Thief one of the hardest classes to play in open-world PvE and in dungeons.

B.) Stealth does not reduce threat anymore. Smoke Bomb in the downed state is so brokenly useless in PvE that it’s actually laughable. I have played every class in PvE and the Thief’s downed state is easily the worst for both getting a rally and surviving for enough time to get some assistance. Some others are great (Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer), but all others have skills that are at least situationally useful and can usually do appreciable damage.

Einlanzer.1627:

God there is so much misinformation in this thread. The main two are summarized here:

A.) Thieves are not offensively stronger than other classes. In fact, their skills have lower coefficients across the board to compensate for their ability to spam. However, the spamming only affects burst DPS, their sustained DPS is the same as or even slightly weaker than other classes due to the lower coefficients. This is mostly why you see so many Thieves running glass cannon builds, because they have to to play off the only strength the class has – burst DPS. The combination of so-so sustained DPS, very poor attrition, and lack of good thread reduction/damage mitigation makes Thief one of the hardest classes to play in open-world PvE and in dungeons.

B.) Stealth does not reduce threat anymore. Smoke Bomb in the downed state is so brokenly useless in PvE that it’s actually laughable. I have played every class in PvE and the Thief’s downed state is easily the worst for both getting a rally and surviving for enough time to get some assistance. Some others are great (Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer), but all others have skills that are at least situationally useful and can usually do appreciable damage.

A.) CnD and backstab rotation is darn good for a skill that has a 3 second reveal cool down. It’s single target and in many pug setups it’s not practical (mob pushed w/ back against the wall, teammates that don’t know how to manage aggro) That doesn’t mean it’s not one of the highest DPS in the game. Burst means spike damage that can’t be sustained…CnD and backstab rotation can be sustained.

B.) I did not know you what you meant when you initially said threat reduction, now I know you meant reducing aggro. That is up to your team. When you stealth you are allowing your teammates to catch up on the aggro table. It doesn’t necessarily reset you on the aggro table like it once did, but it still serves its purpose.

All of this seems awfully familiar…oh yeah, the same thing happened in GW1 with the assassin! Go figure! There’s nothing wrong with thieves in PvE, just as there was nothing wrong with Assassins in Gw1 PvE. It all came down to bad players who didn’t know what they were doing. In the case of Assassins, it was mostly idiots who tried to tank (let’s not touch that abomination called shadow form, kthnx.)

Just like I didn’t have much problem playing an assassin in PvE, I have little problem playing a thief in PvE either. Sounds like L2P issues to me.

EDIT: To clarify, I know the OP isn’t saying they’re bad. Just my 2 cents about the issue.

Molch.2078:

Kasama.8941:

And is arguably the best damage support profession.

How?

I was referring to PvP here. In sPvP the Thief is the best damage support, simply because you can reach a destination faster then any other profession. In WvW the Thief can easily take out stranglers in a zerg, without being in danger of getting focused damaged, and apply a lot of pressure using a shortbow, thanks to initiative.

I have to say that I can relate to everybody who posted in this thread. I play a thief myself and really love it. But…it is definitly not the best PVE class (but of course also not the worst). We do lack some powerful support skills. And half of our Slot skills are not worth picking…Like Tricks or Poison…yes they are useful in some situations but generally they are not worth it.
On the other hand we have some nice Melee!!!-DPS… our single target range dps is not worth mentioning.
The rest is “okay”. Nothing that you would pick a thief over any other class. SB blast finisher is nice… but overall nothing special, because:
In PVE you want to keep the whole team alive. Everybody who contributes to this goal is “good” in PVE. A lot of damage reduces the fight time, which results in less chances to wipe. And a lot of support increases the time the group stays alive.
A squishy class with moderate support and good damage( good damage only in a melee situation where getting downed happens really fast even if you are a good player) is not as good as a class with good survivability, good damage and good support… And these classes do exist. Mesmer, Guradian, Warrior are really superior. If you would value any stuff they bring to a PVE group they will get higher values then a thief… but i still love the playstyle of D/D and D/P so ill try to do my best and hope for some improvements on venoms. Cause venomshare could be really awesome…

Kasama.8941:

Molch.2078:

Kasama.8941:

And is arguably the best damage support profession.

How?

I was referring to PvP here. In sPvP the Thief is the best damage support, simply because you can reach a destination faster then any other profession. In WvW the Thief can easily take out stranglers in a zerg, without being in danger of getting focused damaged, and apply a lot of pressure using a shortbow, thanks to initiative.

Except the topic is about PvE.

It seems like many thief defenders are primarily PvP players – there’s no question that Thieves are solid in PvP. Many of their important tools that work well in PvP barely do anything in PvE (like Smoke Bomb) and create a lot of headache in conjunction with their poor attrition.

Orpheus.7284:

Einlanzer.1627:

God there is so much misinformation in this thread. The main two are summarized here:

A.) Thieves are not offensively stronger than other classes. In fact, their skills have lower coefficients across the board to compensate for their ability to spam. However, the spamming only affects burst DPS, their sustained DPS is the same as or even slightly weaker than other classes due to the lower coefficients. This is mostly why you see so many Thieves running glass cannon builds, because they have to to play off the only strength the class has – burst DPS. The combination of so-so sustained DPS, very poor attrition, and lack of good thread reduction/damage mitigation makes Thief one of the hardest classes to play in open-world PvE and in dungeons.

B.) Stealth does not reduce threat anymore. Smoke Bomb in the downed state is so brokenly useless in PvE that it’s actually laughable. I have played every class in PvE and the Thief’s downed state is easily the worst for both getting a rally and surviving for enough time to get some assistance. Some others are great (Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer), but all others have skills that are at least situationally useful and can usually do appreciable damage.

A.) CnD and backstab rotation is darn good for a skill that has a 3 second reveal cool down. It’s single target and in many pug setups it’s not practical (mob pushed w/ back against the wall, teammates that don’t know how to manage aggro) That doesn’t mean it’s not one of the highest DPS in the game. Burst means spike damage that can’t be sustained…CnD and backstab rotation can be sustained.

B.) I did not know you what you meant when you initially said threat reduction, now I know you meant reducing aggro. That is up to your team. When you stealth you are allowing your teammates to catch up on the aggro table. It doesn’t necessarily reset you on the aggro table like it once did, but it still serves its purpose.

Don’t really agree the first comment in the nested quote above. The second poster has it right. Focus on the one aspect of a thief that Anet hasn’t nerfed yet: initiative. You can readily spam CnD + #1 attack chain on a d/d thief and do an “ongoing spike” that works quite well in PvE. I routinely chew through most veterans without being minus any hit points (with one or two notable exemptions – namely karka at the end of the fight using d/d. My experience is that d/d thief dps in PvE is very strong. This is the only class I’ve played that I can routinely one or two hit most normal mobs.

The second comment in the nested quote above I agree with. The thief now has a pretty kitten poor set of downed skills. The best way out of a downed state for a thief is to find a poor health normal mob and kill it to rally. Smoke Bomb was a crappy skill . . . now its just a not very funny joke (MESSAGE TO ANET: Fix the dam skill already! Turn it into something kitten usefull!).

I do agree with some other posters – thief has a steep learning curve and really come into their own at fairly high levels. Good news is if you can play a thief well the other classes seem easy in comparison (at least that’s been my experience so far).

Bonafides: I play only PvE and my level 80 thief has about 400 extra skill points (that’s after buying all the skills spending about 200+ points on the mystic forge). And I don’t run a glass cannon build.

Thief by no mean is bad at PvE. We have great damage, I think it’s more consistent than warriors (they somehow depend on might); we have a trait that restores part of the used endurance, and that means more dodges = more survivability

You can use some traits so Steal will grant boons, venom sharing. Why having a thief is so bad? I can only see advantages

Einlanzer.1627:

Kasama.8941:

Molch.2078:

Kasama.8941:

And is arguably the best damage support profession.

How?

I was referring to PvP here. In sPvP the Thief is the best damage support, simply because you can reach a destination faster then any other profession. In WvW the Thief can easily take out stranglers in a zerg, without being in danger of getting focused damaged, and apply a lot of pressure using a shortbow, thanks to initiative.

Except the topic is about PvE.

It seems like many thief defenders are primarily PvP players – there’s no question that Thieves are solid in PvP. Many of their important tools that work well in PvP barely do anything in PvE (like Smoke Bomb) and create a lot of headache in conjunction with their poor attrition.

Damage support is not really worth talking about in a PvE perspective. You stand still and hit a mob, it doesn’t take a lot. Warriors are overrated in dungeons.

Again, the only downed skills that are worth talking about in PvE, is the Rangers and Warriors, because they are the only two professions that can rally on their own. All other professions will mostly die in downed state against mobs.

My PvE setup:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAV8alUmiP3cy9E+5Ex2jdqTey9ooM9odF4KA-jAyAYLBZiCERIwJvioxW4KiGruGT5SEVbwLiWNA-e

You are a massive support to your team while dealing decent damage. Blinding Powder is used as a single-target heal for an ally in a downed state due to Shadow Protector, and Shadow’s Refuge is used as a HUGE AoE heal for the melee, or as a means to pickup downed players.

Shortbow is traited to deal decent AoE damage, while Pistol Whip is great for single-target burst. The closer to death the boss is, the more damage you will dish out.

Honestly, I have almost solod bosses with this build. Self-vigor through healing = more dodges, Infiltrator’s Arrow allows for two additional “dodges”, switching Blinding Powder for Shadowstep will make you completely uncatchable (Shadowstep is better than Blinding Powder with a group who like to drop a lot), Signet of Shadows provides kiting ability and a free blind, while DaggerStorm/Thieves Guild provide great AoE or Single-Target burst.

Why do people complain about Thieves in PvE again?

The answer to this debate is always the same:

All professions can be extremely effective in PvE if well equipped and well played. However, each profession has a much different skill/effectiveness curve.

Yes thieves can be effective as warriors/guardians. No your average thief is not as effective as your average warriors/guardian. It isn’t because thief players or thieves as a profession are bad, but because it takes much less skill to pull out average effectiveness out of a boon-based heavy armor profession than a condition-based evasion profession. So, yes, it makes sense that pickup groups will take other professions over thieves it isn’t that the thieves can’t be good, it is that other professions are a much safer bet since even a terrible guardian will bring more to the group than an okay thief. Those distinctions don’t matter as much in guild-created consistent groups though

A large step towards normalizing this curve would be to make conditions as effective as boons in their given roles. There’s no reason for Aegis to be so much better than Blind in PvE. They’re counterparts, and the decision to make debilitating conditions so much less effective on bosses was extremely poorly though out. As long as that paradigm exists, thieves will be heavily relegated to damage roles since much of their utility is rendered simply ineffective by mechanics.

Tulisin.6945:

The answer to this debate is always the same:

All professions can be extremely effective in PvE if well equipped and well played. However, each profession has a much different skill/effectiveness curve.

Yes thieves can be effective as warriors/guardians. No your average thief is not as effective as your average warriors/guardian. It isn’t because thief players or thieves as a profession are bad, but because it takes much less skill to pull out average effectiveness out of a boon-based heavy armor profession than a condition-based evasion profession. So, yes, it makes sense that pickup groups will take other professions over thieves it isn’t that the thieves can’t be good, it is that other professions are a much safer bet since even a terrible guardian will bring more to the group than an okay thief. Those distinctions don’t matter as much in guild-created consistent groups though

A large step towards normalizing this curve would be to make conditions as effective as boons in their given roles. There’s no reason for Aegis to be so much better than Blind in PvE. They’re counterparts, and the decision to make debilitating conditions so much less effective on bosses was extremely poorly though out. As long as that paradigm exists, thieves will be heavily relegated to damage roles since much of their utility is rendered simply ineffective by mechanics.

Like this post.

Blind vs Aegis though…Blind is better vs groups of normal mobs, Aegis helps against champ/legend bosses at FoTM40+. Blind would be too OP if they worked on bosses too.

I will say this I can’t play a theif that well, I have the builds just cant seem to pull it off, I play a warrior and I can say that my friend is a theif and when we go around killing he is actually a great help in just about everything, so to all haters shut your mouth and actually play a theif or watch a good one in combat.

I will say this I can’t play a theif that well, I have the builds just cant seem to pull it off, I play a warrior and I can say that my friend is a theif and when we go around killing he is actually a great help in just about everything, so to all haters shut your mouth and actually play a theif or watch a good one in combat.

Holy necro, batman!

Einlanzer.1627:

God there is so much misinformation in this thread. The main two are summarized here:

A.) Thieves are not offensively stronger than other classes. In fact, their skills have lower coefficients across the board to compensate for their ability to spam. However, the spamming only affects burst DPS, their sustained DPS is the same as or even slightly weaker than other classes due to the lower coefficients. This is mostly why you see so many Thieves running glass cannon builds, because they have to to play off the only strength the class has – burst DPS. The combination of so-so sustained DPS, very poor attrition, and lack of good thread reduction/damage mitigation makes Thief one of the hardest classes to play in open-world PvE and in dungeons.

B.) Stealth does not reduce threat anymore. Smoke Bomb in the downed state is so brokenly useless in PvE that it’s actually laughable. I have played every class in PvE and the Thief’s downed state is easily the worst for both getting a rally and surviving for enough time to get some assistance. Some others are great (Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer), but all others have skills that are at least situationally useful and can usually do appreciable damage.

And I think you’re a pretty large source of it. Recently there were numbers posted after the 9/9 patch about PvE DPS. All of the classes, under absolute optimal performances were recorded and compared, and Thief was declared as the #1 DPS class under berserker gear, even over Ele FGS. How that actually works out, though, is disputed, as many argue the Ele has better uptime in combat due to the inherently better durability via water attunement effects as well as possible multi-procs of FGS and IB. Does that mean that it alone provides more DPS than the difference made by a warrior with banners? No. It does mean, however, that if your party has the support damage portion already handled, the thieves are on the top of the ladder.

As far as downed state, the damage it provides is absolutely incredible with built-in AOE tagging. This makes rallying quite easy, meanwhile allowing for a teleport reposition and a blind /stealth. Its damage is designed for PvE, and the rest is designed for PvP. Thief has one of the best downed states in PvP for this reason. Additionally, a good thief won’t get downed. If you’re downing frequently, get better or rethink your build.

DeceiverX.8361:

stuff

I think Ein was trying to point out the weaknesses based on average skill level gameplay but failed to mention it. I wouldn’t expect the average player to be proficient enough in thief survival to be able to maximize their DPS either, because the amount of effort and concentration required is more than a few notches above what an average player with basic knowledge can achieve.

Even if thief has the highest DPS, it doesn’t mean that any player will be able to use it effectively, if at all. It still doesn’t change the fact that you have to be good with the thief to be more than a stealth bot or pure DPS. That is the source of the complaints from the thief’s side.

yolo swaggins.2570:

DeceiverX.8361:

stuff

I think Ein was trying to point out the weaknesses based on average skill level gameplay but failed to mention it. I wouldn’t expect the average player to be proficient enough in thief survival to be able to maximize their DPS either, because the amount of effort and concentration required is more than a few notches above what an average player with basic knowledge can achieve.

Even if thief has the highest DPS, it doesn’t mean that any player will be able to use it effectively, if at all. It still doesn’t change the fact that you have to be good with the thief to be more than a stealth bot or pure DPS. That is the source of the complaints from the thief’s side.

Also Ein’s post was made over a year ago. So there’s that.

BIRDPUNCHER.8263:

yolo swaggins.2570:

DeceiverX.8361:

stuff

I think Ein was trying to point out the weaknesses based on average skill level gameplay but failed to mention it. I wouldn’t expect the average player to be proficient enough in thief survival to be able to maximize their DPS either, because the amount of effort and concentration required is more than a few notches above what an average player with basic knowledge can achieve.

Even if thief has the highest DPS, it doesn’t mean that any player will be able to use it effectively, if at all. It still doesn’t change the fact that you have to be good with the thief to be more than a stealth bot or pure DPS. That is the source of the complaints from the thief’s side.

Also Ein’s post was made over a year ago. So there’s that.

Yeah, it’s funny that this stuff still comes up. Each class has a decent niche if you don’t focus on being the absolute fastest in a run. The only classes I don’t like in groups really are necros and guards, and that’s not because I think they’re weak, but because they cover fire fields with light/dark fields, which is really just a minor annoyance.

Kittened thread necro-ers making my posts superfluous ._.

DeceiverX.8361:

Kittened thread necro-ers making my posts superfluous ._.

(pats your shoulder) ._.

DeceiverX.8361:

Kittened thread necro-ers making my posts superfluous ._.

Oh gosh, you saved me from posting a reply in this necro thread.

Wait, kitten. You saved me from…posting a relevant reply?

…

-blinds anyone who saw this post-