Guild Wars 2

Sword Pistol, Dress like a pirate and get pirate runes.

YARRRR!!

ASP said: “Lots ah stuff that needed ta be said (paraphrased).”

I like his idea ‘bout teachin’ yourself how ta fight with a Thief, it’s sensible an’ will really teach ya somethin’ about the class that yer jus’ not gettin’. Learn ta play a Thief well an’ ya might like it … or ya might not, that’s okay.

I run PvP and PvE with a steal based condition build wielding a pistol/dagger combo.

My resoning behind the build was basically “well, the steal line also gives me condition damamge, and stealing is fun”

This eventually turned in to

“Well if the vast majority of my damage comes from bleeds, those work if I’m not hitting”

to

“I can also be invisible and still bleeding things.”

The average fight with three or more mobs usually looks like so:

Size up pack, find most dangerous monster in pack (Note, ranged monsters are usually high on my list), steal to close gap, follow steal with C&D to stealthand aoe blind, and set up for sneak attack, review combat aptitude of stolen item. Fire sneak attack, fire three autoattacks, or a single dancing dagger if I need a bit of CC to deal with faster attacking mobs, or apply a combo field or tertiery effect with the stolen item to a non-current target.

Continue to go with CnD>Sneak attack to keep the bleeds flowing, and use the unstealthed window to pop whatever utility I need during the fight from other weapon or utility skills, applying CnD when the blind is most useful, using dodges, positioning, stolen items, or cripples to limit or in many cases completely halt incoming damage.

Loot, and laugh at how you took zero damage by causing every single enemy attack to whiff or miss due to blind. There are certain mobs that are exceptions, but it makes PvE a walk in the park in most cases, and dungeon groups really really like it when you spam blinds while also actually dealing a hefty chunk of damage.

Sadly, in events there’s usually a “tag the mobs” race so I pretty much just walk in to the largest pack of mobs and spam cluster bomb at melee range with my shortbow swap. This is boring, and also ineffective solo, but is braindead easy in zerg events when 20 other people are “tanking” for you.

Basically, what I’m saying is that Theives aren’t kittened in PvE, but because of the initiative mechanic theif skillsets are sort of by design reactive an thinking on the fly than the other classes I’ve tried. I dearly love my engineer, but the engineer really has a limited attack chain with very specific tools for specific purposes (but he has a lot of them, which is why it’s fun.)

Thieves in PvE tend to have a smaller number of tools with much larger potential applications. CnD stealths me, and stealth is a tool I can use for evasion or damage. Dancing dagger is a good burst multitarget with a good cripple. Its a tool I can use sparingly as a utility, or blow a lot of initiative on as burst damage to two or three foes. This trend continues with most theif abilities, or the way those abilities interact with traits or stolen items. You have, less buttons than a lot of other classes, but each one of those buttons tends to be a lot more multipurpose when put together with the “total package” of what you can trait and gear for. Warriors have the same number of buttons, granted, but warrior is a much different playstyle that says “I have this attack chain, I use it and things die”

Thieves can’t be played effectively that way in PvE, and can only be played effectively that way in PvP in a very specific burst setup that is still receiving nerfs.

Scootabuser.4915:

Sword Pistol, Dress like a pirate and get pirate runes.

YARRRR!!

Your character shouts “For Great Justice” instead of “YARRR,” which isn’t nearly as cool.
Also the parrot is insane and flies around aggroing everything.

Or so I’m told, at least. I can’t test Pirate runes in the Mists (since it’s a Magic Find rune) and I’m not about to spend money on the awful things.

The thief is absolutely the most worthless class in the game for PvE.

You are about as fragile as a class with light armor, but have none of their range.
You also have only one complete condition removal skill (shadow return) which happens to have a long cool down.
The bleeding (the only damage over time effect the thief has) a thief causes pales in comparison to what a necromancer can do with a scepter and auto-attack.
We have only two area effect attacks in our entire arsenal.
Blindness doesn’t work at all on champion enemies.

All the thief’s more useful skills devour initiative which makes your only reliable way of handling most enemies a burst at the start and then kiting them with bleeds. Back stab is not nearly as useful against AI opponents with much larger health bars as it is against human players. And don’t even attempt this against groups of enemies.

At best, we’re a combat medic thanks to Shadow Refuge which lets us cloak and heal allies in an area. But other than that, we can’t do much of anything in a battle against hearty opponent like a champion or dungeon boss even in the ways of support.

Thief was made only for PvP and PvP only. Very little if any thought went into its design for fighting the AI enemies.

Shooopa.5632:

At best, we’re a combat medic thanks to Shadow Refuge which lets us cloak and heal allies in an area. But other than that, we can’t do much of anything in a battle against hearty opponent like a champion or dungeon boss even in the ways of support.

Thief was made only for PvP and PvP only. Very little if any thought went into its design for fighting the AI enemies.

Well, first, the Shadow Refuge thing is somethin’ I always bring inta a boss fight with me, because I know we’ll need it – haven’ had anyone complain.

Second, funny you say we can’t add anything ta champion or boss fights, cause I two teamed a good handful ah Champions, an’ in allota boss fights I’m one ah the last ones standin’. (unless they manage ta hit me with their stupid area effect one shot kill … but even then I got my teleport when downed, so I can move outta the danger zone.) Yeah, I’m squishy an’ can’t take allota hits, but that’s why I don’ let meself get hit allot.

Shooopa.5632:

All the thief’s more useful skills devour initiative which makes your only reliable way of handling most enemies a burst at the start and then kiting them with bleeds.

The thief’s most useful skills devour initiative, sure. Therefore, you should trait for massive initiative gain. Opportunist. Quick Recovery. Maybe even Infiltrator’s Signet, since a stunbreaker is very nice but you’ll spend a lot of fights without activating it. Et voila, tons of initiative! This is all without taking pigeonholing traits like Signet Usage.

Sirgen’s build has helped me tremendously in my potential, I quickly cut through Orr, got to Lvl. 80 through the evening, and even got a full set of “Mad King’s” exotic gear to throw on top of it all—so now I am a sexy lil’ thiefy.

Apparently I’ve done a complete 180, I’m surprised. Combining most of my damage output with avoidance is excellent. Of course I altered his build a bit, not so much in traits but in skills. I’m sure I’ll tinker more as time goes on but I honestly see no reason to really touch the two pure damage trees at this point.

Sorry Jack, I had to ignore your posts, typing like that just isn’t necessary lol.

@OP I understand where you’re coming from, thieves are definitely bland compared to other professions. Just compare D/D Elementalist to D/D Thief. Their gameplay is 10x more active… lolwut?

I am always a thief/assassin/rogue class in every MMO I play so naturally, I’m used to being the underdog boring class with stupid gimmicks. All you can do is either reroll or wait for updates. Something keeps me playing these characters and I don’t know what.. but no one can seem to do it right. sigh

Kelliak.9152:

I don’t get why no one accounts for the many ranged mobs in Orr. .-.

I do and I have no problem with them. The only times I die is when I get CC’d into a gigantic group who insta-gib me before I can get back up or in dungeons when there’s a particularly hard fight (and even then I’m usually one of the last of the party to fall).

Rukia.4802:

Sorry Jack, I had to ignore your posts, typing like that just isn’t necessary lol.

I type the way I talk, it’s me voice … an’ I bring it ta you, here. Ya don’ wanna make the effort, yer loss.

Kelliak.9152:

Sirgen’s build has helped me tremendously in my potential, I quickly cut through Orr, got to Lvl. 80 through the evening, and even got a full set of “Mad King’s” exotic gear to throw on top of it all—so now I am a sexy lil’ thiefy.

Apparently I’ve done a complete 180, I’m surprised. Combining most of my damage output with avoidance is excellent. Of course I altered his build a bit, not so much in traits but in skills. I’m sure I’ll tinker more as time goes on but I honestly see no reason to really touch the two pure damage trees at this point.

I’m glad to hear you’ve come back ‘round on the thief! BTW, something you may find works well for surviving at close range. Signet of Malice gets really good synergy with several thief skills… Daggerstorm becomes an handy heal from the middle of a crowd of risen, also Cluster Bomb can pulse in some quick healing with Signet of Malice (not sure what you’re running for a heal.)

Whatever you’re doing though, hope it brings you many more days of sneaky fun

And… now I am feeling the same about PvP as I did PvE.

I’m really just as a whole not enjoying this game anymore. So much of it is backwards from what I’ve learned and it’s making the entire experience feel like a trudge through quicksand. Figure out one detail, another one slaps you in the face in the most obnoxious way possible. New is nice, different is nice, but they went overboard with it.

Basically I’m finding out that even though I already moved my traits away from damage focus, I also have to do the same with my gear to do any good in PvP. Otherwise I just die on a dime to anything and everything. I’ve grown bored of searching for answer after answer and quite frankly; I’m ready to give up MMOs entirely.

I just want to get back to my shooters. I love competition, not spending hours upon hours trying to figure out how to even be competitive to begin with—often by working out a cookie cutter build/style(oh how original Arenanet) only to realize this whole mess has grown exhausting for me.

Even the social aspect, which drew me originally to MMO titles, has gone to hell across the board no matter what game it is.

Really, thanks everyone, but that’s it for me. When a game becomes a job, it’s no longer a hobby. At least I’ve got my CE Halo 4 Xbox coming down the pipe. There is nothing wrong with that.

Come back aroun’ in six months when they’ve filled the game out more … not like you’ll have ta pay any more ta log back in.

Hmm, I don’t feel that I have had many problems in PvE. Single targets are destroyed by bleeding and poison by my d/d and I can take out like 10 targets at a time with my shortbow/caltrops/dagger storm.

I agree and disagree with you.

Thief isn’t necessarily weak in PvE. Their single target damage is one of the best. The problem is their single target weapon builds lack utility. D/P is the only one that has it, but the initiative cost on Headshot and Black Powder are huge. (You might like this build though – can keep you alive in PvE a lot better than D/D.)

However, in comparison to other classes, thieves lack AoE damage with their single target damage. Sword is the only way to do it effectively. S/P, after the recent nerf, lost a ton of damage. You’re now basically forced to spam auto attack, in which case you might as well just use S/D so you can get an extra dodge. And the problem with this build? Flanking Strike is buggy, and the overall DPS is awful in comparison to other classes.

Warriors can deal as much, if not more, overall DPS when compared to a thief, while also being able to do it in AoE with more defense and health. Honestly all classes, when built for damage, can.

If I had to choose a class to do dungeons with, thief would be my last choice. It’s just dull and unrewarding – especially at range. Thief has awful support options save for Shadow Refuge.

They just need to give us a better weapon set in terms of PvE options. I would vote axes, both mainhand and offhand, personally.

tl;dr: high single target damage without AoE is an awful combination in PvE, and our weapons that have AoE do crap damage

lol this thread’s a joke. thieves are useless? really? learn how to play properly before you say stuff like that. if you can’t avoid being hit and don’t know how to set up your character properly to dish out decent damage, then just pick another class you’re comfortable with that you can either tank with or attack from range.

I really just wanted more than a few builds (looking at you, SB and S MH + signet of malice and dodge-a-trops builds) to be effective and worth the effort in pve, but I wasn’t feeling the risk:reward ratio in anything else, tbh. Its not a bad class in pve, but its best options are pretty dull.

Lvl 80 warr was quite effective and w/ more potential weapon setups. Not a dynamically interesting class, but def overall more effective a pve class than the thief.

Lvl 80 engie was FUN and had lotsa of options. I grew particularly fond of the ‘shotgun’ feel of the rifle and its burst + control, bomb heal specs, gadgets, and the elixir gun for group support. Not all options are well done (grenadier trait too good atm, tool kit and turrets are lacking, flamethrower needs better scaling, sigils dun work on kits, etc), but the class is quite varied enough that its like going to a soda fountain as a kid- you just want to start mixing different things together and see what results.

Tried leveling a Guardian, but it just felt too plain. Tried a Mesmer too- but just absolutely hated the illusion mechanic in pve and the class’s low access to move speed buffs. I’ve never liked the ranger/hunter or necro/warlock archetypes so not touching those.

But then.. I tried the monster that is the D/D tank 0/10/0/30/30 aura share build for the Ele.
Oh.
My.
God.

Once you go D/D ele and start realizing all that it can do, everything else seems incredibly dull in comparison… cause it is.

Sometimes the first shoe doesn’t fit; that may still be the case for you, OP. It def was for me.