Guild Wars 2

Why is it that whenever I go on GW2LFG to join say, a FoTM team, that when I finally get invited or I self invite myself onto a team I always feel like as soon as I pop up in the party, the rest of them are just sitting at the computers saying “great………a thief….what are we gonna do with a thief….?”

I kinda feel like a let down to the rest of my party simply be being a pretty useless class. (atleast i feel that way).

Whereas GW2LFG, if you have not been on it, is infested with ppl saying “ZERK WAR ONLY” or “NEED HEAVYS ONLY” etc, etc,…

Now this is only a limited pool of data from which I have gathered my assumptions, but I get the feeling that this is a somewhat widespread feeling: That thieves bring more or less nothing new or special to the table that couldnt be replaced with another class. (Except for the fact that we can do cool moves while fighting……"

:(

maybe they are insanely jealous of our OPness that they dont wanna be embarassed or shown up by our awesomely unparralled gaming skills :P srry imt tired to hell with my spelling 240am here. but yeah cmon anet pay attention. undo ALL the nerfs for the last 7 months and we are fine….atleast then we can do what we do best. kill 1 v 1 like nobodys biz.

try find a COF group as a thief. impossible unless its a lax group. FOTM…same thing…. thief? oh gawd….here comes 10 revives in 10 mins.

No kidding. CoF is really tough to get into as a thief. Considering its a super easy dungeon, I once asked someone that was looking for 2 more full zerk wars if I can join as a full zerk thief (which still deals a nice amount of dps). He was insistent that only zerk wars are worth finding for the dungeon and that thieves arent as good for the dungeon.

Simply ridiculous.

Firstly I’ll start off by saying we aren’t useless in Fractals of the Mists, quite the opposite in fact. Smoke screen is a amazing utility to carry in the group, as well as Shadow Refuge. Bassy Venom is also very handy for long boss fights, and yea, I’ve never had trouble getting in a fotm groups, nor do I feel like I am useless to my team.

And secondly, what kind of cof groups are you lot trying to get into? Noobs? If they know anything about cof it should be that thieves are welcomes, it is much quicker with 1 thief, even 2 thiefs make it quicker then the whole 4 war 1 mes combo that’s most popular at the moment. Sometimes when I pug cof I do get into arguments with people who say thiefs are bad in cof so I say let me have a run and I prove them wrong and they shut up and apologise.

Well I suppose either I have been going with people who know nothing about thieves…or I just suck at playing one, which I’d like to assume I’m decent at it considering my thief was my first class I played and have played it the most since release.

:\

> great………a thief….what are we gonna do with a thief….?

Sadly there’s some truth to this. In my small guild, we’ve come to view thieves as dangerous WvW roamers and harassers, but not a class that pulls their weight in dungeons. On average, thieves seem to spend more time downed in dungeon runs than any other class. We’re rarely thrilled when we go to gw2lfg for a fifth and get a thief for it.

Stealth can be useful in dungeons sometimes. For example, a few nights ago the party chilled in AC path 3 while the thief picked up scepter parts for us.

After a thousand+ hours in game I’m finally levelling a thief to get a more informed opinion.

Sithaco.4673:

Firstly I’ll start off by saying we aren’t useless in Fractals of the Mists, quite the opposite in fact. Smoke screen is a amazing utility to carry in the group, as well as Shadow Refuge. Bassy Venom is also very handy for long boss fights, and yea, I’ve never had trouble getting in a fotm groups, nor do I feel like I am useless to my team.

Don’t mistake me, I agree with you in the theory, but here is a more accurate depiction of how it goes on live:

Firstly I’ll start off by saying we aren’t useless in Fractals of the Mists, quite the opposite in fact. Smoke screen is a KICKED FROM GROUP amazing utility to carry in the group, as well as Shadow Refuge. Bassy Venom is also very handy for long boss fights, and yea, I’ve never had trouble getting in a fotm groups, nor do I feel like I am useless to my team.
Message error: You are not in a party
WTF? guys? Hello?
Error: Guild or party is full

If that’s not your case, feel fortunate for having such a nice guild… And don’t forget to be grateful and appreciate what thieves have, as one guy recommended to all thieves in other thread.

2 day ago I did FoTM 18 with.. 3x Thief 2x Ele…

I said to myself “wow… this will be fun” the peaple ine the party where not QQing about “omg no guardian”, “omg no heavy” and so… there where all very optimistic about the run no one complained.

That was one of my fastest fractals in my whole 500 fractal runs, in dredge we opened the mechanism so fast that one of the eles didn’t even notice it. It’s a shame I did not record the facrtal run it was so fast…

It’s not about are You a thief or ranger or anything if You cannot play your class properly even as a guardian or warrior you will suck. And most of the thiefs suck becouse they need to lern how to play.

Same goes for Arah runs, some peaple just hate thiefs becouse they mostly get 1 shotted on Arah they met some that cannot play their class and thats how they build their opinion about thiefs.

I recorded this yesterday in a pug group (It was hard to record and play, the game was not very fluid and the actions like dodge or pressing a skill had a little more delay) I know I failed more than I wanted to, but it made me happy to play as a thief.

In the case of CoF, it’s all about how good of a Thief you are. I’m not gonna lie it’s hard to get into the 4x War 1x Mes group but if you do get in one and show your best people start asking you to come in their group.

For instance last week I had a group lf a 4th warrior I just pinged myself into that group and now that people got to know me they actually want to roll 3x Wars 1x Mes 1x Thief because they prefer it like that because I left a good reputation. I never went down and never made any mistakes, if anything I corrected the Warriors mistakes.

It’s all about how you represent yourself, a Thief rocking Arah armor for instance shows an experienced and skillful image whereas Duelist or crafted set does not.

Make sure you do alot of damage, make you dodge everything you need to dodge. Make sure you make the 4th Warrior obsolete. Make sure you have a good looking businesscard when playing a Thief, so shell out some gold or hours to get a more ‘’elite looking’’ armor set.

Same goes for Arah runs, some peaple just hate thiefs becouse they mostly get 1 shotted on Arah they met some that cannot play their class and thats how they build their opinion about thiefs.

This is not true, any experienced group will want to have atleast 1 Thief for skipping stuff. Shadow Refuge alone makes Thieves highly desirable, and Thieves are one of the best professions for fighting against Giganticus Lupicus.

bettadenu.5483:

In the case of CoF, it’s all about how good of a Thief you are. I’m not gonna lie it’s hard to get into the 4x War 1x Mes group but if you do get in one and show your best people start asking you to come in their group.

If anyone joins a self-pr0-claimed-elitist-farming-party even being a warrior You will get kicked becouse the leader of this party could not like you being an asura…

So CoF is the only dungeon you might watch for. As for the rest it really depends on the party. Sometimes it’s better to get kicked and land in a nwe party than play with morons who will tell you that everything you do is worng, you traits are worng, gear, weapon, class, race, proffesions, dye color, food… so don’t care much about them.

They are in every mmo like kittenroaches.

Edit:

kittenroaches ? oh plz…

It’s funny because 1 Thief is now a requirement for optimal speedrunning.

In the whole scheme of things, Thieves get kicked because PUG thieves are notoriously bad.

Don’t feel guilty. A good player in fractals with the right AR is better than a loser in any other class. Play well and you’ll know you’re worth the spot. Your team mates tend to pick up on that somehow and accept what you’re doing.

Flissy.4093:

It’s funny because 1 Thief is now a requirement for optimal speedrunning.

In the whole scheme of things, Thieves get kicked because PUG thieves are notoriously bad.

In Guild Wars 1 the Assassin profession had little defense and thus suffered the exact same reputation, before seeing major updates and today (and for the last years) Assassins are required in speedrunning, farming, tanking whatever suits your elite needs.

MHE Tiger.4875:

No kidding. CoF is really tough to get into as a thief. Considering its a super easy dungeon, I once asked someone that was looking for 2 more full zerk wars if I can join as a full zerk thief (which still deals a nice amount of dps). He was insistent that only zerk wars are worth finding for the dungeon and that thieves arent as good for the dungeon.

Simply ridiculous.

This has more to do with CoF zerker warriors being elitist little kittens than any sort of deficiency with the thief. I run CoF on my thief all the time and do just fine. Most of that dungeon is single-target bursting so the thief actually does pretty decently there.

This is a familiar scene…

In GW1, Thief’s ancestor, the assassin, had a horrible stigma for years. Because of its immense damage potential, some people would build them as the ultimate glass cannons. When the fighting broke out, they’d shadowstep first into combat, deal insane damage, pull threat on everything within a mile radius, then promptly and unceremoniously die. It wasn’t long before groups got sick of this and turned away all assassins at face value.

Given the current glass cannon meta and the thief’s cardboard-like durability, I’m not surprised to see history repeat itself.

Thieves are OK as they bring utility that may be needed or wanted in some dungeons. However for the most part, if you want an optimum party its going to be 1 Zerker Mes, 1 Knights+Zerker Guardian and 3 Zerker Warriors. Some super easy dungeons like CoF P1 you can replace the Knight+Zerker Guardian for a Zerker Warrior.

Anet hates condition damage builds, gimping them severely (especially multiple condition characters in the same party) , and multiplies the effectiveness of Zerkers. Big slow dumb enemies who have easy to dodge attacks mean that you don’t need a whole lot of survivability as the bulk of incoming damage can simply be avoided by a dodge. Anet also hates control classes, with Defiant shutting down those builds.

That’s just how GW2 PvE works. Sure you can have a fun build, or a fun class, but that’s not optimal and therefore that’s not what the rest of the party wants to see.

Zerk, zerk, zerk.

Surbrus.6942:

Thieves are OK as they bring utility that may be needed or wanted in some dungeons. However for the most part, if you want an optimum party its going to be 1 Zerker Mes, 1 Knights+Zerker Guardian and 3 Zerker Warriors. Some super easy dungeons like CoF P1 you can replace the Knight+Zerker Guardian for a Zerker Warrior.

Anet hates condition damage builds, gimping them severely (especially multiple condition characters in the same party) , and multiplies the effectiveness of Zerkers. Big slow dumb enemies who have easy to dodge attacks mean that you don’t need a whole lot of survivability as the bulk of incoming damage can simply be avoided by a dodge. Anet also hates control classes, with Defiant shutting down those builds.

That’s just how GW2 PvE works. Sure you can have a fun build, or a fun class, but that’s not optimal and therefore that’s not what the rest of the party wants to see.

Zerk, zerk, zerk.

zerk 4 ever ! , screw the condition builds !

DanH.5879:

zerk 4 ever ! , screw the condition builds !

Yes. If you are serious about PvE, zerkzerkzerk is the only way to do it. Screw conditions, control, rangers, necros, etc. That’s just how the game is. Its a shame, I rather enjoy condition and control builds.

I recently played CM in a group with 2 thieves 2 guardians and a mesmer, and discovered that this is an amazing combo for that dungeon. 2 thieves means the party can literally skip half the stuff, much more than you skip in a regular run by running through it. Thief gap-closers make those long hallways full of traps easy to get through. They do great damage too, and the 2 guardians give stability so those annoying shotguns don’t knock you down. The mesmer rounds this out nicely.
I’m sure other group compositions work great too, and I’m not going to become a smug purist about CM runs now just because I had a few good runs with that group, but I’m just highlighting that thieves can be completely awesome in pve.

Also – my build is somewhat tanky, because I use it for wvw too, and it does fine. It’s just a matter of finding the right balance. Zerker gear is certainly fine as well -and as people pointed out, probably optimal for dungeons.

Probably the reason for this is most thieves are either bad players (and it shows on thief more than other classes, believe me) or they are selfish players. They either don’t really understand the strengths/weaknesses of the class, and DEFINITELY don’t know how to adapt (thieves have some of the greatest adaptability in the game)…or they are 100% about damage and absolutely nothing else (see: signet-only heavies, though even so they still have more utility).

A good thief makes ample use of smoke screen, stealth reviving, and knows how to get in/out of the fray when it comes to damage, and can end up being a very tough fighter against a boss.

Because damage is preferred by many in dungeons.
Bad or newer thieves roll glass cannons in PvE and die frequently.
PvE != Dungeons and newer thieves die a lot because of it.
Thieves should be a supporting role (ie. not main source of direct damage in dungeons).
Conditions and the shortbow are the thieves friend in dungeons.

Fossilized Amber.1352:

Because damage is preferred by many in dungeons.
Bad or newer thieves roll glass cannons in PvE and die frequently.
PvE != Dungeons and newer thieves die a lot because of it.
Thieves should be a supporting role (ie. not main source of direct damage in dungeons).
Conditions and the shortbow are the thieves friend in dungeons.

I’m not sure if thieves are all that good in a support role either. Besides an area heal/stealth, and the buffs from Steal when traited, there’s just not a lot of support there.

And unfortunately, even speccing for more defense really doesn’t work very well on Thief unless it’s all stealth reliance. And then you’re mostly stringing together dodges and stealth moves to keep bosses from killing you. A thief gets a few good hits, and they’ll go down, glass cannon or not.

I don’t see the problem. I had some of my friends from PvP run a few fractals/dungeons with me:

1 Terrormancer
1 Vampire-Wellmancer
1 Prismatic Understanding Condition Mesmer
1 10/30/0/20/0 P/P Thief
1 Trap Ranger (And guess what, his pet never died)

We had 0 difficulty, I think the hatred for certain classes in PvE simply stems from new players that lack an understanding of other classes, or knowledge of the game.

Myself have done 28 fotm as thief, a memeber of my guild does 48’s as a thief, thieves can do great damage in fotm, but there are 2 problems in fotm with them, they have no team support skills as in buff’s like warriors and guardians have, no extra type of healing buffs either like engineer and ele.

They also have a low survival rate compare to war, ranger and necro.

The higher levels you go, the more a pug wants warriors and guardians, my guardian was p/t/h and when I got to level 48 for the 1st time I changed my guild right away to p/t/v b.c the extra Health was needed to not get 1-2 hit killed. Its not that thiefs are bad, its just that higher level of fotm are harder and all squishy classes that have low survival are looked downed on.