Guild Wars 2

I’m especially fond of using thief, and as of right now it’s the only class I currently can use for my Lv 20+ runs. So my problem is this, while I like playing my thief, I seem to feel underwhelmed in certain fights, though am ‘unsure’ if I should be. As I’m playing in my fractal runs, under most circumstances in boss fights I’m constantly switching to my 5/6/0/0/3 P/P SB build against bosses, since otherwise I just get downed from a one shot.

Such examples of enemies I’m not able to melee consistently would be Grawl Shaman, Mai Trin, and Legendary Archdiviner. There’s a stigma in guilds I’ve visited that there’s never a reason to use P/P (which I strongly disagree with), but it’s seemingly mandatory for me as the majority of my boss encounters now shred me, regardless of whether I have 15k HP from Acrobatics + Practiced Tolerance vs 11k HP from pure DPS. I’m torn between trying to force myself to learn to melee, or just keep using the sustained, albeit lower damage than what I can get from S/P (D/D seems too glassy to be used at all outside of the Dredge Bosses and Bloomhunger, so I kinda tossed that out of mind).

So to narrow my question down a bit further, should I really try to melee in these fights or is P/P what most thieves use against them? Finding videos of thieves in these boss fights has proven to be difficult outside of solos, which is completely different than a group setting. Thanks in advance. :]

P/P or S/D Shadow Arts on most of the aforementioned fights. Aside from Mai, I’ll usually just swap out the shortbow for P/P as a ranged set and D/D when my health is full and I know I can manage a hit or two in. With Mai, I just run S/D + SB Shadow Arts with as much stealth as I can for healing, reviving people, etc., as normally someone goes down and shadow arts can let you just sit there and tank incoming damage to revive someone.

That said, I play with Valkyrie armor, so I natively have around 15k health and can often survive a given hit (albeit just barely in some cases).

But you’re right in moving to P/P while running glassy. You also get the benefit of a spammable ranged interrupt to wear down the boss’s Defiance stacks and allow for a party member to use a long-lasting CC effect, which can let everyone unleash their full damage with no need whatsoever to focus on defense.

What are you guys talking about!?

If you can not melee the boss that is simply because you do not have experience or are running in sub optimal groups aka pugs who have no clue how to support their teammates

There is no reason to not use D/D against single targets – it is the superior weapon set for those situations

Narkodx.1472:

What are you guys talking about!?

If you can not melee the boss that is simply because you do not have experience or are running in sub optimal groups aka pugs who have no clue how to support their teammates

There is no reason to not use D/D against single targets – it is the superior weapon set for those situations

Stop freaking out, dude. I know D/D the best weapon set for organized groups, but I’m running in pugs, which means my groups are anything but that the majority of the time. While the damage is of course lower, it’s more sustained, safer, and applies vulnerability at a fast rate. That isn’t to say I won’t learn to melee these bosses if that’s what most thieves do, which is why I’m asking this at all.

It would be great to actually see a video of a thief playing D/D for the mentioned bosses, but I don’t see any, which is my issue in personally finding the viability of D/D in a lot fractal fights.

Shadowstarkirby.4072:

Narkodx.1472:

What are you guys talking about!?

If you can not melee the boss that is simply because you do not have experience or are running in sub optimal groups aka pugs who have no clue how to support their teammates

There is no reason to not use D/D against single targets – it is the superior weapon set for those situations

Stop freaking out, dude. I know D/D the best weapon set for organized groups, but I’m running in pugs, which means my groups are anything but that the majority of the time. While the damage is of course lower, it’s more sustained, safer, and applies vulnerability at a fast rate. That isn’t to say I won’t learn to melee these bosses if that’s what most thieves do, which is why I’m asking this at all.

It would be great to actually see a video of a thief playing D/D for the mentioned bosses, but I don’t see any, which is my issue in personally finding the viability of D/D in a lot fractal fights.

I am not “freaking out” lol

You should look harder because there are AMAZING thieves out there I found a video in 5 seconds and he is not the best thief I have seen

If he can solo it in melee range you can melee in groups – not to mention it is level 49

Narkodx.1472:

Shadowstarkirby.4072:

Narkodx.1472:

What are you guys talking about!?

If you can not melee the boss that is simply because you do not have experience or are running in sub optimal groups aka pugs who have no clue how to support their teammates

There is no reason to not use D/D against single targets – it is the superior weapon set for those situations

Stop freaking out, dude. I know D/D the best weapon set for organized groups, but I’m running in pugs, which means my groups are anything but that the majority of the time. While the damage is of course lower, it’s more sustained, safer, and applies vulnerability at a fast rate. That isn’t to say I won’t learn to melee these bosses if that’s what most thieves do, which is why I’m asking this at all.

It would be great to actually see a video of a thief playing D/D for the mentioned bosses, but I don’t see any, which is my issue in personally finding the viability of D/D in a lot fractal fights.

I am not “freaking out” lol

You should look harder because there are AMAZING thieves out there I found a video in 5 seconds and he is not the best thief I have seen

If he can solo it in melee range you can melee in groups – not to mention it is level 49

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vvlskuZv00

Sorry, just how it came across as, but okay. But I’ve seen this video, it’s the first that pops up in any search and it’s a solo. Solos are completely different than a group; you have a lot more control of the boss AI and don’t have to deal with aggro ever leaving you and having to ponder if she’s following you or not, which is especially critical for outranging Mai without worrying about being slashed. Aggro jumps around in groups, which makes melee more risky, and Warriors and Guardians that actually can take a few hits and stay in melee range often obscure tells, which is pretty vital to knowing when to dodge a spin and ect.

I think seeing one of these types of thieves in a group setting will allow me to get the idea of when to make the most of the melee sets.

It’s easier to solo than fight in a group. This is especially apparent against the Archdiviner, as he will aggro switch and do 180-degree turns while in mid-air of his leap. A clusterkitten of particles and heavies which often maximize player size doesn’t help, either. The boss stats also get down-scaled in the process, making the fight even easier in terms of situations when you do actually get hit.

If you’re not in super-maxed runs with top-tier PvE players, there’s zero purpose in running D/D on boss encounters. Traiting for P/P usually yields more damage in the end due to the constant pressure applied from repeated uses of unload.

I’m almost certain that on fights like Mai or the Archdiviner, when pugs are involved, P/P nets pretty incredible sustained damage and a lot more safety. The fact that per unit of time I can deal equivalent DPS to a full-offense HB war while in valk emphasizes this further.

5/6/0/3/0 is your friend. Also, dagger auto attack gives you endurance. P/P is bad because it has no auto attack and unload damage isn’t even that high compared to a backstab rotation.

I’ll post a video of a lvl 50 imbued shaman I pugged earlier today to see if that gives you any insight

I run 66002 for everything but Mai Trinn and the Volcanic fractal, where I go full SA. It takes a lot of getting used to at first, but once you learn the animations of the bosses its pretty trivial.

oxtred.7658:

5/6/0/3/0 is your friend. Also, dagger auto attack gives you endurance. P/P is bad because it has no auto attack and unload damage isn’t even that high compared to a backstab rotation.

That build gives a lot of dodges certainly, but as soon as a dodge is failed, which will happen sometimes because your members obscure some tells, you’ll be critically wounded, or downed easily.

The benefit of P/P is that it provides sustained, safer damage, and easily stacked vulnerability. It’s certainly bad in dungeons where you stack on bosses and they don’t hit nearly as hard, but that’s the exact opposite in fractals. It’s hard for me to be convinced that melee for thief is a good idea vs. fractals bosses when you consider that the risk of being defeated for missing a dodge in itself is a huge DPS loss over just spamming Unload throughout the entire fight.

I think some videos of melee thieves in a group would be more reassuring that it’s worth the effort and risk, but they’re truly nonexistent (there’s plenty of solos, kudos to them, but that isn’t the same as a group). I myself don’t see much thieves melee the bosses either and just use Shortbow.

AmbrosialK.2653:

I’ll post a video of a lvl 50 imbued shaman I pugged earlier today to see if that gives you any insight

I’d appreciate that. I’d be especially impressed if that was with D/D as well.

CobOfCorn.6352:

I run 66002 for everything but Mai Trinn and the Volcanic fractal, where I go full SA. It takes a lot of getting used to at first, but once you learn the animations of the bosses its pretty trivial.

Seems like from what you and DecieverX has said, investing in SA would be a good idea to try for Mai and Grawl. I’ll give it a shot, thanks. Focusing more on tells, in spite of all the particle effects would probably be a good idea as well, lol.

As a jist of what I do… I constantly stay behind the boss (for flanking bonuses) but it also helps me know when to dodge a bosses attack, generally if they turn around to me I know I need to be aware of a tell soon. Another thing you can do that I do in this video is, I time my rotation so that I backstab right after shaman shoots his arrow, since his arrow is now on a short CD i can freely auto attack without worrying about him shooting an arrow at me, I restealth for another backstab but I make sure he arrows first therefore never getting aggro for that attack. And it’s ok to die, it’s not the end of the world every class in full berserker dies on any boss.

Sorry had to make this a new post, forums arent letting me edit atm.

I’m a full zerk thief running d/d and sb, 56003, and run 49 fractals daily. 40, too, if I’m especially bored. Holding up the lack of videos as proof of no melee thieves in fractals is silly: how many people record and upload their daily fractaling experience? One out of thousands? And only then if it is a timed run, or a solo, or something otherwise out of the ordinary.

Staying alive in melee is a combination of knowing the fight, knowing your class, and knowing when to back off. Shaman raises his arm? Dodge. Fighting Mai Trin? Invest in Shadow Arts. Have aggro? Swap to shortbow, kite a bit until he’s back on a teammate, then hop back into the fray.

If you are inexperienced, sure, run p/p at low levels while you learn mechanics. But refusing to learn d/d playstyle is a disservice to yourself and your teammates. Your damage as p/p is middling at best—downright bad if you’re geared with defensive armor—and the only other thing you bring to the table is the occasional stealth bomb. There’s no reason to take you over an engineer or a Mesmer, at that point: they’d put out competitive numbers and offer more utility.

Getting hit and downed occasionally isn’t a big deal, either. It happens to everybody. If anything, my teammates usually get downed more than I do: since I am so fragile, I’m alert to tells and dangers that they aren’t.

BIRDPUNCHER.8263:

I’m a full zerk thief running d/d and sb, 56003, and run 49 fractals daily. 40, too, if I’m especially bored. Holding up the lack of videos as proof of no melee thieves in fractals is silly: how many people record and upload their daily fractaling experience? One out of thousands? And only then if it is a timed run, or a solo, or something otherwise out of the ordinary.

Staying alive in melee is a combination of knowing the fight, knowing your class, and knowing when to back off. Shaman raises his arm? Dodge. Fighting Mai Trin? Invest in Shadow Arts. Have aggro? Swap to shortbow, kite a bit until he’s back on a teammate, then hop back into the fray.

If you are inexperienced, sure, run p/p at low levels while you learn mechanics. But refusing to learn d/d playstyle is a disservice to yourself and your teammates. Your damage as p/p is middling at best—downright bad if you’re geared with defensive armor—and the only other thing you bring to the table is the occasional stealth bomb. There’s no reason to take you over an engineer or a Mesmer, at that point: they’d put out competitive numbers and offer more utility.

Getting hit and downed occasionally isn’t a big deal, either. It happens to everybody. If anything, my teammates usually get downed more than I do: since I am so fragile, I’m alert to tells and dangers that they aren’t.

Based solely on my few months experience, I never have seen thieves melee said bosses. I’m aware that there exists thieves that melee them, that goes without saying, but they’re such a rarity I’m lead to believe that it isn’t worth the risk. Fractals has been available for a long time, don’t you find it strange that there’s such a scarcity of videos (none until Ambrosia kindly provided) from the point of view of thieves? I’m not saying a video is the all ends proof of what makes something possible or not, no, but if gives people who want to learn a general idea what to do.

I know that dying is fine, yeah, pugs look at you funny and whine, who cares? It happens to the best of us. But the bad thing about is that by dying, you’re doing nothing vs. doing something, which is what I feel is a massive deal breaker for using D/D during fights that wipe easily like Shaman and Mai in particular.

See, when I look Ambrosia’s gameplay (which was really great by the way, thanks for the upload), that time spent downed and defeated could’ve been spent doing just about anything else, like using Smokescreen, Shadow Refuge, Dagger Storm, or actually might not have been easily as defeated with P/P and would be still pounding Shaman with Unload. The damage of D/D was great in the first half of the video, definitely, but for the 2:30 minutes spent defeated + time spent kiting to position and dodge, I find it difficult to say if Ambrosia in the end put out more damage than a P/P thief that would’ve very likely still have been up (trying to avoid bias, but at range you have a better reaction time from the powerful attacks). It’s a bit unfair to say that it’s a ‘disservice’, though I can’t argue that a P/P thief isn’t doing anything more than Mesmer or Engineer (I don’t know those classes personally), but Shadow Refuge and Smokescreen are still something the thief has while still doing decent damage with berserker gear. Ambrosia did say that he/she wasn’t playing at their best, and that seems to be my issue with the set in fractals; unless you give it 100% at all times, you’ll be putting yourself and the team at an unnecessary wiping risk.

Maybe I’m just putting too much emphasis on dying and should just do it anyway just for the sake of learning to do it? I’m genuinely not trying to advocate using bad weapons or promote bad habits, but I find the choice between these sets to be one sided.

Shadowstarkirby.4072:

BIRDPUNCHER.8263:

I’m a full zerk thief running d/d and sb, 56003, and run 49 fractals daily. 40, too, if I’m especially bored. Holding up the lack of videos as proof of no melee thieves in fractals is silly: how many people record and upload their daily fractaling experience? One out of thousands? And only then if it is a timed run, or a solo, or something otherwise out of the ordinary.

Staying alive in melee is a combination of knowing the fight, knowing your class, and knowing when to back off. Shaman raises his arm? Dodge. Fighting Mai Trin? Invest in Shadow Arts. Have aggro? Swap to shortbow, kite a bit until he’s back on a teammate, then hop back into the fray.

If you are inexperienced, sure, run p/p at low levels while you learn mechanics. But refusing to learn d/d playstyle is a disservice to yourself and your teammates. Your damage as p/p is middling at best—downright bad if you’re geared with defensive armor—and the only other thing you bring to the table is the occasional stealth bomb. There’s no reason to take you over an engineer or a Mesmer, at that point: they’d put out competitive numbers and offer more utility.

Getting hit and downed occasionally isn’t a big deal, either. It happens to everybody. If anything, my teammates usually get downed more than I do: since I am so fragile, I’m alert to tells and dangers that they aren’t.

Based solely on my few months experience, I never have seen thieves melee said bosses. I’m aware that there exists thieves that melee them, that goes without saying, but they’re such a rarity I’m lead to believe that it isn’t worth the risk. Fractals has been available for a long time, don’t you find it strange that there’s such a scarcity of videos (none until Ambrosia kindly provided) from the point of view of thieves? I’m not saying a video is the all ends proof of what makes something possible or not, no, but if gives people who want to learn a general idea what to do.

I know that dying is fine, yeah, pugs look at you funny and whine, who cares? It happens to the best of us. But the bad thing about is that by dying, you’re doing nothing vs. doing something, which is what I feel is a massive deal breaker for using D/D during fights that wipe easily like Shaman and Mai in particular.

See, when I look Ambrosia’s gameplay (which was really great by the way, thanks for the upload), that time spent downed and defeated could’ve been spent doing just about anything else, like using Smokescreen, Shadow Refuge, Dagger Storm, or actually might not have been easily as defeated with P/P and would be still pounding Shaman with Unload. The damage of D/D was great in the first half of the video, definitely, but for the 2:30 minutes spent defeated + time spent kiting to position and dodge, I find it difficult to say if Ambrosia in the end put out more damage than a P/P thief that would’ve very likely still have been up (trying to avoid bias, but at range you have a better reaction time from the powerful attacks). It’s a bit unfair to say that it’s a ‘disservice’, though I can’t argue that a P/P thief isn’t doing anything more than Mesmer or Engineer (I don’t know those classes personally), but Shadow Refuge and Smokescreen are still something the thief has while still doing decent damage with berserker gear. Ambrosia did say that he/she wasn’t playing at their best, and that seems to be my issue with the set in fractals; unless you give it 100% at all times, you’ll be putting yourself and the team at an unnecessary wiping risk.

Maybe I’m just putting too much emphasis on dying and should just do it anyway just for the sake of learning to do it? I’m genuinely not trying to advocate using bad weapons or promote bad habits, but I find the choice between these sets to be one sided.

eh, despite my death (that’ll happen to a p/p thief too) and time spent dodging and positioning I most likely still out dps’d a p/p thief by quite a bit. A p/p thief running optimal traits will max out about 7-8k without might per unload, each unload takes 1 and 1/2 seconds to cast. It takes a d/d thief 1/2 a second to cast CnD and no cast time to backstab and without might or vuln thats around 10k dps. Even with all the time spent dodging and positioning, just because of the fluidness of a d/d rotation and the burst I can easily out dps a p/p who was able to constantly attack throughout the fight.