Guild Wars 2

Warning: This is a PvE discussion.

Hello! I’ve been playing thief since the start of the game, refusing to level up any other alt characters. I’ve experimented with practically every build, weapon composition, and skill combination that either I or fellow forum-goers have come up with. Some of these builds do great damage, others prevent most seemingly-inevitable downs, and some try to do both while not doing much of anything. Regardless of the build I choose, I don’t feel that I’m doing much to help my group complete dungeons/fractals.

Thieves as a profession seem to be lackluster in terms of support to the group. We can provide blinds if we go S/P, but this is a huge initiate-drain and causes the thief to do little-to-no damage; basically making your group a 4man-with-blinds squad. You could argue that we provide the group some essential buffs through the trickery tree, but the buffs compared to other profession’s buffs are very minimal. Regarding our utility skills, the only skills we possess to help the team are Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder. Yes, these skills could be used in specific scenarios to help skip parts in dungeons. They could also be used to make revives in dungeons easier. To help a party, we need skills that act as a preventative as opposed to a cheap “hope this works” fix.

The one thing that I see thieves CAN do, is damage. Unfortunately as there are no DPS-meters are the moment, I can’t say that we do more damage than other professions. Based on the sheer time that I’ve spent doing dungeons (and now fractals), I’ve come to notice that thieves can do some of the best burst-damage onto adds. Is that what a thief is picked for? Burst-damage onto an add that basically any profession can take down?

Note: I am NOT talking about PvP, sPvP, WvWvW, or whatever type of player verse player combat that you could think of. Writing this now, as I know I’ll have to copy/paste it soon.

TL;DR: I’m a butt-hurt thief because I don’t offer much to the group besides damage.

I have a thief and a guardian both fully stuffed, PvE is a piece of cake with guardian , even with MF gear and I would say that a guardian is mandatory in a group, I would never consider buying MF gear for a thief.

That said I think you’re right, thieves don’t bring much in PvE, that’s the only class that slows down your group the more there is in my opinion ( you can do anything with 5 war/guardians for example.. but 5 thieves? no way).

The good : shadow refuge to rez, skip mobs, lose aggro, your downed skills can help you move away from the trap you died into/ lose aggro with#3 skill), you can spam the interrupt of your offhand pistol on bosses against their big attacks, thieves you summon do good dps. But that’s pretty much it.

The bad : D/D has no AoE dps, you’re squishy and most mobs hit hard and have a lot of HP, your skills don’t really have any synergy with your team.

I don’t think you can really improve this though , that’s how the class is designed.

Thief is one of the best team support characters, if not the best.
It may not be immediately clear, tho, you need to learn the character first. People who say otherwise are very far from mastering this class.
Here are our main tools of support:

Premise
Blind is like Aegis, negates one full hit. Turning any amount of damage to zero is the strongest form of support.
Stealth, once mastered, turns the tides and saves wipes.

Shadow Refuge
Very tide-turning skill with 3 purposes:
1) 3k AoE heal + life leech.
2) Stealth rez.
3) Anti-aggro purposes.
This is probably one of the best support skills around for team support.

Smoke Screen
Again very tide-turning:
1) Can be placed on top of a static mob(or more) to nullify his damage for 7s.
2) Can be used to protect your team from ranged damage.
3) Projectile/whirl finishers spread blind, thus protecting from damage even more.
4) Blast finisher stealth, for stealth rez and aggro control.
Cooldown is very low too.

Blinding Powder
Tide-turning, low CD.
1) Can be used to spread blind.
2) Stealth rez.

Black Powder
1) Placed on mob(s), negates his damage.
2) It’s a smoke field like Smoke Screen; can spread blind and be blasted for stealth rez.

Headshot
1) Cheap init cost. Can interrupt mob healing or specific attacks.
2) Can plow through defiant stacks.

AoE weakness
Choking gas+2x Cluster bomb to obtain effect.
Very strong area debuff to greatly decrease the damage of whole packs of mobs.

Flanking Strike
Boon removal against bosses who have dangerous boons.

Signet of Agility
Condition removal and Endurance refiller for all team.

Needle trap / Tripwire
Although situational, these traps are greatly understimated.
Immobilizing a melee mob makes it deal zero damage.
Knocking down a ranged mob makes it deal zero damage.
Knockdown also interrupts skills.

Dagger Storm
The closest thing to “tanking” in GW2.
A Thief jumping first into a mass of 20 mobs and using this will draw all attention, deal a ton of damage, reflect all ranged damage – while the team can finish them.
You can also place yourself between mobs/bosses and your team, protecting them and yourself from ranged damage while also dealing damage.

Once you learn to apply all this correctly you will improve any team’s survivability and longevity by a very large amount and turn the tides of encounters.

Here’s my build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAoYVlUmiO3ey5E+5Ex2jdqTeypwpG1TBZHLA;T0Ag0Cno4ywlgLLXOukctsYYxhiHFzCA

The traits in trickery offer great group buffs. Additionally, shortbow offers incredible AoE damage with berserker’s gear (which is what I always wear in dungeons), and dual daggers is one of the best single target (as in, boss) damage weapon sets in the game, only a little behind warriors with dual axe or GS. Killing things before they kill you IS utility in its own right. I’ve seen groups of full support characters which have tons of buffs rolling constantly. You know what? Those runs have been AWFUL; painfully slow and often involve wars of attrition. The cleanest runs I’ve had have been 5 people in full berserker’s gear, usually warriors, thieves, and guardians.

Red Falcon.8257:

Dagger Storm
The closest thing to “tanking” in GW2.
A Thief jumping first into a mass of 20 mobs and using this will draw all attention, deal a ton of damage, reflect all ranged damage – while the team can finish them.
You can also place yourself between mobs/bosses and your team, protecting them and yourself from ranged damage while also dealing damage.

You forgot to add something: “While he gets instantly gibbed by melee mobs without any sort of defence for the whole duration of this skill.”

Also, those abilities you named are nice, but We have 3 utility slots (not 10 as some ppl thinks…), and other classes have much more better support/utilities skills and often in their weapon sets (Elemetalists for example). So it´s kinda hard for ppl to recognize Thief as an utility/support class….

It really all depends on the type of Thief that you like to play. For a dps glass cannon, the Thief is potentially replaceable by another class. But if you’re looking for things that a group focused Thief has available to them, then we’ve got a few options.

1) Shadow Refuge – Everyone’s already covered this skill. Yet it still blows my mind that far too many Thief players still refuse to take the skill when in a quasi-group situation. All too often, I was the only Thief using the skill when a mass of us were assaulting a boss mob in the Cursed Shore. Even when I ran Arah: Story over the weekend, the D/D & P/P Thief in our party never once cast a Shadow Refuge even when he saw my Thief using it all of the time.

2) We can steal a mob’s buffs through our Trickery line. I’m still eternally amazed that so few people use the sigil that despells buffs on a crit. Nor do Thief players take Bountiful Thief. A prime example is the Eye of Zaitan in the final push for Arah, who owns people when it has x25 Might stacks up and Retaliation. Whenever I see that happen (on my server), no one ever has a dispell or buff steal to keep things moving.

3) Venomous Aura is a game changer. Yes, a devoted VA spec eats up 60 pts worth of trait abilities. (After much personal experience, I do have to admit that Residual Venoms is pretty much required for the spec.) As a S/P melee build using Power/Precision/Toughness, the self-healing from Leeching Venoms keeps me up (in addition to my crit heal procs) and it noticably keeps the other melee players up. During my Fractal runs, there is a night and day difference between a mostly ranged group (who I can’t effectively buff very well) and a mostly melee group (who are closely packed enough to get all of my shared Venom buffs and abilities). People seem constantly surprised to run into a VA Thief during Dynamic Events and PUGs. It seems that the VA spec isn’t very common.

Red Falcon.8257:

It may not be immediately clear, tho, you need to learn the character first. People who say otherwise are very far from mastering this class.

Very subjective, but thanks for pretending to have some unique knowledge of the class that other people (or I guess this is just aimed at me) lack.

Red Falcon.8257:

Premise
Blind is like Aegis, negates one full hit. Turning any amount of damage to zero is the strongest form of support.
Stealth, once mastered, turns the tides and saves wipes.

If you have a group that is constantly failing because of attacks that blind could have avoided, you have a bad group. Blind doesn’t work on skills that wipe groups – it prevents baddies from getting knocked around when they forget to evade. Again, I must not have “mastered” the class like you have.

Red Falcon.8257:

Shadow Refuge
Very tide-turning skill
This is probably one of the best support skills around for team support.

I agree, this is a great support skill – one of my utility skills 75% of the time. Unfortunately, since we only have 3 utility slots, nobody would run three skills that all offer stealth to the group. Technically you could, but you would be kittening your damage, making yourself a glorified medic.

Red Falcon.8257:

Flanking Strike
Boon removal against bosses who have dangerous boons.

But you must play S/P on whatever boss this is. Melee might not really a good option for many different fractal bosses.

Red Falcon.8257:

Dagger Storm
The closest thing to “tanking” in GW2.

Easiest way to down yourself, although I liked your idea about putting yourself in front of your team to block ranged attacks. However, good luck finding a boss encounter where all of your team will stand in the same location, allowing you to “block attacks”. Most bosses will punish people for stacking.

Didn’t mean to sound belittling, but your tone seemed very elitist/smug.

Wiser with Age.3714:

1) Shadow Refuge

I agree, I take this skill a majority of the time. A staple for most groups/encounters.

Wiser with Age.3714:

2) We can steal a mob’s buffs through our Trickery line. I’m still eternally amazed that so few people use the sigil that despells buffs on a crit. Nor do Thief players take Bountiful Thief.

I agree with your points here as well; I covered the trickery line in my original post.

Wiser with Age.3714:

3) Venomous Aura is a game changer. Yes, a devoted VA spec eats up 60 pts worth of trait abilities.

I guess I lied in my original post, as I’ve never tried the VA spec. Like you said, however, you need a specific build/gear set/group dynamic in order for it to be efficient in dungeons. Furthermore, it might be a preference, but I feel that venoms aren’t very powerful in there current state. I dislike how long they last (I would prefer them to last longer), the lack of options they currently provide, and the range in which they apply to your team. If you were to run a VA spec, it would also eat your utility slots as well; you might not be able to run the sigil/refuge you want if you need to put some venoms there.

TL;DR: venoms should have nice little spots next to steal in order to work better with our skills.

chubbs.3189:

If you were to run a VA spec, it would also eat your utility slots as well; you might not be able to run the sigil/refuge you want if you need to put some venoms there.

Now I certainly can’t argue with that. My group oriented skill selection is always Hide in Shadows (for the condition removal), Spider Venom, Skale Venom, Shadow Refuge, and Basilisk Venom. To using Venomous Aura effectively, the only skill in that mix which I could realistically change is Shadow’s Refuge (which I don’t want to do).

One of the severe drawbacks of my build is that I’m weak on the condition removal area, which is why I rely on my HiS heal so much. Now Sword #2 does help a bunch, but that’s still -5 Init for a single condition. My S/P set is using dual Sigils of Blood for the heal proc, so I was forced to put a Sigil of Purity on my SB for the condition removal. Heck, I’m even running Runes of Lyssa for the condition removal. Though I do have to admit that my fear of conditions is based on the fact that I’m only getting +Vitality from a T1 Critical Strikes trait.

Venomous Aura specs are extremely demanding. ArenaNet recently changed the dps output of the Leeching Venom proc to being based on Power (instead of a flat value based on level), which means that a maximized VA spec needs to have Power as a focused stat. All things considered, my use of S/P might be one of the better PvE options for a VA spec. This means that there are even more invisible requirements for a specialized VA build, which is probably why we’re so rare.

(For reference, I’m running Deadly Arts 30 / Critical Strikes 10 / Shadow Arts 30.)

chubbs.3189:

We can provide blinds if we go S/P, but this is a huge initiate-drain and causes the thief to do little-to-no damage; basically making your group a 4man-with-blinds squad.

Sword/* thieves don’t actually need initiative to do damage at melee range. Flanking Strike and Pistol Whip don’t add much DPS over your regular auto-attack chain.

ASP.8093:

Sword/* thieves don’t actually need initiative to do damage at melee range. Flanking Strike and Pistol Whip don’t add much DPS over your regular auto-attack chain.

True. The main reason that I use Pistol Whip on my VA crit proc build is for the extra chances to trigger my procs. Also the built-in Evade helps a lot. As a VA spec, it also helps to quickly deliver my Venom skills (which I can activate as my Pistol Whip is starting up).

There are many good reasons for me to use Pistol Whip, but its raw dps output isn’t one of them.

Pistol Whip is great against multiple targets with SoM active, one of the most effective damage mitigation tools Thieves have.

It’s really more of a utility skill than a DPS skill, although they really shouldn’t have nerfed it.

- Shadow Refuge

- P/P + S/P, when traited correctly, pretty much bring an endless interrupt.

- Good burst damage

- Steal, when traited correctly, is a fantastic source for group buffs.

Sorry for the bad format as im posting from mobile.
I use a 10/0/30/15/15 condition support build currently. There are probably better builds but this one suits me.
The primary dps of this build is through poison and bleeds.
Utility is based around caltrops, refuge and either smoke screen or blinding powder.
This build is used with carrion gear currently but I’m working toward getting 2 piece
apoth, 2 piece rampager, 2 piece carrion for more balance.

I put 10 DA for the 33% increased poison duration (might try 15 for weakness)
30 points SA for multiple options, there are so many on stealth options here I change them before each fight depending on the mechanics.
15 Acrobatics for extra health, and better dodge.
15 Trickery for extra initiative and caltrops on dodge.

The #1 thing a thief offers a group is 100% uptime on weakness. You sacrifice essentially no damage to get one of the best damage mitigation tools in the game, making you one of the strongest classes for the hardest fights.

In terms of damage, the thief has the 2nd highest sustained melee DPS (after Warrior, just ahead of a damage specced Guardian) and the 2nd best ranged AoE damage (after Elementalist). You have the advantage of being able to swap between the two as the situation demands it.

Shadow Refuge, as mentioned, is also a crazy good tool with tons of uses; it never leaves my bar.

That said, thieves depend on their team comp to really shine, much more than warriors and guardians do; and they don’t stack well, so while the first thief is very strong, the 2nd generally isn’t adding anything new and is interchangable with a range of classes.

In terms of damage, the thief has the 2nd highest sustained melee DPS (after Warrior, just ahead of a damage specced Guardian) and the 2nd best ranged AoE damage (after Elementalist).

Actualy vs single targets ,whit D/D ,thief has better sustainable DPS than Warrior.About range aoe , I’m not sure but ,aren’t necro’s better?

chubbs.3189:

Very subjective, but thanks for pretending to have some unique knowledge of the class that other people (or I guess this is just aimed at me) lack.

I’m sorry it sounded that way, I had to put that sentence because there used to be a common habit here to say Thief has no support so I wanted to premise that statement is false before explaining to the OP how supporting works for Thieves.

chubbs.3189:

If you have a group that is constantly failing because of attacks that blind could have avoided, you have a bad group. Blind doesn’t work on skills that wipe groups – it prevents baddies from getting knocked around when they forget to evade. Again, I must not have “mastered” the class like you have.

Let’s be honest: no group or person is immune to single-target spike damage.
Even the best gamer in the world dies.
You may not be aware of it yet but when you go very deep into fract even normal mobs can two-shot a player, and they outlast any and every endurance bar and CD.
They -will- hit players, even the best players, even through all their CDs and dodges.
Blind prevents said damage, prevents death and therefore wipes.

From a mathematical perspective, dying means the damage taken (the one you couldn’t possibly avoid) surpassed your health pool and healing – and blind does a great job at increasing the longevity of team’s healthbar.

We could assume every average Joe around here is a dragon at gaming but the reality is that the large majority is not and you will need to blind mobs to succeed with them.

chubbs.3189:

I agree, this is a great support skill – one of my utility skills 75% of the time. Unfortunately, since we only have 3 utility slots, nobody would run three skills that all offer stealth to the group. Technically you could, but you would be kittening your damage, making yourself a glorified medic.

You need to look at the greater scheme.
That team member you saved with stealth increases the DPS of the team a lot more than any self-DPS-increasing skills we have – having him die so you can deal more DPS is actually kittening the overall DPS of the entire team.

There needs to be at least one team member than makes sure everyone stays alive and DPSing, or, in case no one wanted the role everyone should sacrifice a portion of their offensive utilities to keep the team alive.

Again, people will die no matter what.
You can decide to deal 5% more overall DPS in the dungeon, or guarantee 100% DPS of the next person.

This doesn’t mean one cannot go full selfish specced; support can come from all team, a part of the team or even one member – but it needs to be there.

chubbs.3189:

But you must play S/P on whatever boss this is. Melee might not really a good option for many different fractal bosses.

Flanking Strike is S/D. :p
Some bosses have protection or stack might/regen, removing those is well worth the swap as it greatly increase DPS against that boss (assuming no one else can strip boons that is).

Examples, the champ Ettin or Dredge have Protection which you can strip: this increase DPS of all your team by 33%.

chubbs.3189:

Easiest way to down yourself, although I liked your idea about putting yourself in front of your team to block ranged attacks. However, good luck finding a boss encounter where all of your team will stand in the same location, allowing you to “block attacks”. Most bosses will punish people for stacking.

Once you master Dagger Storm it’s pretty much impossible to die during it.
As long as you’re making sure meleers are hit and thus crippled, and staying just far enough to not get hit, you will not die while DSing.
If things get dangerous or AoE appear on your feet you can dodge in your desired direction to stop DS while retaining Stability.
The trick is, rather, knowing when not to DS.
The 3 main situations you will not want to use it are when:
1. Unblockable ranged attacks are present (this was obvious).
2. Meleers have a leap/gap-closing skill (think the greatsword leapers on Charr fractal end boss hill); you can still waste their leap and start whirling after, tho.
3. Zones with heavy movement impairing applications or after being heavily impaired.

As for projectile blocking.
Picture an empty room with a lightbulb and one hand trying to block the most light coming from it: the closer the hand is to the lightbulb, the larger the zone with no light is.
When you stay in melee range with a ranged mob, you’re blocking a much wider degree of his visual, then of course it’s up to your members to position themselves.
Most times it gets the job done, try it yourself.
Smoke Screens works the same way, the closer to mobs the wider the protection angle.

I guess any class can dps, but we’re good at surviving and rezzing.
O, and daggerstorm is amazing in the rare situations where you face 20+ mobs. Pair it with signet of malice and you’ll survive some melee hits.

Steal is another great skill for group play if traited right. You can steal boons and give to your group and also if you steal you can give them might,fury,swiftness.

brandon.6735:

Steal is another great skill for group play if traited right. You can steal boons and give to your group and also if you steal you can give them might,fury,swiftness.

The only problem is that the trickery traitline is not worth it if you play direct dmg build, so these traits (but those are really good ones) are more of less restricted to condition dmg Thiefs (but Condition dmg is very badly designed for PvE unfortunately….)

chapichapo.6354:

The bad : D/D has no AoE dps

I just had to dispute this one item. Death blossom is an amazing AoE with a kill radius roughly the same size as Shadow Refuge. If your thief has its condition duration boosted and your condition damage up to say, a 100-tick bleed, then each Death Blossom deals around 5500 damage per mob. Popping 4 Death Blossoms on 5 enemies at the start of the fight is a quick 110,000 damage dealt.

Just to add it seems alot of people Think D/D is all thiefs do when in reality is its pretty much the Meta sPvP build.

Sword/Dagger the Stealth slapper likes to repeatively daze, remove boons and has high mobility to quickly move from danger zones auto attack also applies Cripple and weekness, specced repeatedly blinds foes (20 shadow arts)

Shortbow The Utility Master Ranged Multimob good use of 3 skill can permakite any boss, specced 4 skill with 15 deadly arts Perma weakness and poison with Poison builds can dump venoms on mobs better than any other through the 2 skill

Because of Mobilty and near constant ability to mitigate damage through the some of the most powerful condition applications and stealth healing, these guys can fully equip full Beserker and massively output solid damage while retaining the survivability of any 25k+hp warrior.

I like to run with 2 stealth skills, SR and Smokebomb, both these have team benifits. leaving my 3rd skill and elite to fulfill the situation as needed. also prefer signet of malice over any of the other heals though dodge one is good too.

Stealth rezzing is amazing in PvE.

Just saying.

CC wise, thieves have the only stun that works on Stability.

Support-wise, thieves can share their venoms, grant stealth, and provide a variety of boons through venom, stealth, and the use of steal (traits in trickery).

OP, you clearly don’t know jack about Thieves.

Running this:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAoYVlUmiO3ey5E+5Ex2jdqTeypwpG1TBZHLA;T0Ag0Cno4ywlgLLXOukctsYYxhiHFzCA

Gear is wrong there (I don’t like using PvP gear to represent it). I’m using Power/Tough/Vit armor with Ruby Orbs, Power/Tough/Crit and Power/Prec/Crit ascended rings, Power/Prec/Crit and Power/Prec/Toughness accessories with Power/Vit/Crit amulet. It’s a nice mix of formidable damage and crutch survivability if I screw up royally.

I went with the premise that a Thief without considerable damage to back up his actions is a useless one, be it condition or direct, shared or not. That logic comes from the simple fact that without damage, we are pointless as other professions can do what we try to do, better, barring stealth resses, but then that makes us an incredible niche for dungeons and we won’t be of much use in 95% of other situations. That said, I don’t want to be totally selfish. As such, rather than going with boon or venom sharing (as venoms are rather sub-par imo in group fights, and chances are a teammate has got a good portion of boons going for us and my contribution isn’t really necessary), I went with “indirect” support. Namely, I get stuck in to combat and apply blind after blind after blind, evading most if not all damage, but still being able to take a decent amount of punishment before pulling back and dealing some nice damage in the process. If not that (usually if there are too many enemies to handle or I fail to see an incoming attack and get swamped), I jump back and abuse the Shortbow Poison/Cluster Bomb Area Weakness Combo. Seriously the best combo in the entire game. I’ve made the Dredge fractal a total walkover using just this one combo. If not that, I’ll be providing opportune stealths and/or stealth resses and planting Smoke Screen whenever I get the chance, sometimes hitting the Area Stealth combo to spread the team apart safely if needs be. The safety from projectiles and returning blinds is simply godly. Not to mention that in close range, my Sword attacks will cripple and weaken for good periods if the group is focusing on a lower amount of targets (vs a single boss entity, sword auto-attack completely shuts down a boss if you keep laying it on).

The main damage comes from Might stacking. Every time I stealth, I get 2 stacks of Might, and dodging gives another. If I hit Shadow Refuge to res someone, I’ll be popping back out with 10+ stacks ready to retaliate on the perpetrator without any dodging. Considering how often I stealth and evade, the damage racks up extremely nicely and I don’t sacrifice much at all in the way of support or survival. Usually, I’ll pick situations in which I’ll swap out the Might on dodge to Vigor on heal for AoE-heavy situations or Fleet Shadow when I know the risk of going down is high, so I’ll be popping around the battlefield to pick people up often etc. Usually, my swap goes from Master of Deception to Shadow’s Embrace to mitigate any burns/bleeds/poisons that I fail to dodge eg. spiders in AC or Subject Alpha’s fire blast.

With all that said, the venom/boon sharer builds are incredibly useful if your team knows to stack on you to receive the benefits, and more stealth-heavy support builds (regen etc.) are useful, too.

TLDR, Thieves are GREAT for PvE, if played well. If you run a flavor-of-the-year glass cannon pubstar, it’s obvious how useful you’ll end up being.

Thieves brings some nice things to a group, the problem is that every other class brings much more. And the latest changes does certainly not address this problem.

I would definitely switch to another class if I could (can’t be bothered to level another class to 80), because Thief is a PvP class, with only a few uses in PvE.

I have found 2 things that make my thief very effective in PvE, primarily dungeons (including FotM):

1. Scorpion Wire: great for pulling (literally) one mob away from a group so that you don’t have as much to deal with when approaching a big fight. The reset timer is just about perfect so that by the time the mob is down you can recast and pull another mob. The biggest problem with this that makes it not as reliable as it could be is that sometimes a group of mobs is always linked together, so pulling one mob gets you aggro from the whole group. A bit of patience and thoughtful experimentation, however, can make Scorpion Wire an excellent skill to help avoid wipes.

2. Black Powder: AoE blind. While blind only negates the next attack, Black Powder lasts for several seconds (I think 4?), so any mob inside the AoE will not be causing any damage for the entire duration. This can effectively eliminate mobs from the fight until the party is ready to take care of them. As a thief, I will call out a mob, or group of mobs, and pull them off to the side while my party does their thing. I can hold a group of mobs, including ranged mobs, and keep them on me indefinitely while I take 0 damage (even in full MF gear [bad party etiquette, i know]) because they are blind the entire time. Then my party can come smash them after they have finished whatever they are doing. I can usually kill one or two of them on my own while I wait for the rest of the party. This is yet another way that the thief can help control a crowd of mobs to prevent a party wipe.

I think that many of us have experienced wiping to a large group of mobs in PvE. While the individual mobs might not be that tough, if you get enough of them at once it can cause a wipe. Thieves are great for splitting up a large group so that wipes are less frequent. A party that communicates and focuses on the strengths of each profession in the party will usually find a way of succeeding in PvE, even if you aren’t pulling out record-breaking speed runs.

Thieves brings some nice things to a group, the problem is that every other class brings much more. And the latest changes does certainly not address this problem.
I would definitely switch to another class if I could (can’t be bothered to level another class to 80), because Thief is a PvP class, with only a few uses in PvE.

Ye only a ‘’few uses’’ like the best DPS of them all.Like ..Only everything that matters.

Thieves are different from other classes in these terms.
And what many fail to notice – good thieves are, before anything else, the tide turners.
Noone really can change a dire situation to an extent thief can – blinds and stealth all the way with perma weakness, control and mobility.
It is a game with no direct support – that is why thief shines – almost all of thief support options do not come from boosting the combat strength of your team – but denying any and all foes of it.

Super insane damage and some support options that pale compare to the support of other allies (obviously). So mainly damage…

Oh yeah.. we can play blindbot which is actually quite effective. It’s also super boring most of the time.

All those AoE blinds really add up in terms of defense. Mobs don’t fight like players in the way that they do one big attack around every 3 or 4 seconds. If those attacks hit for 4,000 damage, then four mobs missing their attacks saves some 16,000 damage. How many other skills/boons can help more than that?

Godsend.1643:

All those AoE blinds really add up in terms of defense. Mobs don’t fight like players in the way that they do one big attack around every 3 or 4 seconds. If those attacks hit for 4,000 damage, then four mobs missing their attacks saves some 16,000 damage. How many other skills/boons can help more than that?

the problem with blind in pve is that things that can be blinded it will not matter for, and things that it would matter for blind = 10% miss chance.

the only time blind is useful for PvE is maybe for trash in a group with no real tanky type builds that can take some damage.

Koga.7215:

the problem with blind in pve is that things that can be blinded it will not matter for, and things that it would matter for blind = 10% miss chance.

the only time blind is useful for PvE is maybe for trash in a group with no real tanky type builds that can take some damage.

If you’re saying only skills for single-target bosses are worth anything, then you’re saying all AoEs and CC in the game are worthless as well. I used Blind today on the Jade Maw’s tentacles which hit everyone around for a ton of damage otherwise.

Thief can contribute:
- High DPS
- Interrupts
- Damage mitigation through blinds and a projectile-blocking wall, weakness
- Stealth
- Boon removal
- Some boons and venoms if traited

Koga.7215:

the only time blind is useful for PvE is maybe for trash in a group with no real tanky type builds that can take some damage.

You can blind big attacks and CC, which means your team doesn’t have to dodge, move, or get hit, and can keep DPSing in place, while stacking buffs on nearby allies and such. Perhaps it’s not necessary, but it adds efficiency.

what my thief brings to the table is ‘dungeon bosses, whispering me and begging me to slow things down’ my thief has 3000 pow 47 crit % 14.5k hp. everyones like a moa to me.

with the right group, a thief can be jesus.

I can easily tank , most champs or bosses with shortbow seriously I can’t believe how much fun you can have with that weapon, plus I run D/D wpn swap with Haste + Signet of Agility + Assassin’s Signet to use it from time to time on foes to drop or finish them fast ^ ^, thief can be pretty useful if you know how to play it

Jaden.9072:

what my thief brings to the table is ‘dungeon bosses, whispering me and begging me to slow things down’ my thief has 3000 pow 47 crit % 14.5k hp. everyones like a moa to me.

with the right group, a thief can be jesus.

With full exotics and traits I believe you can only get to 2164 Power, not including runes. There’s slight exaggeration and then there’s bull crap.

Godsend.1643:

Jaden.9072:

what my thief brings to the table is ‘dungeon bosses, whispering me and begging me to slow things down’ my thief has 3000 pow 47 crit % 14.5k hp. everyones like a moa to me.

with the right group, a thief can be jesus.

With full exotics and traits I believe you can only get to 2164 Power, not including runes. There’s slight exaggeration and then there’s bull crap.

He probably means Attack, which I have 2,996 of right now with 51% crit chance (not including almost perma-Fury) and 75%+ crit damage (would be more but I decided to go for Emerald for toughness instead). Currently sitting on 15.4k HP, too, not to mention the insane lifeleech in combat. Lovely setup.

I use a combination of p/d and sb for dungeons with 10 points in deadly arts, 30 points in Shadow Arts, 15 Acrobatics and 15 Trickery. I use Caltrops, Shadow Refuge & keep my third utility slot as a variable for specific situations (smoke screen, Roll for Initiative or traps). The purpose of this build is:

• Long duration application of poison (33% poison duration in DA),
• High stacks and long duration bleeds with p/d and caltrops on dodge
  • Combined with 2 x Rune of Krait, 2 x Rune of centaur & 2 x Rune of Affliction for 45% bleed duration
• Easy condition removal via Shadow Arts
• Regenerate health of self and allies via Shadow Arts with refuge and the option of blinding powder or area stealth combo with smoke screen
• Good avoidance through 15 points of Acrobatics
• Might stacking through Acrobatics
• Bleed stacking via sneak attack, caltrops, uncatchable, cluster-bomb and vital shot

This build isn’t for everyone but it works for me and I enjoy being able to contribute to the team in dungeons. With 1k condition damage it does consistent damage over time instead of short bursts (1200 condition dmg = 200 poison ticks and 100 bleed ticks). I have the option of staying at range or engaging in melee, I consider p/d to be melee/range hybrid due to C&D.

plan your utility skills acording to the boss fight. most trash are easy to do. its bosses that count.

Very cute,
here a picture of my stats and gear, sorry yeah i lied i dont have 3000 power.

why dont you meet me somewhere in wvw and let me cut your skull open, ill send you right back to your god.

Godsend.1643:

Jaden.9072:

what my thief brings to the table is ‘dungeon bosses, whispering me and begging me to slow things down’ my thief has 3000 pow 47 crit % 14.5k hp. everyones like a moa to me.

with the right group, a thief can be jesus.

With full exotics and traits I believe you can only get to 2164 Power, not including runes. There’s slight exaggeration and then there’s bull crap.

I currently run this:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckMMc0zMMLoCMMLoCMpG0p0caVsMs

Even when geared mostly for magic find (bit of toughness thrown in for good measure) and using the gimptastic p/p I churn out decent damage while being one of the more survivable (unless things go way south) members of the group.

As you can probably tell dodging is the focus of my build:

• I can do two dodge rolls and a third about two seconds later
• Said dodge rolls give me might stacks (further buffed by runes of the pirate) and increase my damage output by 10% until my endurance bar refills fully again (I never actually let this happen)
• Gaining a quick 2 seconds of swiftness on every dodge helps get out of the way of certain large AoEs with a lot more room for error.
• Extra boon duration means you gain even more benefits from team support.
• Almost more initiative regen than you can shake a stick at means I can kerrsplode arrows into any fire combo field of sufficient duration and give anyone in proximity 25 stacks of might, no questions asked.
• The very same thing allows me to spam area weakness via SB poison
  And, last but not least, Unload lets me abuse combo fields all day long.