Guild Wars 2

Seriously. I play solo queue mostly, and each time I see I rolled a team with two or more thieves on it, I smell a disaster is brewing. And indeed more often than not, I would even say as often as 90% of the times (yes, a made up number but thats how it feels) the team with those thieves will loose (unless enemy team also is thief heavy :p). Often badly. So, what gives?

From my experience thief is still a very strong PvP class. King of roaming in WvW and a decent node contester/roamer in sPvP. I’ve had some 1v1’s with some amazing thieves. So why is this happening that having thieves in sPvP matches feels like a handicap (unlike currently necros or decent bunkers)? You think that the profession is weak in conquest PvP? If so, why? Telling that “many noobs roll thieves” sounds like a conspiracy theory to me so I am not sure.

Thieves on sPvP are handicaped:

1- We get one extra second for Revealed (that Kills, a LOT)
2- Burst Damage isn’t that high on Spvp (damage drop from 7k to less than 5k with close builds)
3- Slower moving speed makes stealth more predicable.
4- We are a “killing-speacialist” class playing a conquest game. I prefer to not comment on the side effects.

Its common knowledge that even if we are Strong on WvWvW, thief is crap for sPvP unless using some very specific builds (and they still sux).

Whatever, I am still aiming for my Champion Shadow buff.

You forgot ^
STEALTH DECAPS POINTS. So when you stealth, your team loses your point. In conquest, that’s akin to not helping your team.

The only thieves that can tPvP and not cripple their team are evasion based thieves, and they’re not super common since everybody is “kitten kitten D/P.”

SoulSin.5682:

Thieves on sPvP are handicaped:

1- We get one extra second for Revealed (that Kills, a LOT)
2- Burst Damage isn’t that high on Spvp (damage drop from 7k to less than 5k with close builds)
3- Slower moving speed makes stealth more predicable.
4- We are a “killing-speacialist” class playing a conquest game. I prefer to not comment on the side effects.

Its common knowledge that even if we are Strong on WvWvW, thief is crap for sPvP unless using some very specific builds (and they still sux).

Whatever, I am still aiming for my Champion Shadow buff.

+1 for you, 15 characters for me

Awe.1096:

Seriously. I play solo queue mostly, and each time I see I rolled a team with two or more thieves on it, I smell a disaster is brewing. And indeed more often than not, I would even say as often as 90% of the times (yes, a made up number but thats how it feels) the team with those thieves will loose (unless enemy team also is thief heavy :p). Often badly. So, what gives?

From my experience thief is still a very strong PvP class. King of roaming in WvW and a decent node contester/roamer in sPvP. I’ve had some 1v1’s with some amazing thieves. So why is this happening that having thieves in sPvP matches feels like a handicap (unlike currently necros or decent bunkers)? You think that the profession is weak in conquest PvP? If so, why? Telling that “many noobs roll thieves” sounds like a conspiracy theory to me so I am not sure.

Actually thief is currently one of the weakest classes in PvP. I’d say thief and ranger are the two weakest actually.

As for WvW, thieves are “decent” at roaming. The only reason I saw that is that what a thief can do is try to catch someone offguard and burst them down. If the burst doesn’t work, they can run away. Personally, I think mesmers are the king of roaming.

I think this is the talk anout bad thieves?
The only class being hard to deal with is warriors with healing signet (at least for me), all others are very common fights and usually ends up with eother winning or opponent running away. I’m playing S/P.

style.6173:

Awe.1096:

Seriously. I play solo queue mostly, and each time I see I rolled a team with two or more thieves on it, I smell a disaster is brewing. And indeed more often than not, I would even say as often as 90% of the times (yes, a made up number but thats how it feels) the team with those thieves will loose (unless enemy team also is thief heavy :p). Often badly. So, what gives?

From my experience thief is still a very strong PvP class. King of roaming in WvW and a decent node contester/roamer in sPvP. I’ve had some 1v1’s with some amazing thieves. So why is this happening that having thieves in sPvP matches feels like a handicap (unlike currently necros or decent bunkers)? You think that the profession is weak in conquest PvP? If so, why? Telling that “many noobs roll thieves” sounds like a conspiracy theory to me so I am not sure.

Actually thief is currently one of the weakest classes in PvP. I’d say thief and ranger are the two weakest actually.

As for WvW, thieves are “decent” at roaming. The only reason I saw that is that what a thief can do is try to catch someone offguard and burst them down. If the burst doesn’t work, they can run away. Personally, I think mesmers are the king of roaming.

GC thieves have to run if the burst doesn’t work, literally every other build can actually fight

Actually thief is pretty good @ sPvP. But there are not so many of them actually good. People are playing thief cause they hear bout stealth OPness and high dmg, but that doesnt mean they are good.

Personally i believe evasion thief is way more powerfull than stealth one. And ofcz S/D one. Funny thing is I saw maybe 2 thieves that were playing really good using S/D.

And tbh D/P thief is weak like hell (like some1 stated above – when you’re in stealth it’s like your team fights -1 guy).

Thief is probably theweakest class for the sPvP format in general.

It is the only class that cannot hold a point in a point-cap game.

Yes there are ways to make them work, but they’re not condusive to the sPvP format, and generally require another player/class to work with.

In a 1v1 situation, the thief as a class usually cannot hold its own vs any other class.

This is coming from a Top 100 NA team queue, top 50 NA solo queue player that considers Thief my main.

That, and lets be honest here. A majority of players in this game are absolutely terrible at it. The thief class is simply the least forgiving when it comes to making mistakes.

True. Stealth works against spvp mechanics and only s/d thief can perform reasonably well.

Because sPvP is filled with bunker classes that can stand toe-to-toe with a D/P thief and what happens is that you end up stealing the point from a D/P thief since it has to stealth and then you can hold it indefinately because it can’t actually force you off the point if it’s just by itself, but you can force it to run off therefore the thiekittend of didn’t do anything.

Different story if it’s an S/D thief but I guess if you stand near the edge of the circle, the thief will actually evade off the point which still gives you an edge. Either way, thieves are kind of screwed over by sPvP mechanics.

At least that’s how it feels, when you play a healing signet warrior.

Although there are thieves in the top ranks of solo queue, I’ve personally found that thief is the hardest class to do well on in solo queue. Most top teams still run thieves, but they serve more of a niche purpose.

The only truly strong spec I think thieves have for tournaments is S/D and I find it incredibly boring + gimmicky to play. That said, the #1 NA solo queue player right now is a stealth D/P build that uses might stacked Backstabs on far point…

The thing about thief in WvW vs thief in PvP: in wvw you can run away and it’s to your advantage, if you reset in PvP the enemy caps the point and you are going to lose a bunch of points.

For me personally, I can get much better results on many other classes without having to try so kitten hard

I have played thief way longer than my alts and I still suck at Spvp… the class is just really hard to play well compared to necro or warrior or bunkers.

If you try to build for durability on thief you wont kill anything, and when you build for damage you die very fast if you dont know how to evade/stealth properly.

Then theres the whole thing where stealth helps the other team cap a node… its just miserable.

I play a wonky 10/0/0/30/30 spec with shortbow/ S/D. Energy sigils and just spam dodge/evades and steal every 20 seconds for daze/heal. Works pretty decent even though it has lower damage than critical strikes build.

Because sPvP is always about holding points and sometimes carrying and Orb.

This is naturally something where defensive capabilities are more useful than offensive skills. Stealth, our only real defense decapps points and has a lengthy “reveal” debuff. It also doesn’t actually protect you from all the untargeted AoE damage flying around.

Honestly, Thieves are only good in controlled 1v1 scenarios. But the unbelievable amount of AoE damage, CC and minions that dominate PvP Thieves don’t have anything to hold against it.

Because the current meta and the mechanics of sPvP are working against the thief mechanics. Our main survival ability is working against the system in PvP, which forces us to build glassy to be able to take down any opponent before they’re able to cap the node. Burst is very low in PvP, therefore we’re having a hard time against bunkers, which is often the guy protecting the node.

This has forced thieves to play the gimmicky S/D build and some (me included) started to experiment with the stealth-free S/P build. The latter have great survivability, damage and CC without decapping the node.

It’s also because many people roll a thief after being roflstomped by one in WvW, and want to test him out. Thief is really hard to master in PvP because of the mechanics, but once mastered it’s a really dangerous profession to have on the opposing team.

Awe.1096:

…each time I see I rolled a team with two or more thieves on it, I smell a disaster is brewing. And indeed more often than not, I would even say as often as 90% of the times (yes, a made up number but thats how it feels) the team with those thieves will loose (unless enemy team also is thief heavy :p). Often badly. So, what gives?
…

The implementation of Stealth is the culprit. Thieves that are stealth heavy stack worse than any other combination in the game really (for tPvP), because they are incapable of defending nodes. Thief mobility and 1v1 prowess makes them good for far point harassment, since thief is not a very strong node defender that leaves 1 role for the thief to be really good at, so if there are more than 1 on the team you will automatically be in a very sub-optimal composition. That isn’t to say that you can’t win with it in solo-que, but in teams, against decent players you aren’t going to win with a multi-thief comp.

Stealth is definitely a problem for point capping, particularly in uncoordinated sPvP teams.

This is compounded by:

• our lack of area denial (i.e. no gtAE damage [except caltrops], turrets, knockbacks, etc.);
• our lack of stability in dealing with KBs and CC off the point;
• our own squishiness in the face of enemy area denial.

It’s possible to spec for catching and bursting roamers off the point in sPvP, but honestly that achieves very little in the scheme of the match score.

[Little more detail for the OP; this is old news to thieves]

As far as basic combat issues go…

Thieves have lowest HP tier and only medium armor, so we’re pretty squishy by default. (I think only ele’s are worse off in that respect: low + light.) To compensate, thief defense is meant to be achieved by some combination of:

• glass cannon (i.e. kill them before they kill you)
• stealth
• evasion (dodge, shadowsteps, etc.)

Those methods are pretty effective in wide-open WvW against singles where you can pick your battles. They’re much less effective in highly-concentrated, group-centric, cap-based sPvP.

• true glass cannon is generally not viable because
  — you’re rarely (or not reliably) going up against a single person;
  — people also know where you’re going to attack (on the cap point);
  — good players can see stealth patterns to predict when that burst is coming and negate it.

• stealth is 100% effective only against immediate single-target DD.
  — AEs and cones will still destroy you;
  — conditions will continue to eat you;
  — heat-seeking pets/turrets will reacquire target the moment your stealth ends, regardless of whether you’ve confounded their owner.

• evasion requires good resource management and timing, and even then can leave you vulnerable to gtAEs, pets and conditions.

Why are other classes often more effective?

Ostensibly (in people’s minds, at least), thieves were kings of single-target burst. In truth there are several classes that can currently achieve similar or significant burst (certainly against us!) and often with more survivability and/or AE capability.

Thieves are predominantly melee and predominantly single-target. SB offers some AE (without much burst), sword offers some cone. But by and large the majority of our damage requires a single target at melee range, while other classes can offer hefty DPS as AE/cone, and/or at range. gtAE and turrets are problematic for melee; target stealth/invis and myriad pets are problematic for maintaining/reacquiring single-target focus.

In short, “passive” and fire-and-forget damage — gtAEs, pets, lingering conditions — are our bane, IMO. Ironically, I’d say we fare best against other builds that are single-target and lack pets, because it’s there that our single-target burst/stealth/interrupt/evasion timing really counts.

Note: I’m not trying to make excuses, call for buffs/nerfs, or complain about “how hard it is” for thieves. Just pointing out some of the sPvP combat factors that combine to trip people up in sPvP. It’s definintely possible to spec to counter certain aspects of the survivability drawbacks, with heavy condi removal or heavy mobility, but it’s not easy to balance everything reasonably in an easy-to-play spec while maintaining substantial DPS. Also, I’m definitely not a pro so take everything with a grain of salt. :P

For my perspective, its been pointed out that stealth is actually a negative in spvp, it hurts much more than helps, this forces thieves to play evasion builds to be effective, now personally, I love both s/d and s/p builds, the problem is that the current meta revolves around conditions, and the only real cleansing thief has is via stealth, so the only good spvp builds we have are countered very effectively by the current condi spam meta, thats just my two cents

I think most part of Thieves need think about his role in group, and plain builds that help the group.

AOE once again wins the day, reactions have to be fast for thieves. Maybe its just new thieves, I don’t get these P/P and Leaping death Blossom ones I see sometimes. I bag alot of defensive abilities with lyssa runes for cleansing and use opportunity, movement and consider my thief’s role as point capper but not defender – and also miracle rezzer and executioner. I always figured that’s what a thief should do, really if anybody sees me coming the odds are in their favour – blam 5 aoes in like 2 seconds. WHO does not equip shadowstep for these moments, have a Strongbow -you deserve it. Can’t say much for tpvp but in spvp you get all players and may just be they haven’t played the thief long as well as diffs with thieves not being able to stand still and chin it. there may not be that many Thief players around who’ve always played the class. I remember when I first played spvp, I didn’t really know what I was doing.

The reason for the discrepancy is because tPvP is not about 1v1s. It’s easy to down players in a 1v1 as thief, but winning a tPvP match as thief requires additional knowledge about which point to pressure, who to take out, when to engage, etc. It also requires requires more coordination, because thieves are not great at stomping (although they’re decent w/ shadowstep-stomps and stealth-stomps).

Also, in SoloQ, versatility tends to win out. You want a class that can fulfill multiple roles, like CC warriors or condi necros. Thieves are great at spiking down squishy targets and they can be built to assault far point very well — but you only need one thief to do that. The second is redundant.

I really do not like where thieves are right now in sPvP. If you’re running burst You cant kill anyone other than the other teams thief… lol

Thiefs are not bad at sPvP, but you suffer if you have too many of them. Thief excels in one thing, and that is 1v1 fights. So most thiefs will just roam the map looking for people going somewhere and intercept them. Or they will decap far point and try to kill whoever is there.

The issue is that thiefs are really, really, really bad at protecting a point. A necro can just load the entire point with marks, a engineer can set a lot of turrets, and guardians can do their shield thingy, and their burning ground thingy. Thiefs can… stealth? Not very awesome, since your enemy will decap your point while youre in stealth. I know we have traps, but i havent EVER seen a thief drop a bunch of traps inside a point and them wait there.

So, if 40% or more of your team is roaming around, this leaves you 3 members to defend points. If your other team is well organized, he will zerg your 3 members, kills or scare your thiefs and cap your points. I think 1 thief per team is more than enough.

Thieves suck at 1v1s vs anything tanky… which is basically everything in todays meta… i dont think the guy above me ever played thief lol

Having a thief on your team can be beneficial. Having a bunch can be an issue.