Guild Wars 2

I was wondering what you guys though.
Every class seems to have a pretty clear place in guild wars, where they excel over all the other classes. And with the nearly constant nerfs being applied to the thief, where is, if we still have one, our nitch?
What do we excel at over all other classes?

At first, I would have guessed spiking, but Ive seen Mesmers doing thief level damage in AOE form. so Im bowing my head to the Mesmer in that department.

Then I thought “Maybe Stealth.” But again, I see others that are just as good.

Basiclly, after all the nerfs, I’m finding it hard to see where we still fit in.

If you have any thoughts, they would be appreciated. And any pretty effective builds would also be very appreciated.(please include what kind of gear you run though)

Long story short: Frequent stealth, high evasion, and either high physical damage or heavy condition damage.

Long story long: It’s all in your play style. They can do basically anything. You can max out power and/or precision to make them probably the hardest hitting class in the game, or you can go condition heavy and try to evade their attacks while they lose health. You’re not a tank, so between your armor rating and weapon skills, you do have to move around a lot more than other classes, but that’s a good thing. Half the time your enemies can’t hit a moving target.

The thief’s trademark is the ability to stealth and shadowstep. Even after increasing the “revealed” duration, stealth is a strong ability, and shadowstep can be just as effective when used well. My current build relies a lot on Hide in Shadows and Cloak and Dagger (and occasionally Shadow Refuge) with trait skills Hidden Thief, Meld with Shadows, and Cloaked in Shadow. Frequent stealth and being good at dodging has helped me win a lot of fights, and when I’m in over my head I can usually get out alive.

They also seem the best at exploring. With a short bow and shadowstep utility skill, thieves can move across the map faster than any other class, and stealth lets you open chests and cap skill challenges without a fighting off nearby enemies. You’ll feel like a true thief when you swipe a splendid chest right from under a champion troll.

High mobility, high amount of blink skills. If you want damage go warrior or mesmer.

In the shadows, making opportunistic strikes. Trolling. Mind games. In people’s face with a brutal series of swings only to reappear out of reach showering death and punishment on those who would do you and yours harm.

A corpse to be danced on.

Scouting and escaping. Harassment.

Selver.1307:

In the shadows, making (1)opportunistic strikes. (2)Trolling. (3)Mind games. (4)In people’s face with a brutal series of swings only to reappear out of reach showering death and punishment on those who would do you and yours harm.

Linlana.8573:

(5)Scouting and escaping. (6)Harassment.

Both of these.

(1)In s/tPvP (if you’re glass cannon) you wanna hang out in the back, find the guy who is off to the side/on a ledge free casting and take them out ASAP.

(2)Also, and especially if you go 0/0/30/20/20 or some form of that, and regenerate health while you attack/use initiative and stack bleeds, you will be able to keep a group of 2-3 pretty busy if you’re good with that playstyle.

(3)Shadowstep/Infiltrators Strike/Infi. Signet/Shadow Shot/Infi. Arrow, are all good mobility options, and keeping people guessing where you are coming from. There have been plenty of times someone would get to low health and run away from me. I would Shadowstep infront of them and hit a Heartseeker. They turn around and run away, and I’d only Shadow Return and hit them with another for the leap, and finish them off.

(4) Due to the mobility listed above, and the fact that we have very low health, positioning is important. If you’re in a 2v2, and 1-2 more show up from the opposing team, you can Shadow Step back and Choking Gas to poison and lower healing, then use Cluster Bomb/Trick Shot to deal damage, while keeping yourself safer. Cause, well if you get targeted as a glass cannon, you’re gonna explode. >.>

(5) Due to our stealth/mobility, we can scout ahead and see where the opposing team is, without them even seeing us. Or if you have the time on stealth, run right through them and backcap their point.

(6) See point #2.

Thieves excel at burst and mobility.

Granted, you can’t have the highest of both but you can get pretty high in each.

In sPvP I go the full burst route completely ignoring mobility.
In WvW I go as much burst as I can get with maximum mobility.

Each style is played completely different and I use different weapon sets for each.

These are the two strengths of a thief tho, mobility is probably the one unique to thief. We are faster than d/d ele’s if traited for it.