Guild Wars 2

This is my opinion and I hope you don’t take it like harass or some more “shut up and learn to play” kitten, we already have to much of that. Play another class, you would enjoy the game more.

I only agree with you about the poisons, specially the Basilisk Venom, they feel really underpower, they don’t do anything that I can’t do with my weapon skills (exept for the elite but still is only 1 strike and 1 second of petrification, for me it’s just another stun but I still need to confirm this).

About stealth: the stealth works great and Cloak and Dagger may be hard to hit if you dont spend time practicing it. It was hard for me to learn but the reward is good enough.

Hide in Shadows is a skill that I really like but I don’t use because Signet of Malice has much more sinergy with the role I want to play (Controller Thief). It stealths you and cures poison, burning and bleeding. Besides you get regeneration over ten seconds. Yes, the cast time is big but if you use it just to stealth you then you are looking in the wrong place.

Shadow Trap is another abillity that works very well for ambush or scapes in pvp or pve with 5 seconds of stealth, speciallly for the first one. To be able to escape with this skill requires a lot of skill. But for ambushes your opponent will never know what happaned and with a little of luck and skill your oponent will be confused enough time to take him out.

Shadow Refuge and Blind Power are skills that lets you stealth almost in the instant. Shadow Refuge helps a lot as a defensive ans support skill while Blind Power brings utility in the offensive line.

Hidden Thief is a trait of Shadow Arts that gives you 2 second stealth when you steal, for me one of the best traits lets you confuse and play with your enemy combined with other skills.

We have Smoke combo fields that will help us to get into stealth from diffent ways too.

As you can see we have plenty of stealth of options but you have to adapt to the mechanics.

Gimmik? if you talk about our spameable skills then you could realize that someone that abuse this “atribute” of our class could be easily beaten by anyone else since not everyone are built squishy, no matter if they are elementalists or other thieves. If you spend all your initiative spaming just one skill you will find yourself in more dangerous sitiontions than if you think a head and administrate it to confuse, dodge and damage your oponent, because after all that’s what means to be a Thief.

I am loving my thief for every part of the game. PvE, sPvP and WvW. Someone said that thieves suck in WvW which is totally not true. Have you seen what you can do with cluster bomb while attacking or defending a place? 5k crits with that.
I am currently using the PW build which is hella fun, and I will usely drop someone, or close to. Stealth I think should maybe last 1 second longer but it’s fine as it is now.
Blinding powder, instant cast stealth right there. If your good at playing your thief, people will not kill you. You can escape so many tight spots. Someone said they think mesmer’s are op, I do think they are.
A thief in this game feels more like a thief. I love mine and have tried other classes but keep going back.
That’s my 2 cents. If your having that many problems add me in game and let’s talk, I will help you all you want.
My IGN is Lil Arsenic.

Sry OP but i think you dont understand how to play that class.

I play an crit/stealth thief Rank 15 and this thief is very stealthy.
I think its the best stealth i ever played in a game.

Your one butten argument shows too that you didnt know how to play that thief.
I only use heartseeker for a finishing move when my opponent is at 20% health.

I give you the advice to learn more about your thief bevor complaining.

I love my Thief, I don’t agree with most of your issues because they seem to be biased for what you expected vs how the class actually is.

I don’t find your arguments without merit, though, there are a few points worth discussing.

Myself, I’d like Flanking Strikes to be a bit more “sticky”, and I’d love to know what Sword/Dagger’s intended role is in PvE, if any. With the right group coordinating, Pistol Whip is more “efficient”, but I’d love to play with S/D.

On the Heartseeker front, I don’t think the readjustment really impacted good Thieves. The execute still hits like a truck, and the gap closer aspect now doesn’t if the opponent isn’t in execution stage. Seemed fair to me.

I enjoy my Thief and for the most part don’t see the problems that you have with it. I knew how it played and expected what I got when I started to play it.

I will however agree with you on some of the Venoms, with exception to Skale venom, they are not effective at all. Ice Drake and Devourer Venoms are setup for ranged abilities however dont last long enough to make them useful. Spider Venom applies a non-stacking poison venom 5 times….. Basilisk venom I have seen it go through the CC counter on bosses and still stun some of them, bit it is still a “Ultimate” slot ability and should justify itself for it. I also see the Venoms not apply frequently on multi-attack abilities (Such as the harpoon’s Deluge will not apply Basilisk venom most of the time).

P.S. PsionicDingo, The S/D build is a more evasive tanky build that is setup to also have the benefits from the Shadow arts trait tree.

Thanks, Kaona. I do love the Shadow Arts tree, especially in dungeons. I think Flanking Strike just needs a quick tune-up and it’d be my favorite go-to set (I love the sword attacks + mobility + the dagger offhand tools over the pistol offhand).

I’ll second Kaona’s thoughts on Venoms. Basilisk really needs to drop the cast time, what it gives you isn’t worth the set up – increase the duration and then I’d say the cast time is worth it. Ice Drake and Devourer also need a duration tweak. I’ve only seen any Venom truly pull it’s weight in a share build.

OP, if people are dumping all their build and utility into spamming a single skill, that’s not intended by design. That’s simply those people not knowing how to play this game.