Guild Wars 2

By the by, I would say that Thief is the second most difficult class to play, especially in PvP. Between squishiness, tight timing, good (but not great) damage, and the unique resource system of Initiative which can leave you spent and vulnerable if you’re not careful, the Thief class is not for amateurs. It’s up to you to determine both if the class fits your playstyle, and if you have the necessary amount of skill and patience to play it.

You probably just suck. I only have 4 pieces of exotic and I can usually last for quite a long time even against 5 enemies, dropping some of them to under 50% health and sometimes even downing them.
You have certainly not tried all builds, and if you did then you just need to try harder and understand how they work.

((A lot of these responses are confusing. You guys do realize you can only have 3 utility skills on your bar at once, right? The whole “Use scorpion wire and shadowstep to close gaps and blinding powder and shadow refuge and then maybe a devourer venom to immobilize…” makes sense if you’re making the argument that there are spells in existence that immobilize, shadowstep, and etc. But obviously they can’t all be equipped at once…
I don’t know. The general tenor is “I get it and you don’t, neener neener neener.” You call my OP a thinly disguised QQ, I call yours a thinly disguised circle jerk. Who says the art of conversation is dead, right?!?! I’m done wasting energy on people who want to do nothing but put words in my mouth and call me a baddie. I hope you all get what you deserve someday. Peace.)) — Pawstruck

It’s funny because you say how it sucks when on other forums people blow you off and write “L2P Noob”

You are really overreacting.
Despite how harsh some of these posts might sound, amongst them, most are helpful. If I was in your situation I would consider this lucky and learn from some these posts.

Because of how you replied, you have to realize that any other post you do will not be taken seriously.

The easiest thing to do is to assume its all negative and blow it all off.

See-ya and good luck!

There is no class that can burst more then my glass canon Thief. So yeah. You’re doing something wrong. My job in Spvp is to literally remove someone from a fight within 2 seconds. I’m able to burst almost anymore down before they can even pop their 6.

I f****** love thief but the only complaint is stealthing during channeling skills and its duration. They are still dead accurate which seems unfair for an “escape artist” They just need to remove targeting the second stealth kicks in and make it last a lil longer but other than that, extremely fun class. Shortbow for utility and whimpy AoE, dual pistols for ranged dps, and dagger or sword for melee dps. couldnt be simpler. Only wish my thives guild played like me

I suggest going Guardian, it has a lot of attacks that cannot be avoided and alot of valuable things that can really keep the team off you or lock down thiefs, they arn’t meant for getting away, but all there tools are designed to work well, there burns especially hurt.

Thief is a highly mobile scout class, we do the same damage if not less then warriors do, and have less defensive capabilities, but we can get around the battlefield faster then anyone and we are ny-impossible to kill 1v1.

You can’t have the best of both worlds, learn the strength and weaknesses of thief, we are a hit and run class.

Many people believe that thief is a stealth class, but that is not true, mesmers beat us out in the area of stealth, and rangers almost do. Rangers also have traps that are almost twice if not three times as powerful.

I’d like to toss in my own input.

I see theives as a High Risk, High Reward type of class. Theives are essentially a combination of gambling and manipulation; you plan out your methods of attack, you examine the situation and as many possible outcomes as you can, and notch the cards and weight the dice accordingly. Theives have a whole manner of tools at their disposal that are for the most part situational, but have a common theme.

Manipulation.

So what do you do? You stack the deck. When all the pieces of the game fall into the places you want them to be in, everything goes smoothly. That warrior over there running away with low health? He’s lined up for a backstab and your steal can get you to him while you’re stealthed. That ranger who’s close to his pet? He’s open for a nice knife toss and daze/death blossom combo. Somebody chasing you? Run around that corner and pop stealth, and wait for them to run past you, then drop a backstab and some CC. When everything works out, you feel on top of the world and undefeatable. When everything falls apart, you take what happened and add that to your list of “things that didn’t work out quite so well” and make sure that the same mistake doesn’t happen again, or if it does you have an ace in your sleeve to make up for it.

Initiative is, as most have said already, a method of restricting damage from consistant to burst which means that unlike something like a warrior which is expected to lay down the pain every possible second we have to rely on spending initiative as cost effectively as possible. To some, that means tossing out a single attack as much as possible, while to others it means lengthy setups. For example; I focus in stealth and backstabbing with CC utility skills, which turns into a game of “I’m going to force you to move where I want you to. I’m going to get into your head and predict what you do and punish you for every mistake you make.” Maybe it’s just how I prefer to play, but I always see results I want to see when I make sure I stack the deck accordingly. No it isn’t perfect and no it doesn’t always work, but it’s satisfying and keeps me coming back for more.

The mind games mostly apply to PvP. You need to get into not only your opponents head, but also your own. This deal applies to every class ideally, not just theives, but I personally think it has the greatest impact on us. We aren’t as survivable as Guardians. We aren’t as beefy as Warriors, and we aren’t as evasive as Mesmers. We don’t have easy access minions like Engineers or Rangers, and we don’t have ranged AoE like Elementalists. So what do we do? We figure out what they’d do, and we trick them into doing what WE want them to do. Sometimes, YOU don’t even need to manipulate an enemy, you just let your allies make that opening for you. Big group fight going on in the graveyard? Look for someone sitting back away from the group and move in for a quick kill and get out before you’re noticed. Their whole team is weak from fighting? Run in and pop a Dagger Storm for a few downs and either make a kill or get out and to slow them down a bit. You just got downed with no chance of escaping? Use that teleport to delay them and make them waste time trying to kill you rather than capturing objectives. Your whole team just got facerolled and you’re the only one alive? I’m already back at base waiting for them to respawn so I don’t go in alone.

In cases of PvE, it’s mostly about reading your enemies. Everything always has an animation for something. If you see that charge animation, you dodge it. If you see that channel, you stun it. If you can’t deal with it, you get the heck out of there and wait for an opening.

TL;DR, Theives aren’t easy and take a lot of time to work out the finer details on, but when you understand not only your own options, but the options of every opponent on the field you and take into account that things can go north, south, east or west, and I might have an Ace and a Jack, or a 5 and a 2, you can have quite an interesting game of cards that isn’t really for everybody, but those that love it keep coming back to it.

l2p backstab or bleed spec thief

How to fix the OP’s stealth issues:

1) Blinding Powder.
2) Spec into the trait that offers 2 second stealth on steal, and the trait that extends your stealth by 1 second.
3) Spec into the trait that renews any of one type of your utility skills when you steal, and use it with mostly deception skill. This way it will renew the cooldown on your Blinding Powder when used right.

Works pretty excellently for me in both PvE and sPvP, and I’m not even a backstab build.

I think I see the issue here..

A lot of people tend to overestimate their abilities, and go into PvP with the mindset that they are “better” than others. You may think you are the king of 1v1, and when you lose to class X, they are either overpowered or there is something fundamentally wrong with YOUR class. Maybe you lost to another thief? Lets chalk that up to gear difference.

You cannot think this way.. If you wish to do better, drop this form of thinking altogether and focus on improving yourself. Do not beg ANet for buffs to your class, or nerfs to others.

Plenty of thieves are doing REALLY well in pvp. Sure, they are better in SPvP than they are in WvW, but you have to play to your strengths in WvW. I believe I read someone else post this earlier, but try and move in a small group and assault bases, eliminate supply, and generally harass the enemy however you can.

It doesn’t seem like you wanted to improve at all OP, because you neglected to post your build, weapon choices, etc. You merely posted “fixes” to abilities you thought were broken. Think about it this way, not all the abilities are meant to be good in every situation. Try and switch them out depending on the situation.

I realize that some people are too prideful (or arrogant) to recognize that they may need to do some self improvement, but nobody likes to be bad (or wrong).

It is true that not all the suggestions posted here will be helpful to you, and some people are acting childish and flaming, but you can ignore that. Take the good suggestion and try to improve yourself. If possible, record your PvP session and try and spot mistakes/positioning issues that are obvious.

You wont get better unless you work towards it, so good luck.

Stop playing all the professions you dislike. I didn’t read all your words, but I’m not insecure about my intelligence. Sincerely, I recommend abstaining from all professions that aren’t fun for you.

Oh man.. I have played the thief in every beta oppertunity and clocked 250+ hours so far. I have done loads of PvE, sPvP and lately, a lot of WvW aswell.

First of all, stealth is exactly how i expected it to be. It’s not too unfair for enemies and it’s very helpful for you. It’s amazing for escaping because you can quickly go the other way and it gives trait benefits and the ability to stealth-stomp someone (extremely good!). I’m sorry that you don’t like this type of play but really, it’s not badly designed.

Secondly, initiative encourages spamming certain skills at the right moments. This is true but it doesn’t make it a EZ class. You need to keep your recource (initiative) in check. Heartseeker was overpowered because of the damage and fact that people didn’t use it as a finisher. They changed that and it can still be spammed, but it’s just less effective now than only using it on low-health targets. The thief is all about using certain skills at the right time. It’s not gimmicky.

The thief can survive very easily. In dungeons i manage to survive the longest and get people up with shadow refuge, in pvp i can escape a lot of nasty situations (stealth on falling damage trait rocks in WvW) and pve is a joke. I can run in Orr from mob to mob, using signet of shadows and cloak and dagger (which is easy to use if you practice and understand the hitbox area) to simply bypass all of them. Thief is about being evasive and picking the right time to go in. If you are in the middle of a big group fight and want to kill people in WvW, you can die pretty fast if you don’t watch out. It’s simple. Walk next to the big groups, gank the enemies that are over-extending from their group. It’s easy and a lot of fun imo.

Venoms (poisons) are extremely good and venom oriented support builds are very strong. I played a condition spec up til lvl 80 (d/d + shortbow) and also rocked a Venom build in tourny play and while condition damage is imo less fun to play than burst builds like pistol whip, it’s very effective for your team. In all formats even.

The way i see it, thieves can spec either condition damage or burst. Both ways have a lot of good options. Condition builds work with plenty of weapon choices and burst builds aswell (backstab, pistol whip, d/p etc.). Just remember that if you don’t like the shortbow, don’t play a thief. It’s a must for any build! I hope i helped a bit.

In the end, it’s you who decides and not me. It’s a very subjective topic so.

“I started a thief because I wanted to be a stealthy assassin.”

There isnt one in GW2 and im glad for it. No one likes a stealthed bang your dead class, if you want to one shot people from stealth its not the class that is the problem its the game.

That said your not ninja enough man are you sure you didn’t accidently roll a warrior? Im thinking of rerolling my thief so i can call him MC Hammer, scorpion wire blinds daze bounce in and out of combat stealth,seriously his theme song is cant touch this.

I thought it was a well constructed complaint, though I disagree entirely. First of all, if CnD is your only stealth mechanism you are screwed. Secondly, if you do indeed require melee to stealth, you need to consider how you are going to land CnD on ranged or kiting targets. This is a long way of saying pack a lot of shadowsteps. Example would be Sword+dagger for an easy shadowstep/CnD. Another example would be steal (bonus points if you gave it the stealth trait) plus whatever else you wanna do.

Not every class will make sense to everyone. Obviously the thief doesn’t “click” for you, so i’d just cut your losses and find something more intuitive. Its not about being smart, its just all of our brains work differently as individuals; therefore, certain things will just “make sense” to some, and not so much for others. Part of enjoying a game is not only finding a class thats fun, but also finding one that “clicks” for you. If its all Greek to your brain, why waste your time?

i play a thief as a main.

thieves are quite mobile. what the hell are you talking about?
i’m a dodging machine lol. depends on how you spec.

pistol-whipping someone 100-0 means ur enemy is akitten
or u play a very cookie-cutter build.

thief doesnt need more stealth. BUT it should be instant.
(i personally would add one or two seconds on our two group-stealthing skills)

flanking strike needs to be fixed ASAP.
it is theoretically an incredibly useful skill, but it usually fails so no one uses it.

(same for all the “teleporting” skills. fix asap)

I have a lot of problems with the thief skills as well. Some I don’t even use cause they move the thief out of range or do the 2ndary part of the skill initially instead of after the first. The Class is clearly at least partially bugged. Now to people who pretty much do nothing but group activities this may not be apparent but for soloing not all of the weapon sets are working right.

Seraki.2753:

I have a lot of problems with the thief skills as well. Some I don’t even use cause they move the thief out of range or do the 2ndary part of the skill initially instead of after the first. The Class is clearly at least partially bugged. Now to people who pretty much do nothing but group activities this may not be apparent but for soloing not all of the weapon sets are working right.

ive soloed to level 24 so far (been focusing on pvp more)…what bugs? i mean, im sure there are some

You ONLY got to level 33 and start saying how things should be fixed. The only point I will agree with you is flanking strike.

I made it to 80 with my thief using sword/pistol to 60. Sure I may have over 300 deaths but those deaths made me rethink of how to start dodging. After 60 I changed to Dual Dagger and Dual Pistol.

I managed to get a champion shaman event down to 3/4 hp by myself (this is hard when he can 1 shot you in melee) through caltrops and 3 death blossoms (I traited into trickery) a lot of dodging as well (this was done by hitting and then quickly hitting ‘v’ to dodge.
The way I have traited myself gives me a lot of mobility (swiftness on dodge), chance to apply cripple on pistol crit. Signet of Agility is really good when you really need to dodge more. Use dodge twice pop SoA and dodge twice again while getting a condition removal.

I won’t say that you suck or l2p because it just seems that the thief isn’t the right class for you. I do know what you mean with cloak and dagger in PvP but I don’t use it because I can do a lot more damage from 20+ stacks of bleed.

From a fellow Feral druid and a thief.No,no and no…
First your friend sees you trough stealth,because you were probably in a party before joining a SPVP.
Second: change C&D to stealth you weather you hit or no? Hell NO
It’s will be like no CD Vanish,and with proper traits you can chain-cast it.
Third: the cast time of the heal is for everyone ,not just thieves.
I would consider a change that if C&D misses thou,it takes only 3 initiative…

Tried every prof… But iniative just got me.. The way you manage your abilities “CD” is sooo nice:D can’t go back to CD xD

I really like how the thief is designed in Guild Wars 2. I’m running a condition / evasive build and I pretty much survive every single encounter with him. If I see I’m going to die, I’ll get out of there with no problem.

The venoms are awesome. I use them in a combination with Death Blossom and that allows me to poison and bleed several targets in one single attack. I can take on 5 mobs at the time in PvE and I do decent damage in boss encounters.

My basic rotation would be something like this:
Steal (I poison the target and weakens him and then I go stealth)
Backstab
Activate Venom and two Death Blossoms for Poison again and Bleeding
Cloak and Dagger
Backstab
Dodge and leave caltrops
Switch to Short Bow

Now my poisoned, weakened and bleeding target is crippled and cant catch me. I now use my SB to finish him off or evade him long enough to see him bleed to death.

That’s my basic rotation, but I change it and adapt it to any situation. Sometimes it’s great to open with the SB to do some AoE damage before moving in with steal, venom and death blossom to damage a whole crowd. So my thief pretty much kill anything wether it’s a small group or a 1v1 encounter. If I see myself dying I’ll use me SB and Infiltrators Arrow to get away and then Hide in Shadows and throw a Shadow Refuge a little bit further ahead in another direction to run into and hide for a total of almost 15 seconds.

I can’t see why you don’t like the thief. We have so many evasive abilities and lots of damage abilities. And remeber; a good thief know when to back out of a fight. If I find my group loosing in a dungeon I’ll get away and then revive my teammates with shadow refuge

I just love this profession, and if you don’t; Either this profession is not for you, or you should take a litte bit more time to learn the profession

I stopped reading at ‘CnD is impossible to hit in PvP’ and ‘remove cast time from heal’.

OP – just play more matches, read around the forums and try out other classes for a session of sPvP.

If you still think thief would be anything but very strong…I don’t know.

The way you convey your complaints gives the impression, that you not yet ‘got’ how the PvP works in this game. Time to enlighten yourself, instead of complaining.

Skill in this game =/= uber build + rotation. It is far more complex than that and it might be overwhelming at first. But you shouldn’t cry ‘x is broken’ – rather ask ’ what do I do wrong’. The former just asks for (rightful^^) flames/ignorance, while the latter leads to improvement.

edit: There’s so many tricks you can pull off, you might not know, yet. E.g. that CnD being impossible to hit – preload CnD -> steal right before the cast is finished = Shadowstep to target, steal, instant CnD. Just one way to handle it. When you got comfortable with the cast time, CnD is really easy to hit without any combos.

Why do you ask for the removal of the cast time on the heal? Do you get interrupted much? Do you die too fast? Depending on what irks you, there is ways to manage it, without crying for buffs/nerfs.

I read most of the posts in this thread, and there is some really good advice mixed in if you’re willing to sift through it all. However, to the OP, I would recommend being open to changing your build and weapon choices. Personally I absolutely hated thief when I first tried it from 1-20. I even quit it for awhile and levelled a warrior before coming back to give it a second chance.

After reading threads like this one and watching some videos and trying things out for myself, I came up with a P/D build based on outlasting an opponent. It might not be an optimal way to play, but I feel like I have so much more control over the fight than I ever did with any melee-centric build. I still have a lot of practice and learning about the class, but the build I use just seems to work VERY well for me, and I can take on classes that used to wtfpwn me. At the very least I can always get away and reset the
fight from anything short of 3+ players burning all their CD’s to lock me down.

A lot of the points you made are similar to problems I had with the class as well. Until I gave thief more time and got better with it and changed my build and approach to the class entirely.

I’d recommend: take a break from Thief for awhile. Try some other classes to see what you think about them and to broaden your understanding of the game as a whole. Thief might really NOT be the class you enjoy most, despite all the troll attempts by people in this thread.

Pawstruck, if you want to stick to this game, do these things:
- Learn thief class. Yes, you can be a backstabbin’ ninja or even a rogue-tank.
- If you don’t want to be a ninja anymore, pick another class or spec.
- Stop looking at this game like it is an expansion of WoW and adapt.

This class is just fine, I am tearing people like nothing on battlegrounds, just by using some unique nad unpredictable tactics.

Stealth, Dodging, Damage: pick any two.

I’m sorry, but no, you can’t have everything.

Korochun.5862:

Stealth, Dodging, Damage: pick any two.

I’m sorry, but no, you can’t have everything.

well, actually you can to a extent, tho none might be the best the class has to offer, so long as it serves your ends it would be viable id imagine.

you can go 15 in shadow arts and get initiative return and 1 second longer stealths

you can go 20 points in acrobatics and you get 3 dodges (5 with signet), 2 seconds swiftness after dodge, and dodging removing cripple/weakness

then you can go 30 points into critical strikes and get 20% more damage when target is below 50% hp, coupled with the trait lines 30% increased critical damage, and you can get another 20% critical damage from gear (maybe more havent tried to min/max it yet)

the power line gives 300 power, but imo the critical damage is more worth it for a damage build, that and executioner.

just with that setup you have lots of dodges, and can abuse stealth backstabs nicely.

For some reason nobody ever takes the vigor after healing trait, which is pure gold, especially in world PvP. I run a 30 crit/25 acro/15 trickery build with withdraw and roll for initiative, and I can literally roll for ten seconds straight. If I don’t like the way the fight is going, Withdraw —> RfI means I’ve just reset the fight far more effectively than if I stealthed. And I’ve still got 7-8 dodges to go, since I’m running signet of agility.

Anyway, that’s pretty academic. You can have those traits, but you’re going to dilute yourself a lot. If you want to be really, really good at the things you do, you pretty much have to pick two. I run high damage and high dodge build, and so far it works quite well for me.

Korochun.5862:

For some reason nobody ever takes the vigor after healing trait, which is pure gold, especially in world PvP. I run a 30 crit/25 acro/15 trickery build with withdraw and roll for initiative, and I can literally roll for ten seconds straight. If I don’t like the way the fight is going, Withdraw —> RfI means I’ve just reset the fight far more effectively than if I stealthed. And I’ve still got 7-8 dodges to go, since I’m running signet of agility.

Anyway, that’s pretty academic. You can have those traits, but you’re going to dilute yourself a lot. If you want to be really, really good at the things you do, you pretty much have to pick two. I run high damage and high dodge build, and so far it works quite well for me.

I actually disagree, at least in terms of pvp effectiveness. all you need in pvp is “enough”, if you have enough stealth options and dodge options, its nearly the same as having those 10 dodges, just with different mechanics,a nd if you can still keep the damage up, imo it makes you a more well rounded and unpredictable fighter, no longer can you assume hes gonna just dodge or just stealth, he has the ability (tho not as great as one who focuses in soley one aspect) to do both and still hit hard.

im playing with a 30 crit/20stealth/20acrobatics build. if i take dodge signet i have5 dodges and 3-6 stealths depending on what i put on my action bar and my weapon set.

i do admit tho im missing pain response and shadows rejuvination atm, but iw anted to try for more damage.

Stealth mechanics are pretty bad. If I could have ten copper for every thief I killed by nailing them with a full Unload long after they stealthed, I’d be a very rich man in GW2. It is far less effective as a defensive tool compared to well-timed dodges, plus it does little to enhance your mobility, which I personally feel is key for a thief.

Pawstruck.9708:

Create a utility skill that simply and instantly stealths you for a moderate period of time (5+sec).

Errrm, Blinding Powder? Ok it’s only 3 seconds stealth, but a 5 second blind at the same time. Add that to the stealth from healing, plus you can trait to stealth when stealing if you want to play a stealth build, plus shadow refuge which lasts for 4 seconds and each pulse stealths you for 3 so you can be stealthed up to 7 seconds. Plus Cloak and Dagger, and then there’s Black Powder which you can use as a combo field to stealth.

Seriously, if you’re having trouble finding ways to stealth then I think it sounds like a L2P issue tbh.

In a way so far at level 40 I agree somewhat with you, my ranger puts out way more reliable damage and has more survivability. I hope this will change when I got more traits and stuff at 80, but from what I can tell right now it feels like if you make one mistake during pvp you are dead meat. Time will tell. :p

EDIT: Biggest issue for me is how I always get hit by hits while I’m in stealth, either single target or AoEs seems to hit me.

Korochun.5862:

Stealth mechanics are pretty bad. If I could have ten copper for every thief I killed by nailing them with a full Unload long after they stealthed, I’d be a very rich man in GW2. It is far less effective as a defensive tool compared to well-timed dodges, plus it does little to enhance your mobility, which I personally feel is key for a thief.

im wondering if this is a lag issue, simply cuz ive never experienced it while stealthed personally.

Wolfe.3097:

Korochun.5862:

Stealth mechanics are pretty bad. If I could have ten copper for every thief I killed by nailing them with a full Unload long after they stealthed, I’d be a very rich man in GW2. It is far less effective as a defensive tool compared to well-timed dodges, plus it does little to enhance your mobility, which I personally feel is key for a thief.

im wondering if this is a lag issue, simply cuz ive never experienced it while stealthed personally.

Doubt that, I usually get hit while stealthed and I have a 100/100 line in here connected to my university network with good ping to most places in EU. :x

If an attack on you is started before you are fully stealthed (roughly a 1/4 second delay before you going silent and your target portrait disappearing, definitely not lag since mobs do it as well), it will go through all the way. Reveals your exact location, too.

there has to be some factor, unless maybe unload is considered a channeled spell? i really havent experienced this and most of my thief builds have revolved around stealth in some way.

Korochun.5862:

Stealth, Dodging, Damage: pick any two.

I’m sorry, but no, you can’t have everything.

I run 5/30/0/25/10 with sword/dagger and have a grand old time doing all three of these. Might+caltrops on dodge help a lot with ensuring that lots of dodging doesn’t hurt your ability to put out damage.

Hyde.6189:

shadow refuge which lasts for 4 seconds and each pulse stealths you for 3 so you can be stealthed up to 7 seconds.

Try 13 seconds.

Tulisin.6945:

Korochun.5862:

Stealth, Dodging, Damage: pick any two.

I’m sorry, but no, you can’t have everything.

I run 5/30/0/25/10 with sword/dagger and have a grand old time doing all three of these. Might+caltrops on dodge help a lot with ensuring that lots of dodging doesn’t hurt your ability to put out damage.

And I assume you just fabricate Stealth from thin air?

Tulisin.6945:

Hyde.6189:

shadow refuge which lasts for 4 seconds and each pulse stealths you for 3 so you can be stealthed up to 7 seconds.

Try 13 seconds.

Ah, I was just going off the description on the Wiki, I don’t usually use it in my build.

Korochun.5862:

Tulisin.6945:

Korochun.5862:

Stealth, Dodging, Damage: pick any two.

I’m sorry, but no, you can’t have everything.

I run 5/30/0/25/10 with sword/dagger and have a grand old time doing all three of these. Might+caltrops on dodge help a lot with ensuring that lots of dodging doesn’t hurt your ability to put out damage.

And I assume you just fabricate Stealth from thin air?

Cloak and Dagger provides stealth on demand, even without using utilities. With a good amount of initiative regen from crits and the fact that otherwise sword doesn’t really use initiative for much I’m free to use Cloak and Dagger quite a bit and benefit from the 2s daze from stealthed sword strikes.

Hyde.6189:

Tulisin.6945:

Hyde.6189:

shadow refuge which lasts for 4 seconds and each pulse stealths you for 3 so you can be stealthed up to 7 seconds.

Try 13 seconds.

Ah, I was just going off the description on the Wiki, I don’t usually use it in my build.

You should play around with it a bit, Shadow Refuge is easily one of the more powerful and versatile utilities thieves get.

Tulisin.6945:

Korochun.5862:

Tulisin.6945:

Korochun.5862:

Stealth, Dodging, Damage: pick any two.

I’m sorry, but no, you can’t have everything.

I run 5/30/0/25/10 with sword/dagger and have a grand old time doing all three of these. Might+caltrops on dodge help a lot with ensuring that lots of dodging doesn’t hurt your ability to put out damage.

And I assume you just fabricate Stealth from thin air?

Cloak and Dagger provides stealth on demand, even without using utilities. With a good amount of initiative regen from crits and the fact that otherwise sword doesn’t really use initiative for much I’m free to use Cloak and Dagger quite a bit and benefit from the 2s daze from stealthed sword strikes.

Man, why sword/dagger? Of all the combos, that is probably the worst in terms of damage. I mean, you literally gain nothing from it compared to D/D other than 2s Daze.

I have no idea what these profs are like, i have never played, but i read alot. I dislike all these flamers, the point of the forums and disagreeing is to HELP AND SAY WHY YOU DISAGREE!!! Not be like “ohkittenur an idiot l2p nub lolollolool” its to be like “I disagree with you because ________.”
But on topic… I dont know about the thief so i cant help. But if you dont like the thief, play another class. Im not forcing you. Im not yelling at you. Just recommending, play something else and see if you like it

My opinion OP is that you THINK about what you can do overall instead of defining the class inside your head. You have to learn before you understand. You may think you’ve learned a thing or two, but heck, we don’t even have a solid meta for many things in this game yet. And I think you wanting to be a ninja was your downfall. I really hate the fact that people classify thieves moreso as ninjas than as pirates. They let you do a little of both in this game, but come on…

Also you want a move that stealths you for more than 5 seconds? How about SHADOW REFUGE?! Are you kidding me? You missed that skill? I feel like every time I use it, I’m stealthed for eternity inside the area.

Closing, I’d like to say that anyone that thinks Pistol Whip is underpowered needs their head examined. It’s called Haste people. Use it. You can chain stun someone before they can even react if you’d just use Haste. In fact, try Haste with a LOT of skills. Or heck, just THINK about skills like this before you complain/argue that the class isn’t what you wanted it to be in terms of power.

Okay, maybe not closing, but for example, you can use Shadow Trap. Look at the tooltip. “Set a trap. You vanish in stealth and shadowstep back to the trap when it is triggered.” Sounds lame right? You can set this trap down practically anywhere and leave to the other side of an area. Once someone steps on it, you DO come back to the trap, stealthed, and ready to beat the crap out of an opponent. Like, I dunno… A NINJA. You automatically have the initiative. That’s what ninjas were all about; assassination and having the upper hand the entire time. They were never about “tons of damage” but instead simply having the edge on their opponents.

So no, OP. I won’t even tell you to stop playing. I will tell you to stop typing. But go back to your Thief and think HARDER.

I very much agree. Everyone keeps telling me that thieves have such great mobility, and that they can dodge most anything or insta one shot people with ease. It’s just not true, or at least it isn’t without really abusing the system. Most every class has great mobility, so that just isn’t unique to the thief. Even my guardian has a “shadow step”. Therefore, mobility doesn’t help me survive longer than anyone else really. In the end the only thing I’ve really got that nobody else has (or at least has as much of) is stealth.. which just doesn’t help a lot because I hit stealth and die a second later anyway from people simply attacking the area around me.

When I first started Spvp my thief had 10k health. I was pretty much insta gibbed. I had no idea that this wasn’t how it was supposed to be, but after playing a guardian and looking at its whopping 17k I realized that maybe my thief needed a bit more health (I can’t see how much my opponents had, so I had no way of knowing really). So I went back onto my thief and changed out my amulet/talents to get quite a bit higher. Sitting at 26k now, and I last a little longer.. but it’s still not nearly enough. I had to sacrifice too much of my damage to get any amount of survivability.

I’m not really all that bad at the game either.. and it’s not like I don’t have a clue what I’m doing on a thief. I leveled my thief to 80 in PvE mainly, with a bit of WvW. I know the abilities and what they do. I just find it hilarious that I can struggle so much with this class when I can get on a guardian, level to 20 in PvE and jump right into Spvp and get top player in almost every category in well over half my matches.

I like the profession like many others, some people don’t. Why should we care if you are frustrated with the way the thief mechanics work? Just quit and re-roll. I’m not trolling or hating, you posted your argument on a public forum asking for opinions and this is my opinion. Quit whining and make your own decisions.

People here really think that a thief has more utility than other classes? Seriously? I play mesmer, engineer, necro and thief and the first three classes have way more utility than what a thief can ever archive. Especially a engineer pukes utility skills all over the place.

Amante.8109:

By the by, I would say that Thief is the second most difficult class to play, especially in PvP..

Thief is one of the easiest classes in this game, go in the mist and try to play necro or engi in a competitive scenario.

OP is obviously doing something wrong. The thief profession was beautifully made. I get huge burst damage coupled with evasive skills. Don’t believe me? I can bring down a guardian / warrior / necromancer with 28k health from full to 10% or even 0% depending on the situation in a matter of 2 seconds.

Before you spam and rage at me about “spamming”, I do not do such a thing. Here is my rotation.

Cast Basilisk venom, Skale Venom then proceed to pre-cast cloak and dagger once you see a target. Before the cast finishes, use steal (With the Mug trait) and once Cloak and dagger stealths you, use Signet of Power instantly and then Backstab. I kitten you not that it will hit for at least 8k. If they are still alive at that point, you can finish them off with a few autoattacks or Heartseeker. With the proper gear, traits, and utilities.. you will be a true burster. I have a base crit rate of 49% + 7% if attacking from the sides or behind. My autoattacks crit for 2-4k damage.

Also, not to mention that we have the Shadowstep ability which is in my opinion the best escape tool in the game. Not only can you get out of stuns, you can use it twice and confuse enemies chasing you by leading them away from the starting point and then teleporting back.

-Lar Langley

OP demands we read his text book of an initial post than has TL;DR at the end. Yeah…I see where this post is going. No I didn’t read it.

Sounds like the OP has trouble with strafing and positioning more than anything else.