Guild Wars 2

When I say heavy DPS, I mean something more like 6/6/2/0/0. Thieves have a lot of survivability and escapability utility skills with stealth and shadowstep. So I’m curious as to why I don’t see more thieves simply ramping up the backstab damage and using stealth and mobility as their defense?

It’s worth noting that I’m a newish player without much experience so maybe there is an obvious reason that I simply don’t know about.

Because in pvp you are rarely 1v1, and mobility is limited to stealth, steal, one utility skill and SB.

all of those are all on the bottom half of the trait bars.

For thieves, its either “do a lot of damage and be incredibly squishy”

or

“do slightly less damage and have a good chance of getting away if backup is provided to your target”

And many thieves use 0/6/x/x/x because the 20% damage provided from executioner is plenty for DPS/ Invigorating precision.

A good portion of thieves that have steal focused playstyles run x/6/x/x/6, with mug if they feel inclined.

because PvP is a team game.
and team needs utility of a trickery thief.

and trickery steal is op.
26060 s/d is still the same, but people just run 20066 because trickery gives too much utilities and everything.

Simon.3794:

because PvP is a team game.
and team needs utility of a trickery thief.

and trickery steal is op.
26060 s/d is still the same, but people just run 20066 because trickery gives too much utilities and everything.

Yeah. in a team game granting your allies boons every 20 seconds is more useful than carrying the task of doing damage alone.

Zerraph.6749:

When I say heavy DPS, I mean something more like 6/6/2/0/0. Thieves have a lot of survivability and escapability utility skills with stealth and shadowstep. So I’m curious as to why I don’t see more thieves simply ramping up the backstab damage and using stealth and mobility as their defense?

It’s worth noting that I’m a newish player without much experience so maybe there is an obvious reason that I simply don’t know about.

because its a one trick pony.

Thieves have a lot of sources of damage across our trait lines.
Just because 6/6/2/0/0 maximize Power and Critical, doesn’t actually mean it hits that much harder.

And btw, heavy DPS build for Thief is 5/6/0/0/3.
One shoot and you are on cooldown for around 40 seconds tought.

PRO Tip: The build above can’t One Shoot anyone besides zerkers tough. And anyone can kill you meanwhile you are on cooldown.

Because:
- Critical Damage scaling is capped in sPvP to much lower values than WvW/PvE.
- Aggressive build skills have been nerfed to the point where they do not deal enough damage to make burst/aggressive builds work well for the thief.
- Baseline higher toughness and HP values on all classes and builds versus WvW/PvE.
- Tankier builds are frequently used to hold points better/for sustained periods anyways because of the format.
- Similar to the above, most viable builds in sPvP are hard-counters to thief burst methods.
- It’s mostly do-or-die with little variation for most players, making the movements predictable when facing the same foes multiple times, unlike WvW/PvE where your player count is substantially higher.