Guild Wars 2

Firstly, I am completely new to this game – I started playing at Christmas, though I like it and bought the DLC. In the past I played WoW and SWTOR, always mained a rogue (or operative) class. Thus I decided to roll a Thief here in Guild Wars 2. My main focus is always PvP, though I do not mind to play some PvE for change.

So far I have only reached level 26 and I was kind of enjoying the game before I entered the PvP, where I was just steamrolled. But it was more because I am new and do not have skill yet than this class sucks (or maybe?). Nevertheless I continued playing it.

Then I had this bad idea to check out the forums and look for some builds that could help me, especially with surviving when soloying events. I was really surprised about that much hate I see here.

Is Thief really useless profession? Should I stop playing it and reroll? I have already made a mesmer and see, that in PvP sometimes I feel more thiefy with stealth, porting and movement.

Though If I recall corectly something similar happened to me in the past when I went deeper into previous games and started care about meta and stuff like that. Before that I was just enjoying…

U have to remember ppl don’t post when they are happy. The thieves enjoying the game just browse the forums if at all. If you check any profession forum you’ll see a lot of gripes. I’m not saying they aren’t warranted. Your experience is your own. If it’s fun it’s fun. If your looking for builds, some ppl like metabattle. Also you can use the pvp lobby area to make/test your own. That way you don’t waste your gold.

Also remember it’s a game.

If you’re new to the game, just wait a bit, a balance change should be coming out at the end of the month:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Our next major balance update will be released at the end of January, and after the new year we plan on sharing the high-level details of those changes, giving you an opportunity to provide feedback to our design team.

As far as builds go… This is the build used by Sindrener, a top EU thief: [Link] and this is the build used by Toker, a top NA thief: [Link]. Both focus around roaming around, decapping points that aren’t defended, and utilizing the thief’s high mobility to provide a numbers advantage in fights (Known as +1’ing). Thief in general isn’t good at 1v1’ing so it’s a bit more optimal to use the above playstyle. In particular, with proper use of the shortbow the thief cann cover more vertical distance than any other class: [Link].

As far as the current meta goes… Thief isn’t very good at carrying in solo queue as it is very team dependent. But if you have a team or a few friends to play with, then you should be fine and able to have plenty of fun in unranked or ranked. I can say from personal experience that it’s possible to get to Ruby as a thief in solo queue. But with the tier safety system getting to Ruby is mostly grinding anyway.

If you really like PvP, I highly recommend trying out dueling rooms. Go to the norn labeled PvP Browser in the Heart of the Mist. Talk to him. Then look for any room labeled “1v1” or “1v1 dueling.” Dueling is a fun way to learn and practice matchups/mechanics. Just ask the folks there if they want to duel.

Thank you both for replies, much appreciated

There is also a lot of good threads, new build propositions, advises, not just hate and blood ^^

The Q&A thread from Caed, is a nice exemple of that. Lots of people having interesting questions, builds propositions, DPS comparisons in that one.

Sometimes there is even some love ( Beta Feedback Daredevil thread after weekend 2 ) if you look for it.

True, those hating post are just more visible…

Cuz we’re Thieves. Thieves are hated everywhere.
If we were renamed back to Assassin we’d get more love and buffs probably.

“Thief” has a negative connotation associated with it, much like “politician” and “bureaucrat”, which is mainly viewed as a dishonest profession. The same reason why Robin Hood was never called a “thief” or a “robber” rather a rebel, an outlaw, a reclaimer or a philanthropist.

Can you imagine any hate towards a Philanthropist profession? — even though that’s exactly what the Thief does in GW2.

“Dare devil” is an attempt to rebrand the profession’s negative image.

Doggie.3184:

Cuz we’re Thieves. Thieves are hated everywhere.
If we were renamed back to Assassin we’d get more love and buffs probably.

Oh, Thief was originally Assassin? That sounds more cool though!

Sir Vincent III.1286:

“Thief” has a negative connotation associated with it, much like “politician” and “bureaucrat”, which is mainly viewed as a dishonest profession. The same reason why Robin Hood was never called a “thief” or a “robber” rather a rebel, an outlaw, a reclaimer or a philanthropist.

Can you imagine any hate towards a Philanthropist profession? — even though that’s exactly what the Thief does in GW2.

“Dare devil” is an attempt to rebrand the profession’s negative image.

Yeah, you have your point.

I will say this, I have been maining a Thief since launch, and mained that thief through all the HoT content. I enjoy the class a lot, including the Daredevil. But that said, I also have one of each of the other classes, and play them too, and I think the Thief could use some serious tuning. I do not believe the Thief is useful at all in PvP, and I believe that they are weaker than most classes in PvE.

You do have the advantage of easy Stealth and plenty of dodging, allowing you to get to places that would be more dangerous for other characters (like accessing channeled Hero Points without having to kill nearby enemies), but Thieves tend to be very squishy, and while they have solid damage, it’s not enough to make up for how squishy they tend to be. Other classes can do about the same damage, maybe more, while facetanking things that Thieves have to avoid like hot lava.

Thieves are the best class for explorers, but not for much else.

The thief has several fundamental design problems which have led it to be difficult to balance and a great framework class for exploiting overpowered and un-fun mechanics. ANet, rather than re-designing, has simply tweaked numbers and given the thief massive buffs and dirtier, spammier play through Daredevil as compensation.

Daredevil as a specialization is pretty much pure power creep + cheese-mode built on the principles of Acrobatics without the associated risks or real concern for timing or resource management. In two words I’d call it spammy and gimmicky. It covers a lot of the missing utility and damage from various trait lines combined in one nice low-investment package, while sporting lots and lots of invuln uptime through spammed dodge rolls and buffed evasion on a variety of weapons.

It’s objectively the strongest the thief has ever been and massively overshadows the core thief specializations in all facets of sPvP.

sPvP in general has boiled down largely to a battle of team compositions and how well players can rotate their skills rather than through improvised gameplay fighting tooth and nail for a win. The competitive builds are exploitive, using or featuring poorly-designed mechanics with limited or no counters, and as such opportunistic gameplay as the thief once featured and as was the definitive way to succeed in sPvP/WvW is out the window.

Nothing will substitute being a better player; a very good thief will beat unskilled players at other classes given proper builds. Unfortunately what constitutes skill for the specializations and current state of the game is completely different from what the class was meant to provide or how the original combat mechanisms of the game and subsequent core specializations worked. As such, you’re seeing complaints about relative weakness since the vision and prior style of the class is no longer a way it can be played competitively.

Thank you for exhausting post. For me as a complete beginner it seems not too much to worry now but I will come as I get deeper into the game. My plan is to play PvP at least semi-competitive (I was playing that in SWTOR) and then I am sure I will meet those obstacles, problems and design flaws you have described.

For now I guess I will be enjoying the PvE part and exploring, which I can do simply because I starterd and there is a lot to do how Ohoni suggests.

Thx both for the replies.

Since you don’t need to level up characters to PvP with them, you can learn multiple class in pvp very easily and I recommend you do that, even if you plan to main one class specifically.

You are obviously unaware of the fact that the only thieves that get to fight in RL are expelled failurers drafted into army. Real thieves dont fight ever. They, you know, steal.

Rainbowsand.2438:

You are obviously unaware of the fact that the only thieves that get to fight in RL are expelled failurers drafted into army. Real thieves dont fight ever. They, you know, steal.

:-D true that