Guild Wars 2

Hey fellow thieves,

A PvE player here that lately has been doing some ranked PvP with hopes of getting the Elite wings skin, I have a question that really bothers me lately.

I started off doing ranked PvP this season, therefore I started from the very bottom. Last night I secured the first tier of Sapphire and throughout the journey I’ve had quite a couple of people telling me in /w and /s that playing thief is cancer and I’m literally the worst.

I know thieves are annoying with our constant dazes, stealth and evades but why no one ever flames the Dragonhunters for example? I mean, for me the DH right now is the biggest crap I could face in PvP – they just drop their kitten ed traps in the middle of the point and there’s barely anything else they have to do but to pull you in them. My experience so far, and this might be solely based on the fact that I’m a PvP newb, has been beyond frustrating with some particular builds, especially DH.

So, why do we get so much hate when (in my opinion) there are so many more annoying builds? :c

It’s just a tradition. Thief = hate.

Sounds like you have some aptitude to have made Sapphire already. The hate comes from how stealth takes information of your position away from the opponent while lots of attacks have dodge on top of the three dodges. Thief isn’t even the cheapest class, Mesmer can stack unreal levels of confusion and torment, have lots of blocks, can hide in the chaos of animations and do moa (Gravity Well is a better skill overall in my opinion due to its shorter cooldown and strong support and zoning potential while moa is better in certain situations), and drop a portal mitigating certain teammates’ low mobility.

Necromancer has a shroud and lots of boon corruption and condi bombing, Tempest isn’t cheap per se but is the best overall class due to its versatility, good support, and decent mobility via active skills for disengage (or even engaging in some cases) such as EotS and Lightning Flash, and Druid can feel cheap. Anything in the game can feel cheap.

The acid test for determining if something is really cheap is to ask ourselves what weaknesses the class has.

Necro- low mobility, focus.
Guardian- low base HP pool, traps gimmicky, low mobility.
Thief- Low base HP, squishy, low teamfight potential
Engineer-Have to think long and hard on this one, but word is boon corrupt and condi.
Ranger-Condition pressure and stunlocking
Revenant-Cooldowns and energy need to be managed at the same time, unreliable self heals.

Sometimes a particular thief could be running something slightly off meta (staff instead of D/P for example) and it counters what you’re playing. You feel like you’re outplaying them, dodging vaults, getting bursts, but their burst options recover before yours so you’re a sitting duck 1v1. They could even shadow refuge (try firing AoE into it since if thief leaves it’s a reveal so he’s committed to that circle) though the skill is rarely taken these days and cap off with the stealth staff attack for the knockdown and just finish you. But that’s just part of the game to use your class’s advantages and engage what you counter.

Then you have to further break it down by build (elite specs are assumed).

Thanks a lot for the great tips, Agemnon!

I mostly try to avoid condi classes, I don’t bring condi cleanse with me so it’s either one-two-three shots bursts trying to kill them or I die on the way out of the fight (shame on me for still doing that).

I used to avoid Dragonhunters a lot in the beginning, once made the mistake to Steal on a peacefully standing DH, got insta-downed by the traps and I think I learned my lesson lol. Now I try to kite them, some of them use sword so they tend to blink on me, this is when I try to get them, away from their traps.

Necros, condi mesmers and condi warrs or DHs are my biggest pain in general, I can’t even get to try and burst properly, most of the time my hp is already halfway gone by the time I get to execute any rotation.

Engis I try not to engage on points, if I can make them chase me around the map while I have someone (de)capping, I just try to win my teammate some time and then disengage instantly unless I see an opening to take the engi down.

With rangers and revs, I don’t have that much experience, I usually don’t see them solo at far or close and I mainly join mid only for a couple of quick backstabs trying to help my team.

Again, thanks a lot for your tips

People just hate thieves… Or any class for that matter that they die to. What’s happening right now is a mixture of 2 things.

1. People still in the old mindset that a thief on the team is a loss.
2. Thief finally got made viable again after years of being gutted with nerfs.

The two conflict yes but that’s 2 different types of haters. Right now in the pvp forums people are raging about thieves mostly because they are dying to them. So my question is now, how long until the nerf bat again? Nevermind the fact you can sneeze at us and down us if you get caught.

Which is the root problem I think most hate. We’re hard to catch, hard to lock down, can reset a fight if we want. But honestly we need all that because of how squishy we are. People just aren’t willing to learn how to counter certain things and that stands for any class. So would rather spew hate.

winterchillz.2564:

Hey fellow thieves,

A PvE player here that lately has been doing some ranked PvP with hopes of getting the Elite wings skin, I have a question that really bothers me lately.

I started off doing ranked PvP this season, therefore I started from the very bottom. Last night I secured the first tier of Sapphire and throughout the journey I’ve had quite a couple of people telling me in /w and /s that playing thief is cancer and I’m literally the worst.

I know thieves are annoying with our constant dazes, stealth and evades but why no one ever flames the Dragonhunters for example? I mean, for me the DH right now is the biggest crap I could face in PvP – they just drop their kitten ed traps in the middle of the point and there’s barely anything else they have to do but to pull you in them. My experience so far, and this might be solely based on the fact that I’m a PvP newb, has been beyond frustrating with some particular builds, especially DH.

So, why do we get so much hate when (in my opinion) there are so many more annoying builds? :c

As a pve’er getting to sapphire pretty easy this season is a decent accomplishment. Basically people hate thieves b/c the good ones are seriously annoying and while not op can seem op by pro thieves. But people also hate thieves b/c sadly there are so many horrible thieves. Even Dh which is considered the worst class in the game currently can eat thieves who are unprepared.

Outside of the 2 gimmicky builds currently (condi daggers) and power staff w/ bound they aren’t really that great currently and the gimmicks are only good against people unfamiliar with them. D/P +SB power is still the go to build as far as decapping and +1 just realize it largely depends on your team if they can teamfight without you and also know how to rotate caps.

@ OP

No one REALLY thinks thief is cancer, what people can’t stand is getting spiked down almost instantly without being able to put up a fight because thief just either can’t be hit, or can’t be targeted. sure, if we do hit you one good time, you melt, but its so hard to do in a 1v1 for most classes, while thieves have a massive spike damage.

It isn’t just in pvp. I was watching a 2v2 in wvw and once my buddy’s on server won I went closer as I was on my way to a sentry to the downed enemy people (1 was already stomped) the remaining guy started to spam downstate #1 on me and I wasn’t even in the fight lol… what did I do ; (

Hey guys,

Nice to see more people jumping in and sharing their personal experience! I’m now halfway through Ruby since I originally posted the topic but it’s getting harder and harder in SoloQ and teams are starting to use more and more meta compositions and rotations which is a real challenge for my skill.

odstninja, now I feel a horrible thief because lately I’ve been facing a lot of DHs that just melt me, I even fear them now! lol

Sadly, pretty much every condi class is still a no-go for me. I mostly avoid 1v1 unless I see a good opening but even in such cases I have had moments where I’m being melted into the ground by some mesmer or necro (also kitten runes of the nightmare!)

emkelly, you said it’s hard for people to hit us which makes me think that maybe I’m messing up my rotation somewhere along the way because I get hit… quite often lol.

Also, engis hurt A lot.