Guild Wars 2

Kiriakulos.1690:

Besides that the capture point objectives in sPvP the closer areas, detract from what people complain about thieves, that’s why people don’t complain about it in the forums.

I dunno about that. The tighter spaces in SPvP make it easier for a thief to “reset” a fight, in my experience. Using (Infiltrator’s Strike→)Shadow Return to pop back behind a wall and your opponent has no clue where you went, for instance. In WvW thieves generally just have to pop Shadow Refuge and then hoof it.

Well, if you’re trying to “balance” stats, Divinity Runes are probably best. You get a bit of everything without neglecting Critical Damage. It’s the most overall bonuses you can get (at the expense of not focusing any one stat).

If you’re not just speccing for uber damage, there may be other runes that are worth your while. Look through the list and see if any have special effects that really appeal to you. I know some players like Rune of the Pack, Rune of Lyssa, or Rune of Melandru (combine with the similar food).

~

Another thing when doing a “balanced” setup with some Critical Damage is to optimize which pieces have +CritDmg vs. other stats. Take a look at this chart (short version: jewelry gets +CritDmg disproportionately to the other stats, so if you want some CritDmg, it should always be in your jewelry).

Ruby Orbs, Runes of Divinity, and Runes of the Scholar are all great for Power/Precision/CritDmg builds.

• Runes of the Scholar will give you big opening strike, but aren’t so great if you’re taking lots of incidental damage (like walking through a bunch of low-grade area attacks, or stuck in a long fight where your health is generally hovering between 25% and 75% of full the entire time).
• Runes of Divinity give you the most net stat boosts, but a lot of the bonus is going into stuff that only benefits you a little tiny bit, like Condition Damage and Healing Power. If you cared about those stats you wouldn’t be speccing full-“glass” Power/Precision/CritDmg, you know?
• Ruby Orbs give you consistent bonuses to the stats you care about most.

Ruby Orbs are also way, way, way cheaper than the other two. So you can just buy a set now for nearly nothing and save 20+ gold. And if you want a different rune/gem/crest later, you don’t have to feel bad about overwriting them with another rune.

faceless.7413:

Why do I need good gear? What can I use that good gear on? Sure I can use it on dungeons but that brings me back to the point on why level and do those dungeons?

… Because you want to?

I mean, you’re asking, “What’s the point of playing this game if I don’t want to play this game?” That’s an entirely incoherent question. Of course levels and gear that you get for playing are only relevant to playing the game some more. Nobody’s going to send you a check for $500 for getting to level 80. “Rewards” are just gravy; you either want to play or you don’t.

faceless.7413:

I cant use that good gear for PVP because when I join PVP I get tottally different gear?

You use your “regular” gear in World-vs-World PvP. The “even playing field” is only in Structured.

faceless.7413:

unlocking un-usfull skills

I really don’t know how to respond to this other than “Learn to play.”

faceless.7413:

Thanks for your answers btw. just trying to make sense of the game…

Nope. Don’t believe you. Based on the “answer” you selected, you’re clearly not asking anything in good faith.

Rednik.3809:

Give us at least damage indication then we hit stealthed target by melee damage.

You already have this. It’s just not at all clear.

1. Look at your auto-attack chain skills.
2. Look at the combat log.

The problem is that both of these are pretty subtle. I’m all in favor of just showing players damage numbers when they hit stealthed foes (maybe not for ongoing DOT conditions, but certainly for attacks and probably even area damage) so that you don’t have to fight the UI to access information that the game is already making available to you.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

ASP.8093:

I think there are ways to alleviate some of that confusion without actually nerfing thieves statistically. For instance, maybe hitting people in stealth should provide more obvious feedback? There’s already feedback, but you have to be watching your UI like a hawk — so much that, like I said, most players don’t even know it’s there. Fighting the UI isn’t fun and it’s not good gameplay.

If something like that happens then it should only pertain to the player(s) that actually hit the thief, not everyone around just because one player actually hit them.

Agreed. Give everyone an easy-to-understand way to spot thieves, but make them have to actually work to share that information.

Adding damage numbers might be the easiest way to implement it. My first thought is damage numbers for direct attacks, include area effects, but not DOT conditions. This makes area attacks pretty powerful at finding thieves, but a good thief can still, like, move around.

(Breaking stealth on damage is definitely off the table. You’d have to totally redo weapon skills. And I think people would actually complain more once they saw how hard you’d have to buff up sneak attacks to make them worth the effort.)

Wane.4358:

Only issue I have is the Over Powered backstab. My p/d thief has just over 20k hp, and was downed in under 2 seconds. Not my idea of a fight. Stealth is fine and doesnt need to be touched. Just need the backstab build needs to be looked at and balancing.

“Nerf only the build I don’t play! Don’t nerf the one I do play!”

~

Anyway, these “OP!”/“Not OP!” arguments are so full of fact-free hyperbole that I’m not even gonna bother today. Let’s actually talk about the thief’s gameplay instead.

There is something about the way thieves are set up that I think is a bit unfortunate: fighting the common thief builds effectively tends to demand more knowledge of their mechanics than actually playing them does.

For example, did you know you can use your auto-attack chain to detect stealthed thieves? Betcha more than half the people playing thieves don’t know this.

There are lots of little quirks and opaque mechanics like this. They contribute to a feeling of frustration and confusion that players experience when fighting thieves. Which is, in turn, what drives them to the forums to complain.

I think there are ways to alleviate some of that confusion without actually nerfing thieves statistically. For instance, maybe hitting people in stealth should provide more obvious feedback? There’s already feedback, but you have to be watching your UI like a hawk — so much that, like I said, most players don’t even know it’s there. Fighting the UI isn’t fun and it’s not good gameplay.

UnicornViolet.3081:

There aren’t any dungeons,

There are dungeons.

At your level, you can do Ascalon Catacombs (warning: the story mode is rather brutal) and Caduceus Manor. If you want more variety of stuff to do, level up a bit. Quickest way is to turn money into XP via crafting (use a guide).

UnicornViolet.3081:

or battlegrounds to mess around in

There’s World vs World if you want “realm-vs-realm” (your base stats will be upscaled but your power will still be a bit limited compared to a fully geared and leveled character) and Structured PvP if you want small balanced teams. Press some of the buttons in the upper left.

UnicornViolet.3081:

no incentive for grouping or social interaction.

I’m not going to argue. This is a matter of personal taste, and who you play with. You have my sympathy, though.

Nayru.3947:

Why do you have to defend this game to the death with no valid point relevant to the OP? Anyway, there isn’t any endgame content. You can do dungeons and world completion but that’s about it and there’s not much reward.

Well, that was out of left field. I guess it’s now somehow controversial to point out that character levels come with benefits?

What is “endgame content” to you, exactly?
Just kitten that’s gated to max level only? There’s some of that around.
Gear grind? Do some Fractals.
Big raids? This is not a game with raids.

~

Allow me to reiterate…

So, seriously, why level?

• Because you level naturally as part of playing the game…
• … and then you get to do new (effectively level-gated) areas…
• … and access more skills and traits…
• … and get more options for gear you can use.

If you just absolutely don’t like playing the game, then of course leveling up isn’t going to magically solve all your problems. (Did it in any other game you’ve played? That’s quite a remarkable game, then. Or one where the early content is absolute trash.)

If, however, you just feel like your options are constrained and your build is a bit lame, leveling up can actually take care of that. Some classes are a chore to play until you get access to certain traits and gear, but really come into their own once you’re “maxed out.” SPvP can give you a sense of when that’s the case.

Causic.3798:

ASP.8093:

rancidstick.2704:

You can’t kill a good thief in this game.

In my experience, an average player pretty much can’t kill a good anything in this game. Superior reflexes and counter-play tend to cause massive blowouts pretty much independent of the classes involved.

Yes but 1 of any profession can never beat 4 of another class as easy as a thief can.
If 1 ele tries to rush into a group of 4 he will never defeat all 4.
Same applies to any other profession, only reason a thief can is because of stealth, not skill…

Which build?

I’ve never seen D/D burst doing super-well at 1v4. D/D eles have a much easier time just stone-cold charging groups and killing them.

Are you talking about P/D, then? P/D is, indeed, degenerate. It is also, however, slow to kill. I’ve seen groups of six people fail to bring down a P/D troll. What I’ve never seen, however, is a P/D thief successfully kill someone who was capable of walking away.

(They’ve acknowledged it. They’re just having a hard time getting a fix that actually works.)

As a thief, I don’t focus on stealth or all-in burst. Not because I feel guilty or anything. I just don’t like the playstyle as much as I like Shortbow and Sword/Dagger. I run into thieves a lot, so I see other players’ frustration. I also see that it’s gotten a bit crazy. A lot of what thieves do is frustrating but not actually overpowered, you know? I’m fine with changing frustrating gameplay — after all, the point of game design isn’t just to make games balanced, it’s to make them fun.

But some of the other stuff players complain about… well, it really feels like they got so out of sorts about something thieves do that they’ve just given up on thinking rationally about all of their other abilities. Everything about thieves is OP according to the forums, somehow; even crappy tactics that just get them killed.

I’ve still had people yell at me for “abusing stealth”… in SPvP, no less. The perception has completely subsumed the reality.

rancidstick.2704:

You can’t kill a good thief in this game.

In my experience, an average player pretty much can’t kill a good anything in this game. Superior reflexes and counter-play tend to cause massive blowouts pretty much independent of the classes involved.

You’re not paying attention.

• Do you have all your skill slots unlocked?
• Do you have your skills unlocked, too?
• Have you been spending your trait points?
• Have you seen the level-80 dungeon armor? (Go to Fort Marriner in Lion’s Arch.)

In addition to access to more content, level 80 gives you more tools to work with than level 10, and many more options for playing dress-up (you still get all the low-level stuff, too, thanks to transmutation stones).

Also, a downscaled level-80 character doesn’t play like a level-10 character. She carves her way through low-level crap without a second thought.

BigTeeHunter.4913:

Mesmer can be countered by an easy to perform stagger stomp

I’m not familiar with the terminology. What’s a “stagger stomp”?

tagnut.8621:

Heartseeker hits me for 4.8k
Heartseeker hits me for 6k

over 50% health gone in two fast spammable gap closing attacks.

I play thief, but never do dagger mainhand. I used to be very frustrated by Heartseeker spam. Then I realized it was a weak tactic overall, because it’s very easy to punish Heartseeker with area attacks or cripple. The last few guys who newb-spammed it at me all ended up dying to a Clusterbomb to the face. So I think the main complaint isn’t really power, it’s that successful counter-play requires more skill than the tactic itself; that’s true of a number of builds across all professions, though.

I could see tuning up the initiative cost or reducing the leap range to make people happy and maybe shake up D/D play a bit. I don’t think it’s required, though.

Marduh.4603:

ASP.8093:

You’re talking about P/D trolls? P/D is, indeed, very aggravating and difficult to fight. Their kills are so slow that you can usually just walk away, though. Because most of them are sitting around in the boonies next to some deer (for easy C&D), trying to make Youtube videos instead of contributing to the scoreboard.

Rendering bug+P/d+30 shadow arts regen= God mod against melee.

I wouldn’t go as far as “god mode,” but it does come close.

The problem with P/D is this:
- Its condition-based ranged damage output is better than almost all power-based ranged builds have against the P/D thief (since their damage doesn’t keep ticking while the thief is stealthed).
- Caltrops-on-dodge and C&D punish you for going into melee range with the P/D thief.
- It has enough sources of stealth besides C&D that even messing up one or two of their C&Ds won’t actually disrupt their “rotation” that much.
- Fighting P/D effectively pretty much requires a more intimate understanding of their build than the player has himself.

The individual components of the build really aren’t that unfair — heck, the auto-attack is downright bad — but the overall package is very hard to deal with.

CHIPS.6018:

My WvW server is in T1. Players here are good enough that Elementalists and Warriors can never 1vs4 players.

Every server has newbs, chief. “T1” just means you have good coverage and leadership. Doesn’t say anything about the skill level of the average player running around by himself.

CHIPS.6018:

Thieves on the other hand can 1vs4 players and win on a regular basis.

You’re talking about P/D trolls? P/D is, indeed, very aggravating and difficult to fight. Their kills are so slow that you can usually just walk away, though. Because most of them are sitting around in the boonies next to some deer (for easy C&D), trying to make Youtube videos instead of contributing to the scoreboard.

“Glass” is fine in dungeons, especially with Pistol off-hand. You’re going to be spending a lot of time in Shortbow regardless of your stats anyway; might as well make it hit hard.

Xsorus.2507:

I assure you, as someone who runs solo looking for 1v1’s and 1vX in World vs World, it is not rare..and the down state has screwed me more times then I can count.

If you run around alone all the time, of course you’re not going to see the upside of a team-focused mechanic.

~

Downed state story time!

I’m in a 2v4. I get downed. Two of them rush over to try to stomp me, but I manage to stall them. Meanwhile, my ally downs and stomps another enemy. I rally, we fight back and win.

Seems to be working as intended.

~

I’m in a 1v1 against a ranger. There’s a friendly tower nearby, so I’m trying to lead him towards it so the NPCs can save my butt. He downs me. I figure I can get a scout or guard NPC to save me if I port, but I’ve gotta drag it out a bit so I that my #3 skill (the stealth; stops a finisher if you time it right) comes off of cooldown. So we’re doing the usual 1-2-3-port thing I’ve practiced a million times by now. Except he surprises me with quickness.

Honestly, that’s also totally working as intended. He beat me with superior play.

~

I chase and down a guardian in the river near the borderlands south camp. He pops his knockback bubble thing. His big area attack ends up aggroing some critters. They begin nibbling on him while I stand there and laugh.

Also totally working as intended.

Pinkus.2860:

A 50+ man zerg can most certainly do alot of damage to a gate

Compared to just dropping rams and cats, though?

To me, the advantage of 50 people over 20 people is that you can drop tons of siege whenever you feel like it, and the lord room takes like 10 seconds to clear.

eXs.6210:

I’m not gaining anything from swapping if I have no initiative to use… what’s the harm in this? I don’t see it…

Think about swapping when you do have initiative to use. And then swapping back as much as you want, again and again.

Switching weapons imposes tactical tradeoffs. If I switch from a melee set to Shortbow in order to put some distance between me and a warrior, it means committing to not being able to spike down his mesmer for a while, for example.

Players attacking gates really don’t do very much damage.

Mostly what you accomplish is to discourage guys on the other side from repairing it.

KlausKNT.9302:

4. if your zerg dont teake someting in a first step- yu do it wrong- yu need bigger ZERG, or trebutchets to down wall from distance eand teake points

So what you’re saying is that the ideal strategy is a zerg… plus a network of trebuchets softening up targets and scouts to see when their walls are down. Maybe throw in a few guys within your zone of control making sure that stuff gets reinforced, and a few guys running around ninjaing enemy camps to deny them supply to do the same…

At this point, it’s really not “zerg wins” as much as “the zerg is part of a multi-tiered overall strategy that rewards applying a lot of force where you need it and a little bit of force where you don’t.”

The very concept of a siege is that the attackers bring superior numbers and the defenders try to hold out with stationary defenses. An upgraded tower or keep with even just a handful of defenders can stall enemies for a good long time — certainly long enough for reinforcements to flank the enemy or double up the defenses using fresh supply.

Creslin.1758:

Second, here’s the problem with your explanation of the larger group using “skill” when they decided to combat rez during a mist stomp…there is no counter. There is literally nothing I can do to prevent that rez.

If you had a friend willing to spend 3/4 of a second to throw poison on him, though…

To me, “coordinated” group means more than just “1-2-3-spike.”

This isn’t a post about balance. Just some advice.

He also Immobalized me twice, and stunned me once.

Means he’s running the usual offensive D/D build, with Spider and Basilisk Venom. It’s quite likely the guy’s got no stun breaker. Certainly doesn’t have multiples. Also quite likely he has no way to break immobilize. These are probably the most effective ways to attack him; that or area-effect CC. I’ve also found that Heartseeker doesn’t seem to work as well when they’re crippled.

If you’re just 1v1-ing with a thief in the middle of nowhere, though, sometimes the best policy is to ask yourself, “Do I get anything from fighting this guy? Or can I just retreat?” (P/D thief lurking about inside a keep with several un-released mesmer corpses scattered around… that’s another story. )

Xathor.4027:

as they can towards other Professions that cannot stealth and finish the downed player from stealth

Mist Form
Blind
Aegis
Stability

Thieves are good at stomping, no doubt about it. But “no stomp interrupt for you” really isn’t a thief-only mechanic.

Gao Gao.4973:

The fact that numerous persons here are not aware of the fact that there are locations where arrowcarts cannot be killed without the use of a treb is pretty amazing. By all means, please continue.

Are there any such locations that can hit a catapult deployed an appropriate distance away from the keep or tower, though?

Being able to occasionally force your opponents to build something other than rams really isn’t that big of a problem.

Bunzy.8674:

WE HATE DOWNED STATE!

Speak for yourself.

The general idea behind the “downed” and “finisher” mechanics is great. In most cases, I think they work exactly as intended, rewarding conserving your abilities and good use of crowd control and disruption.

There are some edge cases where things ought to be improved. But scrapping the whole mechanic? That’s crazy talk! It’d take a whole lot of strategy out of PvP.

Roezz.5460:

We put 4 or 5 in a downed state and one of us dies and they all rally.

In that case, seems like the answer is to reduce rallies — probably limit each death to rallying 1-2 players instead of lowering the % chance of a rally — to compensate.

Xsorus.2507:

ASP.8093:

Because daze and blind are somehow unique to thieves??

They’re one of few classes that have blind fields, yes..

Didn’t use the field; didn’t need the field; wasn’t running the weapon set that gives me the field.

Stomping is definitely easier for some classes than it is for others. Stomping thieves is just a bit of a special case because you need your own teleports to do it.

The main annoyance is that you may need to invest skill slots to stomp effectively in skirmishes, whereas you can get away with not doing so in 1v1 and big battles. I understand that many people won’t have the ability to force a stomp through on their bar, because they like higher-powered skills for doing other stuff. But, well, that is a tactical choice that you’ve made when choosing your build.

Raine Akrune.8416:

Damn good reason = Anyone not interested in a glass cannon build

No, “damn good reason” means “Okay, now explain in detail why it’s tactically beneficial to shave 20-40% damage off of all of your attacks just to take 0-2 more hits.” Because that’s usually a bad deal. (This is different for the stats you get from traits, because having a good trait is better than 100 Power and a weak trait.)

In PvE, a single activation of Black Powder will mitigate more damage than all this extra Toughness and Vitality. It also lasts long enough for an offensive build to kill most trash mobs.

Xsorus.2507:

Or you can be a thief , In otherwords, the only reason the Guardian didn’t get the res off…Was because your class, It had nothing to do with skill…It didn’t make the fight more interesting, Your class simply allowed you to counter a crappy mechanic.

If you were another class, Chances are that thief would of gotten ressed and went back to noob spamming Heart Seeker.

Because daze and blind are somehow unique to thieves??

Xsorus.2507:

However in 2v1…Its not reasonable..

So, yesterday…

I’m a fairly average WvW thief. I have decent battlefield awareness but I’m not exceptionally skilled by any measure.

A thief and a guardian charge me. The thief tries to Heartseeker newb-spam me and I kill her while evading with Shortbow. The guardian goes to res her. I daze the guardian, then start stomping. In case he’s got CC, I pop Signet of Shadows to blind him when he’s about to come out of daze. The thief ports; I port with her and finish the stomp. I daze the guardian a second time and he runs away to a nearby tower instead of staying to die.

This fight was way, way, way more fun than it would be without downed state. That’s true of 90% of skirmishes I’ve had in WvW.

TL;DR: You can still triumph in 2v1 with superior play, even with downed-state ressing. You just need to save your cooldowns a bit and be aware of what abilities your enemies might bring to the table.

Lenny.2460:

Hey thanks, does this work in WvW as well?

It still kills people if you’re level 80 and have exotic gear. Buuuuut it’s mostly a 1v1 build being applied to a format where 1v1 isn’t how you actually win things. The downsides, generally:

• You don’t have the initiative regeneration to sustain ranged pressure using the Shortbow.
• “All-in” burst builds aren’t so great for escaping from danger.
• You can spike repeatedly, but only one of them will be super-strong, due to Mug’s 45-second cooldown.

The WvW flavor-of-the-month is Pistol/Dagger, which is a gradual, attrition-based kill using constant stealth to avoid a lot of damage. There’s lots of videos of players doing 1vX with it in the middle of nowhere. It’s much more durable but ganking stragglers and newbs in the middle of nowhere is not how you actually win WvW.

In WvW, I play Shortbow for ranged damage and Sword/Dagger for sustained pressure and control. It’s not the most popular setup (I don’t think I’ve ever actually fought another thief doing S/D in WvW, though I’ve run with a couple), but I really like the ability to spam area attacks and then stunlock opponents when I go in for the kill.

~

I recommend Rainythief’s videos. He does a good job covering the trifecta of build + technique + strategy that you need to really be effective. Most of the concepts are applicable to WvW even if you’re likely to tweak the build a bit.

brunohstein.9038:

I could say that critical damage has a better DPS against one mob and condition damage is more powerful against lots of them.

How are you spamming conditions unto multiple mobs? Death Blossom plus the occasional Caltrops?
A crit-based build using Clusterbomb has better output.

The standard SPvP burst build basically look like this:
Dagger/Dagger
30 points in Crit Strikes; take Hidden Killer as one of your traits
25+ points in Deadly Arts; take Mug as one of your traits
All Berserker gear, with Runes of Divinity or Runes of the Scholar
Sigil of Air on one of the weapon slots for the big on-crit proc
Hide in Shadows to heal
Basilisk Venom as your elite to stun opponents; Thieves’ Guild works if you don’t care about the stun so much (many players will just break it anyway)
Signet of Shadows for movement and stomping
Other utilities are usually offensive things like Assassin’s Signet or more venoms (personally I’d throw in a stun break so you don’t get rolled by anyone with decent reflexes)
Second weapon is a Shortbow for mobility

The combo chain is: Cloak & Dagger (dagger 5) -> Steal while C&D is activating -> Backstab (dagger sneak attack skill). Then they usually finish with a mix of Heartseeker (dagger 2) and auto-attacks.

It’s a bit of a one-trick pony, but this is generally what “burst” thieves play. Pistol Whip (S/P using Pistol Whip + Haste) was a thing for a while, too, but it’s unpopular these days due to reduced damage.

Shoogli.6185:

The second thing is a trait I have that launches caltrops when I dodge :

1) I dodge
2) it launches caltrops in the air
3) I never get to see where they are on the ground so as to plan and fight around : no white circle on the ground

There’s no indicator because they’re not an ongoing effect. Whoever is standing next to you when you dodge gets hit, and that’s it. Doesn’t work like the skill Caltrops (in fact, the animation is actually a bit wide — I recommend practicing a bit on the dummies in Heart of the Mists to get a feel for the real range of the dodge-caltrops).

DreamOfACure.4382:

The only signet I would have a problem with is the Signet of Shadows. It’s really more of a PvP signet, cause how often do you needs to chase a PvE mob?

For dungeons, it helps with the jumping sections, the running-around-holding-things sections, and many of the fights that are heavily slanted towards avoiding red circles or melee swarms. And kinda sucks for the other situations (which is why I recommended switching it out selectively). That’s still not a bad track record overall.

In pitched battles, Downed state doesn’t just reward “the bigger zerg.” It rewards pushing for position. When an enemy goes down, your enemies are now stuck with a fixed point they have to control for a few seconds. It’s on you to pressure them away from that point. Removing downed state means less emphasis on movement and positioning in big battles, not more.

~

I agree with the idea of “If you’re spiked, you should stay dead,” though. Not a big deal either way, but it does add a bit of extra value to properly executing enemy players.

Yggdrasil.7940:

More seriously, stomp animation is way too long : it should be substancially reduced. Being immobile for 2sec + interrupt + 2sec is way too much. Yeah I can use stealth but it doesn’t help with cancel, and I have no access to the stability buff. And even if I had, why should I use a skill to be able to finish someone already dead ?

Are you playing a thief? If so, stability is entirely unnecessary. Thieves are, like, the best class for stomping people; maybe second-best at worst. And compared to other classes blowing long cooldowns, the opportunity cost involved in executing stomps is quite low. You just need to use your abilities effectively.

Yggdrasil.7940:

This mechanic obnoxiously favors larger number at the expense of smart gameplay.

Do you think removing it will necessarily favor smart gameplay over large numbers? I’m not convinced. I can easily see a bigger group just blindly spiking its way through smaller numbers.

If you want to weaken the effect of numbers, add diminishing returns for multiple revivers. And maybe give the bigger team some reason not to just stand there next to you grunting out auto-attacks (for some reason, their characters always seem to grunt really loudly when they do this… probably something about the camera placement and audio sources) instead of actually using finishing moves like big kids.

Generally, you’ll want:

1. Full Zerk for critical-based builds (whether spike or pressure).
2. Full Carrion for condition-based builds.
3. A damn good reason to justify equipping anything else.

XII.9401:

Rezzing while stealthed: I can’t even see the person I want to stomp. So if my AOE CC -assuming I have one- is down or I don’t have one like the majority of the classes I wait for the thief to rez him? What kinda crap is that where the downed target disappears?

With a warrior?

1. You know exactly where the downed guy is.
2. Stand there and use Hundred Blades or any other big-damage melee attack.
3. Two downed guys for the price of one.

Pestilence.3184:

dont forget the ability to stealth finish a player in a downed state that goes for ele mist form finishers too.

Mist Form makes you invulnerable. Stealth does not. As has been said here repeatedly, there’s very little I get from stealth that I don’t get from just blinding you (in fact, as a thief I prefer to use blindness over stealth, since I can instantly pop it during the stomp animation and it stops guardians, too). Or using stability, if I am playing a class with easy access to stability.

Some general thief advice:

1. Shortbow is our most versatile weapon. Get comfortable with the shortbow and you’ll almost always have some trick you can fall back on when your other weapon set won’t do.
2. Sword hits up to three targets with its basic attacks, dagger hits one.
3. Thieves are really, really good at getting big damage via crits. But they don’t really “grow into” this until you can get later-level armor (which comes with three stats, so you can stack Power + Precision + Crit Damage). When you’re just leveling, crit builds will give you some damage and better resource management, but you won’t really see their full explosive potential until the late levels.
4. You know the sweet active-defense skills that Guardians have? Black Powder (Pistol off-hand attack), Smoke Screen (utility), and Dagger Storm (elite) are like that for thieves.
5. Thief PvE and PvP builds tend to be pretty divergent. You can often use the same gear everywhere, but expect to be changing traits and weapons. Burst damage and stealth are a lot better in PvP than PvE; good initiative management and stand-still defenses are better in PvE; there’s more leeway in WvW depending on what exactly you want to do.
6. Your best group utilities (in my opinion) are Shadow Refuge, Smoke Screen, Signet of Agility, and Caltrops. Also, don’t overlook the party support value of being able to spam Clusterbomb into combo fields.

Coffeebot.3921:

Until you realize that Trick Shot (SB #1) can get off 7-8 shots in the same time as unload at 900 range…

Except it doesn’t. Go try it.

I think that, as a thief, you really should be swapping skills several times during a dungeon run.

You have some skills that are always desirable in dungeons, especially Shadow Refuge. But most of your stuff is situational, like Smoke Screen, Signet of Agility, Caltrops, Shadowstep.

Any time you’re in an encounter focused around mobility, there’s nothing wrong with taking Signet of Shadows as one of your utilities. When you’re not, though, a more supportive skill should be in its place.

For me, Assassin’s Signet is the big warning sign, because neither its passive nor active modes are really all that good a use of a skill slot in dungeon battles.

Mouse.1024:

What seems real unfair is terms of WvWvW and PvP, is the Thiefs ability to stealth while doing a finisher.

That pretty much sucks, because they 100% kill you if you’re not a guardian with the big blue shield thing while downed..

Make it so thiefs cant use finishers in stealth. That’s really annoying.

A simple blind ability like Signet of Shadows is just as powerful as stealth-stomping. Works on guardians, too.

The sword chain is melee. And you have to stay in melee to get the big juicy third attack. So I think it should be better than ranged attacks, even your “initiative dump” attack — because you have to put in more work to make it work.

P/P could use some changes, but I don’t think Unload necessarily needs to hit harder.

jkctmc.8754:

Do you have proof that you don’t need to have a target to use single target abilities, and have them actually hit us?

C&D is single-target, right? I’ve hit stealthed thieves with it successfully on a number of occasions.

Ranged is a problem, though, because untargeted shots tend to just fizzle out, like, ten feet away from your character.

Thieves have several great things going for them in PvE. Thieves have good area attacks. Blind spam allows them to stand face-to-face with anything that’s not Unshakable. Thieves “grow into” both big damage — and consistently big damage. Thieves also have some of the best options for bypassing encounters you don’t want to fight.

But the easiest builds to play for leveling are likely to teach you bad habits you’ll have to work hard to unlearn later. And the builds that are harder to play tend to be that way because they’re just plain weak.

Which isn’t to say that you shouldn’t play a thief as your first character! But it helps to be leveling another character at the same time. You’ll gain valuable context about how the game works and what the thief’s real strengths are.

buki.3108:

If you’re not running a staff for walls or focus for swirlies then go play another class.

That’s not mutually exclusive with playing D/D for skirmishes. Just switch out of combat.

All the weapons > one weapon.