Guild Wars 2

Good necromancers have always been scary as kitten, now they are insane.

Jump on the necromancer bandwagon; pressure-wise, they do everything better.

Not everyone runs the cookie-cutter D/D or D/P Fenrir. They effectively killed pretty much every other viable build so you’ll see a lot more of these cooke-cutters running around… because it is the only viable thing remaining.

If you dare get in the 900 range in keep defense, you’re dead within seconds.

Thus, we should all reroll.

I’m not taking the patch notes for today into consideration, as the leaked notes are unconfirmed and the entire meta can change by a single small change that could be well overlooked in notes… (e.g. what happened to Ranger a few patches back — BW OP)

Engineer is powerful. Extremely powerful. If you know how to play it well, you’ll be near invincible while dishing out a lot of area-of-attack damage with your grenades and bombs, while having an absurd amount of damage migration tools. The Engineer has a learning curve that is mostly about making the most of the profession and how/when to switch to weapon kits. The tactics are pretty much the same independent on what profession or build are facing; stealthies just need to be thrown grenades at in order to kill them.

The thief on the other hand is extremely weak. Don’t stop reading there. You have very little armor and health and you absolutely need to maximize (critical) damage in order to take someone down. Condition builds do not work against anyone who’s got half a brain. Because of that squishy nature, you really need to learn the ins-and-outs of whatever profession AND build you are attacking in order to take them down. A bad player can be taken down almost instantly with basilisk/steal/c&d/backstab, but a semi-decent player will break the stun and evade the bulk of the damage, putting him/her into a position to finish you off. Unlike the Engineer, learning the Thief is easy — but you need to learn the mechanics of every other profession and build, and that takes time.

So, take your pick. The Engineer is easier to master, but when caught cannot get out as easily as a Thief. The Thief is ‘weak’ but mastering exploiting the weaknesses of other classes makes it extremely potent, but requires more invested time (It’s best to create every other profession to learn about them).

This is not something you should consider as a L2P issue, because the OP does make a valid point. Regardless of your class, you can be using skills that cause a lot of smaller attacks and that will result in a lot of damage on yourself (possibly killing yourself). You can easily see when someone has Retaliation in a small skirmish, but when you’re dropping attacks into a full retaliation energy zerg in WvW you’re bound to kill yourself instantly (and yes, everyone on my server zergs runs retaliation sharing builds either through combination or just as Guardian).

Aveneo.2068 makes a good point; it makes much more sense to get damage proportional to the damage inflicted, which makes retaliation effective against the cookie-cutter D/D and D/P as well. That’s what everyone wants, right, counters against thief? Then don’t kitten about someone playing a terrible P/P set and complaining about how silly a mechanism is.

99% of the Thief population is not affected as it is; just Backstab and laugh.

No idea as to why, but this is exactly how it works. It does open nice counter possibilities in PvP though.

Gear up first before complaining. Then kitten about Warrior sucking so much, that’s not a thieves fault. Or, learn to use invulnerabilities (11 seconds?) and gank that squishy thief with a small stroke of your hammer

Nerf damage builds! Make it so everyone is running a bunker and nobody can kill one another without overwhelming numbers! Yeah, that’d be such an amazing fun game!

Yes, sarcasm.

eldain stenlund.4306:

If you want a similar test.. just take a 2 mm thick metal sheet… then take a knife.. and stabb away all you like.. you never gonna hurt the metal.

You were saying?

Being currently in the process of leveling a Necromancer myself, I find condition damage stacking with Staff and minions to be great. You can have permanent regeneration on your minions (and yourself) and keep a decent amount of condition pressure. On switch I use scepter/dagger for cripple/bleed to slow groups moving towards me and area weakness/bleed to reduce damage, while damaging. It works for me, it might work for you too.

If you just aim to be roaming paired with your brother, you might want to look into combination teams. A thief doesn’t help a lot of people, it’s a solo class with solo skills. A team of a Mesmer and a Guardian is lethal though, the mesmer can do its massive damage while the Guardian plays around with the enemies and gives group buffing and healing. Or, a Guardian and Engineer. Or a Ranger and Mesmer. There is a lot out there that works, but thief has little place in them.

Necromancers and Engineers, with some degree the Mesmer, seem to fit the style you are looking for the best. Regardless of build, a thief will always be squishy with absolutely poor ranged skills. The builds that are actually a lot of fun and a lot less stealth dependent are the sword/dagger acrobatic builds, but regardless of their movement and evasion, they still require stealth and will drop like flies if caught. I’d prefer for viable builds to be around, non dependent on stealth, but for now that is still a dream that can only be implemented by new balance changes.

If you’re indeed an engineer, learn to use your INSANE AMOUNT OF UTILITIES more appropriately. A good Engineer or Mesmer is the hardest things to beat as a thief, bordering on the impossible, because these classes are slippery, have very annoying utilities and have little reliance on boons (which is where we can defeat e.g. guardian by stripping boons).

Dungeons? Warrior can simply faceroll, it is far superior to thief. A good thief (Those are rare!) are extremely powerful as well, and have a good up-time on projectile blocking utilities.

WvW roaming? A warrior with other classes as support, using a hammer, is extremely potent. A thief is quite powerful as well, but requires more thought to play as getting caught usually results in death (yeah, even when you have a good toughness). If you’re with 5 or so people, depending on the configuration, either is a viable choice.

PvP as in sPVP? Thieves are useless.

You noticed quite late, it has been this way for a while now (patch prior to latest).

The important point is to learn how to track the mesmer, use C&DN of the clones and watch when the clones start to move towards you, because they will blow up and it will hurt like hell (so dodge it). If you do that, you have a good chance, and remember to steal their vigor because mesmers are way too dodgy with it (and quite so without it).

We can’t bunker. We can evade. Focus on Shadow Arts and the line below that, and use a Shortbow and S/D for the evasions. Use withdraw. Once you get pinned, you should have a stun breaker because you WILL die within seconds regardless of gear choice. If you burned all your stun breakers (Sword has infinite, so if you have a different weapon) run for your life. Ensure you steal boons, because if you don’t you’ll die. That’s what the thief is, forced into one particular build to be semi effective. Enjoy~

The correct ratio is extremely personal. How much defense do you need to keep fighting to the best of your ability? Mine is around the same damage reduction a ‘Soldier’-gear thief would have, as I find it comfortable, and less means that I will get killed when facing a good enemy (everyone can roll poor players).

Use this http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/12dmi5/tip_stat_optimization_with_crit_damage/ guide as a min/max guide to see where you mix survivability while impacting the least on your damage. I personally run with this,
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1g.h1.a.1g.h15|c.1g.h14.8.1g.h2|1n.7e.1g.7e.1n.7e.1g.7e.1n.7e.1g.7e|1g.61.1n.61.1n.61.1g.61.1g.61.1i.61|0.a3.u45b.u39a.0|3t.2|59.5b.5a.5f.5v|e

I run on the front-line along my commander and do solo pushes, enjoy

I dislike D/P thieves because they can get into stealth and I, as another thief, can’t stop it. I simply do not have the required CC tools, and a lot of different professions are lacking in that department as well. I do not mind D/D or S/D as it requires a bit of tactic that can be disrupted. D/P is too powerful because of that, at least in my opinion. And FYI; I have it as an alternate set (I main S/D) and when I am about to get screwed, I switch to it and (ab)use it to no end just like any other thief. :-)

Sword is not as much affected by critical power as other weapons, thus focusing your configuration on it won’t give as much benefit as you might imagine. I run with 53% critical chance, 64% critical damage, 32% damage reduction and 15000 HP which feels good for my current skill level (you might want more defense in earlier stages).

Always remember to use IS for that free stun-breaker and clearly remember where shadow return will bring you to exploit it to the best of your ability. If you run with a sword and don’t have the shadow return icon up, you should be publicly laughed at. Use LS+FS when there is something worthwhile to steal (e.g. Vigor, Regeneration on something with high healing power or protection…). Do not use the second attack as fast as possible, a semi-decent player will dodge it so save it and use it a little later. Cripple when the target runs, and C&D to enable your stealth traits and recover health and remove conditions. Coming out, attempt to daze and remember it’s pretty long so it will work well on a low HP target to quickly finish it off. The auto attack chain, the third skill, hits like a truck and gives weakness (which is amazing versus non-criticial builds — like all those bloody bunkers).

Oh and use withdraw, there is no good reason not to use it. Need more? Ask.

Mix in some Cavalarier, Knight and Valkyrie. If you do it right, you won’t affect your damage in a notable fashion yet still end up with the same damage reduction as a ‘bunker’ thief. Min/maxing is the key.

I actually wouldn’t mind losing the consistent stealth D/P gives. It feels cheap and too strong with too much access, but each other weapon set (e.g. D/D and S/D) feels appropriate. It has good access to stealth, but can be screwed up or prevented with skill. There should be an appropriate counter to D/P stealth as well.

I use Acrobatics for Vigor on healing with the Withdraw skill. Extremely potent and almost free.

Use S/P or D/P. Boost attack with traits. Guide complete :-)

I find this match-up rather unfortunate. As a Far Shiverpeaks player, we have had some great match-ups in the previous weeks and most were interesting with a close call at the end of the week. In this match, the guilds of Gandara are tactically very quick and the PUG is overwhelming. Especially the latter overshadows a lot of effort and puts off a lot of players (Including me, unfortunately, as I find no joy in a garanteed defeat).

I hope each side gets a more interesting match-up next week. :-)

^ That and consider your choice of weapons. Using Axe/Torch and condition damage literally burns through mobs. I also loved traps while leveling, especially the fire trap and to throw projectile finishers through that.

Human Hounds of Balthazar is ridiculously OP and is also an amazing elite to use instead of the profession elites. Asura has nothing that is better, but the Norn has stealth and can give you a clean get-a-way in a tight spot. Overall, I prefer human because of the hounds and how good a human can look.

A thief cannot magically become sturdy. If you do that, you will hit like a wet noodle. You’re spoiled with bunker classes; you will just have to learn how and when to evade, every profession skill and tactic in order to have somewhat of a counter. Good luck!

You have to remember that C&D animation is also a huge visual clue, for yourself, to know where and when you are going to hit it. As an Asura thief, you won’t have that as you’ll be guessing (that includes the range, as visually it a weapon won’t connect with those tiny arms and tiny weapons). Also remember that almost everyone has WvW settings extremely low and animations are often tuned low as well, so the animations for e.g. C&D aren’t even distinguishable from a random different attack. And finally, almost nobody has the brain to actually get out of a C&D using a roll or teleport and when they do, it’s usually just part of their routine instead of a reaction.

My Asura thief has the skins of a random level 25 armor, because literally every piece of armor is absolutely horrible looking on an Asura. Getting a weapon skin makes no sense either, we can barely see them at all (especially in the case of daggers and pistols). Hence, my weapons are the plain skins I got when I bought the exotic crafted weapons it uses. If you have a Human thief, I really don’t think being Asura will make a huge difference, other than being visually boring.

I have yet to encounter a class that can be considered ‘exciting’ in a zerg, but shooting poison combinations everywhere causing massive weakness and does help your side a lot. It’s also quite easily accessible, as you just need the Shortbow, and if you have 15 in power you’ll get weakness for free without blast finishing. It it fun? Not really, but it does help quite a bit. I run a min/max Knight/Berserker/Valkyrie mix.

Unfortunately it seems that a lot of people play one or two classes, and when a Thief is not one of these classes, the player will be lacking a fundamental understanding of how the Thief mechanics are operated. You can determine the mechanics of most other classes even if you haven’t played them, merely by playing a similar class and through experience.

I first started out on a Warrior before I rolled a Thief and I clearly remember getting my kitten handed to me completely. Looking back, after the experience a Thief has thought me, I realize how ridiculously easy it is for a warrior with a hammer to shut down and kill a power-based thief. All it takes is a little tactic, a little prediction and the correct appliance of CC with proper timing. Of course, if the Thief is using S/D dodging C&D and shutting down FS/LS does wonders. When I run on my warrior now, a Thief is not that scary.

I fundamentally believe that the Thief is not particularly strong in any regard (other than the ridiculous D/P stealth field access), but the required investment to understand the mechanics (and counter them) is not being made by a large portion of players. Instead, those are the people whom decide to pollute this forum because this profession is ‘clearly OP’. This is evident in the fact that most players are still stopping their attacks and walking backward just because the thief goes into stealth. React, predict, act — a Thief goes down easily.

Depending on your build and style. If you are in the WvW zerging around with a Bow, scholar is amazing for damage as your health is very unlikely to drop (if you don’t do anything stupid, like rushing with the commander without a stun breaker). I run S/D a lot with Scholar and if you are experienced you can get a lot of hits with the additional 10% as well, but it is much harder than the raw increase orbs give. Pick your poison

@OP: May I suggest trying an elementalist? With the attunements, variety of weapons, amazing utilities and the absolutely funny conjured weapons, you might be in for the blast you were looking for. The thief is not very varied, but may be a challenge you’re after.

It pulses with stealth. “Create a pulsing refuge at the target area that heals allies and cloaks them in stealth.”. Basically upon cast and the following 4 seconds all give health and additional stealth.

WvW: If you have a power build with good damage reduction (+30%), S/P is the strongest set you have and mastering it will allow you to get even with classes that are otherwise unbeatable (e.g. bunker Guardian/Elementalist/Mesmer/Ranger..). Off-hand D/P because it is ridiculous easy to enter stealth with, has heartseeker and backstab, which is nice once you steal boons and lower HP and want to finikitten off quickly.

style.6173:

No idea what you are talking about. You think they can’t see the spinning thief already?

You overestimate the ability of mindless people to notice a spinning animation, flying daggers, damage and the buff. Flames are terribly obvious though, even for the most mind-numbing silly people. Personally, I’d rather not give such as a huge obvious clue to ridiculous and unskilled people zerging around and let thieves at least punish those.

Incinerators? Flames? No to such a huge visual clue that even idiots can’t miss.

A good thief is awesome to have in the team, similar to a good Ranger. However, when the player is not that good, classes such as Thief and Ranger become a hazard instead. Rather have non-skilled people face-roll on a Warrior, Guardian or Mesmer and clear dungeons without a second thought about a required skill level, than risk having a bad thief/ranger screw up an entire run single-handedly.

Kicast.1459:

Now that mesmer are not valuable anymore in zergs whith confusion / time warp nerfs…

You really have no idea how much the balance of a fight changes once Mesmers start throwing their kitten around? I do. And it’s extremely scary to have more Mesmers on the opposing side. Mesmer is one of the strongest professions both in group, roaming and for its insane utility. For everything else, look at the other thieves responses.

I’m an Asura thief and while that alone makes it harder for enemies to see your animations (e.g. C&D), it is a double-edged blade as it also makes it more complex to judge ranges and land your own attacks.

I leveled with D/P as perma blind is superb in PvE (use.. something else on Dredge). Craft yourself from 50-60 or 70-80 because Orr is b-o-r-i-n-g. In WvW you just need 3 weapon sets, D/P, S/D and Shortbow. Shortbow is used in zerg. More details? Ask.

Timelord.8190:

- The AoE cap

If I could choose ONE complaint to be fixed, it would be this one. Limiting AOE ensures that everyone just runs around as tightly packed as possible, not needing even one bit of strategy, just overwhelming numbers and the ability to repeatedly hit ‘1’ and sticking on a commander. Boring beyond belief, let those huge groups whom stand in AOE deserve the damage and get killed for being utterly stupid.

Arheundel.6451:

Teamkiller.4315:

Arheundel.6451:

The ‘best’ answer given from thieves players so far: ’ just spam aoe in the last spot they were’….-_-, yeah the stealth mechanic in this game is completely broken and hopefully this new trap will give a fighting chance against the so many thieves out there who think to possess real skill..time to learn to dodge my dear thieves!

Well no kitten, Stealth is a defensive mechanic too did you know that? Stealth is supposed to help the thief prevent damage, and their easy access to it is met with a comparatively low health pool.

To be honest, spam aoe is the wrong answer unless you are sure you will hit him. Spam autoattack is the right answer. Don’t blow cooldowns on something you might not hit.

Also, l2notgethitinthebackwithbackstab

Preventing dmg shouldn’t be an unlimited use tool!
If you make a mistake you should pay for it, no go stealth , rinse and repeat like d/p do…plus..spamming autoattacks?..At what should I spam auto-attack if I need a target to hit are you kidding me?

Then l2notgethitetctetctetc? really?I can dodge only twice and then I need to wait 10s while the d/p thief can spam black powder and HS all day long

You can pretend the thief is in a good place all you want, but most thieves here are just fighting for the class they like best and have moved on to a different profession to be able to fight competitively. It’s not a matter of L2P, as literally any other profession is in a better place than thief at this point.

From experience, PVT will leave you to hit like 8-year old girl. You need at least more critical rate, critical damage and possibly more power to rival a BUNKER BUILD of any other profession, in terms of damage.

Samoleth.5012:

Mind that i fight with 25 bloodlust and an average of 8 might stacks.

Those stats are amazing. I intend to give this a whirl. Thanks for sharing :-)

Thief is not a good choice compared to a BM Ranger.

To everyone continuously saying non-stealth builds are viable, please share them! I have tried building one that doesn’t rely on stealth and I get absolutely nowhere, so I went for a Ranger instead (lol). Please, share.

Surviving CoF isn’t exactly a great feat.

Thieves have a terrible name for dungeons because we are worse than any other class in everything, survivability, utility and sustained damage. Roll something else to do dungeons with, and yet another class to WvW with (at least until the Thief is back to the required survivability/damage). I know; you didn’t want to read this.

I, for one, never ever want to run a dungeon with a Thief (even if I play one).

Grenth Far Shiverpeeks (18.22 CET)

Being able to escape makes the Thief nothing more than a class that can run and hide. That’s not strength.