Guild Wars 2

^^ yup

yup yup

Well I understand why they are introduced but it will affect the roaming thief as well, no worries I’m sure we’ll get those 30sec cannot block traps soon. I dunno this may be a silly idea – haven’t WVW for a while tho.

Yep, a pretty useless ability except for the lols.

Thieves are by far the most mobile of the and while Rangers have some great survivability tools I believe thieves played correctly win there too. Zerg warfare is where Rangers may shine however. Thieves really are scout/skirmisher type. If you want to rain hell on the zerg then ranger is probably better although a thief can do other things, sneaky things.

Well its the only one I use in spvp. Seeing as it theoretically disables you from doing something for 1 second whilst being cast and then lasts 1.5 seconds – that’s a tad – wehay! wot..Thieves guild could be arguably ok but the cool down is so long, any time I see another thief popping either this or riverdance aka Daggerstorm – its pretty random whats going to happen for the user that is. I mean you’re about to pounce an down an enemy and that silly thief with scorp wire whips them away from you, as for riverdance…there aren’t that many knives they’re pretty avoidable, its very situational. BV is at least precise – when it hits.

^^ ditto….ditto

Reveal on block would certainly be reasonable. On evade – well you’re evading something that you can’t see but are expecting so not when this occurs. As to the cool down argument the average thief has 3 seconds to position and apply a backstab a mesmers shatter is not under the condition of use within 3 seconds and be behind your (if they are smart) moving opponent and within close melee range.

Charr – because they look absolutely ridiculous with that face mask. No but seriously Human because every other race in RP sensibility are silly. Asura would be the thieves however they apparently move as fast and hit as hard as Norn who are 4 times their size. But they make thief sense because they’re small – and in actual gameplay their clickable area is smaller than any other player class making them harder to target.

Erm..yeah..no..I hear you about backstab being spammable – but its much easier hitting a heartseeker or any other ability. From a perspective of a player that knows his enemies and how to survive – backstab is lameo – oh you died by backstab -should have gone to spec savers.

GC thieves..do anyone other than upleveled WvW players get killed by these guys..still?? And btw thieves are not the biggest burst class at all, unless you are an upleveled WvW player looking at the flowers. Turbowhale was quite correct about that if you don’t know how to handle mesmers you’ll go down very quickly.

I’d like to also add last night I pummeled a silly mesmer only to get killed while in stealth by his illusions..who are by far smarter than the average mesmer.

Kyrion.2749:

I’d say that trying to connect ‘10 backstabs’ in a row and failing all of them is enough punishment for the thief

Furthermore, if we are going to introduce ‘pathethic failures’ for thieves, let’s be ambitious and introduce them for all classes as well, like warrior rifles spontaneously exploding for overcharging them with kill-shots…. ranger pets turning on their masters for recieving excessive damage and suicide orders… elementalist’s gear degrading and breaking due to quick changes in temperature form coldness to heat…. undead minions out of necro’s control attacking their own team… Malfunctioning engineer turrets that heal enemies… an so on.

Yep pretty much in context. OP I hear ya but seriously I see rangers with great swords running with their backs to me blocking all attacks, and I could go on and on. However..No.. the range is short and the setup isn’t that simple unless an easy target waiting to die..ie. other thieves don’t backstab me. Thieves spamming 1 do look silly but as I said the range, lag and everything else. If you have a problem with backstabs which are very focused maybe you’ve only played Gw2 for two minutes and missed the aoe effects of ele’s, necros, guardians and the pummel of rangers bows from a distance hitting harder and easier.

lol Gungnir – yeah getting chased across WvW maps was as much fun as anything in my book. Specially when you end up picking them off or even better leading them into a 3rd faction where they all kill each other and you take down the last. I once got chased around the entire map 3 times.

Warhammer Online gave their MDPS the bypass defenses skill which was on a cool down allowing them to ‘pick lock’ and go in a back door. Weirdly it wasn’t widely used. I’m all for something like this sieges have got me bored so I left WvWvrunning around loads for sPvP.

Oddly I became stronger.

…Thieves elsewhere are being totally awesome, stomping like a boss.

OP – I play to relax although it kind of winds me up playing a thief so therefore I can only play for an hour tops at a time in spvp, however I only like playing stealth classes, because I’m sneaky. If I totally wanted to chill I’d say don’t play a thief. I have played since pre-launch and I’m really just getting the hang of the thief now. To play a thief quick reactions, absolute awareness of the terrain and the position of your enemies and what they’re doing and the ability to think a tiny bit out of the box is necessary. Any little mistake and you are dead. That’s what I like about it, however a good thief can be devastating . As for PvE I don’t do it but from what I hear its not a strong point for thieves at all. I hear you, you want to have fun – there was a time thieves were pretty OP and people didn’t know how to deal with them. They are more balanced now and give more fun for the player – but they can be challenging. Playing a guardian would be more chilled out however for sure.

If there’s a guardian or a mesmer that utilises these Shadowstep like abilities as well as a good thief in a fight, I haven’t met them. What you are looking for is another ability called climb. Which I do wonder why it isn’t in available for WvW all that banging on walls gets boring.

So much drama…I’m having a great time with my thief at the moment and have no problems whatsoever and I’ve got better playing one. I thank Areanet for reducing haste which was a crutch preventing me from exploring alternative game play. If you think thieves have no defense its probably because you think everything should be offense. Thieves are slippery as can be and even with 14k hp I rarely go down.

Crépes! People have time to type in text when throwing down a shadow refuge. Yeah it’s a gamble – I equip it and do it all the time for that purpose. It can get annoying when someone attacks blowing their stealth however I have become quite aware of my own health bar and I’ll gladly take damage while still ressing however know when to get out of there when the AOE is blastin.

Can’t say about PvE but thief is a blast in WvW because of it’s mobility. I play spVp exclusively now because I got fed up running 5 mins to where I might find a fight. When I first played sPvP I got my bhhuuuut kicked. Now I find things really flow quickly and feel like a ninja knowing what’s happening all around me – because with 14k HP – almost any class can get you down with the wrong step – its taken me a while but I think I got the hang of things now. There’s so much more to Gw2’s relatively fast strategic play than SWTOR or WAR which I played before.

No. However you can slot it for when you are running with no one around, when combat starts however I deem it not worthwhile.

Unfortunately cannot help you there matey as I do not PvE. Something along Venom Sharing builds I’d assume.

Definately BP is my Get Outta here button due to its quick activation and no need to target plus I can shadow step away or fall over a hill – or even usually just pop Hide In Shadows afterwards. Shadow refuge which I also equip is applied in less critical moments and used to res allies, set up stealth for attack, or heal and cleanse conditions.

Any thief running that glass canon a build is tasty chow mein for me and no competition for any sane player of any class. You might hit under levelled weaklings for 16k but you’ll drop like a wet bag when someone sneezes near you and count yourself lucky to get them down when they’ve completely ignored your spam to focus on an actual threat.

haha! Indeed Vargs! It belies all common sense – like seriously that midget race Asura hits as hard as a Charr and run as fast with their little bitty legs – meanwhile and people can say whatever they want about using keystrokes to move to next target, its not easy targeting a smaller Asura toon in a fast moving game as a larger Charr when clicking with your mouse. Coming from a P&P background many years ago races had proper traits and stats associated – but not GW2 – yep Asuras arm wrestle Norns like a boss.

As a D/P thief the black powder blind is your friend in melee, however with Guardians and Warriors in particular I find they get rather confused when I switch to shortbow and surprise shot/basilisk them in place while I 4/2/3 them with the blast finisher wearing them down then switch to D/P to heartseek them at 40% health. Probably most of my damage out put is done with the Shortbow as a total and players seem to kindof look at me funny (if their toons could).

^^ Good point – some players (among all classes) have a notion you should kind of stand there and duke it out. Thieves have stealth so they can come out of no-where when not expected. At least that’s how I supposed they’re supposed to do.

Well I’ve more or less always ran Steal traited on a 20% reduced cooldown, gap closer, ripping boons, giving me Switfness Fury and Vigour, 3 initiative, Damage, poison and now…healing…woohoo.. I never relied on the Damage as burst builds are so last year. Its the best thief ability – and I never opened with it. Additionally it can be traited for a stun if I just dropped last refuge and condition removal in stealth.

Yup thief seems fine to me – oddly I appear to be doing better since the patch but that may be me getting used to switching to D/P from S/P. Akin to Viking I don’t die very often in sPvP, I run D/P and S/B with SR, Black powder,ShadowStep and Hide In Shadows which is pretty defensive. The amount of damage pumped out from SB is often overlooked.

Panhauramix.2784:

The low field of vision this game have also doesn’t help to love professions who teleport/stealth away. Bring us more vision of our surrounding and it will be easier to keep track of what’s going on. Right now you gotta turn your camera non stop just to try to spot where you last shadowstepped.

In a game where you need to react fast with dodge and counters, losing time just to reacquire a target because of forced vision tunneling is not fun.

This is probably a sensible answer. The burst thieves have and mobility allow them to take out unwary and inexperienced players. However – as a thief – many other classes hit me harder than I hit them. As for fighting thieves – its simple, equip defensive abilities. I in fact equip abilities -that can be defensive Shadow refuge, black powder and shadowstep because I have an aversion to dying to anyone. I’m classic thief you thought ran away until boom, he’s back when you weren’t paying attention. As for D/D front loading thieves they blow everything on their first encounter and really you shouldn’t venture out in pvp without stun breakers and some GTFO abilities. I can say I have come across players from each class who do well and provide a good fight and I try and think and learn about their tricks. Gw2 is good in that there’s usually always a way.

I supposed it could be used as a stealth skill now you mention it, as it provides the longest stealth outside of SR.

Yeah I’ve seen some good rangers in spvp. A guy with a great sword was particularly fun once.

Interesting, I am not a fan of underwater combat and everytime Capricorn pops up I’m ughhh. Its just…slow..and not why I play a thief.

Good on you OP for coming and asking. On the other hand I see so many players unable to track the actual mesmer in pvp for some reason and I’m one of those thieves that do.

CC is the key to thieves a locked down one can’t do much.

The good news is that it is possible to lock thieves down – I’ve came across other players from different classes that have shown this. I think there is usually a way that can be found, but you are right the class is meant to be slippery.

Cameirus, you rascal..I’m afraid the running away to come back and stab you in the back is a very thief thing to do. I never run away I only re-position.

Personally in WvW I dumped SOS signet as it doesn’t stack with swiftness. I went for mobility and used S/P and SB for this mode. Also focused on using Dodge, going into Acro for Feline grace, expeditious dodger and Fleet of Foot removing cripple as well as power of inertia stacking might. I use the truffle and meat something stew to add further regeneration of Endurance and stack further might. Just to ensure I had plenty of dodging I used the Signet of Agility – for extra crit and the endurance refill and condition removal – great for two reasons – obviously refilling endurance when you’re out to get you dodging again and removing conditions ie. if someone’s hit you with a chill or something. Using infiltrators arrow/strike and shadow steps I found this extremely mobile and swiftness can be up for a good period of time, much faster than using SOS over distances even. I was very difficult to catch.

Yeah mist form can be quite a boon in WvW, for the thief teleport “line of sight” is the defining quantity so therefore you can’t actually see through the door. This will even apply where you can see an area but the mechanics decide that due to the terrain you can’t. The only upside is I have never seen an Ele do anything other than postpone their death in sPvP with mist form, on the other hand when there have been no pets or illusions around I have managed to use the thief port to revive myself the odd time. Pets and illusions – smarter and quicker than the average bear when seeking out sneaky thieves.

Anytime I see a thief using traps I’m like high five brah! I personally have yet to incorporate them effectively, I’ve tried, but replacing either shadow step, blinding powder or last refuge is a tough task. Ambush is kinda cool although the thief seems pretty weak but the good thing is that is has a relatively short cool down. I tried using it recently but it was mucking up my flow as I was thinking too much about where to place the trap mid combat. Good thoughts Auesis while traps may require more creative thinking they’re not stellar in any way considering the limit to ability choices available.

Some good tips there, deffo the best ability.

Ah man I loved Shinobi

Yeah I loved S/P with the old Shadow Step Infiltrators strike for striking over long distances in WvW. However things are just easier with a dagger – I don’t play D/D I don’t dig it – but D/P just has things much easier, more applicable abilities and even combo fields and quicker, better damage. I loved doing the shadow step shuffle but Sword/P is giving yourself a disadvantage. Mind you S/x will take a a trebuchet out quicker, maybe. With cleave and shadow stepping S/P was kinda good against mesmers mind you – but as Rusc once said – Ninja Lumberjack.

Haha Rusc – Ninja Lumberjack – I like it and I sure felt like one of those. Incuraty – I played S/P more or less solid in WvW (without even using haste) however since moving to sPvP all the time (where players in all honesty tend to be quicker and a bit better than WvW) PW just feels slow even with a 50% haste boost. Most targets get out of the way so the whole damage doesn’t apply, add a rooted you into the equation and it’s got a negative effect on my combat I feel. Ways around it may include steal with 30 points in trickery to add another stun however we’re back in a synergy of abilities. So I agree with Issues – removing the root/speeding up the ability would be an improvement – adding the 15% reduction back wouldn’t convince alone me to use it again however, but it would be a start.

PW is now call Waving In the Air – and is a form of Tai Chi. It was usable with 100% quickness (although admittedly a tiny bit OP) but to have an ability only made useful with a second ability is not great. Now even with 50% quickness passers by wave back with confused looks on their faces and continue on their way as you’re rooted to the spot in serene enlightenment.

Only one I use at the moment also. Dagger storm I have never used as it is simply very situational, thieves guild is also, although it;s fun popping it in WvW along with ambush. I feel these are non-choices in spvp to be honest and basilisk has alot more precise functionality for me and there’s 4 of them for every thieves guild. Locking down and interrupting and getting in them attacks when needed works well. TG and DS is all about the random aoe type effect ie. will the thief from TG manage to pull target with a wire, do you care? Target has now moved anyway. DS can be avoided and really kind of places you in a vulnerable mode I think.

Ha I’ve never seen that, sure they were surprised.

Yeah I always played that way too Mal, and the cleave is a good thing about the sword (especially with mesmers), I noticed issues with my daze’s not coming off recently though. With shadowstep and black powder I’ve been covered enough it seems so far with stuns etc. I’ve also been doing good applying pressure better because shadow shot can be repeated. I also have headshot too plus that damage which is working well it seems.

To be honest I don’t really die often and do relatively well, if we could see deaths v kills the ratio would be pretty high. I don’t really have any major complaints about thieves although I do think, like many classes, we’re kind of forced to use certain build elements/weapons. But ey – oh that and the point assignments from traits I spec high into trickery but do not want that condition damage I’d rather it was elsewhere.

Good for you Goloith, even as a thief who never used HS I used to think it was a bit much. I now run D/P because S/P got nerfed into the ground and I wouldn’t spam HS at all its only good when target is under the 50% health – other than that it is a gap (although shadowshot is better) closer and used with a combo field induces stealth. Its quite a flexible skill but only when used at the right time. PW from S/P on the other hand is like slapping yourself in the face.