Guild Wars 2

Currently running 25/30/0/0/15 with S/P as main set. I have all other weapon sets in my inventory, so I change them out between encounters. It’s viable for dungeons, fractals and WvW. Not the strongest in WvW, but works very good in PvE!

Razer Naga Epic. I have all my skills (1-10+F1-F4) and weapon swap on my mouse. I use the keyboard for movement and evades. It takes a week to get used to, but after that it’ll only enhance your gameplay! In a game that’s as fast paced as this, it’s really recommendable to get a good gaming mouse

I’ve played thief since beta, and still rockin’ it!

I’m currently going with S/P for pistol whip build. My traits are 25/30/0/0/15. What major traits you select is completely up to you and the weapon set you’re using. I found that this build is viable with every single weapon set and the damage output is insane. I’m running full berserker, but you can have Valkyrie on some spots if you want the extra health.

This build is really squishy, so you gotta know when to evade, shadowstep, stealth and so on. It’s really hard in WvW and if you don’t know what to look for in dungeons. What any good thief should have, is every single weapon combination in his inventory. You’ll need them all for different situations in dungeons.

I always hear people complaining about thief being useless in high end PvE. That’s is not true. If you know what you’re doing you’ll be a great asset to the team! The thief is almost mandatory for some high level fractals!

Just add me in-game if you want some more help. Could alternatively just guest to your server to help

Travlane.5948:

thief burst is dead. thief combos are still few around

It’s way weaker than it was at launch, but I wouldn’t say it’s gone. 20k + in two seconds is more than most other professions are capable of doing.

yski.7642:

The thing is, the build is all about maximizing that burst. It’s not much good for a fair fight, and to use shadow trap for a burst means you must open with back stab. While it does make your back stab stronger, it’s not enough to compensate for the loss of mug+CnD, so we end up with a smaller burst.

If the boons were longer than the stealth it would be amazing, but since they aren’t I wouldn’t use it for this particular build.

Yeah, if you go with shadow trap then you’ll lose a good portion of the burst.

A few more ideas:

• Have an extra dagger in your inventory with sigil of bloodlust. Have it on when you enter WvW and kill a few mobs until you have 25 stacks, then you can change it for a dagger with another sigil. You still keep those stacks of bloodlust, which in turn gives more damage!
• Instead of Ruby orb on dagger I think you’ll get more damage from superior sigil of force. Not sure if superior sigil of impact works on targets that is under the effect of basilisk venom. If so, then that might be a good choice.
• In the nights you could run a dagger with sigil of night instead of ruby orb or sigil of force. Put it on an Ghastly dagger (AC tokens) so you can see when it’s night.

Just a few ideas that I would have used ^^

yski.7642:

Sounds like a 3 signet instagib build: put all your traits into increasing damage and run 3 signets that each give 5 might on use and you have a pretty decent burst.

Of course, you’re now running practically naked with no stun breakers or any other defense for that matter, but it’s fun so who cares? :P

Shameless plug: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onzIWX-AQV8

EDIT: Looking at the builds posted before, I’ve never thought of running signet of malice as well. That would boost the spike even further, though I’m not a fan of losing the only non-C&D stealth

Still, you could do a 4 signet spike instead of 3 signet one

I see that 90% of the time you’re chasing people and doing the entire combo. What you could do is swap sigil of agility with shadow trap. This way you can get fury, swiftness, stealth and 10 stacks of might for 5 seconds if they trigger the trap. It will remove some of the burst from steal and CnD, but this way you can get 25 stacks of might on top of fury and swiftness

It’s true that retaliation can be a really hard counter to pistol whip…. What we can do as thieves is just to have S/D as the off-hand set. This way we can also destroy those bunker guardians with retaliation.

Molch.2078:

Since I play mostly PvE, I would love it to be more like blured frenzy – the additional 0.5 stun is no fun if you want to use PW to dodge.

The stun is needed if you want to land those hits in a 1v1… I think he meant splitting it like they did with flanking strike. Which means that you would have to use two skills instead of one to activate the evade.

The rooting the sylvari can do is pretty nice for thief. I have used radiation field (Asura) on a few stationary bosses in dungeons with my condition build. It’s pretty awesome there, but haven’t used any other.

+1

I can’t count how many times that trap have failed… It doesn’t work well in sPvP, PvE or WvW, but in the dredge fractal you can use it to get from the buttons on top and down to the first floor again….

Daecollo.9578:

They need to separate Pistol Whip into the Stun and the Flurry.

I’m not sure if I agree or disagree… Splitting it would open up for some interesting tactics. But then again, 90% of the time I just let it finish it’s animation. If my target move away I’ll just steal or infiltrator signet to stay on them.

This build could be something for you. It have some burst, a good amount of toughness and some team focus. This was just something I made while at work, so it isn’t something I have tested yet, but it looks tempting to try out :p

Take a look at this build.

Add in 25 stacks of Might and Bloodlust it will look like this:

• 3963 Power
• 100% Critical chance from stealth
• 118% Critical Damage
• 65% extra damage

The extra damage are from the following sources:

• Superior Sigil of Impact / Night
• Superior Rune of the Scholar
• Assassin’s Signet
• Exposed Weakness (trait)
• Dagger Training (trait)
• First Strikes (trait)
• Flanking Strikes (trait)

With this build you’ll leave yourself vulnerable to all other engagements that those where you get the opening strike. No thief will ever use this build for any other reason than trolling, because it’s completely useless and you can’t do anything in group fights.

If the OP would give us his numbers of toughness and vitality, then I could calculate from this build how much damage those attacks would hit him for.

Bug fix, not nerf.

This sounds like something my thief would love to join! Have roamed a few times with larger thief groups, popping dagger storm and thieves guild creating chaos! ;D

Tolfast.6289:

Kyrion.2749:

Travlane.5948:

a good player only gets hit 2 times out of 8 swings on pistol whip. sometimes 3. i could go back and check but this im pretty sure on

Seriously people, pistol whip only swings 4 … FOUR… times. Since release.

I dont get why people keep insisting in that pistol whip hits 8 (even 9 I’ve seen once on this forum!!!) times.

Is it a mind trick? an optical illusion? a wishing hope? Warrior envy? … or what?

Edit: Well, if anything, that tells how much the skill is used by the thief community…

Really? I thought the animation showed 4(ish) swings, but I thought the combat log showed 8 hits, I am at work right now so I can’t double check.

I do agree though that a small damage buff would be nice, or just get rid of retaliation :P

It show 9 hits (with the daze) in the combat log, but the animation show four hits.

Pistol whip is in a nice spot. I agree that the evade timing is a bit messed, but it works really well with signet of malice if you use that (and you should in PvE).

I usually land 7-8 hits with my techniques of steal and infiltrator signet. So I really live to use this set in WvW and PvP. It’s amazing for controlling the crowd. Trying to stomp my friend? I’ll just interrupt and slice you with my sword and pistol

Obscure One.4357:

Geiir.7603:

You have a really wrong idea of the thief. Pressing #2 a lot. Well, if that work on anybody then it’s a serious l2p issue…. I have yet to die to a HS spamming thief.

How about I guest over to your server, we jump in sPvP, and I can be your first? I promise to be gentle

style.6173:

Do you actually play the game? It sure doesn’t seem like it. If so, don’t feel bad. Once you level up a bit you’ll actually be happy to see any thief that spams 2. They are easy to kill.

Oh wise one your words of wisdom are truly overpowering, I’ll be sure to send you a thank you letter when I finish QQing. Obviously a 450 ranged leap finisher that deals more damage each time you spam it is something that is so easily countered by any and all builds, by any and all experienced players, at any and all times, that no thief would ever even consider doing that. I think you’ve turned my life around, inspired by your wise words. I’m suddenly overcome with respect and admiration for the class.

Now you’ll have to excuse me I have some excess skill and complex understanding of the game mechanics I need to flush down the toilet so I can enjoy my new found love of the Thief class.

HS spamming thieves are a joy to fight, because they simply can’t win. Try spamming heartseeker on a warrior with 30k health, good luck with that. If you’re above 50% health, then HS will deal the same amount of damage as auto attack… What a powerful skill. We can spam this skill 3-4 times and that would leave you way over 50% hp if we ever did that. It’s meant as a finisher, since it will deal way more damage when you’re below 25% hp. Some use it as a gap closer, which is ok as it will only tickle you.

Make GvG a part of sPvP. There, fixed. But this is Anet. They’ll probably add cars to the game long before we get GvG…

Obscure One.4357:

Svarty.8019:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Svarty.8019:

This is a part of the larger problem: thieves in general.

They require a lot of attention from Mr Peters and co.

Thieves are fine.

If by “fine” you mean “overpowered”, I agree.

Thieves are a trash class that was overspecialized into doing one thing in the most game breaking and simple manner possible: press 2 a lot and have near permanent access to invisibility…!#$%ing infantile…

The class is otherwise totally worthless in WvW. You run in a zerg with a glass cannon thief and what happens is you go down, you die, and then half the enemy zerg rally’s off your stupid little thief !#$, and they proceed to straight up curb stomp your allies.

The Thief represents a total failure in core class design by being neither challenging to play, nor encouraging of build versatility, nor presenting options to fill other roles in a party, and makes itself infamous for the only thing it can do well: being a no-skill-required pain in the #$% amounting to little more than a bunch of petty trolls.

The entire class needs a MAJOR overhaul, primarily in changing the whole no-skill-required stealth and spam-2-till-it-dies mechanics of the class.

I’ll leave you kids with this

You have a really wrong idea of the thief. Pressing #2 a lot. Well, if that work on anybody then it’s a serious l2p issue…. I have yet to die to a HS spamming thief.

Thieves have a really bad reputation (we are thieves after all, right?) on almost every single side of the game. People claim that we are useless in dungeons and that we just die all the time. They say we can’t contribute to any zerg or small groups in WvW and that we can’t do kitten in sPvP. Well guess what, you’re all wrong!

Dungeons/PvE: We can dish out crazy amounts of damage and at the same time stay alive. We can evade, blind, stealth and shadow step – a lot. On top of this we have access to all combo finishers in the game, AoE stealth and some crowd control. We can permanently lock down a boss with basilisk venom, steal (traited), head shot, infiltrator strike and pistol whip. We can completely lock down any ranged opponent while we’re blinding all melee opponents. We are masters of reviving and rallying our self – alone.

WvW: Again, every single combo finisher in the game! We can AoE damage, weaken, poison and bleed our enemy. We are masters of scouting, cutting off supply lines and reinforcements. We also have the ability to assassinate the enemy commander or any ranged damage dealers. We have the ability to mass stealth and revive our allies. A well coordinated group can lock down an enemy zerg with basilisk venom and venom sharing.

sPvP: We are not the strongest profession here, but we are far from useless. We are excellent far-point assaulters and roamers. We have the highest mobility and high survivability. This means that we can run alone and harass the enemy and quickly get back to our allies if they need assistance.

People say that we are useless and OP, yet I disagree on both points. The only thing that need a fix is revealed, not getting revealed on block, black powder + HS combo and the S/D evade build.. The most fun part is that thieves are not wanted for dungeons. People tend to be negative when they see my thief, until I later prove them wrong by saving their kitten later on in the dungeon and really use all my available traits and skills to the fullest. It’s fun to do, and we can do it in zerker gear

Zenith.7301:

kirito.4138:

What is bugged about shadow refudge?

It is suppose to give 3s of stealth per pulse. You can counter it by knocking them out of the field which reveals them or aoe/auto attack in the area. If you don’t want to then just run the other direction. However, it is difficult for new players to learn how to handle stealths.

Shadow refuge is not used for the reset as much as it is used for guaranteed rezzes with stability.

And no running in the other direction does nothing considering they have signet shadowstep, shadowstep utility, and steal to close the gap with 8+ seconds of stealth.

I use shadow refuge solely as a heal. The dark combo field combined with dagger storm/unload and signet of malice = full hp in seconds

SR used tactical with stability is either a thief popping his elite or any other profession applying it to him. That isn’t OP, it’s smart/tactical play or team work.

Mike.7320:

2222222222222222

I felt this appropriate for a thief thread.

If anyone ever die to a heartseeker spamming thief, then it’s a serious learn to play issue……

To OP: My Thief can actually kill people in zergs. That’s not because of stealth (no stealth thief here), but because the drooling brains that zerg. People tend to want to stick with the zerg and if the commander doesn’t attack me then nobody do. Teamwork is an almost non-existent term in zergs.

People don’t understand that their team build was killed by a duelist build. Ofcourse did the thief win! The profession is designed for small fights and skirmishing, so stop complaining about being owned by someone who made their build for that exact purpose – 1v1 people.

A few answers to OP:

• Stealth is nearly useless in sPvP.
• A Thief is suppose to get in, hit hard and the gtfo. It’s how the profession is designed, nothing will ever change that.
• Thief is squishy as kitten, and stealth is no invulnerability. A good player will kill a thief when he enters stealth to run away since his hp will probably be about 10%..

I mean, really? Complaints about stealth in sPvP. Wow…

Looks like bunkers and conditions are what people play, according to these forums at least.

They gave us a slight (and very noticeable) buff to pistol whip by reducing the time between the stun and the slices. If you played PW build before they buffed it then you most definitely will notice it.

The nice 10/30/0/0/30 build works wonders with pistol whip. Infiltrator strike in -> pistol whip -> steal/infiltrator signet when target moves out of pistol whip. I usually land all hits with this tactic. Haste is stil effective, and they even buffed that too to compensate for the nerf to quickness.

Feel free to contact me in-game if you need help or advice!

This thread is just as ridiculous as the “OMFG NERF THIEF PLZ!!”threads that have been swarming the thief community…

Find a friend who play this build, duel him and learn how to counter it. Maybe this build is a strong counter to your build? If so, then you’ll just have to face the fact that you will have a really hard time beating it, or you just have to change your build around to be able to kill him.

People aren’t used to see warriors as strong 1v1 professions, therefore are we not used to counter them. After some time we will know what to look for and then we will have no time killing those warriors if we time our evades right.

This is actually the same thing we have said about backstab since beta; you have a key that miss you, and it’ll have your enemy miss his attack on you.

Leveling a thief in WvW isn’t exactly easy. We are very squishy and we doesn’t really shine before lvl 60. Roaming with bigger groups or the zerg may be the key, and just spam AoE from the short bow to tag as many targets as possible.

If you’re planning to run solo, then it will be hard, but it is doable. You can solo supply camps (not upgraded) and sentries pretty easy from low levels, but for that you’ll need dagger storm, shadow refuge, smoke screen and signet of malice. Those abilities can lay waste to a supply camp in seconds

If you plan on zerging then short bow is the perfect weapon! Try to go for 15 points in deadly arts asap and then dig deep in critical strikes. A good build for zerging could be 25/30/0/0/15. Some boons, lots of initiative and a ton of damage. You should use cluster bomb on Ann combo fields, always ^^

Ah, Burnfall, again….

Another thief thread, what a shock -_-

Even my glass cannon thief can’t be three shotted by another thief… Those few thieves that build like being able to dish out 10k backstabs have sacrificed nearly all of their survivability for one attack. It’s so redicolously easy to counter that it isn’t fun….

As a thief I have to disagree. It’s not OP, it’s just a build people aren’t use to counter yet. Warriors have been in the shadows for way too long, and I’m glad I finally see some! I have never played a warrior, but I’ve never had any trouble beating them, and I still do. It’s all about evading or interrupting the skull crack, then it’s just about bursting the warrior down. With enough damage you can more him too..

When warriors dominate PvP / WvW with this build, then we can start talking about it being too powerful. And as far as I know, they doesn’t dominate any PvP part of this game.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

AshinDreidon.3861:

Geiir.7603:

10/30/0/0/30 S/P here. Works wonders in sPvP. The amount of dazes, interrupts, teleports and immobilizes are insane! Really control build with a ton of damage ^^

For PvE I run 25/30/0/0/15 S/P. works wonders too ^^

That’s what made me fall in love with it too! In WvW I found that people don’t really ever expect S/P anymore and don’t really have any idea how to deal with the non-stop daze, especially once I got down some methods to minimize the amount that I telegraphed pistol whips.

S/P in WvW can easily take down siege engines with Pistol Whip, I personally wouldn’t use the weapon set in any other way.

It works great for me though. As he were saying; people don’t expect it and they really have no idea how to handle to constant shadow stepping and interrupting. With steal and infiltrator signet it’s pretty easy to land the entire pistol whip too ^^

Useless? Depends on the player… For a thief to succeed and be really good in PvE, he would need to learn the dungeon and the boss tactics, and he must learn how to evade, blind, interrupt and generally just stay alive. The reason thief are considered useless in dungeons is because there are so many thieves that gets one shotted, and a dead thief isn’t exactly participating…

Learn the profession, bring every single weapon set with you and choose a strong, yet versatile build. Then it’s not that useless after all.

WvW. We are roaming gods, and ok in zergs. If Anet could fix the crazy lag that zergs create we could be awesome in them! Then we would have no problem moving behind enemy lines and killing the ranged damage dealers or the commander. But for now we are mobile combo finishers and ok damage dealers in zergs.

10/30/0/0/30 S/P here. Works wonders in sPvP. The amount of dazes, interrupts, teleports and immobilizes are insane! Really control build with a ton of damage ^^

For PvE I run 25/30/0/0/15 S/P. works wonders too ^^

Oxygen.5918:

For starters, you should choose between air and fire – not both. They share cooldowns. Fire is probably better; the AoE is nice versus mesmers and anytime there’s more than one target, it becomes more valuable than air at the cost of something like 10% less power scalling. Accuracy is OK on offhand, however, I would get force if you run hidden killer. If you think you can get away with it, have a weapon set (short bow is where I like it) with bloodlust and switch to it when you’re about to land kills to stack it up.

Completely agree with this guy! Fire/Force and bloodlust if you’re running full berserker. Especially if you have hidden killer. You can also have a second dagger in your inventory with bloodlust and use it until you have 25 stacks of bloodlust and just swap it for the force dagger ^^

Lupanic.6502:

Every class has problems against thiefs. Thiefs removed HGH Engis from the Meta. Now they make the life hard for other classes.

It’s always the thief that gets the blame -_- The only thief build that could need a nerf is the S/D evade build. I have no idea why Anet have us larcenous strike since all we wanted was a better pathing on Flanking Strike. But Anet had to mess with a weapon set that worked perfectly…. I think they should revert the change back to what it was and keep the new pathing, then that weapon set will require more skill and it won’t be able to steal all your boons all the time.

All other builds are working ok or are not that good for PvP.

Cyhann.2609:

The funny thing is, I only see warriors saying that warriors are OP or something.

Maybe they like some challenge and therefore want warriors to be weaker than the rest? ;p

I’m glad to finally see some warriors in sPvP! Give them more viable builds, because they have been in the shadows for way too long. I mean, they’re warriors, not thieves!

Question: why all the healing power? I find healing power near useless for thieves since we have a very limited access to healing other players (that would require you to take 10 in shadow arts to give regeneration to allies when you stealth them) and we have more than enough ways to survive, so healing isn’t the problem for us.

You’re missing out on a lot of damage (I know the build isn’t finished yet, just giving some feedback) with this build, and personally I would focus a lot more on dealing damage. A thiefs strength isn’t the boons, it’s the burst that we are capable of dealing that makes us stand out.

I like the idea of having a high uptime in boons, but the most efficient way would be to get stacks of boons as bursts, along with our damage. But this game is suppose to be played the way you like, so I wouldn’t care too much what the others are saying. If you enjoy this build, then use it! I would like to see the build once it’s finished though!

P/P looks like a weapon set they only kept because it looks awesome. Compared to our other weapon sets it’s not even close in damage. I really hope they will buff it (they mentioned a long time ago that they wanted more mobility in the weapon sets, I’ve yet to see that happen though) but I will never get my hopes up if Anet is going to “fix” it…

swinsk.6410:

Sil.4560:

I’m reminded of why I don’t bother with this forum anymore. What a broken record. Some guy comes in asking if there’s a possible bug because of the amount of damage he’s receiving with a huge amount of armor and it’s just the same “L2P”, insults, etc. over and over and over.

I’m tires of hearing this response. The OP did nothing to test, provides no data or screen shots. Barely told us anything about anything except the fact he’s getting owned by heartseeker. Called a bug and posted here.

Seriously, what do you expect to get when you come here simply complaining about our profession?

I’d expect no less if I went onto the warrior boards. And complained about skull crack and then called a bug ontop of that. I’d never do such a thing because I have a much better understanding of the game than the OP.

I have no sympathy for noobs who complain. Especially ones who try to disguise thier complaint under the term bug without actually providing evidence or testing of said bug.

He never whined, complained or asked for any nerf – he simply asked if there was a possible bug with heartseeker. This because he noticed that it is one of the only skills in the game that can hit him for over 4k. I too would probably start asking questions if I was used to see hits of 1k or 2k and then suddenly I was seeing 4-5k. He was asking if this was a bug, which it wasn’t. It was a powerful attack that hit him for about 50% of what it would hit a ranger for..

Asura has the best animations, but medium armor looks like kitten if you want to look like a thief. Weapons are really small, so you can’t expect them to stand out from the crowd. Tactically we have a huge advantage since animations are way smaller than humans animations!

But female human thief, dat look…

I have never really thought that much about Dagger Storm and how it works… All I know is that when I activate it I’ll see lots of numbers and daggers flying all over the place. Exactly how many projectiles i have no idea about, but this is certainly something I’m going to test in the Mists!

Sword / Pistol is great for leveling! Just drop Black Powder and spam auto attack or Pistol Whip. You’ll heal yourself with Signet of Malice all the time, so losing health wont be a problem.

The build

I would first go for the Deadly Arts tree and then trickery. This build gives you a ton of damage and still pretty good survivability with the blinds. I just took signets since its pretty easy and they give you passive buffs. But feel free to swap them out as you want. Utility skills doesn’t really matter with this build, so it’s all according to your own play style and taste.

Good luck!

This bug has been around for quite some time now :/

Spiuk.8421:

Geiir.7603:

Many of them are going in dungeons with their full backstab zerker build and think they’ll do great.

Are you implying that some useless venoms are better than spammable 30K backstabs?

They’re not.

That sentence was to the guys coming from WvW who created a thief because they got their kitten handed to them… I never implied that any venoms were great, I actually said that I would rather bring a necromancer for that. If you read my post I had many reasons as to why the thief is a great addition to any team

I even said that if you’re good with your thief and know when to dodge, blind, interrupt etc, then full berserker is perfect, because you’ll be a good dps then. Read my entire post before you judge me.

30k backstabs, continuously? If so then you’ll have to have all damage boosts up from traits, food, runes and sigils as well as might and bloodlust. If you can do that, then good for you. On some bosses I’ll backstab and on others I’ll pistol whip, head shot and stuff to interrupt and damage while evading all damage..

I and many many others created the thief for the exact purpose of roaming. It’s a duelist profession, and that’s what people use it for. It’s useless for everything else? Well, that depends on the player. I do pretty kitten good in dungeons and general PvE content is a joke. In some fractals will the thief simply outshine any other profession, so that’s not true.

Remove stealth from weapon skills, and you call that a nerf without nerfing? They designed those sets that have stealth available to rely heavily on stealth to deal damage (with the exception of S/D). If they remove those skills they’ll have to completely rework the profession, and that ain’t gonna happen. I would love to see some changes to stealth, but this is not a fix, this is destroying the thief and making a new profession instead.

Backstab and interrupt are your best bet. Evade their damage while landing your backstab in between their aegis will get him downed sooner or later. Guardians are often built to have high sustained damage coupled with scary amounts of survivability. I usually just ignore them because of this..

I posted already, but just some fun numbers. If you’re below 25% hp then heartseeker will hit for 83.37% of the damage backstab would hit for.

I did some calculations and here are the numbers I got with highest possible power, critical damage and extra damage from traits, sigils etc;

• Power – 3687
• Critical Damage – 118%
• Extra damage from traits / sigils / skills – 85%

These numbers are without any stacks of bloodlust or might and your health under 25%:

• Non-critical: 2543
• Critical: 6815

As you can see, a 5000 heartseeker (or more) shouldn’t surprise you if your health is below 25%. If you have above 50% health, then a critical hit would hit for 4325 and a non-critical for 1614…

This means that if any Heartseeker are dealing more than 4k then the Thief is a glass cannon and would have about 11k health and 2000-2500 armor (depending on wether he’s running cavalier or berserker).

All numbers were gathered from gw2skills.net and the wiki.

Excalibur.9748:

There was a recent poll that said Thief is the worst PvE profession. (or 2nd worst, just barely better than ranger).

So no, noone wants thieves for PvE.

And the problem exist because of all those who rolled a thief because they want to have WvW perma stealth. Many of them are going in dungeons with their full backstab zerker build and think they’ll do great. They usually end up getting one shotted by the first strong mob they encounter….

I can’t count how many times I’ve joined a group and been asked if I have any other lvl 80s or just getting kicked… I have a Guardian and a Mesmer, but I’m far better on my Thief, therefore I tell them to give me a chance and I’ll prove that the Thief can be very strong in dungeons. If we wipe, I’m usually the last man standing or the one that doesn’t die. I’m usually the one reviving other players and taking good care of my self. I rarely drop below 90% hp because of the evades, blinds and shadow steps I have in my builds. After a run with pugs, who wanted to kick me or have me get my Guardian, I’m often getting recognition and they ask if I want to join for another path or dungeon. It’s all about showing how useful we can be and prove them wrong when they think I’ll fail.

Quick tip: find a build with lots of damage, but with several viable traits in each line that you can switch in between encounters. You should also have every single weapon combination available at all times in your inventory! Some encounters are best with P/P, some with SB, some with daggers and so on. Have them with you, experiment and find what you think is best for every situation.

If you find yourself never losing much health because you’re good at evading and interrupting you can run full zerker. Thief is the profession that wear zerker best, simply because of our survivability through stealth, shadow step, blind and evades – which we have a lot of!

In WvW we’re pretty much a mobile combo finisher with access to good damage. We also have the ability to move behind enemy lines and kill the ranged damage dealers (staff eles for example).

I can’t see why people would drop a thief in a dungeon, or at least good thieves.

• AoE stealth from Shadow Refugee, Black Powder/Smoke Screen with Cluster Bomb combo and Blinding Powder.
• With Shadow Trap we can do things in the Dredge Fractal that other professions can only wish for.
• We can completely lock down ranged opponents for 7 seconds with Smoke Screen while blinding all that stand in it (very useful in Asura fractal!).
• We can AoE blind trash mobs for easy mode.
• We can give our entire team Swiftness, Fury, Might and Vigor every 21 seconds (traited Steal) on top off combo finishers.
• We have access to every single combo finisher in the game!
• Very good damage (not as good as other professions, but definitely worth having)
• If we get downed we can usually get ourself up. Our downed state attack is AoE, so there’s a huge chance of rallying, and we have stealth and teleport from downed state.
• We can strip Defiance from bosses like no one else can. A well timed Pistol Whip / Head Shot / Steal (traited) can interrupt a major attack from the boss.
• With all our AoE stealth we are the best profession for getting our teammates back up again (or we can just Shadow Step across the room and burst the mob they’re trying to defeat for a rally).
• Signet of Agility remove conditions AoE.
• We can share venoms, but it’s better to just have a Necromancer fixing the part of stacking conditions.
• If allies stand in Shadow Refugee and do a whirl or projectile combo finisher they’ll steal life.

I would say any good Thief, that know how to play and know that bringing different weapon sets and utilities for different dungeons and encounters, is a welcome addition to any team.

OIIIIIO.7825:

WOOT! A RED POST IN THE THIEF FORUM! CAN I GET A WOOP WOOP

-Uncensored JZ Song Link –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOJqVswXp3U

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I was thinking the same thing! This must be written in thief history!