State of thief in PvE

Deadeye:This spec is essentially useless in every game mode but raids, but it's not even top DPS in raids while providing zero utility and being incredibly squishy.Deadeye is pretty trash open world unless you're p/p but you'd be better off just play daredevil.Deadeye has no use in fractals, it's all about burst and d/d has no burst while rifle is unusable due to how much movement fractals require

Daredevil:This spec has to sit at 0 endurance for optimal DPS, while providing zero support(again) and being even squishier than deadeye. Still doesn't do top DPS despite zero utility and incredibly squishy.Daredevil is good open world, but still squishy with a severe lack of sustain.Daredevil is playable in fractals as it has high burst, but it brings no utility(again) and is incredibly squishy. There's no reason to play this over soulbeast(insane group utility) or dh(lots of group utility) just to name a few builds

Weapons:D/D, rifle, and staff are the only really usable weapons in PvE. P/P does ok open world but is very subpar group dps as you always have 25 might so the self might from unload isn't useful.

Why are so few weapons useful? Why can't sword be buffed, at all? If you doubled swords auto DPS AND pistol whips damage the weapon wouldn't even be top tier, it'd just be USABLE.

Please consider adjusting some of thiefs weapons in PvE with simple flat % buffs(especially sword) so add more variety to this class, at the very least. I'm not sure why the class with the least group utility isn't doing the most damage in all PvE(which is usually what thief/rogue/assassin classes do in RPGs...) but could you consider slightly buffing the already strong PvE weapons by perhaps 5%?

DaredeviI is good at cap and decap. High flexibility due to triple dash.

Deadeye is good at killing.

Your comments seems PvE focused so I’ll go with those:

Deadeye can get really good DPS numbers in PvE. A Maurader build still can output a 30-40k bursts of damage constantly. Against some bosses the vulnerability phases have me hitting around 100k DJs. This might be low compared to some optimal build but...good enough? Lol.

I agree some weapons could use a boost to PvE damage but...thief does damage if you build for it. Not every weapon should do comparable damage. Some weapons have utility that matters more when opponents don’t just die instantly to some max DPS set up.

Thief in general seems to be tailored towards PvP and PvP only.

Most utility skills for Thief suck, outside of PvP (Basically, everything that isn't a Signet... Hence the general PvE build for Thief being 2-3 Signets)

Initiative really lends itself towards burst damage rather than sustained damage which is most useful in PvP.

Many weapons have skills that are only justifiable in a PvP setting (Death Blossom's 0.5s evade, Dancing Dagger every Sword skill, Headshot... Heck even Shadow Strike/Repeater has more use for PvP than PvE due to the rapid range changes that don't interact well with the PvE style of "Stack up for AoE Boons/Heals")

Stealing is pretty awful outside of PvP where you get consistent results based on enemy classes.

Even with the E-Specs it's still more PvP favouring;Daredevil sucks as a PvE tank, because you can only dodge so much, you generally want some reliable blocking and ability to facetank some hits, but dodging in PvP is very strong because you can mitigate a lot of someone's burst allowing you time to burst them down instead.Deadeye provides strong burst, which is really good for PvP where you want to down people quickly. But its sustained damage falls off (Since PvE rotation is about chaining Stealth attacks by popping as many Utility CD's that provide stealth as you can and simply bursting repeatedly)

Then, when such a class is inevitably good in PvP because its entire design seems to be focused on PvP... It gets nerfed because it's too good in PvP :o

Meanwhile it gets forgotten about in PvE... Where it's usefulness surmounts to Daredevil being good for a single Raid Boss (Qadim) because of their CC potential, while Deadeye is considered one of the hardest builds to play optimally (With heavy DPS losses from messed up rotations as well as movement), has 0 AoE damage, barely any BB damage, no utility, heavy reliance on other players (To provide boons for Premeditation and Conditions for Expose Weakness) and not even top tier DPS potential.

To top things off, PvE Thief also suffers from incredibly boring rotations, since so many of their skills are niche, it ends up with rotations that amount to 222222222 (D/D, Staff) or 333333333 (P/P). Only Rifle DE has something more interesting (33313331... Until you run out of Stealth CD's and then have to switch to D/D and thus 2222222)

@Roche.7491 said:I understand your concern and it is everyones concern as well. The truth is there is no real damage from daredevil & it is designed that way.

Current meta:Daredevil (aka escapist) is best at bayoneting dying people in pvp & escaping using triple dash. A REAL thief.Deadeye (aka sniper) is best at stationary outranging people from the walls in wvw. For as long as they can't retaliate.

The only solution to this is to introduce an assassin type dual swords thief that can reck havoc in 1v1 and that's what we are looking at in the next expansion.

Canthan Expansion:Assassin - best at 1v1

Daredevil feels good for tethering to badguys or to cover your people. The damage feels a little flat without some kind of life steal or second effect topping it off but it's alright.

If that's all you're doing on Deadeye maybe just stay on Daredevil, that sounds like such a waste.

@Shiyo.3578 said:Deadeye is pretty trash open world unless you're p/pEven that has severe issues in multiple situations while only doing ok-ish vs. the things its supposed to excel.

@Shiyo.3578 said:P/P does ok open world but is very subpar group dps as you always have 25 might so the self might from unload isn't useful.Pretty much this, a way to address this would be to buff the damage of pistol skills by ~30% (that's roughly what you get from 25 might) and remove the might gain from Unload.

@Shiyo.3578 said:Why are so few weapons useful?I partly blame the "dual wielding" system for this as it was used in an oversimplified way to create new weapon sets which lead to some severe synergy issues. Core weapons also never really got a "update" to keep them "properly viable" in the face of several waves of power creep.

Another issue is that they don't really seem to collect feedback from the player base on how these issues should be addressed.

@Shiyo.3578 said:Please consider adjusting some of thiefs weapons in PvE with simple flat % buffsIn some instances that alone would be insufficient, for pistol they would also need to do something like reworking some traits e.g. make Signets of Power the weapon trait of this spec (instead of Deadly Aim) and change the activation condition from "on kill" to "on crit". This would solve some issues which can't be addressed by simply applying some "flat % buffs".

@"Taril.8619 " said:PvE Thief also suffers from incredibly boring rotationsThat's highly subjective, I've seen many people say they enjoy the rather simple rotations of P/P and that they find the overall gameplay of this weapons set fun. This seems to be more of an "issue" of personal preference then an actual problem that needs addressing.

That being said some of them could use more utility options.

@Taril.8619 said:To top things off, PvE Thief also suffers from incredibly boring rotations, since so many of their skills are niche, it ends up with rotations that amount to 222222222 (D/D, Staff) or 333333333 (P/P). Only Rifle DE has something more interesting (33313331... Until you run out of Stealth CD's and then have to switch to D/D and thus 2222222)

So true. And the 222/333 burst is still bad dps compared to other classes.

How do you run out of stealth on a DE?

@"Shiyo.3578" said:Deadeye is pretty trash open world unless you're p/p but you'd be better off just play daredevil.

Rifle lets you do sizable damage from a very safe distance, with very little concern for cooldowns or (thanks to M7) initiative management. You have a cheap piercing attack that'll hit 5k+ damage, so it's not as much of a "single target" build as it looks on paper. You wouldn't bring Rifle to all stack up on the boss in a raid group, but I'd say it compares just fine with other OW pew-pew stuff like Ranger Longbow or Mesmer Greatsword. Cyclical initiative reset from M7 also lets you Clusterbomb spam your way through massed enemies.

(The bigger story, imo, is how the double-nerf of initiative costs and damage scaling has made Rifle a much, much more limited weapon in PvP.)

DE Rifle should get a new standing skill for #3, it's just a worse version of the kneel skill - maybe some sort of AoE/conal 'scatter shot' type thing? The Collateral Damage trait, which was clearly intended to make up for lack of cleave, seems to have failed utterly. Change it to pulse out that damage when hitting the marked target with a stealth attack (or stolen ability, w/e), and the marked target does NOT take the damage but enemies around it do. Stolen abilities could use some amount of consistency.

Better utility skills in general would be nice - at the very least, I'd hope anet decides to buff the hell out of Shadow Flare to add some burst cleave.

If I have to roll around with zero team utility and the lowest health pool possible, my damage should be better than others who have the extra team utility.

I've had an okay time in pve with DrD. While it suffers from similar issues (The things Palm Strike could have been but wasn't makes me sad, it really should be a bigger AoE and have a frontal block), it does have better cleave. It also kinda sucks that weakness, which the spec depends upon heavily, doesn't really work against the mobs you'd want it to work against - and if it did work against them, it would be stupid overpowered. That said, this is more of a weakness-needs-a-redesign issue than a DrD issue. I don't care for wvw so I'm not sure how much wiggle room the game mode has in relation to pve changes that'll impact wvw, but surely bound/lotus dodges could be beefed up a bit just so they feel more impactful and useful to a pve rotation, instead of just being used to get the damage bonuses from the dodge itself and from the middle tier trait.

And ofc other thief weapons have really not aged well, but other ppl have already put out good ideas for those.

I'm not all that familiar with thief myself but I do have a build in mind for a daredevil that relies on sustain.

I enjoy sustain build playstyles in PvE, Have several for Necromancer and a few for Warriors and Rangers too.Thief is a new one for me to try building sustain builds on but I like my untested Daredevil concept so far.

Basically it heals on crits, more so with fury and with fury my crits are 99% chance.It also heals on successful evades and with every point of initiative spent as well so basically, every attack, every hit and every successful dodge is a heal.There's also a bit of lifesteal on crit every 5 seconds as well and im running Skelk venom on it which is a heal + an extra small heal on the next 5 attacks.

In theory it should be constantly healing by a decent amount.It's max health is only 11,6k but thanks to the stats im running I get these healing numbers from the Build editor.+518 HP per successful dodge + 1 condi removed per dodge on a 1second CD.+505 HP per 3 initiative spent.+674 HP per 4 initiative spent.+842 Hp per 5 initiative spent.

So Staff 5: Vault alone if it triggers a successful dodge will heal by 1360 HP every time.. and that's before we apply the crit heal and lifesteal too, and Skelk Venom's buff if active.If Vault crits for say 5K and I have fury, that's another 1K healing if my math is correct (20% of 5K), making this one skill heal by 2360 HP.If we add Skek Venom's buff heal on hit to that too it becomes a 3800 Hp heal, from a single attack, more if sigil of blood activates too.That's a lot considering my mx Hp is not even 12KI don't trust my math though which is why I need to test this build but even if Vault only crits for 3K it's an extra 600 HP on top of the 1360 I get just for dodging with the skill, 2,800 with Skelk venom buff active too.

From what i've seen and made in theory I do believe thief can be pretty sustainable in PvE.. but it will depend on how good a player is at dodging and using thier initiative carefully.The entire profession is built around that though so yeah.. I do think thief has potential to sustain pretty well in PvE at least.. but as I said, I have not tested this in game yet so theory/reality not the same thing.I will have to build and test it first to see what it's actually like in game.. but that might not happen for a while since I need to stock up on laurels and LW3 currencies to get the ascended trinkets and infusions etc I need to make this.I've kinda exhausted them recently on a few other new builds i've been enjoying.

@Teratus.2859 said:I'm not all that familiar with thief myself but I do have a build in mind for a daredevil that relies on sustain.

I enjoy sustain build playstyles in PvE, Have several for Necromancer and a few for Warriors and Rangers too.Thief is a new one for me to try building sustain builds on but I like my untested Daredevil concept so far.

Basically it heals on crits, more so with fury and with fury my crits are 99% chance.It also heals on successful evades and with every point of initiative spent as well so basically, every attack, every hit and every successful dodge is a heal.There's also a bit of lifesteal on crit every 5 seconds as well and im running Skelk venom on it which is a heal + an extra small heal on the next 5 attacks.

In theory it should be constantly healing by a decent amount.It's max health is only 11,6k but thanks to the stats im running I get these healing numbers from the Build editor.+518 HP per successful dodge + 1 condi removed per dodge on a 1second CD.+505 HP per 3 initiative spent.+674 HP per 4 initiative spent.+842 Hp per 5 initiative spent.

So Staff 5: Vault alone if it triggers a successful dodge will heal by 1360 HP every time.. and that's before we apply the crit heal and lifesteal too, and Skelk Venom's buff if active.If Vault crits for say 5K and I have fury, that's another 1K healing if my math is correct (20% of 5K), making this one skill heal by 2360 HP.If we add Skek Venom's buff heal on hit to that too it becomes a 3800 Hp heal, from a single attack, more if sigil of blood activates too.That's a lot considering my mx Hp is not even 12KI don't trust my math though which is why I need to test this build but even if Vault only crits for 3K it's an extra 600 HP on top of the 1360 I get just for dodging with the skill, 2,800 with Skelk venom buff active too.

From what i've seen and made in theory I do believe thief can be pretty sustainable in PvE.. but it will depend on how good a player is at dodging and using thier initiative carefully.The entire profession is built around that though so yeah.. I do think thief has potential to sustain pretty well in PvE at least.. but as I said, I have not tested this in game yet so theory/reality not the same thing.I will have to build and test it first to see what it's actually like in game.. but that might not happen for a while since I need to stock up on laurels and LW3 currencies to get the ascended trinkets and infusions etc I need to make this.I've kinda exhausted them recently on a few other new builds i've been enjoying.

I use mirror DrD and DE Life Steal/Siphon builds from WvW in pve switching to Collateral Damage. In actual use I found that if I'm healing from any action I want it to be a Life Steal or siphon, otherwise I felt better with Damage Reduction in place of any Heal-only if I'm going to have to hang around longer and sustain. For example I like 3-2-1 SA with Sigil of Draining and Life Steal food on DrD and DE but I like Marauders Resilience instead of Escapists in crowds, or anywhere really. Still, I'm not bothering to change my stats across game modes so I'm building to my pace, you could probably make use of Heal-only mods if you bring the stats for it.

Lol DD can be immortal with only boons while just using invigorating perception trait instead of no quarterIt also has very good cc support with some stolen skills and shared venomAll stolen skills are very very powerful in raidsOne can teleport a downed player to u and revive 15% of their life and it has insane range and its usable in raids dat ppl usually die far away from group or they get downed in a deadly spot and u can save them ezily (VG/cairn/samarog/dhuum/sabir and some others) it also deals big dmg and it can also teleport u to long distances tooAnother one removes 13 condis from 10 persons! Instantly! (Xera/sloth)Another one pulls 10 enemies in 1 apot and it does it has 3 pulses while each time pulling and dealing 15k dps! Its a awesome way to deal dmg/cc or cleave adds(bandit trio! Samarog cc! Qadim adds if u are lamp and sabetha adds)Theres another one that is very very strong which gives all boons except alac for 10 secs except for some dat are 4/6/8 and it also gives 10 stacks of might and all these boons are for the whole squad! With diviner gear u deal dmg and maintain full boon uptime and therefor u can get more dps slots while u do alot of dps tooDeadeye has the best range dmg in the game and its usable in 4 bosses.(qadim as kiter/qadim2 as pylon/deimos(range) and gorseval(u dont need to move))DE also has 2-4k more dps than DD if u do it right (i can do it right. You can do it too! Most ppl can do it! You just need to train the rotation just like everyother build)P/P has great sustain in pve and can solo champs and bounties with full berserker while maintaining full regen/25might/speed and 6 sec of prot every 10 secondsYou also are in range dmg too while u get alot of ccDaredevil's reliance on boons isnt alot and with all the dodges it has it can ezily perform very well in pve as wellYou can run sword/pistol for 90% evade uptime while dealing heavy cc every 2 secs and dealing heavy cleace dmgStaff is also very ez. Just spam 5 every 3 secs and u wont get out of dodges and initiativeD/D isnt a very awesome set but its usable for condi builds with heavy bleed and poison stacks on multiple enemies at once while dodging all the time if u just dont spam like a idiot and run out of skillsStealth is also one of the best thief utilitys and it is shareable with ur party and can skip various amount of fractal/dungeonunnecessary phasesBtw i forgot... staff has a very good cleaving abilitiesShortbow is a perma cc tool and skip/teleport/disengage weapon and its just awesomeSo... i THINK thief is just as awesome as every other class. Some other classes are better at group buffs ik but thief also has utilities that ppl dont count themThief doesnt buff your group dps but that doesnt mean it isnt goodStop saying "tH1fe iS Uzl3$$" when u just dont really know how useful it can beBtw it is a noob friendly class for pve and raids tooPpl ezily learn the rotation and deal 20k+ on golem if they just spam 2222... right?

-angry thief main

But but but but i would like 5%buff anyways xD

I liked my Thief as a pet project, but the latest nerfs to Deadly Ambition, for PvP purposes I believe, were a huge turn-off for my weird projects in PvE so it's gathering dust until I come up with something that isn't actually so rigid to play.

As for Deadeye, honestly... I knew its very concept would end up this way since 2014 or so.

Deadeye > daredevilIn open world pve only tho and on some raid bossesI can argue if u wantDE is good as it isDaredevil is better for instanced content except storyThief is pvp is awesome in good hands but in newbie hands its worthlessThief in pvp is a bit hardOr maybe its just me

I do agree Thief lacks anything that would help it out in the PvE enviornement. You really have to trait into it and even then most classes can do the job better.AoEs and support would be nice but that goes against the whole design idea for thief, the sneaky jump in kill and jump out.It is pretty much a PvP and a 1v1 class.

Shealth is not useful in a PvE environment where the mobs/bosses kinda cheats and is still kind locked on to you, it doesn't help against fights or raids either.

In WvW theives are more of an annoyance rather helping.Against them, They just annoy groups and picking off randoms. Thats not fun. Watching a thief follow your then shealth and run away when you turn around.The whole perma shealthing in the towers and keeps just wastes time. It wouldn't be so bad but A-Net for some reason gave theives portals. Why?When they are on your side, you kinda don't want them there, because you want a class/spec that can contribute group/zerg effectively.You don't get access to much to help out, The only form of Stability theives get is a stolen skill but they need find a mesmar.

Personally I think thief needs something else to make it more useful to help it support people.Get rid of the Thief Traps, (Preparations) there wasn't a point of redoing them, since they are a bit subpar are just annoying to use, also they feel VERY situational.When you use a Preparation and you have to wait 3 secs into order to use it, so if you're in a fight and the foe sees you place it, the foe will move out or away from it and aviod it, Unlike Ranger and Dragonhunter Traps which go off instantly.

What they should do is.Replace the traps (Preparations) with Shouts. This way thief has a way to give boons allies, Furthemore it still keeps thief mobile like they should be.Give it 2 boon shouts and 1 or 2 condition based shout, With one of these shouts being an AoE reveal, with another being able to clear 1 or 2 conditions.I feel like this would help thief in the PvE a lot.

In my limited play, I've been using the Deadeye for the open world. I alternate between BQoBK and M7, depending on what I need to do. Near permanent quickness while solo is really helpful, and the ability to do high damage at high range with such an easy rotation is really good on my hands. Unless I am mistaken, the Deadeye has the highest ranged single-target DPS in the game, which has niche use but it shows up from time to time. It's odd, because when we think of PVE we always think of group content, but solo overworld play is still pretty important for the game as a whole. In that scenario, I have a hard time recommending Daredevil over Deadeye, becauseDeadeye is so good at self-buffing, long-ranged attacks, and it even has a nigh permanent projectile destruction wall. I've nearly solo'd Aestus on the Deadeye.

Daredevil is only squishy on paper. Bit of trivia: I use the daredevil to try and solo the Sand Giant while waiting for the rich quartz crystal node, because the ability to chain so many evades indefinitely means the Sand Giant can't kill me unless I mess up. This neglects the Daredevils many defensive utility skills. Thieves are the king of blinds and weakness, and X/Pistol lets me carry teams through anything without a break bar. Shadow Refuge is effectively a rez skill, and basilisk venom is an excellent CC skill. But for me, the main strength of the daredevil is ease of use. They have one of the easiest and least-punishing DPS rotations, which in turn makes it safer to do, because I'm not distracted by my own interface.

You're underselling sword. It actually has higher auto damage than the dagger. The boon removal of Sword/Dagger has niche use, and the blinds and CC of Sword/Pistol let me carry groups through dungeons and fractals. Now I don't do raids, but Snowcrows has plenty of green boxes and check marks for both Daredevil and Deadeye. Their performance can't be that bad if they're that recommended.

@saerni.2584 said:How do you run out of stealth on a DE?

In pve? By not being slow with your rotations I guess. Unless you're using silent scope which is your choice, but still not sure why you're so surprised here.

@crazyhusky.2985 said:I do agree Thief lacks anything that would help it out in the PvE enviornement. You really have to trait into it and even then most classes can do the job better.AoEs and support would be nice but that goes against the whole design idea for thief, the sneaky jump in kill and jump out.It is pretty much a PvP and a 1v1 class.

Shealth is not useful in a PvE environment where the mobs/bosses kinda cheats and is still kind locked on to you, it doesn't help against fights or raids either.

In WvW theives are more of an annoyance rather helping.Against them, They just annoy groups and picking off randoms. Thats not fun. Watching a thief follow your then shealth and run away when you turn around.The whole perma shealthing in the towers and keeps just wastes time. It wouldn't be so bad but A-Net for some reason gave theives portals. Why?When they are on your side, you kinda don't want them there, because you want a class/spec that can contribute group/zerg effectively.You don't get access to much to help out, The only form of Stability theives get is a stolen skill but they need find a mesmar.

Personally I think thief needs something else to make it more useful to help it support people.Get rid of the Thief Traps, (Preparations) there wasn't a point of redoing them, since they are a bit subpar are just annoying to use, also they feel VERY situational.When you use a Preparation and you have to wait 3 secs into order to use it, so if you're in a fight and the foe sees you place it, the foe will move out or away from it and aviod it, Unlike Ranger and Dragonhunter Traps which go off instantly.

What they should do is.Replace the traps (Preparations) with Shouts. This way thief has a way to give boons allies, Furthemore it still keeps thief mobile like they should be.Give it 2 boon shouts and 1 or 2 condition based shout, With one of these shouts being an AoE reveal, with another being able to clear 1 or 2 conditions.I feel like this would help thief in the PvE a lot.

Staying in stealth isn't helpful but stealth is very helpful for secondary mods and stealth attacks. with ?-2-1 in SA I mostly stealth, blind, and auto through crowds.

Thief is all around useful in pretty much every scale fight but also fun to play in WvW.

Blinding Powder has a quick Stability.

You can claim I'm not helping in WvW or pve but I'll still save you and cover you back into or out of a fight.

@Sobx.1758 said:

@saerni.2584 said:How do you run out of stealth on a DE?

I meant with Silent Scope. Generally, I try to rotate on this kind of build mostly between using stolen skills for stealth (rotation using M7) and sometimes dodging for quick clears of malice when a stolen skill isn’t up. So I wouldn’t say I can rotate much faster without losing the flow.

Not that I’m trying to max out my damage or anything but...it seems sufficient. Honestly, a lot of PvE players don’t do as much damage as they “should.”

@saerni.2584 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@saerni.2584 said:How do you run out of stealth on a DE?

The highest DPS builds for DE PvE don't use Silent Scope because Premeditation provides more overall DPS. Even with running out of Stealth CD's to pop and having to use D/D for a bit (While running Hide in Shadows, Shadow Gust, Mercy and Shadow Meld for stealth CD's)

Though, even this build doesn't make it anywhere near the top of the DPS charts (Assuming all classes play equally well) which is typically Power DH >> Power Chrono (If having good Slow uptime) > Power Zerker > Power SB

@saerni.2584 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@saerni.2584 said:How do you run out of stealth on a DE?

Well, trying to max out dmg makes you run out of stealth. So that's how. ;p

@Taril.8619 said:

@saerni.2584 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@saerni.2584 said:How do you run out of stealth on a DE?

Yes but most ppl arent equal so i mostly see Daredevils and fire brands ans SBs in top dpscFB> power DD >power SBs and DHs > power weaver

We just need a good Thief set that can cleave well similarly to Staff, but isn't Staff it seems.