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Gave WvW one last try, going from thief to ranger.


Zexanima.7851

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I was getting pretty disheartened about WvW after playing thief. I don't enjoy running in a zerg, more of a havoc person and thief seemed perfect for that. I tried to play safe as I could as thief (DD, P/D) but I was losing a good majority of fights even after taking some days to practice dueling. I really love the play style of the class but there is so much going against you. It doesn't take a whole lot to put you on the back foot of a fight.

Last night I decided to give wvw one last go and bust out my ranger (which I do have more sPvP experience on) and ran a pretty generic Sic' em snipper build just to get a feel for things. I had much better results. By the end of the night I was even rolling over small teams of 2-3 people no problem (mow 1 guy down and cleave the rest while they tried to res). I know all professions are not created equal, but damn, how do you get thief to work? I know it can as I've watched several videos of people doing it and I even got smacked on my ranger in a 1v1 against a thief who keep timing their pistol #4 on point.

I know the play styles are completely different but how do you get thief to work? What are the biggest mistakes you see thieves make in WvW roaming?

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As a thief you really have to outplay your opponent. You can't mistakes with a thief. A lot of other classes you can make several mistakes, and still not be out of a fight, but with a thief you go down like a wet noodle if you get hit.

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Staff is mostly a group build whereas other weapons are more common for smaller scale roaming.

Three things that tend to separate good thieves from the average: They are patient but quick in execution, taking their time to get good engagements but when engaged they are very agressive. When agressive they are also reactive in terms of positioning and counterplay; they get behind you and use their fast attacks against your big attacks etc.

They value and manage their superior mobility as well as their stealth play and intergrates camera positions into that. Good thieves are usually masters at creating and crushing distance, that's how most damage is avoided against most classes. One good example of this is when fighting higher-armoured classes. Where average thieves will stay in too long and then stay out too long to recoup and reset, letting opponents do it as well. Good thieves go in for a rotation and are out before they take significant punishment. They are then ready to pounce immidiately as they go out, ready for what you do (weapon swaps, heals etc.). Good thieves can be seen in quick succession taking may be only 33% of a health bar out but do in 1-2 seconds each. Average thieves go through the motions of healing and restealthing etc. Good thieves are always ready to counterplay, even on the backfoot.

The last one is rather obvious but ties into the above. Good thieves have mastered the initiative system. They have a number of rotations in their muscle memory and do not have to look at any bars. So they can read the fight and adapt whatever whole- or half-sweep combo they see fit for the situation. So they do not really wait for bars to refill and that stuff too. They know what they can do next based on what they did before.

All of these things also goes to show why you may have problems with the class because it has a rather noticable skill floor. All classes may be tough to roof but some of these things you need to practise enough to alter your way of thinking around to start using a thief as a thief.

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Use your mobility, your shadowsteps, and your stealth. Be Patient on one Hand and on the other Hand be quick. Thief requires an extremely quick playstyle, probably the quickest out of all classes. Stay on the flank/back of your oponent and retreat EARLY or you will be dead.

Additionally: observe weapon swap of your enemy: if he is on range, go close, if he switches to close, go range and kite.

Be Aware that your high mobility and the possibility to retreat out of basically every fight comes with the drawback of being squishy.

Thief is dangerous... for both parties in a fight^^

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@subversiontwo.7501 @Prinzsecond.4863 Thanks for the good advice! Is it even possible for thief to pull off an outnumbered fight though? I really love the play style of thief and I'm not against investing the time to git gud. If I do invest the time I want to make sure it's going to worth it. My first impression was just that it didn't have the damage potential it needed in the current state of the game.

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@Chaba.5410 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:What are the biggest mistakes you see thieves make in WvW roaming?

Getting greedy on securing a kill when outnumbered.

I can confirm...That's arround 90% of the time i get killed XD@Justine.6351 said:Thieves need to safeplay, the second they go ham they get crushed like bugs.

Ence why they have decent mobility/position shifting, i still find alot of thiefs playing like they were playing warriors...

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@Zexanima.7851 said:Is it even possible for thief to pull off an outnumbered fight though?wether you can fight outnumbered or not depends more on the opponents quality than your own build.

with thief it mostly depends on your ability to kite the opponents while killing them one by one as your AoE is pretty limited.previous to last patch i would say deadeye was the best to do so because with stealth you can quickly reset and reengage your opponent, combined with rather high damage spikes compared to other thief build you often could down one before their allies did react and take them out that way 1 by 1 , tho one can debate how that is an outnumbered fight or not as the allies of the opponent were present but didnt really have enough time to partake in the fight.now i didnt play deadeye in WvW since the patch wich heavily reduced stealth access on rifle (wich was the best weapon for outnumbered fights as this allows to split the opposing group) so i dunno how good that is now. but other thief builds are less efficient in such a fight as they wont as easily break 'aggro', to get another delayed reaction.

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@Zexanima.7851 said:I was getting pretty disheartened about WvW after playing thief. I don't enjoy running in a zerg, more of a havoc person and thief seemed perfect for that. I tried to play safe as I could as thief (DD, P/D) but I was losing a good majority of fights even after taking some days to practice dueling. I really love the play style of the class but there is so much going against you. It doesn't take a whole lot to put you on the back foot of a fight.

Last night I decided to give wvw one last go and bust out my ranger (which I do have more sPvP experience on) and ran a pretty generic Sic' em snipper build just to get a feel for things. I had much better results. By the end of the night I was even rolling over small teams of 2-3 people no problem (mow 1 guy down and cleave the rest while they tried to res). I know all professions are not created equal, but kitten, how do you get thief to work? I know it can as I've watched several videos of people doing it and I even got smacked on my ranger in a 1v1 against a thief who keep timing their pistol #4 on point.

I know the play styles are completely different but how do you get thief to work? What are the biggest mistakes you see thieves make in WvW roaming?

greed is nr1 thing that kills you on thief ;).

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@MUDse.7623 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:Is it even possible for thief to pull off an outnumbered fight though?wether you can fight outnumbered or not depends more on the opponents quality than your own build.

with thief it mostly depends on your ability to kite the opponents while killing them one by one as your AoE is pretty limited.previous to last patch i would say deadeye was the best to do so because with stealth you can quickly reset and reengage your opponent, combined with rather high damage spikes compared to other thief build you often could down one before their allies did react and take them out that way 1 by 1 , tho one can debate how that is an outnumbered fight or not as the allies of the opponent were present but didnt really have enough time to partake in the fight.now i didnt play deadeye in WvW since the patch wich heavily reduced stealth access on rifle (wich was the best weapon for outnumbered fights as this allows to split the opposing group) so i dunno how good that is now. but other thief builds are less efficient in such a fight as they wont as easily break 'aggro', to get another delayed reaction.

I'm aware that if I catch 2 or more people of equal or greater skill on guard I shouldn't have any chance of winning but that's where I would need to improve on my disengaging. I've been seeing in some thief suggestions that mastering shortbow is essential so I'm assuming cleaver use of shortbow #2 and #4 comes into play in out numbered fights. I know choking gas is great for slowing rez specially if you can get the poison stacks for daze.

I could see how rifle would be useful, specially with the range it has paired with the stealth deadeye brings. Running something like DD D/P(as I was) I couldn't even start to see how you would fight outnumbered. Even just trying to take one person unaware was a challenge. My damage felt pitiful (ascended zerker gear, cause squishy anyways and couldn't be bothered to craft a second set yet). By the time I got in say 30-50% health worth of damage I would have to disengage from counter pressure. Any damage I take I would have to waste my one precious heal, while the other guy will just heal up at least a good 5-10% just existing from some regen or some passive trait. It's hard to re-engage instantly after my first engage too as I would have to blow a lot of ini on blinds/daze/ect just to avoid as much damage as possible. I guess aside from my first burst (if you even want to call it that) I'm finding it hard to apply continued pressure that does anything meaningful.

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@Zexanima.7851 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:Is it even possible for thief to pull off an outnumbered fight though?wether you can fight outnumbered or not depends more on the opponents quality than your own build.

with thief it mostly depends on your ability to kite the opponents while killing them one by one as your AoE is pretty limited.previous to last patch i would say deadeye was the best to do so because with stealth you can quickly reset and reengage your opponent, combined with rather high damage spikes compared to other thief build you often could down one before their allies did react and take them out that way 1 by 1 , tho one can debate how that is an outnumbered fight or not as the allies of the opponent were present but didnt really have enough time to partake in the fight.now i didnt play deadeye in WvW since the patch wich heavily reduced stealth access on rifle (wich was the best weapon for outnumbered fights as this allows to split the opposing group) so i dunno how good that is now. but other thief builds are less efficient in such a fight as they wont as easily break 'aggro', to get another delayed reaction.

I'm aware that if I catch 2 or more people of equal or greater skill on guard I shouldn't have any chance of winning but that's where I would need to improve on my disengaging. I've been seeing in some thief suggestions that mastering shortbow is essential so I'm assuming cleaver use of shortbow #2 and #4 comes into play in out numbered fights. I know choking gas is great for slowing rez specially if you can get the poison stacks for daze.

I could see how rifle would be useful, specially with the range it has paired with the stealth deadeye brings. Running something like DD D/P(as I was) I couldn't even start to see how you would fight outnumbered. Even just trying to take one person unaware was a challenge. My damage felt pitiful (ascended zerker gear, cause squishy anyways and couldn't be bothered to craft a second set yet). By the time I got in say 30-50% health worth of damage I would have to disengage from counter pressure. Any damage I take I would have to waste my one precious heal, while the other guy will just heal up at least a good 5-10% just existing from some regen or some passive trait. It's hard to re-engage instantly after my first engage too as I would have to blow a lot of ini on blinds/daze/ect just to avoid as much damage as possible. I guess aside from my first burst (if you even want to call it that) I'm finding it hard to apply continued pressure that does anything meaningful.

sounds like you need to disengage a little faster. if you disengage before they land any of their counterpressure, then you can reengage faster. especially in outnumbered you have to disengage faster as you usually will only pressure one target, so their allies can pressure you faster than the target you focus.

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@MUDse.7623 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:Is it even possible for thief to pull off an outnumbered fight though?wether you can fight outnumbered or not depends more on the opponents quality than your own build.

with thief it mostly depends on your ability to kite the opponents while killing them one by one as your AoE is pretty limited.previous to last patch i would say deadeye was the best to do so because with stealth you can quickly reset and reengage your opponent, combined with rather high damage spikes compared to other thief build you often could down one before their allies did react and take them out that way 1 by 1 , tho one can debate how that is an outnumbered fight or not as the allies of the opponent were present but didnt really have enough time to partake in the fight.now i didnt play deadeye in WvW since the patch wich heavily reduced stealth access on rifle (wich was the best weapon for outnumbered fights as this allows to split the opposing group) so i dunno how good that is now. but other thief builds are less efficient in such a fight as they wont as easily break 'aggro', to get another delayed reaction.

I'm aware that if I catch 2 or more people of equal or greater skill on guard I shouldn't have any chance of winning but that's where I would need to improve on my disengaging. I've been seeing in some thief suggestions that mastering shortbow is essential so I'm assuming cleaver use of shortbow #2 and #4 comes into play in out numbered fights. I know choking gas is great for slowing rez specially if you can get the poison stacks for daze.

I could see how rifle would be useful, specially with the range it has paired with the stealth deadeye brings. Running something like DD D/P(as I was) I couldn't even start to see how you would fight outnumbered. Even just trying to take one person unaware was a challenge. My damage felt pitiful (ascended zerker gear, cause squishy anyways and couldn't be bothered to craft a second set yet). By the time I got in say 30-50% health worth of damage I would have to disengage from counter pressure. Any damage I take I would have to waste my one precious heal, while the other guy will just heal up at least a good 5-10% just existing from some regen or some passive trait. It's hard to re-engage instantly after my first engage too as I would have to blow a lot of ini on blinds/daze/ect just to avoid as much damage as possible. I guess aside from my first burst (if you even want to call it that) I'm finding it hard to apply continued pressure that does anything meaningful.

sounds like you need to disengage a little faster. if you disengage before they land any of their counterpressure, then you can reengage faster. especially in outnumbered you have to disengage faster as you usually will only pressure one target, so their allies can pressure you faster than the target you focus.

Makes sense. I'm probably in a fight a good 6-8 seconds before I disengage (estimated). I'm use to my ranger/warrior play style with just applying continuous pressure until I need to go on the defensive and kite. It just doesn't seem like the time I need to be in there (what, a couple seconds at most?) is enough to pull off any sort damage. What's 2-4k damage to a weaver who sneezes self-healing, a boonbeast who is...a boonbeast, a mesmer who can disengage just as quickly as I can, I think you get the point I'm making. So I suppose I need to figure out how to get more damage in less time out of my thief without burning so much ini that I can't disengage->re-engage

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@Zexanima.7851 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:Is it even possible for thief to pull off an outnumbered fight though?wether you can fight outnumbered or not depends more on the opponents quality than your own build.

with thief it mostly depends on your ability to kite the opponents while killing them one by one as your AoE is pretty limited.previous to last patch i would say deadeye was the best to do so because with stealth you can quickly reset and reengage your opponent, combined with rather high damage spikes compared to other thief build you often could down one before their allies did react and take them out that way 1 by 1 , tho one can debate how that is an outnumbered fight or not as the allies of the opponent were present but didnt really have enough time to partake in the fight.now i didnt play deadeye in WvW since the patch wich heavily reduced stealth access on rifle (wich was the best weapon for outnumbered fights as this allows to split the opposing group) so i dunno how good that is now. but other thief builds are less efficient in such a fight as they wont as easily break 'aggro', to get another delayed reaction.

I'm aware that if I catch 2 or more people of equal or greater skill on guard I shouldn't have any chance of winning but that's where I would need to improve on my disengaging. I've been seeing in some thief suggestions that mastering shortbow is essential so I'm assuming cleaver use of shortbow #2 and #4 comes into play in out numbered fights. I know choking gas is great for slowing rez specially if you can get the poison stacks for daze.

I could see how rifle would be useful, specially with the range it has paired with the stealth deadeye brings. Running something like DD D/P(as I was) I couldn't even start to see how you would fight outnumbered. Even just trying to take one person unaware was a challenge. My damage felt pitiful (ascended zerker gear, cause squishy anyways and couldn't be bothered to craft a second set yet). By the time I got in say 30-50% health worth of damage I would have to disengage from counter pressure. Any damage I take I would have to waste my one precious heal, while the other guy will just heal up at least a good 5-10% just existing from some regen or some passive trait. It's hard to re-engage instantly after my first engage too as I would have to blow a lot of ini on blinds/daze/ect just to avoid as much damage as possible. I guess aside from my first burst (if you even want to call it that) I'm finding it hard to apply continued pressure that does anything meaningful.

sounds like you need to disengage a little faster. if you disengage before they land any of their counterpressure, then you can reengage faster. especially in outnumbered you have to disengage faster as you usually will only pressure one target, so their allies can pressure you faster than the target you focus.

Makes sense. I'm probably in a fight a good 6-8 seconds before I disengage (estimated). I'm use to my ranger/warrior play style with just applying continuous pressure until I need to go on the defensive and kite. It just doesn't seem like the time I need to be in there (what, a couple seconds at most?) is enough to pull off any sort damage. What's 2-4k damage to a weaver who sneezes self-healing, a boonbeast who is...a boonbeast, a mesmer who can disengage just as quickly as I can, I think you get the point I'm making. So I suppose I need to figure out how to get more damage in less time out of my thief without burning so much ini that I can't disengage->re-engage

Permastealth malicious backstab one trick pony niche build exist due to the same issue u are having,it’s boring,repetitive and lacks any veriety but it’s effectively thiefs only decent burst against the powercrept sustain classes have now. Seems like arenanet nerfed the dps on most of the thief skills in relation to the high dps of that skill and a few other unhealthy mechanics. Yay! If u are used to soulbeast aside from the crap I mentioned above u will never feel like the reward is worth the risks ur putting out and Uve already experienced thiefs dps outside of cheap backstabs lol

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Sadly this is true. Soulbeast can contribute to made small groups thru stance share but to zergs there’s way to many reflects etc going on, thief well it’s useless now in almost all game modes,warclaw kinda destroyed the scouting gig even though that was a pretty trivial job aswell lol but ranger u might atleast be able to dismount and have a good chance at duels which is fun but not a huge help to ur server.

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I main soulbeast, fought a lot of thieves in my time. Lately what I see is that bad thieves:1, waste initiative. A lot of times fighting a DP thief whenever they use pistol 4 once I've come to expect them to spam it 3-4 times. No joke. I get interrupted once, and then I just run while they shoot me with wet noodle dazes even tho I'm not doing anything but pressing W.2, get bad steals. They steal for no reason. Good thieves try to steal after I use SOTP to take away my stab, bad ones just use steal randomly. Fighting bad thieves is ez cus I see they use steal and I pop stab, they are screwed.3, generally just not good at the game.

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