Jump to content
  • Sign Up

I'm confused


Mocha.5983

Recommended Posts

I wanna point a couple of broad "new player misconceptions" that cause people to struggle with this game....... Most games build classes to only operate internally, or at most pair with something in a group comp.

GW2's biggest difference is that its a HIGHLY MECHANICAL game, where as most MMOs are very Stat-Driven. If you try to play Thief like a Rouge, you are going to fail hard. Thief's greatest defenses are not internal to the skills, but largely external in how the effects modify the enemy, and play off each other in Combos. Only Engineer and Elementalist use field combos as extensively as Thief uses Smokes fields for itself. Your Defenses are built off Dodges, Evades, Blinds, Interrupts (daze/stun), Weakness, and the Ultimate game breaker that is Stealth. Thief only has a few skills which directly give stealth, but it has even greater access to it via Smoke Field and Leap/Blast finishers in skills. This is why Dagger Pistol is practically default in PvP/WvW, as its on demand stealth that can be maintained permanently.

Of the Elite specs, Deadeye Specs further into stealth as a catalyst to its mechanics, while DareDevil "can" run with less stealth, but isn't forced to give it up. Its been generally recommended to run DareDevil if you want to run thief, but can't get a handle on its stealth combos. DD is speced more of a Close Point Brawler, making it very straight forward for Openworld play. In PvP and WvW, stealth mastery is mandatory, as only 2 things in the game are capable of countering it.... but without Stealth, a Thief (of any build) is an easy kill on those game modes.

Core Thief in Openworld is something of a weird animal. Thief baseline is very carefully tuned for PvP health thresholds, and are extremely burst oriented. Sustained damage is actually impressive if you stand around... but being as squishy as they are, thief has to avoid hits as much as possible to stay alive. This creates an awkward situation in PvE, because stealth is undervalued due to potato AI behavior, mob HP is higher then a thief's standard burst combo, and they lack 5-target cleave, which is paramount for effective open world damage builds. This means you have to be more conscious of the number of mobs you've aggro'd, as past 2 targets, you're combat effectiveness drops dramatically. The Class itself is made for 1v1 Dueling; and as a result, you are effective when going one on one with Vets and Elites, but struggle with Champs because they are mechanically immune to control effects.

So usually Core Thieves in open world will default to Pistol/Pistol for damage when by themselves, and and go mainhand dagger for group fights where the attack speed and sustain damage can work without having too much fear of mobs overrunning you. If this is still to hard to get handle on...... Daredevil with Staff - Pistol/Pistol, Bandits Defense for Block, and Invigorating Precision from the Critical Strikes Traitline.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...