As Thief, what are you supposed to do when your team is always dead?

[Psybehr.2518]

Decap a node and your team wipes. +1 a fight and your teammate instant eats every aoe imaginable and dies. Troll 1v2 and your team dies while out numbering the other fight. I'm really not sure what else I can be doing in these situations. Any advice is appreciate. Not a troll post.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

when i'm part of the dummies respawning, I always appreciate it when the teef aggros and kites as many enemies as possible to help off set our staggered respawns. especially when our team is dumb and they will for sure jump right back into the mid fight they just lost.

[Crab Fear.1624]

as long as they have fotm classes to carry players where they do not belong, don't expect much brain usage in tactical decision making

[apharma.3741]

Take the blame.

All is vain.

[Psybehr.2518]

@"apharma.3741" said:Take the blame.

All is vain.

(Targets Thief) "USELESS THIEF"

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Yeah especially now if ur teams feeding mid and the opposite team has two good side noders bunkered on the side nodes u might as well afk cuz ull just help feed mid with them and the sidenode will laugh at ur damage and out burst u while u tickle them. Thiefs is now extremely dependent on how well its team is performing.

[jpsssss.7530]

probs try to decap (don't cap and risk it). no point in 1v5-ing.

[Kondor.2904]

Not sure I have enough expertise to judge, but I think a lot of thieves get a significant portion of hate during the game due to bad timings.



For example, doing a +1 is all good, but not when an enemy has all cooldowns up and sees you coming, so he instantly starts kiting, thus making your +1 not only irrelevant but also handicapping map control for your team. Or not when cause of your poor map awareness, you brought another player with you and created an unfavorable 2v2 for your teammate who has more limited gtfo tools or less cooldowns. 



Decaps are also a good thing, unless your team really needed that fullcap and was just stalling or baiting enemies in teamfights. So your decision to just decap and join a losing fight did cost a handful of points and momentum.



Sometimes thieves are really needed for the steal rupt during the teamfight to be able to lock and kill those key classes/players or prevent ress at the right moment, but some just run around in tfs and spam shortbow 2 on the node, instead of at least rotating at that point and creating more value elsewhere. 



So imo you can perform all the scripted things you read in some online guides, however, without proper timings all of that gets really devalued during tough matches and may lead to the consequent deaths and snowballs (which can also be applied to other classes). And as stated many times on the forums, the majority of Sind’s games are perfect examples of what real cancer timings look like.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@"Drennon.7190" said:Decap a node and your team wipes. +1 a fight and your teammate instant eats every aoe imaginable and dies. Troll 1v2 and your team dies while out numbering the other fight. I'm really not sure what else I can be doing in these situations. Any advice is appreciate. Not a troll post.

1. Take the blame for what went wrong rotationally. It's actually part of your job role as a Thief. They like to point at you and say things like: "Thief why didn't you revive me?" as if you could have revived someone through 4 opponents cleaving, or "Thief why did you leave the node?" as if you could have bunked the node against those 4 opponents after everyone had died. Thing is, if you quietly take the blame, they normally will continue believing in themselves and keep trying instead of rage AFKing.
2. Try to bait as many opponent numbers as you can, as far away from where your team is regrouping as you can, while snagging decaps. If it's worst case scenario, the enemy has a triple cap and your team will probably try to regroup at the home node to win a team fight. If you can monkey a guy or two or maybe three into chasing you to mid and far as you threaten decaps, that's what you want to do. This way your team has a much greater chance to quickly win a 4v3 advantage at home while sending some opponents into stagger, so they can easily snowball mid and retake the map.

[Crab Fear.1624]

I just try to one shot Trevor while he tries to do the same to me.

[Raider.4283]

You can do all the textbook thief things (be a distraction and try to decap) which is exactly what you should try to do.

The majority of good players will understand that in a situation where they have 3 nodes and your teams is all dead, they just need to sit still. They will have awareness of the map and know the only opponent alive is you - not a huge threat.

Best case scenario all 5 chase you and you juke around but aoproaching an occupied node - you're like a moth to a lightbulb.

[Burnfall.9573]

why is Thief is always the last one to stay alive to begin with?

Yeah! i would take the blame and blame Bad Design.....they'll understand

[GuriGashi.5617]

You can‘t really do anything, because GW2 isn‘t designed to let 1 player clutch it out against 5 players when the rest of the team is failing. But if there is anything like clutch potential, thieves have the best shot of doing so through mobility. If your team is wiped out and you are the only one alive, you should just decap anything that is possible (as you said) to minimize the points gained by the enemy team. Other than that +1‘ing in a teamfight has the highest probability of wiping the enemy team out and getting you control over the map. If your team doesn‘t win a +1 teamfight, there is nothing to do - the quality of your team sucks and you should think about the next game. Don‘t be frustrated, it‘s a typical characteristic of a team game

[UNOwen.7132]

@Burnfall.9573 said:why is Thief is always the last one to stay alive to begin with?

Yeah! i would take the blame and blame Bad Design.....they'll understand

Because ... thieves dont fight and instead just run away because theyre incapable of fighting anyone? What a silly question.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Drennon.7190 said:Decap a node and your team wipes. +1 a fight and your teammate instant eats every aoe imaginable and dies. Troll 1v2 and your team dies while out numbering the other fight. I'm really not sure what else I can be doing in these situations. Any advice is appreciate. Not a troll post.

You lose just like everybody else in that situation, then pat yourself on the back for being the best. Duh?

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Best thing u can do if ur team doesnt provide the pressure u need to do ur job simply roam and avoid everyone all game then roast ur team and mention ur 0 deaths lol

[ArlAlt.1630]

@Vallun.2071 has a pretty good video guide about that particular situation, check it out.

[UNOwen.7132]

You lose. Its basically that simple.

[Luthan.5236]

Try to help in 2 vs. 1 or so? (I guess "+1" means that? Then try again.) I don't know since I'm not playing thief. But I yesterday had some weird matches ... man was it weird. We were winning by 100 and when we neared 350-400 the enemy team caught up and pwned us and team seemee to stop working. We mid and close and constantly decapped or even capped far.

Some then decided to go far to fight 3 vs. 1 where 1 enemy bunker decided to bunker down and not die. (Other 4 players of the enemy team got the other 2 points and we other 2 of my team could not capture them and they stayed having all 3 points capped lol.)

I'd never try decapping if it takes too long (guy needing to removed defending there.) I am using a speed build on engineer (perma swiftness from kits) and ry to empty nodes as well a lot - for fun. (I don't play "META" stuff.) Keeping it capped against 1 other guy (when I can stay alive) is also okay even if I might get killed later. 2 guys also. (If it saves time for the team when they can do other stuff and are outnumbering the enemy elsewhere.)

But running there to get killed quickly or get killed ... bad idea.

I think decap is quick and you can just run back to the team to help them if you aren't trying to cap the decapped note? If the team is dying that fast ... then something is wrong with them. They should at least be able to keep a point contested for some time while staying alive if it is equal numbers.

I had a team where 2 thieves were on my team yesterday and the enemy had only 1 thieves (2 necro 2 warrior were the other members). Sometimes matchmaking makes bad balancing. I never really played thief but I consider them (when fighting against them as engineer) as not too threatening. I wonder how my 2 thieves could have been usefull in killing that tank-ish classes and I see them more like people that quickly help to kill some low health pool or low armor weight class guy.

Weird stuff happens every now and then.

[Leonidrex.5649]

same thing you do on any other class, you lose

[KrHome.1920]

The next thief e-spec should be able to steal gold from dead teammates. Maximum viablitiy.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@Drennon.7190 said:Decap a node and your team wipes. +1 a fight and your teammate instant eats every aoe imaginable and dies. Troll 1v2 and your team dies while out numbering the other fight. I'm really not sure what else I can be doing in these situations. Any advice is appreciate. Not a troll post.

Thief is salt, not meat.It only enhances a good meal. It has no weight as a main focus.If your team is bad, you can -probably- manage to destabilize the opposing team enough for your party to have a foothold, but dont count on it.

Thief is salt, not meat.If you don't do your job right you can also -make- your team bad.

[Khalisto.5780]

if your team is always dead i think it doesnt matter what you do and what class you play you will lose

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Drennon.7190" said:Decap a node and your team wipes. +1 a fight and your teammate instant eats every aoe imaginable and dies. Troll 1v2 and your team dies while out numbering the other fight. I'm really not sure what else I can be doing in these situations. Any advice is appreciate. Not a troll post.

1. Take the blame for what went wrong rotationally. It's actually part of your job role as a Thief. They like to point at you and say things like: "Thief why didn't you revive me?" as if you could have revived someone through 4 opponents cleaving, or "Thief why did you leave the node?" as if you could have bunked the node against those 4 opponents after everyone had died. Thing is, if you quietly take the blame, they normally will continue believing in themselves and keep trying instead of rage AFKing.
2. Try to bait as many opponent numbers as you can, as far away from where your team is regrouping as you can, while snagging decaps. If it's worst case scenario, the enemy has a triple cap and your team will probably try to regroup at the home node to win a team fight. If you can monkey a guy or two or maybe three into chasing you to mid and far as you threaten decaps, that's what you want to do. This way your team has a much greater chance to quickly win a 4v3 advantage at home while sending some opponents into stagger, so they can easily snowball mid and retake the map.

Been winning a 1v2 keeping far neutral while watching my team struggle, even lose, 4v3. I was about to down the second guy when my ally rotated to me, pulling their warrior to me, and got me CC-locked (due to playing vs druid and reaper, I had used up all my stun breaks at the time).

Some teams just can't be helped.

[rng.1024]

• If it's a team wipe, your job is to limit (decap) the opponents point gain until they are back on the map.
• If your teams teamfighting capabilites are weak, your job is to help out mid and then decap after you win.
• If you troll 1v2 and your teammates die outnumbering other fights you don't help your team in the least (yes even by stalling 2 players on your own!), your job is to be in that fight to help them snowball the rest of the map after it's won.

There's always an optimal rotation for any scenario, and it's 100% based on common sense.

You need to rotate differently depending on your team/opponents decisions. As you mentioned in the last example you holding a 1v2 would be a godlike move if your team could handle the rest, but in this case where they can't be trusted it's not even a zero sum move, staying there is simply a bad one.

You need to read the UI, count respawns and know your teams roles in order to effectively rotate, updating constantly. There is no "divine rule" set in stone that will always be optimal. Most of the time sure, but every rule have exceptions.