Help with PVP

[Bandit.7542]

I am at a loss as to why I am getting completely outmatched in wvw or pvp in general. It feels like I have a wet noodle and they are hitting me with a tree.

Why am I melting to dps but I feel like I cannot output any similar dps? Is there some kind of pvp armor type that I need, do I need to stack toughness or expertise or something?

It has been several years since I played, so I am coming back and trying to play the different game modes and just being frustrated at every turn :(

I remember I quit the game because of how frustrating it was to try playing thief, especially since I can see people doing well with it... what the hell am I doing wrong here

[Fueki.4753]

Thieves excel in running away and Stealth.It wouldn't be reasonable for them to also deal damage on par with professions that lack equal disengage potential.

Many (if not most) people expect Thieves to decap and cap nodes, and only going into fights when they can outnumber the opponents.

[DeceiverX.8361]

@Fueki.4753 said:Thieves excel in running away and Stealth.It wouldn't be reasonable for them to also deal damage on par with professions that lack equal disengage potential.

Many (if not most) people expect Thieves to decap and cap nodes, and only going into fights when they can outnumber the opponents.

The problem is the first statement is true for more builds than others, whereas the ability to do much in-combat is... not really different build-to-build.

[Bast.7253]

You can run core dagger/pistol with trickery/shadow arts/crit strikes. But you'll be even glassier and not have much condi cleanse. In the current meta the only thing you can really do as a thief is be extremely careful about when/who you attack. Only +1 and jump between nodes. The only thing you'll really have a somewhat easy time against is probably mesmer in which case you can just steal occasionally for plasma and shortbow spam.

There's way too much cleave/aoe/passive condi and damage to attempt to team fight and the current side noders are probably going to be a bit too much for you as a thief. Either you won't have the damage to get them down through their sustain or they'll be some condi class with high sustain and you'll have to reset multiple times just to clear it. Or it will be something with high cleave like a dagger/focus weaver/holo that puts out more damage than it's worth trying to fight them.

Personally I've enjoyed the core build but in the current meta it's really reliant on having a good enough team to get +1's in and not get focused. Also pretty glassy if you're fighting d/p daredevil or a condi thief. It's fun to get the high damage though.

Bottom line - dagger/pistol core/daredevil are really the only things that are going to be effective but you still have to be ultra selective about the fights you take. It's a lot of work and if they have a lot of easy passive condi clear the blinds you use to survive will probably get cleansed too rapidly for you to be able to attack without being at high risk.

It's sad because I tried finding an extremely trolly high sustain staff daredevil build awhile back and even with the most defensive traits possible I was still getting easily nuked by things. But the animations on the staff evades have always been pretty misleading and if you're not putting out any damage/pressure it's going to be a loss either way.