Im on the verge of dropping Thief (new player)

[ASP.8093]

42 minutes ago, Rogue.8235 said:

You're win condition is to screw the enemy team out of theirs.  The other 4 players on your team worry about the conventional stuff.

I really like this description.

For what it's worth… It's definitely, like, a hard job, because if you screw it up you're essentially leaving your team outnumbered (this is true of any profession if you run around the map aimlessly, though — it's just that a roamer/thief has to do a lot of running-around and can't just go look for the nearest fight as reliably). And it's a job that involves really learning the quirks of the game mode and the specific maps more so than just getting good at dueling and mechanics in a general way.

Another thing that does complicate the learning process is that a lot of the "feedback" your team gives you is gonna be garbage. Just total nonsense. I think the one thing that got me to finally figure out how to play thief at better-than-useless level was learning that about 50% of the time someone says "thief go decap" they are just wrong. Fortunately, the various guides on Youtube really do help with this.

[Sootser.9541]

First of all, I’d like to welcome you to the most fun and active profession in the game! Thief is easy to pick up and do decent with, but one of the hardest professions to truly master.

 

Some general tips are;

* Learn to adapt - Different parts of the game require different builds, weapons and specializations. 
* Practice a few builds.

* Play with all the different weapon sets. 
* Active defense is the key. We have little health and weak armor. Learn to look for animations and visual tells to learn what to evade. 

 

I’ll break down the different parts of the game for you, as every part plays differently.

 

PvE

This is the more passive side of playing thief. Our rotation is usually spamming one specific ability until initiative is drained, then just auto attack while we wait for another burst. 
 

Good builds to try out:

* Staff daredevil. Cleave, easy rotation, 3 evades for more survivability and high damage. Pair with a short bow and you can tag mobs in meta events and be one of the highest damage dealers on boss fights. 
* Alacrity specter. Decent damage, decent healing and 100% alacrity uptime. High survivability and fun to play. 
* Dagger deadeye. HIGH damage and very fun. You 3 shot almost everything when playing open world. 
 

PvP

Thief is a usually a roamer in PvP. This is the hardest role to play, as your map awareness has to be on point. You need to learn when to disengage and when to engage. Your job is to be annoying. When your enemy team leave a point you will be there to decap it. When your team mate engage in a 1v1 you will be there to make it a 2v1, quickly kill the enemy and disappear. 
 

Use shadowsteps heavily in PvP. Just went into stealth and the enemy is bombarding the area? Teleport out. You need to be unpredictable and confusing to play against. Seeing a thief disappear and not show up is terrifying. Is he still here? Has he moved to another point? You are mobile and have access to stealth: abuse it. 
 

Builds to try:

* Dagger/pistol daredevil. Your job is as described above. High burst, low health. You need to weave in and out of fights, run between them and spend your time messing with the enemy and wasting their time. 
* Pistol/dagger condition. Fun, more survivability and annoying to play against. 
* Staff daredevil. Because why not.. Tons of evades, AoE damage and hard to pin down. Not meta, but fun!

* Rifle deadeye. Because sniping people is fun. You can blast someone quickly, but isn’t as mobile. 
* Condition specter. Team support, great damage and very hard to kill. You are suddenly a team fighter, so the roamer role isn’t so heavily on you. 
 

WvW

We excel as roamers, especially in small squads. Run between objectives and kill stragglers and other roamers. 
 

Good builds to try:

* Rifle perma stealth deadeye. Want to be annoying and delete health pools? Yes? Then this is it. 
* Anything really. You can play pretty much anything and experiment a lot! I tend to try builds in PvP first and then adapt it for WvW. 
 

Closing words:

Thief is hard. We hit hard, but die equally fast. In PvE instanced content we are heavily reliant on having a solid team to keep us alive. We are super mobile, are heavily built around stealth and high damage. Thief is a very rewarding profession once you get the hang of it. 
 

I have been playing my thief since 2012, and I haven’t regretted it for a second. I was forced to learn and adapt to any situation. I know most enemy animations for skills I have to evade or interrupt. It is the most fun class/profession I have ever played in any game.

 

I hope you get to enjoy this profession as much as I do. Best of luck! 😊

[Sootser.9541]

.

Edited May 27, 2022 by Geiir.7603
Double posted..

[Dapinchi.7920]

On 5/26/2022 at 8:19 PM, Geiir.7603 said:

First of all, I’d like to welcome you to the most fun and active profession in the game! Thief is easy to pick up and do decent with, but one of the hardest professions to truly master.

 

Some general tips are;

* Learn to adapt - Different parts of the game require different builds, weapons and specializations. 
* Practice a few builds.

* Play with all the different weapon sets. 
* Active defense is the key. We have little health and weak armor. Learn to look for animations and visual tells to learn what to evade. 

 

I’ll break down the different parts of the game for you, as every part plays differently.

 

PvE

This is the more passive side of playing thief. Our rotation is usually spamming one specific ability until initiative is drained, then just auto attack while we wait for another burst. 
 

Good builds to try out:

* Staff daredevil. Cleave, easy rotation, 3 evades for more survivability and high damage. Pair with a short bow and you can tag mobs in meta events and be one of the highest damage dealers on boss fights. 
* Alacrity specter. Decent damage, decent healing and 100% alacrity uptime. High survivability and fun to play. 
* Dagger deadeye. HIGH damage and very fun. You 3 shot almost everything when playing open world. 
 

PvP

Thief is a usually a roamer in PvP. This is the hardest role to play, as your map awareness has to be on point. You need to learn when to disengage and when to engage. Your job is to be annoying. When your enemy team leave a point you will be there to decap it. When your team mate engage in a 1v1 you will be there to make it a 2v1, quickly kill the enemy and disappear. 
 

Use shadowsteps heavily in PvP. Just went into stealth and the enemy is bombarding the area? Teleport out. You need to be unpredictable and confusing to play against. Seeing a thief disappear and not show up is terrifying. Is he still here? Has he moved to another point? You are mobile and have access to stealth: abuse it. 
 

Builds to try:

* Dagger/pistol daredevil. Your job is as described above. High burst, low health. You need to weave in and out of fights, run between them and spend your time messing with the enemy and wasting their time. 
* Pistol/dagger condition. Fun, more survivability and annoying to play against. 
* Staff daredevil. Because why not.. Tons of evades, AoE damage and hard to pin down. Not meta, but fun!

* Rifle deadeye. Because sniping people is fun. You can blast someone quickly, but isn’t as mobile. 
* Condition specter. Team support, great damage and very hard to kill. You are suddenly a team fighter, so the roamer role isn’t so heavily on you. 
 

WvW

We excel as roamers, especially in small squads. Run between objectives and kill stragglers and other roamers. 
 

Good builds to try:

* Rifle perma stealth deadeye. Want to be annoying and delete health pools? Yes? Then this is it. 
* Anything really. You can play pretty much anything and experiment a lot! I tend to try builds in PvP first and then adapt it for WvW. 
 

Closing words:

Thief is hard. We hit hard, but die equally fast. In PvE instanced content we are heavily reliant on having a solid team to keep us alive. We are super mobile, are heavily built around stealth and high damage. Thief is a very rewarding profession once you get the hang of it. 
 

I have been playing my thief since 2012, and I haven’t regretted it for a second. I was forced to learn and adapt to any situation. I know most enemy animations for skills I have to evade or interrupt. It is the most fun class/profession I have ever played in any game.

 

I hope you get to enjoy this profession as much as I do. Best of luck! 😊

My goodness, you make me wanna quit my copium elementalist and roll thief.

[Tails.9372]

On 5/8/2022 at 6:34 PM, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Once you get to 80 pistol/pistol deadeye is good for single target in pve

Even just for single target I wouldn't call it good anymore since its only real redeeming quality has been nerfed into the ground at the start of EoD. Overal people are better off just playing harbinger over P/P thief unless they really want the unload based gameplay.

Edited May 29, 2022 by Tails.9372

[Puck.3697]

On 5/28/2022 at 1:35 AM, Bamisama.6853 said:

My goodness, you make me wanna quit my copium elementalist and roll thief.

Do it I gave up on elementalist and find myself happier. Even if I had to redo things like map completion etc etc. 

[ASP.8093]

The joy of thief in PvE is that you can move around really quickly, bypass obstacles that leave other people raging, and your "rotation" in instanced group content is dirt simple (unless you play that one tryhard raid Deadeye pylon build or whatever).

The pain is that you're kinda fragile, so movement and positioning matters a good deal, and the things you excel at mostly don't help you quickly wipe groups of trash mobs (which is, like, the most common solo PvE activity) that well.

It's still a very fun class and my main, though.

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

On 5/17/2022 at 12:03 PM, Rogue.8235 said:

 

Seconding this.  A thief's job in sPvP is to grief the opposing team.  Use your mobility to constantly sabotage the map (such as decapping).  Also use your mobility and high burst to kill an enemy player already engaged in a fight and dip out to the next task.  At the very least, damage the enemy player so badly that they have to blow all their defensive cooldowns, allowing your teammates to quickly complete the kill.  The thief is a busybody in sPvP in that you are constantly running around messing up the enemy team in every possible way.  You, alone, are the full court pressure.

Essentially, as you play a match ask yourself what the enemy team wants to accomplish.  Then run around doing everything you can to prevent them from doing that.  You're win condition is to screw the enemy team out of theirs.  The other 4 players on your team worry about the conventional stuff.  The more frustrating you are to your opponents, the better you are doing.  As well, don't die.  You want as much up-time as possible to continuously lay on the full map pressure.  Also keep in mind that your team may need you at a specific place and time, so don't ignore them.  

 

Please note, you are to grief the enemy team, not your own team.  Griefing your own team is done by the AFK profession.

 

Eh. I much prefer the days when thief was closer to the jungler of LoL and Dota. Where you can gank an on going fight. But your primary roles was more than that.

 

Your goals were to slow down the enemy's team progress by killing players whom were alone and out of position.

 

Destroy criticial targets in team fights then scurry off to capture something.

 

Lead players on a chase.

 

Right now? sPvP thief can barely hold up in a fight. So you're more harassment than anything.

Contest zones if you can't duel the target till help arrives.

Contest the artifact if you can't capture it due to how hard you ised to be to pin and kill.

Edited May 30, 2022 by Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497

[angrax.1372]

On 5/8/2022 at 11:11 AM, Sinderlok.6357 said:

Everyone burst me from 19k hp to zero in seconds, and when i try to do some damage it takes so long.

Welcome to my world. Except that I drop from 25k to 0 almost instantly :P.

 

I do not believe my issue is gear alone. I have a feeling either I am going against people doing WvW their entire GW2 career or I completely suck. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

[Lighter.5631]

you are on the verge of finding out you are bad, there are deadeye that destroy in plat.

spector is very good in holding 1v1 while doing other thief stuff.

and daredevil is unkillable in 1v1. (if you think it's your skill that makes you unkillable in 1v1 don't be delusional) if they allow a class like daredevil to 1v1 like other bruiser builds, there would be 0 balance.

spector is allowed to be decent in 1v1 because it doesn't have a trillion ways of not get killed and leave a 1v1.

[Lighter.5631]

On 5/10/2022 at 5:37 PM, ASP.8093 said:

Lol, no it doesn't.

As a thief, you are the fastest player on the team and you can use stealth to surprise your opponents or cover your retreat. You do not have top damage, but you have the ability to stick to targets and compress your bursts quite effectively.

Higher-tier players learn to flee to "no port spots" precisely to avoid getting mopped up by a thief when they've been focused by the enemy team.

exactly, thief has been meta defining for ages.

condition rev got to meta back in 2020, only because condi thief was basically killing everybody.

so then thief went back to power daredevil and condition rev is no more so rev went back to power herald.

and people had to learn no port because getting picked by thief is so easy and devastate the team very much.

 

how people would complain about thief role being bad, when willbender right now is literally playing the thief role, which thief played for years.

having two willbender just like having two daredevil, is bad for the team.

willbender is just a harder to play but more effective daredevil that can die.

any thief complaining about willbender now, i laugh because that's what we all thought of thief for years.

but thief will basically never drop out of meta, even after willbender taking daredevil's place, condi spector is still super strong.

thief has been in the pvp meta game the longest and have been meta defining the longest

[Gibson.4036]

For general PVE I’ll echo staff daredevil. People usually say to spam staff 2 on it, but I often lean staff 4 to keep up blind on mobs without breakbars.

I run p/p as my other weapon set. Pistol 4 melts breakbars, and you can kite and unload (p3) when you need space.

[Roche.7491]

On 5/9/2022 at 12:58 AM, Sinderlok.6357 said:

Problem is, i cant understand why i deal a lot less damage than with other professions. Lets take survivability aside and talk about damage. Thief supposed to be this single target burst monster. But all i see is tiny 1.5-4k numbers with 6k here and there in pve. My warrior and harbinger does more single target damage than thief. Im wearing full marauder gear btw.

True. Thief’s damage in guild wars 2 sucks so bad that it makes me want play thief in guild wars 1, a single target BURST MONSTER!

They need to increase heartseeker’s damage to a point it will actually hurt.

Edited May 31, 2022 by Roche.7491

[Rogue.8235]

7 hours ago, Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

Eh. I much prefer the days when thief was closer to the jungler of LoL and Dota. Where you can gank an on going fight. But your primary roles was more than that.

 

Your goals were to slow down the enemy's team progress by killing players whom were alone and out of position.

 

Destroy criticial targets in team fights then scurry off to capture something.

 

Lead players on a chase.

 

Right now? sPvP thief can barely hold up in a fight. So you're more harassment than anything.

Contest zones if you can't duel the target till help arrives.

Contest the artifact if you can't capture it due to how hard you ised to be to pin and kill.

 

I'll agree that I believe that is where thief should be.  It's not able to now, but there was a time where thief could severely punish players with poor positioning.  Thief could also severely punish overextended players.

It would be great if thief could return to that punishing role again.  For now, though, thief's job is to play the map itself and disrupt the enemy's win condition.

  

[Kuma.1082]

Hopefully this reply isn't too late to make a small amount of difference. I'm a relatively new player myself. I've owned the game for years but haven't really put any time into it. I started out rolling thief because that's been my go-to class in every MMO I've played. But I underestimated how difficult it would be to compete with the established playerbase in WvW and just quit the game once I hit 80. Came back a year or two ago and decided to try Revenant because it looked cool and the moveset seemed to suit me. That class turned out to be even harder for me to perform with in WvW because it has like zero escapes (at least that my noob self is aware of). So I'd either have to win a fight or die,  and I certainly wasn't winning any fights. 

 

Now I've come back to the game once again to try out the expansion and I'm back on thief and loving it. Unlike my last attempt at WvW roaming, I studied a bit of gameplay from good thief players and tried to emulate their tactics. I've been MUCH more successful in one-on-one fights and with escaping fights where I'm outnumbered or outskilled. It was definitely unexpected and a nice surprise to actually start getting some kills. What's been great about playing thief is that I can disengage pretty much whenever I want. I'm spending a lot less time running back from my waypoint.

 

As for PvE, I've done just fine in open world with a power daredevil staff and dual pistols. I found a low intensity build guide that has made the open world stuff a lot less annoying. I highly doubt it's meta, but it's not proved to be an issue thus far while doing the HoT and PoF stories. I plan on gearing up for some meta Spectre build next so I can engage in the group PvE content down the road. 

 

Again, these are the ramblings of a newb, but I feel like I've shared your same viewpoint in the past. I don't have enough knowledge of the game as a whole to say whether or not thief is in a good or bad spot. 

 

TLDR; Fully geared my thief years ago in ascended and tried WvW, got stomped and quit. Came back this year, tried playing with a bit more tact while 'copying' better players and found much more success.