Thief in sPvP

[Mhina.1827]

Hey guys,

I'm wondering how you feel about the state of thief in sPvP currently. To me, I feel like I hit like a wet noodle, and have less room for error than ever. I see a lot of complaining about the class on the general pvp forums about how much damage it does, but I'm not seeing how thief damage is looking oppressive compared to just about anything else. I'm not at all afraid to accept that that might just be a git good angle on my part lol. So yeah, what do you think of it? Are you finding success with a particular setup?

[ixon.2496]

Honestly thief just takes more effort than other classes to perform well, little to no passive defenses. After maining thief for over 10 years and over 4000 pvp matches on it, I hardly touch it now. 

I'm just as well chilling on soulbeast or scrapper without feeling like I'm having to play perfectly with no room for error. Mainly because I like commiting to fights and cba doing stealth/runaway/reset. 

Also now that thief mobility is no longer the shining star it once was, mesmer used to be the only serious competition in that area. 

It just feels like thief is kinda lackluster and lost a lot of its place in the game to other classes, which while great for those classes, thief hasn't really evolved with the times. Spectre should have been game changing, as it stands now it's more underwhelming.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Am fine.

Aa long as you don't listen to players arbitrarily setting rules for how you should fight them, while they run cheesy builds, you'll do alright.

[Curennos.9307]

I think most whining against thief is because the experience of 99% of players is having the thief attack when they aren't at 100% - they might be missing health, cooldowns, or it's coordinated burst of some sort, +1, etc. It doesn't actually have uber damage compared to most everyone else - d/p DrD especially. DE has excellent burst, but runs dry quickly and if it uses ini for burst it'll fall over if you do anything else to it.

I've mostly been playing rifle/sword-pistol DE for the ranged burst and the option to infiltrator's strike + pistol whip with quickness if there's a huge amount of ranged hate in the other team (aka a tempest, sometimes two lol). Shadow arts is still useful, but I've been trying crit strikes for kicks and because of the prevalence of soulbeasts so I can at least try to kill em before they kill me because they have too much stuff that screws with stealth. I'm seeing more DE than other specs these days, though the usual DrD d/p thieves and the occasional condi thief are still floating around out there.

Ixon said it well- thief hasn't really evolved at all. Some stuff still works though. Except specter - I've seen exactly one of them since SOTO launch and they got obliterated. Shroud has 11k health with mara amulet and I haven't looked at the spec since, though I really miss it since it's my favorite thief espec.

[Mhina.1827]

On 9/3/2023 at 11:31 PM, ixon.2496 said:

Honestly thief just takes more effort than other classes to perform well, little to no passive defenses. After maining thief for over 10 years and over 4000 pvp matches on it, I hardly touch it now. 

I'm just as well chilling on soulbeast or scrapper without feeling like I'm having to play perfectly with no room for error. Mainly because I like commiting to fights and cba doing stealth/runaway/reset. 

Also now that thief mobility is no longer the shining star it once was, mesmer used to be the only serious competition in that area. 

It just feels like thief is kinda lackluster and lost a lot of its place in the game to other classes, which while great for those classes, thief hasn't really evolved with the times. Spectre should have been game changing, as it stands now it's more underwhelming.

Thank you for extending your insight as a long time player of the role! I think my issue with trying something else is I'm struggling to find something that feels like a thematic successor. I enjoyed playing Dagger/Dagger trapper soulbeast prior to the removal of the stealth component of trapper. It was a great duelist, it had the assassin look with medium armor and daggers, it had the fast animation typical of the assassin archetype, it had decent mobility, healthy access to stealth, but I had to stick to your kitten and play incredibly aggressive to do any meaningful damage, not just watch you slowburn from range. I feel like in any other game, that actually would have been considered a thief/assassin, and in my head canon it was just a variant of thief. Not sure where to go now 😞 that may be my next forum post xD 

[ixon.2496]

4 hours ago, Mhina.1827 said:

Thank you for extending your insight as a long time player of the role! I think my issue with trying something else is I'm struggling to find something that feels like a thematic successor. I enjoyed playing Dagger/Dagger trapper soulbeast prior to the removal of the stealth component of trapper. It was a great duelist, it had the assassin look with medium armor and daggers, it had the fast animation typical of the assassin archetype, it had decent mobility, healthy access to stealth, but I had to stick to your kitten and play incredibly aggressive to do any meaningful damage, not just watch you slowburn from range. I feel like in any other game, that actually would have been considered a thief/assassin, and in my head canon it was just a variant of thief. Not sure where to go now 😞 that may be my next forum post xD 

I found that Revenant/Renegade scratches that itch for me in some ways. Revenant weapons like sword/sword feels quite thief like. And the renegade shortbow for the rogue archetype. Add on Shiro and you have your shadowstepping and dodge rolls.

[cyberzombie.7348]

To put is simply; Most classes got what we have but in better kits. While we barely got what they have. 

The only things thief outclasses in these days are stealth, blinds and shadowsteps. Which only one of these are useful for contesting nodes... until you have to fight a sidenoder that pops resistance.

[xellink.7568]

Classic scepter Spectre makes an extremely good roamer/sidenoder. It can do all 3 roles, roaming, sidenoding and group play to a certain extent. It doesn't feel or play like a thief though. More like necro lol. 

[Curennos.9307]

8 hours ago, xellink.7568 said:

Classic scepter Spectre makes an extremely good roamer/sidenoder. It can do all 3 roles, roaming, sidenoding and group play to a certain extent. It doesn't feel or play like a thief though. More like necro lol. 

I'm still bitter that specter shroud is basically necro shroud copy and paste. I want to play specter again but it just feels so bad with lowered max ini. One day we'll be free of Trickery, one day...

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

Specter and deadeye are kittening good in PvP. Daredevil(power) can still be effective, but the high dmg meta makes teamfighting on it difficult. Soulbeast OWP got nerfed, so you dont get kittened by them as easily now, which is a huge plus. Still strong as a +1, but can't carry like DE and Spec. Condi daredevil seems effective. Power specter is solid if you're good

Thief is honestly in a good spot ATM for ranked play. 

Edited September 13, 2023 by WhoWantsAHug.3186