Help with thief build

[Hypnotaiz.2845]

Hey I've been playing for a long time with necro in pvp and now I really wanna spice things up with thief but for some reason it seems that this profession is insaenly hard for me always finding my self teleporting in and out but never in the right spot had some have some hard time to figure the stealth mecanics ( not like in WOW permanent stealth to rough) , I've already understood that this prof is extremely different from necro and I shouldn't be in team fight only +1 or decap.

Is there any tips tricks build beginners theif friendly like what should you do when your outnumbered or what profession should I target in +1 situations or what profession I can take easily on 1v1.

Thank you so much.

 

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

2 hours ago, Hypnotaiz.2845 said:

Hey I've been playing for a long time with necro in pvp and now I really wanna spice things up with thief but for some reason it seems that this profession is insaenly hard for me always finding my self teleporting in and out but never in the right spot had some have some hard time to figure the stealth mecanics ( not like in WOW permanent stealth to rough) , I've already understood that this prof is extremely different from necro and I shouldn't be in team fight only +1 or decap.

Is there any tips tricks build beginners theif friendly like what should you do when your outnumbered or what profession should I target in +1 situations or what profession I can take easily on 1v1.

Thank you so much.

 

None of the builds are very easy, but power deadeye is probably the most straightforward.  Press f1 on your target, and take them out of fights they're already invested in. Your objective is either to put your hand on the scale of as many even fights as possible, or create these situations for yourself by capping points so obnoxiously that people have to dedicate resources to stopping you, then doing that first bit.

Stealth is active, unless you're deadeye and dodge with silent scope. Leap and blast smoke fields to get stealth. Your smoke field tool is pistol offhand.

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what should you do when your outnumbered

Depends.  If it's just you, leave. You have the best leave potential in the game.  You can either leave to another point or leave into lanes and waste time of 2+ of the enemy team while your team wins the rest of the map. 

If it's you and one teammate and you own the point, if your teammate is bunker you should be ending a fight elsewhere. Focus down one target until the match is even, then leave. If you dont own the point, you need to think about time investment and whether its worth decapping or ensuring the neutrality of that point.

If its a firefight, focus squishies, leave the moment your teammates go down or the moment the fight is tilted to win in your teams favor.  You will likely be the last focused in any skirmish. Don't worry about picking people up unless you have a clear opportunity to do so or take a utility that makes that easier.

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what profession should I target in +1 situations

You want squishies, low bunkers, and fleeing people. Eles, glass rangers, other thieves, holos, mesmers, necros.

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or what profession I can take easily on 1v1.

Mesmers unless they're virtuoso or bunker. Eles unless they're cata or fire weaver. Soulbeasts if you're condi. Engies if they're not scrapper. Warriors if they're not bladesworn or condizerk. Harbingers, Reapers.

You shouldn't be 1v1ing though.  You should be putting pressure on other 1v1s unless you -know- you can push a 1v1 off point. If you're 1v1ing and not pushing opponent into lanes, you're useless and sandbagging your team because you're slowly losing the point you're fighting for while your team has even fights. Make those fights uneven. 

 

Edited October 5, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Bast.7253]

Thief in general, in pvp, is not easy to play. 

There's so much cleave and passive aoe damage packed into traits in this game that you have to be very selective about where you stand and when you attack. It's also not easy to land high amounts of damage on a thief as it is with most other professions because of boons/projectile reflect/passive defensives and thief damage being generally lower than something like a holo that can just press two buttons and do more damage than you can with a few attacks and your largest hitting stealth attacks. 

Personally, deadeye is still very tricky to play. Sure, it's annoying to fight against and uses a lot of stealth - but you still have to be careful about when and who you attack. 

Dagger/pistol daredevil is the most common because it's more of a duelist but it's also less damage and takes more skill consideration. 

I've been playing the good ole core d/d thief build but it's pretty much a - you have one shot to land high damaging attacks and if you're not careful you could be stealing/teleporting into a mass amount of aoe ground clutter or cleave - or just have your damage negated because you're attacking something loading up with blocks. 

There really isn't a lot of build diversity for thief - Specter still has a condi variant that's decent and relies less on stealth. There's probably still a few people running the pistol/blind spam build. 

Really depends on your playstyle. I'd love staff daredevil to be viable again but it hasn't been since it's release in HoT and then it was apparently so appauling to the majority that they decided to permanently shelve it. - And power creep/specs released since then have just made the playstyle far too high risk - (combined with the janky animation frame of staff 5's evade that's too unreliable to really count as an evade imo.)

Azure would probably have far better advice as I believe they play thief far more than me but if you're outnumbered - RUN. Just leave. Survive and move on. Most of the thieves I see playing well in matches never stop moving. 

For match-ups - this entirely depends on what spec/playstyle you are. If you're melee and playing core/daredevil, mesmer is generally a decent-ish 1v1 because it gives you a stolen skill that grants all boons - including aegis and resolution. (block and condition damage reduction)

If I were you I'd watch some of Vallun's videos. He has build videos and talks about trade-offs and what to do in certain situations and presents it in a pretty beginner friendly fashion.

[Bast.7253]

Case in point -

Just attacked a reaper and got them to 10% health. 

They ENTER SHROUD and crit me for 6800 damage.

That's a decent backstab for thief.

Please explain this balance.

[magickthief.6492]

47 minutes ago, Bast.7253 said:

Case in point -

Just attacked a reaper and got them to 10% health. 

They ENTER SHROUD and crit me for 6800 damage.

That's a decent backstab for thief.

Please explain this balance.

Look no further than the player(s) who will confuse your remarks.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

1 hour ago, Bast.7253 said:

Case in point -

Just attacked a reaper and got them to 10% health. 

They ENTER SHROUD and crit me for 6800 damage.

That's a decent backstab for thief.

Please explain this balance.

Nuh uhhhhh its because stealf 🤓

You should have evaded but if you evade its unfair

Edited October 6, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Hypnotaiz.2845]

7 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

If you're 1v1ing and not pushing opponent into lanes, you're useless and sandbagging your team because you're slowly losing the point

What about Revenge of the Capricorn map or other maps with team fight objective should i help them on eliminating the squishy players or run around and capping when all the team main focus is toward the objective? 

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

49 minutes ago, Hypnotaiz.2845 said:

What about Revenge of the Capricorn map or other maps with team fight objective should i help them on eliminating the squishy players or run around and capping when all the team main focus is toward the objective? 

it depends, again. If your team is bunker and they are on bell, theyre not in danger of losing the fight now or due to incoming enemies, and you can afford to decap points while they fight, do that. If they need you and the bell round is important (the second and third bell are worth a big chunk of points), then help them win it. If they can win the fight if it continues as is, but your opponent has a person running to bell that can stand on the point and will make it hard to win, put yourself on them. Keep an eye on the map to see where the enemy team mostly is, and if your team needs you to help them push off bell, go there. Otherwise cap away. I usually prefer a mix of these where I will make sure that at the very least we have more points than the opponent capped before I go bell. 1 to 0 or 2 to 3 is fine, as long as their points dont tick as fast. 

Same thing applies for maps like temple. If there's a fight at tranquility, tilt the map in your favor then go tranq. If the map is already in your favor, go tranq immediately. If the team wants  to give up presence at objective to deal with the map control, you should be at the big fight to make sure they regret not paying attention. 

It also really depends in forest. If you can do a lot of damage, and your team can control 66% of the map, you can take it upon yourself to harass opponents if they try to grab beast (and rob it), rob it yourself, or keep the map on lockdown. There are situations where secondary objective is your priority, and situations where it isn't. You kind of have to make these calls on the fly. 

Edited October 6, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[WingSwipe.3084]

Fighting a good theif in PVP 1v1 might be one of the most frustrating events in this game.

[Hypnotaiz.2845]

Okay so I've played power daredevil for like 10 matches and i really like the mobility and the burst damage on low health players but for some reason even if i am capping points and running from side to side my win rate is low and i feel like with the necro i did more pressure on the other team to win the match and did like 300k+ damage and more then 20 kills , maybe because I've played with pugs idk.

Edited October 6, 2023 by Hypnotaiz.2845

[Psycoprophet.8107]

2 hours ago, Hypnotaiz.2845 said:

Okay so I've played power daredevil for like 10 matches and i really like the mobility and the burst damage on low health players but for some reason even if i am capping points and running from side to side my win rate is low and i feel like with the necro i did more pressure on the other team to win the match and did like 300k+ damage and more then 20 kills , maybe because I've played with pugs 

Playing thief in pvp is about map awareness and control. U want to decap nodes consistently, look at map often and if teams not feeding and actually doing well than u can greed and full cap, otherwise decap than use ur mobility to get to favorable +1's on the map. Thief is different beast than the other classes and u have to consider ur decaps and map control as impactful as getting in the thick of fights and getting lots of kills. If fighting and getting into the thick of team fights and is how u feel impactful u should play a different class or chance how u view being impactful. That be my guess as reason u feel less impactful on thief vs necro as being a decapper and +1 is a acquired taste lol.

[Eddie.9143]

Just play power specter on meth until you're legendary