What do Thieves bring to groups? PvE

[Stx.4857]

I don’t play group content often, but I was wondering..

 

Thieves to me seem like they have no benefits for group pve type activities, but lots of limitations.  For example, thieves bring less group boons than other classes, almost no cleave damage, and on top of that have lower HP and less built in damage mitigation.  
 

Whatever top end damage builds there are for thief (I believe currently this is power deadeye and condition specter) they don’t deal MORE damage than other classes, and they bring almost no AoE damage while other classes do.  
 

A lot of other dps builds from other classes bring good defensive boons like protection, stability, and sometimes even aegis.  Some dps build from other classes even bring in combat res like scourge or scrapper.  Thief doesn’t do this, and the utility that thief does offer like CC can be done just as easily by other classes.  
 

So what do thieves bring to a group?  Do they have ANY benefits to counter their weaknesses?  Stealth is the big thing that I can think of that thief can bring but how often is that useful and is it even useful?  Mobility used to be an advantage of thief, but again how often is that useful and does thief actually have an advantage still in that area?

[Zacchary.6183]

Thieves exist to do weird mechanics with their in combat mobility. Most things thieves do arguably can be done better on other professions.

[kash.9213]

I play mostly WvW but my Specter tags a lot with Rot Wallow Venom alone and it that gets heavy if you stat for damage and tics. Endless Night also has a pretty good spread if the bodies are close enough together. 

Maybe other people are super stars on other classes in pve but where I'm at, no one is getting to multiple spots of allies or enemies to make plays or help recover in short succession like I'm going to. Even when I was on my Deadeye more before Specter was a thing, I was still the Fixer-Upper. Most of the movement skills and combos are roughly the same distance across core and elites and will help you manage an area like a point guard in basketball. 

If everything is going fine and you don't have to do damage control, then you can relax and think about your output sequences for your team if your groups are adhering to dps charts literally or not dynamically. 

Edited December 1, 2023 by kash.9213

[Jobber.6348]

Consume Plasma. Jkjk.

The usually fill DPS roles or BoonDPS roles, which is essential for most PvE structured content these days. Thief also being one of the few Professions with the ability to grant over a minute of Stealth to their party heavily cheese certain Dungeons and Fractals. Their Portal is also added utility. 

[Za Shaloc.3908]

Being able to provide pretty fair on-demand healing/barrier to allies through both scepter and Specter without any sort of healing power investment is very underrated. I personally believe that alac dps Specter is Thief at its max potential value in terms of group play in PvE. You output good dps and provide a lot of passive support just by performing your normal rotation, and you still have the option of further supporting in a pinch with scepter on allies if need be. It's certainly not something that is exclusively unique to Specter, but whenever I play it in groups (it's my go-to build in PvE) I always feel like I'm bringing big value.

Edited December 1, 2023 by Za Shaloc.3908

[Doggie.3184]

On 11/30/2023 at 4:25 PM, kash.9213 said:

I play mostly WvW but my Specter tags a lot with Rot Wallow Venom alone and it that gets heavy if you stat for damage and tics. Endless Night also has a pretty good spread if the bodies are close enough together. 

Maybe other people are super stars on other classes in pve but where I'm at, no one is getting to multiple spots of allies or enemies to make plays or help recover in short succession like I'm going to. Even when I was on my Deadeye more before Specter was a thing, I was still the Fixer-Upper. Most of the movement skills and combos are roughly the same distance across core and elites and will help you manage an area like a point guard in basketball. 

If everything is going fine and you don't have to do damage control, then you can relax and think about your output sequences for your team if your groups are adhering to dps charts literally or not dynamically. 

Last I tried Endless Night it felt like they nerfed it's AoE power as it wouldn't strike things in a line anymore unless I targeted someone in far distance, where I used to be able to smack closest target with it and it'd pierce behind them. Also Condi is pretty bad in zerg play so best Specter can do is play a healer everyone underestimates and doesn't want cuz whole community soaking wet for Firebrand.

[Khlori.6209]

They open door to Samarog in w4

[Khlori.6209]

And more seriously, Thief/Daredevil can have great utility with stolen skills. Pulling downed ally out of instakill, condi nuke cleanse or just more cc.

but that was yeeted out of the window with new strikes giving random f2s

Gotta love condi cleanse in KO, fight with literally 0 condis, my favorite.

#DeleteTimeInABottle

Edited December 2, 2023 by Khlori.6209

[cjttruelife.9172]

The real thief is an assassin and it's mostly long gone due to sequential nerfs, but the class is bottlenecked into 1 or 2 builds to get the most of the assassin aspect of the profession anyway, because that's all its about.  However, it's become further evident with the shadowarts changes annihilating stealth duration that Arenanet is trying to eliminate assassins' playstyle. IDK why.  the only real thing they did to improve thief was put "steal" back onto daredevil, but with the inclusion of spector and others it's STILL clear 11 years later that Arenanet has no desire to maintain a healthy mix of melee options with ranged options weapons. thiefs glassy aspect just eventually puts them right back onto shortbow cause they there's no way to ever balance the game at this point, just fix bad mechanics of weaponsets that already exist and reallocate/buff pisspoor traits.  thief was an Arah /caudecus manor/ fractal/dungeon speed run class for the most part ...it provided group stealth , it can still do fine in any content but if boon convenience is a desire theif isnt the only class overlooked.  People forget that gw2 and content completion had nothing to do with raids or strikes or any of the new stuff , for years before HoT.  Speed run Dungeons & fractals were a repetitive thing where thief excelled. learning such mechanics in PvE naturally made competitive modes for the playstyle very easy, but thiefs role even in those formats is limited to minor engagements or interaction to assist a group. Thief contributes the least in group PvE, now, but theoretically the most in PvP. 

Edited December 4, 2023 by cjttruelife.9172

[kash.9213]

On 12/2/2023 at 6:34 AM, Doggie.3184 said:

Last I tried Endless Night it felt like they nerfed it's AoE power as it wouldn't strike things in a line anymore unless I targeted someone in far distance, where I used to be able to smack closest target with it and it'd pierce behind them. Also Condi is pretty bad in zerg play so best Specter can do is play a healer everyone underestimates and doesn't want cuz whole community soaking wet for Firebrand.

I think Condi Specter holds up in zerg play if you're slotting for it. It's pretty often the only reach and the best spread, especially if you're trying to shut down or influence that Firebrand to make their core start scrambling. Even if you're mostly targeting allies, as long as you're filling up a group who knows how to shoot and bomb, RWV is going to add up and pressure if your stats allow the torment to bite hard for longer. 

I'm not really mad at Endless Night spreading around the target up close instead of piercing behind, although it wouldn't be broken or unfair doing both. 

I still use my Shadow Arts template and more healing in some places but fights feel better with D A- Trick- Specter or whatever's the basic condi raid build with a few touch ups. Strength of Shadows is a nice top off but I've kind of been stuck with Shadstep for a few matches now. 

Edited December 5, 2023 by kash.9213

[xellink.7568]

Thief has a lot of BiS roles which is quite kitten for players unless you main only thief and have lots of gems. 

This is because of the large amounts of loadouts required for each role while other classes just swap traits. 

I used to main a thief, and if I had an unlimited number of equipment slots, I'd still main thief. That said you can use AA to trade for build slots now so it's somewhat less demanding on gems. 

1. Condi Alac Spectre is the go to build for boon DPS. It's BiS for general use. It's flexibility is insane and barrier and healing is a bonus if you know how. 
2. Kiter Deadeye is pretty must the default kiter for Q1 and QtP
3. Solo Lamp Daredevil is probably the BiS for this role. Many groups run dual lamps which potentially slows the fight and increases the cc pressure. The only possible competition is reaper. 
4. Fractals Speed Run: Shortcut to Old Tom. Pretty much every class has a speed run role but this one can only be performed by thief.
5. Tower Thief is the only alternative to Chrono without sending three people into the cave. How I do this is port one person up to clear adds. Thief has a lot of survivability to solo towers but you can also portal one up, enough to speed through faster than the ground team. I find Chrono solo slower than two people cleaving adds down on towers. 
6. Samarog's Door: where S in S-class stands for Samarog. The value isn't in the door though, but the fact that it can practically carry Samarog's CC bar. 
7. Condi Spectre plays like a necro waving a chicken drumstick but aesthetics aside, it is pretty good performance and one of the top DPS builds.
8. Other Solo Roles such as trio cannons, Sabetha cannons, killing adds on Sabir. Everyone else can do it, but thieves do it exceptionally well and exceptionally fast.
9. Speedrun mechanics on Adina (YouTube this, world record was done with bladesworns). There's a lot of role compression doing boon thief as well. 
10. Heal Alac Spectre is one of the best healers, but it has a very high skill floor and high skill ceiling (see SnowCrows). Also incredibly useful for Guild Rush.
11. Gorseval Utility, being able to immobilise 3 targets on Gorse. There is only one other class that can do it and that is Druid.

Doing all the roles is fun, but you need about 6 equipment load outs and about 8 build slots, a lot of experience and having commanders who can trust you. I would always welcome a thief in a static as long as they stay long enough to commit to all the roles. 

Guild wars 2 is a casual game, and yet most players on the forums will understand half the stuff I'm saying.

Edited December 26, 2023 by xellink.7568

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

king of CC in pve, deadeye group quickness, specter group alacrity, venoms for condi pressure so CDPS and among top dps for PDPS. others have other things to bring like more stability protection etc thats easier but i enjoy healing specter with full minstrels gear, water runes, transferance and boon duration sigil on sc/p

[zeyeti.8347]

For me it's the daredevil who needs a rework in pve , the forced movement coming with the obligation to use dodges to inflict and gain bonus damage feels like a vindicator cheap version of it.

Deadeye has some niche gameplay in pve , like mentionned above , excellent kiter with great sustain and very long range , but as quickness provider it falls down behind his fellow herald , harbringer etc...

Specter need a lot of training to get big value of , the fact that you can target your allies to overload them with a barrier can be a gamechanging mechanic (saving someone from from a sniper shot on KO , soften damage up on a VG green splosions , ...)

And indeed the king of cc , fully unload pistol 4 coupled with venom elite can just wreck cc bar so hard , add to that some other cc , specter shroud 3 and 5 , magnetic bomb , ...

[Ysesper.3047]

Thief in general, really high CC with niche utility. 

Daredevil, it doesn't offer anything besides more damage than core thief. It's just extra stats.

Deadeye, the ability to do really niche mechanics which can also be done by other specs with better results. DE is no longer bis for kiting Qtp and Q1. That being said, qDE is a thing, but it's by far the worst quickness in the game. 

Spectre. Now this is where it gets good, insanely good. A good spectre will make your mediocre hfb look good. The amount of healing, boons and on call stab that you can pump is insanely valuable when in good hands. It has a huge amount of variations to even solo heal while maintaining good damage in low pressure bosses. 

[Dadnir.5038]

Thiefs are the most useful in the "old" PvE end game where you can skip adds and block incoming projectiles (Dungeon paths/fractals. There are many dungeon paths that you can just cheese if you have a thief that know it's job). Still, stolen skills and spamable CC can be an asset for a group in the "new" PvE end game content (strike/raid).