Can Thief play all content?

[Fehendil.6530]

Hi,

I just picked up Thief for the first time since release and fell in love. I love the animations, freedom to spam and mobility.

I'm just worried I'm wasting time on a class that I won't do much with outside PvP/WvW, which I don't play. People say it is bad at soloing, fractals and overall PvE. I wanted to main it and now I'm reconsidering.

Please explain to me the state of Thief. Will I be able to find a group for every type of PvE content and maybe solo some bounties? I'm used to playing Guardian which has that but I grew tired of him.

 

 

[Liewec.2896]

there are plenty of good PVE builds for thief,

P/P deadeye with the right build and gear spamming unload will make you almost unkillable in open world (thanks to hits/crits healing you)

there is also staff power or D/D condi daredevils who spam dodges while putting out good amounts of damage

and specter also has a nice mix of damage and support.

i can't personally speak for raiding because i don't do it, but for open world i can confirm thief is awesome, with many viable builds 😄

[bq pd.2148]

thief is fine for everything except larger scales WvW, where it is the only class that at the moment has no option to be somewhat ok tier.

people saying things are 'bad' just mean that currently there are other preferences for some of the content. most of fractals, raids etc. are years old and have been perfectly fine to do as thief when everyone was still a lot weaker. powercreep will just have made it easier.

the main problem for thief usually is lack of cleave on deadeye and forced movement on daredevil, if you are ready to adjust your build and don't lock yourself into 1 (elite) spec + weapon choice, then you will be fine.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

The last difficult thing I did on thief was solo champion bounties with it.  D/D condi thief.  I have done some solo dungeon runs, but I haven't tried fractals yet.  So... I would say that thief will be capable basically anywhere in PVE.

There's one caveat, though.  It can be difficult to use many builds in some raids and strikes, due to one little problem:  Thief strategies tend to force movement (daredevil) or lock you in place (deadeye).  In the harder content, this can mean that you'll inadvertently spin-flip yourself off a cliff or into an instant-death patch.  You have to be flexible with your build and your strategies, but if you are then there isn't any content that will hold you back.  

[Vidit.7108]

It's good in most PvE content and PvE Scenarios. On the damage side of things it has a lot of variety and viable builds acceptable in just about all content. The only point of concern is support roles in raids, fractals, and strike CMs where they generally underperform other classes in those roles.

[Antycypator.9874]

17 hours ago, Fehendil.6530 said:

People say it is bad at soloing

Invigorating Precision + Relic of Zakiros = healing for 10% of your crit damage.
D/D = endless evasion.
Staff = quickness, massive CC, blinds, mobility, evasion.
Shadow Arts = healing through venoms.
Deadeye = lots of boons, initiative regen.
Specter = quickness (relic of chronomancer) + alac at the same time. Good specter can facetank lots of damage.

[Strutter.2719]

A lot of the misconception is outdated information. 

Thief is perfectly viable in all content, and can even outperform in many situations.

I exclusively play thief in all game modes. I'll talk about PvE since you said you don't player wvw or pvp. Specifically harder content like strikes, raids, cm convergences, the couple of more challenging etc. For open world it really doesn't matter at all since it's the easiest content, save for a couple of harder meta events.

For daredevil there is power or condition dps. A little awkward in raids due to the forced movement but if you're careful with positioning it performs well and I am usually at the top of the dps charts.

Spectre has great condition damage and also has the option of alacrity or heal, though the last two are a not the ideal. No power option here, sadly.

Deadeye is kind of getting all the love recently. Both power and condition damage are very strong and again, fairly consistently outperform most other dps in a group. You can also do quickness dps which provides 100% quickness very easily and will give a few of your dps teammates a run for their money.

Generally speaking,  every profession is viable in all game modes so as cliché as it sounds, you should just play what you enjoy.

 

[draxynnic.3719]

On 6/21/2024 at 12:53 AM, Vidit.7108 said:

It's good in most PvE content and PvE Scenarios. On the damage side of things it has a lot of variety and viable builds acceptable in just about all content. The only point of concern is support roles in raids, fractals, and strike CMs where they generally underperform other classes in those roles.

Pretty much this. I'd even go so far as to say that its boondps is pretty good at the moment - tends to be oriented more towards high dps for a boondps rather than the extra utility some other boondps builds have, but if you have the right healer that's not a huge deal. Thief does fall down on being a healer, though: heal deadeye is not a thing, and heal spectre is technically a thing but is so awkward in practice that you'd be better off levelling an alt than trying to learn heal spectre.

[Sandzibar.5134]

Only thing its bad at is GvG / WvW zerging. Squishy and doesnt bring anything worth replacing one of the Anet lovechild classes.

all PvE, WvW roaming, sPvP - its great at.

[kash.9213]

7 hours ago, Sandzibar.5134 said:

Only thing its bad at is GvG / WvW zerging. Squishy and doesnt bring anything worth replacing one of the Anet lovechild classes.

all PvE, WvW roaming, sPvP - its great at.

It's not bad at all in both GvG and WvW if you set up a few templates for different stuff. Your team might not be very good though but then you'll probably be more equipped to duck out when things go bad unless you're not building for the map. 

[Last Crab.6054]

no. thief cant