Feeling demotivated to play thief

[TheHeat.8973]

I think I'm kind of looking for some encouragement and advice here.I've been slowly playing the game for a bit now and I'm still on my first character have managed to get to lvl 80 and gotten exotic gear (just to let you know about where in progression I am), I've finished about 33% of map and have been looking more into other aspects of the game lately. And honestly I think I'm not happy... I know picking thief was my choice and theoretically i could just change it, but at the moment I feel way too invested, I've grown to like the character I'm playing and I have a suspicion I wont like to grind all the stuff with new character especially when I feel like I still have enough things to do with my thief.

Basically at the beginning I knew I didn't understand anything i did so I kind of just let it slide and wrote it down to my noobishness. But even now all i do is press 3 with my p/p. Like everywhere. I dont feel like i need anything else. I feel like in PvE my pistols outperform any other weapon combo just by pressing 3. Sure d/d has some burst but as far as I've tried p/p still outdamages that as long as I dont run out of initiative and in boss fights they are much more safer and have better sustain. I pretty much never use any other skills apart form breaking some bars for bosses sometimes.

I tried dabbling in to the PvP side thinking I'd find more use for other weapon combos and honestly I find the gameplay more or less the same, I just die more. I've tried some burst d/d builds and s/d evades. but they seem so unreliable depending on the enemy professions. With p/p I'm consistently top damage / kills or at least doing my part for the team. which rarely happens when I go for melee weapons since there are few classes that can be burst down and other classes seem to have more sustain than me.

So my last hope and question is daredevil. Does it save thief form boredom and you actually feel like you need more than 1 skill. Are other classes the same where you just find that one skill that outperforms others and just spam it all the time? I so wish I could just use shadowshot and blinding powders and all kinds of combbos but why should i bother if the combos are not really repeatable in quick succession and take more time to kill the mob than jsut pressing 3? I'm just sad. Should I just forget the thief and go for other classes? Or should I just git gud and then I'll see that the other weaponskills are not useless? Do I need daredevil to not feel behind any other class as a thief?

[AllNightPlayer.1286]

What the fuck?!Why are there so many off topic threads in here? Are people to silly to read?

edit:Nah, never mind. Seems like the work of bots to me.

[Gandrogh.1530]

what stuff do you use in pve ? Btw ranged options are safer but as a thief you'll do more damage with double daggers. Off hand pistol is good in open world (blind aoe make you invicible and instant interrupt) and in pvp too. Doing damage is not hard, but staying alive is the difference between good and bad thief

[Eros.6801]

To tell you the truth, i don't PvP so i will leave it to someone else.But yeah most thieves in open world abusing P/P #3 including me, and D/P or D/D in group contents. Daredevil probably the salvation of your boredom because has very useful skill set, you will need to combine timing dodge, initiatives managing to bring out most dps it's really fun. P/P biggest downfall is it's single target so in time when you experience harder contents P/P won't be that good anymore it only good at 1v1 champ and fast in cleaning a few trash mobs at a time.

My guess you feeling that way because part of thief mechanics that doesn't use cooldown like others so it like you repeatedly spamming one skill over and over will lead you to extreme boredom sometime. I suggest you try out other classes as well because cooldown mechanic will force you not to stay and abused only 1 skill.

Assuming you have both expansions.

• Warrior/Spellbreaker very tough and straight forward you need to constantly weapon swap during the fight.
• Revenant/Herald/Renegade this class take lots of efforts to play well and be competed with other, it a mix between warrior and thief class but still have cooldown mechanic.
• Mesmer/Chrono/Mirage this is my favorite class in term of fun, i will say no more than this because you should try out yourself.

And pretty much any class will do because cooldown mechanic won't let you stay on 1 set of weapon/skill for long.

[Misquesh.9504]

Aye, felt exactly the same way while playing as thief. It was even worse for me because before that I was playing as a Berserker Warrior for a long time. Used P/P on my thief as well, and yeah, just spamming 3 was the way to go.

Unlike you though, I knew why I was playing as a thief - to get Deadeye. It worked out pretty well for me, as I enjoy playing sniper classes a lot and love the way that spec plays. I still spam 3, this time on my rifle, but at least I can spice it up with a malice-fueled blast of 1, immobilizing qualities of 2, invisibility dodges, usage of Tricks and the Kneel mode.

I liked playing as Deadeye so much that I also got enough hero points to unlock Daredevil. And after Deadeye, well, it was underwhelming at best. Not because it's a bad spec, no, it dishes out good damage and provides good survivability and amazing cleave(that Deadeye doesn't have, like, AT ALL), but it just didn't feel fun to use it for me. I also suck at dodging in close combat I guess, so I'm biased.However, I think you might like it. You won't be spamming just one combo at all times, as pretty much all skills of the spec weapon - a staff, are useful, look cool, feel different and can be used in a variety of ways. Daredevil also provides some rather fun looking and effective(both in terms of CC and damage) Physical skills. It also changes up your dodging mechanics, so you get even more new stuff to experience and have fun with.

If you want to play as another class - I dunno, I only liked the Warrior because of the 2handers, but I recommend that :^) It's still much better than P/P thief in terms of different moves and utility that some of them provide. What you have to realize though, is that all classes follow "rotations" - you use certain combinations of your skills, so it get's somewhat stale no matter what you do and you have to change things up on your own to have fun.

[Molch.2078]

Thanks to the initiative mechanic, thief gameplay is always a bit "spammy", as in you choose the best skill in your current situation and drop all your initiative in it. And many times the best skill is the one doing the most damage.It gets interesting when you get into more difficult fights or equip a melee weapon. Your optimal rotation is still very easy, but you are sqishy and have mostly dodges to keep yourself alive. And against enemys with too much health, p/p is actually not that great, since you do barely any damage without initiative.I agree that p/p thief is pretty boring once you got over the initial "pew-pew-is-cool" factor and I enjoy Daredevil a lot, if that helps you in any way.

[Hex.2579]

i do pvp with my thief on d/pl. and it's a very creative class in pvp, at least imo. the more unpredictable you are, the more successful you can be mastering pvp maps.but in pve, sadly, thief rotation only have a few buttons. so you're just stand still and spam a button or two xdyou don't need to get daredevil to feel behind since core thief is good too. a lot of platinum players in pvp play core thief with s/d.daredevil is like icing on the cake. it opens more paths for you to choose from.

[Urud.4925]

I'd like to tell you some nice words of encouragement, but I have no sympathy for all the DeadEye with p/p. They are my first target in PvP. I'm actually happy that at least you find it a boring combo, since it's clearly too efficient for the effort required. I started with a d/p and s/p + shortbow, and now I only use staff + sb, even in PvP, though it's a quite uncommon build. Simply because it's so much funnier than p/p (although I admit that I use the rifle in WvW because there, is too OP to pass...).

[Biff.5312]

I find Daredevil spec a lot of fun, but people don't all have the same perspective. Unfortunately (or not) this is a game where until you explore it you won't really know what exactly you want to do. This may lead you to making a new toon that you'll like better. If you bought the expansions you should have extra character slots and lvl 80 boosts so you can try alternatives even if you don't want to put the time in for levelling.

[Eme.2018]

@TheHeat.8973 said:

With p/p I'm consistently top damage / kills or at least doing my part for the team. which rarely happens when I go for melee weapons since there are few classes that can be burst down and other classes seem to have more sustain than me.

P/P is weaker than S/D or D/P in sPvP you just need to get better in using them.Keep playing P/P, I believe you will be motivated enough to learn another build when a D/P thief kicks your ass.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Eme.2018 said:

@TheHeat.8973 said:

With p/p I'm consistently top damage / kills or at least doing my part for the team. which rarely happens when I go for melee weapons since there are few classes that can be burst down and other classes seem to have more sustain than me.

P/P is weaker than S/D or D/P in sPvP you just need to get better in using them.Keep playing P/P, I believe you will be motivated enough to learn another build when a D/P thief kicks your kitten.

or you start committing suicide via reflect :p

[Turkeyspit.3965]

I really enjoyed leveling my thief as D/D, but I absolutely LOVE playing as Daredevil. It's fast, agile, and depending on the build, has great sustain to keep you up if you're lazy or bad at dodging. I'm full ascended gear, but I took my Daredevil out for some map completion and I was literally one shotting mobs in the LV 15 zones.

I've been running the Lab on my Daredevil the whole festival. Shorbow while running the maze, and switch to staff for doors. Very effective.

[alchemist.6851]

i felt the same with my first character.. warrior...

I overcame the attachment and made 8 other chars of every class :) now i can play whatever i want

[Shivvies.3921]

I "main" four professions with different specs and one of them is Thief. I love the flexibility of Thieves in different situations - different specs and even utility setups play quite differently and work for different things.

That said, when I'm doing a meta or something Istan, I find myself going back to Deadeye with p/p and sb because it is the most effective in quickly dispatching group enemies while tagging the others. It is sad that we have this "very easy to do what's important in farming situations" setup that is boring, to be completely honest. But if that's not what you care about, you can find other setups that play substantially differently with Thief. Daredevil, for instance, with a staff is amazing fun and all three traits at the end of the Daredevil spec change how your combat plays out. I feel like we are the only profession with so many completely different options.

TL;DR don't pay much attention to "what is done" and do other things on your thief (unless it is meta centred group play and you are expected to pull your weight and you just can't yet with other setups). I have only been using p/p in killing of bob, Amala and Palawadan boss (whose names escapes my sleepy mind right now) for a while now.

I also agree with Alchemist here. Try other professions. Honestly, reading the trait lines or seeing what community deems as the "done thing" rarely gives one any idea how any spec plays. I particularly like playing Condi Berserker, Power Berserker, Power Warrior, Power Soulbeast, Power Daredevil, Power Deadeye, Condi Mirage as well as some Power Dragonhunter and Power Holosmith on the side.

Cheers!

[Cyninja.2954]

The main issue here is the thief mechanic and weapon skills being initiative based. This mechanic automatically makes basic pve more boring since you start spamming the most efficient attacks. This is even evident in the raid rotation.

The freedom that initiative provides does not kick in at this level of game play. This differs for spvp and wvw where the class becomes more interesting due to more factors kicking in which one needs to work around.

Daredevil and Deadeye do spice things up some what, mostly due to the addition to the play style with say a third dodge (more for Daredevil, less so for Deadeye). Definitely give both of those a try and see how you like it.

All that said, while switching or trying a different class can be a bit daunting, remember that it will take significantly less time to hit level 80 on future characters, depending on how many you have saved up you will have access to:

• Tomes of Knowledge from daily login (10 free levels per month)
• enough gold to gain some level via crafting (cooking and jewelcrafting are cheap and a free 20 levels right there)
• mounts (in case of PoF) and movement abilities (gliding in case of HoT) for faster getting around
• experience boosters (yes, we all like to collect these but maybe use some of them)
• in case you have a 1 year birthday a level 20+ scroll (another good reason to actually make all your characters as soon as possible so they start collecting time on their birthdays)
• way better understanding and knowledge of the game
• 1 or 2 level 80 boosts from purchasing HoT and/or PoF

Depending on how much of these you have, getting a new character to level 80 should not take to long. Just give it a go.

[Paradox Reaper.7249]

daredevil standard rotation is more than 1 button, so its cool, it is dodge, 2 2 2 with assasin signet then fistflurry and palm strike, then loop is dodge 2 111111, repeat

[Paradox Reaper.7249]

that sounds kinda boring but just spam ur buttons that provide the best utility for you.

[Runiir.6425]

For farming purposes/open world I use Deadeye but I don't take the stealth on dodge roll, I take the exploding death mark. p/p with exploding death mark makes farming solo with large groups a complete cakewalk. Target the small squishy mobs and just explode them, by the time you run out and have to target the bigger mobs and vets they are at half health or below. In meta events I just switch to my rifle and do the same thing. Only I end up marking things far more often (usually every 3rd or 4th skill is marking something new) and the constant explosions have me tagging mobs faster than the shortbow could ever hope for.

Just make use of what you have and shift it to what you need. Unfortunately, yes, the thief gets very spammy due to no cooldowns. I routinely swap out my p/p for d/d just to switch things up. However, I ALWAYS keep my rifle equiped, it is too useful to give up.

[GW Noob.6038]

@Runiir.6425 said:For farming purposes/open world I use Deadeye but I don't take the stealth on dodge roll, I take the exploding death mark. p/p with exploding death mark makes farming solo with large groups a complete cakewalk. Target the small squishy mobs and just explode them, by the time you run out and have to target the bigger mobs and vets they are at half health or below. In meta events I just switch to my rifle and do the same thing. Only I end up marking things far more often (usually every 3rd or 4th skill is marking something new) and the constant explosions have me tagging mobs faster than the shortbow could ever hope for.

Just make use of what you have and shift it to what you need. Unfortunately, yes, the thief gets very spammy due to no cooldowns. I routinely swap out my p/p for d/d just to switch things up. However, I ALWAYS keep my rifle equiped, it is too useful to give up.

You and I are on the same wavelength! I love my P/P/R Deadeye Thief...I mostly use her for farming and responding to open world events. Nothing better than sitting on a rooftop blasting the mobs below...I think people get a little irritated with me, though, because I destroy the mobs before they can get to them. :D

[Runiir.6425]

@GW Noob.6038 said:

You and I are on the same wavelength! I love my P/P/R Deadeye Thief...I mostly use her for farming and responding to open world events. Nothing better than sitting on a rooftop blasting the mobs below...I think people get a little irritated with me, though, because I destroy the mobs before they can get to them. :D

Oh I know I irritate people when I am perched somewhere high and exploding things rapid fire from safety while they are running back and forth trying to tag things. I mean, the whole point of being a sniper is to perch and not move much while laying down deadly and suppressing fire. It is genuinely fun and actually...relaxing! I've had people grumble in farms such as Silverwastes, my guild just laughs and asks me (in the public channel when someone grumbles) to stop being so efficient.Good times.

I'm glad someone else noticed how useful that exploding death mark is!

[GW Noob.6038]

@"Runiir.6425" said:I'm glad someone else noticed how useful that exploding death mark is!

I'm not aware of an "Exploding Death Mark" being in the game, but P/P/R - D/D/R is a to-O-fun to play!

[Runiir.6425]

@GW Noob.6038 said:

@"Runiir.6425" said:I'm glad someone else noticed how useful that exploding death mark is!

I'm not aware of an "Exploding Death Mark" being in the game, but P/P/R - D/D/R is a to-O-fun to play!

Ah, that's what I call it. On my phone right now. I think it is called Collateral Damage? It is in the 1st or 2nd build rows.

[GW Noob.6038]

@Runiir.6425 said:

@GW Noob.6038 said:

@Runiir.6425 said:I'm glad someone else noticed how useful that exploding death mark is!

I'm not aware of an "Exploding Death Mark" being in the game, but P/P/R - D/D/R is a to-O-fun to play!

Ah, that's what I call it. On my phone right now. I think it is called Collateral Damage? It is in the 1st or 2nd build rows.

Hehe, ok...kinda threw me there. :)