How can you play thief? No uniqueness, every other class does things better

[Eventine.8024]

How can I play thief in PvP? (excluding p/p spamming condi build which I don't like, because I think that "spam builds" are really bad for a competitive game)Thief doesn't have anymore any particular capabilities, and evry class does things better:Takes Ranger for example, they have better stealth, better damge, more life and healing, stab (thief has literally 0 stab), more stun, more ranged pressure, etc. (and the 2 of the longbow that hits everywehre and hits also stealth people or dodging ppl, etc. nice bug) - and more than thief they have all the ranger stuff, like pets.Take necros: they have tons of damage, and ton of life, and ton of conditions, and now also a good amount of "shadowstep teleporting" and mobility.How can someone play thief?The shortbow is so nerfed is useless but the skill 5 (which got nerfed too), and sometimes 4 to interrupt.The steal skills are almost useless most of the time.The damage is good if u go glass cannon, but then u are paper thin, have zero sustain nor condi clense, and no stab or proper life or healing.The "perma evading build" is stil ok, but the healing is shit nerfed and the damage is bad, and the Revenants do a way better job at the "holding with healing" build.Can you tell me how you play thief, and why you don't play any other class that does the same things but better than thief? (I'm asking cuz I love thief and want to play it, ofc)And why arenanet keeps doing stuff like this?

Eventine

[Astyrah.4015]

@Eventine.8024 said:How can I play thief in PvP? (excluding p/p spamming condi build which I don't like, because I think that "spam builds" are really bad for a competitive game)

i don't sPvP (prefer cooperative gameplay vs competitive) at all so i can't help you there.

@Eventine.8024 said:Can you tell me how you play thief, and why you don't play any other class that does the same things but better than thief? (I'm asking cuz I love thief and want to play it, ofc)

i play thief on most content (dungeons, drms, metas, tier 1~3 fractals pve) because with the initiative system (instead of cooldowns) it's a very simple class to play, the best dps rotation for it involves mostly spamming staff2 and with that i can focus on other things such as mechanics and survival while still pushing out high damage and if i ever mess up my rotation, recovery is very very easy.

for other content such as raids, strikes and tier4 fractals i play heal firebrand or druid where applicable. since i also enjoy supporting/healing. the only thing thief can do and bring properly to groups is damage. thief cannot properly support or heal because it doesnt have the proper specs/traits for it and with the little supportive things it can do, other classes can do better, much better. which is the sad things because thief can only bring damage, and even then it's not the best at the only thing it can bring -- some classes are better at damaging.

@Eventine.8024 said:And why arenanet keeps doing stuff like this?tbh i don't know anymore but see this thread as it explains other thief user's feelings well enough: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/121796/will-we-ever-get-respect-from-anet-or-thief-just-doesnt-deserve-it

---

i still love my thief though, it's my main and my first character, i can bring it to most of the content i play and im fine with that. i don't play wvw or spvp though so im not affected by most of the nerfs they keep pushing to it.

[Dadnir.5038]

By playing smartly.

Btw, thief have better access to stealth than any other profession and a thief that build to heal have many options for decent healing output (even if it's just self sustain: between the venom trait, regen on self, heal on initiative spent, heal on crit, siphon on blinding a foe, heal on hit... etc. There is a lot of choices.)

[kash.9213]

You can handle all of that but you're in spvp, so you have to work the map and events. If you want to just kill people, treat everyone like they have a break bar where you want to use Control to keep their mitigation in check. If some of that Control is modified to damage or to help dismantle then they're going to help you down themselves. They might have a good build and know how to handle you though, that's just going to happen sometimes.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Just don't try and play thief like other classes. For example if im capping a node or decapping it on my ranger and a enemy comes i pop some boons and be like "let's goooo".Same situation on thief unless its a class u counter like Mirage or a bad warrior I be like "well I didn't get much sleep last night and this guy looks like he took his vitamins today so ima just show my self out, he deserves a little node action to" . If a teammate is fighting same enemy and I happen by i be like " well look at this weak sauce here lol let's gooooo".

[Fueki.4753]

Some people also simply like the flavour of Thief more than the other professions.

[ASP.8093]

@"Psycoprophet.8107" said:Just don't try and play thief like other classes. For example if im capping a node or decapping it on my ranger and a enemy comes i pop some boons and be like "let's goooo".Same situation on thief unless its a class u counter like Mirage or a bad warrior I be like "well I didn't get much sleep last night and this guy looks like he took his vitamins today so ima just show my self out, he deserves a little node action to" . If a teammate is fighting same enemy and I happen by i be like " well look at this weak sauce here lol let's gooooo".

I mean, honestly, that's mostly because you can't 1v1 without just losing the node anyway (due to your reliance on stealth/positioning for survival) rather than because you can't 1v1 in general.

They're gonna be standing on node for the next 20 seconds whether or not you fight them, so you might as well go turn that into a win somewhere else.

(I had the same experience being a (honestly terrible) Power Shatter mesmer back in the day — anyone I couldn't insta-delete with my first burst would steal the node out from under me since I was using ports, stealth, and distortion to stay alive.)

[Lighter.5631]

Thief in pvp is literally the most unique class as it is the only dominant ganker/roamer/decapper, while everybody else and their mom have to compete for bruiser/support or get wrecked by thief as roamer.with the only exception of rev

and thief has the longest meta up time among all classes, history has proven that.

1v1 doesnt win matches, side noding is fake, why would you be a bruiser and 1v1 waste time on a potential enemy node, keep in mind 1v1 can last a long time, when you can stealth and decap and stop enemy from gaining any point at all and waste their time for traveling between points while you +1 for easy kills and snowball.

^above is the game-winning play that only thieves can pull off for its uniqueness.if 1v1 bruising really is the key to winning as opposed to decapping and plusing and snowballing, thief wouldn't have the highest meta up time as it wouldn't be meta at all.

in an organized highly skilled 5v5, it is actually the better thief's rotation which determines the winner.

also steal is the most OP skill in the entire game.

[Sindrener.1592]

@Lighter.5631 said:Thief in pvp is literally the most unique class as it is the only dominant ganker/roamer/decapper, while everybody else and their mom have to compete for bruiser/support or get wrecked by thief as roamer.with the only exception of rev

and thief has the longest meta up time among all classes, history has proven that.

1v1 doesnt win matches, side noding is fake, why would you be a bruiser and 1v1 waste time on a potential enemy node, keep in mind 1v1 can last a long time, when you can stealth and decap and stop enemy from gaining any point at all and waste their time for traveling between points while you +1 for easy kills and snowball.

^above is the game-winning play that only thieves can pull off for its uniqueness.if 1v1 bruising really is the key to winning as opposed to decapping and plusing and snowballing, thief wouldn't have the highest meta up time as it wouldn't be meta at all.

in an organized highly skilled 5v5, it is actually the better thief's rotation which determines the winner.

also steal is the most OP skill in the entire game.

Incorrect, thief wasnt meta for almost entire HoT expac. I should know since i rerolled when i was competing. Rev as long as it existed has been meta since start

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

@bluri.2653 said:

@Lighter.5631 said:Thief in pvp is literally the most unique class as it is the only dominant ganker/roamer/decapper, while everybody else and their mom have to compete for bruiser/support or get wrecked by thief as roamer.with the only exception of rev

and thief has the longest meta up time among all classes, history has proven that.

1v1 doesnt win matches, side noding is fake, why would you be a bruiser and 1v1 waste time on a potential enemy node, keep in mind 1v1 can last a long time, when you can stealth and decap and stop enemy from gaining any point at all and waste their time for traveling between points while you +1 for easy kills and snowball.

^above is the game-winning play that only thieves can pull off for its uniqueness.if 1v1 bruising really is the key to winning as opposed to decapping and plusing and snowballing, thief wouldn't have the highest meta up time as it wouldn't be meta at all.

in an organized highly skilled 5v5, it is actually the better thief's rotation which determines the winner.

also steal is the most OP skill in the entire game.

Incorrect, thief wasnt meta for almost entire HoT expac. I should know since i rerolled when i was competing. Rev as long as it existed has been meta since start

I thought rev has just been played by the best players since the beginning?

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

@bluri.2653 said:

@Lighter.5631 said:Thief in pvp is literally the most unique class as it is the only dominant ganker/roamer/decapper, while everybody else and their mom have to compete for bruiser/support or get wrecked by thief as roamer.with the only exception of rev

and thief has the longest meta up time among all classes, history has proven that.

1v1 doesnt win matches, side noding is fake, why would you be a bruiser and 1v1 waste time on a potential enemy node, keep in mind 1v1 can last a long time, when you can stealth and decap and stop enemy from gaining any point at all and waste their time for traveling between points while you +1 for easy kills and snowball.

^above is the game-winning play that only thieves can pull off for its uniqueness.if 1v1 bruising really is the key to winning as opposed to decapping and plusing and snowballing, thief wouldn't have the highest meta up time as it wouldn't be meta at all.

in an organized highly skilled 5v5, it is actually the better thief's rotation which determines the winner.

also steal is the most OP skill in the entire game.

Incorrect, thief wasnt meta for almost entire HoT expac. I should know since i rerolled when i was competing. Rev as long as it existed has been meta since start

I thought rev has just been played by the best players since the beginning?

Herald was a lot stronger when it came out than it is now, oddly enough, and it forced warrior and thief out of the meta to the point where people AFK'ed until you rerolled.

[saerni.2584]

Thief is pretty good in pvp. But it can be held back by a team that doesn't let the thief shine (tries to perform roles thief is better at) or fails to adapt team tactics to incorporate the thief.

Also thief isn't a monolith and may not perform the same in all circumstances. Maybe your team needs a decap roamer or a +1 dps. It can be a decision you make when playing whether you need to do one or another primarily during the match.

There's no such thing as (identical) perfect rotations. It all depends on your team and what niche you can fill.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

@saerni.2584 said:Thief is pretty good in pvp. But it can be held back by a team that doesn't let the thief shine (tries to perform roles thief is better at) or fails to adapt team tactics to incorporate the thief.

Also thief isn't a monolith and may not perform the same in all circumstances. Maybe your team needs a decap roamer or a +1 dps. It can be a decision you make when playing whether you need to do one or another primarily during the match.

There's no such thing as (identical) perfect rotations. It all depends on your team and what niche you can fill.

A big issue with the current matchmaking is, a lot of the newer / worse players do not understand the concept of overextending, which makes playing thief a fair bit more difficult - even negligible - than before. This combined with the lack of understanding over terrain advantage points and LoS means you'll be facing a lot of 1v5 time.

You're better off with a teamfighter that can spam AoEs. Even a solo queue support is occasionally better at carrying.

[saerni.2584]

@NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

@"saerni.2584" said:Thief is pretty good in pvp. But it can be held back by a team that doesn't let the thief shine (tries to perform roles thief is better at) or fails to adapt team tactics to incorporate the thief.

Also thief isn't a monolith and may not perform the same in all circumstances. Maybe your team needs a decap roamer or a +1 dps. It can be a decision you make when playing whether you need to do one or another primarily during the match.

There's no such thing as (identical) perfect rotations. It all depends on your team and what niche you can fill.

A big issue with the current matchmaking is, a lot of the newer / worse players do not understand the concept of overextending, which makes playing thief a fair bit more difficult - even negligible - than before. This combined with the lack of understanding over terrain advantage points and LoS means you'll be facing a lot of 1v5 time.

You're better off with a teamfighter that can spam AoEs. Even a solo queue support is occasionally better at carrying.

Thief definitely comes with the biggest "I can feel this is getting too dangerous and I need to bail" vibe. It's tricky but the "get in and get things done and get out" is what makes good thieves good. That and rotational awareness, which just means picking the most effective destination when traveling around the map (which a lot of other not-thieves do extremely poorly as well).

[Eventine.8024]

Thanks for all the answers, but can someone provide a build? I feel like all you say should be supported by a build that prove what you are saying, otherwise is just theoretical stuff.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

@saerni.2584 said:

@NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

@saerni.2584 said:Thief is pretty good in pvp. But it can be held back by a team that doesn't let the thief shine (tries to perform roles thief is better at) or fails to adapt team tactics to incorporate the thief.

Also thief isn't a monolith and may not perform the same in all circumstances. Maybe your team needs a decap roamer or a +1 dps. It can be a decision you make when playing whether you need to do one or another primarily during the match.

There's no such thing as (identical) perfect rotations. It all depends on your team and what niche you can fill.

A big issue with the current matchmaking is, a lot of the newer / worse players do not understand the concept of overextending, which makes playing thief a fair bit more difficult - even negligible - than before. This combined with the lack of understanding over terrain advantage points and LoS means you'll be facing a lot of 1v5 time.

You're better off with a teamfighter that can spam AoEs. Even a solo queue support is occasionally better at carrying.

Thief definitely comes with the biggest "I can feel this is getting too dangerous and I need to bail" vibe. It's tricky but the "get in and get things done and get out" is what makes good thieves good. That and rotational awareness, which just means picking the most effective destination when traveling around the map (which a lot of other not-thieves do extremely poorly as well).

Ideally you'd be leaving fights sometime before the enemy is timed to spare time, but what often tends to happen, nowadays and in this meta, is an ally being - for the lack of a better word - incapable of finishing a downed opponent before bad things start to happen.

On the opposite side of spectrum, this is why thieves are nearly always so potent in tourneys. When you can trust a teammate, duos included, thief is very dangerous in both roaming and ganking. In a soloq setting, though? Feels potentially the worst it's been in a while. At least for me.

[saerni.2584]

@NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

@saerni.2584 said:

@NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

@saerni.2584 said:Thief is pretty good in pvp. But it can be held back by a team that doesn't let the thief shine (tries to perform roles thief is better at) or fails to adapt team tactics to incorporate the thief.

Also thief isn't a monolith and may not perform the same in all circumstances. Maybe your team needs a decap roamer or a +1 dps. It can be a decision you make when playing whether you need to do one or another primarily during the match.

There's no such thing as (identical) perfect rotations. It all depends on your team and what niche you can fill.

A big issue with the current matchmaking is, a lot of the newer / worse players do not understand the concept of overextending, which makes playing thief a fair bit more difficult - even negligible - than before. This combined with the lack of understanding over terrain advantage points and LoS means you'll be facing a lot of 1v5 time.

You're better off with a teamfighter that can spam AoEs. Even a solo queue support is occasionally better at carrying.

Thief definitely comes with the biggest "I can feel this is getting too dangerous and I need to bail" vibe. It's tricky but the "get in and get things done and get out" is what makes good thieves good. That and rotational awareness, which just means picking the most effective destination when traveling around the map (which a lot of other not-thieves do extremely poorly as well).

Ideally you'd be leaving fights sometime before the enemy is timed to spare time, but what often tends to happen, nowadays and in this meta, is an ally being - for the lack of a better word - incapable of finishing a downed opponent before bad things start to happen.

On the opposite side of spectrum, this is why thieves are nearly always so potent in tourneys. When you can trust a teammate, duos included, thief is very dangerous in both roaming and ganking. In a soloq setting, though? Feels potentially the worst it's been in a while. At least for me.

I ran into @"shadowpass.4236" in unranked the other day on my alt account. He was playing a core guardian and doing decently at kiting and dealing damage. But his team couldn't handle anything. In that sense I could do fine either backing up my team or attacking him to keep him off my team. Overall my team had better effective skill/composition so I didn't have to pick.

So I don't know if it's thief or just the general quality of players recently. He could have just been unlucky. Or maybe the matchmaker doesn't know my alt account well enough yet and my team was unavoidably stacked.

Or it could be because it's unranked. In another game, I had a player on the opposing team complain that my team was "trying to win" and saying he was just there to test professions and builds.

End of the day, it's always a bit random the players you get (and how good of a day they're having).

[Obtena.7952]

Uniqueness is not a sign of playability

[DeceiverX.8361]

@bluri.2653 said:

@Lighter.5631 said:Thief in pvp is literally the most unique class as it is the only dominant ganker/roamer/decapper, while everybody else and their mom have to compete for bruiser/support or get wrecked by thief as roamer.with the only exception of rev

and thief has the longest meta up time among all classes, history has proven that.

1v1 doesnt win matches, side noding is fake, why would you be a bruiser and 1v1 waste time on a potential enemy node, keep in mind 1v1 can last a long time, when you can stealth and decap and stop enemy from gaining any point at all and waste their time for traveling between points while you +1 for easy kills and snowball.

^above is the game-winning play that only thieves can pull off for its uniqueness.if 1v1 bruising really is the key to winning as opposed to decapping and plusing and snowballing, thief wouldn't have the highest meta up time as it wouldn't be meta at all.

in an organized highly skilled 5v5, it is actually the better thief's rotation which determines the winner.

also steal is the most OP skill in the entire game.

Incorrect, thief wasnt meta for almost entire HoT expac. I should know since i rerolled when i was competing. Rev as long as it existed has been meta since start

For some reason this entire era has been erased from a lot of peoples' minds lately. I'm not really sure what happened - maybe it's that a lot of people weren't playing during this period - but I keep seeing posts talking about thief's domination throughout the game's history, when it's only really been dominant between a handful of patches and since the DrD rework/Feb. patch keeping damage low. The class has the same problems it always has had, but the efficacy of the class on the whole has had wide variance for years depending on the patch.

--

That said, OP is wrong on a number of bullet points, especially in regards to stealth. Thief has the best stealth, full stop, and its strength is universally fight control.If the style of the current D/P build is what people are after, it's great, but the rest of the class undoubtedly needs major overhauls because it's absolutely pigeon-holed. I moved away because my inherent desire to want to play extremely aggressively with huge damage just isn't really possible with the class right now unless opponents are just woefully unprepared.

[Lighter.5631]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@bluri.2653 said:

@Lighter.5631 said:Thief in pvp is literally the most unique class as it is the only dominant ganker/roamer/decapper, while everybody else and their mom have to compete for bruiser/support or get wrecked by thief as roamer.with the only exception of rev

and thief has the longest meta up time among all classes, history has proven that.

1v1 doesnt win matches, side noding is fake, why would you be a bruiser and 1v1 waste time on a potential enemy node, keep in mind 1v1 can last a long time, when you can stealth and decap and stop enemy from gaining any point at all and waste their time for traveling between points while you +1 for easy kills and snowball.

^above is the game-winning play that only thieves can pull off for its uniqueness.if 1v1 bruising really is the key to winning as opposed to decapping and plusing and snowballing, thief wouldn't have the highest meta up time as it wouldn't be meta at all.

in an organized highly skilled 5v5, it is actually the better thief's rotation which determines the winner.

also steal is the most OP skill in the entire game.

Incorrect, thief wasnt meta for almost entire HoT expac. I should know since i rerolled when i was competing. Rev as long as it existed has been meta since start

For some reason this entire era has been erased from a lot of peoples' minds lately. I'm not really sure what happened - maybe it's that a lot of people weren't playing during this period - but I keep seeing posts talking about thief's domination throughout the game's history, when it's only really been dominant between a handful of patches and since the DrD rework/Feb. patch keeping damage low.

--

That said, OP is wrong on a number of bullet points, especially in regards to stealth. Thief has the best stealth, full stop, and its strength is universally fight control.If the style of the current D/P build is what people are after, it's great, but the rest of the class undoubtedly needs major overhauls because it's absolutely pigeon-holed. I moved away because my inherent desire to want to play extremely aggressively with huge damage just isn't really possible with the class right now unless opponents are just woefully unprepared.

Because HoT was hot garbage, i quit shortly on release after double rev double chrono, and berserker being completely garbage, like most people did, i seriously don't know who would enjoy HoT pvp specially coming from years of vanilla gw2.that being said, thief still has the longest meta up time by miles.and that HoT was powercreeped to extreme that nobody is dieing that shouldn't even be included in pvp meta history tbh, as long as stuff die and classes aren't extremely uber overpowered like HoT release, thief will always be meta for it's mechanics.

also idk about you, but thief was never about extremely agressively huge damage since day 1, unless you want to meme, like the good old signet backstab thief i used to enjoy.

[ASP.8093]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:I moved away because my inherent desire to want to play extremely aggressively with huge damage just isn't really possible with the class right now unless opponents are just woefully unprepared.

What are you playing instead? Revenant?

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

@"Eventine.8024" said:How can I play thief in PvP? (excluding p/p spamming condi build which I don't like, because I think that "spam builds" are really bad for a competitive game)S/D, P/D deadeye hybrid, Staff DD marauders, Ghillie snipe rifle deadeye.Thief doesn't have anymore any particular capabilities, and evry class does things better:the most stealth, remove revealed, spammable skills, high burst damage, better roaming, most evades, most shadowsteps, most blindsTakes Ranger for example, they have better stealth, better damge, more life and healing, stab (thief has literally 0 stab), more stun, more ranged pressure, etc. (and the 2 of the longbow that hits everywehre and hits also stealth people or dodging ppl, etc. nice bug) - and more than thief they have all the ranger stuff, like pets.no they dont have better stealth(see above), questionable based on scenario, believable, Blinding Powder says "hi", more stun?(headshot spam, pistolwhip), believable, holding skill 2 rifle deadeye can still track stealth targets as long as you dont let go.Take necros: they have tons of damage, and ton of life, and ton of conditions, and now also a good amount of "shadowstep teleporting" and mobility.MehHow can someone play thief?How can you not?The shortbow is so nerfed is useless but the skill 5 (which got nerfed too), and sometimes 4 to interrupt.Cluster bomb is very high scatter damageThe steal skills are almost useless most of the time.BelievableThe damage is good if u go glass cannon, but then u are paper thin, have zero sustain nor condi clense, and no stab or proper life or healing.You arent a tank, you are an assassin meant for gankingThe "perma evading build" is stil ok, but the healing is kitten nerfed and the damage is bad, and the Revenants do a way better job at the "holding with healing" build.see aboveCan you tell me how you play thief, and why you don't play any other class that does the same things but better than thief? (I'm asking cuz I love thief and want to play it, ofc)i play all builds because i love the classAnd why arenanet keeps doing stuff like this?because people say thief is op and its not, they are just stupid and ask for nerfs without any collateral

Eventine

[DeceiverX.8361]

@ASP.8093 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:I moved away because my inherent desire to want to play extremely aggressively with huge damage just isn't really possible with the class right now unless opponents are just woefully unprepared.

What are you playing instead? Revenant?

Reaper. If built and played well it's surprisingly stronger in 1v1 than most people realize.

[kanatakamura.7502]

On 4/15/2021 at 6:49 AM, Eventine.8024 said:

How can I play thief in PvP? (excluding p/p spamming condi build which I don't like, because I think that "spam builds" are really bad for a competitive game)Thief doesn't have anymore any particular capabilities, and evry class does things better:Takes Ranger for example, they have better stealth, better damge, more life and healing, stab (thief has literally 0 stab), more stun, more ranged pressure, etc. (and the 2 of the longbow that hits everywehre and hits also stealth people or dodging ppl, etc. nice bug) - and more than thief they have all the ranger stuff, like pets.Take necros: they have tons of damage, and ton of life, and ton of conditions, and now also a good amount of "shadowstep teleporting" and mobility.How can someone play thief?The shortbow is so nerfed is useless but the skill 5 (which got nerfed too), and sometimes 4 to interrupt.The steal skills are almost useless most of the time.The damage is good if u go glass cannon, but then u are paper thin, have zero sustain nor condi clense, and no stab or proper life or healing.The "perma evading build" is stil ok, but the healing is kitten nerfed and the damage is bad, and the Revenants do a way better job at the "holding with healing" build.Can you tell me how you play thief, and why you don't play any other class that does the same things but better than thief? (I'm asking cuz I love thief and want to play it, ofc)And why arenanet keeps doing stuff like this?

Eventine

cause they hate thief, even now the new elite spec is just a way to make thief play like necro 🙂 but thief and war are still the only 2 fun classes to play anyways maybe on gw3 thief will actually play like a rogue 

[Nimbus Nomad.1237]

On 4/18/2021 at 4:23 PM, Eventine.8024 said:

Thanks for all the answers, but can someone provide a build? I feel like all you say should be supported by a build that prove what you are saying, otherwise is just theoretical stuff.

Deadeye - teamfight/roamer/solid 1v1

Spectre - roamer/decap