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Thief fail builts and me (a tragic story in 3 acts)
Elikal
Member UncommonPosts: 7,912
ACT I - OHH LOOK IMATHIEF
You see, I play GW2 almost solely for WvW these days. As I said many times, the quest-less PVE of GW2 is simply not my thing. Like at all. I do PVE *sometimes*, but rarely.
So, when I played my first char, a Warrior to max through PVE, I felt I had seen enough of GW2 PVE. I began to play WVW and really like it. The dynamics! The thrill! The adventure!! What's not to like! So, again and again, I had this experience you guys prolly know: I was regularly raped and gangbanged by THIEVES.
You know the drill. You walk some lonely road to find the zerg, and BLAMMO, some Thief kills you. Hell, I haven often enough seen Thieves keep 4-5 people busy for hours! It's both super annoying, but of course I was fascinated by the idea! So I shook my fist into the Tyrian sky and yelled, I CAN DO THAT TOO, ha!
So I rolled a thief and began to level him!
ACT II - TREADMILL LEVELLING
Levelling again was a chore for me, mostly disliking the PVE, and WvW levelling was... slow. Not much to see in this act, I made it up mostly for the dramatic effect. I mostly stuck to a survival built here, knowing I was weak in low levels, so I stuck with Zerg groups while levelling in WvW and as I said, it was an entire defensive survival built. Nothing to show off. Until I finally reached level 80! YEY ME! Now you all wait and see how I all gank yousa!
ACT III - OR SO I THOUGHT
Now see, this is where the woe (and questions) come. I read MANY built guides, I watched dozens of Youtube videos with advises. And I went to what was said to be the classic gank built, 0-30-30-10-0, all based on prolonging sneak and doing mucho damage from stealth, with Dagger and Pistol. You know the drill: spamming black powder and heartseeker.
Only - that it DOESNT THE FRACK WORK!
God. I swear I never ever died so much. I tried. I really tried. No matter how many times I kissed the mud, I always ran back over and over. The really bad time came, when out of curiosity I tried lv 80 mobs with that built. HELL DID I SUCK. As in the history of Tyria! As in the frigging history of sucking!! It wasn't pretty. Until some guildmate told me, hey you know why they rule in 1 VS 1? They have the expensive uber gear, and you casual gamer DON'T. Ha ha.
What a farce. What a letdown. Yeah, I hear you say, serves you right trying to be a ganker! But seriously. It's in the game. So even being victim, I never complained. It's part of the package. It's war. *shrug* But... damnation! I am so pissed at my sheer inability! How can they DO this?
So I come back, sobbing myself into sleep, wondering what to do? Any advise *besides* "go and farm uber gear", because... I dont do dungeon grinds. Sorry. But, repetitive grinding the same OVER AND OVER is not my thing.
Advise pls.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
Buy Diamonds for around 5-10$, convert them to gold and buy your exotic gear of choice on Trading post?
It worked for my warrior.
If you have done alot of wvw and have saved your badges then buy the wvw gear. It has the same stats as the dungeon gear.
Or do like the guy above me said buy gems convert them to gold and buy off the market.
Best advise I can give you is to learn your calss. You can not expect to be the best starting out. I gurantee if I gave you an acount with a lvl 80 thief MAXED out with th ebst gear and the perfect build you would not go out and 1v5 anyone. It takes time to get there. You need to learn the mechanics of the class, learn when to use a certain skill and why. Learn to anticipate your opponents moves, or se the bigger picture as to what is oing on around you so you can decide what skill to use next. There is no rule press 1,2,3 then use x skill and press 1,2,3. Wvw is all about knowing your class and its advantages and disadvantages and knowing the same about your enemies.
I play a mesmer and do alot of solo roaming and small group play. When I first got to wvw with my mesmer I was really bad. But after tinkering with my own build and figuring out how this and that works and what mechanics i like the ebst I have become a very formidable opponent. I can often take on 3-5 people once. Alot of the time I can even rush into a zerg and pop off a few skill drop some people and pop out, heal up then jump back in finish off a guy or 2 and jump out. Ive been invited to enemy groups a number of time to either be given credit for being a veyr good mesmer or invited and talked bad about because they where mad I wrecked them.
But I did not get to be a great mesmer by quickly getting to 80 and expecting to be awesome right away. Take your time learnt he class, ask other thief for advice. Trust me if you really want to be great and you enjoy the class mechanics then you will be good one day!
Stick with it! GL and HF
So what gear do you have?
You running in blues?
Use the karma you gained while leveling and buy some PVT armor in Orr.
Otherwise you can look for rabid.
0/30/30/10/0 D/P won't kill good players as they will just run away.
You will need to go D/D & Shortbow on the swap.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
I think the point above hits the nail on the head ...when I first start WvW I saw a lot of thieves and thought what a pain in the ass they were but as the months have gone bye I see less and less of them and to be honest a well played thief just isn't that common . I also have a level 80 thief and I find playing them to be the least enjoyable class in the game so from my stand point it's not a gear issue or even a build issue ...it's my play style doesn't mesh well with the thief in GW2
Here is how you do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKzHTFfi3mk&noredirect=1
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Re-spec your warrior to a Shouts/Stun lock build. Face roll all thief classes. You are welcome.
PM me if you want my spec.
FYI, I use it for small scale PvP, as I don't bother with WvW, but it is a tried and true Thief killer. Any class really.
Oh come on now.... you have never been impressed by someone playing another class in an MMO enough to want to try it out yourself?
OP. I do have to agree with the poster above on one thing though and that is that you can't complain about PvE content and lack of learning your character and then expect to stomp everyone in PvP. If there were a class like that then it would get nerfed and you'd still be getting your butt kicked by others who took the time to learn what they were doing. I won't rib on you too badly, but it is hard to give advice without seeing what you are up to. Then again I hear GW2's pvp is nothing but auto attacks and spastic dodging :P
RIP Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan and Paul Gray.
I play a mesmer and have just given up trying to deal with thieves. Basically, I have two strategies when confronting a thief:
1. Run away. Since thieves run faster than me this rarely works. I can try my invis skills but rarely works.
2. I get up to make some tea and let them do their thing.
Thieves just dominate in PvP. I play in WvW almost exclusively since it is not like I am fighting them all the time, but when I do come across a thief I know I don't have a chance. I've been playing my mesmer in WvW since after a month or so after launch and during that time I doubt I have ever killed a thief one on one. I like WvW and this is something I simply deal with. The developers have a bias towards the thief and I just have learned to try to avoid or work around.
It's really not hard to get the second best tier of gears (exotics) at all. You have several options without the need to grind for dungeons: 1. buy them using Karma you get from pve and WvW. 2. buy them using badges in wvw. 3. buy them with gold from TP (if you don't have enough gold, just buy $10 worth of gems and convert them to gold).
I would also suggest you to try to practice your thief in spvp a bit in prepartion for WvW. I find that spvp is good place to get a grasp of the class/build as you get more constant fighting. One last thing, warrior is in god mode right now, they eat all classes for lunch, heh.
Ok, I tried to create my built in this builder, so you can check. I have the gear as is shown, only the amulet at the neck is the same type but rare not exotic, and my "back" piece is really old, I never found that category in the AH.
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-c;4RwkZ0J5JOVd0;9;5TT9;202B47A5;9;8Q0lTNA36;2VhVlWqXv21475-F-870H;0VNX8a;9;9;9;7777777kkz
I changed the look, because I didn't like the Berzerker look. Here is a screenshot, showing my stats on the character.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Seriously? I play a mesmer and I usually beat thiefs. Just know when to stun, when to inerupt, when to go invisi, and always set chaos storm in their invisi circle, or use your off hand pull them out so they cant go invisi lol.
I kept training almost the entire day. Not 100% sure. But I can say there are basically four factors:
a) Making your build consciuosly. Many ppl just collect traits without any coherent idea what it is about. I am still learning that. One hould know one's strengths and weaknesses of the build of choice.
b) Gear. Gear is VERY important. I underestimated that. Even tho in WvW everyone is raised to lv 80, gear still makes a LOT of impact. Also, in the same way, gear should compliment the build. Either further strengthen your strengths or balance your weaknesses.
c) Also: know your enemy. Know what they can do. Playing other classes helps.
d) Reaction time. Alas, this is the factor which can only slightly be modified. You either ARE cool and quick witted, or not. I am not. I can train to improve that, but I think it is within limits.
Just a first impression. @flizzer: I played a Mesmer too in WvW. My mesmer is mostly build to make many clones and phantasms and give them the maximum of health and power, so I can irritate the enemy. But on a very good 1 vs 1 thief, there is hardly a chance, EVEN if you are well geared and experienced, as I see it. I am not sure why, though. I did relatively well with a clone-mesmer (swapping between 2h Staff and 2h Sword to always create more clones).
Running away from a Thief is a bad idea. Most soloers are skilled to make TONS of dmg from behind. I too have no real clue yet how to counter that. Whatever field of protection you create, they will wait until its gone. I guess a Necro with poisonous auras would be viable, but I haven't played Necro much. Or a really strong defense Guardian. But again, the reality is 90% of solo roamers have TOP high end gear, and are VERY experienced. With blue/green stuff you can as well jump from a cliff.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I've played a mesmer since release, and even with how overpowered thieves used to be, they have never been trouble for me, with the exception that half of them just run away, which as you very well know mesmers aren't very mobile. It really depends on how you spec I suppose, I've tried every build/gear set in the book and always end up going back to pure dps zerker gear for WvW. Kill before you get killed.
I'm not saying I win every fight against them, but the majority. Maybe I've just ran into nothing but bad players though lol.