Are there thief raiders?

[saloja.7920]

The discussion in the thief forum seems to revolve a lot around pvp and wvw. While those game modes are nice and I do get that this is more of a selfish player killer profession, are there any thief raiders though?

 

Do thieves get to raid and see endgame content like 90+ CM fractals or would another class be more easier for that road?

[Lalainnia.3598]

Yes thieves are fine for end game content fractals and raids will more so see the condi build pulling higher numbers compared to power. They have great self sustain and can opt for even higher levels when running power and pretty much only die from 1 shots or if they have nothing to hit. They can bring a very powerful group oriented cc with basi venom and can opt to take extra cc if needed or a projectile destruction/reflects if needed with. They're also one of the best classes for skipping mechanics in fractals along with mesmers.

 

On that note tho do not go out of your way to try and compare yourself to something like a weaver which pretty much hold the number 1 dps spot in raids and fractals when supported properly and played at it's best. Outside of the weaver realm thief dps ( primarily condi in raids) is 100% competitive compared to just about every other class.

[TheSwede.9512]

Thieves are in a "Good but not great" spot in PvE currently. Their damage is good (Around 30-32k for DD and Deadeye both), but not top-of-the-line, and they lack a good deal of Support. Daredevils can still be useful with the new stolen items in Raids, but generally the pros of bringing a Daredevil/Deadeye simply doesn't outweigh the pros of bringing another DPS profession (Weavers outclass everything in raw DPS, Holosmiths absolutely wreck Defiance Bars, Dragonhunters can swap in niche utility skills for most encounters, Renegades help supply Might and Alacrity even when not specced for it, Mirages just do what Daredevils do but better and so on).

 

Condi Daredevil is still meta on Cairn however (Since he's considered to be moving when attacking, they can go 3 Venoms and supply to other Condi DPS in the group), and Power Deadeye will perform well on Deimos if the group is running the ranged strategy since its damage all comes from Rifle (Though they're still worse off than Weaver in that fight).

[Platanos.8107]

Based on gw2raidar, thieves show up in about 16% of raid comps (in every 6.25 raid encounter, you are expected to have one thief). https://www.gw2raidar.com/global_stats

 

Thief is perfectly fine for raids, but if you were to choose a class to NOT raid as, you should not choose renegade or thief solely because every other class does more dps with more utility. There's probably no other classes (besides soul beast) that gives no fields, no boons, no buffs.

 

However, like I said before, thief is find for raids, being competitive in DPS in normal raid groups (within ~20% dps of other classes besides elementalist ). Once you get to the pro raids where the mesmers will distort/block like 99% of the mechanics and makes every boss a dps golem, you'll see thieves start to fall off hard, along with almost all other dps classes that aren't hobosmith and weavers.

 

Things to note on thief's strong points:

Power thief has insane sustain and can be a great help for new raids since the druids will have one less person they have to take care of.

Power thief performs well regardless of alacrity uptime.

At least condi thief is meta on like two bosses ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Power thief has good utilities on many bosses.

* Slothasor 10 man condi cleanse (druids can run glyph of empowerment)

* Matthais becomes easy mode with support thief (100% resistance uptime = matty does 0 damage. Rain phase isn't complete cancer)

* Emergency search and rescue on Deimos and Carin

* Ele fun time on MO

* Instantly quickness and fury on KC burn phase

 

[TreK.3794]

I have only raided with thief so far and have never been told to switch to an alt. Let me remind you that although staff DD might not have the highest dps in the game, you can still be a lot more effective with it if you've mastered the class than with an alt that you're inexperienced with.

 

If you come across a decent team with a decent commander, I'm sure he or she will be more interested in how experienced you are with your class and how much you know about boss mechanics and such rather than that +3% +5% dmg your alt could do, provided you play that profession better than your thief.

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

Not the most desired class... But affective.