Guild Wars 2

this is something that has been bothering me for a while. when you look at all thief builds, they all pretty much require zerker stats. all weapon combinations, save for pistol/dagger, seem made for zerker gear.

and i feel like this might be due to a lack of incentive to spec into other things. support and condi builds for thieves are laughable outside a dueling situation, since P/D is single target. venoms, both as condi pressure and as support, are quite meh even after you dump 12 trait points into making them better.

so with the upcoming skill bar segment, i’m hoping they address that in an interesting way. maybe finally turn dagger/dagger into the hybrid set they seem to have originally intended, or maybe just make D/D pure damage and give condi thieves something else, maybe on shortbow, maybe with venoms and traits. personally, i just want some better AoE application, though that might have to wait until more weapons are available (still hoping for a crossbow with AoE-on-target skills). that, or make vital shot attack faster but with a shorter bleed to even the damage/condi out while making the skill feel a bit more responsive.

does anyone else think that condi thieves need a buff? at least a reason to pick them other than going P/D skirmishing? anything you’d like to see?

Condi thieves are very common in WvWvW roaming. P/D perplexity is considered as one of the most easiest, cheasiest and most powerful 1 vs 1 specs in the game (one of the main reasons for this are the perplexity runes, which still need to be toned down, so it is not just a thief specific problem). I seriously don’t think it needs any more buffing. Even without the perplexity runes, condi thieves can stack massive amount of condi pressure very fast. Most professions are unable to cleanse that. So for example if you are playing a typical ranger or engineer, your best option is just to run away if that condi stack hits you.

The problem with the thief profession is the following:
- lack of cooldowns on weapon skills
- amazing ability to reset fights and avoid damage (e.g. evades)

This had lead the developers to “balance” the thief by giving in relatively low damage multipliers. In other words, if you want your thief to hit hard, you need to go more or less closer to zerker. At the same any other profession, besides thief or mesmer, is free kill if they run a zerker spec.

Giving more damage to thief is going to skew the balance even further away, unless something is done about the ability to mitigate the damage and reset the fights. The way stealth currently works is a massive advantage to the attacker, especially in big open maps like WvWvW. You won’t lose initiative or become revealed if you miss. The one who can land the burst first has massive advantage in small scale. Trying to hit with AoE is a guess game. It works well if you can spam AoE like engineers can, but not all professions can do that.

I know my post is going to be flamed and people will tell me how thieves suck in large scale combat. For some reason almost every single zerg vs zerg fight in WvWvW has more than one thief, usually eating the flanks. Yes, I have witnessed even 5 thieves together ambushing the rear (this was an extreme case though). In Tpvp the top teams seem to be all using these three professions: guardian, warrior and thief. The other 5 professions are optional and vary per team.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Condi thieves are very common in WvWvW roaming. P/D perplexity is considered as one of the most easiest, cheasiest and most powerful 1 vs 1 specs in the game (one of the main reasons for this are the perplexity runes, which still need to be toned down, so it is not just a thief specific problem). I seriously don’t think it needs any more buffing. Even without the perplexity runes, condi thieves can stack massive amount of condi pressure very fast. Most professions are unable to cleanse that. So for example if you are playing a typical ranger or engineer, your best option is just to run away if that condi stack hits you.

The problem with the thief profession is the following:
- lack of cooldowns on weapon skills
- amazing ability to reset fights and avoid damage (e.g. evades)

This had lead the developers to “balance” the thief by giving in relatively low damage multipliers. In other words, if you want your thief to hit hard, you need to go more or less closer to zerker. At the same any other profession, besides thief or mesmer, is free kill if they run a zerker spec.

Giving more damage to thief is going to skew the balance even further away, unless something is done about the ability to mitigate the damage and reset the fights. The way stealth currently works is a massive advantage to the attacker, especially in big open maps like WvWvW. You won’t lose initiative or become revealed if you miss. The one who can land the burst first has massive advantage in small scale. Trying to hit with AoE is a guess game. It works well if you can spam AoE like engineers can, but not all professions can do that.

I know my post is going to be flamed and people will tell me how thieves suck in large scale combat. For some reason almost every single zerg vs zerg fight in WvWvW has more than one thief, usually eating the flanks. Yes, I have witnessed even 5 thieves together ambushing the rear (this was an extreme case though). In Tpvp the top teams seem to be all using these three professions: guardian, warrior and thief. The other 5 professions are optional and vary per team.

like i said, outside of skirmishing/dueling P/D, which isn’t that groundbreaking the moment you remove perplexity runes. it’s still a set that has no cleave whatsoever and works by mostly just autoattacking until revealed goes out of cooldown, then steal + CnD, charge basilisk venom, sneak attack, and back to pewpew.

and yes, “other zerkers” can be free kills to zerker thieves, but the point is, there’s no point in trying to run anything other than zerker thief. go ahead, try making a tanky thief. you’re still better off with zerker stats and cramming in a bunch of active defenses.

and this thread is about the lack of stat combo variety, i’d be thankful if you didn’t try to turn it into another “thief ini/stealth is broken” thread. we have literally two other threads on this subject on page 1. this thread is about a problem thieves have with themselves, not a problem other professions have with thieves. the problem being that unless you wanna 1v1 with P/D on WvW, you’ll be running zerkers. all other weapon sets demand zerkers, the way thief works discourages building into anything other than glass cannons and, at the same time, the only AoE we have is a clunky blast finisher on shortbow that you might as well use as a melee attack, and the sword autoattack. there’s pistol whip too, which roots the player while only securing the hit on a single target.

don’t get me wrong, i don’t think the current thief zerker options are in need of a buff, or a nerf. i think they’re fine. but there’s a serious lack of variety that’s starting to get on my nerves. the only thing we’re allowed to be are single target gankers, and you can’t even try something out of a crit damage glass cannon unless you only plan to fight people 1 on 1 and avoid any group larger than 3 people.

Deniara Devious.3948:

I know my post is going to be flamed and people will tell me how thieves suck in large scale combat. For some reason almost every single zerg vs zerg fight in WvWvW has more than one thief, usually eating the flanks. Yes, I have witnessed even 5 thieves together ambushing the rear (this was an extreme case though). In Tpvp the top teams seem to be all using these three professions: guardian, warrior and thief. The other 5 professions are optional and vary per team.

Their are so many thieves in WvW because its a easy way to win cheesy 1v1’s against most people. Thats the only reason they flood WvW and yes they are useless against a coordinated zerg with an average pub commander. I play condi gren spam engi in WvW and everytime I see a thief sneaking at us in the backline he gets easily nuked down by us in the blink of an eye. I play on kodash for almost 2 years and I have yet to see a thief successfully killing the backline.

Edit: The top teams are using Warrior, Guardian and Ele with one mesmer for utility. Some are speciallizing in condi bombing and running necros instead of eles with one or two suport water field eles in the mix. Saying that thief are important and eles are “optional” for zerg fighting will make any decent WvW guild laugh. You only run a thief in a guild setup if you want a deticated scout.