Guild Wars 2

As the balance adjustements, improvements and bug fixes take always a really long time i would have expected a lot more. So here are my thoughts about thief. Maybe some Devs step in here by accident and find some neat ideas.
Anyway lets discuss ….

Thief – Skillbar – Deadly Arts

• Old: Adept Back Fighting
  You deal bonus damage while downed

• New: Adept Back Fighting
  You deal bonus damage for 5 seconds when you get knocked down.
  You deal bonus damage while downed.

The Idea behind it:
Your are used to feint your opponents. You take a knockdown on purpose to strike your enemies out of an unusual position.

• Old: Adept Corrosive Traps
  Traps apply vulnerability when triggered.

• New: Adept Corrosive Traps
  Traps apply vulnerability, torment and bleed when triggered.

The Idea behind it:
Now more interesting for condition based builds.

• Old: Adept Potent Poison
  Increased poison duration. +33%

• New: Adept Potent Conditions
  Increased condition duration. +15%

The Idea behind it:
Now more interesting for condition based builds.

• Old: Adept Sundering Strikes
  Critical hits have a chance to cause vulnerability.

• New: Adept Sundering Strikes
  Critical hits have a chance to cause vulnerability and bleeding.

The Idea behind it:
You are now able to play every power based weaponset as a condition based weaponset.

• Old: Master Improvisation
  Stealing recharges all skills of one type (venoms, signets, traps, tricks, or deceptions). Deal bonus damage when wielding a bundle.

• New: Master Improvisation
  Stealing recharges one equipped utility skill on cooldown. Move faster as long as you have a stolen item.

The Idea behind it:
Was not reliable. Now it is. If you steal something you have to get away fast aswell.

• Old: Master Combined Training
  Dual skills deal more damage.

• New: Master Combined Training
  Deal 5% more damage after a weapon swap. 5 seconds duration

The Idea behind it:
Promotes the smart use of weapon swapping to set up your burst. Now useful for all weaponskills.

• Old: Grandmaster Panic Strike
  Striking a foe that is below the health threshold immobilizes them.
  4 seconds duration / 30 seconds cooldown

• New: Grandmaster Panic Strike
  Striking a foe that is below the health threshold immobilizes them.
  2 seconds duration/ 15 seconds cooldown

The Idea behind it:
Duration reduced - Cooldown reduced – 50% less

• Old: Grandmaster Revealed Training
  Gain extra power when striking an enemy from stealth. +200 Power

• New: Grandmaster Revealed Training
  Gain extra power when you are visible. When you are revealed or in stealth the extra power fades. .+200 Power

The Idea behind it:
You get rewarded for not using stealth at all instead of using stealth as often as possible to trigger revealed.

Thief – Skillbar – Critical Strikes

• Old: Adept Concealed Defeat
  Create a Smoke Screen when downed.

• New: Adept Concealed Defeat
  Create a Smoke Field when downed. Radius: 130

The Idea behind it:
Makes it harder to finish you in downed state via melee cleave. Gives some protection for your allies if you die on point.

• Old: Adept Practiced Tolerance
  Gain vitality based on your precision.

• New: Adept Practiced Tolerance
  Gain vitality based on your precision. Add the precision gained from
  Signet of Agility, Rune of the Worm etc. to the conversion.[/spoiler]

The Idea behind it:
Just the way it should be.

• Old: Master Combo Critical Chance
  Dual skills have increased critical-hit chance.

• New: Master Combo Critical Chance
  You gain 10% extra critical hit chance for 5 seconds after a weapon swap.

The Idea behind it:
Rewards weapon swapping. Now useful for all weaponsets.

• Old: Grandmaster Invigorating Precision
  You are healed for a percentage of outgoing critical hit damage.

• New: Grandmaster Invigorating Precision
  You steal health from your enemy for a percentage of outgoing critical hit damage. 10%

The Idea behind it:
We are thiefs. We not just heal. We steal!

Thief – Skillbar – Shadow Arts

• Old:Adept Last Refuge
  Use Blinding Powder when your health reaches a certain threshold.

• New: Adept Last Refuge
  Use Blinding Powder and gain Protection when your health reaches a certain threshold.

The Idea behind it:
Now useful even if it triggers revealed by accident. Read on why so.

• Old: Adept Shadow’s Embrace
  Remove conditions periodically while in stealth.

• New: Adept Shadow’s Embrace
  Remove conditions periodically while you are revealed.

The Idea behind it:
Rewards getting out of stealth quick to trigger revealed and give the enemy a better way to fight back while giving the thief his reward from stealth.

• Old: Adept Infusion of Shadow
  Gain initiative when you enter stealth.

• New: Adept Infusion of Shadow
  Gain initiative when you leave stealth.

The Idea behind it:
Rewards getting out of stealth quick to trigger revealed and give the enemy a better way to fight back while giving the thief his reward from stealth.

• Old: Master Power Shots
  Short bow and harpoon gun damage is increased.

• New: Master Power Shots
  Short bow and Pistol Shot range is increased. +300 range

The Idea behind it:
A way to get longer range. Comes in very handy for WvWvW.

• Old: Master Hidden Thief
  Stealing grants you stealth.

• New: Master Hidden Thief
  Stealing grants you stealth. Stealth gets applied after all other effects of Steal.

The Idea behind it:
As it is now you are not able to trait Mug and Hidden Thief. You get revealed as soon as you steal. Fixed it.

• Old: Master Patience
  Regain initiative faster while in stealth.

• New: Master Patience
  Regain initiative faster while you are revealed.

The Idea behind it:
Rewards getting out of stealth quick to trigger revealed and give the enemy a better way to fight back while giving the thief his reward from stealth.

• Old: Grandmaster Shadow’s Rejuvenation
  Regenerate health while in stealth.

• New: Grandmaster Shadow’s Rejuvenation
  Regenerate health while you are revealed.

The Idea behind it:
Rewards getting out of stealth quick to trigger revealed and give the enemy a better way to fight back while giving the thief his reward from stealth.

• Old: Grandmaster Venomous Aura
  When you use a venom skill, you apply the effects to all nearby allies as well.

• New: Grandmaster Venomous Aura
  When you use a venom skill, you apply the effects to all nearby allies as well.
  Your Venoms grant you a single application every 15 seconds as a passive bonus as long as they are not on cooldown.

The Idea behind it:
Now useful for solo play aswell.

Thief – Skillbar – Acrobatics

• Old: Master Feline Grace
  Dodging returns some of the endurance used.

• New: Master Feline Grace
  Sucessful dodging cleanses two damaging conditions. 5 seconds cooldown:

The Idea behind it:
Get rewarded for well timed dodging.

• Old: Adept Assassin’s Retreat
  Gain swiftness when you kill a foe.

• New: Adept Assassin’s Retreat
  Gain swiftness and regeneration when you kill a foe.

The Idea behind it:
Mostly for PvE. Especially for leveling.

• Old: Adept Master Trapper
  Reduces recharge on traps.

• New: Adept Master Trapper
  Reduces recharge on traps and make them throwable at 600 range.

The Idea behind it:
Makes Traps way more interesting to use. They are rather lackluster baseline.

• Old: Master Fleet of Foot
  Dodging removes conditions from you.

• New: Master Fleet of Foot
  Sucessful dodging removes two impairing conditions from you. 5 seconds cooldown. Crippled, Chilled, Vulnerability or Weakness

The Idea behind it:
Get rewarded for well timed dodging.

• Old: Master Quick Recovery
  Gain bonus initiative over time.

• New: Master Quick Recovery
  Gain bonus initiative for every successful dodge.

The Idea behind it:
Get rewarded for well timed dodging.

• Old: Master Hard to Catch
  Shadowstep away and gain swiftness when you are disabled (stun, daze, float, knockdown, launch, knockback, sink, pulled, or fear).

• New: Master Hard to Catch
  Gain Stability and Swiftness whenever you break a stun. 3 seconds duration

The Idea behind it:
Short duration stability access so you can escape chain stuns from multiple players. Has some drawbacks. You need to get stunned first. And you need to use a utility skill stunbreak.

• Old: Grandmaster Assassin’s Equilibrium
  Gain stability when striking an enemy from stealth.

• New: Grandmaster Assassin’s Equilibrium
  Gain stability when your endurance is empty. 1.5 seconds duration

The Idea behind it:
Double dodge on purpose to gain stability to prevent hard crowd control for a damage spike etc. Make yourself vulnerable to damage if you do so.

Thief – Skillbar – Trickery

• Old: Adept Thrill of the Crime
  When you steal, you and all nearby allies gain fury, might, and swiftness for 10 seconds.

• New: Adept Thrill of the Crime
  When you steal, you and all nearby allies gain fury, might, and swiftness for 10 seconds. Only triggers if you hit a target.

The Idea behind it:
Acts like Bountiful Theft now. No successful connect to your target … no reward.

Thief – Skillbar – Healing

• Old: Signet of Malice Signet 3 1¼ 15
  Passive: Heals when you attack.
  Active: Gain health.

• New: Signet of Malice Signet 3 1¼ 15
  Passive: Steals Health when you attack.
  Active: Steal Health from Enemies around you.
  Gain bonus Health for every enemy around you.

The Idea behind it:
As stated before .. we are thiefs … we steal. Offers some interesting gameplay. You can take the risk and port into a groupfight and trigger your heal to dmg everyone around you and get rewarded with a bigger heal.

Thief – Skillbar – Weapons

Thief – Skilbar – Shortbow

• Old: Trick Shot ¼
  Bounce an arrow between multiple nearby foes.

• New: Trick Shot ¼
  Fire an arrow that makes your target vulnerable. 1 stack/10 seconds

The Idea behind it:
This weapon is just a little bit too strong with it´s auto attack. And if the enemy knows what he does he will not get hit by it for a single time if it´s a 1v1 situation. Thief should stay the master of single target spikes. Now the auto attack acts as a way to setup your burst. Also gives Mesmers a bit easier time against thiefs. The bounce hurt them a lot. If you want to do AoE damage with your shortbow you have to spend initiative for that.

Thief – Skillbar – Sword

• Old: Flanking Strike ½
  Evade and stab your foe. 3 ini

• Old: Larcenous Strike ½
  Stab your foe and steal one boon from them. 2 ini

• New: Flanking Strike ½
  Evade and stab your foe. 4 ini

• New: Larcenous Strike ½
  Stab your foe and steal two boons from them. 2 ini

The Idea behind it:
With the change of the feline grace trait I suggested the weaponset should be fine that way.

Thief – Skillbar – Pistol

• Old: Black Powder ½
  Fire a black powder shot, blinding nearby foes with the smoke cloud.

• New: Black Powder ½
  Fire straight to the ground, blinding nearby foes with a smoke cloud.

The Idea behind it:
No ranged blind on Black Powder anymore. If you want to blind on range use shadowshot from dagger/pistol or fire through the field with a projectile finisher:

One build possibility to show the new synergy between the reworked traits. I am sure you can find some more. I also tried to not break existing builds with the trait rework.

Blood Thief:

• Pistol/Pistol
• Celestial amulet
• Traits: 2/6/6/0/0
  Mug – Pistol Mastery – Leeching Venoms – Invigorating Precision – Venomous Aura
• Utilities: Signet of Malice – Venoms

Best regards!

+1 on all! Well thought out, i only think you would be making dodging too powerfull, but i am a fan of condi remove and ini regain on dodge.

Like most of them, some however are relating to lost causes such as last refuge and anything trap related. They just don’t work and cannot work with how both the class kit acts as well as how revealed mechanics work. Otherwise, I liked the read.

I’m sure for the traits you suggested to proc on reveal rather than stealth would be reworked to compensate for the much shorter duration? Especially shadow’s embrace?

Hello!
First of all, thank you for the feedback.

@Prince:
With the change to Feline Grace you will not be able to dodge as much as before.
And the traits are only triggered on a sucessful dodge. Furthermore they doesn´t remove immobilize. So if you get immobilized you need to first use Withdraw or Roll for Initiative to make use of your condition cleanse on dodge. So a smart enemy will lure out your Withdraw and immobilize you for a condition bomb right afterwards. Enemys who just randomly throw conditions on you will achieve not that much.

@NinjaEd:
Yes traps are a tricky part for the thief class. We are the mobile skirmisher. The only way i found to integrate them in our gameplay is to make them throwable and give them some stronger conditions if you trait for it. So you can deny your enemy an escape from a teamfight or secure a node in spvp while you cap it. Always open for better ideas.
And yes you are right shadows embrace and shadows rejuvenation would need some small tweaks. They should give you the ability to sustain in a fight without hiding in the shadows for too long.

Best regards!

I like most of them, but switching every stealth benefit to a revealed befenit its not such a good idea, specially when there are so many stealth players out there. But I do understand your point.
Can’t go in detail now, but these might need some tweking. Anyways, they are an good baseline, I hope devs get to see it.

BUMP.

Some of them are really bad ideas. Thieves should have very limited access to condition removal. Once they get into good independent condition removal territory, they start to become good melee burst in teamfights, which (above all) they shouldn’t be without a huge amount of risk involved. Lyssa runes on S/D thieves destroyed balance in the game. We don’t want that occurring again.

Can you explain in detail what changes you don´t like at all? One of them is the condition removal of Feline Grace a on succsesful dodge right?

How would you like it if Fleet of Foot (only removes impairing conditions) gets the new minor Master Trait and Feline Grace takes its place as a selectable Master trait.
So there is a bigger tradeoff for the thief if he wants the ability to cleanse damaging conditions.

Regarding Runes of Lyssa:

The reason why this runeset was way to strong was not only the condition cleanse.
It gave you every boon aswell. So suddenly you had a thief with protection, aegis, stability etc. that could rampage around for a rather long time on a low elite skill cooldown.

Best Regards!

I apologize shinobi. I felt I went a bit too harsh. A lot of your ideas I think are really great. I’ve personally always liked the idea to make the SA line have an incentive device to promote popping in and out of stealth instead of lingering in it. It’s just that I don’t think it would be healthy for the game if the thief was to be good in teamfights, if the thief choose to have their primary damage source melee.

Thief is conceptually impossible to balance in capture points because of initiative and until the developers realize this any kind of trait tinkering or skill reworking is just polishing the brass on the Titanic.

Everyone ought to give this thread the attention it originally deserved:

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/pvp/Thief-requires-serious-redesign/

shimmerless.4560:

Thief is conceptually impossible to balance in capture points because of initiative and until the developers realize this any kind of trait tinkering or skill reworking is just polishing the brass on the Titanic.

Everyone ought to give this thread the attention it originally deserved:

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/pvp/Thief-requires-serious-redesign/

After reading the first page, many players including a few thief players came up with the conclusion that the OP had no credibility. And I would agree with them specifically because people who have no problems with thieves should have already seen how thief isn’t as great as players make it out to be. So either he was lying about not having problems with them or it was aimless complaints for unnecessary nerfing.

yolo swaggins.2570:

shimmerless.4560:

Thief is conceptually impossible to balance in capture points because of initiative and until the developers realize this any kind of trait tinkering or skill reworking is just polishing the brass on the Titanic.

Everyone ought to give this thread the attention it originally deserved:

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/pvp/Thief-requires-serious-redesign/

After reading the first page, many players including a few thief players came up with the conclusion that the OP had no credibility. And I would agree with them specifically because people who have no problems with thieves should have already seen how thief isn’t as great as players make it out to be. So either he was lying about not having problems with them or it was aimless complaints for unnecessary nerfing.

He didn’t say he had problems with Thieves. It isn’t that difficult to read what he said and comprehend the point he was making. The fact that some random forum posters think he has no credibility is amusing considering he’s the only one on said page who’s been consistently in the sPvP leaderboards for both solo and team queue and was a staple since long before the boards were even released.

No one had any answer other than a bunch of ad homs to his argument that Thief fundamentally changes capture points in a negative way. If you hate AFK home bunkers well, there’s a reason teams have to run them: begins with T- and ends with -ieves.

Chicago Jack.5647:

I apologize shinobi. I felt I went a bit too harsh. A lot of your ideas I think are really great. I’ve personally always liked the idea to make the SA line have an incentive device to promote popping in and out of stealth instead of lingering in it. It’s just that I don’t think it would be healthy for the game if the thief was to be good in teamfights, if the thief choose to have their primary damage source melee.

Don´t worry! I play mainly pvp in this game. I heard way harsher words.

I think if you invest in a defensive line you should get some staying power in a fight. All i want to achieve is that this staying power doesn´t come from hiding. So chaining stealth or using shadow refuge doesn´t get you to full health to restart the fight in your favor. You only get benefits if you trigger revealed. Your health will go slowly up again as before but your enemy has a chance to see it and react to that. Stealth will still be powerful for positioning, getting your stealth attack or just to let your enemy lose his target.

shimmerless.4560:

Thief is conceptually impossible to balance in capture points because of initiative and until the developers realize this any kind of trait tinkering or skill reworking is just polishing the brass on the Titanic.

Everyone ought to give this thread the attention it originally deserved:

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/pvp/Thief-requires-serious-redesign/

I don´t think it´s that bad as Leeto pictures it. Thief is really strong because of its mobility and ability to escape most of the time or sneak around the map without being noticed. And if you leave your closepoint unguarded to be stronger on middlepoint fights thats not the thiefs fault. He just takes opportunity of the situation.

One of my changes to thief is that steal needs a target to trigger it´s effects from Thrill of the Crime. That will hit his mobility a little bit except he traits for swiftness on dodge.

yolo swaggins.2570:

shimmerless.4560:

Thief is conceptually impossible to balance in capture points because of initiative and until the developers realize this any kind of trait tinkering or skill reworking is just polishing the brass on the Titanic.

Everyone ought to give this thread the attention it originally deserved:

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/pvp/Thief-requires-serious-redesign/

After reading the first page, many players including a few thief players came up with the conclusion that the OP had no credibility. And I would agree with them specifically because people who have no problems with thieves should have already seen how thief isn’t as great as players make it out to be. So either he was lying about not having problems with them or it was aimless complaints for unnecessary nerfing.

Oh no Leeto is a good player. Played with and against him. And i think it´s true that he doesn´t have that much problems against thieves. And i understand his point of view. Thief is a really good decapper for undefended points. Thats his role.
There are classes that can decap and keep two players from the enemy team busy for a while.

Fundamentally, Thieves as a class are not a problem. They have their strengths and weaknesses just like every other class. However, there is too much whine going on (that is the nature of forums, I guess), and instead of people trying to figure out how to deal with certain specs they go on to the forums and try to make their job easier.

As a brief history recall:
People realized this was a conquest gamemode and they had the brilliant idea that more bunkers = more points captured. It was deemed op.
Then people realized that these bunker/teamfight comps typically were really slow in comparison to mobile comps which try and fork them through out-rotating them. They were deemed op.
Then people, on NA at least, realized that skirmishing and strong 1v1s, all based on strong understanding of the mechanical basis of the game, can be really strong if you force them. Necro + Engie comp became op. And the necessity of guardian started to wane. This playstyle is considered op.
Then Cheese Mode ran a full celestial, hybrid, zero guardian comp, which requires very good team communication beyond just who goes where, which no one knew how to properly deal with. And it’s now considered op.

Somewhere within that pile of whine is the whole thief class being op “logic.”

Does this mean that balance is perfect, absolutely not. Many top players want to have better tells to certain skills, and it’s hard to disagree with that. The change to pindown, having a better tell, was definitely healthy for the game. But the kneejerk reactions from many forum posters, no matter where their level is on the competitive scene, can get rather silly. What is happening is an evolution of the meta, and I’m glad for it. The sad thing is that the meta has been moving like molasses, and personally I think it’s due to the lack of actual players wanting to put in the effort – I blame the leaderboard system. So instead of complaining about it on the forums and trying to stagnate the game further, I encourage players to try and find out new and interesting ways to deal with the current popular team comps. Some of them may rely more on teamwork and less on trying to be a solo carry.

This being said, there is a certain spec of thief that is really strong right now and no one would deny how strong it is in competitive play. Hopefully the changes coming down the pipe will help address the issues regarding it. However the thief class, as a whole, is not as unbelievably #hashtagop as many forum-goer’s think.

Chicago Jack.5647:

This being said, there is a certain spec of thief that is really strong right now and no one would deny how strong it is in competitive play. Hopefully the changes coming down the pipe will help address the issues regarding it. However the thief class, as a whole, is not as unbelievably #hashtagop as many forum-goer’s think.

Some of those things that make thief “really” strong don’t have a thing to do with thief however. The fact that crit damage got nerfed with ferocity so to some degree, they made the wise decision and buffed zerker amulet, however all that did is make dps trait lines less important. To top it off, in that same patch all sigils had their own ICD which resulted in fire/air combo which many builds utilize to give them burst they would otherwise be lacking.

The fact that thief is highly offensive and hardly has acceptable build diversity (same traits chosen in various trait lines, not a whole lot of options) leads to these “strong” builds being overused and stale. I’ve made some semi-fun builds that both in practice and on paper looked kitten but in the end, it just goes back to the things that work with the highest pay. It’s really boring and from the looks of it I am not gana enjoy my thief much more this feature pack.

I hate seeing misleading nerf requests, and that’s about the vast majority of these forum posts. What I hate even more is when they get what they cry for.

NinjaEd.3946:

To top it off, in that same patch all sigils had their own ICD which resulted in fire/air combo which many builds utilize to give them burst they would otherwise be lacking.

You are absolutely correct here. In many respects and builds, the sigil changes were bad ideas. Any respectable engie will tell you that the balth rune changes was a terrible idea.

NinjaEd.3946:

I hate seeing misleading nerf requests, and that’s about the vast majority of these forum posts. What I hate even more is when they get what they cry for.

I also completely agree. Many complaints are pretty ill thought out and come from a personal perspective instead of a team perspective. However, there are instances where some criticism is very valid. How does one give counter-play to passive invulnerability procs and braindead heals? A warrior with beserker’s stance can train down a back-line without any threat of condi cc – that is a HUGE benefit. A thief with withdraw guarantees him a heal every 15 seconds and makes crippling movement condi cc’s virtually useless against them. Traited endure pain or Reaper’s Protection are also a big issue.

That being said though, many of the other complaints (especially over team comps, or general classes and how they function) just need to be worked out through hard work, recognizing strengths and weaknesses, finding more innovative team comps/playstyles to play and I feel not a lot of people are willing to do that.

@ Chicago Jack

They need to do more frequent updates, period. Asking “top” pvp players helps I imagine, asking for a ptr to get some widespread feedback on actual testing from a multitude of players (who all vary in playstyle) helps. But the bottom line is they spend far too long tip toeing around this elephant in the room and its kittenin a lot of players off. People don’t necessarily want to see build x nerfed or buffed and call it a day, they want something refreshing. When you see the same builds over and over there can be many reasons but the main one is the best ratio of risk and reward.

I’m sick of seeing hambow, I’d honestly wish they just send isiaih to do his thing and remove it from play until they find a suitable approach to balancing it (which would never happen (: YEAH!) Instead they shave a small % off things every 5+ months and expect it to make any difference. For such a long wait you’d think there’d be same very long reach of balance changes to everything instead they touch a few things and wait. I just don’t enjoy being stuck in slow motion when dev’s are just throwing their potential down the toilet sitting around waiting for something to fall onto their laps.

I’d still say that anet has a far better approach than many games I’ve played in the past, but man do they still have a long ways to go to make any real impression. So many of my guildies already left because it just stayed stale for too long… and still is.

Shinobi.3240:

yolo swaggins.2570:

shimmerless.4560:

Thief is conceptually impossible to balance in capture points because of initiative and until the developers realize this any kind of trait tinkering or skill reworking is just polishing the brass on the Titanic.

Everyone ought to give this thread the attention it originally deserved:

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/pvp/Thief-requires-serious-redesign/

After reading the first page, many players including a few thief players came up with the conclusion that the OP had no credibility. And I would agree with them specifically because people who have no problems with thieves should have already seen how thief isn’t as great as players make it out to be. So either he was lying about not having problems with them or it was aimless complaints for unnecessary nerfing.

Oh no Leeto is a good player. Played with and against him. And i think it´s true that he doesn´t have that much problems against thieves. And i understand his point of view. Thief is a really good decapper for undefended points. Thats his role.
There are classes that can decap and keep two players from the enemy team busy for a while.

I guess I assumed wrong. However, something Leeto seemed to not consider is that the thief’s design forces the one on it to adjust to the new type of gameplay aswell. Usually the player who is more adjusted to that type of gameplay is usually the one to outplay the other.

It explains why people who never touched the thief get wrecked by them and those who do treat thieves as a snack. It also kind of makes sense because the typical archetype of the thief is that of a scumbag that doesn’t play by the rules. Perhaps that was the template the original team wanted the thief to portray?

Okay i think we all come to the conclusion that thief is still strong and has it´s place in the meta with around 4 viable builds. What i want to do with those changes i suggested is to open up way more possibilities. I want to bring unused traits up to the level of usefulness so there is a choice.

e.g: 2 points in deadly arts:

• Back Fighting: You deal bonus damage while downed.

• Corrosive Traps: Traps apply vulnerability when triggered.

• Mug: Deal damage and gain life when stealing. This attack cannot critically hit enemies.

• Venomous Strength: Venoms grant might when activated.

• Potent Poison: Increased poison duration.

• Sundering Strikes: Critical hits have a chance to cause vulnerability.

Most of the time you will choose Mug. It´s always useful. It heals and does damage. Great and simple. It´s available to all thief specs because steal is a class mechanic.
The same should be done for the other adept traits. Make them useful for all specs or if they are situational make them a little bit stronger or tone down the other traits to be on par.

And thats not just a thief problem. I would like it if there would be a discussion like that for every class.

More diversity!

Back to topic!

Best regards!

yolo swaggins.2570:

Shinobi.3240:

yolo swaggins.2570:

shimmerless.4560:

Thief is conceptually impossible to balance in capture points because of initiative and until the developers realize this any kind of trait tinkering or skill reworking is just polishing the brass on the Titanic.

Everyone ought to give this thread the attention it originally deserved:

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/pvp/Thief-requires-serious-redesign/

After reading the first page, many players including a few thief players came up with the conclusion that the OP had no credibility. And I would agree with them specifically because people who have no problems with thieves should have already seen how thief isn’t as great as players make it out to be. So either he was lying about not having problems with them or it was aimless complaints for unnecessary nerfing.

Oh no Leeto is a good player. Played with and against him. And i think it´s true that he doesn´t have that much problems against thieves. And i understand his point of view. Thief is a really good decapper for undefended points. Thats his role.
There are classes that can decap and keep two players from the enemy team busy for a while.

I guess I assumed wrong. However, something Leeto seemed to not consider is that the thief’s design forces the one on it to adjust to the new type of gameplay aswell. Usually the player who is more adjusted to that type of gameplay is usually the one to outplay the other.

It explains why people who never touched the thief get wrecked by them and those who do treat thieves as a snack. It also kind of makes sense because the typical archetype of the thief is that of a scumbag that doesn’t play by the rules. Perhaps that was the template the original team wanted the thief to portray?

I’m not coming at you on a personal level muffin, but I still think you’re not getting what he was trying to explain. What the Thief actually does in game is completely irrelevant: you still need someone at home, you still can’t rely on positioning, etc. Ever had someone who thinks he’s being clever by stealthing at mid all game? They do it because it doesn’t matter what they actually decide to end up doing, you still need to split back in the event they went to decap. On completely broken maps like Kyhlo it’s even worse because they can port back up the tower forcing your team into a worthless split. Portal head games and Engineer stealth aren’t even remotely in the same league because — drum roll — meaningful cooldowns.

Capture points is far more dull with Thief as a class than without them. The main reason you don’t see 3-point roaming strats and more lightweight, mobile setups is because it only takes one player on a certain class from the opposing team to contest and decap far all game and ruin any illusion of positioning in team fights. Nothing you can do about it bar splitting home and bringing your own Thief, therefore one out of eight classes is ubiquitous and home bunkers since GW2 launch.

That makes sense. I’ve been preoccupied with schooling and work to really get on very much so I have not gotten much experience in PvP. I’ll back off for now.

“On completely broken maps like Kyhlo it’s even worse because they can port back up the tower forcing your team into a worthless split.”

• Should be fixed so none of the classes can use blink and ports this way.

Edit on Improvisation:

Old: Master Improvisation
Stealing recharges all skills of one type (venoms, signets, traps, tricks, or deceptions). Deal bonus damage when wielding a bundle.

New: Master Improvisation
Stealing recharges one equipped utility skill on cooldown. Move faster as long as you have a stolen item.
Stealing reduces the cooldown of already used utility skills by 10 seconds whenever it connects to a target. Move faster as long as you have a stolen item.

Best Regards

Improvisation is good as it is (the bundle damage). Don’t make the same errors as Anet by balancing over one gamemode of your choice thx.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Improvisation is good as it is (the bundle damage). Don’t make the same errors as Anet by balancing over one gamemode of your choice thx.

Saying its half good is not saying its good as it is.

RNG is not something thief ever should or should want to deal with. Their actions aren’t all that forgiving and a 1 in 5 chance that a trait will help you with an incredibly situational secondary effect just begs the question, “what is the point of this trait?”.

I’d actually be in favor if it had a flat value cooldown reduction like 10 seconds. I could work off of that without it feeling like I’m too heavily rewarded for a 0 cast time skill effect. Also changing the bundle damage to something like movement speed would be great for those who want more mobility on a build such as d/d but anything can really replace that effect. The RNG recharge needs to go.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Improvisation is good as it is (the bundle damage). Don’t make the same errors as Anet by balancing over one gamemode of your choice thx.

I am not balancing around a gamemode of my choice. I play every gamemode (Spvp the most).

Full ascended gear on my thief, rank 176 in WvWvW , rank 80 in Spvp, 5 level 80 professions, 4 level 400 crafting disciplines, Fractals up to level 40+ and i did
the world exploration and every jumping puzzle.

What i tried to do is rework traits to make all of them more interesting. But i always looked on my other professions while doing so. I don´t want to build a monster that stands at the top of the food chain.

And yes a part of improvisation was good, the bundle damage. I am absolutely okay if we keep that. So the new improvisation would look like that:

New: Master Improvisation

Stealing reduces the cooldown of already used utility skills by 10 seconds whenever it connects to a target. Move faster as long as you have a stolen item. Deal bonus damage while wielding a bundle.

The only issue I still would have is even with a flat 10 second cooldown reduction on utilities when stealing, people who spec for steal (sleight of hand) will have an incredibly strong effect with this trait. I’d say still add an ICD onto the recharge portion because it would permanently reduce the cooldown of everything by 10 seconds which is quite powerful for stealth based skills.

So perhaps something like this:

Improvisation- Reduce the cooldown of recharging utility skills on successful steal. While holding a stolen item, move faster and deal extra damage with bundles.
Recharge effect cooldown 10 seconds (30 second cooldown)
Movement speed increase 5%
Bundle damage increase 10%

NinjaEd.3946:

The only issue I still would have is even with a flat 10 second cooldown reduction on utilities when stealing, people who spec for steal (sleight of hand) will have an incredibly strong effect with this trait. I’d say still add an ICD onto the recharge portion because it would permanently reduce the cooldown of everything by 10 seconds which is quite powerful for stealth based skills.

So perhaps something like this:

Improvisation- Reduce the cooldown of recharging utility skills on successful steal. While holding a stolen item, move faster and deal extra damage with bundles.
Recharge effect cooldown 10 seconds (30 second cooldown)
Movement speed increase 5%
Bundle damage increase 10%

As far as stealth works now thats true. You get all benefits while sitting in stealth: Ini regain, health regeneration, condition clearing.

When you read through my main post i suggested to shift all of this benefits to revealed. I would even go as far to increase the revealed timer so thiefs don´t hop in and out of stealth so often and give their opponent an enemy they can fight and not only thin air. Stealth is really powerful and especially for beginners hard to counter and not a lot of fun to fight against.

Sure backstab damage etc. has to be looked at because it can´t be used that often anymore.

Even if this all sounds very drastic it would be good for the game.

Anyway i really like your idea with the internal cooldown so things don´t get out of hand. 30 seconds seems about right and would come down to a point investment of 3 into trickery.

Thank you for the nice input.

Best regards!

Shinobi.3240:

“On completely broken maps like Kyhlo it’s even worse because they can port back up the tower forcing your team into a worthless split.”

• Should be fixed so none of the classes can use blink and ports this way.

How precisely are you declaring the map as broken ? I am not sure you actually understand what the word broken actually means.

Shinobi.3240:

I am not balancing around a gamemode of my choice. I play every gamemode (Spvp the most).

So why do you reference PvP in every real world application you suggest?

Shinobi.3240:

Even if this all sounds very drastic it would be good for the game.

How so? You repeatedly make exclamations that your suggestions are good for them game, yet you avoid breaking down in specifics, just how they are supposed to be good for the game and benefit everyone. Care to break that down now for us.

1. The comment with completely broken came from shimmerless.4560. I picked it out because i think he is right on this topic. Porting through walls and without line of sight doesn´t seem right. It takes the reward from good positioning away.

2. I just checked my main post again. I didn´t reference to spvp that often. When i say enemy it relates to players and mobs. A groupfight can be player versus player or player versus mobs. Sorry if it sounded like -PvP only-. I am interested in all gamemodes. But you have to admit that the most anger rises in a player vs. player environment when something is too strong.

3. No problem i try to break my thoughts behind the whole trait rework down into a few sentences. I took most of this ideas from reading through the forum topics and tried to put them into a form that could work out.

• People want more build diversity, so i tried to make weak or very situational traits more appealing by adding something useful to them.

• People don´t like to fight invisible enemies. I want to reduce the time thiefs have to sit in stealth by shifting the benefits of stealth to revealed. So a thief wants to leave stealth quick. Just positioning and an attack and back to visible combat.

• Risk and Reward and a minimum of RNG. Thats what i tried to aim for.

Hope that made it clearer.

Best Regards

Shinobi.3240:

• People don´t like to fight invisible enemies. I want to reduce the time thiefs have to sit in stealth by shifting the benefits of stealth to revealed. So a thief wants to leave stealth quick. Just positioning and an attack and back to visible combat.

You would need to buff stealth.Why? While in stealth you are most likely not getting it so you can receive full healing while revealing you could receive unlimited damage,need to buff Shadow’s Embrace because while revealed you could receive unlimited conditions and so on……don’t forget that if you do it would be a nerf to the ground….a very very very extreme nerf that would KILL thief

So far there is only one trait I think should work while revealed ,Resilience of Shadows,making it while in stealth was a bad move.

Edit: Forget about it thief is supposed to be HARD TO HIT,all stealth traits would never be like that,maybe just Resilience and Revealed Training,never all unless you want them to buff our base toughness and vitality.

Edit: Forget about that too I feel like any increase in base of those two would result in nerf of damage….thief need improvements but those propositions aren’t the ones.

Shinobi.3240:

The comment with completely broken came from shimmerless.4560. I picked it out because i think he is right on this topic. Porting through walls and without line of sight doesn´t seem right. It takes the reward from good positioning away.

Well in my personal opinion, you certainly picked the wrong personal perspective to run with. As well, how does one professions ability to exploit an issue make a map itself, “broken”? Seems to me that it would make that particular functionality of said profession broken………….I feel you used a poor way to describe it, that creates a misrepresentation of what the actual problem is.

Sagat.3285:

You would need to buff stealth.Why? While in stealth you are most likely not getting it so you can receive full healing while revealing you could receive unlimited damage,need to buff Shadow’s Embrace because while revealed you could receive unlimited conditions and so on……don’t forget that if you do it would be a nerf to the ground….a very very very extreme nerf that would KILL thief

I think the idea was to relocate some traits to proc during revealed and be rebalanced on a much shorter duration. The idea of just sitting around and waiting isn’t very fun to fight with or against, but on some thief builds you really don’t have a choice but to recover in stealth.

Imo I think it’d be difficult to rebalance an X value (stealth has a wide range of activity) into something that lasts 3 seconds (6 with 2 utility skills) without making it extremely overpowering or extremely underwhelming and unintentionally nerfing stealth to oblivion. It could work, but it’d definitely be a tricky number game.

More realistic expectations:

Nerf random decently working skills.
Buff venoms.
Buff traps.
Introduce more bugs.

NinjaEd.3946:

Sagat.3285:

You would need to buff stealth.Why? While in stealth you are most likely not getting it so you can receive full healing while revealing you could receive unlimited damage,need to buff Shadow’s Embrace because while revealed you could receive unlimited conditions and so on……don’t forget that if you do it would be a nerf to the ground….a very very very extreme nerf that would KILL thief

I think the idea was to relocate some traits to proc during revealed and be rebalanced on a much shorter duration. The idea of just sitting around and waiting isn’t very fun to fight with or against, but on some thief builds you really don’t have a choice but to recover in stealth.

Imo I think it’d be difficult to rebalance an X value (stealth has a wide range of activity) into something that lasts 3 seconds (6 with 2 utility skills) without making it extremely overpowering or extremely underwhelming and unintentionally nerfing stealth to oblivion. It could work, but it’d definitely be a tricky number game.

I see the top but the road is full of broken glass, a better (not the best) option(not solution) would be in and out proc: Shadow’s Embrace- remove 1 condition when you enter and exist stealth ,and so on…it would need initiative or stealth attacks tweaking you don’t want the thief blowing initiative too fast to benefit(similary to necro’s DS traits….)

Stealth is abused way too much in SA builds, I do agree that thieves should not get rewarded for sitting in stealth and yes for keeping on the offensive (Revealed). Not all traits need to be changed to work on Revealed, but the benefit for sitting in stealth does needs to be cut down a lot (I’d say the same applies for PU mesmers). Stealth by itself is a really strong defense as you make your enemies lose target and “lose” you, adding endless rewards on top of that is what makes Thief a class that is not cool to play against and is also what holds Thieves back because of how much our survival relies on it (especially SA builds).

Sagat.3285:

NinjaEd.3946:

Sagat.3285:

You would need to buff stealth.Why? While in stealth you are most likely not getting it so you can receive full healing while revealing you could receive unlimited damage,need to buff Shadow’s Embrace because while revealed you could receive unlimited conditions and so on……don’t forget that if you do it would be a nerf to the ground….a very very very extreme nerf that would KILL thief

I think the idea was to relocate some traits to proc during revealed and be rebalanced on a much shorter duration. The idea of just sitting around and waiting isn’t very fun to fight with or against, but on some thief builds you really don’t have a choice but to recover in stealth.

Imo I think it’d be difficult to rebalance an X value (stealth has a wide range of activity) into something that lasts 3 seconds (6 with 2 utility skills) without making it extremely overpowering or extremely underwhelming and unintentionally nerfing stealth to oblivion. It could work, but it’d definitely be a tricky number game.

I see the top but the road is full of broken glass, a better (not the best) option(not solution) would be in and out proc: Shadow’s Embrace- remove 1 condition when you enter and exist stealth ,and so on…it would need initiative or stealth attacks tweaking you don’t want the thief blowing initiative too fast to benefit(similary to necro’s DS traits….)

I suggested something like that actually, dunno if it was this post. It was along those lines though where it functioned in both fields so it wouldn’t lose its intended result. For example

Shadow’s Embrace- remove 1 condition when you enter stealth, and 1 condtion every 3 seconds you are revealed. 1 condition removed at the start of revealed, so essentially guartuneed 3 conditions removed on a normal reveal

Shadow’s rejuvenation- increased healing per second and healing scaling, only lasts 5 seconds max. end result, the healing would be nerfed in the long run however those who use stealth for a few seconds will see a buff since the healing is condensed. This eliminates the need to sit around without nerfing the intended effect. In turn, this does nerf the playstyle where thieves could sit around and wait for cooldowns with traits such as this being active.

Hidden thief- Stealing grants you stealth and removes revealed. (revealed removal effect ICD 35 seconds). still grants stealth if the ICD is active.

Hidden assassin- Grant 2 might every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. This effect will end after 6 seconds of stealth. again, a condensed effect without removing the intended result. Max 6 stacks of might

Fleet shadow- Move faster while revealed. 50% increased movement speed. talk about a nasty surprise

Patience- Gain faster endurance regeneration while in stealth. 50% endurance regeneration. changed to remove any chance of high stealth uptime.

Result: Less need to sit in stealth for long time. Use would be for reposition or to break target to recover cooldowns, but not to heavily recover over 9+ seconds and wait on cooldowns essentially resetting the fight for both players for wasting so much time.

Still would need heavy testing and I don’t trust the game enough to fully support. Thief’s defenses and initiative system lead the thief to have a rest period to survive,stealth can last indefinitely but the benefits should have a limit NO ICD to traits.

If you build SA you should feel the difference in stealth compared to normal stealth,same for Acro…

Arenanet look at this again please. Theif is borderline extinct in Spvp!

Prince.7198:

Arenanet look at this again please. Theif is borderline extinct in Spvp!

I disagree, but the population certainly has gone down since they’ve been essentially skyrocketing the skill floor on our builds so that little mistakes have a more heavy punishment so new players are less inclined to bother with playing a thief.

Even so, the bigger issue is they nerf 1 build and don’t open up a new one. I don’t care if 2/0/0/6/6 fire/air s/d gets toned down although the skills in s/d were not at fault. But why are we getting mediocre attention towards other builds, where is the diversity?

NinjaEd.3946:

Prince.7198:

Arenanet look at this again please. Theif is borderline extinct in Spvp!

I disagree, but the population certainly has gone down since they’ve been essentially skyrocketing the skill floor on our builds so that little mistakes have a more heavy punishment so new players are less inclined to bother with playing a thief.

Even so, the bigger issue is they nerf 1 build and don’t open up a new one. I don’t care if 2/0/0/6/6 fire/air s/d gets toned down although the skills in s/d were not at fault. But why are we getting mediocre attention towards other builds, where is the diversity?

Don’t be ridiculous. They’ve been buffing venomshare.

Rusc.4978:

NinjaEd.3946:

Prince.7198:

Arenanet look at this again please. Theif is borderline extinct in Spvp!

I disagree, but the population certainly has gone down since they’ve been essentially skyrocketing the skill floor on our builds so that little mistakes have a more heavy punishment so new players are less inclined to bother with playing a thief.

Even so, the bigger issue is they nerf 1 build and don’t open up a new one. I don’t care if 2/0/0/6/6 fire/air s/d gets toned down although the skills in s/d were not at fault. But why are we getting mediocre attention towards other builds, where is the diversity?

Don’t be ridiculous. They’ve been buffing venomshare.

Sneaky sneaky O.o

I did say mediocre attention, can’t sue me. Same goes for p/p :/

The sky isn’t falling for Thieves. Still playable but harder to play well.
And S/d is pretty much dead now. The weaponset didn’t need a change. The minor acrobatics trait feline grace needed some adjustment.

Some additions to the main post:
Please add a type to every thief utility.

Hide in Shadows – Deception
Withdraw – Trick

Daggerstorm – Trick
Thiefs Guild – Trap

Best regards!
Shinobi