Guild Wars 2

Long post incoming

Seriously feels like a day doesn’t go by unless 2-3 complaints threads are made or necro’d.
It’s always been like this since day 1, but lately it feels like it has gotten worse.
And for almost 2 years now you hear almost everything complained about.
-Stealth, all the benefits it gives you
-initiative,
-chill
-shadow steps
- BS, HS, C&D, PW, PDSD, kitten unload of all things
-evades
-traits, sigils, runes( krait rune takes the cake)

I got to ask, do people making threads just throw dart at a board, or is there a grand list on what to make next the thread on?

Yes , initiative lets a thief spam his skills. Not only was it design to give versatility in combat by using what ever skills they want at any point, but to allow a thief spend all this resource to burst his target. Which usually requires the most efficient skill to do damage with. If you allow yourself to get to low health in front of a thief, your kitten right he should HS his initiative away.
The drawbacks for initiative being low skill usage overall compared to other class, shared initiative pool between weapon sets, the need to sacrifice the little utility thieves have in their weapon sets over damage (want to headshot? might need to forget about using black powder into HS for a bs).
But of course no other class sees this, the resource management every thieves needs to be mindful of, and knows how much it sucks when you miss a c&d or other high cost skill. If I spam HS and don’t end up killing you, well that was bad play of me, and I might die now.
For those that play thief, love or hate stealth or other “toxic” abilities, doesn’t the resource management and freedom of skill usage offer so much depth to the class?
Don’t know about anyone else, but it’s still the reason why I call it a main.

Thieves have shadow step, evades and stealth, because where are their stabilities, protection and health? A thief that doesn’t use these is as good as dead, just as much as any other profession that doesn’t use their defensive abilities.
And you know what?
They are amazing, not only can I use them all of them for defence, but use them offensively as well, and boy are they offensive.
Gain buffs, remove conditions, attack, heal. Imagine a guardian healing while gaining boons, or warrior removing conditions while attacking, if only right? ( inb4 people feel the need to tell me the difference :p)
Sure, you can’t target a thief in stealth, but you can still hit him, people do it all the time, some thieves can actually c&d off a cloaked target. Crazy.
If a thief really wanted to, will he get away 100% of the time? I would like to say maybe 80%ish of the time. Does it require to be lucky/ better then him/built a certain way. Yes, but to kill any other profession, wouldn’t you need to expect the same?

After what? 6-7 months after the last balance update and countless threads, the only thing they nerf the thief on was PW in Spvp, shortbow #3, and some poison.
Nothing on stealth, BS, chill or any complaint during that time, BS and HS hasn’t been touch really since launch, and few nerfs to easy perma stealthing and evades, but they are still there. BS can still hit like a truck in the right situations, they can walk into an enemy Zerg and walk right out if they know what they are doing, and turn any 1v1 into a 2 v dead pretty fast. And the complaint are still going. At this point one would think this is ok with anet
In fact, there was an anet stream awhile back where one of the devs (izzy) looked at an enemy thief trolling a group of players, and he said to them " leave him alone….. Your not going to kill him" :O that was beautiful!!
My biggest wish for this game is not Cantha,(that’s saying a lot) new weapons, or the removal of ascended gear. But for Karl to come out and say " Yeah, this is how we made the thief…deal with it" because you know it’s what they are thinking.

Summary/ TL:DR

For all that it worth, thieves will spam, stealth, hit like a truck, run away, come back for round 10, and you might not be able to do anything about. And if that wasn’t the devs vision for the thief they would have changed it a long time ago.

This thread has one of 3 outcomes, locked, forgotten in the pages of old, or a flame fest of epic proportions ( kinda just hoping for one of the first 2). I’m just venting atm with all the dumb kitten I see.
Who am I you ask? Just some random wannabe.
What I ask is really simple, and it something I hope people take to heart next complaint thread that they want to make, not only for the thief but with any class really.

Deal with it!

amen bro . . . less QQ more learning and less trolling.

While I do think there are some issues with thieves, they do attract a lot of unnessesary hate.

Its to be expected though.. because they (along with mesmers) are essentially designed to be the most annoying and slippery class, as well as being designed to be excellent at duelling. Duelling classes / builds will always recieve over-the-top complaints because when people lose a duel they can only blame 2 things; themselves or their opponent. So, naturally, most people blame their opponents OP build / class rather than admitting to themselves that they either built an inadequite build or played worse than their opponent.

Cufufalating.8479:

While I do think there are some issues with thieves, they do attract a lot of unnessesary hate.

Its to be expected though.. because they (along with mesmers) are essentially designed to be the most annoying and slippery class, as well as being designed to be excellent at duelling. Duelling classes / builds will always recieve over-the-top complaints because when people lose a duel they can only blame 2 things; themselves or their opponent. So, naturally, most people blame their opponents OP build / class rather than admitting to themselves that they either built an inadequite build or played worse than their opponent.

Really man thanks for people like you that are really objective even with a profession that is really hard to play against a thief.

You said the main important thing, mesmer, thief and IMO engis are the most anoying classes due to their mechanics, but far from being OP.

- “If you nerf stealth, we will be left with no defence!!11!!”
- “Why don’t you fix Warriors first or PU Mesmers first!”
- “L2P”
- “Stealth is working as intended… L2P”
- “Stealth trap”
- “Stack toughness” <—— HAHAHHAHHAHA
Pick one, or all of them.

OT: this thread is so ironic. There are better places to commence circlejerks:

1. Reddit
2. Thief forum

BobbyT.7192:

For those that play thief, love or hate stealth or other “toxic” abilities, doesn’t the resource management and freedom of skill usage offer so much depth to the class?
Don’t know about anyone else, but it’s still the reason why I call it a main

I’d like to think the resource system brings versatility, but instead it seems to just promote using the same 2 abilities, maybe 3, over and over. The system even seems to promote using the same weapons in 2 weapon sets so you can benefit from on-swap Sigils while still having the abilities you want available available.

The most versatility I’ve seen recently is using CnD off of anything but another player (pets, clones, turrets, you name it) to freely enter stealth without worry.

Do you remember the last time you saw a Thief using Death Blossom or Dancing Dagger? Neither do I. Is that depth? Using 3 weapon skills? If it is to you, then that’s fine, but I personally don’t see it.

Warriors may have felt overpowered with passive healing, but they can be really engaging/fun to fight. Guardians can chain blocks/invuln for several seconds, but often they are also an engaging/fun fight. Most Ele fights are also really enjoyably engaging (besides maybe the air bursts, which are simply annoying). A good Ranger is an intense, fun fight.

Maybe people complain about Thieves because they don’t enjoy fighting them. Maybe most of the issues people complain about aren’t necessarily the actual issues. Maybe the actual issue is that they designed a class that is inherently frustrating to play against, and maybe that’s a really poor decision from a game design perspective.

That’s my take on it. For me, it isn’t that I love to hate Thieves. It’s that I hate that I don’t love Thieves, because I come close to loving every other class in the game.

Cogbyrn.7283:

BobbyT.7192:

For those that play thief, love or hate stealth or other “toxic” abilities, doesn’t the resource management and freedom of skill usage offer so much depth to the class?
Don’t know about anyone else, but it’s still the reason why I call it a main

I’d like to think the resource system brings versatility, but instead it seems to just promote using the same 2 abilities, maybe 3, over and over. The system even seems to promote using the same weapons in 2 weapon sets so you can benefit from on-swap Sigils while still having the abilities you want available available.

The most versatility I’ve seen recently is using CnD off of anything but another player (pets, clones, turrets, you name it) to freely enter stealth without worry.

Do you remember the last time you saw a Thief using Death Blossom or Dancing Dagger? Neither do I. Is that depth? Using 3 weapon skills? If it is to you, then that’s fine, but I personally don’t see it.

Warriors may have felt overpowered with passive healing, but they can be really engaging/fun to fight. Guardians can chain blocks/invuln for several seconds, but often they are also an engaging/fun fight. Most Ele fights are also really enjoyably engaging (besides maybe the air bursts, which are simply annoying). A good Ranger is an intense, fun fight.

Maybe people complain about Thieves because they don’t enjoy fighting them. Maybe most of the issues people complain about aren’t necessarily the actual issues. Maybe the actual issue is that they designed a class that is inherently frustrating to play against, and maybe that’s a really poor decision from a game design perspective.

That’s my take on it. For me, it isn’t that I love to hate Thieves. It’s that I hate that I don’t love Thieves, because I come close to loving every other class in the game.

I did say thieves will use the most efficient skill to do the job needed/do the most damage, and you only have so much initiative skill to spend at a given. (somewhere up there, bit of a long post, forgotten half of it already.)

Death Blossom and Dancing Dagger are just not efficient skills, both don’t do enough enough damage overall (single target or aoe) to warrant using over other damage skills. Cripple on DD is nice but thieves have multiple efficient ways to create and close distances already, the evade on DB is really clunky because it’s too short and and hard to time properly. Direct damage is really poor and it’s hard to cover the bleed stack it offers.
The old unicorn d/d built was fun, wasn’t really effective

Pistol/pistol is a clunky set altogether, and really emphasizes how a thief needs to choose between damage and utility.
-5 stacks of vulnerability with 1 sec immobilize,
-1/4 daze for interrupt on demand,
- and a pb aoe blind field

All sounds like amazing set of utilities right? Until you realize your spending all your initiative on unload. Couple with poor sustain damage from the auto attack (meant for condi which is not what p/p is) and poor surviveablity. The set become a one trick pony, and without a doubt, the worst set the thief has. (Yet I’ve still seen QQ threads about, because hey it’s thieves)

Now look at the other set, D/P despite all the hate for it, is a great set, good utility with gab closers, defense and control from blind, daze and stealth, you can either BS or HS for damage, the auto is good single target sustain as well. people might just see 5, 2, 1 all the time . but when 3 and 4 gets used for their intented situations is not a waste.

Reverse that now with P/D, other than Dancing Dagger, you got that vulnerability with immobilize, hard hitting gap creater with torment (not spammable btw), C&D , and if built for condi, auto provide decent sustain. Overall 3-4 out of 5 get used.

You might find warriors and other classes fun to fight against, but isn’t that just personal opinion? Some might not like fighting those classes for what ever reason and instead enjoy fighting thieves, I’m not going to argue they are difficult to deal with (because they are), but some people do enjoy that. For better or for worst, until it gets changed, might as well accept it as intended.

I say keep trying to love thieves, make a thief/replay the one you have for awhile, you might start to like them

Or hate their guts even more, at that point, there is no helping you ;P

- “If you nerf stealth, we will be left with no defence!!11!!”
- “Why don’t you fix Warriors first or PU Mesmers first!”
- “L2P”
- “Stealth is working as intended… L2P”
- “Stealth trap”
- “Stack toughness” <—— HAHAHHAHHAHA
Pick one, or all of them.

---

OT: this thread is so ironic. There are better places to commence circlejerks:

1. Reddit
2. Thief forum

Yes but this is for the warriors of the forum

Yes, I’m expressing my personal opinion in that I find basically every other class enjoyable in some regard to fight against. You may think people are arguing about what is overpowered/underpowered, but you get very little actual objective balance discussion on forums. People are just out expressing their feelings about the game.

Which is probably why you see so much anti-Thief sentiment.

I really don’t think the class is overpowered, per se. They just excel at everything people hate dealing with. Is that really where you want to take a class in an MMO? They can go invisible, they can burst for huge damage, they are basically uncatchable. Stealth doesn’t have very good counter-play, so when it is used for raw damage output, people take issue. When it is used for utility, people take less issue, because they aren’t getting destroyed by an invisible opponent. At least, that isn’t the perception.

And perception is a huge part of enjoyment in a game. Perception of progress, perception of balance, etc. The perception isn’t always right, and there’s something to be said for putting people in their place when they get out of line.

Also, I don’t blame Thieves for using 3 weapon abilities. Dancing Dagger and Death Blossom are basically useless. I’m just not sure how you can say a class has depth when there are abilities you just avoid like the plague because they are detrimental to your success. Every ability I have has at least one, potentially multiple uses. Small timings in when I use certain abilities can have pretty drastic consequences as to the outcome of a fight. Using an ability with a long casting animation and canceling it when the enemy dodges is a very real possibility.

Thieves consist of short cast times, minimal graphical tells, and “simple” abilities, like Black Powder. If BP only blinded in the AoE that it dropped in, then it would be an ability that you’d have to think to use. Instead, it just blinds your target, at which point the onus for reacting to both the blind and the interrupt on the follow-up HS is on them. You just use it because it’s extremely advantageous. Then you can spam Backstab at a target feasibly until it lands, regardless of whether it misses/gets blocked/is dodged/etc.

I’ve seen S/P Thieves make really well-timed Shadowstep plays, and thought “Oh… that was good”. I don’t remember the last time I saw a D/P Thief BP + HS and thought “Oh… that was good”. It isn’t the entire class, and to be honest, everyone seems infatuated with Condi Thief at the moment, which is fine by me. I carry Plague Signet and OH Dagger for a reason in WvW.

If no one used Backstab, I’d still call it bad design.

BobbyT.7192:

… and you might not be able to do anything about.
…

Well, i can do a few thing about it.
- Engineer spam granades, bombs when they go stealth. May use shield 44 or 5.
- Mesmer and Thief wait a few seconds then pop their own stealth.
- Staff Ele can drop Lava font or Ice Spike on his feet, then swap to earth for protection.
- Warrior can strafe around the point he did CnD, use Whirlwind.

- and dodge early or later based on the previous BS attempts (that works for all professions and everyone should do that).

If you can’t take a few hits to know the thief’s style, then you deserve to die. Take your kitten PvE gear back to your dungeons.

Edit: And maybe the most important, they are still there, why did you stop attack??!?

FLiP.7680:

BobbyT.7192:

… and you might not be able to do anything about.
…

Well, i can do a few thing about it.
- Engineer spam granades, bombs when they go stealth. May use shield 44 or 5.
- Mesmer and Thief wait a few seconds then pop their own stealth.
- Staff Ele can drop Lava font or Ice Spike on his feet, then swap to earth for protection.
- Warrior can strafe around the point he did CnD, use Whirlwind.

- and dodge early or later based on the previous BS attempts (that works for all professions and everyone should do that).

If you can’t take a few hits to know the thief’s style, then you deserve to die. Take your kitten PvE gear back to your dungeons.

Edit: And maybe the most important, they are still there, why did you stop attack??!?

oh so they need to know what they are doing? interesting mechanic knowledge is

Cogbyrn.7283:

They just excel at everything people hate dealing with. Is that really where you want to take a class in an MMO?

i’ve already done enough long winded post today, so all i’m doing to say is yes!

Out of all the skills a thief access too, i wouldn’t say 2 bad skills and a weapon set that doesn’t work well together is lacking depth. Not when they can use their other skills to max effectiveness.
when i mean depth, i mean the ability to have an answer for almost anything whenever.
bp can be used at as distance for a somewhat safe uninterrupted HS for stealth in d/p, for to allow a thief to stand toe to toe with something in s/p. secure a stomp, swap to a SB for a quick and dirty aoe stealth for numerous applications. all that dictated but how well I management my resource and not CD.
It not just something you troll people with by dropping at theirs feet…….even though everything i said up there sounds pretty trollish but never mind that ;P,

BobbyT.7192:

Cogbyrn.7283:

They just excel at everything people hate dealing with. Is that really where you want to take a class in an MMO?

i’ve already done enough long winded post today, so all i’m doing to say is yes!

I’m going to agree with Bobby T here. I enjoy mesmers and thieves for those reasons. The other classes feel dull and one dimensional to me. They work and play differently.

Just let thief get CD on there skill and they be fine,no more perma stealth/blind BS

There are still a couple of cases where counterplay opportunities to thief abilities (all related in some way to stealth, interestingly) should be looked at and brought up. Counterplay against a stealthed thief should have a real impact on how the fight goes, and right now, it just doesn’t most of the time. However, any increase in counterplay opportunities should be accompanied by buffs elsewhere. Perhaps have a few seconds shaved off of the shadowstep skill cooldowns? Perhaps longer evade frames on Death Blossom?

I’ve faced good thieves, and I’ve faced bad thieves when roaming in WvW. The good ones may use stealth, but it isn’t their only trick. When they shadowstep all over the place to dodge my Flesh Golem Charge, plus my AoE’s, while still managing to keep constant pressure on me, it is a super challenging fight (that I frequently lose, or I manage to catch them on a mistake and win). The ones that dip in and out of stealth frequently purely to make me lose targeting can be a huge pain to fight, as I literally cannot harm them while they are stealthed (yes, stealth is an immunity to a large set of skills, many of which are on the necro).

That second scenario just is not fun to play in. They may be skilled players, but it sure doesn’t feel like you’re facing someone who is really good; it feels like you’re facing someone who found a fighting game combo that another character (that you aren’t playing) is required to beat. When you are getting worn down by death of a thousand cuts, you should at least have an option to fight back. Stealth-heavy builds don’t give enough of one, especially against classes that actually cannot (and I mean absolutely cannot) hit stealthed targets with 45% of their weapon skills. The few hits you can land in the short time they aren’t stealthed are easily healed up when you can’t target them.

Yes, I am complaining about one specific build. Shadow Arts thieves do not have enough counterplay opportunities against them. They won’t necessarily kill you fast, but they will kill you, and in the most frustrating way imaginable.

Note I never mentioned Backstab, though. While I agree such a high-damage skill needs to be more susceptible to active defense, it’s rather on the lower end of priorities. I recognize that the builds that focus heavily on Backstab pretty much have to land it or they’re screwed, so those builds should be buffed at the same time as Backstab becomes more susceptible to active defense to help compensate.

However, the primary reason for creating counterplay opportunities or enhancing the effectiveness of them in certain situations (like Backstab) should be about raising the skillcap. If you’re trying to heal up while stealthed, you should still have to watch your opponent’s moves more closely than general location and facing to avoid melee cleave attacks. If you’re trying to land that crucial backstab, you should be punished if you deliver such a key skill into a Blind or Dodge. Not necessarily severely punished, but you need to have lost something, even if it is just an opportunity.

Maugetarr.6823:

BobbyT.7192:

Cogbyrn.7283:

They just excel at everything people hate dealing with. Is that really where you want to take a class in an MMO?

i’ve already done enough long winded post today, so all i’m doing to say is yes!

I’m going to agree with Bobby T here. I enjoy mesmers and thieves for those reasons. The other classes feel dull and one dimensional to me. They work and play differently.

Do you have any additional insight on why they feel dull and one-dimensional? Is it just that you like playing the character people “love to hate”? Do you like having a leg up in small-scale/1v1 situations? Do you hate the idea of dying, so a class with a lot of options for escaping a sticky situation is appealing?

I’m genuinely curious, because it goes against almost everything I want out of a game. I want someone to want to fight me. I want them to enjoy it, and I want it to be a good, close game. I hate having an obvious advantage because I feel it detracts from success.

That’s just how I approach it.

Cogbyrn.7283:

snip

Im starting to like this guy’s way of exposing things. Unlike me that I tend to get hot and fast after a couple of offenses thrown my way and a good point tend to go out as a rant rather than a well exposed point that would otherwise reach other people. Perhaps I should hire him to proof read my stuff and come with this posts, by far something worth discussing. But enough with compliments.

Perception is indeed in important part of balance and somethign taht should be taken into account. I believe that the inherent flaw of Stealth is the lack of choices you have on the receiving end.

For example, playing vs a mesmer has its own fun trying to figure out the real one among the clones, while the mesmer gets some pleasure trying to confuse you. A warrior is a wrecking machine that brings pain, but nothing is sweeter than watching a warrior stay midair with a hammer F1 just to see it be blocked/blinded/rooted/knowcked. It just bring so much pleasure, the warrior will do it again in 7 seconds but your pleasure of stopping it is still going strong.

With stealth, even if you connect lucky hit you still feel you accomplished nothing. You might not receive much or any feedback, you might not even hit him. Slippery, dangerous, you cant ignore, you cant attack at will. It feel very one sided, even if you win, the win doesnt feel like beating the player or the class, but rather having revenge on someone who just killed your puppy; sure you killed him but it isnt bringing your puppy back and that makes you not happy.

So if I get this right, your saying:

• Thieves are OP
• Devs want it this way
• I am a thief player
• I am ok with being OP
• You should too

…. because…. I have to manage a resource and sometimes I don’t get away. (You only get away 80% of the time, according to you.)

Wha…!?

Coming back for Round 10

I think the main problem with Thieves is the “coming back for round 10” bit. You said it cos’ you know its true. This isn’t “skill at playing” anymore, it’s almost in-game harassment.

Other classes can only go for so long before they run out of CDs, but a thief with his initiative management down, can infinitely play it out, making them the ultimate harassing class. (Still wondering why you get a lot of hate!?)

This is directly linked to their ability to maintain an extremely high up-time on invisibility. (Its not stealth, it is 100% invisibility, and thieves don’t even have to get naked first!) You can’t “stealth” in front of someone or once you know they are there. Stealth provides a small window of opportunity to surprise attack someone, after that it’s gone.

Repeatedly turning invisible every three seconds has nothing to do with stealth. And seriously, should be implemented for mages like mesmers, not thieves, if its going to be in the game at all.

Think about it, they move faster (not slower) when they are “sneaking” right in front of you. Oh I could go on… but I won’t…

A House of Cards

The reason why the devs haven’t done anything about it is because it is a very very fine line between thieves being OP and them being utterly useless. They won’t touch it and risk losing players until they are sure they can solve it fairly.

Everything you change on a thief has to be counter-balanced somewhere else, which results in the entire class being overhauled! Thats a big job! Maybe you’re right. Maybe they are happy not to play with this house of cards.

They might be happy… but from the forums most players aren’t. Anet built a game around team-work bringing players together. They took away the silly reasons people fight. But then made the ultimate bullying class!

I don’t think most people would not have a problem with thieves if they had weren’t able to persistently keep trying to assault you… but how do you fix that?

Possible Solution

Stealthing should be directly linked to blinds. If you have the debuff, you can’t see them, otherwise they are the same as everyone else.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Maugetarr.6823:

BobbyT.7192:

Cogbyrn.7283:

They just excel at everything people hate dealing with. Is that really where you want to take a class in an MMO?

i’ve already done enough long winded post today, so all i’m doing to say is yes!

I’m going to agree with Bobby T here. I enjoy mesmers and thieves for those reasons. The other classes feel dull and one dimensional to me. They work and play differently.

Do you have any additional insight on why they feel dull and one-dimensional? Is it just that you like playing the character people “love to hate”? Do you like having a leg up in small-scale/1v1 situations? Do you hate the idea of dying, so a class with a lot of options for escaping a sticky situation is appealing?

I’m genuinely curious, because it goes against almost everything I want out of a game. I want someone to want to fight me. I want them to enjoy it, and I want it to be a good, close game. I hate having an obvious advantage because I feel it detracts from success.

That’s just how I approach it.

I like playing them because I like the control aspects of them and their win or die playstyle. I tend to build glassy on both with limited condition removal even in WvW so I can bring both damage and control to help aid my teammates. If you think you have an obvious advantage with a thief, I would recommend taking a 2/6/0/0/6 D/P trickery build (that’s no traits in SA for defense) and seeing how it goes, especially if a small group is depending on you to not run away, but stick around and help them. With all the AoE condi and damage floating around, it’s a rather tenuous position to be in. Playing thief to win or die trying is way different than playing to win or run away.

Mesmer offers the same flexibility it battle, but as a Zerker mes (4/4/0/0/6) you get put in the same boat that if you get focused you die.

Engineer was fun for a while, offers a lot of great support, great control, great damage, and great AoE capabilities, but after a while it lost that faced paced feel to it that mesmer and thief still have.

Warrior is fun as long as I don’t overplay it because it gets boring after a while. Decent to good stats everywhere while it doesn’t feel like it requires the same tradeoffs as the thief. After the patch I decided to go full zerk with it in PvP with the new burst precision trait and ended up making a very good S/D thief (reaper title, shark finisher) rage quit after I nearly 1 shotted him. To be fair I’m average on my warrior, so he beat me handily the first time we fought, had a close fight with him winning due to dodging a key move the second, and me winning the 3rd handily after I figured out my timings again (as I don’t spend a lot of time on my warrior). Warrior, to me, feels like that obvious advantage that you place on the thief. I don’t want them nerfed though,you’ve just gotta find the weak spots in their armor on whatever class you’re on.

The others I have a hard time getting into.

I have an ele sitting in it’s 30’s right now (I’ve had them as high as mid 40’s before I deleted them because I couldn’t get into it). I’ve never been great with it, but it’s sort of the opposite of thieves where you’re given too many tools at once to do a job, but you can tackle a large number of jobs at least.

Guard is just…slow? I don’t know how else to describe it.

Necro suffers from the same feeling as guard. Oddly enough, playing them like a thief with D/D and using Dark Path as sort of a shadow prison (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shadow_Prison) makes it sort of like an assassin from GW1. If I could build around that better, I might use it more, but it suffers from a disconnect between a nice single hard hitting melee attack and the rest of the dagger skills being ranged (visceral close combat is fun to me). Replacing life siphon with vampiric touch/vampiric bite from GW1 would do wonders for the feeling of this class for me.

Ranger is alright, but I hate having to bring a pet. In GW 1 I had a 20 ranger that didn’t have to bring one unless I built around it, and I didn’t have to rely on AI (when I play mesmer I usually play a shatter spec so my AI attacks are really just 1 and done rather than letting them stick around for the AI to do work).

Tldr: High risk/High reward for both classes. Fun defensive mechanics that can seem overwhelming to new players, but useless against experienced players.

The reason we just end up saying “yes!” to this is no matter how much advice we give, or counter tactics, or general help it usually gets thrown back in our faces. It’s really been that way since the 3 day headstart so our reaction ends up being the attached picture. Sorry you caught us on a non-helpful day.

ANet designed Thieves in a way that makes them inherently frustrating to fight.

People complain for a reason. Not always for legitimate reasons but they still make an effort to voice they distaste. And that says a lot.

ANet screwed up their class-design with Thieves and it’s not something easily remedied.

He is right about managing initiative. A thief can NOT use 2,3,4,5 swap weapons and use 2,3,4,5 like other classes even with MAX initiative regeneration. So we repeat use of our hardest hitting skills, because we need to stay competitive. Yes some of our attacks evade, so do a lot of other classes attacks.

Also I can CnD off of stealthed thieves.
And if someone beats me I won’t run off, yes I die unless I’m fighting someone and see other enemies coming.

just my 2 cents to several posts so far.

1. why am i (are we) playing thief?

someone mentioned he wants to play against players who wants to fight them fair and square. that’s not what the thief is about! simple as that. a thief is a pain in the a**, a rat that demoralise the enemy, fighting unfair and dirty and thats what i (we) like about that profession. we don’t care to fight 1v1 in honor we want to be the most possible nuisense to our enemy and to kill him. otherwise i wouldn’t have picked the thief as my profession in the first place.

2. spamming the same abilities over and over.

yeah that can happen if the situation is rewarding you for it why shouldn’t you?
but mostly that’s the difference between mediocre and good players.
i think there are enough posts/threads about this so far so my advise too all those anti-thief guys: play a thief yourself in spvp for a month. after that i guess 90% won’t argue anymore….

but i agree that some weapon skills and their synergy doesn’t feel right atm and could need a rework

3. INVIS OP!!!!

i have to say invis in GW2 is broken, but far away from OP.
most stealth skills have with traited shadow arts 4 seconds of invis. during this 4 sec the thief is most likly going to hit on you seems very predictable isnt it? and to a decent player it’s also manageable to dodge, block etc. the incoming attack.

whats broken about it tho?…. it doesn’t serve it’s original propose:

insteat of making the thief unpredictable for an amount of time it makes him pretty predictable during stealth.
stealth is way too short to actually be used to find an opening to engage a “prey” you can’t make any real distance with it (excl. SR) and too short to disengage the fight if you want so. therefore it is “spammable” or let’s say more precise it’s useable quite often during the fight, and here is the real problem in my eyes.

Neither our enemy wants us to get invis every 3 seconds for 3 secs nor we want to use this over and over again till we finally are able to land with enough DMG.

make invis/stealth an out of combat mechanic only. i think the best system regarding stealth is the system Blizzard uses in WoW.
invis should be to engage (no cd, but only outofcombat) and to disengage (usable during combat, but with decent cd).

the moment you decide to engage you can’t disengage and reengage 5 seconds later and than again and again and again untill you feel like finishing your enemy.
you completly rule the pace of the fight and that’s what the QQ’ers are hating on.

stealth should’t be in your skillrotation. it should be your initiate and your last resort to escape. with the option to play mindgames and use the “retreat invis” to reengage again once!

you either choose wisly and you are able to finish your enemys off > reg > keep going onto the next “prey” or you choose poorly and you lose the fight. you still have the ability to disengage with your infight invis, but than you have to risk not having it the next time you make a go or wait long enough to get it from cd again. so it is more about decision making which increases the skillcap to be more effective/effecient with stealth and it reduces the need of counterplay to it.

just a possible change to the skills regarding above:

-Hide in the shadows: instead of making you invis, it grants you the same state as mistform for 3 secs.
-CnD: gives you the abillity to use the stealthskill without being invis for 3 secs.
-Smokebomb: this could be the CD infight invis i mentioned above.
-Shadow refuge: instead of giving invis to you and your allies give them boons (protection and reg f.e.) and add a condition cleanse to it.
-Shadowtrap: i think this can stay that way, even if it makes you invis.

the smoke combo field needs a rework than but i think Anet can think of solutions by themseves if they would consider it as a possible change to stealth.

Thief is going the same route as assassin in gw1 where it has no viable builds anymore and even rangers will be picked instead of assassin for speedruns.
It has never been as weak as it is now and the hate is stronger than ever before.

Okay, look, some of you folks just have to get past it – Stealth classes have been, are now, and always will be despised by a large percentage of the MMO player base. And, no, NO – it’s not simply the outcry of “noobs” that need to L2p. Ultimately it boils down to basic human psychology. Because despite the fact that we know on an intellectual level that in MMO wars there are no rules by which to win, we still create a PERCIEVED (not actual) image of what is acceptable, and not, during a fight. And stealth breaks all those self-created perceptions by allowing the stealth-class to be able to pick his fights and easily disengage when losing. And it matters not that there are numerous counters, it matters not that the stealth class in itself may be far weaker as a class than his opponents class; the immediate and obvious reaction will be one of frustration. And frustration often breeds rage (especially among adolescents and young adults). Thus the endless QQ and endless rage-filled posts on every MMO forum in the history of the genre that includes stealth classes.

Yes, I realize that there is nothing particularly OP about the Thief class in Gw2. And yes, I realize that the class has as many inherent limitations as it has strengths. But a Zerg-Blob player stomped 3 straight times in WvW while trying to get back to the blob from a waypoint, he DOES NOT CARE about any of that. He’s mad as hell and wants to vent; so often times he comes to the forums to do so. So they will rant that thieves are “OP” or “nerf thieves!” because they are unable to ambush/disengage as well as thieves (they won’t admit this, instead they say they want people to fight “fair” and not be “cowards”, but that’s all BS). And never mind that the stealth ability, the ability to disengage and frustrate your opponent is as central to the class design as the ability to buff oneself and take huge damage by other classes, or the ability to exercise high mobility and inflict enormous AOE damage by some classes, or the …ect … it does not matter. You see, because these other classes central class strengths are for the most part apparently “straight forward”, rightly or wrongly, its viewed as being “fairer”. But stealth is not an obvious and immediately recognizable mechanic, and its biggest sin is that it forces players to adjust whether they want to or not – thus the rage.

So at the end of the day, while it really is nothing more than a L2P issue in dealing with Thieves, that fact will not change/stop the endless QQ and rage. Because those unwilling, unable or incapable of making the adjustment to this particularly frustrating mechanic don’t want to hear it. And when they fight another class “head up” so to speak, they don’t feel the same level of anger when they lose or if they are winning and the other class fled. The different reaction lies in the element of the “sudden appearance, and sudden disappearance” of stealth opponents, because it has that eerie unknowable quality. The fact that no one should be able to run around battle-field (which WvW tries to mimic) alone without being on edge (and potentially frustrated) by the sudden appearance and/or disappearance of an enemy specifically designed to make that hazardous should be of no surprise whatsoever; and yet, it is, and always will be.

All that said, whether people want to admit it or not, the addition of this “eerie unknowable quality” adds enormous depth and fun to WvW encounters and roaming for EVERY CLASS, and it also adds a much needed added layer of complexity to the MMO WvW/PvP experience. And of course Game companies know this, which is why at least one stealth class is a staple of most games. But this won’t stop the rage or envy, and both those responses are not only to be expected, but understandable.

Hi everyone,

Since we receive a lot of feedback regarding this topic, we have chosen to gather it in a dedicated thread that you can find here. This will allow us to compile your feedback in a more efficient way. Therefore, we’ll close this discussion and invite you to repost your questions, comments and concern in the one linked above.

Thank you for your understanding.