Guild Wars 2

Bryzy.2719:

@OP

I’m not sure thieves will get much sympathy on the profession balance forum. Certainly not from me, that’s for sure. I personally can’t wait to start mowing them down in WvW with the post-patch rapid fire. Their QQ tears will be like a fine wine on a mild summer’s evening.

I’ll have a drink with you. As a mes who doesn’t tend to run condition builds, thieves have no problem or QQ about how easily they can mow a mes down. We can’t really handle that high mobility combined, high burst, and stealth (i.e. no target to put clones up against). I will drink long and deep after this patch from the thieves tear well.

but yet the condis just stack again !
after all of that s/d#2 and shadow step junk …. they stack again like it is nothing

and soon thief will need to hold still in a fight like a sitting duck because there will be mad stacks torment flying around

shame it is not confusion instead of torment

we have low hp and torment is extremely punishing when trying to avoid one hit kills
and hammer cc lol ………..

P.S …. but it is not our fault the developers only care about condi mesmers

and the only people barging about running down a crit mesmer are the trolls!
or bad players just happy to get a kill !

we all just want to have fun !
there is no reason to happily punish people for playing a class they find fun!

if so this is a game not worth being apart of !

Vague Memory.2817:

Bryzy.2719:

@OP

I’m not sure thieves will get much sympathy on the profession balance forum. Certainly not from me, that’s for sure. I personally can’t wait to start mowing them down in WvW with the post-patch rapid fire. Their QQ tears will be like a fine wine on a mild summer’s evening.

I’ll have a drink with you. As a mes who doesn’t tend to run condition builds, thieves have no problem or QQ about how easily they can mow a mes down. We can’t really handle that high mobility combined, high burst, and stealth (i.e. no target to put clones up against). I will drink long and deep after this patch from the thieves tear well.

I trust you shall be putting that change to iLeap to good use against thieves, my friend.

-Clinks glass- cheers!

It’s nice to know that people have no respect for balancing the game across all professions and would rather wallow in some kind of aura of petty “vengeance”. How mature. I think everyone else will know who not to listen to when discussing the overall health of the game’s balance.

Yes so true Auesis. I don’t main a thief but the post from Bryzy & Vague Memory are really childish.

“Revenge is a confession of pain.”

Bryzy.2719:

Vague Memory.2817:

Bryzy.2719:

@OP

I’m not sure thieves will get much sympathy on the profession balance forum. Certainly not from me, that’s for sure. I personally can’t wait to start mowing them down in WvW with the post-patch rapid fire. Their QQ tears will be like a fine wine on a mild summer’s evening.

I’ll have a drink with you. As a mes who doesn’t tend to run condition builds, thieves have no problem or QQ about how easily they can mow a mes down. We can’t really handle that high mobility combined, high burst, and stealth (i.e. no target to put clones up against). I will drink long and deep after this patch from the thieves tear well.

I trust you shall be putting that change to iLeap to good use against thieves, my friend.

-Clinks glass- cheers!

Everything at my disposal my friend. We will drink and eat well on that night

All I got to say is:

If you don’t put forth the effort to increase your wins in PvP, don’t complain when players beat you or just don’t do PvP at all. That includes using the same “cheese” that is killing you.

Hmmm never really played thief, but duelled with thieves many times. They were not a real problem when i learnt to play my class better. Of course there’s still better thieves out there who could outplay me, but overall the class is not that op. The only annoying thing with thieves is losing the target every second, but i gotta deal with it.

Shockwave.1230:

I keep seeing people say venoms were buffed. Did I miss something?

Nope. You’re completely right.

It’s not so much a buff as it is a ‘correction’; the venomshare mechanic works as (in my opinion) it always should have.

Cynz.9437:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Bryzy.2719:

@OP

I’m not sure thieves will get much sympathy on the profession balance forum. Certainly not from me, that’s for sure. I personally can’t wait to start mowing them down in WvW with the post-patch rapid fire. Their QQ tears will be like a fine wine on a mild summer’s evening.

and that’s why you’re not in the balance team. “i just want thieves to be useless to i can mow them down easily in literally the only area they aren’t useless”

the joke is balance team seems to think exactly this way judging by the patches for the past year and the future patch… idk what devs are thinking but patches speak for themself

lol, I love how the old thief standby of “learn 2 play noob” never goes both ways.

Substance E.4852:

Cynz.9437:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Bryzy.2719:

@OP

I’m not sure thieves will get much sympathy on the profession balance forum. Certainly not from me, that’s for sure. I personally can’t wait to start mowing them down in WvW with the post-patch rapid fire. Their QQ tears will be like a fine wine on a mild summer’s evening.

and that’s why you’re not in the balance team. “i just want thieves to be useless to i can mow them down easily in literally the only area they aren’t useless”

the joke is balance team seems to think exactly this way judging by the patches for the past year and the future patch… idk what devs are thinking but patches speak for themself

lol, I love how the old thief standby of “learn 2 play noob” never goes both ways.

what does that have to do with not liking the patch notes for thief? our weak traits and utilities remain weak and ignored, the few playstyles we have left get nerfed.

and as far as i know, the only time thieves say “learn to play” is when someone is QQing about stealth or high mobility, something you’ll notice thief players know how to deal with even when not playing thief (in other words, it IS a matter of L2P).

ulcimql.2516:

“Revenge is a confession of pain.”

First of all that is the most pointless quote I have ever seen as the very definition of “revenge” already implies that wrongdoing has been done to the first party.

Also, you imply that I want “revenge” when in fact it’s just a simple matter of a personal dislike for the general thief playerbase from my observation of them, and therefore a target preference in WvW.

Bryzy.2719:

ulcimql.2516:

“Revenge is a confession of pain.”

First of all that is the most pointless quote I have ever seen as the very definition of “revenge” already implies that wrongdoing has been done to the first party.

Also, you imply that I want “revenge” when in fact it’s just a simple matter of a personal dislike for the general thief playerbase from my observation of them, and therefore a target preference in WvW.

Then how about “Before you embark on a journey for revenge, dig two graves”?

If players want something nerfed into the ground, then they shouldn’t be surprised when nobody runs it anymore. Even worse, they are on the next overpowered class killing the same people as they did before. I mean, that’s what happened the last time right?

The exaggeration in this thread is cancerous.

The base gameplay of a thief is still very strong. You still have loads of ways to disengage through teleports and stealth, survive through blinds and evades. You just have less of that now so if you kitten up enough times, you pay for it, like any other class.

Thieves also take kitten tons for granted. All their skills are highly responsive, low cast/aftercast time and low travel time compared to all other classes. They can react to the enemy faster than any other class, having access to instant cast dazes, blinds and the best panic buttons in the game on low cooldowns when you kitten up. And some of the best condi removal and heals if you play Shadow Arts in WvW. Why? Because you have zero pressure while you’re healing in stealth. Playing thief is like watching everyone else fight you while underwater and drunk.

Thief has been consistently toned down because their base design for what roles they were designed for is very strong. They have a specialty and everything they do works towards that specialty. The game designer for thief was absolutely brilliant and I wish every other class were as fun to play as thief. Other than guardian, I can’t think of another class where ArenaNet did as great of a job.

Pope.1469:

The exaggeration in this thread is cancerous.

The base gameplay of a thief is still very strong. You still have loads of ways to disengage through teleports and stealth, survive through blinds and evades. You just have less of that now so if you kitten up enough times, you pay for it, like any other class.

Thieves also take kitten tons for granted. All their skills are highly responsive, low cast/aftercast time and low travel time compared to all other classes. They can react to the enemy faster than any other class, having access to instant cast dazes, blinds and the best panic buttons in the game on low cooldowns when you kitten up. And some of the best condi removal and heals if you play Shadow Arts in WvW. Why? Because you have zero pressure while you’re healing in stealth. Playing thief is like watching everyone else fight you while underwater and drunk.

Thief has been consistently toned down because their base design for what roles they were designed for is very strong. They have a specialty and everything they do works towards that specialty. The game designer for thief was absolutely brilliant and I wish every other class were as fun to play as thief. Other than guardian, I can’t think of another class where ArenaNet did as great of a job.

for the billionth time, the problem isn’t the nerfs. the problem is that there are no buffs/reworks to areas thief has needed since beta. venoms, P/P, traps, and half our traits are either useless (hi new trait assassin’s equilibrium) or actually harmful (hi last refuge, hi hard to catch). that’s right, we have traits that actually hurt us, and one of them is a freaking adept minor, so we can’t even pretend it’s not there.

the thief playstyle options has been shrinking more and more with each patch, while several core “sets” of thief styles remain bad, and this patch ignore two of the big issues, and takes a step in the wrong direction in the other two.

Way to completely miss the point, Pope.

All of our complaints about the class have been completely ignored. Attempting to support Venomshare actually HURTS Venoms because Venoms are forced to be absolute trash on their own to allow distribution to 5 people (you require 12 trait points to actually make them useful). P/P is a sitting duck weaponset with no strengths and some extra range solves none of those problems. New traits are totally misguided, make little sense and don’t help at all (no Thief has EVER competitively used ANY of them). Last Refuge still exists. Traps still exist.

In other words, instead of actually listening to our concerns and extending our gameplay options (in a way that might actually benefit these whining children because we won’t be forced to run the same specs to be useful), we’re still pigeon-holed in to the same specs and roles and 3/4 of our toolset is still completely worthless and untouched by the development team, despite our loud voices.

Every other class so far in these Skill Bar segments has received some love in some way to something that is underused, making it potentially useful and opening up other specs for viable play. We got basically nothing, and the changes we actually did get were completely misguided and won’t help the situation at all because they have no idea what they actually want to do with it. It’s really, really sad.

Auesis.7301:

Way to completely miss the point, Pope.

All of our complaints about the class have been completely ignored. Attempting to support Venomshare actually HURTS Venoms because Venoms are forced to be absolute trash on their own to allow distribution to 5 people (you require 12 trait points to actually make them useful). P/P is a sitting duck weaponset with no strengths and some extra range solves none of those problems. New traits are totally misguided, make little sense and don’t help at all (no Thief has EVER competitively used ANY of them). Last Refuge still exists. Traps still exist.

In other words, instead of actually listening to our concerns and extending our gameplay options (in a way that might actually benefit these whining children because we won’t be forced to run the same specs to be useful), we’re still pigeon-holed in to the same specs and roles and 3/4 of our toolset is still completely worthless and untouched by the development team, despite our loud voices.

Every other class so far in these Skill Bar segments has received some love in some way to something that is underused, making it potentially useful and opening up other specs for viable play. We got basically nothing, and the changes we actually did get were completely misguided and won’t help the situation at all because they have no idea what they actually want to do with it. It’s really, really sad.

+1 to Auesis
./15char

Anti-theif, lol….you realize how long thief has been top class? Try running ranger Then you will know what real rejection feels like :^)

@Devon
Read the thread then think and then post. We are okei with the nervs but we arent that anet doesnt rework some traits/weapons who are useless since realese.

ps: Thief is only top class in 1vs1 -> not in GWEN Meta and in some aspects weak
ps2: I have a ranger

Devon.9375:

Anti-theif, lol….you realize how long thief has been top class? Try running ranger Then you will know what real rejection feels like :^)

Just want to point out, there has been no proof that a dev has ever been on a thief until Karl posted his vid when he hit lvl 21. At least there are developers on the Rangers who’ve posted on the forums.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Devon.9375:

Anti-theif, lol….you realize how long thief has been top class? Try running ranger Then you will know what real rejection feels like :^)

Just want to point out, there has been no proof that a dev has ever been on a thief until Karl posted his vid when he hit lvl 21. At least there are developers on the Rangers who’ve posted on the forums.

Said ranger playing dev got fired/quit his job over 1, 5 years ago.
Rangers got their own CDI were devs talked of ideas just to do a 180 a few pages later saying “wont happen”, not to mention the CDI was massively neglected.

@thieves not part of GWEN.
Same goes for mesmer, engineer and ranger. Infact most agree that having more then 2 mesmers in a zerg is a bigger waste then having many thieves simply due to thieves being very good at destroying the peripherals.

As a thief player i find this patch ok. Id love to see more buffs to venoms, mostly in the number of torment stacks/venom charge and longer chill durations + charges.
However, unload buff is nice as it makes it a lot better at delivering good bursts now that it aint so slow. Pistol AA could use a higher rate of fire. Range increase on ricochet is nice, but bountyful theft still outclasses ricochet by a massive margin so i wont use that trait anytime soon.

Prysin.8542:

yolo swaggins.2570:

Devon.9375:

Anti-theif, lol….you realize how long thief has been top class? Try running ranger Then you will know what real rejection feels like :^)

Just want to point out, there has been no proof that a dev has ever been on a thief until Karl posted his vid when he hit lvl 21. At least there are developers on the Rangers who’ve posted on the forums.

Said ranger playing dev got fired/quit his job over 1, 5 years ago.
Rangers got their own CDI were devs talked of ideas just to do a 180 a few pages later saying “wont happen”, not to mention the CDI was massively neglected.

i don’t know, “make power ranger viable” was the overall theme of that CDI, and rangers got just that. also a big theme in that CDI: make signet of the beastmaster a baseline thing, not a trait you need to take. and rangers got that too.

from where i’m standing, the CDI was a success to everyone but the people that wanted to outright get rid of pets.

Vague Memory.2817:

Bryzy.2719:

Vague Memory.2817:

Bryzy.2719:

@OP

I’m not sure thieves will get much sympathy on the profession balance forum. Certainly not from me, that’s for sure. I personally can’t wait to start mowing them down in WvW with the post-patch rapid fire. Their QQ tears will be like a fine wine on a mild summer’s evening.

I’ll have a drink with you. As a mes who doesn’t tend to run condition builds, thieves have no problem or QQ about how easily they can mow a mes down. We can’t really handle that high mobility combined, high burst, and stealth (i.e. no target to put clones up against). I will drink long and deep after this patch from the thieves tear well.

I trust you shall be putting that change to iLeap to good use against thieves, my friend.

-Clinks glass- cheers!

Everything at my disposal my friend. We will drink and eat well on that night

That’s it, I’m out. GW2 is turning into a pool of whiny little brats and Anet has apparently decided to cater to these people. If this is the road GW2 is taking, I’m hopping off here. This no game for me anymore.
Probably taking the turnoff to Archeage.

BrunoBRS.5178:

from where i’m standing, the CDI was a success to everyone but the people that wanted to outright get rid of pets.

Maybe we should have a thief CDI.

To be pretty honest I think that’ll be a tall order, as I think other classes are probably higher on the priority list, but if the CDI did well for Rangers then they must be doing something right.

/derail

MarauderShields.6830:

Vague Memory.2817:

Bryzy.2719:

Vague Memory.2817:

Bryzy.2719:

@OP

I’m not sure thieves will get much sympathy on the profession balance forum. Certainly not from me, that’s for sure. I personally can’t wait to start mowing them down in WvW with the post-patch rapid fire. Their QQ tears will be like a fine wine on a mild summer’s evening.

I’ll have a drink with you. As a mes who doesn’t tend to run condition builds, thieves have no problem or QQ about how easily they can mow a mes down. We can’t really handle that high mobility combined, high burst, and stealth (i.e. no target to put clones up against). I will drink long and deep after this patch from the thieves tear well.

I trust you shall be putting that change to iLeap to good use against thieves, my friend.

-Clinks glass- cheers!

Everything at my disposal my friend. We will drink and eat well on that night

That’s it, I’m out. GW2 is turning into a pool of whiny little brats and Anet has apparently decided to cater to these people. If this is the road GW2 is taking, I’m hopping off here. This no game for me anymore.
Probably taking the turnoff to Archeage.

I wish you the best of luck. From what I saw of Archeage, it was overhyped and underwhelming.

/rerail

Sarrs.4831:

BrunoBRS.5178:

from where i’m standing, the CDI was a success to everyone but the people that wanted to outright get rid of pets.

Maybe we should have a thief CDI.

To be pretty honest I think that’ll be a tall order, as I think other classes are probably higher on the priority list, but if the CDI did well for Rangers then they must be doing something right.

on one hand, i’d like it, because thieves would get to voice their concerns with our lackluster traits/skills while the spotlight was on us.

on the other, i know for a fact that 90% of that thread would be non-thieves QQing about how they still die to thief on 1v1, and the few useful posts would be lost in the sea of contempt.

and i kinda fear that giving that spotlight to so much whining would just lead to an even bigger nerf to thieves, until they’re essentially pushed out of meta, while the issues we wanted to see improved remain unsolved (so not that different from this patch).

lol yeah srsly just reroll a engi or mes.. Engi has way better p/p and can stealth and do anything it wants. Mes has better stealth mechanics and can kill you while stealth.

In real tourneys there will be like 3 or 4 profs allowed to play XD engineer (the golden child of anet), mesmer, warrior, and toss up between ele and thief.

Necros and rangers? Are they classes even? XD

Necro profession description: The necromancer is about staying in combat but having an array of handicaps that keep you from winning by attrition. Use your super mentally challenged minions to stand and watch you fight. Have double health bars that are reduced to nothing faster than an elementalist can say “rekt”. Feel the power of having to move in slow motion while your enemies use their lightsabers and dart around your 80-year old ancientness while doing everything you’re supposed to do but better. Enjoy the dark feeling of being completely useless in team fights; calling for your teammates to hold your diapers in place while you struggle to perform basic actions. Watch as all your attempts to weaken your enemy are laughed off and attain ultimate status when you bow down before your superiors and reroll another profession.

Engineer: Enjoy absolutely every mechanic there is in the game while having very little down-sides at all. If you think of any down-sides, use the hidden engi-only skill of forum QQ so pamper-control can fix it all. Feel the power of pretty much being the master race, having a million skills at your fingertips, stealth, crowd control, tank, dps, heal, support, group utility and thats just when you smashed your first 5 keys. Be completely viable in every single game mode. Control the battlefield with the power of dev favoritism and deploy your personal pet, the necromancer, to tickle your enemies while you blow a hole in the internet with your face.

Im only messin.. but srsly…

BrunoBRS.5178:

lol at the people that thought thieves wanted cleave on dagger.

an unwanted, double edged buff is not what we’ve been asking for like, years now. we want venoms to be good of their own accord, without that stupid overreliance on venomous aura. we want traps to be fun and useful. we want P/P to get the same treatment warrior rifle is getting this patch (consistency between skills).

I absolutely love the Warrior rifle change. It’s documented proof that Anet doesn’t seem to care about thieves.

Warriors, the class with the broadest weapon selection, had the consistency issues addressed, giving them access to another weapon that is at minimum consistently designed.

Thief, the class with the narrowest weapon selection (inb4: attunements, kits), who have been begging for 2 years for P/P to be fixed are continually ignored. No, your constant tweaks to body shot have not fixed P/P. No, unload firing slightly faster will not fix P/P, and frankly it’s ridiculous that you think it would – it has a consistency issue like warrior rifle, Please fix it. Then we can focus on P/P’s extremely lackluster defensive skills (which are being nerfed this patch, for added hilarity)

Let’s also note that D/D also has a pretty glaring consistency issue. Though it’s far more functional than P/P, it’s ignored due to the fact that it’s underpowered compared to other choices, at least in part due to the dual skills uselessness in a power/crit spec (which what the rest of the weaponset is geared for)

P.S. – This isn’t a knock on warriors, just a comparison. Also, I’m talking PvP here, not WvW Or PvE.

TheDevice.2751:

Engineer: Enjoy absolutely every mechanic there is in the game while having very little down-sides at all. If you think of any down-sides, use the hidden engi-only skill of forum QQ so pamper-control can fix it all. Feel the power of pretty much being the master race, having a million skills at your fingertips, stealth, crowd control, tank, dps, heal, support, group utility and thats just when you smashed your first 5 keys. Be completely viable in every single game mode. Control the battlefield with the power of dev favoritism and deploy your personal pet, the necromancer, to tickle your enemies while you blow a hole in the internet with your face.

Your post isn’t very constructive and holds little truth in it. Yes, engineer is versatile, on par with elementalist in that respect. And yes, properly specced engineer is very strong against thieves, but depending on the engineer build, engi struggles against condition builds and burst builds.

Engineer has several real weaknesses, which are not addressed in the upcoming balance patch:
- weak condition removal (outside elixirs)
- weak access to stability
- not many viable stun breaks
- vulnerable to focus fire and bursts

Thief has great access to evades, which are pretty much lacking from the engineer. Thief has better in-combat mobility and out-of-combat mobility than engineer. Thief can spec for higher burst as it has superior ways to reset the fight (shadowstep and much easier access to stealth). Zerker engineers are rare as hen’s teeth outside pve.

If engineer would truly be the “master race” and developer’s pet you mention, we would see much more engineers in every game mode. In Pve engineer is probably the least played of all 8 professions (tied up probably with the mesmer). In WvWvW engineer seems to be also the least played or 2nd least played. Many top tpvp teams have been doing fine without any engineers. Yet guardian has been part of the tpvp and WvWvW meta for 2 years. Also many top tpvp teams have been using two warriors or two elementalists.

WvWvW is my main game mode. I solo roam a lot, but also tag along with the zerg (or lead the zerg in). Every single day I encounter much more thieves in WvWvW than engineers. I would estimate that thieves outnumber engineers at least 1:4. Talk about skewed game balance…

My guesses: We will not see more engineers after the patch, but the amount of rangers and mesmers will increase. Some thief builds got slightly nerfed, but P/D got slightly buffed. Let’s see..

yolo swaggins.2570:

Devon.9375:

Anti-theif, lol….you realize how long thief has been top class? Try running ranger Then you will know what real rejection feels like :^)

Just want to point out, there has been no proof that a dev has ever been on a thief until Karl posted his vid when he hit lvl 21. At least there are developers on the Rangers who’ve posted on the forums.

Wub played a thief in WvW to, dev’s might play all classes except guardian, that one thing that i never noticed.

I think A-net just has a weird sense of slow balancing. Let’s be frank, this game was not shipped fully completed, the bugs and balance alone should be proof of that.

So Lets call this feature patch… Beta 5.0?

I think a lot of the decisions for changes are based around the status quo but are still progressive. For example the buff to mesmer’s Illusionary Leap, or the change to Warrior adrenaline will finally work the way they were intended (altho you could argue I-leaps situation is due to a lack of reliability and is technically a band aid due to pathing ect ect ect. but regaurdless) But why did it take so long? Something that is obvious like these changes should have been addressed much earlier, and have also been suggested by various sources. Well it may be there is an end goal to all this but it’s an incredibly slow burn.

What do I mean specifically for thief then? I mean that although it is true thieves do need help in some areas, they are very strong in others and either due to development time or because of potential to be come to strong, they are held back this time. I may be mistaken on design intentions but I believe no class is actually complete for the way the game “Should be” and Should have been at launch.

However at this current state if we just made one profession “Complete” (to the context of discussion) I think they would be way to Godly compared to the others. I know it sucks to not get any changes or reworks, but I think everyone will get their turn eventually. Just relish the power within in the relative balance you currently have, and try to enjoy the beta-like process.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Prysin.8542:

yolo swaggins.2570:

Devon.9375:

Anti-theif, lol….you realize how long thief has been top class? Try running ranger Then you will know what real rejection feels like :^)

Just want to point out, there has been no proof that a dev has ever been on a thief until Karl posted his vid when he hit lvl 21. At least there are developers on the Rangers who’ve posted on the forums.

Said ranger playing dev got fired/quit his job over 1, 5 years ago.
Rangers got their own CDI were devs talked of ideas just to do a 180 a few pages later saying “wont happen”, not to mention the CDI was massively neglected.

i don’t know, “make power ranger viable” was the overall theme of that CDI, and rangers got just that. also a big theme in that CDI: make signet of the beastmaster a baseline thing, not a trait you need to take. and rangers got that too.

from where i’m standing, the CDI was a success to everyone but the people that wanted to outright get rid of pets.

70% of CDI was based on how to fix pet without perma stow, make pet reliable or make spirits less passive. Signet of beastmaster has been brought up for 1, 5 years before the CDI. Power ranger has been “viable” since forever, however the skill floor has been too high for most players.

Then again to most people in this game, viable means “roll face on keyboard to win”

I personally don’t like the changes to FS→LS. LS is the only kind of “low cost” high (not even that high) damage ability a S/D thief has and now it will be even less accessible. It already takes ages to take down a GOOD player while if i make even a small mistake i’m pretty much dead.

The other changes are fine imho.

OFC they didn’t touch the cheese OP P/D build.

Pope.1469:

The exaggeration in this thread is cancerous.

The base gameplay of a thief is still very strong. You still have loads of ways to disengage through teleports and stealth, survive through blinds and evades. You just have less of that now so if you kitten up enough times, you pay for it, like any other class.

Thieves also take kitten tons for granted. All their skills are highly responsive, low cast/aftercast time and low travel time compared to all other classes. They can react to the enemy faster than any other class, having access to instant cast dazes, blinds and the best panic buttons in the game on low cooldowns when you kitten up. And some of the best condi removal and heals if you play Shadow Arts in WvW. Why? Because you have zero pressure while you’re healing in stealth. Playing thief is like watching everyone else fight you while underwater and drunk.

Thief has been consistently toned down because their base design for what roles they were designed for is very strong. They have a specialty and everything they do works towards that specialty. The game designer for thief was absolutely brilliant and I wish every other class were as fun to play as thief. Other than guardian, I can’t think of another class where ArenaNet did as great of a job.

the point of thief is to be able to deal heavy single target damage, and then to rely on finessed use of reactionary forms of evasion/nullification (stealth, teleports, evades, blinds) for survival instead of relying on stats and recovery for survivability. this is by nature, and design, a high-risk/reward style class.

while these nerfs aren’t going to be the end of thief as a profession, it’s annoying to continuously experience the unending ride of misguided and largely unnecessary nerfs, while never receiving a buff that is not short of completely useless, from the front seat.

I know this isn’t just limited to thief, but the nature of thief has ensured that the profession unfairly gets constantly attacked by ignorant masses while the large majority of high-level players will tell you thief fits squarely in the “balanced” tier in the scheme of things.

at any rate thief undoubtedly has yet again gotten the short end of this balance patch:
“Assassin’s Equilibrium: Increased stability duration from 1 second to 1.5 seconds.” thanks anet this really solves the issue that any build fully invested in acrobatics is going to be avoiding most forms of the stealth
“Invigorating Precision: Increased health gain percentage from 5% to 8%.”
a 3% increase is not going to make this anywhere near a better choice over executioner or even hidden killer
“Panic Strike: Reduced immoblized duration from 5 seconds to 2.5 seconds. Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.”
cool you named a nerf a buff because you lowered the far less important number by a third while cutting the important effect in half
“Venomous Aura: Venom effects use the user’s attributes instead of the allies’ receiving the effects. Basilisk Venom still allows allies to gain effects that trigger on interrupts.”
“Ricochet: Also increased range of pistol skills from 900 to 1050. Fixed some related bugs to more reliably trigger.”
i’m so happy p/d condi is getting both of the only two actual buffs! it’s totally not as if p/d condi was already incredibly strong in wvw or anything.

then we have the fantastic weapon skill “balance improvements”:
“Dagger: Double Strike, Wild Strike, and Lotus Strike: Strikes up to 2 targets. Defensive effects (endurance gain) only trigger once.”
i don’t see this making much of an improvement. unless this applies to backstabs as well (which it doesn’t mention so i’m doubtful) dagger mainhand isn’t going be improved much over.
“Black Powder: Increased pulse interval from every 1 second to 2 seconds. Decreased blind duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.”
any improvements p/p receives from the ricochet and unload buffs is immediately undone by nerfing it’s only reliable defense. doubly so for d/p.
“Choking Gas: Added a strike on impact, so that it causes revealed when used while stealthed.”
dont really get why thief is going to get the only condition aoe (that i know of) that inflicts reveal when only thing anyone can find wrong with this weapon is the spammable evade on it’s 3rd skill.
“Flanking Strike: Increased initiative cost from 3 to 4. Requires striking a target to chain to Larcenous Strike.”
“Larcenous Strike: Decreased initiative cost from 2 to 1.”
yes lets make a skill vital to s/d’s damage output that no one is complaining about since it was originally nerfed harder to land while making the thing everyone has an issue with easier to spam

i wanna get off this ride

nickxnickx.5401:

Sure it makes thieves tunnel vision someone, but do thieves really have an alternative to not? (aoe abilities?)

This is a long time coming, but yes they do have an alternative. D/P does it right now, and I hope in the future S/D will demand more of it too. The thief is at its most vulnerable state usually when they attack. This is because they usually overextend to get their damage in on a priority target – as their main source of damage is through melee damage and they are REALLY squishy. They will ether take advantage of the slow reaction times of the opposing team, or poor positioning/rotations that the opposing team is doing. Beyond this, they need to be aware of what important cooldowns have been used from all players in the area on the critical skills that would prevent them from doing their damage or outright killing them. Mastering these concepts should be mandatory of a good thief.

Regarding cleave, cleave is most prevalent in team-fights. Thieves shouldn’t be the best in teamfights.

So am I the only one who thinks the S/D nerf is literally pointless? They want to nerf it to stop 3 evade spam, yet they are encouraging it at the same time…. Im absolutely lost tbh. S/D gets nerfed for no reason while acro remains….. To top it all off mesmers get AA torment like wtf is this logic? Pls enlighten me.

sinject.4607:

dont really get why thief is going to get the only condition aoe (that i know of) that inflicts reveal when only thing anyone can find wrong with this weapon is the spammable evade on it’s 3rd skill.

Of top of my head, Chaos Storm, Mark of Blood and Ring of Fire would like a word with you. Although looking over a skill list, about two~three dozen more skills are waiting in line.

So no, you’re getting initial damage added to your condi AE, just like virtually all condi AEs in the game.

Carighan.6758:

sinject.4607:

dont really get why thief is going to get the only condition aoe (that i know of) that inflicts reveal when only thing anyone can find wrong with this weapon is the spammable evade on it’s 3rd skill.

Of top of my head, Chaos Storm, Mark of Blood and Ring of Fire would like a word with you. Although looking over a skill list, about two~three dozen more skills are waiting in line.

So no, you’re getting initial damage added to your condi AE, just like virtually all condi AEs in the game.

Tell them to add that to the Ranger’s Frost Trap too, that trap could seriously use a starting damage to make it actually worth using in trap builds.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Tell them to add that to the Ranger’s Frost Trap too, that trap could seriously use a starting damage to make it actually worth using in trap builds.

I think chill might be overcosted across the board. I mean, look at Ice Drake Venom.

Sarrs.4831:

I think chill might be overcosted across the board. I mean, look at Ice Drake Venom.

Chill suffers the same issue in general as confusion does for Mesmers specifically. It’s not as strong as the effects would have you believe.

Carighan.6758:

Sarrs.4831:

I think chill might be overcosted across the board. I mean, look at Ice Drake Venom.

Chill suffers the same issue in general as confusion does for Mesmers specifically. It’s not as strong as the effects would have you believe.

Chill is powerful, it’s just not often applied in the amount necessary to benefit from it in a tremendous way.. It’s a superior snare to cripple and increasing recharge timers is huge but neither matter much when it’s for a couple seconds and the application has a massive cooldown attached to it.

Substance E.4852:

Carighan.6758:

Sarrs.4831:

I think chill might be overcosted across the board. I mean, look at Ice Drake Venom.

Chill suffers the same issue in general as confusion does for Mesmers specifically. It’s not as strong as the effects would have you believe.

Chill is powerful, it’s just not often applied in the amount necessary to benefit from it in a tremendous way.. It’s a superior snare to cripple and increasing recharge timers is huge but neither matter much when it’s for a couple seconds and the application has a massive cooldown attached to it.

You can’t even get a couple seconds applied usually, since Anet has given out condi removal like candy and made -98% duration reduction possible. Chill is flat out pointless unless you can pump its duration 100%, usually with huge sacrifice unless you are a full condi spec.

Maybe – kitten often – the extend of character customizability and hence variety is biting the devs in the kitten .

I mean, 100% condi duration. Think about that. Without any condition damage stat, you flat out made your conditions twice as potent and with important side effects (more vulnerable to cleansing but much less chance to miss an important moment and as a result less opportunity cost to using them).

Maybe it’d be smarter to have much lower increases to it, and cap it much lower (at 30%-40% bonus), but in turn take another look at all condition durations. Effectively making them longer for non-specialized chars and shorter for hyper-specialized ones.

Mind you, I have that issue with virtually every stats and every in GW2, the gap from “No points invested” to “all points invested” is way too large for sensible balancing.

You know, I was hoping this patch would at least normalize the difference for thieves in wvw vs spvp, but no. Revealed is still 4 seconds, CnD still does 33% less damage. It neuters my favorite spec (d/d) in spvp. Never mind that the spec isn’t terribly well represented.

There are so many aspects of thieves that need a buff or change. Venoms are near useless without venomshare. Traps are useless. Scorpion wire is incredibly unreliable. death blossom makes no sense as d/d #3. /d #4 is not worth using. Shadow arts 1 pt minor is actively harmful. p/p is an unused weaponset in need of a redesign. The list goes on and on.

But hey, they buffed a completely useless trait by 50%, not changing a thing. I’m tired of getting the short end of the stick.

Scorpion wire only pulls if you are in combat, otherwise it just knocks down.

Carighan.6758:

Sarrs.4831:

I think chill might be overcosted across the board. I mean, look at Ice Drake Venom.

Chill suffers the same issue in general as confusion does for Mesmers specifically. It’s not as strong as the effects would have you believe.

Depends on the game mode, in wvw thanks to lovely 40% condi food 2x engi can easily stack 15+ stacks of confusion on you which basically means for the next few seconds do not use skills or it will hurt (1-2k I was experiencing, could of been more maybe on a different set up).

Then it draws back to food wars 2 however, just get – incoming condi duration food. Amazing balance ain’kitten

NinjaEd.3946:

Carighan.6758:

Sarrs.4831:

I think chill might be overcosted across the board. I mean, look at Ice Drake Venom.

Chill suffers the same issue in general as confusion does for Mesmers specifically. It’s not as strong as the effects would have you believe.

Depends on the game mode, in wvw thanks to lovely 40% condi food 2x engi can easily stack 15+ stacks of confusion on you which basically means for the next few seconds do not use skills or it will hurt (1-2k I was experiencing, could of been more maybe on a different set up).

Then it draws back to food wars 2 however, just get – incoming condi duration food. Amazing balance ain’kitten

I find your comment irrelevant and underwhelming considering 1 single engie can stack 15 stacks of confusion on you by themselves. Please drop the unrealistic over dramatization to mislead folks to your personal cause.

oh well, my thief will remain parked as node-gathering machine, and should I ever feel my thief-pride hurting, I’ll just 2222 some elementalist to death.
Meanwhile, I will be sceptering my way to awesomeness with my mesmer.