Guild Wars 2

As previous posts attest, I am a new player coming from Ultima Online. My char (Lev 16) Thief mainly concentrating on PVE but would like to dabble in WvWvW once I reach a higher level.

My Concern – I asked about a decent PvE build for a Thief and was met with constant posts suggesting I re-roll another class as the thief will be changed/Nerfed into uselessness with the new upcoming patch? (This was from several forums) I have no idea why I should be touched as even at lev 16 other classes seem to be doing far more damage in PvE than I can unless this is another ‘’PvP nerf that will affect PvE’’
I had enough of that garbage with Ultima Online – PvP’ers whining to get Tamers/Archers Nerfed making them pointless/Useless to play in PvE.

If they get nerfed, I hope it will be a PvP-only nerf. Thieves seem average in PvE and I cannot imagine them getting nerfed for PvE reasons. That said, I think most of the whining about Thieves being (too) strong in PvP is mostly exaggerated and I hope Anet knows better than to nerf them.

Decent PvE Thief build: Dagger/Dagger, stack condition damage and bleed duration, use Death Blossom.

So far we have been singled out and the qq train from teh bads is all about the thief.
The sad thing is it is due to the culling in WvW that is the issue and not rendering us out of stealth. So to them it looks like perma stealth.
Instead of Aoe and dodging are main attack, (if we miss we die) they run straight to the forums QQ all over every thread. Unfortunately for us Anet will continue to nerf us till there is no more thief as they have done so repeatedly.
On my engi thieves are free tokens but people dont want to hear that or about how warr can 12k crit or mesmers porting in places ect. It is about the thief 24/7.

My advice – if you are like me and enjoy the thief keep playing and see what happens.

Thieves in PvP aren’t as overpowered as everyone claims, there’s a counter for every build for every class. As far as PvE goes, Thieves are awesome! AoE blinds, poisons, mass stealth… these are all useful things that the Thief can bring to the table (there’s more of course). I realize they’re not the only class that can do these things (but they are the only ones that can use poisons, not poison the condition) but my point is simply that I believe all classes have their roles and I’d worry less about which profession others think are the most useful and more about what you find most enjoyable ;-)

The original version of the Thief in GW2 reminded me about my old EQ2 days.

In that game, you have a few different “Thief” family classes that could full under the GW2 Thief heading. EQ2 has a melee AoE class who debuffed a mob’s offense, a single target melee class who can debuff a mob’s defense so low that the mob takes insane damage, and a melee glass cannon spike dps class. While there were many people playing the debuffing “Thief” classes since they were useful in many situations and had high survivability, the major of the “Thief” players were from the spike dps class. These glass cannon characters could do insane mega hits, but would then die in a bloody red cloud if they didn’t have some kind of stealth / aggro drop ability that was currently refreshed. (More often than not, the spike class was known as the “noob” class since its big damage number tended to attract people who cared more about their “highest damaging hit” record than they did about party sustainability.)

GW2 Thief builds can follow any of the x3 class paths that I just described.

1) We’ve already seen a 15% damage nerf to the melee AoE damage path (using the Sword / Pistol combination).

Now the only thing left to do is to someone handle the “Boom! Head Shot!” version of the GW2 Thief.

2) We had our Signet which did +50% Damage on the next hit changed into +15% on the next x5 hits. This reduced the alpha strike hit capability of the Thief (which is the common PvP complaint) and it made the Signet skill viable for a lot more Thief builds.

3) The Dagger remains the only problematic weapon to deal with since its skills are the ones that are causing all of the problems. In the Dagger Nerf v1.0, the Dagger #2 (Heart Seeker) leaping attack was changed from giving a hefty damage bonus at 50% mob / player health to giving the damage bonus at 25% mob / player health.

4) At this present time, the ArenaNet devs are looking at the Dagger’s special “attacking from Stealth” attack. This melee attack does a higher than normal amount of damage and its damage is doubled if you hit someone from the side or rear. I think every Thief is expecting it to get nerfed down. No one knows if it will get changed into another useful skill (like the Signet) or if it will just remain the same while getting its dps output gutted.

5) The final and eternal complaint about the Thief is the fact that they can go into Stealth. While we’ve got a few Stealth abilities with cool downs, the Dagger #5 melee attack can proc a short Stealth if it hits your target. When this is combined with ArenaNet’s server rendering issues that often make people invisible for a few seconds when they first come into the view of your character, a Stealth based Thief in PvP can sometimes act as if permanently chain Stealthed between their actual abilities and the rendering bug. Once ArenaNet gets the rendering issue ironed out (which doesn’t help the Thief against PvE mob AI), we’ll just have to deal with the cliche and expected complaints about Stealth.

All things considered, the Thief does have some interesting options and the ArenaNet devs have been trying to subtlely get the Thief community’s feedback about what areas of the Thief class could get buffed (under the assumption that the power of the Dagger is going to get a partial or mega nerf). From a PvE point of view, I would personally suggest against making a new Thief that’s built around the Dagger since ArenaNet has already admitted that they’re going to “adjust” it in some kind of way. Yet once you get past the Dagger issues (which is one of the main reasons that many people play Thief character in the first place), there are some unique ways of debuffing and controlling your enemies while also granting your PvE allies Stealth to help them survive.

I just love how all the Thieves come to the forums to defend their ability to kill someone in under 6 seconds and in such a fashion that the other person can’t do a darn thing.

Yes the rendering issue when fixed will be a HUGE nerf to alot of Thieves (bad ones) as it will no longer allow them immunity.

Yet to say you are not the most OP class in pvp is an understatement.

Thieves aren’t the most OP in PvP. I think the reason people think that is it is easy to be an unskilled player and get good with a theif, mainly due to the stealthing and rendering issues. However several skilled classes can wreck thieves.

Look at the person earlier who said their engineer sees thieves as a free badge/token. I know guardians shrug thieves off because they try to burst, get denied, then have to run away.

Nayru.4537:

callidus.7085:

Thieves in PvP aren’t as overpowered as everyone claims,

Thieves are most definitely 100% OP in PvP compared to other professions. You’re only saying otherwise because, like others, you play thief and don’t want them to be nerfed.

I do NOT play thief… I am mostly focused on PvE and my main is a Warrior (my only lvl 80). My other characters are Mesmer and Necro (both are only lvl 20). I say Thieves are not OP because I eat them with my Warrior and Mesmer (when I do end up playing some PvP… WvWvW is strictly my Warrior). Perhaps you should’ve asked what classes I play?

Nautika.5376:

I just love how all the Thieves come to the forums to defend their ability to kill someone in under 6 seconds and in such a fashion that the other person can’t do a darn thing.

Nayru.4537:

Thieves are most definitely 100% OP in PvP compared to other professions. You’re only saying otherwise because, like others, you play thief and don’t want them to be nerfed.

I don’t play Thief. Thieves are not OP. The majority of “Thief is OP”-comments can be answered by “L2P”. People just need to dodge. Can’t see the enemy? Don’t just stand there until you get backstabbed.

Warriors can also kill people in under 6 seconds, yet you see nobody whining about them. Because they, like Thieves, can be easily countered by anyone who knows what he’s doing.

People usually act like “I can’t do a thing before he kills me” which is just complete nonsense. If a Thief can kill you in 6 seconds, you can also kill him in 6 seconds, because he would need a glasscannon build. And FYI, stealth doesn’t make them invulnerable.

i wonder if they will do what they did with first guild wars. have a pve template and a pvp template. so if something is nerfed for pvp it doesnt affect pve, and ofcourse the other way round.
everything is practically in place for that because u have to travel to a seperate for any form of pvp anyway. im guessing its something coming in future ?

Anyways, I still stand by what I said, play what you want OP, you’ll enjoy the game more that way ;-)

As a thief who only occasionaly visits WvW I say: ignore the forums and enjoy your thief.

I would have said this to anyone asking if they should continue their character “because it might get nerfed”. It is nonsense to stop playing something you enjoy because MAYBE it will get SOME nerfs in the future. Hell, if you stopped playing every time someone said that, you might as well not play at all.

As it is now, I enjoy my thief. It has been nerfed before, didn’t stop me then or lessened my experience in any way.

I beseech you: don’t let the whiners ruin your fun. Not worth it!

[Edit]

Keep at it, thieves are a blast. To the idiots that cry nerf in PVP – the only thieves that are blowing you up are glass canons. Either stack toughness/vitality so you don’t get blown up, or learn to react quicker. Any class can glass canon it, we can just take you by surprise. I guarantee the people that complain are just too slow to react, and blame the game mechanics instead.

Just remember not to blow your initiative and wait until they blow their knockbacks if any before heartseekering (don’t heartseek someone above 50%, and wait until they blow an invulnerability so as to not waste initiative). Remember: heartseeker is a charged attack, it’s a short charge, but it’s still interuptable so don’t play as if it were a non-interruptable ability.

I just wish I could do the same a glass cannon thief build can with my elementalist…

Even a full berzeker scepter / dagger elementalist can’t kill as fast as a full glass cannon backstab thief. We would be as fragile, if you don’t take stealth in consideration, but the spells of our most bursty weapon combination are like 10x slower at animations and casting times and don’t do any more damage to compensate for that, so…..

Now, a 100b + quickness warrior, can kill as fast while being 3x tougher, although they have to blow long cooldowns to make the burst happen with minimal counter chance.

Anyways, I’m against the possibility for any class to have a 5s kill build, even if the kill leaves them vulnerable. The fun of a pvp combat, is exactly how you and your opponent react to every situation. To be able to kill with a so small window for reaction is really a bad game design.

Yeah, i’m keeping with my bleed Theif… Having fun bleeding/Stealing then running away and finishing off with shortbow :-)
May not kill as fast as a warror or Guardian but gets the job done :-)

I would recommend waiting 9 days and see what happens. If they nerf the thief into oblivion, roll another class at that time.

:-( So my PvE experience and fun could be stopped because some guys got killed by a Thief in PvP !!
I saw a warrior in Queensdale kill a Troll far quicker than me, so i say Nerf the Warrior into oblivion too …
Ahh.. but the warrior doesn’t have stealth they say …
Warrior does not need stealth when they put out so much damage in PvE

Only fair (This is how/what killed UO game balance with the constand moaning and whining of the Minority vocal PvP crowd and the Anal retentive devs fawning over everything they said insead of looking how it would impact on the wider game.)

Nayru.4537:

Of course you don’t.

So remember kids, when an overpowered profession attacks you in stealth and kills you in 4 seconds, L2P. Every other profession is just as powerful!

Fortunately there isn’t such a profession. Dealing damage breaks stealth. Dying in 4 seconds means you don’t dodge.

So it indeed is a L2P issue.

I saw a warrior in Queensdale kill a Troll far quicker than me, so i say Nerf the Warrior into oblivion too …

Warriors can focus more on burst damage, so your argument is invalid.

No class is or will be useless. If anything, classes will be “balanced” as the game plays on.

I played GW1 for 7 years and saw all these nerfs and buffs to skills and mechanics coming and going and while some would be frustrating to accept i learned they were all for a greater good – that is, “balance”.

GW2 was recently released and the process to evaluate professions playstyles, skills and mechanics will be an ongoing thing for a while – pretty much every mmo goes through this during it’s lifespan.

Regarding the thief, i had no problems playing it effectively to end game PvE.
Currently in PvP, this class is getting into the spotlight for 2 reasons (atleast for me):

- WvWvW render bug coupled with stealth mechanic allows thief to keep attacking unseen for a period of time. (seems this will be fixed in this month’s patch)
- High burst dmg with little skill required.

I wouldn’t be too worried about picking Thief and lvl’ing it – if you like the profession, do it. I have one and i really like the class regardless of what changes will come for it.

Budchgon.2108:

:-( So my PvE experience and fun could be stopped because some guys got killed by a Thief in PvP !!

Or it could be stopped because some dev made a mistake in an update causing an unwanted nerf.

It could be stopped because some player discovers an exploit.

It could be stopped because the devs suddenly decide to switch all daggers to pillows and all shortbows to chocolatebars.

My point is: stop worrying about what MAY happen and why and don’t let it ruin your day. Just enjoy it how it is now. And if there will be a nerf, you’ll learn to work around it if you are flexible enough.

Honestly, I feel like kicking you so hard you will never look at these forums again For your own good, of course.

Nayru.4537:

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

Nayru.4537:

Of course you don’t.

So remember kids, when an overpowered profession attacks you in stealth and kills you in 4 seconds, L2P. Every other profession is just as powerful!

Fortunately there isn’t such a profession. Dealing damage breaks stealth. Dying in 4 seconds means you don’t dodge.

So it indeed is a L2P issue.

I saw a warrior in Queensdale kill a Troll far quicker than me, so i say Nerf the Warrior into oblivion too …

Warriors can focus more on burst damage, so your argument is invalid.

The issue is L2P a profession that isn’t thief – for you. You seem new to GW2. I think you need to stop playing thief and play professions like Necro and Engineer to get a better understanding of the game. You may develop skill that doesn’t involve spamming 2 and being overpowered.

Again, I don’t play Thief. Never have, probably never will. I dislike stealth mechanics. I play GW2 from the first minute of BWE1, so I’m not really new. I’ve got a lvl 80 Warrior, Mesmer, Elementalist and Engineer, so I think I have enough understanding of the game.

I don’t have any problems countering glass-cannon Thieves, so it’s still a L2P issue. Maybe press V every once in a while when fighting Thieves.

My main is a thief and backstab is ungodly strong and deserves a nurf and it wont really effect pve in the slightest

Boogiepophantom.3041:

My main is a thief and backstab is ungodly strong and deserves a nurf and it wont really effect pve in the slightest

I would wager that you don’t have a thief.

Nerf frenzy + 100B.
Nerf churning earth + blink.
Nerf 3 clone 2 phantasm + shatter.

Situational stuff man. None of it needs a nerf – backstabs really only shine if you are power/crit based – aka a glass canon. Catch that thief out of stealth and he’ll go down quickly.

Thief is fine, it’s just the best noobstomper and therefore it gets the hate from those.
If they’re gonna nerf damage they better come up with a major defense buff because if a Thief can’t kill and dies in 3 hits then what’s the point of playing one?
Especially when you can burst 40k dmg with a tanky Warrior.

Well, as i stated, i play a Condition thief and having great fun (yes, i can’t kill as fast as a warrior but i enjoy the hit and run feel to my character).

Just worried (as i have personally seen in my many gaming years in UO and EQ1+2) once they start on the nerfing for PvP they can go too far and risk losing players.

Players left UO because they didn’t like the griefing associated with their AWESOME PvP/PK set up. Real consequences associated with leaving “safe” areas. I left because I moved on to other MMOs – but no nerfs changed my love for UO.

i wouldn’t worry about it. people claiming there will be nerfs are people that suck at PvP whining because a burst thief bursted on him when he was alone (doing god knows what, even on 5v5 you should have no reason to be alone on PvP).

thief plays just fine on PvE, and unlike many classes, it doesn’t take long for it to become effective (looking at you mesmer). it might feel a bit too squishy, and certain builds don’t work really well early on, but it’s definitely a fun class. that is, if that’s the right class for you.

i have a friend that took 40 levels to realize he wasn’t having much fun with the thief. don’t make the same mistake as him.

here are some goods and bads of the thief:

+ lots of built-in evasion
+ big bursts
+ best evasiveness and mobility in the game (aka ‘you can run away like no one else’)
+ easy access to stealth to break agro
- very squishy, especially early on
- only profession with energy management
- very limited weapon selection leads to very few skills to play with

if that sounds like fun to you, then have at it.

‘’Players left UO because they didn’t like the griefing associated with their AWESOME PvP/PK set up. Real consequences associated with leaving “safe” areas. I left because I moved on to other MMOs – but no nerfs changed my love for UO’’

Maybe you were not around for the major Tamer nerfs or Archer nerfs then.. all because some crybaby PvP’ers didn’t know how to kill a Pvp Tamer (Which was easy if they bothered to learn to play).
Sadly their Nerfs had a huge knock on effect in PvE and Guilds just decided to leave (Mine included) as the fun was gone.
Sadly UO is a deserted wasteland with the only few payers left playing the only viable PvE template (Sampire/Thrower). Good times though :-)
I just don’t want GW2 to go the same way and cater to the vocal ’’Nerf’’ group

Budchgon.2108:

‘’Players left UO because they didn’t like the griefing associated with their AWESOME PvP/PK set up. Real consequences associated with leaving “safe” areas. I left because I moved on to other MMOs – but no nerfs changed my love for UO’’

Maybe you were not around for the major Tamer nerfs or Archer nerfs then.. all because some crybaby PvP’ers didn’t know how to kill a Pvp Tamer (Which was easy if they bothered to learn to play).
Sadly their Nerfs had a huge knock on effect in PvE and Guilds just decided to leave (Mine included) as the fun was gone.
Sadly UO is a deserted wasteland with the only few payers left playing the only viable PvE template (Sampire/Thrower). Good times though :-)
I just don’t want GW2 to go the same way and cater to the vocal ’’Nerf’’ group

Probably not, I left long before EA took over. I played Atlantic for 4 years, played Novus Opiate for a year, random sphereserver shards for a while, and finally moved on.

So much of the problem with thief, that resulted in so many nerfs already, yet more coming… it’s all nerfing the thiefs but ignoring the cause of the problem, which is the game engine not working right.

Really, the same is the case with mesmer portal. Right now, it’s functionally a way to move an unlimited number of players in long-lasting stealth that persists even after attacks. Portal bombs only work because the game doesn’t.

zomg thief killed me before I could even see him — that only works cuz the game doesn’t.

So far ANet has an alarming tendency to nerf a class instead of fixing the crappy design/engine.

In pvp, when the screen pops and waitin to rez, it’s hardly ever thief anymore at the top of my list. In wvw, it’s all about siege (as it should be) and portal bombs. In pve, the thief takes a lot of skill and finesse to keep alive, and will never match the kill-speed of dps professions.

It’s a fun playstyle, but not without its frustrations.

It’s easier to nerf something than to fix the deficiencies of other professions that lead to whining, complaining and crying. Often the nerfs end up being the wrong changes.

Be that as it may, those who crutch heavy on a mechanic will bring attention to that mechanic even if it isn’t over powered, simply because so many will start using it instead of not following the herd. This will lead to misleading data gathered by Anet, as many will use the simlest route and that route will tend to dominate the data.

The same people that say roll something else also tell you to roll this or that class since they won’t get nerfed but buffed (Rangers and Eles tend to be mentioned the most).

Just play a character you enjoy.

If you still plan on playing thief for PvE, try out Dagger/Pistol thief. That’s what I use and it works pretty well. The 3 skill teleports you to your target and makes it blind for one hit (it’ll miss the next hit), while the 5 skill blinds every enemy that’s close to you so you won’t get hit (much) and when doing a heartseeker when it’s still active stealths you so you can backstab an enemy.

My thief is a Crit and Toughness build (30 in both areas with 10 points in Power). My other guildmates who are glass canon builds do a lot of damage (in orr they were eating Risen health away) but they didn’t last as long as I did =P

Nautika.5376:

I just love how all the Thieves come to the forums to defend their ability to kill someone in under 6 seconds and in such a fashion that the other person can’t do a darn thing.

Yes the rendering issue when fixed will be a HUGE nerf to alot of Thieves (bad ones) as it will no longer allow them immunity.

Yet to say you are not the most OP class in pvp is an understatement.

says a glass cannon to a glass cannon.

I love playin’ my Thief in PvE; an effective thief takes time ta learn, as we don’ kick kitten right outa the bucket, but once ya get em down, they’re worth it. Thieves are excitin’ in yer face type characters in fights, they need to keep movin’, need to keep momentum, because we’re squishy and standin’ still for very long will get ya smashed. But we’re the most slippery class, too, between stealth an’ movement type attacks an’ condition breaks, a thief what really doesn’ wanna get caught will pop right outta yer hands.

But, we got trade offs. We’re squishy, like I said, so when ya do get hit, it’s like takin’ that Charr cannon ta the face. We also got fewer weapon choices than allota other classes, an’ no off hand utility items like Shields, Torches, Horns, etc. (but we do have duel pistols which are very flashy, but underpowered as hell – though that doesn’ stop some of us from traitin’ heavily for em and goin’ that direction anyway).

Oh, and Steal …. steal is the mos’ beautiful, lovable, pettable, class ability in the game; at low levels it seems lackin’, so allota people drop it an’ forget it … but ya start hittin’ mid level and trait inta Steal and it’s a game changer.

@OP

Thieves are considered the 3rd most RELIABLE Dungeon class after Guardians & Warriors because they have gimmicks that make dungeons faster/easier. Forget what you’d heard because it is all a Stereotype that bad players (who thought they were making pure-damage Ninjas) helped create. …as are the “Nerfs” they’ll be getting.

On the Other Hand

If you don’t WANT to be bound to a very helpful but limited support build.
And you actually WANT to be a big Damage Ninja …then don’t roll Thief …roll Warrior

Thieves already got nerfed. Pistol Whip had its balls removed, and our only underwater elite is no better than any normal immobilize utility or weapon skill.

Even those changes considered though, thieves are still pretty great in PvE. Safe entry, high burst, safe exit and then shortbow dps while init recharges to do it again. Scorpion wire, Shadow Refuge and Smoke screen are among the most all around useful dungeon utility skills in the game, especially when you are rolling with a competent warrior or ele that knows how to take advantage of your combo fields and vice versa.

People that are biased against thieves in dungeons just have no idea what they are talking about. Mesmers and Rangers more commonly get the shorter end of the dungeon stick I think.