Guild Wars 2

JonathanSharp.7094:

So with the Thief, we feel like their straight burst with some sets is too good as it is (Mug/C &D/BS/heartseeker), but a lot of other things are weak in comparison, which is bad.

The goal is to allow them to punish boons (something we also want to try with the Warrior) while also improving their mobility with all weapon sets (since Shortbow is already strong at that, but it overpowers other options).

As Allie said, we want to be careful to balance their WvW/PvE potential against their PvP potential, and then inside of PvP, we have to be careful to watch how they perform at high ranks vs. low ranks.

Whoa hold it there John, be careful with your words.
You guys said master of Single target burst, stealth and mobility…
Pistol, Pistol has no stealth, it has no mobility, it’s got wonky burst.
Sword Pistol after haste nerf, really doesn’t have single target burst, it has mobility, it doesn’t have stealth.
In Spvp Tactical last 2 max for 4s reveal vs the 3 max for 4s reveal in WvW and PvE. If the goal is to maintain as much synergy as possible, given that quickness is nerfed for one and reveal is longer as a second, is it not about time to revert some things or go back under the microscope to reanalyze them? After all, Mug is next on your radar, can’t just throw even more builds under the bus.
Actually pretty much the only thing what you guys said back then is true for, is daggers!? I guess you could say P/D condi burst if you stretch it.

You say the goal is to punish boons we start thinking on every set. Not that it should be, since when has the Assassin ever punished a boon in its existance? It removes them. You can call a Pig a cow but it’s still a pig, where is the boon removal of old? 250 years to downgrade? You can’t be serious.

Players told you RNG was a bad idea for Steal in Spvp, telling you now.
Boon removal, not punishment. Keep it real.

You can preach balance for the 3 formats, I don’t have an issue with that however… Thieves have issues in PvE and I know S/P isn’t sticking out in WvW especially after the quickness nerf. P/Pistol is still a duck set you switch out of the second someone sneezes at you.

You guys also have a weird fetish for multi-hit attacks or something that is something apparently Single-Target burst in a game where Crit damage and Crits make up so much of your actual damage. The real damage of skills like FS and PW which would be crazy strong if they were single hit fluctuates terribly because of reliant on crits for damage and them taking multiple hits…just doesn’t stabilize.

Also John, if you have time. How often do you use “potent Poison” because I swear it is not “potent”.

Svarty.8019:

JonathanSharp.7094:

The goal is to allow them to punish boons

Guardian here, what the kitten do you think you’re kittening doing??!!! Thieves already whoop us, we don’t need boon hate on top of that!

This is the kind of player that you guys want to balance around?
That’s bold.

JonathanSharp.7094:

So with the Thief, we feel like their straight burst with some sets is too good as it is (Mug/C &D/BS/heartseeker), but a lot of other things are weak in comparison, which is bad.

The goal is to allow them to punish boons (something we also want to try with the Warrior) while also improving their mobility with all weapon sets (since Shortbow is already strong at that, but it overpowers other options).

As Allie said, we want to be careful to balance their WvW/PvE potential against their PvP potential, and then inside of PvP, we have to be careful to watch how they perform at high ranks vs. low ranks.

With all due respect I really hope you know what you’re doing; because it sounds like you have no clue.

Warriors getting ‘Boon Hate’ in the form of …say… a trait offering 1% more damage for each boon on the target I can get into.

Thieves getting ‘Boon Hate’ as a potential freebie on top of even more increased mobility when they are already nigh-uncatchable with certain builds being extremely overpowered in WvW (mainly because there is no hard counter against Stealth), can safely stay in berserker gear because of stealth and oneshot ~75% of the participants while easily escaping anyone else except maybe a D/D Elementalist does not sound like you guys know what you’re doing with this game.

So I really hope you guys keep a very close eye on preserving game balance across all modes of play. Unless you’re planning to rename this game “God Wars 2 – Thieves and Elementalists”.

Lordrosicky.5813:

As a necro this conerns me. The fact we have boon stripping as our thing and now you are planning to give boon punishment (way better than boon stripping)

I’m not sure if boon punishment is automatically better than boon stripping. By stripping, you are negating the effects of boons; by punishing, you are becoming stronger as they are, but they still benefit from boon effects.

EDIT: I believe the devs intend to nerf the thief’s burst damage once they give him boon-hating mechanics? If so, they won’t give exactly a freebie buff to the thief.

What I find funny is why are the even introducing this boon hate at all? I mean sure warriors may need it but thieves/mesmers/necro all have ways to deal with boons currently in some form or another… this introduction of boon hate is just unnecessary and I do not play a build/class that heavily relies on boons. I play one of the classes that can already strip the boons… Which is why I don’t see this as necessary maybe instead of the thief getting an ability in PvP steal can just steal boons…

mbh.8301:

Svarty.8019:

JonathanSharp.7094:

The goal is to allow them to punish boons

Guardian here, what the kitten do you think you’re kittening doing??!!! Thieves already whoop us, we don’t need boon hate on top of that!

This is the kind of player that you guys want to balance around?
That’s bold.

Is this the kind of player that you guys want to balance around?
That’s bold.

jportell.2197:

What I find funny is why are the even introducing this boon hate at all? I mean sure warriors may need it but thieves/mesmers/necro all have ways to deal with boons currently in some form or another… this introduction of boon hate is just unnecessary and I do not play a build/class that heavily relies on boons. I play one of the classes that can already strip the boons… Which is why I don’t see this as necessary maybe instead of the thief getting an ability in PvP steal can just steal boons…

You’re talking about a 20 point thing in tricker every 36-32 seconds for 2? Or Flanking strike, which is not free by any play of the imagination. Not that I disagree, no boon hate, removal plz on my infiltrators signet..

ensoriki.5789:

jportell.2197:

What I find funny is why are the even introducing this boon hate at all? I mean sure warriors may need it but thieves/mesmers/necro all have ways to deal with boons currently in some form or another… this introduction of boon hate is just unnecessary and I do not play a build/class that heavily relies on boons. I play one of the classes that can already strip the boons… Which is why I don’t see this as necessary maybe instead of the thief getting an ability in PvP steal can just steal boons…

You’re talking about a 20 point thing in tricker every 36-32 seconds for 2? Or Flanking strike, which is not free by any play of the imagination. Not that I disagree, no boon hate, removal plz on my infiltrators signet..

I think that would be fine… Just work with the boon removal that classes already have… However I am not sure why they are focusing so much in this… I mean thieves get a damage bonus for each condition a target has on them (Deadly arts 25) so they should up the conditions a thief can dish or make venoms better in pvp…

AllieMurdock.1785:

We’re reviewing Warriors and Elementalists as well. Perhaps we can get into that another time and in a different thread, though. As this thread is about Thieves, let’s keep it on track.

“People in the low tiers will always have trouble with something.”

Sure, but we still need to consider how the new player experience is going to be. Particularly when it comes to Thieves.

Thanks, but in all seriousness, does the dev team simply not consider Ranger to be need of any tweaking or looking at whatsoever? Hopefully you just forgot to mention them, Allie.

i do understand that you guys, thieves, are frustrated because its like you got your candy taken away from you.
but it’s still a viable class. All the experienced thieves i know, say that. maybe you should talk to one of them.

Alright, let’s give Warriors and Thieves ‘Boon Hate’. Then give Engineers and Rangers ‘Stealth Hate’ (the ability to see stealthed opponents).

There, now there’s a hard counter for everything.

JonathanSharp.7094:

So with the Thief, we feel like their straight burst with some sets is too good as it is (Mug/C &D/BS/heartseeker), but a lot of other things are weak in comparison, which is bad.

The goal is to allow them to punish boons (something we also want to try with the Warrior) while also improving their mobility with all weapon sets (since Shortbow is already strong at that, but it overpowers other options).

As Allie said, we want to be careful to balance their WvW/PvE potential against their PvP potential, and then inside of PvP, we have to be careful to watch how they perform at high ranks vs. low ranks.

Pardon me but why does the class with the best burst and the best escapes ALSO need boon punishing?

Wouldn’t it be better to give that to another class?

Brutal Arts.6307:

JonathanSharp.7094:

So with the Thief, we feel like their straight burst with some sets is too good as it is (Mug/C &D/BS/heartseeker), but a lot of other things are weak in comparison, which is bad.

The goal is to allow them to punish boons (something we also want to try with the Warrior) while also improving their mobility with all weapon sets (since Shortbow is already strong at that, but it overpowers other options).

As Allie said, we want to be careful to balance their WvW/PvE potential against their PvP potential, and then inside of PvP, we have to be careful to watch how they perform at high ranks vs. low ranks.

Pardon me but why does the class with the best burst and the best escapes ALSO need boon punishing?

Wouldn’t it be better to give that to another class?

probably because the thief is one of the worse performer in high end tPvP.

probably because we’re playing with the same build for 4 months, and 90 % of thief u-skills / traits and weapons are crap.

Probaably this boon hate won’t solve anything , and the thief will still be bad.

PROBABLY.

jportell.2197:

ensoriki.5789:

jportell.2197:

What I find funny is why are the even introducing this boon hate at all? I mean sure warriors may need it but thieves/mesmers/necro all have ways to deal with boons currently in some form or another… this introduction of boon hate is just unnecessary and I do not play a build/class that heavily relies on boons. I play one of the classes that can already strip the boons… Which is why I don’t see this as necessary maybe instead of the thief getting an ability in PvP steal can just steal boons…

You’re talking about a 20 point thing in tricker every 36-32 seconds for 2? Or Flanking strike, which is not free by any play of the imagination. Not that I disagree, no boon hate, removal plz on my infiltrators signet..

I think that would be fine… Just work with the boon removal that classes already have… However I am not sure why they are focusing so much in this… I mean thieves get a damage bonus for each condition a target has on them (Deadly arts 25) so they should up the conditions a thief can dish or make venoms better in pvp…

Only prob I’ve had with boon removal is there being none on utils. Daggers don’t need boon removal or hate unless you’re seriously reworking the weapon. It’s been sheer power from the get-go.

Aveneo.2068:

Alright, let’s give Warriors and Thieves ‘Boon Hate’. Then give Engineers and Rangers ‘Stealth Hate’ (the ability to see stealthed opponents).

There, now there’s a hard counter for everything.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

JonathanSharp.7094:

So with the Thief, we feel like their straight burst with some sets is too good as it is (Mug/C &D/BS/heartseeker), but a lot of other things are weak in comparison, which is bad.

The goal is to allow them to punish boons (something we also want to try with the Warrior) while also improving their mobility with all weapon sets (since Shortbow is already strong at that, but it overpowers other options).

Cool, that’s pretty much what I’ve been thinking as well. I’ve been toying around with quite a few non-traditional Thief-Builds and here’s what I’ve noticed:

Flanking Strike: In Theory, I like this Skill very much: It has a boonstrip and a nice little Evade which gives much needed sustain/survival to Thiefs outside of Stealth. What I don’t like about it is it’s effectiveness: It simply does too less DPS and the attack is kinda hard to hit after all that rolling around on the Floor. I think the skill should reward Players for landing the attack and punish opponents for not evading it. This could be done by letting the second attack strip another boon or by dealing more Damage.

Pistol Whip: With the recent Quickness-Nerf, I do think that a revamp on this skill is in order that would also go into another direction than Burst. I think that both Flanking Strike and Pistol Whip should work together with Infiltrator’s Strike to become a quick “in-and-out” attack skill: Teleport to the opponent, do an attack and then get back. For Pistol whip, this could mean maybe give the attack a little longer Stun and make the actual attack trigger faster after the Stun, but reducing the Number of Sword-Swipes or sth. Just so you are able to hit a good deal of the swipes without having to go for quickness/immobilize. You shouldn’t just be able to do full DPS (in a Team there are other Players with immobilize/stuns as well), but it should be a little bit more effective without any of that.

Assassin’s Reward: This Skill just benefits way too less from Healing Power. You get like 35 Points more Healing (from about 70 to 105) with 1000 Healing Power. It could easily be trippled without creating another über-tank: It would just reward assa’s that maybe went for Valk-Amu instead of Zerker…

Assassin’s reward doesn’t even trigger half the time because it waits until the animation is done….
Pray every day for 2nd boon removal on FS 2nd hit. Already got the nickname “Shattering Assault”.

@ Allie and Johnathan,

Split the skill stats (Damage output, etc) from PvE/WvW and PvP, that will remove a lot of your problems regarding Balance for the classes in all 3 aspects.

WvW and PvP should never be considered the same, for elementalist you have shown you can split the way the skills work, -50% healing effectiveness.

People have bad expirience (Newcomers) with the burst of Thieves, Mesmers and Warriors, so reduce the direct damage output on their skills in PvP, but not before balancing out other viable builds. Its ok to ask the community to help you, (top tier players) with analysis on how the new numbers are (to low, to high).

just my 2 cents

AllieMurdock.1785:

We’re reviewing Warriors and Elementalists as well. Perhaps we can get into that another time and in a different thread, though. As this thread is about Thieves, let’s keep it on track.

“People in the low tiers will always have trouble with something.”

Sure, but we still need to consider how the new player experience is going to be. Particularly when it comes to Thieves.

JonathanSharp.7094:

So with the Thief, we feel like their straight burst with some sets is too good as it is (Mug/C &D/BS/heartseeker), but a lot of other things are weak in comparison, which is bad.

The goal is to allow them to punish boons (something we also want to try with the Warrior) while also improving their mobility with all weapon sets (since Shortbow is already strong at that, but it overpowers other options).

As Allie said, we want to be careful to balance their WvW/PvE potential against their PvP potential, and then inside of PvP, we have to be careful to watch how they perform at high ranks vs. low ranks.

I know topics like this are difficult to address. Thanks for giving good responses. A lot of people get worked up over a misworded response, but the direction here seems very solid.

JonathanSharp.7094:

So with the Thief, we feel like their straight burst with some sets is too good as it is (Mug/C &D/BS/heartseeker), but a lot of other things are weak in comparison, which is bad.

The goal is to allow them to punish boons (something we also want to try with the Warrior) while also improving their mobility with all weapon sets (since Shortbow is already strong at that, but it overpowers other options).

As Allie said, we want to be careful to balance their WvW/PvE potential against their PvP potential, and then inside of PvP, we have to be careful to watch how they perform at high ranks vs. low ranks.

Alright so, cool. In the midst of making this “boon hate” build for thieves (and warriors) is there still going to be a build that has an harder learning curve?

Anyone can learn how to burst as a thief currently which is also part of the issue, along with all the available damage thieves have. Is it fair to say, as a thief, I can hope this boon hate build would be essentially harder to learn at first but is very rewarding in its own way?

One more thing, is the boon hate going to be burst to kill, or just a fancy boon strip build?

As mentioned in other posts. Been through this a few times in regards to stealth. I said a few months ago the nerf bat was coming. I see more changes coming. Anet needs to realize they have 3 separate games going on and adjust accordingly.

PvE – Thieves need a boost and/or a niche
PvP – Thieves need a slight…very slight boost
WvW – Thieves need another nerf..small, but still a nerf

jportell.2197:

I mean thieves get a damage bonus for each condition a target has on them (Deadly arts 25) so they should up the conditions a thief can dish or make venoms better in pvp…

No. They get a fixed damage bonus if the target has at least one condition on them.

JonathanSharp.7094:

So with the Thief, we feel like their straight burst with some sets is too good as it is (Mug/C &D/BS/heartseeker), but a lot of other things are weak in comparison, which is bad.

The goal is to allow them to punish boons (something we also want to try with the Warrior) while also improving their mobility with all weapon sets (since Shortbow is already strong at that, but it overpowers other options).

As Allie said, we want to be careful to balance their WvW/PvE potential against their PvP potential, and then inside of PvP, we have to be careful to watch how they perform at high ranks vs. low ranks.

How about other builds, ie vshare, condition, pwhip etc?
Honestly there were much more thief builds in beta

JonathanSharp.7094:

So with the Thief, we feel like their straight burst with some sets is too good as it is (Mug/C &D/BS/heartseeker), but a lot of other things are weak in comparison, which is bad.

The goal is to allow them to punish boons (something we also want to try with the Warrior) while also improving their mobility with all weapon sets (since Shortbow is already strong at that, but it overpowers other options).

As Allie said, we want to be careful to balance their WvW/PvE potential against their PvP potential, and then inside of PvP, we have to be careful to watch how they perform at high ranks vs. low ranks.

Tks Jonathan, I’m looking forward to that, will we see any of these changes in a near future or do we have to wait a few months for it?

I know it takes time to do all this and test it but atm, as you might understand I’m not particularly happy with my thief and find myself longing in less frequently, especially due to the revealed change, I’m yet to understand why this was done….

anyway, stay SHARP

Remove stomping from stealth. That’s stupid by design.

Iruwen.3164:

Remove stomping from stealth. That’s stupid by design.

And yet stealth does not give you immunity to interrupts like other stomps by other classes (for example ele)…

If p/p had boon hate it would be very good, but the issue would be the lack of mobility, which would be a huge hit to the thief. Its going to require some creative brainstorming from the devs to fix this.

the ironic thing about the haste nerf is that it killed the only viable alternatives to d/p build the thief had.

JonathanSharp.7094:

So with the Thief, we feel like their straight burst with some sets is too good as it is (Mug/C &D/BS/heartseeker), but a lot of other things are weak in comparison, which is bad.

The goal is to allow them to punish boons (something we also want to try with the Warrior) while also improving their mobility with all weapon sets (since Shortbow is already strong at that, but it overpowers other options).

As Allie said, we want to be careful to balance their WvW/PvE potential against their PvP potential, and then inside of PvP, we have to be careful to watch how they perform at high ranks vs. low ranks.

Thieves are subpar in pve because they are simply not warriors, guardians or mesmers. Seems you’re going to reduce their damage and give them “boon hate” (pve boss barely use boons meaning thief will be even more terrible, woohoo?)
Thieves aren’t strong at all in wvw despise what people think, they are decent at best. It’s the one, if not the most worthless class to have during zergs, and an d/d ele is infinitly superior at roaming and can switch to something like staff for keep attacks/defence. They are the best at trolling i guess, awesome!!!
Thieves are weak in pvp, good against noobs but 10 time less effective and frustrating than mesmers against the same players and are plagued with lots of terrible traits, skills and utilities for no reason (mesmers aren’t for some reason, seems having stealth, good mobility in combat, decent burst and damage and clones is not dangerous for balance all of a sudden, how mysterious).

It won’t prevent me for playing that class at all,, i honestly don’t care that much as long as you don’t nerf the shortbow or infiltrator’s strike, but you can’t say i didn’t warned you about how struggling that class is atm (not as much as warrior in pvp though, but i consider warrior easier to salvage than thieves).

Iruwen.3164:

Remove stomping from stealth. That’s stupid by design.

sure man!
but wile you are at it also remove the following:
- Mesmer Stealth Stomp
- Elementalist Mistform stomp
- Guardian Stability Stomp
- Necromancer Death Shroud Stomp
- Ranger / Warrior Quickness stomp

thank you!

Volrath.1473:

Iruwen.3164:

Remove stomping from stealth. That’s stupid by design.

- Ranger / Warrior Quickness stomp

thank you!

Nice try hahaha….

Puru.4217:

JonathanSharp.7094:

So with the Thief, we feel like their straight burst with some sets is too good as it is (Mug/C &D/BS/heartseeker), but a lot of other things are weak in comparison, which is bad.

The goal is to allow them to punish boons (something we also want to try with the Warrior) while also improving their mobility with all weapon sets (since Shortbow is already strong at that, but it overpowers other options).

As Allie said, we want to be careful to balance their WvW/PvE potential against their PvP potential, and then inside of PvP, we have to be careful to watch how they perform at high ranks vs. low ranks.

Thieves are subpar in pve because they are simply not warriors, guardians or mesmers. Seems you’re going to reduce their damage and give them “boon hate” (pve boss barely use boons meaning thief will be even more terrible, woohoo?)
Thieves aren’t strong at all in wvw despise what people think, they are decent at best. It’s the one, if not the most worthless class to have during zergs, and an d/d ele is infinitly superior at roaming and can switch to something like staff for keep attacks/defence. They are the best at trolling i guess, awesome!!!
Thieves are weak in pvp, good against noobs but 10 time less effective and frustrating than mesmers against the same players and are plagued with lots of terrible traits, skills and utilities for no reason (mesmers aren’t for some reason, seems having stealth, good mobility in combat, decent burst and damage and clones is not dangerous for balance all of a sudden, how mysterious).

It won’t prevent me for playing that class at all,, i honestly don’t care that much as long as you don’t nerf the shortbow or infiltrator’s strike, but you can’t say i didn’t warned you about how struggling that class is atm (not as much as warrior in pvp though, but i consider warrior easier to salvage than thieves).

The mesmer is not as strong as you picture it.

it’s very easy to handle a mesmer 1vs1 and basically its utility resides only in its GREAT u-skills and elite.

Indeed it’s powerful, but it’s also quite easy to exploit its weaknesses ( conditions, positioning, little to no mobility in combat aside phase retreat).

Ikitten-axis fight, like henge in nifhel, a thief can literally kill the mesmer by simply staying on the ledge and shortbowing him.

But surely the thief is weaker than the mesmer.

Well, tbh the thief is weaker than anyone aside the war.

poor wars :’(

Volrath.1473:

Iruwen.3164:

Remove stomping from stealth. That’s stupid by design.

sure man!
but wile you are at it also remove the following:
- Mesmer Stealth Stomp
- Elementalist Mistform stomp
- Guardian Stability Stomp
- Necromancer Death Shroud Stomp
- Ranger / Warrior Quickness stomp

thank you!

Being stomped from stealth is specifically annoying when you need to have an enemy targeted to use any downed skill at all, there’s absolutely nothing you can do once you’re downed – but I agree that the system should be reworked in general.

JonathanSharp.7094:

So with the Thief, we feel like their straight burst with some sets is too good as it is (Mug/C &D/BS/heartseeker), but a lot of other things are weak in comparison, which is bad.

The goal is to allow them to punish boons (something we also want to try with the Warrior) while also improving their mobility with all weapon sets (since Shortbow is already strong at that, but it overpowers other options).

As Allie said, we want to be careful to balance their WvW/PvE potential against their PvP potential, and then inside of PvP, we have to be careful to watch how they perform at high ranks vs. low ranks.

When the game was in development it was stated that a great feature was that PvP was segregated in such a way that you could easily split moves between PvE and PvP. You then, after the game was released, said that you didn’t want to do that because it would hurt the experience for PvE players who already had an expectation of what the abilities did. Why create PvP in this game at all? It’s clear that PvP was used to hype the game pre-release and then it was abandoned after release. You told me PvE was not a factor and to not worry about it affecting my experience in PvP. Then I bought the game and now I’m hearing this garbage. Is PvP balance terrible? No. Build diversity however is. People are pigeoned holed into builds because many viable builds work well for PvE but have no PvP application.

I bought a PvP game that also had a PvE side for those that wanted it but was told it wouldn’t affect me. I ended up with a PvE game that has an abandoned PvP mode. This is my first Anet product. It is also almost assuredly my last.

stof.9341:

jportell.2197:

I mean thieves get a damage bonus for each condition a target has on them (Deadly arts 25) so they should up the conditions a thief can dish or make venoms better in pvp…

No. They get a fixed damage bonus if the target has at least one condition on them.

Then make it per condition there… More boon hate without introducing a new unnecessary mechanic

You didn’t think that through when you said that.

AllieMurdock.1785:

We’re reviewing Warriors and Elementalists as well. Perhaps we can get into that another time and in a different thread, though. As this thread is about Thieves, let’s keep it on track.

“People in the low tiers will always have trouble with something.”

Sure, but we still need to consider how the new player experience is going to be. Particularly when it comes to Thieves.

I can tell you two things that are absolutely true:

1) Any new player walking into hotjoin is going to be immediately put off when they get trounced by a thief. (provided they aren’t playing as a thief)

2) Perma-stealth thieves are insanely over the top in WvW. It’s not fun playing against a player that is invisible 90% of the time and can leave a fight whenever they feel like they may not win.

I completely agree with what Jonathan and Allie have both said. Thieves burst is incredibly great.

The first time I played this game (as a noob thief) I got wtf kitten by a warrior with hundred blades+quickness+bulls.

My first reaction, was omg warriors are so OP. How do I survive that? At the time I had no idea what stun breaks were. I didn’t know anything about my class. I didn’t come here and post about it or complain. I figured it was just something I would have to learn. Eventually I understood how to get around it.

If you boost burst too much then the noobs will feel worse than I did when I first started playing.

Thieves cannot burst at high levels because everyone runs stun breaks and a good player can easily avoid it even if they get hit by the basi. Nullifying the entire build pretty much.

In WvW thieves are still a strong class. We can’t 1v1 against every single class and every single build, but we can move around better than most and pick the targets we know we can stomp.

I honestly feel like the thief is very close to balanced. My suggestion is to fix the “fluidity” of the class.

With the 4s revealed change our skill rotation has changed and we have to stop a skill in mid cast to stealth sometimes or pause an extra half second before trying to stealth.

It just makes the game feel awkward to play.

I would start by fixing this.

Suggestion 1: Make auto-attack chain 1s longer to compensate for change but increase damage proportionately.

Suggestion 2: Create 4th in chain for sword and dagger main to compensate for the extra 1s.

Suggestion 3: Revert the 4s to 3s.

I’m happy with any 3 of these just as long as I can do 1 auto-attack chain and then hit the stealth button.

EDIT: Wanted to add, thanks for responding to thieves Jonathan and Allie. Appreciate the communication.

The root of the problem is in Traits, Amulets and Weapon Sets accross the board. It isn’t specific to just thieves and warriors. Every profession has a very limited number of viable builds.

Attack the root cause, not the symptoms. Since it will take too long to do that (I supect it will take too long anyway) then buffing warrior and giving thief some other way to be viable is a good interim solution. Boon hate could be a good way to break down the bunker centric strats that are too dominant on some maps at present, but it is all about careful implementation. Since boon hate is the way you are looking at going, give it to thieves on a weapon set that is not D/P or SB, and I think you could make Warrior viable again just by giving them more ways to IMS (maybe it could be as simple as making their passive trait IMS 25%) and add boon hate to a non GS weaponset or even in a trait line.

To be honest you’ll have a huge problem applying these changes to the thief class due to the very limited range of weapons a thief has.

You have exactly two offhand weapons (might be a good idea to make the sword an offhand weapon as well at this point, to open up more choices btw). The combinations are limited and both offhand weapon skills are already quite good in terms of utility (C&D and Dancing Dagger especially are rather expensive, but the skills are sound in design).

Med.6150:

To be honest you’ll have a huge problem applying these changes to the thief class due to the very limited range of weapons a thief has.

You have exactly two offhand weapons (might be a good idea to make the sword an offhand weapon as well at this point, to open up more choices btw). The combinations are limited and both offhand weapon skills are already quite good in terms of utility (C&D and Dancing Dagger especially are rather expensive, but the skills are sound in design).

wut.

OH dagger is completely useless.

it deals bad damage, is highly ini expensive, offers very little utility.

C&D can be totally replaced by BP+ HS combo with D/P while having the great utility. OH pistol can offer.

Moreover OH dagger offers AWFUL dual skills like Death blossom ( totally useless in a power build, useless in condi build, being the build absolutely awful in the first place) and flanking strike ( wonky, slow, with bad pathing, unreliable evade).

it was good pre-nerf ( maybe a little too strong), then the nerf totally slaughtered it and currently there’s absolutely no point in bringing OH dagger.

A rehaul could benefit a lot S/D set and give more ways to play D/D and P/D, especially if they can create new sinergy with boon hate + condi builds.

Altough i agree about giving the thief more weapons, your sentence regarding OH dagger is absolutely wrong.

Mrbig.8019:

Med.6150:

To be honest you’ll have a huge problem applying these changes to the thief class due to the very limited range of weapons a thief has.

You have exactly two offhand weapons (might be a good idea to make the sword an offhand weapon as well at this point, to open up more choices btw). The combinations are limited and both offhand weapon skills are already quite good in terms of utility (C&D and Dancing Dagger especially are rather expensive, but the skills are sound in design).

wut.

OH dagger is completely useless.

it deals bad damage, is highly ini expensive, offers very little utility.

Let me highlight what you quoted, sir:

…both offhand weapon skills are already quite good in terms of utility(C&D and Dancing Dagger especially are rather expensive, but the skills are sound in design).

I never said they did good damage, because they are not supposed to. Offhand skills are utilitiy based for our weapons. I pointed out how C&D and Dancing Dagger (this one even more so) are rather expensive and while you believe a range cripple and stealth are badly designed utility skills for a thief, I believe them to be very suited for it.

Mrbig.8019:

wut.

OH dagger is completely useless.

it deals bad damage, is highly ini expensive, offers very little utility.

C&D can be totally replaced by BP+ HS combo with D/P while having the great utility. OH pistol can offer.

Moreover OH dagger offers AWFUL dual skills like Death blossom ( totally useless in a power build, useless in condi build, being the build absolutely awful in the first place) and flanking strike ( wonky, slow, with bad pathing, unreliable evade).

it was good pre-nerf ( maybe a little too strong), then the nerf totally slaughtered it and currently there’s absolutely no point in bringing OH dagger.

A rehaul could benefit a lot S/D set and give more ways to play D/D and P/D, especially if they can create new sinergy with boon hate + condi builds.

Altough i agree about giving the thief more weapons, your sentence regarding OH dagger is absolutely wrong.

Pre-Nerf offhand dagger was awesome.
Post-Nerf D/P is better than D/D.

You still have the same burst (minus the cnd/steal combo), but you gain a much great amount of survivability with the blind field/hs→stealth combo.

I literally cannot kill a supply camp solo without using D/P.

Before I could easily take supply camp with S/D or even D/D if played right, now it’s impossible. I’m talking about staying and fighting them and killing them one by one. Not pulling them fighting them 1 at a time.

The 4s revealed hurt me a lot vs. npcs, but if I run blind field then that helps out a lot.

Med.6150:

Mrbig.8019:

Med.6150:

To be honest you’ll have a huge problem applying these changes to the thief class due to the very limited range of weapons a thief has.

You have exactly two offhand weapons (might be a good idea to make the sword an offhand weapon as well at this point, to open up more choices btw). The combinations are limited and both offhand weapon skills are already quite good in terms of utility (C&D and Dancing Dagger especially are rather expensive, but the skills are sound in design).

wut.

OH dagger is completely useless.

it deals bad damage, is highly ini expensive, offers very little utility.

Let me highlight what you quoted, sir:

…both offhand weapon skills are already quite good in terms of utility(C&D and Dancing Dagger especially are rather expensive, but the skills are sound in design).

I never said they did good damage, because they are not supposed to. Offhand skills are utilitiy based for our weapons. I pointed out how C&D and Dancing Dagger (this one even more so) are rather expensive and while you believe a range cripple and stealth are badly designed utility skills for a thief, I believe them to be very suited for it.

let me say it again:

oh dagger post nerf is USELESS

a ranged cripple dealing bad damage for 4 ini is USELESS especially when with the same set + oh pistol you have a spammable, 900 range, istant gap closer dealing very good damage.

C&D can be totally overcame with D/P by using BP + HS combo. Without target requirments.

oh dagge is terrible, it was already inferior to OH pistol regarding utility, withits damage nerf has became completely useless.

swinsk.6410:

I literally cannot kill a supply camp solo without using D/P.

Did I miss something?! Thought this is about sPvP…

Today, I’ve again played and tested a few interesting Thief-Builds and it’s really amazing how fun to play a Thief can be if it’s not just a Glass-Cannon that abuses invis. ^^’

Maybe here the build to give you some context of what I’m gonna talk about:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-cF3V;1Vwk0-Q5wOFd0;9;4EE-T94;02;31272;0LoW4;2KJG4KJG44Js

The build is supposed to be a balanced roamer with good sustain, CC and decent DPS and the Builds works pretty well, but I don’t know if it’s as viable as the current FotM’s…

The key is to spread weakness+Poison and do AoE-DPS with the Shortbow while dodging around and crippling ppl. If you have built up enough pressure in a Teamfight with that, you go in with infiltrators strike and hit the Target with you Autoattack or Flanking Strike. I also really like to dodge right after the teleport; you’ll still hit the immobilize and get 2 ticks of the small caltrops on the target.
If you fight against a harder to kill Enemy with heals and stuff and you have others dealing DPS with you, you can also go in with the teleport, cripple with your dodge and then easily get in for a C&D and a Daze afterwards (you don’t have to dodge, but if no1 else in the team has stuns/Immo/cripple, it’s way easier to land your C&D+Daze).

Now what I’ve noticed playing this build is:

1) It’s way more useful in Teamfights, to a Point where you won’t really kill anything on your own (but you probably won’t die too easy yourself, so it’s a decent defensive roamer at least). But the Poison+Weakness, the AoE of the Shortbow, Dancing Dagger etc. is just sooooo much better in drawn out Teamfights, were you can slowly chip down a guard or another tank. Also, the teleport+[(Dodge)C&DDaze // Flanking Strike // Dodge+Autoattack] all don’t deal that much DMG and the build really only shines when you are assisting another Damage-Dealer.
The build works very well together with a Warrior, Shatter-Mesmer or D/D-Ele though, because you build up good pressure and with Infiltrators Strike, you can pretty much guarantee that the Teammate will land his Stun/Immobilize or whatever, that are often much harder to land than the infiltrators strike, which is pretty much a guaranteed 1 1/4s Immobilize on this build.

2) The Gain from Valk-Amu is way too small, I don’t really think it’s even justified, but I just don’t like Soldier’s Amu. A better Assassins Reward a more reliable Slowed Pulse and/or Pain-Response would IMHO be a good Option to consider when balancing this.

3) C&D is reaaaally expensive, almost to a point where I don’t use it, inspite the Fact that I LOOOOVE Tactical Strike. Same goes for basically any other Stealth-1 skill besides Backstab and even backstab is hard to use if you don’t play a Glasscannon. I see how this Problem is hard to balance, because C&D is such a big part of the Glasscannon builds, but you can always buff Tactical Strike and Sneak attack a bit! I really don’t think the Daze needed to be shortened for PvP – 2 seconds would be fine. Either that, or you could make Tactical Strike a bit easier to hit with maybe a short lunge forwards, like on the new “kick” of the Warrior.

4) Conditions are a big Problem for any Thief that doesn’t use Stealth and there are several reasons for it: First of all, many skills/traits that get rid of the really bad conditions are linked to stealth, secondly, if you are stealthed, you cannot be targeted by most condition-spam skills that easily and lastly, if you don’t run a glasscannon and use Valk Amu or even Clerics, your Healthpool is really small.
It’s really a big Problem because I’ve built in a lot of Condition-Removal and against any condition-build, I basically spend all my initiative on Infiltrators Strike and Shadow Return and I still get pwned very easily… ;(
I don’t know if that’s inherently bad; if the build gets better in other Aspects, you can maybe Accept a counter like that, but in the current state, it’s just one other negative Aspect of the Build.

I really love playing this build though, probably the most fun and equally hard to play build I know and even if it isn’t a Top-Tier build, if you play it right and in the right composition, it can be very effective.

Mrbig.8019:

let me say it again:

oh dagger post nerf is USELESS

a ranged cripple dealing bad damage for 4 ini is USELESS especially when with the same set + oh pistol you have a spammable, 900 range, istant gap closer dealing very good damage.

C&D can be totally overcame with D/P by using BP + HS combo. Without target requirments.

oh dagge is terrible, it was already inferior to OH pistol regarding utility, withits damage nerf has became completely useless.

Why are you even using the quote button, if you aren’t reading what you are quoting, let alone actually replying to it.

I have been trying to make a point, which is that the current weapon sets can hardly be adjusted to the desired goals (mobility not restricted to shortbow, power and condition damage, utility), when there are so few weapon combinations available to the thief and the current offhands already carry suitable effects for the thief’s role.

You might not like the range cripple, but it has its uses (beyond closing a gap yourself, believe it or not). You might not like the stealth, but it’s a stealth on demand (whether BP + HS is better or not really is beside the point here, but to get technical, BP + HS has its own downsides, as you need to make sure to not put your smoke field on an already existing one, it’s more expensive in terms of initiative and it takes 1.25s to complete).

Basically, our offhand weapons are designed well (again, they are not perfect and offhand dagger skills are too expensive as mentioned 3 long posts ago), so that it’s almost impossible to adjust them accordingly.

You either end up with a smoke field that teleports you to your target, a built in shadowstep for C&D (imagine the crying on the forums) or a shadowstep + cripple (Dancing Dagger). Either way, those skills would be way, way too good to carry all that and that’s just in order to make these weapon sets more attractive compared to the short bow in terms of mobility.

The thief just doesn’t have enough weapon skills to carry all that, so that, at the very least, the short bow will probably remain the only viable option for mobility.

dude, i do not care about your stupid WVW or PvP, i want to be useful in PvE parties ! and not to be kicked like trash, did you guys wonder why all parties want 1-2 guardians, 2-3 warriors, and a mesmer ???
sure eles are ok-ish too 1 in them ..maximum 2.
the rest can eat a carrot i guess…
continuous nerfs every patch for the thief class that also affects pve, this is the way to kill the class where it already doesn’t shine, congratulations

one of the reasons i roll a guardian now :P

p.s. the venom aura ring, and the caltrops/uncatchable appearing on the ground was a great way not to affect pve, basilisk buff apeparing/shadowstep ring etc.

however i think they missed the red/combat ring for Infiltrator’s Strike (sword 2)…
and shortbow 5

Will boon hate be a mechanic introduced in this month’s patch? Can you go into more detail on how boon hate will work because there’s nothing known about it other than its name and the basic idea to increase damage against someone with boons.

Will boon hate dispell all boons on the target, deal x% damage per boon destroyed? If so, what’s to stop boons from going back on? Will you also put a boon hate debuff on the target for like 5 seconds so they can’t just put boons back on and we’re back at square one?

Or will it just be a passive damage increase? This seems like a very bad way to do it as it’s just a bandaid you’ll adjust on a class by class basis and never really solve the problem.

But we have no idea how this will work, how it will be implemeneted for the thief class, and if it will work the same way from class to class?

I play only PvE/dungeons so don’t get over in this forum very often. I wanted to post to voice my concerns that the changes that are being made to try and “balance” the thief in PvP/WvW are signifcantly and negatively impacting the Thief in PvE. There are many posts over in the Thief forum concerning this and was wondering if someone could address the questions being asked there.

Is the PvE capability of theThief being considered when making these class changes? With every change, our ability to contribute meanifully to high end PvE party content diminishes, and we are not overpowed (or considered top tier) in this aspect of the game by any means.