Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,

I play main thief with over 3.6 k hours on her. I am making this topic because I hope anet will start justifying their balance approaches.

Lately there are a lot of topics about the overpowered thief. I don’t know why this is suddenly a thing (again), but a lot of players are concerned about the state of the thief.

The main problem is, even if there are a lot complaints, that this doesn’t necessarily mean anything. There are 2 possibilities:

A) Ppl are right, thief is overpowered.

B) We have some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Players only lose and win because they outplay/got ouplayed, but against thief, they win because the thief is playing bad. And if they loose, they loose because the thief is op.

The problem here is now that the playerbase can’t judge if A or B holds. You can see this in other games (maybe every competitive game). The playerbase believes something (X) is overpowered. Soon even the worst players (like gold league in Starcraft 2) are starting to complain in the forums. If you are now reading the forums, you can easiliy belive X is overpowered. Now something bad happens. The playerbase refuses to adapt to X, because the company will fix it. It’s obviously overpowered.

Now back to my problem. Other companies communicate the issue. They are telling the playerbase if they think they have a justified concern or not. They are using metrics over some period of time and the playerbase gets feedback.

Not Anet. They don’t communicate issues players have. For example the trait last refuge. There is a lot of complain, you can think about what you want, but Anet doesn’t say a word about it. They just have to say, it’s working as intended, L2P. Everything would be fine.

They are often throwing random nerfs/buffs (from a thief pov, maybe other classes have it a little bit better) without telling us why.

On the other hand, this is not an esports game. You have maybe 25(?) “pro” players and the majority playing other gamemodes. And yeah, english is not my first language.

You speak better English than most people on the forums, so congrats!

Your post was mostly a statement rather than finger pointing or expressing arbitrary solutions. It was refreshing to read, to say the least.
Forum critic since 2012

I think Anet should implement a system to the public where we can actually see % win rates of specific classes and builds before we go on about what is OP or UP.

Similar to what LoL has, ofc it is more complicated with different builds and such in GW2, but then again we dont have 100 classes.

% winrate doesn’t always show the problem. gw2 pvp is usually balanced (or should be) around the highest level of play and what you can achieve there with a class/build and what is unhealthy for the game (like turret engi). a bad thief is a burden and will get facerolled by all builds that are more easy to play. on the other hand a bad thief can do pretty well against other builds that need more effort to play. on the highest level, where a thief knows what to engage and when to engage, he can pretty much turn every fight around and kill off the other damage dealers and start +1 and snowballing.

for thief it’s both.

thief can achieve the most as a damage dealer and roamer on the highest level of play, is so good that other classes have difficulties finding a place in the meta (same role) and destroys the pvp experience for casual players because of cheesy class mechanics.

the problem with this class is: it’s made of glass. touch it the wrong way and you will break it, so leaving everything as it is, is simply more easy. balancing everything with the current system of no cooldowns and initiative would be very hard and could easily go wrong. i said this multiple times already: thief needs a complete rework but this will most likely not happen because the devs just don’t have the time for it.

Maybe I’m just spoiled because I’ve dealt with WoW imbalances for years, which were and still are…. In my opinion … really broken

The issue is the thief’s mobility and escape ability in relation to its damage potential.

There are no other classes in the game that can truly go full mobility/escape AND dps simultaneously the way that the thief does.

Perhaps the solution is to not nerf thieves, but bring the other professions up to speed.

Warrior for example is severely crippled in one aspect or the other (gearing for mobility sacrifices damage potential and gearing for damage potential sacrifices mobility) and they have been reduced to cap holders in pvp.

Anet has already announced changes that instead of bumping thieves down…. will bump the other classes up.

Only time will tell if this brings balance.

I think a lot of players mistake issues with stealth for issues with thief. I have few issues with the class outside of dire thieves in wvw. I actually hate rangers, especially conditions. fighting them makes me regret rolling engineer so hard.

however the new SA trait line will cause problems, especially with the aforementioned dire thieves. if you know anything about dire thieves, then you will know how powerful they are going to become.

Jon Peters (developer, in charge for balance i think?) said a few weeks ago during lifestream that “People that think thief is overpowered, do not play thief.”

Sizzle Hint.1820:

Jon Peters (developer, in charge for balance i think?) said a few weeks ago during lifestream that “People that think thief is overpowered, do not play thief.”

^^this lol… idk how they could communicate better xD

Pandeh.5248:

I think Anet should implement a system to the public where we can actually see % win rates of specific classes and builds before we go on about what is OP or UP.

Similar to what LoL has, ofc it is more complicated with different builds and such in GW2, but then again we dont have 100 classes.

They can’t do it. The qq about wars and engis would be endless~

Cynz.9437:

Sizzle Hint.1820:

Jon Peters (developer, in charge for balance i think?) said a few weeks ago during lifestream that “People that think thief is overpowered, do not play thief.”

^^this lol… idk how they could communicate better xD

I think this is easy. It’s a single statement in a long time. Imo they should take 5 minutes per class and write their opinion of the class and the state of the game in the forum.

Pandeh.5248:

I think Anet should implement a system to the public where we can actually see % win rates of specific classes and builds before we go on about what is OP or UP.

Similar to what LoL has, ofc it is more complicated with different builds and such in GW2, but then again we dont have 100 classes.

They can’t do it. The qq about wars and engis would be endless~[/quote]

Seriously that would be a good idea. Nearly every competitive game has something similar.

Otherwise everything else is based on perception and most players are just too kitten to see their mistakes in their gameplay. It’s the same in every game. It’s easier to say that something is OP, than to see the own bad gameplay.

That’s why I wish Anet would communicate better.

Don’t worry Thief, I don’t think you’ll be getting the Necro treatment any time soon.

Sizzle Hint.1820:

Jon Peters (developer, in charge for balance i think?) said a few weeks ago during lifestream that “People that think thief is overpowered, do not play thief.”

Too be fair, that is the same guy that said necro reanimator was fine after people said the minion was useless and unable to land a single hit before death. He changed his tune when there was hard evidence that not only were those people right, the trait was bugged. Only took 2 years to get that trait changed. I also believe early on he said that people didn’t know how to play Necromancer as a justification of how underwhelming the class was at the time.

You can continue to put stock into what the devs say as being correct, but in reality they are clueless. This is the exact reason that instead of balancing traits to make them all equal they are taking the bad ones and lumping them in with better ones. Their balance patches are nothing short of glacially slow and fail to address most of the issues with PvP. I have more faith in comcast than I do the ArenaNet class balance devs, that’s saying something.

As for the thief class, I play thief and the amount of damage they can do combined with mobility/escape is excessive. Some other classes require a lot more skill and the end result is still less than an okay thief. Stealth is not something that is easily balanced and I can’t think of a single MMO that has done it successfully. Combined with the initiative system they setup a class that is nearly impossible to balance. It will always be either too overpowered or nerfed into the ground. I said this in beta and at launch and it has held true. SPvP was partially immune to it due to not being able to cap/hold while stealthed, new gamemodes will certainly change that though, so let the whining begin!

Simple fixes for thieves in my opinion are:
- take away their ability to ignore los
- take away port from Steal. If they wanna Steal,they have range of 180 or so for it
- healing skill Evade is OP. Short cd of 15s,it’s an evade and heal at same time,can’t interupt it,can be also used as mobility skill over map,cures some condis,etc. This needs to be nerfed somehow

While I think,it’s bs that they can spam attacks 2-5 at least 2-3 times in a row, it’s not end of the world. But still bs ! (Imagine Ele Updrafting people 2-3 times in a row,or Mesmer phase retreating 2-3times,Engi using Gear Shield 2-3 times in a row,etc.) . Then they have Elite skill on shorterst cd of kitten without even traiting to reduce that cd. All I can say,is that thieves give awsome bj,because love they get is uncanny.

As your personal skill rises and you know mechanics,it’s easier to fight them,but at end of the day,it’s bs what they can do. And you know difference from good thief and bad. Bad are the ones,that die and are permadownstate fodder,while good ones can carry team of scrubs and still win in SoloQ.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

The issue is the thief’s mobility and escape ability in relation to its damage potential.

There are no other classes in the game that can truly go full mobility/escape AND dps simultaneously the way that the thief does.

Perhaps the solution is to not nerf thieves, but bring the other professions up to speed.

Warrior for example is severely crippled in one aspect or the other (gearing for mobility sacrifices damage potential and gearing for damage potential sacrifices mobility) and they have been reduced to cap holders in pvp.

Anet has already announced changes that instead of bumping thieves down…. will bump the other classes up.

Only time will tell if this brings balance.

True, Warriors can’t have mobility and such high damage at the same time however they can do a lot of things thieves can’t do. In fact mobility and damage are about the only two things a thief can do. They can’t run support beyond +1ing a fight. They aren’t very good for holding a point, if they even really could. Even if they were to try tun some build for holding a point it would mean not using stealth very much or at all because that runs counter to holding a point.

Also, what is wrong with being able to hold a point? Keeping points capped is crucial to winning. I really don’t know why I don’t see it more often in PvP. If teams actually had someone work on holding a point and communicated more de/backcapping wouldn’t be as big an issue and that would then factor into counterplaying thief mobility.

why thief op?
first, high stealth/group stealth uptime
group stealth burst can one shot even the bunkiest build in game, no counter play.
stealth make it difficult to call out number, its way easier to count numbers when enemy has no thief and counter rotate.
insane mobility, best backcap class, best survibility as zerker
easy insta teleport burst = less coordination skill required, less chance to be avoid

TheBlackLeech.9360:

The issue is the thief’s mobility and escape ability in relation to its damage potential.

Pretty much.

There’s nothing else that can be said. The thief isn’t overpowered only if an individual is including their mobility and escape potential throughout a battle.

It’s trickier to find a balance for the thief than players think

I have thief trust issues too. I don’t trust when I get a thief on my team. Why is the thief usually the worst player on any given PUG team?? I really want an option to say “don’t queue me with a thief”. That way everyone who says the class is OP can have an all thief team.

Distaste.4801:

Sizzle Hint.1820:

Jon Peters (developer, in charge for balance i think?) said a few weeks ago during lifestream that “People that think thief is overpowered, do not play thief.”

Too be fair, that is the same guy that said necro reanimator was fine after people said the minion was useless and unable to land a single hit before death. He changed his tune when there was hard evidence that not only were those people right, the trait was bugged.

JP has said some pretty outrageous kitten, and he plays the game at a very low level. not sure if everything is his fault, but he certainly lets too many things slide for too long.

that being said, I don’t think thieves are too OP, but they are required and in a sense all balancing revolves around them. Mesmer is a perfectly balanced assassin. to fix the thief, they just need to add a bit of counterplay. either aoe wards to spot them while stealthed, or more reveal (not on useless utilities like Sic ’Em).

I main a guardian in sPvP and I think “teefz R fine”. Theye are the most annoying enemies I can find. LichForm-necro is a cakewalk compared to them (I see Lich I run)

The problem is that the thief just pushes out the other zerker builds from the popular compositions. A celestial build should not have a problem against a thief unless +1… and this is what they do. And they do it like nobody else!
Also a bunker must not loose against a thief in 1v1. They must be able to hold the point until +1 comes. Enemy or friend? Does not matter.

But nowadays some zerker guardian (and ranger) builds are able to fight a thief toe-to-toe and mostly win. Since the thieves got some counter there is a rise in necro-mesmer playerbase.

So from a 1 zerk(thief) 3 celestial 1 bunker setup the composition shifts for something like:
2-3 zerk (gua-mesmer-thief or necro) and 1-2 celestial and 1 bunker.

P.S.: thief is not OP but there are some OP thief players!

My two coppers….