Guild Wars 2

Last season thief was trash. I desperately wanted to play thief because I genuinely think it’s the most fun class, but couldn’t because it was just sooo buns.

Now, with the current meta, thief isn’t great, but an experienced thief at least has a chance to win 1v1 vs. most classes.

The skill cap for a thief is very high. Basically, thief is a HARD class to play, but can be very rewarding. When inexperienced thieves complain about how bad (not hard) the class is, thief gets buffed. When thief gets buffed, the not so experienced thieves have a chance to win 1v1s, but the experienced thieves just seem to wreck 1v1s and even some 1v2s. When this happens everyone (understandably) complains about thieves and they get nerfed hard.

So, anet, DON’T BUFF THIEVES! The nature of the high damage/mobility, low defense class in games is that it is hard to play. Keep the skill cap on the class high so people don’t complain about us!

I’m happier playing a mediocre class than not playing it at all

although, reverting feline grace nerf and bringing back ricochet…

So Thieves being more squishy that cloth armour wearers and having a massive disparity in sustain in relation to their ranger and engineer cousins you don’t see as a problem?

You don’t feel that stealth, one of their core features behind steal and initiative, being more used by other professions is a problem?

You don’t feel that their augmented weapon skill 1 in stealth has been marginalized by giving other professions the ability to AoE reveal?

You don’t feel that as the only profession that has no stability that this is an issue?

You feel that thieves being as durable in as crepe paper in a team fight is on target?

You don’t think that their total lack of representation in both last season and the current finals is perhaps telling of their terrible position?

You feel the last 3 years of nerfs have finally bought thief to be on Par with every other profession?

You feel thief is subjectively hard. Therefore that is reason enough to not buff. I fail to understand this thinking. A ‘hard’ profession should exactly be entitled to what exactly against an ‘easy’ profession?

Your happy playing a mediocre profession than nothing at all? This is more a testament to you personally about how much your prepared to settle. I am sure their is also players who have more lofty expectations from a game they paid for. I dare say that expectation is that all professions are balanced and player skill and understanding is the dominant factor in their success.

“thieves wreck 1 vs 1 and even 2 vs 1”..This is a misnomer. Good players wreck 1 vs 1 and even 2 vs 1..this has nothing to do with thief. A good player will always dominant a less experienced player, to the point they can bring a friend and still have an up hill battle.

You maybe happy with thief..but I think you’re selling yourself short. All melee focused professions in this game could have it better.

The top three or four classes need to be nerfed more than thief needs to be buffed, CntrlAltDefeat.

I would change the title…. As a non-thief, please don’t place a thief on my pug team.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

So Thieves being more squishy that cloth armour wearers and having a massive disparity in sustain in relation to their ranger and engineer cousins you don’t see as a problem?

Mesmers would love to trade places with thieves, just sayin’

style.6173:

I would change the title…. As a non-thief, please don’t place a thief on my pug team.

That’s not at all what OP was saying. He’s playing thief.

Yeah, i don’t think thief really needs buffs, more like revs, reapers, the gold spooned scrappers!!!!! need massive toning down.

Rome.7124:

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

So Thieves being more squishy that cloth armour wearers and having a massive disparity in sustain in relation to their ranger and engineer cousins you don’t see as a problem?

Mesmers would love to trade places with thieves, just sayin’

No we wouldn’t

Mesmer is better off than thief and has been since June of last year

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

So Thieves being more squishy that cloth armour wearers and having a massive disparity in sustain in relation to their ranger and engineer cousins you don’t see as a problem?

You don’t feel that stealth, one of their core features behind steal and initiative, being more used by other professions is a problem?

You don’t feel that their augmented weapon skill 1 in stealth has been marginalized by giving other professions the ability to AoE reveal?

You don’t feel that as the only profession that has no stability that this is an issue?

You feel that thieves being as durable in as crepe paper in a team fight is on target?

You don’t think that their total lack of representation in both last season and the current finals is perhaps telling of their terrible position?

You feel the last 3 years of nerfs have finally bought thief to be on Par with every other profession?

You feel thief is subjectively hard. Therefore that is reason enough to not buff. I fail to understand this thinking. A ‘hard’ profession should exactly be entitled to what exactly against an ‘easy’ profession?

Your happy playing a mediocre profession than nothing at all? This is more a testament to you personally about how much your prepared to settle. I am sure their is also players who have more lofty expectations from a game they paid for. I dare say that expectation is that all professions are balanced and player skill and understanding is the dominant factor in their success.

“thieves wreck 1 vs 1 and even 2 vs 1”..This is a misnomer. Good players wreck 1 vs 1 and even 2 vs 1..this has nothing to do with thief. A good player will always dominant a less experienced player, to the point they can bring a friend and still have an up hill battle.

You maybe happy with thief..but I think you’re selling yourself short. All melee focused professions in this game could have it better.

I think you’re missing the point of my post. I admit thieves suck. I admit it takes an experienced thief to at least HAVE A CHANCE against MOST classes. Do you get those qualifying words in there? You might have missed them the first time, friend.

The class sucks. Nobody wants to have a thief on their team because no matter how experienced a thief is, he won’t be as valuable as a necro/engi/most things.

Compared to how things were for thieves a couple months ago, the current dynamics are heaven, yet thieves still suck. I’m just throwing a little satire in there in hopes that we never get thrown in the trash again.

Sorry, but I didn’t get your irony as well – your OP sounds dead serious.
And in fact you’re right – with both: Thief sucks but buffs won’t really help unless thief finally gets invulnerability, even more evades, higher armor base stats, higher vitality base stats, until stealth for thief is finally deleted and replaced by something useful.
Why won’t buffs help? Because it’s the other classes – invulnerability, dualskills which both evade/block and attack, can stealth themselves which lasts longer or as long as a thief traited in SA has when using SR = if you stealth your opponent will simply outstealth you “no burst for you!”. Then we have forced revealed, skills that hit way harder than a backstab, are spammable and so on.
The way this game is right now there’s no room for thief anymore and it’s very unlikely that this will change.

Edit: Grammar

Seriously, the utility of Sneak Gyro can turn fights so easily. Meanwhile, team stealth from a thief wont help ress anyone likely, bc you will die trying.

Personally, I think thieves are okay right now.

We don’t need another buff, some of the elite specs need a general look at rebalancing (namely reaper and scrapper) but even so only slightly .

Thief as it stands is okay if the meta doesnt change wildly. It’s hard to play, but rewarding if you’re smart.

In addition to that people are already lamenting to the tune of “holy op autoattacks batman”, so I’d like to just leave that alll the way alone and stay in the zone of “Claiming thief is OP will get you laughed at.”

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Personally, I think thieves are okay right now.

We don’t need another buff, some of the elite specs need a general look at rebalancing (namely reaper and scrapper) but even so only slightly .

Thief as it stands is okay if the meta doesnt change wildly. It’s hard to play, but rewarding if you’re smart.

No sorry, I disagree, no matter how you turn it – you still have to face everything the other classes throw at you. Condis, revealed, invulnerabilities, “white damage” – it’s too much to deal with for a thief. All you can do is go stealthless and +1 everything.
ETA: It even was too much before HoT.
And btw: I still want diversity and not just bland D/P (in case any devs read this – I know I know sigh)

Jana.6831:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Personally, I think thieves are okay right now.

We don’t need another buff, some of the elite specs need a general look at rebalancing (namely reaper and scrapper) but even so only slightly .

Thief as it stands is okay if the meta doesnt change wildly. It’s hard to play, but rewarding if you’re smart.

No sorry, I disagree, no matter how you turn it – you still have to face everything the other classes throw at you. Condis, revealed, invulnerabilities, “white damage” – it’s too much to deal with for a thief. All you can do is go stealthless and +1 everything.

Nnnnn-

I honestly don’t think you have a point. 1v1 I’ve seen thieves be a decent match for some reapers, warriors, some scrappers, eles and mesmers as they stand now. +1… basi share.

Dragon hunters are another story, but they lose if they play badly, and I’m sure eventually anet will realize a class that can down a player by stacking a point with traps needs minor tweaking.

So.. shrug .

I don’t think right now it’s as bad as you’re making it out to be. Kite the hell out of the reapers cause they’re slow, use your ice shards for your eles, blind the hell out of warriors, the gambits work now.

I’m not saying I’m happy with their sustain as it stands at all, but we have kill potential at the moment and people are already gritting their teeth and hissing over on the mesmer side so… Not gonna push the envelope. I’m good right here if the meta doesnt flip.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Nnnnn-

I honestly don’t think you have a point. 1v1 I’ve seen thieves be a decent match for some reapers, warriors, some scrappers, eles and mesmers as they stand now.

What build, what weapons?

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I don’t think right now it’s as bad as you’re making it out to be. Kite the hell out of the reapers cause they’re slow, use your ice shards for your eles, blind the hell out of warriors, the gambits work now.

I can’t even touch eles cause they seem to be invulnerable 24/7 and if they’re not they’re dishing out a lot of damage and condis.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I’m not saying I’m happy with their sustain as it stands at all, but we have kill potential at the moment and people are already gritting their teeth and hissing over on the mesmer side so… Not gonna push the envelope. I’m good right here if the meta doesnt flip.

Probably all elites have some kill potential, yes, but even then thief have got it the hardest and still have to deal with reveal. That’s why I said: No matter how you turn it.

What build, what weapons?

Valkyrie / Daredevil runes with intelligence sigil on Sword-Pistol /Staff or on D/P/ Staff,

Pistol Pistol using the new S/A Speed increase while stealthed and D/D for leap on bound (against slower/ Less mobile specs)

And D/P / Shortbow with Marauder played verrry carefully.

I’ve seen these three specifically, and some other specs that use Deception skill type cd reduction instead of condi purge on stealth perform pretty well.

I can’t even touch eles cause they seem to be invulnerable 24/7 and if they’re not they’re dishing out a lot of damage and condis.

eles are still hard to kill, but chilling them when they’re in water appears to be more successful than prior to cele amulets disappearance. I’m not claiming they shouldnt be rebalanced.

Probably all elites have some kill potential, yes, but even then thief have got it the hardest and still have to deal with reveal. That’s why I said: No matter how you turn it.

I won’t deny thieves have it the hardest. That being said, I don’t think they deserve buffs at this time.

It’s still bad, I just think we’d be looking at the wrong end of the problem as the meta stands now if we look into pulling thieves up rather than reminding classes that memorizing a rotation should not almost always give you nigh-invulnerability.
Perhaps “I don’t think you have a point” was too broad to define my perception of this, because you do on many cases. I just dont think the fix involves making the thief class stronger directly.

CombatEvolve.9238:

style.6173:

I would change the title…. As a non-thief, please don’t place a thief on my pug team.

That’s not at all what OP was saying. He’s playing thief.

I know. I’m saying what the title should be.

As a thief main I’m happy with where thief is.

I’m blind and can hold my own very well in any pvp match. I hate hotjoin and avoid it like the plague.

If I can play thief pretty well and contribute to my team I know you guys can. I’m also pretty sure my build is crap, but I never played meta builds anyways.

Hammerguard.9834:

The top three or four classes need to be nerfed more than thief needs to be buffed, CntrlAltDefeat.

I didn’t ask for nerfs to anyone or buffs to thieve’s. I stated the amount of inadequacies, broken skills, poor logic and less than thorough design and vision for the Pvp aspect of the game is what has bottomed it out.

Thief needs a mechanics buff not a numbers buff. More blinds, dodges, stealth, and boons. Lower AA damage, more initiative based damage so that a thief chooses between damage and defenses on the fly.

The ONLY buff thief needs AT ALL is a nerf to revenant – that is all that keeps them out of the meta. Revenant has about the same burst and mobility, but more sustain.

Honestly, thief itself needs nerfs, but so does everything up to (and maybe including) warriors. If implemented properly, it would make it MUCH easier to carve out multiple classes that can compete for every role, with certain benefits and weaknesses on each.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

snip anything but:
Perhaps “I don’t think you have a point” was too broad to define my perception of this, because you do on many cases. I just dont think the fix involves making the thief class stronger directly.

Oh, so I don’t have a point on many cases, alright then.

To the rest: Yes, it might be different in pvp, I’m playing wvw where there is no runes. Rune shaping/deleting isn’t really balancing and having one (two which no one uses) viable weaponsets doesn’t mean there’s no need of balance.

ETA: And please not again the “but wvw isn’t real pvp; it’s brainless” argument – come and solo roam in wvw for a bit if you think so. And also: pvp is the only balance we can hope for, so it’s kind of silly if all of it is measured on runes.

Nerf Rev, Guardian traps (still), and Necro’s god mode and things would be better. Also the engi’s skill where they become invulnerable at 10% health for like 10 seconds should be shortened.

BlackBeard.2873:

The ONLY buff thief needs AT ALL is a nerf to revenant – that is all that keeps them out of the meta. Revenant has about the same burst and mobility, but more sustain.

Honestly, thief itself needs nerfs, but so does everything up to (and maybe including) warriors. If implemented properly, it would make it MUCH easier to carve out multiple classes that can compete for every role, with certain benefits and weaknesses on each.

Nerfing rev won’t get my friend back to GW2 because he quit after anet trashed the thief class.

I dunno, thief has its spot, we hard counter mesmer, scrappers/Dh counter us. we can kill reapers but they pretty much can kill most other class’s. rev can kill a thief but struggles vs reaper…

mianly playing s/d d/p.

Jana.6831:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

snip anything but:
Perhaps “I don’t think you have a point” was too broad to define my perception of this, because you do on many cases. I just dont think the fix involves making the thief class stronger directly.

Oh, so I don’t have a point on many cases, alright then.

To the rest: Yes, it might be different in pvp, I’m playing wvw where there is no runes. Rune shaping/deleting isn’t really balancing and having one (two which no one uses) viable weaponsets doesn’t mean there’s no need of balance.

ETA: And please not again the “but wvw isn’t real pvp; it’s brainless” argument – come and solo roam in wvw for a bit if you think so. And also: pvp is the only balance we can hope for, so it’s kind of silly if all of it is measured on runes.

I actually meant you do have a point on many cases.

Annd I consider WvW reasonably fair game when looking at class balance, bearing in mind that foods and the like tend to often cause outliers. There should be reasonable balance in WVW as well, as far as it can go; and since I often do not play wvw over PVP you and I may well be seeing two largely different states of the thief class.

Whatver the situation may be, though; I firmly believe that this is more of a ( some other classes are slightly overboard) moreso than (Thief is too weak), given the volatile nature of thief in general, because removing the amulets that created incredibly tanky specs and modifying tanky runesets in pvp made thieves drastically more formidable as far as spvp went. If we buff thieves first, I think future adjustments to the other classes are going to leave imbalances that will be blamed on thief being OP.

And since thief’s playstyle is highly reactive, we can’t really handle nerfs well. Might be best to use the thief as a barometer of sorts for locating the problem rather than thinking thief being too weak is the problem.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I actually meant you do have a point on many cases.

Annd I consider WvW reasonably fair game when looking at class balance, bearing in mind that foods and the like tend to often cause outliers. There should be reasonable balance in WVW as well, as far as it can go; and since I often do not play wvw over PVP you and I may well be seeing two largely different states of the thief class.

Whatver the situation may be, though; I firmly believe that this is more of a ( some other classes are slightly overboard) moreso than (Thief is too weak), given the volatile nature of thief in general, because removing the amulets that created incredibly tanky specs and modifying tanky runesets in pvp made thieves drastically more formidable as far as spvp went. If we buff thieves first, I think future adjustments to the other classes are going to leave imbalances that will be blamed on thief being OP.

And since thief’s playstyle is highly reactive, we can’t really handle nerfs well. Might be best to use the thief as a barometer of sorts for locating the problem rather than thinking thief being too weak is the problem.

All I would write to this would be a repetition of what I already wrote (a million times since June actually) But I have to get that off my chest:

Food is really not that important balance wise as you pvp guys think – it’s just to compliment your build: Assassin = more damage and more crit, tank = more vit and maybe more power – the extras usually even each other out when both opponents have got food. Like a trinket. Speaking of a 1 vs 1 situation. For zergs we formerly used food that reduced the condi duration, now we’re using food reducing the stun duration. So basically; we’re comfort eating because of the lack of balance.

I dont main thief, but its my second most played in pvp. Only buffs i would like to see would be build diversity buffs. But almost every class could use those, especially warriors.

Jana.6831:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I actually meant you do have a point on many cases.

Annd I consider WvW reasonably fair game when looking at class balance, bearing in mind that foods and the like tend to often cause outliers. There should be reasonable balance in WVW as well, as far as it can go; and since I often do not play wvw over PVP you and I may well be seeing two largely different states of the thief class.

Whatver the situation may be, though; I firmly believe that this is more of a ( some other classes are slightly overboard) moreso than (Thief is too weak), given the volatile nature of thief in general, because removing the amulets that created incredibly tanky specs and modifying tanky runesets in pvp made thieves drastically more formidable as far as spvp went. If we buff thieves first, I think future adjustments to the other classes are going to leave imbalances that will be blamed on thief being OP.

And since thief’s playstyle is highly reactive, we can’t really handle nerfs well. Might be best to use the thief as a barometer of sorts for locating the problem rather than thinking thief being too weak is the problem.

All I would write to this would be a repetition of what I already wrote (a million times since June actually) But I have to get that off my chest:

Food is really not that important balance wise as you pvp guys think – it’s just to compliment your build: Assassin = more damage and more crit, tank = more vit and maybe more power – the extras usually even each other out when both opponents have got food. Like a trinket. Speaking of a 1 vs 1 situation. For zergs we formerly used food that reduced the condi duration, now we’re using food reducing the stun duration. So basically; we’re comfort eating because of the lack of balance.

Fair enough.

I’ll jump into WVW and see what that feels like.

I think Op is worried that Thief will get buffed and the rage will ensue then we will get nerfed to hell again. This is a legitimate concern. And hes right thief has a higher skill ceiling, arguably the highest skill ceiling of all the classes. So if thief gets too many buffs then there is the risk of getting nerfed because mediocre players find the class easy to win with.

I really think its a matter of removing the high sustain of other classes at this point, I don’t really think the thief needs to be buffed per se.

So I am looking at engineers, Druids, DH to a certain degree.

It should be like this: If you make mistakes or your opponent outclasses you, then you should lose, but with the sustain the way it is, mistakes and being outclassed is not punished enough. There are classes that can heal up to 100 percent after flawless execution by their opponents; even when they are terrible players.

Make Mistakes Punishable, Make Outclassing someone Worth the KILL!

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Jana.6831:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I actually meant you do have a point on many cases.

Annd I consider WvW reasonably fair game when looking at class balance, bearing in mind that foods and the like tend to often cause outliers. There should be reasonable balance in WVW as well, as far as it can go; and since I often do not play wvw over PVP you and I may well be seeing two largely different states of the thief class.

Whatver the situation may be, though; I firmly believe that this is more of a ( some other classes are slightly overboard) moreso than (Thief is too weak), given the volatile nature of thief in general, because removing the amulets that created incredibly tanky specs and modifying tanky runesets in pvp made thieves drastically more formidable as far as spvp went. If we buff thieves first, I think future adjustments to the other classes are going to leave imbalances that will be blamed on thief being OP.

And since thief’s playstyle is highly reactive, we can’t really handle nerfs well. Might be best to use the thief as a barometer of sorts for locating the problem rather than thinking thief being too weak is the problem.

All I would write to this would be a repetition of what I already wrote (a million times since June actually) But I have to get that off my chest:

Food is really not that important balance wise as you pvp guys think – it’s just to compliment your build: Assassin = more damage and more crit, tank = more vit and maybe more power – the extras usually even each other out when both opponents have got food. Like a trinket. Speaking of a 1 vs 1 situation. For zergs we formerly used food that reduced the condi duration, now we’re using food reducing the stun duration. So basically; we’re comfort eating because of the lack of balance.

Fair enough.

I’ll jump into WVW and see what that feels like.

Thief is much more viable with a substantially larger array of usable builds in WvW than in sPvP. Counters shift around a lot, though; mesmers can absolutely destroy thieves in WvW and depending on builds, the mesmer can have an advantage. A thief can also much-more easily counter DH here than in sPvP.

Thief issues more or less stem from weapon skill balancing failure than traits and overarching mechanics. Most HoT content, including the Daredevil, needs nerfing down to keep it in line with the rest of the core specializations, and there are a lot of superfluous and pointless weapon skills for the thief, and a lot of new features are developed for the “good set”.

High sustain is needed to counter zerker glass meta in PvE. There was a time when running tanky stats or specs actually made that mode harder than it would be by running full zerk.

Thief needs a buff. It’s kind of silly that shiro gets more dodges and that shiro really isn’t even that good.

Thieves don’t need buffs… I see the satire here and despite the OP not being serious, sh/e is right. The power creep since HoT has been horrible. Other classes need to be tuned down and brought to the Thief’s level otherwise things will continue to be buffed over and over and over and over until we have our heal skills dealing 20k damage on cast.

Some things are moderately balanced right now but most of the elite specs are still far too OP. I’d much, much rather see things tuned down before anything is tuned up.

I would like to see dagger/dagger reworked, especially condi. It feels too simplistic. dagger offhand in general feels weak imo. I wish there was more of a reason to not take short bow. Don’t get me wrong love the thing but I would like more variety. Viable thief builds are few in number. Traps are a joke still compared to any other class with them. Other than that I really enjoy the spot thief is in at the moment. It’s strong builds are extremely capable with a well seasoned player feeling deserving and rewarding.

I don’t see why every class needs to be as garbage as thief

Maybe just the shortbow damage, comparated to other aoe damage is pretty weak and slow.

But most of all anet should nerf the disgusting scrapper sustain and the totally brainless dh mechanics.

MMMHHMMMM…. Given that thiefs are downed in 1 or 2 hits in group play and in certain 1v1 match-ups after their dodges are burned I’d say they need a buff to mitigation.

Say I need to L2P at this point; I wouldn’t care. Idon’t think Anet is gonna give any more nerfs to the elite classes so better to buff survivability. Damage is fine on thief; You just have to survive long enough for it to count. They currently are not at that place at this moment.

Also you are rewarding horde mentality by focusing on this rampant AOE damage that is infesting SPVP.. not my cup of tea. It works fine for WVW but not for what I consider skilled gameplay in SPVP. Nuking a node or area with multiple AOE specs is not a “skilled” type of gameplay IMHO. It just equates to “hey my spec is easier to play than your spec type gameplay”.