Guild Wars 2

I’ve played the Thief class since Beta, and I enjoy it.

It’s powerful, it isn’t overpowered (unless you’re a grunt in 8v8 hotjoins, and the rules don’t really apply there), and it’s effective at playing the role of the Assassin: namely, delivering a mortal blow to an enemy that your team couldn’t normally kill. We pull it off without much effort.

But that’s the thing. Once the routine of port-prep-backstab-port has been established, it gets dull and non-skill-intensive. There’s no effort.

And that’s all we CAN do. We can’t solo. We can’t bunker points, and we certainly have issues with playing support.

I’m not saying that we ought to be able to do all of these at the same time, or even that we should have those options available to us. A Thief is a Thief, after all.

But the fact remains that we’ve been pigeonholed into a role… a role we excel in, for sure, but one that’s caused me and many others like me to drift slowly away from this game we know and love. We want to play, we want to be tested, we want the rush of danger and the thrill of victory.

Not just the boring eternity of Steal > CnD > Backstab > Heartseeker > wash, rinse, repeat, or one of the other clonespecs that produces the same result and lends to the same Thief mentality.

Because of the versatility issues that Thieves face, I propose a change in the roles of certain weapons in the Thief repertoire. We need more choices, without being overpowered, and a significant change in our weapon skillset is the perfect way to enforce this.

I’m no game developer, but I understand the balance within this game after months of PvP experience. I speak with the best intent for the future of this game and its build diversity, and I think ANet’s done good. But with a bit of community involvement and your capable hands, we can do better.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the show =)

Dagger Mainhand

Dagger/Dagger shifts its focus towards hit volume and quick condition dispersal; the single-target counterpart of the necromancer, but with the added danger of being in close combat. Death Blossom is a survival skill instead of a bleed dispenser, since the autoattack combo performs that role much better, and Heartseeker is phased instead as a high-direct-damage Confusion stacker.

Dagger/Pistol has the choice of remaining a powerful direct-damage Assassin, with some added utility and a higher cash-in damage potential, or a versatile damage/conditions hybrid attacker with dangerous mobility.

1 [Autoattack]

2 [Mobility]

3 [Dagger Offhand]

3 [Pistol Offhand]

Dagger Offhand

4

5

Pistol Mainhand

Pistol/Pistol becomes a gunslinging, teeth-gritting desperado. Evasion is inherent, with a heavy emphasis on uninterrupted and sustained damage output.

Pistol/Dagger demonstrates a perfect stealth-oriented Assassin archetype, dealing massive single-target spike damage at a moderate range and capable of taking down many enemies sequentially.

1 [Autoattack]

2 [Mobility]

3 [Dagger Offhand]

3 [Pistol Offhand]

Pistol Offhand

4

5

Sword Mainhand

Sword/Pistol stays fairly unscathed: a powerful melee AoE striker with the capacity for MASSIVE damage output and the tendency to commit recklessly to a target.

Sword/Dagger focuses on moderately high melee single-target damage, with peerless CC and self-preservation utility to keep the good fight going. The role is that of a street bruiser; not necessarily high burst, but just enough survivability to stay in a fight and make every second hurt.

1 [Autoattack]

2 [Mobility]

3 [Dagger Offhand]

3 [Pistol Offhand]

Shortbow

Ahhh… the Shortbow really needs some work. As a legitimate standalone ranged weapon and the only 2-hander available to Thieves as of now, the Shortbow has so much potential. Yet, it’s squandered as a disposable tool of AoE bombing, mobility, and dubious combat value.

Rebranded, this little marvel could be an excellent weapon requiring deception and skill: the ambush master, the highway bandit.

1 [Autoattack]

2 [Mobility]

3 [Fire]

4 [Poison]

5 [Smoke]

Thanks for taking the time to read. This thread is a work in progress. Post your feedback!

anything other than what we have now. thief is 2-dimensional and probably needs the most work out of all the profs.

I see only an huge amount of insanely overpowered ability who gives the thief not only the ability to deal the highest amount of damage in the game, but also the capability to stack conditions, debuffs, strip boons and survive in most situations.

Like the thief isn’t too much overpowered as it is now.

I appreciate your efforts put into that list of skill and I also undestand the frustration because of playing a profession which is actually skill-free to play and the need to have more challange, but those skills… hell no.

Thief Wars 2 already has an OP Thief. No need to make another one.

Well… Thief is not skill-free. Mabye his burst is. But the real skill is to survive there. And if you play paids you will see / know how hard thief is to play actually.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Well… Thief is not skill-free. Mabye his burst is. But the real skill is to survive there. And if you play paids you will see / know how hard thief is to play actually.

Useless burst with no team synergy should be useless in tournaments. If you knew anything about competitive team PvP you would see /know how silly it is to try and RAMBO in a team PvP match.

The real skill is winning the match with your team. Bruh.

Absolutely right. Actually the word “paid” was not in the same sentence as “burst”.
Still the topic is about thief, and not thief acting in tournaments. So that I was answering for.

Winning the match with the team!? Pshh, save those stories for the GW kids. Team play is so yesterday.

Casuals, beware, nubs, take cover – this is Geeld worz 2, aka Thief worz aka Ele worz.

Ok on a more serious note, somehow thieves, much like their GW counterpart, don’t quite fit into the standard class array, because they always end being either grossly OP, or completely useless (and the addition of stealth and the related culling didn’t do much to help in that regard, either). Making the core of a particular class resolve around an inherently broken mechanic that is stealth is a bad way to start off, but I cant see it change at this point. Nor do I believe a thief’s role can be changed in a manner to make it more team oriented, because it would in essence require a major overhaul of the class, in particular of the stealth mechanism and its potential replacements.

The assassin class on GW serves as a pretty fine example of the OP-or-subpar argument, and so do the paragon and the dervish, which its saddening, really. Why force your way with something so hard to balance out to start with, is what I simply cannot understand.

This belongs in the thief-section. But since you put it here: Thieves DO need changes. I simply can’t follow your logic, but that is perhaps because I play both sides of this. I can’t in any way find it ok, that I fight 1vs1 over a node and I am winning … sitting at 75% HP and then I get instagibbed out of the blue. Thieves mobility and burst ensures, that this will happen. I don’t play a tank nor GC and yet I get hit for 10-12k on 2.5-2.7k armor. How can you in any way say that that isn’t too strong … it requires little to no setup. It isn’t intelligent design, and I think you should try being in the receiving end for a while to try it out.
Your suggestions … you want more access to vulnerability (-stacking) … aka more burst. You want access to all the strongest debuffs/conditions/fields without cooldown. The shotrbow-suggestions with fire/poison/smoke-fields with low ini-cost and being spamable alone .. not to mention spamable almost perma-knockdowns. Yeah .. right. Time for reality-check … compare to other classes perhaps? There is nothing humble about your suggestions btw.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Absolutely right. Actually the word “paid” was not in the same sentence as “burst”.
Still the topic is about thief, and not thief acting in tournaments. So that I was answering for.

Did you ever read OP???? Its all about team and thief roles in spvp…..

Well… in some cases this is true. But in a 1v1 a thief is pretty bad in my opinion. After he has his burst out he has to leave the fight akka stealth.

Mesmer: Shatter and thief is down.
Ele: Can’t die against a thief, no way.
Guard: Same here
Ranger: Best 1v1 class in my opinion.
Engineer: enough blind/knock back to avoid dmg
Warrior: Stun break, 100b / shield stance
Necro: Death shroud, marks… mabye will die

In this bunker meta it’s pretty hard for a thief though. In spvp it’s annoying, you’re right.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Absolutely right. Actually the word “paid” was not in the same sentence as “burst”.
Still the topic is about thief, and not thief acting in tournaments. So that I was answering for.

The argument was about competitive viability. Tournaments are the only competitive mode available. I think either you, or I, am sleep deprived because what you are saying makes no sense to me.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Winning the match with the team!? Pshh, save those stories for the GW kids. Team play is so yesterday.

Casuals, beware, nubs, take cover – this is Geeld worz 2, aka Thief worz aka Ele worz.

Ok on a more serious note, somehow thieves, much like their GW counterpart, don’t quite fit into the standard class array, because they always end being either grossly OP, or completely useless (and the addition of stealth and the related culling didn’t do much to help in that regard, either). Making the core of a particular class resolve around an inherently broken mechanic that is stealth is a bad way to start off, but I cant see it change at this point. Nor do I believe a thief’s role can be changed in a manner to make it more team oriented, because it would in essence require a major overhaul of the class, in particular of the stealth mechanism and its potential replacements.

The assassin class on GW serves as a pretty fine example of the OP-or-subpar argument, and so do the paragon and the dervish, which its saddening, really. Why force your way with something so hard to balance out to start with, is what I simply cannot understand.

Metrics show people like playing stealth burst classes.

Metrics don’t mention that people like those mechanics because they like to win and farm as fast as possible, and for no other reason whatsoever, but the Metrics say…

And that is how Thief Wars 2 was built. By programmers using Metrics to guide them. Simple mistake. Empathy isn’t a required skill in the programming department so uncovering the motivations that drive certain metrics is always going to be complicated. Things will get missed. Sometimes extremely obvious things like… Necro Minions, Stealth/Burst balance impasse…, Healers in a game without Healers being meta champion OP… You know little things.

You know, the whole point of these potential changes would be to decrease the ridiculous amount of spike output we have, and shift our rationale to one of flexibility, not being pigeonholed into a role. The changes would require a massive nerf to the current thief output, the force-rebalanced the weapon set with a new series of traits and utility skills.

@sorrow: the thief is by no means skill-free, unless you count dagger/dagger, which is pretty monotonous at the time. Once direct damage is scaled down, we’ll have to work for our food.

Poxxia.1547:

This belongs in the thief-section. But since you put it here: Thieves DO need changes. I simply can’t follow your logic, but that is perhaps because I play both sides of this. I can’t in any way find it ok, that I fight 1vs1 over a node and I am winning … sitting at 75% HP and then I get instagibbed out of the blue. Thieves mobility and burst ensures, that this will happen. I don’t play a tank nor GC and yet I get hit for 10-12k on 2.5-2.7k armor. How can you in any way say that that isn’t too strong … it requires little to no setup. It isn’t intelligent design, and I think you should try being in the receiving end for a while to try it out.
Your suggestions … you want more access to vulnerability (-stacking) … aka more burst. You want access to all the strongest debuffs/conditions/fields without cooldown. The shotrbow-suggestions with fire/poison/smoke-fields with low ini-cost and being spamable alone .. not to mention spamable almost perma-knockdowns. Yeah .. right. Time for reality-check … compare to other classes perhaps? There is nothing humble about your suggestions btw.

I fully agree that thieves are OP. But they are OP in one way and one way only. So in my schematic, I spread our effectiveness out to multiple roles, making specialization necessary if we’re to continue our role as a burst class.

With my schematic, our burst is 90% as effective as it used to be (maybe 80% if you greatly decrease the power of Backstab), but we have access to a conditions-propagation to make up for it.

It’s tough to explain this all when I clearly outlined most of this in my posts. I do suppose I forgot to mention that the “revealed” antistealth debuff ought to be extended to seven seconds, and that stealth duration should be extended to four. But the rest of you accusations are sort of baseless… vulnerability for burst? The only build that combines the two would be pistol/dagger, which would then be affected heavily by the new stealth restrictions. Backstabbing builds would have little to no access to vulnerability, instead supplementing their backstabs with Weakness or Confusion

Yes, our burst is broken, but that’s because there’s no other reason to play thief. And by changing what we can do as a thief, we’re more capable of accepting a nerf to our clearly ridiculous dagger burst.

Also, you didn’t read my OP apparently. I have played every single class in tPvP, and I’m currently maining Engineer, currently considered the LEAST overpowered class. So I know how it is. And there’s a reason thief burst is OP, but without tournament experience the developers’ decisions are lost in a frenzy of “Omg theef warz 2”. Just saying.

So do you feel that it is ok that there is no functioning stealth countering mechanic? People try to counter this statement with mention of abilities that “can hit while stealthed”. But those do not count in my book. Telling me swing your sword many times in the direction you think the thief went is nothing close, but that’s the answer is get normally.

with that said, since thieves already play with a HUGE advantage over any player that uses their eyeballs for visual cues. What do you suggest we do to bring them more in line with the other professions? I don’t want to do away with stealth at all, but being able to do nothing but unload in all directions and hope you hit something is ridiculous.

how do we fix this great advantage thieves have over other players? It’s one thing if they go stealth after a certain period or every so often, but that clearly isn’t the case

As I mentioned before: extend the “revealed” debuff to 7 seconds, making it impossible to chain stealth effects. If it suddenly becomes a significant tactical decision to break stealth, then from-stealth spike damage builds will see significantly less (or more-skilled) play.

Sounds fair enough.

yeah so all u want is every possible condition on ur class and if possible on same weaponset.. and cause thats not enough u want them on high duration…
glad u arent working for anet. or maybe u did?

I mean, it’s great to unload that Backstab… but then what? XD making stealth a valuable resource, rather than an exploitable commodity, changes the game and the entire Thief play style.

@hooma: No. In fact, you didn’t even bother to check the possible weapon combinations.

no i just read the first 2 spoilers to see there are high duration of bleed, higher duration of poison then other professions has. there is confusion and burning.. on 2 weaponskills btw.

so that 2 spoilers are indication enough that u are just dumb.. so why read the stupid rest of that posts if i just figured out how unbalanced that stuff is u suggest? i can image what bullkitten comes after that so i stopped reading.. any problems with that?

hooma.9642:

no i just read the first 2 spoilers to see there are high duration of bleed, higher duration of poison then other professions has. there is confusion and burning.. on 2 weaponskills btw.

so that 2 spoilers are indication enough that u are just dumb.. so why read the stupid rest of that posts if i just figured out how unbalanced that stuff is u suggest? i can image what bullkitten comes after that so i stopped reading.. any problems with that?

Remember what I said about you failing to read the entire post?

Yeah… you didn’t even finish one post properly. Come on. If you’re going to offer constructive criticism or theory craft the set’s effectiveness, fine by me. But please, at least read the content. I’d imagine this is what the devs have to deal with. X_x

In order to change Thieves, the cheese on Thieves needs to be cleared away. When the cheese is gone and more counter-strategy is built into Thief burst combos, then we can discuss diversifying the Thief.

At least when fighting Warriors, there is room for clear counter-gameplay. The burst is not instantaneous. The Warrior cannot shadow shot up an impossible-to-reach ledge if he messes up. When you engage a Warrior, you fight until he dies, or you die. It feels more “fair” in this sense. When Thieves get to that level, then we can talk about giving Thieves more creative options.

Oh, hey ZONE O.o it’s Faolain/Sigurd from TC.

And I fully agree with that sentiment. But at the moment, Thieves are incapable of that sort of close combat situation, either by design or by convenience. I used to play that nasty Rampage P/D bleeder volley thief, and it was very Warrior-esque in its game play… stay at a point and fight until something dies. And that’s why the build wasn’t successful. As a thief, I could be doing something else (namely ganking) so much better, so much so that I was a actually a detriment to my team for playing a different, but less ganky, thief.

That shouldn’t happen… and when it does start happening, a change needs to be made.

This was my attempt at triggering such change. Slash thief direct damage by 15% and allow us to make up for that damage in more creative, less ganky ways, and suddenly nobody will be complaining about OP thieves any more.